Conscious Inklings Blog. Ideas, Insights & Ink-spiration!

Ever feel guilty about enjoying life, or celebrating occasions, when there’s so much turmoil happening around us?

If so, you’re in good company.

So, how can we manage these polar opposite energies?

~ Excerpts from Our Friend, and Author Shannon Kaiser's Article in Spiritual & Health Magazine HERE

1.) Drop From Your Head Into Your Heart: Move from your head, the overthinker, the answerer, the rationalizer, into your heart space, the way of oneness, unity, compassion, and kindness, and you will see a shift in your life.

Best-Selling author Gay Hendricks would often say…I’m paraphrasing here…something to the effect...you’re just a five-minute sweaty conversation away from peace, freedom, and vitality.

"Excuse Me, I Beg MY pardon."

How We Can Be More Loving Toward Ourselves.

Conscious Ink's main purpose is to support us to in NOTICE and ACKNOWLEDGE negative thoughts and hurtful self-talk. In doing so, we can identify old subconscious patterns that do not serve us and SHIFT to more loving self-talk and self-affirming thoughts that DO.

After a couple of minutes of watching TV, or things like Instagram, or TikTok, it becomes painfully clear that our society has a serious obsession with "perfection". Those with a certain "look", aesthetic, vernacular, etc. get the most engagement (likes and comments) and admiration by far. The life they live can look like nothing but blissful joy and perfection at every turn.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was JUST ONE THING we could focus on and everything else would just magically fall into place? And what if that one thing was actually something WE WANTED TO DO?

Here’s a scenario. You’re enjoying your morning cup of coffee or tea or taking a nice evening stroll. All is well in the present moment. But then you have a worrying thought about finances or something…something that may or may not happen in the future. And you notice that this imaginative thought you have about the future completely ruins the present moment…which is actually real. Your presence at the moment has now been compromised. Well, that’s not very cool!

Years seem to go by like months, months fly by like days, and I am realizing that life is short and every moment is precious. There is no time to waste on negativity or inaction.  Life is this moment now. 

My 7-year old son likes to make things. He turns sticks into wands and bubbles into beards; he weaves together books with words and drawings of worlds he dreams up and mashes keys into melodies on his Yamaha keyboard.

A few months ago, after being repeatedly encouraged by friends, I decided to check out a class at a local dance studio.  I browsed through the descriptions of the various classes and for some reason, a class called “Pop Video with Brandon” just stood out to me.  Who doesn't want to be able to dance like they’re killing it in a music video?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of balance.  It’s one of those things that we often take for granted, like our health, but once we’re struggling to maintain it, its value becomes abundantly clear.  Losing your balance physically can be an uncomfortable and even scary experience.  One moment you might be standing with your feet planted firmly on the ground, but then the surface beneath you shifts, and your body must immediately respond in order to regain stability. 

There were really only a few different types of thoughts that were coming up for me and the category of thought that seemed to be most prevalent and most persistent was what I call “planning”.