Thriving Mindfully as the Real You!
Happy Yoga Monday and Dr. King Day of Service!
I started my day with gentle yoga and Snatam Kaur’s “Grace” CD. My yoga practice and Kaur’s music opened my heart and reminded me of Dr. King’s wisdom on service. He taught us that we are all great because we can serve.
Today, I am spending the day in service with friends. We are cleaning up a local park. I am grateful for the opportunity to join with others in community and service.
How are you honoring Dr. King’s legacy?
Happy Creativity Thursday!
Today, I had a chance to chat with a good friend about my definition of creativity. For me, creativity is a gift I give to myself and the universe when I surrender and allow the divine flow of energy that dwells in my spirit to express itself. Painting is one medium I use to share my gift of creativity. See my painting entitled “Karma: Aham Prema” above.
What is your definition of creativity?
Happy Internet Geek Tuesday!
This week, I am celebrating “Get Real On the Internet Week” created by Real Simple magazine. I am using this week and several articles from Real Simple‘s January issue to explore how I am going to express my Flowista spirit by incorporating more digital wellness moments into my life this year. The first article I read, “Finding Balance in A Wired World,” asked me if I was addicted to my digital devices. I was close to saying YES because the month of December was super busy due to Digital Sisterhood Month and then I reminded myself that I did slow down at the end of the month. I used two yoga workshops to slow down and recharge. They helped me settle into reflection mode where I was able to enter a period of stillness that opened the door to some juicy journaling sessions. Looking back, I can honestly say I was close to being addicted to my digital devices. Now that’s not something I want to get close to in 2014.
Would you describe yourself as addicted to your digital devices?
Today, I pulled out a Flowista collage I made while writing my book, Digital Sisterhood: A Memoir of Fierce Living Online. Flowista is a Digital Sisterhood Leadership Archetype I identified and have used to remind myself to unplug from my digital devices and online activities.
The words and phrases on my Flowista collage are powerful reminders of my intention to be real on the Internet with self-care practices and regular unplugging moments.
Are you celebrating “Get Real On the Internet Week”? How?
To learn more about Digital Sisterhood, visit Amazon.com. The book is available for Kindle and as a paperback or hardback book.
Happy Yoga Monday!
This month, I am infusing Digital Wellness moments into my yoga practice. Just in case you wanted you know, I define Digital Wellness as “a gift you give yourself to help manage your time online with mindful self-care practices. Mindful self-care practices encourage you to slow down, become aware of how you spend your time online, and identify and take small steps towards having a healthier digital life. Examples include breathing exercises, journaling, massage, meditation, physical movement (walking, running, yoga, and aerobic classes), rest (naps and a good night’s sleep), setting time boundaries, and using time management tools (HootSuite, TweetDeck, and an editorial calendar) to schedule your blog and social media posts” (excerpt from my new book, Digital Sisterhood: A Memoir of Fierce Living Online). Click here for tips on creating a Digital Wellness plan.
Sandy Blaine’s Yoga for Computer Users is a guiding force in my daily yoga practice. Blaine’s book offers illustrated yoga poses and breathing and relaxation techniques that can help you take better care of your neck, shoulders, wrists, and hands. The beautiful thing about the poses and breathing and relaxation techniques is that they can be done at home or in the office. I love the book because it gives you lifestyle suggestions and mindfulness practices that encourage you to unplug from your digital life, make more time for joy in your daily schedule, learn to alternate your mouse hand, and more!
Are you using any yoga poses to take care of yourself while you are online?
Have you created a Digital Wellness plan? What does it include?
Visit Amazon.com to learn more about Digital Sisterhood. It is available for purchase on Kindle and as a paperback and hardback book.
Happy Creativity Thursday!
Have you ever dreamed of making something with your hands and then allowed your fears or lack of training to stop you?
It happened to me several years ago when I started dreaming of painting. I was afraid to try it because I had never attended art school. My perspective changed after I started working with a master artist during my tenure as an artist-in-residence for Smith Center for Healing and the Arts at Howard University Hospital. The master artist happened to be a patient I was assigned to work with on creative projects that would help him express his feelings. He transformed our sessions into art workshops where he taught me to trust my intuition and natural creative gifts. He pushed me to paint and gave me numerous painting assignments. This experience helped me create a series of paintings that I used to illustrate two book covers (see paintings above and below). The master artist breathed life into my creative dreams.
Has anyone breathed life into your creative dreams?
How did the person breathe life into your creative dreams?
What creative actions were you inspired to take?
Visit Amazon.com to learn more about my creative journey and book, That Which Awakens Me: A Creative Woman’s Poetical Memoir of Self-Discovery (2009). My book is available as a Kindle download and a paperback book.
Happy Internet Geek Tuesday!
This year, I am celebrating my 10th anniversary as a blogger and social media leader. In honor of my 10th anniversary, I am using my digital footprint to support campaigns, causes, and organizations focused on making my community and city better, creativity, education, health, people of color, social justice, affordable and accessible technology, and women.
For the next several months, I am using my blog and social media sites to share information about Andy Shalal’s campaign for Mayor of the District of Columbia (DC) . I support Andy’s campaign because he is committed to making DC an affordable city that works for all of its residents, businesses, community organizations, government agencies, schools, colleges, and universities.
As a long-time entrepreneur, founder of Busboys and Poets and Eatonville restaurants, activist, and artist, his fresh approach to leadership will:
* Make affordable housing truly affordable for all income levels.
* Fund more programs for adult literacy and job readiness.
* Reduce poverty by creating good jobs with a living wage and paid sick leave.
* Help small businesses prosper.
* Put the public voice back into the public education.
* Improve government services like the Department of Motor Vehicles and Department of Consumer Regulatory Affairs.
* Provide more assistance to returning citizens.
* Reform the tax code.
* Reduce wasteful government spending.
Click here to learn more about Andy’s campaign. Be sure to follow the campaign on Facebook and Twitter.
Happy Yoga Monday!
Today, while I was reading the latest issue of Yoga Journal, I started thinking about a phrase that appears on the magazine cover: “Tap Into Yoga’s Power.” This phrase took me back to 1995, the year I started practicing yoga. Memories of my first yoga teacher, Gloria teaching me how to breathe mindfully through each yoga asana especially child’s pose, pigeon, downward facing dog, and forward fold, made me smile. Other memories flooded my mind and reminded me of how powerful yoga has been in helping me manage anger, change, conflict, death, disappointment, fear, grief, sadness, stress, and writer’s block over the past 20 years.
20 years of yoga in my life … can you believe it? It went so fast and yet made a powerful difference in my life. This year, I plan to use this blog to share reflections about my 20 year yoga journey and where it is taking me in 2014 …. Bhakti Yoga, Integral Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, Yin Yoga, writing yoga poetry about turning 50 and a new novel featuring a cast of yoga students and teachers who live, love, and practice yoga in DC, and making yoga art. So get ready for some OM fun!
How is yoga guiding, inspiring, and supporting you in 2014?
Happy Creativity Thursday! Happy Day #2 of 2014!
During a recent creativity coaching client session, I shared how much I enjoyed making vision boards, cutting images from magazines, and the impact vision boards have had on accomplishing my goals and manifesting my dreams over the past 20 years. The vision board making process has allowed me to select images, words, phrases, and quotes that affirm and support my goals and dreams.
This year, I journaled about my vision board themes and came up with a 2014 life theme. It took the form of a six-word memoir: Faith+Rest+Thrive+Passion+Zen=Fierceology. Fierceology is the belief and practice of Fierce Living. Fierce Living is the choice and commitment to be too bold for boundaries in all areas of my life and creative expression.
Have you made or are you making vision boards for 2014?
Happy Internet Geek Tuesday!
Check out my blog’s 2013 in review.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Happy Yoga Monday!
Today marks the last Yoga Monday of 2013. In honor of this auspicious occassion, I thought I would share how my Yoga Monday blogging practice impacted my life on and off my yoga mat this year. Blogging about yoga each week helped me stay grounded like a tree rooted in the earth (see my Christmas tree pose photo above) to my home yoga practice and goal of taking more workshops and classes.
I was able to take several vinyasa and restorative yoga classes at Embrace Yoga Studio that opened up my heart to my creativity in the spring and helped me digest changes in my life at the end of the year.
Through my weekly yin yoga class taught by Danielle Polen at Tranquil Space, I was able to face my fears about finishing my Digital Sisterhood book, become clear about the next phase of my career as a digital communications professional, and begin the process of atonement and forgiveness with several people. I also became a member of a supportive yoga community at Tranquil Space and received lots of positive energy and encouragement, hugs, and kind words while writing my Digital Sisterhood book.
This summer, I took a yoga and wine workshop just for fun, a yoga and writing workshop to overcome a funky case of writer’s block, and a winter solstice yin yoga workshop to celebrate the end of a very full year.
Blogging each week inspired me to read Yoga Journal each month and check out other yoga magazines. This year, I became a huge fan of Origin and Mantra. The articles encouraged me to open my heart to a bigger yoga life that included reading yoga-inspired poetry, creating a yoga station on Pandora.com via my iPad, and attending concerts featuring some of my favorite yoga mantra chanters, musicians, and vocalists like Snatam Kaur, Krishna Das, and Deva Premal and Mitren.
When I started dreaming about taking Kundalini yoga classes at the Yoga House during the summer months, I allowed procrastination to stop me from signing up. So I wrote a blog about Kundalini yoga and publicly announced my intention to take classes. My public announcement created accountability. And now I am happy to say my love affair with Kundalini yoga is in full swing. It is following me into 2014.
What did you gain and learn from your yoga practice in 2013?
Thanks for joining me on my Yoga Monday journey this year. See you in 2014!
Ananda Leeke 