January 2020 | Happy New Year!

There are so many gifts within the reflections of closing one chapter and opening another. I wanted to share with you some of my lessons and observations from 2019 and my hopes and devotion to 2020. After all, its the big joke right? The year of "perfect" vision, this is 2020 (said Barbara Walters).

~ If I love my enemies (then they are no longer enemies 😂). Negative emotions and hatred on any level keeps me a slave. Learn to let go faster.

~ Admiration and appreciation generally leads to love (but if not kept in check can lead to envy and hatred).
~ In relationships, ignore the crumb of evil, encourage the good. Kindness is not the same as indulging. Being calm allows me to see the boundary in any relationship. Some people's false sense of strength comes from judgement and negativity. My strength comes from my virtue.

~ If we want to change the world, we have to change ourselves, and take it seriously. It is not enough to just speak of morality. For example if we think we are being humble, yet we feel the need to point out or even imply that someone else is not being humble, we’ve missed the point. This is the definition of hypocrisy. No, we can’t do it perfectly, but If we can recognize when it’s happening, then we can make a change.
~ If we continue to hold the position of “teacher”, especially with our loved ones, we limit ourselves, and can’t create enough openness to grow.
~ These changes we make slowly ripple out into our family, our community; all the people whose lives’ we touch, whose lives we may change, then affect the people they come into contact with.

Solo travel is magical and uplifting. I actually truly love my own company. I am an introvert but I still love meeting new people ☺️. Marriage is the hardest journey, richly complex, and with the greatest reward. My rainbow tribe, my black mountain yoga community and my Pangu family are my beloved teachers that feed my soul and inspire my longing to be a kinder, more cultivated human being.

2020: I’m ready! I’m ready to completely let go of behaviors that do not serve and only create separations.

~ I’m ready to face myself each time it’s required. I’m ready to open my heart more fully to the whole world.
~ I’m ready to embrace the mystical in reality as a daily experience.
~ I’m ready to create the extraordinary within the ordinary.
~ I’m ready to sincerely & deeply put my love into action. I am willing, I am ready. 🙏🏼

Life is a process and a journey with invisible destinations that sometimes only the souls knows and comprehends the greater purpose. Yet, we must hold the vision for ourselves with faith because faith is what moves us forward on the ship. And our faith is closely linked to our virtue and cultivation of heart. 🤗 How we show up and our daily actions are reflections of this faith.

My teacher Master Ou Wen Wei, guides us with 5 virtues to be our compass in daily life. I share them with you today to expand the gift & tools which I’ve been given to improve my health and my life. And it’s working. 🙏🏼 Can’t wait for what’s next!

Calm & Peaceful, Open & Tolerant, Humble, Diligent, and Persistent.
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Love for the journey,

Anisha

December 2019 | 'Tis the Gift

'Tis the Gift
 

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight

When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed
To turn, turn will be our delight
'Till by turning we come round right.

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
 

The holiday "to do lists" and incessant "have-to's" can be a distraction from what we can truly create during this special time of year. And we can waste valuable time complicating the simple, creating irrevocable situations, or focusing on the negative by dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, and before we know it, we have less time left to appreciate, enjoy, listen to, or comfort those we care about.

How can we take the time to be grateful for who is in our life right here and now? How can we be more spontaneous, generous, kind and loving? How can we offer our presence over presents?

THIS precious moment may be all we have. Let’s give it freely this holiday season.

Wishing you and all whom you hold dear a loving, joyful and peaceful holiday season!

This winter I'm offering some new and exciting workshops for revival and renewal. Check some of them out below. For my Raleigh friends I'm offering a Mini Retreat January 11th. Register soon as it's likely to sell out soon. Hope to see you soon!

Love for the journey,

Anisha

November 2019 | Can Both Be True?

Can Both Be True?

Autumn offers us an opportunity to ask ourselves how we might meet such moments of ephemeral beauty without clinging to them, how we might release our desire for life to be consistent – especially consistently inspiring or easy or enjoyable. Those ideas mean something different to each of us.  How do we let our hearts open wide enough to let in all experience - highs and lows - without gripping at what we like or avoiding and pushing away what we don’t?
 

More simply put: Autumn asks us: What is our relationship to change? And how can we support ourselves through times of transition with gentleness, honesty, and maybe some humor?

The challenge of the moment is usually never about figuring out which is right or better, rather, it’s opening the mind and heart to the possibility of both. The contents within a moment of struggle, no matter how incongruent and opposing it seems, can be mutually inclusive. What if it’s this and that? What if both are true? How can I make space for all of it?

As an example, we look out into a world full of war, violence, and unfathomable injustice, and we don’t understand it. We want to believe that we are not a part of that, that somehow we are separate from the horrors of the world, and are in no way responsible. And yet, as seekers and students of truth, love and kindness, we must recognize that all we see out there, also lives within us. Both are true. It's our job not only to acknowledge it, but make room for it in a productive way.

Real spirituality is doing the work, choosing to excavate where hatred and war are hiding inside - and in my experience it never goes as quickly or smoothly as we hope for.  Along the way we can take ourselves too seriously or we can laugh and tease ourselves as a way of encouragement. We are all most certainly a part of the problem, but more importantly, we are part of the solution as well. For as much as we must speak out and take action when we see hatred and injustice around us, we must also recognize where we ourselves are, knowingly or unknowingly, participants. 

As much as we want to dive into the places of beauty and ease, can we have an equal amount of dedication and active participation toward the places we most wish to avoid?  Where are you resistant?  What are you pushing away and why?  Just like a piece of steel is forged by the fire, to do the work is to shine brightly and become strong.

"It is pounded and struck repeatedly before it’s plunged back into the molten fire. The fire gives it power and flexibility, and the blows give it strength. Those two things make the metal pliable and able to withstand every battle it’s called upon to fight."
- Sherrilyn Kenyon, Devil May Cry

And in order to do so, we must hold ourselves to the fire, to embody and live out the wisdom held in ancient teachings.

With the busy holiday season approaching, we can give ourselves even more excuses to be disconnected or have unrealistic expectations. Here are a few tips that have helped me along the way.

Discipline
Whether it's 20 minutes or 3 hours, every single day carve out time to be with yourself, in your body, with your breath, and with the source of all that is. It is that time to remember, and to set intentions for your day, before the business of life says something else. Without discipline, things can begin to unravel rather quickly.

Presence
Stay connected to the all-that-is-ness around you. Guidance, Love, Connection, Support and Abundance are here.  They are here all the time, in every situation, even in the darkest and most hidden corners of our minds and hearts. Take time to settle in to that Force and Presence and attune yourself to it. The other type of crucial presence is the moment to moment kind, to truly BE with each person we encounter. Can we connect with and hold space for each person we meet, and bring true presence that is, at once, full of compassion and empty of judgement?

Acceptance Without Resignation
I don't love the word surrender, which is why I didn't use it here. For me, surrender suggests that we are no longer actively participating in our own freedom and cultivation, and therefore have relinquished responsibility for what happens next. I like to approach this idea with more of an acceptance, a letting go, a recognition of the direction of the current life is taking me, without falling into hopelessness because I don't like it, trying to change the direction of the current,  giving up or desperately grasping for the shoreline; simply said, can we instead float and paddle gently in the direction of the flowing river. It's not easy. Sometimes it's like turning a cargo ship. But even in the trying we can position ourselves in a way that meets life, so life can work for us and not against us.

How will you use your time, energy, money, words and work today? Will it be to feed the flame of hatred or to create positive change in your mind, in your life, in your world?

How will you let your heart open wide enough to let in all experience - highs and lows - without grasping or pushing away? I believe in you, and I believe in me. We can do it together.

Love for the journey,

Anisha