Work with Sandra personally, in-office or by phone/Skype.

Who are the new Spiritual Teachers?

Adapted from “New Paradigm Teaching” from the Silence of the Heart by Paul Ferrini.

New paradigm spiritual teachers claim no authority over others. They do not pretend to have the answers for others. They speak only of their experience. They invite others to share in what they have learned from their experience.

They do not preach. They do not try to fix. They simply accept others as they are and encourage others to find their own truth.

They empower. They see the light in others and encourage it. They don’t close their eyes to the darkness. They do not deny the darkness or go to battle against it. They know there is nothing wrong, no evil to oppose, no battles to fight. They just gently encourage the Light. They know the light itself will heal all wounds.

New paradigm teachers do not try to heal others. They encourage others to heal themselves through self acceptance and self love.

The old paradigm teacher wants to heal others and save the world. The new paradigm teacher knows that others are fine the way they are and the world is already redeemed.

Why is this? Has the new paradigm teacher closed her eyes? Doesn’t she see the suffering in the world, the environmental catastrophe, the endemic violence? Oh yes, she sees the struggle and the pain, but she has a different interpretation of them .She doesn’t believe that people are guilty or that the world is doomed. She sees the vast call for love. She sees the universal cry for acceptance and understanding. And this is what she gives.

Not fixing. Not salvation. Not intellectual remedies for physical problems.

Does she give food and medical supplies if they are needed? Of course, but she remembers to whom she is giving them. She remembers the call and she answers it.

She knows that food is helpful, but it is not the solution to the problem. It is not what is being asked for.

She looks in to the eyes of others and sees their divinity as her own, and asks how she can be of help.

What is asked for is love. Love is the only food. Love is what she gives.

Call or email Oriens to learn how yoga, meditation, spiritual counseling, acupuncture, massage or other mind-body therapies could benefit you!
212-213-5785 or info@oriensliving.com

Overwhelm and stress are a recurring theme for fertility,  menopause transition patients and achievers of all ages managing career, family, health challenges and more. How do you break the pattern? What do you do when anxiety, fear and overwhelm hit?

Patients and those I do business with often comment on how “zen” I am and how relaxing it must be to be in my profession of Chinese Medicine and wellness. Let me tell you, as much as I completely adore and would not trade my life for a minute, and I have the benefit of the medicine's wisdom all around me— owning and running a company during a recessionis is not relaxing!

Which brings me to my point: managing stress and cultivating peace in our lives is a choice we make and a set of tools we employ moment to moment, day to day. It accumulates. It becomes a habit. It becomes your nature. Calm is a result. Joy and tranquility are the return on an investment!  Fully programmed and trained to worry by family and culture, I can worry with the best of them…but why? Worry is a completely unproductive energy sapping activity.

Worry is no more than a thought-feeling the body is having.  The mind creates a negative outcome on a future event.  Worry is fortune telling at it's worst!

Worry is an emotion.   Emotions are not a sum of who we are or an accurate accounting of circumstance.   But our minds can go crazy leading us down into the fear hole. We can thank our early brains for that. They've been with us all along, keeping us out of harm's way, eternally on the look-out for danger.

Yet, as we say "thank you for sharing" to our mind for the reporting on the brain's scan for potential danger, we must also acknowledge the physics of problem solving.  As Einstein suggested, it is is best done in a state of play, of wonder. Solutions come when we are relaxed, off-topic.  Personally, my greatest breakthrough's arrive while working out or in the shower, not when I am in hot pursuit of an answer.

So what gets us there? What induces that relaxation state? What helps us neutralize worry when it strikes?  Habits that become tools at-the-ready. 

Some of my favorites are breathing meditation, spiritual reading that brings me back to bigger perspective and re-introduces me to the truth of deeper connections, acupuncture naps, exercise, an observation walk (tuning into all that is going on outside of me and my mind on the streets of Manhattan).

Did you ever notice that when you are on vacation and you are still thinking or "working" that you feel a powerful sense of possibility? You come back refreshed not only because you switched physical/spacial gears, but because relaxation allowed you to background focus on your challenges. Inspiration hits. New possibilities and perspectives arise.

How do we bring THAT back with us? We decide upon it, and dedicate time to it every day.  We make a small space every day for play, for relaxing, for self-care, for being non-productive, for exercising.  As achievers, we are constantly in motion, solving, multi-tasking.  In the quality-of-life challenge of breaking the worry habit, we're called to let it all go.  We need to hit the "Enough" button, and shift our own gears.

Call or email Oriens to learn how yoga, meditation, spiritual counseling, acupuncture, massage or other mind-body activities could benefit you!
212-213-5785 or info@oriensliving.com

 

I wrote this post last Memorial Day  -- and decided to re-publish it.  As high achievers, we can never receive enough encouragement to take a break!

Rest! It’s Memorial Day and I’m on my 4th glorious day of it!

Rest is a 4-letter-word in western culture. For high achievers, it often carries a heaping measure of guilt.

But Chinese Medicine sees rest as the necessary opposite of action—rest is yin to action’s yang. You have to recharge the battery or the device won’t work. You have to break between sets or your muscles will fail.

You have to have a time-out or your mind isn’t sharp, your body fatigues, your spirit starts wondering, “what’s the point?”

One of my mentors, intentional business guru/philanthropist Christine Comaford recently shared a Hawaiian surfing expression with me, “Don’t turn your back on the ocean.” That means, don’t pretend you are more powerful than the energy of Nature.

I love this! It is SO true! Most things that go wrong with us have at least something to do with us “turning our back” on the restorative powers within us. Whether that’s refusal to take a much needed time out from work, lack of commitment to nourishing food, unwillingness to value sleep, not finding forgiveness in our hearts for those we love….when we turn our back on natural law, things can get pretty overwhelming.

Rest isn’t for slackers. Rest is especially for those seeking to do extraordinary things in this Life!

Here’s a hokey acronym on rest I just made up right now while writing this blog:

Repair—downtime is when it all happens
Evaluate—perspective comes when you are off the playing field and sitting high up in the stands
Systems Off—rebooting begins by hitting the off switch and unplugging
Tune In—without the many distractions that the requirements of accomplishment impose, a sense of truer self and meaning emerges

So as I get ready for mountain bikes with my husband, having slept in ‘til 9 (4 days in a row!) and enjoyed a mind-relaxing hour of staring-into-nature meditation (just enjoying the wind blow and the birds talk over tea)…..I’m feeling mighty peaceful and deeply appreciative of a wonderful life…relaxed, recharged and ready to hit the ground running tomorrow!

I think the word is finally out that meditation is not an “out there” activity or a disruptor of religious or spiritual beliefs!  Meditation is such a stress reducer - calm inducer that someone told me recently they know of a law firm that installed a meditation room and gives their staff lessons!  How far we’ve come!

Even 5 years ago, when I would bring up meditation as a suggestion to the high achievers and fertility patients I work with, you could see my credibility factor lose a few points by the subtle look of, “Is she nutty?” float by in their expression.

But now when I bring it up, their question isn’t about the validity of meditation, it’s HOW to do it. 

Meditation is so EASY! I can hear you readers thinking already, “Are you kidding? My mind jumps around like popcorn and my skin starts crawling within 10 seconds of starting!” My response to that is,”You are making it too difficult – holding yourself to some image you have of what meditation ‘should’ be.”  Take heart, everyone’s mind goes bonkers with to-do lists and worries,  and brews fantasies like a bad soap opera.  Everyone faces the “I can’t do it” feeling. Trust me, a life-changing, energizing, happy-making breakthrough comes when we say, “Oh, I guess I’m like everyone else. This is normal. Now I can relax and stop trying so hard.” 

When we give ourselves a break and allow humor—I mean these thoughts are so random and the planning and plotting is so predictable—then we’re getting somewhere. 

Sometimes I actually break out laughing when I clue in to how my mind has been wandering and bring it on back to whatever my focus is.  Laughter is SO good for you. That burst of nitric oxide and the relaxation ride of laughter—that’s why they say, “Laughter is the best medicine!”

Back to how EASY meditation is. For example, I was just meditating before starting to write this blog. What was I doing? I was sitting on my patio up in the Hudson Valley, where my weekend home is.  I was thinking of my deceased grandmother, because I was sitting on HER fabulous patio furniture, on which I’d had many a family meal.  I was reminiscing and feeling gratitude for her. 

From that place of gratitude I started meditating. That is to say, I started feeling the wind and sun on my skin, hearing the breeze move tree branches, staring out into everything and nothing and being fascinated by the grass waving.  In other words,  I was tapping into the sounds, sights and sensations of my environment.  Feeling myself sit on the chair. I moved peacefully out of my goal-driven mind and into my present circumstance—observing it, being part of it. 

Relaxation overtakes me. My body starts melting into a state of high awareness and deep calm simultaneously. I see, hear and sense everything, but analyze nothing. My breathing slows. When a thought pops into view, I simply say to myself, “Thanks, I’ll remember to get to that later,” and I go back to enjoying the sensual bounty I’m experiencing.  I’m meditating, by golly!

A few minutes later I come back to my more normal “what’s going on and what do I need to do” brainwave frequency.  But I feel different. I know more.  By that I mean, the solutions thatwouldn’t come to me when I was trying so hard, now dawn on me. Universal wisdom snuck in there when I wasn’t looking.

Did I mention that all my breakthroughs, best ideas and insights come after my morning meditation each day, or in the shower, or while exercising? Letting the mind go and being supremely present to sensation—that’s meditation! Anyone can do it – believe me, It sure ain’t about sitting cross-legged, thought-free and chanting. (Although the deeper you go with meditation, the more these ancient techniques become appealing and lead you into the juicy stuff!) 

Meditation is there for you anytime, anywhere. You can change your day, your minute, your attitude, your happiness quotient in short order.  I personally do a quickie one-minute game changer at least 3 times in my work day….especially when I feel anger coming on or anxiety setting in.  We’re busy. We’re managing a lot. Life is not a controlled process. 

Meditation helps you ride the rough rapids and enriches the easy floats.


Let Krista teach you Meditation!  
Come to Oriens Yoga Classes or book a Private Yoga session to ease your way into Meditation and let it change your life!

 
 Need help hearing your own inner wisdom? Want to have more love, joy and appreciation in your life?  Speak with Sandra! 212-213-5785

The Song of New Beginnings

This morning, I awoke to the song of the robins. When the robins show up in our fields, we can be assured that spring is definitely here. I love their clear, bright song, their chesty, zesty gait, and the way they tilt their heads in the hunt for worms.

Those rockin’ robins strike a chord in me that sings the song of the promise of this season, the opportunity for new beginnings. Spring explodes in its myriad of ways and I am reminded again and again of the mysteries of our Mother Earth and the promises of new beginnings she offers us.

What a celebratory way to start my day! After coffee and meditations, I made my way to the computer and came across this following quote that inspired me. I share it with you.


The robins sing a love song of new beginnings to Mother Earth and to all of Life.

 I, too, will sing my song.  What is the song of new beginnings that you will sing to your Life today?

  Rachel teaches Nia dance every week.  Join the fun!


I recently began a course on Positive Psychology at New York University where I’m completing my Masters in Social Work. Positive psychology asks the question what is authentic happiness and how does one raise his or her level of well-being or life satisfaction?

The founder of Positive Psychology, Martin E. P. Seligman writes in his book, Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment , about an important element of a fulfilled and meaningful life called flow.

Flow is the state that a person experiences when they are doing an activity in which they are so engaged that time seems to stop. Seligman describes flow as a time when “our sense of self vanishes” and there is a “deep, effortless involvement.”

Seligman says one of the keys to a more fulfilling life is identifying your strengths or the experiences that bring the sense of flow and crafting your life in such a way to include more moments to utilize those strengths.

Taking it a step further, Seligman says you can find even more fulfillment by using your strengths and applying them to a cause that is greater than yourself.

Seligman is very vocal about the fact that Positive Psychology and the study of mental well-being, just like the study of mental illness, is backed by scientific research.

It is nice to know that there is a technique for increasing one’s happiness that has been backed by science, but regardless of this, I find the concept of flow and applying it to a higher purpose quite beautiful. It is also somewhat simple and relatable, I have to say.

I think many of us can identify times in our lives when we were so engaged, that time stopped. Even more beautiful is to be engaged in such an activity knowing that the results will be for the benefit of something greater than yourself.

If instead of seeking simple pleasures and instant gratifications we all sought moments of flow in service of others, how different would the world be?


Rachel teaches Nia dance every week.  Join the fun!

Perhaps you feel worn down from the heat outside and the stress at your work. Maybe you are stressed because you cannot get away right now (or at all) … but you can create a mini refreshing, playful rejuvenation ritual at home – right in your own bath.  Embrace the healing qualities of fresh herbs and flowers, like basil, rose and mint, and scatter them into your bath. The energy of pure water can rinse a lot of our burden away. Green herbs like mint and basil are things that are still alive and raw, therefore they invigorate your body. They allow you a peaceful, spiritual connection. In fact, they set the stage for a whole aura cleansing.

You will be surprised how refreshing taking a bath is in the summertime. The idea of taking a bath in the summer might sound strange, because it is warming, but that warmth can sooth your weariness – or you can use lukewarm water to cool your soul. You want to feel refreshed, after all! There are so many great ways to take a bath in the summer time.  Here’s one you might not know:  generously sprinkle peppermint leaves into your water (not the essence – the actual leaves).  This benefits your circulatory system…  great for tired legs! Embrace the freshness of the fragrant green leaves – of life.

Another great way to enjoy a fun, easy bath in summer is to use actual rose petals (instead of rose essence). Remember, essences are more warming. With this “recipe” of live rose petals, we are caring for our deeper selves. Your bath doesn’t have to be “just” sensual or only a relaxing event. You can make it fun and playful, like a day at the beach or out in nature. It’s great to take the time to be playful and fun at home as well.

If you simply don’t have time to strip down and lay in a luxurious tub, even sticking your feet in a bucket with luke-warm water and peppermint soap is a quick pick-me-up! Every thing that embraces refreshing water, refreshes life.

Simone Burgos, LMT
Massage
Maya Abdominal Massage and Mayan Wisdom Talks

Work with Simone through personal Mayan Wisdom Talks: “How amazing I feel after a fresh flower, life, leaves takes away all of the burden of the day, of the week. And cleanses my aura.”

Need to talk or work something through? Rev. Sandra can help!


We all have expectations, desires about what we want out of our relationships, our work experience, and our life. We expect and assume what [we think] is our due or worth. We fantasize about the outcome of each set of circumstances based on these assumptions and expectations.

What I most often witness (or can experience myself) is that what is expected in each circumstance is NOT what ultimately unfolds.

Expectations can also stand in the way of us experiencing life as it really is. We become attached to our expectations, and never stay present to what Life is actually dishing up, missing the opportunity, the gift of being “in the moment.”

In Buddhist terms, this is the cause of suffering.

And in our desire to control circumstances with our expectations, we can dismiss what unfolds for us in any given situation, judging it to be “less than” or undesirable, not realizing that it’s exactly what we are seeking!

“As long as you have certain desires, about how it OUGHT to be, you can't SEE how it is".
–Ram Das

When you are stuck in OUGHT and SHOULD, you are holding onto the past, and/or desperately trying to live in the future. Our spiritual traditions tell us that there is only the present moment.

This is the place of ‘sitting still’. Stillness within us is the present moment. And it is here that joy resides.

The word expectation comes from the Latin root spectare, which means to look at or to see. We must develop the courage to SEE ourselves clearly, beyond our expectations.

The willingness to quiet the mind and to expand one’s idea of Self, to become comfortable with change, to let go of the need to be right and embrace life more fully…

Great expectation, I’m listening.


Need to talk or work something through? Rev. Sandra can help!

 Work with Sandra personally, in-office or by phone/Skype.

I absolutely love animation! I dragged my husband to see the mega hit movie, Avatar, recently. OK, I really didn’t drag him, he was a tiny bit curious. As I said, I am a huge fan of all things animated but he is not. To his credit, he kindly (and dutifully) accompanied me to the jam packed movie house.

 His sense of duty was quickly replaced by rising interest as the story unfolded and the amazing technology of half real - half animation was revealed. By the end of the movie he was cheering with me.

We were captivated by the clear message of care, honor, and respect for our planet and all sentient beings, along with the outrageously fantastic visual effects.

One element that profoundly struck me was the greeting given by the Na’vi people, “I see you”. This greeting implies a connection beyond seeing what is obvious to the eyes. Much like the Sanskrit greeting, “Namaste”, which means “I bow reverentially to you.

I honor the Spirit within you”, the greeting “I see you” is used through out the movie to convey deep respect for the whole being. Jake, our hero, learns to truly see Neytiri, the blue-skinned native woman who becomes his mentor and ultimately his partner. And he learns that this deep seeing leads to understanding and revering the interconnectedness of all life.

In the course of your busy day, do you really see others? Do you look into the eyes of those around you and see the sacred brightly shining back?

This is precisely what is explored in the sacred space of spiritual counseling. In spiritual counseling, we listen with more than our ears. And we see with more than our eyes. We listen with our hearts for the whole being.  We offer the opportunity to be witnessed, to truly be seen and be heard.

The eyes are the window of the soul. I see you.

     Dance with Rachel every Wednesday night!

"Music is the festive dress of silence."  -Chamalu

Listening is an art and a skill that when developed can enhance communication in all parts of your life. A simple way to develop your listening skills is through the use of music. By concentrating your focus completely on the sounds, silences and vibrations of music, you can bring yourself into a more relaxed meditative state as well as heighten your awareness of yourself, your body and the world around you.

In Nia [dance], in order to develop our listening skills we use a practice called RAW, which stands for Relaxed, Alert and Waiting. Using this simple acronym as your guide, listen to one of your favorite pieces of music. 

Begin with RAW:

• Relaxed Body: in a comfortable seated position, find the sensation of relaxation or the absence of tension through out your body.
• Alert Mind: empty out the mind as much as possible so you are not preoccupied with thoughts or images but awake, conscious and aware.
• Waiting Spirit: have a sense of wonder, be present and open to what comes next.

Begin the song and listen to:

• The sounds and silences
• Rhythms, voices, changes in pitch, tone and mood
• One particular instrument or sound.
• The music as a whole

Once the song has finished, take a few moments and notice how you feel.  Is your mind clearer? Do you find your body is more relaxed? With this new heightened sense of awareness, begin the song again, but this time, get up dance. You may discover a much richer and fuller movement experience.