Time To Reflect And Be Mindful

I continue to make matcha this way in the mornings, and this informal morning tea ceremony creates more spaciousness in my life. The Air element was necessary to cool the mixture. And naturally the Wood element was the matcha itself. Transformation within the container. Whisking for two to three minutes in a Z asks you to slow down and mindfully focus. As I focused on whisking, I felt as though I were making shifts in my being. Shifts already happening within the elements inside the bowl. Shifts I imagined possibly happening within myself and in my life. Once the matcha was ready, I gently poured it into a cup. For me, the perfect cup was one that Francis had made in a pottery class, organically shaped and cream colored. Taking the time to prepare and appreciate my matcha also reminded me to sip and enjoy it in reverence. In this spaciousness, I give myself an opportunity for more awareness and transformation.

Subtle Differences

Of course, not every matcha preparation I make is that mindful or sacred, but it always reveals my state. And it’s always a reminder to come back to a mindful space. On days when I’m a bit impatient and distracted, sometimes my matcha pour is sloppy, spillage happens, or I find that my matcha hasn’t been mixed well. When this happens, I catch myself and take a gentle breath in and out and just check in. How might I be more present and acknowledge all that I’m feeling? There’s always time to reflect and be mindful when you make an effort to invite more mindfulness into your life. Notice its color or colors and notice any patterns. Is there anything about this cup that you hadn’t noticed before? Feel the weight of the cup. This is a container. Prepare your beverage mindfully. Take a moment to notice colors. See if there’s anything you weren’t conscious of before. Allow these ingredients to support you in ways you aren’t even aware of yet.

A Long Way From Home

Allow these ingredients to steep, blend, and integrate. And just imagine ingredients and elements and qualities and opportunities coming together in your life for transformation and integration. When your beverage is ready, take a moment to gently bring your hands around your cup. Set an intention for yourself through this vessel of fluid transformation. Sip and drink in mindful appreciation. Imagine shifts are happening for you. Allow yourself to be supported with each sip in all the ways known and unknown. Take your time and savor your drink. Allow yourself to receive through ritualized action. To end, share gratitude for all that you have received in ways known and unknown. Sound vibration will be infused through the liquid. The sound waves saturate the physical and subtle action of the ritual.

A Touch Too Much

Activate the flower essence of your choice by tapping eight times, set your intention for how the essence might support you, and then add two drops to your beverage for a double boost! Rest is about surrender. It’s about letting go of expectation and our desire to control how we feel things should be. If resistance shows up, breathe and relax into it and ask what it wants to share with you. Oftentimes, where there is resistance in our minds, there is also fear. But when I realized what was going on, I decided to take Bach Rock Water essence. It encourages curiosity and wonder about everything that opens our lives to more possibility and magic. Ultimately, curiosity and openness are the keys to allowing our minds and bodies to achieve real rest. It’s often only when you are pushed out of your comfort zone that you finally explore the things that may have been floating around in the periphery of your consciousness. What if you were to reframe periods of insomnia or sleeplessness as a way of learning more deeply about yourself? If that seems heavy, let’s lighten the load a little. Maybe restless nights are a time to explore interesting ways of play. Energy medicine is play. The more you work with them, the more they will help you open up awareness and spaciousness in your life. All healing is in the present. As we get more intentional in our lives, we slowly shed the layers of our existence, peeling back old conditioning. Everything is shifting, so it’s not the one remedy or the one supplement that heals us but rather the cumulative and incremental work we do on both the conscious and unconscious level. Our cells are dying and renewing themselves every day. Life and death happen all the time, often in the same breath. When we wake up each day, nothing is the same. We are always shifting and always changing. As a society, we are shifting away from the unsustainable hustle and grind culture. We are beginning to put more value on rest and restoration. We are beginning to favor creativity over constant productivity. For too long, rest and sleep have been looked upon as inconveniences that impede our output and production. Now the tides are shifting in a big way. We are learning to value and prioritize rest and sleep. And, through this, we are learning to embody more spaciousness. Here’s to our continued unlearning and unwinding from old programs and conditioning. Here’s to embracing and fully valuing the beauty and joy of doing less and simply being in the present. Here’s to surrender and rest. Here’s to embodying spaciousness and staying open to possibility and magic at all levels of our collective being. Thank you for believing in me when I came up against all my own internal resistance. Thank you for trusting me with this project and thank you for being a wonderful guide and such as kind human being. Thank you for your love, your support, and your tender heart. Thank you for your love of all things Italian, which always brings a smile to my face. I love you truly and deeply always and in all the ways.