Walking mad...until I wasn't.

The first half mile of this walk I’m mostly feeling mad.

Also frustrated, irritated and annoyed after 2 1/2 hours on the phone with tech support for an email issue that seemed minor and easy and …turned out not to be.

Ugh.

Finally outside, moving it through. Feet take over from my brain and pound fast on the gravel road, happy to be released - at last! - from the confines of my computer chair.

Jumbled thoughts and unspoken words slide silently away— like cartoon balloons lifting up to the sky and turning to mist.

Arms and shoulders shake stuck energy out through my fingers.

And then, as if by magic, naturally: Ahhhhh there's more room inside.

More room for breath, more room for senses to let in this day.

Space opens to remember I am not alone; all around are my kin.

Trees and ferns move slowly, murmuring and casting their fragrance freely into the air.

Raven flies over.

Ducks squawk raucously on a small pond.

My smile returns with a sigh - such a relief to reconnect with the world far beyond computer screen and irritation.

On the last turn before home an idea presents itself and I'm eager to write it down. Happiness bubbles back up effortlessly.

Walking is one of my best forms of therapy, meditation, prayer, creative reverie, emotional alchemy - and, oh yeah … exercise!

How about you? I’d love to hear! Drop me an email: 


**How do you honor your emotions and give them room to be felt and to move through? (Because even though we know there are no negative emotions - they definitely cause problems if they get stuck or repressed or inappropriately vented. Right?!) 😖 😟

** Are you a walker? 🚶If so, what benefits do you get from it?

Believing in You,

Lea

PS Want support in discovering your most effective ways to release stuck emotions so that you have even more capacity for being a healing force in the world? Drop me an email Lea@LeaBayles.com with Let’s Talk in the subject line and we’ll have a chat about how I can support you.


Walking is “… a state in which in the head, the body and the world are aligned.” Rebecca Stolnit

Bone Breathing: Guided Meditation for deep healing

Hey! This 22-minute meditation is just here on the blog for a week or two as a healing gift for you and to let me get some feedback.

It’s a rough version I recorded at the end of a yoga class. Please forgive small bits of extraneous sound at beginning and end.

If enough people like this meditation, I’ll re-record it with better sound quality and include it in a new product.

Bone Breathing is considered one of the most powerful meditations of Chi Kung. It is renowned for enhancing immune system, increasing vitality, strengthening bones and expanding consciousness and presence.

Sound interesting? Get comfortable, Have a listen and then,

Let me know:

What did you like?

Was it useful? How so?

How did you feel during and afterwards?

Suggestions to make it better?

Leave your feedback, in comments below or by email or FB messaging, and I’ll be sure to send you a free copy of the upgraded version.

Many thanks!

Is "Laziness" good for your health... and our planet?

On January 5th I'd planned to be feeling refreshed from family celebrations and eager to hop into 2022. I’d planned a fun 7- Day Transformation Game - you were going to be invited!- and, suddenly, I had Covid.

So I spent most of the January resting and healing and feeling - although sometimes impatient - deeply grateful. 

I am grateful for vaccines because although I was exhausted and achy and majorly brain-fogged, it did not feel dangerous. I am grateful for multiple novels and my sweet companion cat Pele who was always happy to curl up with me. 

(BTW, please, if you’re against vaccinations: Let’s just agree to disagree. Please, don’t email me with articles about that oddly divisive topic. You’ll be on my grateful list too!) 

I am profoundly grateful that years ago I learned the healing power of surrendering to deep rest. 

Finally, I woke up one day feeling my Vital Energy - Chi, Life Force! Yippee! Welcome back! - bubbling and flowing. Natural enthusiasm, the desire to get outside and to stride and skip and the ability to think and even write a few coherent paragraphs is returning. Hooray. 

Have you experienced the healing power of deep rest- maybe even more rest than you wanted, maybe even more than seemed logical or reasonable or socially acceptable? 

Do you ever have trouble resting?

Hmmm, actually I wonder if there is anyone in our hustle-bustle, push-achieve-do-have-consume-more culture who does not have at least a little conflict with surrendering deeply to rest? 

Although I'm a flippin' ambassador for the power of rest, and although over these last weeks, I mostly trusted my healing process, I must admit- anxious, impatient, internal voices did pop up.

“Still?! Again?! Another day you need to rest?! Maybe you’ll never feel better and you should just push through! Maybe you’re just being lazy.”

Ahh, yes, the lazy insult. 

Yesterday I read a great NYT opinion piece by Elliot Kuhn, a rabbi who “provides spiritual care to those who are grieving, dying, ill or disabled... [and who] is working on a book about the power of rest in a time of planetary crisis.” 

The title? “The Most Valuable Thing I Can Teach My Kid is How to Be Lazy.” 

How radical is that?! Radical in the true essence of the word, Kukla’s piece goes to the very root of what he - and I - see as a modern imperative: We must rest more. 

“I have seen the limits of the grind. I want my child to learn how to be lazy," he writes. 

Kukla discusses the origins of the word lazy and social research into our cultural attitudes toward laziness and how this connects to injustice and racism and climate change and how a shift toward what we call laziness is needed for personal - and global - healing. 

“Many of the ways I have learned to live well in a chronically ill body — by taking the present moment slowly and gently, letting go of looking for certainty about the future, napping, dreaming, nurturing relationships and loving fiercely — are relevant for everyone living on this chronically ill planet.” 

Here’s the link to Kukla's full piece.

What do you think? Could “laziness” be a vital medicine for these times? Leave a comment below.  

" Don't worry about the numbers, Just go ________."

Here’s how a New Years letter from my friend, artist and author Maureen Egan, began:

“2021 made me both a grandmother and a 60 year old and I wasn’t sure I was ready for either until a much older friend told me, ‘Don’t worry about the number, just go play.’ So I took her advice and scrambled up mountains, spread color on canvas and best of all spent a lot of time with Eloise.”

“Don’t worry about the number, just go play.”

Isn’t that just about the best advice ever on aging? (And hmm… maybe some of the best advice for living?)

A playful attitude can help you be more creative, resourceful, resilient, visionary, collaborative and productive- no matter what you are doing.

Leave a comment below and let me know: Whatever age you are- 60, 99 or 23- grandparent or not: What shifts for you when you forget about the numbers and just go play?

Believing in You, Lea

PS Is there a small part of your brain thinking something like “Play? What good is that?” or “Just go play? What the heck does that mean?” or “Oh no, I think I fail at playing!”?

No worries, my friend- you’re in good company. Most adults I talk to have mixed feelings about the value - and the act- of play. Leave a comment and tell me your thoughts/ feelings/experiences about play. I'm getting ready to open the next Playing Your Way to Soul Big Success Class and your ideas will help me fine-tune to make it even better.

PS2 Maureen Egan (who gave us this new great mantra: “Don’t worry about the number, just go play.”) is an artist, author and wise, big-hearted and spirited woman. Click here to see her book, artwork and blog.

News flash! I just talked with Maureen and she’s agreed to be a guest this month on our new People You Gotta Meet series on the Soul-Big Life Show. Stay tuned!

Can you use Stressful times to grow?

“I have been feeling GREAT! We are super busy at the office and this is my best year yet! My smile is real!!! I am more patient, understanding, listen better, calm and just feeling like I am becoming the business woman I have always wanted to be. My stress meter is so down it is incredible.”

This was such a great email to get from a client!

Just months before she had been feeling frazzled and anxious much of the time. The way she was dealing with stress was negatively affecting her health, her relationships and her work. In our coaching she discovered how to implement new perspectives and strategies to deal effectively with the challenges of her personal life and business.

For many years I taught stress reduction workshops in hospitals, businesses and schools.

Today I focus more on how we can use stressful times to become stronger, and more resilient, courageous and compassionate

Current research supports the importance of embracing and transforming stress. As Kelly McGonigal writes in The Upside of Stress, “…the latest science reveals that stress can make you smarter, stronger, and more successful. It helps you learn and grow. It can even inspire courage and compassion.”

If you are committed to growing, learning and expanding into your potential feelings of stress will probably come up. If you have goals and dreams that deeply matter to you, feelings of stress will probably come up- maybe many times every day. That’s OK.

How you think about stress, how you deal with it and how you process it in your body makes all the difference between it being a destructive force or a source of energy and inspiration.

Another client told me last week that the phrase she uses now in challenging times is, “ I’m growing with it!”

What are you growing with right now?

How are you talking with yourself about that process?

Believing in you,

Lea

PS Would you like support in meeting every challenge with courage, confidence and compassion with every challenge? Click here to apply for a complimentary 1:1 Breakthrough Session with me. You’ll get crystal clear on what you really want, what’s in the way and your next steps toward creating your most soul-satisfying success.

Terrible Advice- & a Radical Alternative

“Keep your foot on the gas pedal and never let it off.” This is the advice one of my clients got from a business coach.

My client told me, “That sounded terrible, but I thought.. well maybe that’s just what my husband and I both need to do for a few years.”

Keep your foot on the gas pedal and never let it off is terrible advice for driving a car or for living your life.

What happens if you drive a car this way?

You crash. You run over people. You run out of gas.

What happens if you live your life this way?

You crash. You run over people. You run out of gas.

At least if you ruin a car by driving this way you can buy a different one.

You can’t buy a new body, or soul, or life.

Keep your foot on the gas pedal is terrible advice and yet… how many times have you heard variations of it?

The work-harder-faster-longer-push-struggle-grind path to succeed is so entrenched in our culture that even when you know it’s destructive you can get pulled back into it.

You’ve probably gotten caught up in this toxic vortex of struggling and pushing.

So have I.

I pushed myself so hard that at 33 I had a serious immune system crash that took me years to recover from.

Fortunately, I knew in my heart there was a better way and I went on a healing journey determined to find a path that was aligned with my mind, body, heart and soul.

Pushing may even work for you -as it did for me- for a while. But it doesn’t scale and leads to burnout and feelings of loneliness, depletion and spiritual emptiness.

My best advice to create the life and the impact that you crave?

Play more.

Bring a spirit of playfulness to the things you most care about -and you will actually get lots more done while you have more fun.

Most of us have taught that "playing" just means you're goofing off or wasting time or being childish and that if you really care about something you should "take it seriously." Not true!

"To be playful and serious at the same time is possible, and it defines the ideal mental condition.” ~ John Dewey

How to be playful and serious at the same time?

Click here to check out my new 6 week class PLAYING YOUR WAY to SOUL-BIG SUCCESS.

This is a radically different approach - highly effective, revitalizing and fun- to creating and achieving more of what you really want in every area of your life.

Questions about whether this is right for you? Drop me an email. I’ll answer your questions so you can decide.

Hop in by Monday October 4 and get an extra bonus of a 1:1 session with me ($ 250 value) to use anytime during the course.

“Almost all creativity involves purposeful play.” –  Abraham Maslow