Manifest The Life You Want

 One of my favorite yoga students asked me if I would post another New Year’s newsletter with exercises to motivate and facilitate a powerful charge forward. I re-read my message from last year and will certainly re-post some of it here. It’s as applicable today as it was a year ago and I actually have to admit it was pretty damn good.This past fall I launched a new ten-week women’s coaching group, which I called Make Manifest Your Life. This process included action-oriented “life work” between sessions, expressive art and group discussions of the weekly topics. It has been my theme the past few months and now into the NEW YEAR that what we dream, what we envision is what we MANIFEST. What we manifest is how are lives become. Serious, stuff, people. So, what you create is not something that happens in the future, it happens in the now. Every little thing leads to the big thing, your life in the making.What are you creating for yourself?You see, the most basic and core practices are not fly-by-night, check-off-the-boxes and list of things to do. The practices that sustain a holistic, nurturing, passionate and well life are simple, every day commitments and often mean returning to basics, over and over (and over).Here are some tenets for living that I speak to in my yoga classes. They are good for life. How we show up on our mats is how we show up everywhere. Cliché, but true; how we show up in every moment makes up who we are. Once we are in alignment with our word, thoughts and actions, we live in integrity, Ghandi said, and then we can truly be happy. 1. Breath. The breath is our most powerful tool to soften the body and ease resistance away. Breath creates space in the body and space between the ears. Monkey mind, be gone!2. Be like nature. Get outside, feel what you feel, see what you see, smell what you smell and don’t let it go beyond that. Just soak up the moment, without judgment, evaluation or trying to fix or change anything.3. Drink more water. Clearly the best way to clear everything in your body from internal organs to your skin, even your mind, according to Eastern philosophy, which states that the mind is like water, when you let it sit still all becomes clear.4. Forgiveness. Forgive yourself (and others) often. Repeat. Forgive yourself (and others) often. Repeat. Forgive yourself (and others) often. Repeat. You get the idea.Family and Personal ManifestosA Manifesto, according to Wikipedia is a published verbal declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government.As a follow up to Part I of my New Year’s Newsletter I am sharing my personal experience delivering this genius idea (ha ha) I had about creating a family manifesto with my husband and daughters (9 and 7 years old). It actually went well. I learned that my daughters are craving a voice and they are taking the New Year buzz seriously. They want to be a part of something they have created. What better place to start than at home?!

1. Write the top 5 favorite things about your life (or your family). Be specific.
2. Write EVERYTHING that no longer serves you/your family, as many as it takes, get it out.
3. Now, what do you want more of in your (or your family) life?
4. What are you committed to creating. BOOM. This is the stuff of your manifesto.

A sample of some of our Manifest-abulous statements:

• Families that climb mountains together, stay together.
• We talk everyday and are kind.
• Treat each other like we’d like to be treated.
• Be grateful, not complaint-full everyday.
• Wash your hands often, brush teeth twice a day and eat your veggies.
• Listen like you mean it.
• Be brave.
• We try something new everyday.
• Adventure is what we do and who we are.
• Be earthful (mindful of the earth).

Next step for us is to take all of our statements and design our manifesto poster to hang with pride and guide our daily lives.Here is a cool site we will use to make our poster. Shazam. Boom. We got this!SO DO YOU!