The Mona-Lisa-Smile-Instant-Mood-Changer

Here is the simplest little mood shifter you'll ever come across:

Please take a good look at the Mona Lisa's smile.  Got it?  Now, all you have to do is allow a tiny half-smile to spread across your lips -- not much more than a smirk -- and then, shift your eyes slightly to the left (that's the most important part).  Hold that for a few seconds, and maybe take a few deep, slow breaths.

Did you feel that?!  Kind of like having a really great secret and being in love with the whole world, just for a minute?  

I find it almost absurd that this can make me feel so great, almost instantly.  And so odd that looking straight ahead and smiling does not produce the same feeling at all!  Perhaps there is some grand scientific explanation for this ... but meanwhile, it is my simple gift to you.  And you can take it with you everywhere, and do it anytime you like -- how great is that?  

Maybe Mona Lisa really does know something we don't -- but we can practice it!  Life is often soooo much simpler than we make it, don't you think?

Love & (nearly) Springtime Hugs,

MJ

Happy Dance

Hi ho, winter warriors!  I'd like to share a little bit about my Happy Dance -- my own particular morning meditation, which involves listening to certain uplifting songs and dancing and flailing my arms about wildly, until I'm in a rather ecstatic state of what I like to refer to as 'spiritual hysteria'.  I do this for about twenty minutes every morning, NO MATTER WHAT.

Basically, what I'm doing is practicing where I'd like to be, and how I'd like to feel, more of the time.  My musical lineup has changed a lot over the last 14 years -- when I first started doing this (rather accidentally), I listened to the same song every day for 10 years, no kidding!!  Now, I'm more likely to tire of a song after a few months -- and I just keep my ears open for the next wildly uplifting song, because I know that a new one will be on the way!  

It's almost like a form of hypnotherapy -- I find a song that I LOVE, and that I can't wait to listen and dance to, and then by listening to it repeatedly, I essentially train myself to go straight to a blissful joy place without even trying.  And it works, no matter what is going on in my life.  Not necessarily a conventional form of meditation, but woo hoo, does it work for me!

Thanks to my new Australian friend, Joseph Green, for bringing my latest Happy Dance song to my attention -- take two minutes to listen to Peponi by the Piano Guys and Alex Boye by  clicking here -- and feel free to jump up and wave those arms wildly, of course!  And remember, a happy dance for you is a happy dance for everybody.  Or something like that.

Love & Giant Hugs,

MJ

On Vulnerability

Vulnerable:  susceptible to emotional injury; open to censure or criticism.  My new 'V' word of the moment.

On Dec. 12th, someone smashed the window of my car and took my reflexology bag, along with my iPod dock.  On Dec. 14th, the shootings in Newtown happened.  On Dec. 19th, a very nice man named Val crashed his truck into my car, while he was being waved across two lanes of traffic (the insurance agent referred to it as 'the wave of death').  

What do these events have in common?  They all brought a feeling of extreme vulnerability up front and center in me.  Suddenly, I was walking around feeling like an eggshell; like anything could just happen to me at any moment, whether I wanted it to or not.  I hadn't felt like that since I lost my house in a tornado.  I knew that this feeling would pass -- because it's always true that anything can happen in any moment, but we really can't walk around thinking this constantly or we'd be paralyzed with fear all the time!  Still, I didn't want the feeling to 'just pass' -- I wanted to somehow let these things be meaningful in my life, and not just be 'bad events'.  

The point became not WHAT HAPPENED, but -- what am I going to DO with what happened?  We define events as 'bad' simply because something happened that we did NOT want to happen -- yet we still have a choice about how we handle it all.

The car stuff was easy.  Everything was covered by insurance.  I realized that I really didn't like my iPod dock all that much, and would be happy to have a reason to pick out a new one.  Val, the man who crashed into me, was incredibly nice, assumed total liability, and all I had to do was drop off my car at the auto body shop and pick up the rental car.  I called him and thanked him for being so gracious about it, and told him that it was 'almost nice to meet him'. I had as much fun as I could with the police, insurance agents, and car repair people.  It was almost an enjoyable experience.

As for the shooting of little children and adults in Newtown -- what can we all do with that?  Obviously, it's something that no one would ever, ever wish for.  No one would ever say, "yes, it's okay that that happened".  Still, we have a choice.  How will we let it change us?  How will we let it affect our thoughts, words and actions?  Since we can't undo it -- how will we let it be meaningful in our lives?  How will we let it make us better people?

Making ourselves vulnerable -- to hurt, to failure, to rejection, to injury -- also means being our most authentic selves.  Our most imperfect, genuine, delicate, courageous, wonderful selves.  This is one of the reasons that the events in Newtown stir us so deeply -- children are the most vulnerable of us -- and also, by far, the most authentically themselves.  

Please ask yourself now -- what risks have you not taken because you were afraid of failure, of rejection, of being vulnerable?  And if you took those risks -- how might others be affected?  How might the world be a better place?  How might your vulnerability and courage enrich the lives of others in ways that you can't even imagine?  Let's take this opportunity, this gift, into our hearts, let ourselves be more vulnerable, more authentic -- and not be left wondering what life might have been like if we'd only had the courage to show up and let ourselves be seen.

Happy, happy, happy New Year.  It's going to be AMAZING.

Lovelovelove,

MJ

Please do me a favor ...

Seriously, would you please do me a favor?  Yes, it's true -- I've written a meditation book (similar to my meditation booklet, but longer and much cooler) and I am now diligently working on The Book Proposal, which is similar to writing a thesis, Lord help me!  Then it's off to the publisher and we'll see what happens.

So, this is where you come in:  if you've gotten something helpful from one of my columns, or my booklet, or one of my classes or talks, or from my humble presence on the planet, please take just a minute now to write me a Glowing Testimonial of some sort.  Just send an email to mjinsync@yahoo.com, or simply click here.  Please include your full name, as well as your town/state/country.  I hope to overwhelm the editor with pages and pages of outrageous endorsements, making it very clear that they would be entirely crazy not to publish my book.

Fingers crossed.  I'll never ask anything from you again -- except to buy the book, ha ha!

And, just so you don't feel cheated out of a column this month, consider this:  If you make your goal the journey (instead of the endpoint), you will have instant success.  Think about it.

Love & thanks,

MJ

The Wonders of Worrying

The fabulous and insightful Mark Twain once said, "I've had many worries in my life, most of which never happened."

Think about it.  Most of the worrying we do never comes to pass -- thankfully, I might add.  And certainly, no good ever comes of worrying.  Ever.

Here's another angle on it, if you'd like to bring the Law of Attraction and physics into it:

Worrying is not only pointless, if we do it persistently enough, it's highly detrimental to our lives and our dreams.  Worrying is using your imagination to create what you do not want.

Again, for good measure!  Worrying is using your imagination to create what you do not want.

That's pretty much it.  Here's to using our imaginations to create what we DO want!!  Yeah!

Big Love,
MJ
p.s.  Adventures in Meditation is now FREE!  Next meeting will be Thurs. Oct. 11th at 7:15 pm, The Shoreline Center for Wholistic Health, 35 Boston St., Guilford.  See you there!

Being Present

I read something recently that basically said:  If you are sad or depressed, your mind is in the past.  If you are anxious or worried, your mind is in the future.  If you are peaceful and content, your mind is in the present moment.  

And that, my friends, is why we practice meditation.  When we meditate, we are practicing being in the present moment.  Just for this hour, just for this minute, just for this second, everything is really okay.  If we can string a bunch of those moments together, life starts to feel and look pretty damned good.  All it takes is practice.  Simple, right?!  

Sometimes we may have something happening to us -- work, relationships, finances, health -- that is so overwhelmingly out of control, we'd like to just jump off a bridge.  At those times, all we really have to turn to is the present moment.  If we can give ourselves a five minute break from trying to figure it all out while in a state of upset and panic, our lives can begin to heal and blossom in ways that are no less than magical.  We can take that jump off the bridge -- but let's do it in our mind and spirit, yes?

Just a reminder, 'meditation' can look like anything you want it to:

Singing, chanting, dancing, cloud-watching, petting the dog, exercising, gardening, appreciating anything, cooking, cleaning the house, driving to work while listening to your favorite album, counting your steps while taking a walk, making art, making music, making love, making eggplant parmesan.  It's anything at all that lets you practice Being In the Present Moment, where all is well.

It may be annoying, but it's true:  practice does make perfect.

With love & giant hugs,

MJ

p.s.  In the spirit of good-will and harmony, my monthly Adventures in Meditation group is now free!  Yippee!  Bring your family and friends!  See you on Thurs., Sept. 13th at 7:15 pm. The theme this month will be Grace.  

Tornado Appreciation

Everybody's got a story, right?  Well, I've got a good one that I'd like to share.  A few weeks ago was the 23rd anniversary of the Hamden Tornado -- a significant event for me, because I lost my house during it.  Well, not the whole house, just the top of it.  And I suppose it wasn't exactly lost, but it was redistributed around the neighborhood in a very disconcerting manner, for sure.  It was an F4 tornado, with 300 mph winds that came down the chimney and sucked the roof right off.  While we were in it.

That experience turned out to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me.  Seriously.

I found out a whole bunch of things about myself that I might never have known otherwise.  I found out how I react in a true emergency -- I ran into the cellar with my 3 year old son and shielded him under a doorway until it was over -- about 5 very long minutes.  I was the fierce mother lion protecting her young until a few hours later when we drove our shattered car up my mother's driveway to safety -- and I became completely hysterical for the only time in my life (so far).

I found out that losing nearly everything you owned was not such a bad thing.  I experienced enormous gratitude for the fact that no one was hurt -- not even my cat, who hid inside the dryer.  The fact that we had no home, little clothing, that most of our possessions were either sucked away or imbedded with glass, meant very little.  We were alive!

And -- my apparently relentless positive nature came to the forefront.  Within about two days of the event, I became irrationally excited.  I felt like I'd won the lottery!  If something this big and unexpected could just happen out of nowhere -- well, surely something fabulous was going to come of it.  I just knew it.  It was just too big to be meaningless or random.

As a result of the tornado, we were able to finally buy our own house with the renter's insurance money we received.  That was a dream come true for me, a dream that had been, until then, completely out of reach.  My son then grew up on a little Beaver Cleaver street and we walked to school together every day.  I met friends that I have to this day, that I likely wouldn't have met otherwise.  I learned really quickly that we don't need to be attached to our possessions at all -- there is always more stuff out there.  And that it doesn't hurt you a bit to lose nearly everything you own, it's actually quite cathartic!  Plus, I have enormous respect for the weather, and defer to it at all times.

Without the tornado, my life would likely have been very different.  Is it better?  I'll never know, but I think so.

The biggest life lesson from this event turned out to be:  it's not what happens to you that counts; it's what you DO with what happens to you that really matters.  I may not have had any control over that event in my life, but I did have a choice about how I reacted to it.

Twenty-three years later, I'm still working on applying that to everything else in life!  Simple, right?!

Right now, I'm choosing the hammock!

Love, MJ

p.s.  For those nearby, my monthly guided meditation group, Adventures in Meditation, begins again on Thurs. August 9th at 7:15 pm, at the Shoreline Center for Wholistic Health.  Please visit my classes & events page for details!