Below is a guest article written by Holistic Practicioner Mitta Vicki Wise.  It describes a wonderful way to relax and gain deeper awareness with a walking meditation.

Walking Meditation

This exercise is best done on a natural, uneven surface. A park, forest or beach is perfect. Try to find a place and time when there is relative quiet or at least little traffic or construction noise. Before you begin your walk, stand still. Close your eyes. Take in the sounds around you. Be aware of your balance. Don’t try to stand in any particular way; just let your skeleton and your muscles hold you comfortably. Allow your arms to fall down by your side and let your head sink onto your chest.

Try to be aware of nothing external except the sounds that come to you. Attempt to identify each sound: is it high or low, shrill or mellow, pleasing or grating. Each sound repeats in a different rhythm. Despite the apparent randomness of natural sound there is, in fact, an underlying order to it. There is a pattern in the way birds repeat their calls and echo each other. There is an underlying cadence in the sound of a brook, a waterfall or the waves on a beach.

You are now ready to begin. Unlike an aerobic walk, this is a slow, ordinary series of steps based on awareness of your feet as they touch the ground. Notice the variation in the ground: subtle changes in the level you walk over, in the texture of the surface, in the way your feet roll over stones or roots. Awareness comes as you notice more and more differences in the same path. You can walk in a circle or in a line. You can go over the same stretch of ground many times or you can walk for about five minutes before turning back. Your eyes should be lowered to the ground, just a few steps ahead.

While walking, give attention to the contact of each foot as it touches the surface. When other things arise in your mind, simply notice what took your attention and gently return your focus to your walking. Towards the end of the meditation, ask yourself what differences you feel in your body and the way you walk from when you started and from when you last did this. Try this for 20 minutes daily or even every few days. It can result in a deep awareness.

To find out more about Mitta Vicki Wise, you can click the link below.

http://www.yourholistichealthcare.com

In todays post in The Secrets Of Personal Development series, I will be discussing Clarity, one of the most important elements in making a positive change in your life. Almost all great Self Help books talk about the importance of being clear about your desired outcome. In the Seven Habits Highly Successful People, Steven Covey encourages us to “Begin With The End In Mind”.

By having a clear image and/or vision of what you want to experience in life, you automatically activate and give the needed information to your subconscious mind to start creating and attracting the circumstances, people, and resources necessary to manifest your desired outcome.

The challenge I have found in getting clear about what they want to experience in their life is that they confuse what they think they want with what society, parents, friends, etc. have programmed and conditioned them to want. Many people start off thinking what they want/need to be happy is more money, a better relationship, a more fulfilling career.

Certainly all of these things can enhance our enjoyment and sense of fulfillment in our lives, so many people strive for these things, and even after achieving them find they are still not expereincing the happiness or fulfillment they had hoped for.

I am sure you have heard it said that true happiness begins inside of ourselves. It is also inside of oursleves that we find the clarity of our passion and purpose in life. At this point it is common for your conscious mind to say “I know that” and tune out to the rest of what I am going to communicate to you. Let me tell you that this is simply a clever trick that the conscious mind uses to keep you exactly where you are.

To truly know anything you have to go beyond simply hearing about it, or reading about it, or even studying it. You must expereince it.  I am going to encourage you to tune out what your conscious mind is saying to you, and actually take a few minutes to experience becoming more clear about your purpose and passion in life and the path they lays before you.

Below I will outline a simple excercise for you to experience. You can choose to do it for longer periods of time, however for now all I ask is that you try it for ten minutes, and simply notice if you become more clear as a result of your expereince.

1. Get Into A Comfortable And Relaxed Position.
This can be sitting in chair, sitting on the floor, or perhaps lying on the floor. Be sure to loosen any clothing that you find restricting you in any way.

2. Become Aware Of Your Breathing
Once you are in a comfortable and relaxed position simply spend a minute or two being aware of your breathing as you breathe in and breathe out. Notice how your breathing becomes more deep getnle and rhythmic as time goes by. Also notice how your body begins to relax and your mind becomes mentally calm.

3. Place One Or Both Hands On Your Heart And Ask Yourself A Question.
After being aware of your breathing for a minute or two, place one or both of your hands on your heart, and ask yourself the following question “What do I truly want to experience in my life?”. Allow yourself to be open to receiving the answer in whatever form it may come. It may come as a feeling, it may come as a word or phrase, it may come as a picture, etc. Simply have an expectation of receiving an answer to your question and be open to receiving it.

4. Some Alternatives
In addition to asking the question above, you may also want to try asking the question this way, “What do I truly want to offer to the world? or “How do I want to be of service to the world?”. You can ask any one of these questions or all three. simply allow some time in between your asking and your receiving an answer.

You may also want (and I recommend asking) your question(s) several times to access deeper and deeper parts of yourself. Also if you are ever unclear about an answer you receive, you can simply ask your inner self to answer again in a way that you can understand.

The key to this excersize (as is the case in much of our lives) is to allow yourself to get out of your head and connect deeply to your heart. It is their that all the chaos, confusion, fear, and doubt will dissolve, and the path before you will become clear.

I welcome your comments and feedback, and of course I appreciate your sharing this article with anyone you feel can benefit from it. If you have questions about anything in this article or on this site, feel free to email me at mitchell@thechampionsheart.com

In my continuing series The Secrets of Personal Development From A-Z we’re going to start off the “b’s” with Blessings.  By that I mean having the mindset that everything that happens in our life is a blessing.  I know this is a challenge for a lot of people, including me sometimes.

Some of you may be saying “So you mean I’m so supposed to see getting fired as a blessing?”  or I’m supposed to see losing my home as a blessing?” or “I’m supposed to see my divorce as a blessing?” etc.  The short answer is yes.  However, let me take some time in explaining why I believe this is the healthiest choice we can make for ourselves.

I don’t think anyone would argue that the examples I gave above would be fairly traumatic for anyone to go through.  Certainly I would never advocate anyone to suppress or ignore their feelings.  In fact I always encourage people to be aware, acknowledge and embrace whatever feelings are present for them.

Everything Is A Blessing And happens For A Reason

At the same time, if we come from the perspective that everything in our life is a blessing, and therefore happens for a reason, I believe we can process the negative emotions in a much healthier way and move on with the lessons we have gained rather than becoming stuck in the glue of self pity.

Quite often when we are faced with challenging situations we forget that while we may not be able to control the situation, we are in complete control of how we choose to react to it.  As one of my teachers used to say “How you respond to the issue IS the issue”.

Ask Yourself “What Is The Blessing In This Situation?”

Instead of wallowing in self pity and focusing on what you perceive to be the negative consequences of your situation, simply STOP for a moment.  Take in a deep breathe, and then ask yourself “What is the blessing in this situation?”  or “What is the positive lesson I can learn from this situation?”

If you happen to get stuck you might try rephrasing the question this way.  “If there were a blessing or positive lesson to be gained from this situation what might it be?”  The simple act of having your mind focusing on a positive answer will begin to lift you out of the depths of despair and hopelessness, to consider positive possible actions.

The Blessing Of Being Fired

Just as an example, lets take being fired or layed off from a job, which has happened to a lot of people in the last year or two.  How might this be seen as a blessing.  First there are a coupe of statistics that I think are interesting.  The first is that the majority of people are not happy/satisfied with their current employement.  You probably knew that.  Did you know that eight times more millionaires are created in a down economy than when the economy is booming.

Why do you think that is?  I believe it is because as we have seen in past couple years people have been forced to create new possibilities for themselves.  Without the security of their job (which they propbably weren’t crazy about to begin with) they began to consider more seriously things they had always wanted to do, like start there own business doing what they love.

From Great Tragedy To Great Success

We have all read stories about people who have overcome great personal tragedies to achieve great personal success.  The one thing they all had in common was looking at their situation as a blessing or an opportunity to learn and grow, and become more of who they were truly meant to be.

Regardless of your situation, ask yourself right now “How might I look at my situation as a blessing?”  You might be pleasantly surprised by the answer.

In my next post in the Secrets of Personal Development From A-Z series, I will be discussing the concept of seeing “Beauty” all around you.  I welcome your comments suggestions, and feedback.  I also appreciate you sharing or twittering this post.