Expectation Vs. Experience

Over and over, I am asked to choose my expectations versus the experience.

I expect that my encaustic wax will run along the line I chose.  I expect that my kids will get along with one another for at least 60 seconds.  I expect that I'll be able to run the same pace that I did yesterday.

The experience is often vastly different.

Expectation: Cute picture.  Experience: She is pinching his back and he is stepping on her foot.

When I choose to cling to my expectation, I can feel the tension within my stomach.  I get angry, frustrated, and eventually just TIRED.

When I choose the EXPERIENCE, well - that's a different story.  The kids might still fight and the wax might still drip on the carpet.  I might have to walk instead of run.

But in the experience, there is an inner peacefulness that permeates the moments.  An awareness that these things just are what they are....

and that I am fortunate to be able to be here experiencing them.

Namaste.

Smooth Jazz, Rich Experience

We all stayed up quite late last night to watch a friend play the most body-moving, soul-swirling jazz I've had the pleasure to hear.

Marlin McKay Quartet at Buffa Louies

I ache this morning and have to cut a few things out of my schedule because I slept in.  But you know what?

I'm still smiling from all of the experiences I had last night.

An experience fully lived is infinitely more valuable than an opportunity passed.

Namaste.

p.s. I'll be posting more pictures on Facebook (LifeUnity / Lisa Renee Wilson) soon!

What I Want For Us

How do you want to experience your life?

It is an important question.  It places awareness on right Now (the only time we experience life) and asks us about the now coming after now.

It is a question that guides me.  

If I am aware that I am angry or stressed (which is a practice in and of itself!), I can also be aware that I don't want to experience my day that way.  I am then invited to make choices to change that experience (inner and/or situational).  For example, if my daughter is whining because her red crayon just dropped in the car and we can't stop to get it and it isn't fair and she NEEDS it now....

(yeah, this just happened)

...and I find myself deeply stressed, I can ask myself if being frazzled is the way I want to experience this day.  If I'm honest and not too caught up in my anger, the answer is no.  I can then choose many options to change my experience of the situation: pull over and get the crayon, focus on the deep blue sky and my breath, try to converse with her and change the subject....  

The point is, I have choices.  When I ask myself this question, I free myself from the story.  I am aware that I can do something.  And through doing something, I change my experience of the moment (and thus, my day, and thus, my life).  It all begins with awareness.

On a broader scale, I know that I want to MINDFULLY experience my life...and to invite others to do the same.  (OK - "Invite" while strongly suggesting that it is VERY important and beneficial to do so!!)

I want you to mindfully experience your own life - the love and the pains - and to do so free of judgment and attachment.  

I want us to be free of suffering.  

I want both of us to journey awake and alive through the mundane: to do our grocery shopping while practicing kind thoughts for the 97 people who just got in line in front of us and to practice being with folding the shirt instead of already fretting over what is for dinner.  To wake up in the morning excited about the day and fall asleep at night with peaceful release.

As my days go on, my journey becomes more and more clear.  Dusts of fear and clouds of ignorance are being blown away.  I have been fortunate to be aware of my own experiences and now feel called to assist others in discovering and embodying their own truths.

I invite you into mindfulness through Awareness Art.

(I mentioned there would be more changes around here...and I wasn't kidding.  Wave after wave....)

Awareness Art is many things, but it is always an invitation to be fully, mindfully ALIVE.  Reminders that you can place around your home, objects of meditation, movements that help you embody concepts that go beyond words, teachings that provide perspectives...

Please visit the newly-designed ART PAGE for more information on Awareness Art and new art work (opportunities for you to own these mindful reminders coming soon!!).

While you are looking around, check out the new ABOUT page!  You may learn a thing or two....

And please, let me know what you think.  Because this isn't just about me.  I want to journey with YOU - to allow both of us to deeply experience our lives burning through fear, knowing embodied love, and exuding compassion.

Here's to the practice and to the journey....

Namaste.

Choose Your Own Adventure

I cannot do it all.

It is the phrase that keeps turning in my head.

I fight it.  I want to say, I CAN do it all.  If I just work harder, sleep less, love more, be more, do more...

Logically it is not possible to do it all.  We all know this...we just don't know it.

Spiritually it is akin to doing God's work, to trying to be the divine.

Accepting I can't do it all (and bringing it back down to a manageable level to comprehend), I consider the stories the kids are sharing, the dog barking at the back door to be let out, the dishes in the sink, the donation letter on the counter waiting to be paid or recycled, the painting drying downstairs, the running shoes in the closet, the clock switching to the next minute.

I cannot do it all.

I must choose.

I GET to choose.

And therein lies the peace and freedom.

Accepting that I cannot do it all, be it all, practicing not even craving it all.

Deeply living in gratitude that I get to choose.

Within it all, I get to choose how I experience it.  Not necessarily what, but how.  If I cannot choose it all, I choose peace, not stress.  

Every moment, I choose again.  Peace or stress.

Silence or noise.

Gratitude or resentment.

Cereal or toast.

Choice after choice we navigate our lives.  The world changes.  That is not my choice.  My choice, my freedom, is how I change.  How I choose to experience this ever-changing life.

Yes, the bills will still be due.  Deadlines will come and go.  Inevitably, the kids will need something the second the timer goes off on the oven and the dog pees on the carpet.  

You and I will need to make our choices.  Paint or clean?  Facebook or read?  Judge my choices or not?  Work or quit?  Be right or be kind?  White shirt or black?  Each choice has its consequences.

But the fun of life, the juice of life, that miraculous spirit that brings a smile to those-in-the-know is the knowledge that we can't do it all, we don't have to do it all, and that we get to choose which part of all we experience.

So next time you feel stressed or overwhelmed, when everything seems to be happening at once...take a deep breath.  Find that space within you.  Remember that not only do you have to choose, you GET to choose.  

Lucky us.

Namaste.

p.s. Join us in choosing mindfulness through the Wild Elephant Project starting on January 9th.  Learn more HERE.