What is your book about?
Awareness “ A pathway into a quiet mind and open heart” explores essential spiritual principles that a many practitioners encounter on the path. Many of the challenges that commonly represent themselves are discussed. Challenging themes such as acceptance, letting go and deepening trust are reflected on and a invitation is extended to integrate your insights in a personal way throughout the week. In a fresh and provocative way a new opportunity for growth unfolds. The intention of offering weekly readings is to deepen the connection with awareness, enriching the inherent spiritual qualities within us all and opening ourselves to an even greater expression of who we are.
2. Why did you write you book?
I have read daily readers for years as they are helpful and inspiring for the day . However, after that day the inspiration and insights are usually not present and therefore not integrated into my life. With this in mind I felt it would be helpful to offer a weekly reading and the opportunity to practice and integrate the reading and insights on a daily basis throughout the week so it has a long-term benefit. I have been a meditation practitioner for over 15 years and also teach meditation. Inspired through my personal experience in mediation and working with clients in private practice my perspective on these inner themes developed.
3. You talk about meeting everything that arises with an unconditional friendliness, how can we do that when we are stressed out or don’t like our circumstances?
Great question as moving into this fundamental goodness that resides in us all takes practice , commitment and patience to arrive at a place of unconditional friendliness with ourselves and others. Having a daily meditation practice is an essential part of learning to become kinder to ourselves and more accepting of our moment to moment experience. As we learn to focus and stabilize the mind- heart while sitting with our thoughts- emotions in a peaceful state of mediation this eventually caries out into our day. We build our capacity to hold more and in turn minimize our reactivity and stress in our life.
4. How can we quiet our mind when we are in a state of conflict or disagreement with someone we are angry with?
This definitely takes practice depending on the intensity of the situation and how habitual the conflict and anger is. In the beginning of working with anger it may be best to walk away from the person or situation when triggered in order to return to your center. Many times historical belief and experiences rise and they distort our present moment perception. One way to work with anger is to turn your focus off of the perceived source of anger and onto the body’s sensations of anger. As you likely know the more we focus on the cause of the anger the larger the anger becomes. So turning the mind onto the area of the body where the anger is most prominent, describing the sensations internally while breathing into the sensations can be very helpful. If the person has a very stable meditation practice- looking directly into the anger without judging or analyzing can be very effective.
5. What have you learned about yourself since writing the book?
I re-read sections of the book when having a difficult day and hear things that have slipped out of awareness and I hear exactly what I need to bring me back into a stronger sense of clarity of my truth in the moment. Sometimes I get it and others I don’t resonate as much but re-remember what is possible so it still shifts my perspective enough to remain present and on track. I have received an even deeper lesson of how easy it is to drift away from the truth of the intuitive and transformational insights we all have from time to time. I also learned that if we really want to make them part of our waking awareness we need to return and reflect on these insights over and over in order to integrate them into our daily lives. So I have received a deeper experience of the same lesson, as mentioned above that I’m hoping to offer to the readers of this book.
6. Where can we get a copy?
Your readers can find it on Amazon, Balboa, or Barnes and Noble