From then on, all of her words to us were ripe with awareness about finding the positive way to form thoughts in our heads. Like, “be strong in the pose, find your strength, focus on your power.” How often do we focus on our weaknesses, so intensely aware of our lack of strength?

We rise every morning with thoughts telling us this and that. Beating down repetitive mantras, “not enough time, not good enough, will be better when”….etc, etc. Right?

Nothing is more powerful than our voice. What would happen if instead of saying, I don’t have enough time to take care of myself or I am not very good at such and such, we substituted powerful, positive, words ripe with optimism, bursting with possibility?

Today in yoga class, (www.breathehotyoga.com) I didn’t start my class with the old voice, I’ll look good when I can get arms like the chica in the black tank top. Instead I filled my head with loving, positive, words coming from a place of power deep within not from the surface where it doesn’t matter.

As the instructor yesterday reminded us, Choose your words carefully. For they have more power than I think we realize. And as today’s teacher showed us, Remember to have fun in your practice.

Your words don’t have to beat you down, they should lift you up. Lift you up high so you can soar like a bird in flight and when you do fall make you want to try again.

by J.G. McGlothern

It is past the middle of January and many of us have abandoned those thoughts of change, those resolutions, those ideas to readjust, to try something new. Maybe the intention was exactly what you need you just structured it too high, aiming for perfection. The failing is not failure, it is practice.

Start again. Set your intention. Be gentle. Keep practicing.

by J.G. McGlothern

I wasn’t hanging venison, husband Charles caught on a recent hunt or pickling vegetables from our fall harvest, but I was making soup, baking cookies, cooking the ham my hubby brought home from a recent trip to Costco.

With the snow falling outside it felt right to be baking with peanut butter and chocolate, mincing garlic and chopping onions. I was perfectly content as homemaker, the smiling mom hanging wet snow pants and making cocoa to warm the children and their snow blushed cheeks.

Then the bear side of me came out too. Preferring to stay in my pjs and desperately wanting to crawl back into bed until the spring thaw. Moving slowy, but not depressed like the natural state of a bear when they hibernate and not bored being inside and definitely not itching for the next thing, just perfectly content without checking things off the list, functioning happily without an agenda. So not like me. Always motivated into action by the next thing on my list.

Bears hibernate to escape the cold and winter is a time when food resources are scarce.

I wasn’t wanting to escape anything. I just wasn’t motivated to do a lot in my bear-like state. Then soon the pioneer woman in me would start measuring flour and preheating the oven.

It catches us off guard to find ourselves in a different place, reacting in a way out of our norm. But that is something wonderful about this life, there is room for change. It is okay to be stagnant for awhile. For even if all outward appearances illustrate stillness, below the surface there is always so much going on, just waiting to bubble forth. All quiet before the storm. The storm that ushers in surprises, hope and the beauty of this life.

by J.G. McGlothern

This quote fell out of my journal this morning. I wrote it down from an old movie, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, that I watched in December. Cheesy movie but with something worth remembering.

I bet Martin Luther King, Jr., had that kind of unshakeable faith. A man of true determination who was motivated by God’s grace and all things real and good. He let go, believing in all possibility, relying on God’s will but at the same time listening to the fire within his own belly.

These are the people of our history who leave a mark on this world with their beautiful faith. A faith left for us to carry on, right where they left off.

by J.G. McGlothern

Hunkered inside trying out a new crepe recipe, having a volleyball tournament with a balloon and challenging each other to games of Mancala and Bey Blade spin offs, it is like Christmas. Slow and easy. Focused on family, not agenda.

The one Christmas thing I have not yet put away is the bowl of Christmas and New Year cards that keep trickling in through the U.S. Postal Service.  The bowl sits on a table in our living room and every now and then, I will stop and thumb through, not ready to decide next what to do with them next. Plus the next day, we may get another one in the mail. I love how just because the calendar says mid-January, my friends and family haven’t thought that it is too late to mail their cards.

(My son just came down to the basement where I am typing this…held out his hand and said, Mom, come with me, you have to see all the snow outside.) I love it. Christmas enthusiasm all over again.

What joys of Christmas are still lingering in your heart despite it being January? What can you hold on to and not let go of?

A season’s ending can often really mean it’s beginning.

(Right now, just before I am hitting the publish button, my son is down here again, Mama, people just walked by and now the tracks from their dog are all gone, covered by the snow. Close your eyes, give me your hand and come with me now, Mama.)

Oh….Kids so get it. Christmas is definitely not over.

by J.G. McGlothern

to read…http://www.mamaneedsarefill.com/2012/01/fridays-free-refill-intention/ .

At age 34, Christina was a gatherer. A restaraunter who foraged edible food from the earth, creating mouth watering meals from roots, mushrooms, nettles, ingredients others would ignore.  After gathering food, she invited those she loved together to share in the bounty. She included everyone, not turning her back on anyone. Again, accepting of people, others would ignore.

The church couldn’t have been more packed. The presider reminded us that we were gathering together because we can’t do it alone.

Sometimes we want to do it alone, we don’t feel connected so we choose to cut off and go our own route. Ignoring the healing, life giving experience of inviting others into world.

Hearing about Christina’s life I learned she made everyone feel special, she included everyone.  And what a gift to have the knack for including many different types of people around one table.

After the funeral we gathered to eat the recipes Christina loved to cook. Again, the hall was packed. Who would have thought a meal could have been so delicious and made from nettles, hedgehog (don’t worry the mushroom kind), roots, honey, carrots, tahini and other ingredients I usually ignore? It makes me ponder, what else and whom else do I ignore? What other things in my life get dismissed because of prejudice, habit, lack of experience, ignorance?

Thank you Christina for gathering us all together last week, even though of course we wish it weren’t to grieve the loss of your life on this earth. Thank you for reminding me of the gifts of gathering together, especially with those I may otherwise ignore.

by J.G. McGlothern

In regards to taking One Day at a Time as my resolution, I need to remember to not pack so much in one day.

I woke up knowing I should meditate first thing, now it is approaching noon and I have taken off at full speed not allowing space to breathe.

I will stop and go meditate now, even if I just set the timer for five minutes. Perspective and breath, make everything more clear don’t they?

While shopping at an art store over the holidays, buying sketch books for our kids, I found the perfect present.  I bought it for myself.

I am a sucker for quotes. Not a sucker really, just a lover of words that hit home. And there on the spinning rack of magnets I found the saying. I could have purchased them all, but the one that spoke to where I needed to be in my overwhelmed state and where I want to take myself in the New Year, summed it up in four words: One Day at a Time.

It sits on my fridge above my small white board that acts as my daily list keeper. The list of each day’s tasks, organizing me one day at a time.

For that’s all we have, this day. So my only real resolution this year is to take each gift one at a time. For that is what our days are, gifts, and it is up to us to unwrap them not only gently but with wild abandon.

by J.G. McGlothern

I am ready for the New Year.  I am not shutting out the past of 2011, not ignoring all it brought forth, just ready for what 2012 will bring. Open to possibility, anticipating with hope all that is to come.

Bring it.

by J.G. McGlothern