Tag Archives: Pema Chodron

monday morning meditation

3 Aug

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p a t i e n c e     is the     a n t i d o t e

Patience is the antidote to anger, a way to learn to love and care for whatever we meet on the path. By patience, we do not mean endurance- as in ” grin and bear it.” In any situation, instead of reacting suddenly, we could chew it, smell it, look at it, and open ourselves to seeing what’s there. The opposite of patience is aggression- the desire to jump and move, to push against our lives, to try to fill up space. The journey of patience involves relaxing, opening to whats happening, experiencing a sense of wonder.

-Pema Chodron-

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currently : two

5 Mar

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currently : two

watching…

the americans (it’s SO good this season. I have a total crush on Keri Russell), girls (yet another show that is so good this season), togetherness (probably my new favorite show on tv), house of cards, better call saul (I’m still on the fence about this one…I really want to like it), walking dead, grey’s anatomy (I just can’t quit you), how to get away with murder (loved the season finale) & scandal. Patiently awaiting for bate’s motel to return on monday night. I can see after writing this list I am watching far too much television. I just can’t help myself…there are some seriously good shows on television right now.

listening to…

Serial podcast– I know…I know… I am so late to the game on this one but I finally decided to give it a shot and got totally sucked in. I listened to all the episodes in a few short days and I am now obsessed with the case. Is he innocent?? Is he not?? Ugh. I can’t stop thinking about it.

reading…

“Taking The Leap” by Pema Chodron (or re-reading it I should say. I love that Pema Chodron)

loving…

coming home to “just because” flowers from Brian, my new morning & evening routine (more on that next week), my therapist, haagen dazs low-fat vanilla frozen yogurt (it’s becoming a bit of a problem…I must stop stocking it in the freezer), afternoon dates with my best girlfriend Taline and her delectable baby boy Liam, clementine daily, sleeping soundly, the smell of jasmine on my morning walks (everything is in bloom!), watermelon colored nails and toes, pinteresting, these photographs, coconut scented candles, this quote…”A secret to happiness is letting every situation be what it is, instead of what you think it should be.”

grateful for…

my health, my husband, my pup, my friends & my family. In no particular of course.

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pema

6 Feb

…a little wisdom from Pema today and it was exactly what I needed…

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“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.”
― Pema Chödrön

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inspiration, gratitude & surprises

18 Jan

144889312982137243_eHDbxvch_cThis weekend is shaping up to be rather quiet. We still have SOOO much packing to do for next weekends move. So we plan on staying in for most of the weekend and doing just that! I’m trying to purge us of stuff we don’t need anymore and either sell it, donate it or trash it. Cleaning house over here! Other than that I plan on getting to some yoga classes.

What do you guys have planned for the weekend?

What inspired me this week?

– pinning home decor images on pinterest in preparation for decorating our new space!

– working at my favorite little coffee shop on Ocean Park- it’s such a creative space

– Jen Pastiloff’s wednesday night yoga class– the mood, the music, the people!

– This Pema Chodron excerpt. Such a good reminder

What am I grateful for this week?

– gorgeous, smart and funny new girlfriends Melissa and Katie

What surprised me this week?

– it is possible to survive three days on just liquid

– how quickly 150 people adds up- wedding invite lists suck

– having an afternoon coffee WILL lead to you staying up until 3am thinking about your life

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“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”

– Marilyn Monroe

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Pema

17 Jan

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“Each person’s life is like a mandala- a vast, limitless circle. We stand in the center of our own circle, and everything we see, hear and think forms the mandala of our life. We enter a room, and the room is our mandala. We get on the subway, and the subway car is our mandala, down to the teenager checking messages on her iPhone and the homeless man slumped in the corner. We go for a hike in the mountains, and everything as far as we can see is our mandala: the clouds, the trees, the snow on the peeks, even the rattlesnake coiled in the corner. We’re lying in a hospital bed, and the hospital is our mandala. We don’t set it up, we don’t get to choose what or who shows up in it. It is, As Chogyam Trungpa said, “the mandala that is never arranged but is always complete.” And we embrace it just as it is.
Everything that shows up in your mandala is a vehicle for your awakening. From this point of view, awakening is right at your fingertips continually. There’s not a drop of rain or a pile of dog poop that appears in your life that isn’t the manifestation of enlightened energy, that isn’t a doorway to sacred world. But it’s up to you whether your life is a mandala of neurosis or a mandala of sanity.”
– Pema Chodron

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30 Inspiration, gratitude & surprises

8 Jun

Inspiration, gratitude & surprises

I am so happy it’s Friday! Let’s see, this weekend our plans involve dinner with our friend Rick tonight…maybe a hike Saturday morning (let’s see how lazy we get)…waiting for our new stove to be delivered (thrilling)…Saturday night we are celebrating my Aunt Paule’s 80th birthday (yahoo!!!) and on Sunday night, I have a cooking lesson with my friends, Barrett and Gillian. I have no idea what they are going to teach me but I can promise you it will be good and I can promise you I will post about it.

Hope you guys have a beautiful weekend!

-What inspired me this week?-

The documentary “First Position“- it was amazing! It follows 6 extremely talented ballet dancers, ages 9-19, as they compete in the most prestigious youth ballet competitions. For those of you who aren’t dance fanatics, I swear, the film is about so much more than ballet. It’s about passion, determination and grace. It made me feel very emotional- yes I did cry (with no shame), but it also made me feel very  inspired!

This post by one of my favorite bloggers, Natalie, of Nat The Fat Rat. You may read it and think that I am odd for liking it so much, considering I don’t have children, but it was just such a simple yet incredibly moving piece. She’s a great writer.

Pema Chodron…everything

Considering “365 til 30” turns 1 on my birthday, I thought it could use a little gift as well, and I decided that meant a little makeover.  I’m so excited to see it come together!

-What am I grateful for this week?-

I may have written it all in the post I wrote this week entitled “Tiny Things”

but I will add a few more…

a date night with Jen– not only is she my favorite yoga teacher but I love spending time with her. She makes me laugh, she makes me think and she makes me feel understood. I am so grateful she’s in my life.

my health

my readers. I am seriously grateful for you guys. I look forward to interacting with you every day.

-What surprised me this week?-

How fucking excited I am about turning 30!!

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“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

365til30: instagram  @kate365, twitter, facebook


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31

7 Jun

Love the excerpt below.

Nothing Solid by Pema Chodron

Moving away from our experiences, moving away from the present moment with all our habits and strategies, always adds up to restlessness, dissatisfaction, unhappiness. The comfort that we associate with concretizing and making things solid is so transitory, so short-lived. 

Moving into our experiences- whether it’s the opening experience of love and compassion or the closing-down experience of resentment and separation- brings us an enormous sense of freedom: the freedom of nothing solid. Something about “nothing solid” begins to equal freedom. In the meantime, we discover that we would rather feel fully present to our lives than be off trying to make everything solid and secure and engaging our fantasies or addictive patterns. We realize that connecting with our experiences by meeting it feels better than resisting it by moving away. Being on the spot, even if it hurts, is preferable to avoiding. As we practice moving into the present moment this way, we become more familiar with groundlessness, a fresh state of being that is available to us on an ongoing basis. This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted, and shaky- that’s called liberation. 

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166

23 Jan

TASSAJARA

I feel like my adventure at Tassajara was a million years ago and I miss it. It was one of the first goals I crossed off my list back in September and is one of my favorite 365 til 30 memories. Ill admit it was one of the hardest goals to tackle but so worth it. SO WORTH IT.  I walked into the experience not knowing what to expect and I was surprised by what it brought into my life- a calm, a quietness with myself that I have never experienced, a kinder approach to myself and the world around me. I became my own best friend there and I liked it,

I didn’t realize how much I missed Tassajara until I had lunch with a fellow Tassajaran named Tarquin last week. I haven’t seen him since the day I left and it had been too long. He was the very first person I met when I arrived there. At the time I was feeling every emotion in the book- exhausted, scared, happy, anxious, excited and totally overwhelmed. I felt like a fish out of water and I couldn’t stop asking myself…”what did you get yourself into?”

The minute I got there I was paired with Tarquin in the kitchen to cut vegetables and he immediately made me feel calm. He is a generous spirit. We chatted about life and his time at Tassajara as we chopped carrots. He was from the LA area as well. This was his first time at Tassajara- he had been there for  3 weeks at that point and planned to be there 3 more. My first question was “why would you sign up to be at Tassajara for 6 weeks? Why not ease your way in with a week or two? What if you didn’t like it” He said “well, I thought if I am going to do it then do it.” I was pretty impressed with this.

He assured me that everything was going to be fine and in that moment I knew that I had a friend in him and I felt a sense of calm. Over the next week we enjoyed many more talks and laughs but since much of our time was spent in silence we didn’t get to know each other too much more.But luckily we got another chance.  The night before I planned to depart he asked me if I could give him a ride back to LA because something sudden came up back home that he needed to attend to. My response was…why not! All part of the adventure! Our ride home was hysterical…we talked and talked and talked and talked. Actually I don’t think we ever shut up. We were both so chatty after having to be quiet for so long!

When I dropped him off at his house we hugged and said that we would grab coffee or lunch soon and 4 months later we finally did! When I saw him I felt like I was transported back to Tassajara. I could almost smell the place and a bunch of memories flooded back. For as hard as the experience was I missed it terribly. Tarquin mentioned he was thinking about going back this spring.

NEWS FLASH: I’m thinking about trying to get back there this spring as well. We will see…so much up in the air right now.

Until then Tarquin and I have decided to get back into our meditation practice together and will be attending a meditation sitting…from 7:30-9 pm next week. Ouch. Nothing like throwing yourself back in full speed.

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“All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.

Buddha

Tarquin!

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171

18 Jan

‎”Although it is embarrassing and painful, it is very healing to stop hiding from yourself. It is healing to know all the ways that you shut down, deny, close off, criticize people, all your weird little ways. You can know all that with some sense of humor and kindness. By knowing yourself, you’re coming to know humanness altogether.”
– Pema Chödrön

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187

2 Jan

THOUGHTS

{what a beautiful thought}

‎”As long as we’re caught up in always looking for certainty and happiness, rather than honoring the taste and smell and quality of exactly what is happening, as long as we’re always running from discomfort, we’re going to be caught in a cycle of unhappiness and discomfort, and we will feel weaker and weaker. This way of seeing helps us develop inner strength. And what’s especially encouraging is the view that inner strength is available to us at just the moment when we think that we’ve hit the bottom, when things are at their worst.”

– Pema Chodron-

(from Practicing Peace in Time of War)

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