Life as a Practice

Hi everyone, it's Alexandra. So today's idea is life as a practice. And we have meditation practices and we have exercise practices, and we have a variety of different spiritual practices. But I've been playing with this idea that life is a practice and that everything that I do, I am practicing, which is very enlightening when you start looking at all the things that you're practicing in a day. And I've realized that I am very inefficient and not very effective or not as effective as I could be. And a lot of it is just habitual habits that we have. They're unconscious ways of living that really are not life enhancing. And they drain our energy, our life force. And we need to have the attention and the awareness to actually become aware of what we're doing in a daily basis and why we're doing it. So for me, it's been a practice to become really aware of what am I feeling, how am I breathing, how do I make the bed, how do I do the dishes, how do I talk to other people, how do I talk to myself? Like just really becoming aware, moment to moment, of what I'm doing, why am I doing it, and kind of the energy behind it. And it's a really great practice because we realize a lot of things that we are practicing, practicing on a daily basis because we're doing it over and over actually is not empowering or inspiring us, you know. So if you have the goal to be in the best shape of your life or to have regularly exercise routine, whatever it is, and you wake up in the morning, don't make your bed, go straight to the coffee maker, make some coffee, and then you jump on your email, you're practicing being a caffeine addict and an email addict. But for most of us, that's not something that we aspire towards. You know, we don't aspire towards those addictions that all of us have. So I think it's a really, really fun and enlightening exercise to notice what you are practicing on a daily basis and ask yourself, is this something that I want to become a habit? Is this something that I want to keep practicing? Because a lot of times we're practicing things that we do not want to embody. We do not want to ingrain them deeper into our consciousness. We do not want them to be habits. So the more that we can that discipline and the persistence and willpower to say, you know what? I do not want to practice that way of being living, eating whatever it is anymore, and making the conscious choice to do something differently, you know, to. If you have a. If you're a shallow breather, which this has been a practice for me, to take some deep breaths and relax and allow yourself to get in the practice of taking deep breaths rather than holding your breath. And also, I just gotta say, with this, there is the practice of the inner critic. And the more that we become aware and the more that we look at our habits and look at our daily practices, this can be the perfect environment for your inner critic to jump in and say, you're not doing it right, you're a loser, you're stupid, yada, yada, yada, you know, you know your inner critic voices and what they say. So just be mindful of that. And also realize the inner critic is a practice, that this is a practice that many of us have been playing over and over and over. And every day that we engage in this inner critic, we're practicing the inner critic. And I don't know about you, but I don't need any more inner critic criticism going on in my world. So I'm committed to not practicing that and practicing self love and acceptance and compassion for myself and for others. This is my highest expression of my divine essence. And the more that I can actually align with my highest self, and the more that I can align with behaviors and thought patterns that actually feel like they're in integrity with my highest self, the happier I'm going to be and the more efficient I'm going to be and the more life force I'm going to have flowing through me and everything is just brighter and has more sunshine. So that's the idea, the exercise for today. So practicing life as a practice and seeing what you're practicing in your daily life, notice what you are continually practicing. And a lot of times we can have, oh, I'll just do it this one time. It's not that big of a deal or I'll eat that or whatever. But remember that everything you do, you are practicing. So is that a habit that you want to be cultivating? And also, I gotta make another note. This is not the goal is not perfection. It is not to be perfect all the time. The goal is to have attention and awareness and realizing why you're doing things and what you're actually doing. Because the more that we have the awareness, the more that we can actually change. And we don't need to be perfect, we just need to have that. Yeah. The awareness and the intention to actually want to become a better human, to actually consciously choose our life and consciously choose the daily habits and practices that we do. And I know I can definitely get into perfectionist tendencies, but again, that is just the inner critic and the negative shadow aspect of ourselves. This is all about self love and compassion. The more that we can have compassion and deep acceptance for who we are, the habits that we have, of of course there's some that we have and we're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I have that habit. It's embarrassing whatever it is. Have compassion, have love for yourself and see that you're doing the best that you can do. You know, we're all doing the best we can do and it can be challenging as we start changing and start shifting, but just keeping up the consistent practice and keeping up that self love. Do not beat yourself up. I think I say that in every video, but I think it's so important, especially for us women to not allow that negativity to bring us down. We are gorgeous goddesses with so much radiant light that we need to shine out into the world. And the more love and compassion we have for ourselves, the better it will be. The better we will have, the better we will be with other people. And just in general, life will flow more easily and beautifully if we can have that love and compassion and awareness and the discipline, blissipline and inspiration to change, to want to become a better person, to want to consciously create your magical goddess life. So I hope that this was helpful and I hope you have a beautiful day. And until next.