Sarah hamilton's Blog

This is where you'll find my musings on Gratitude, Inspiration, Stillness and Awe…. "Transform your thoughts, transform your life"

Back from Vacation! February 20, 2015

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I just returned from a spectacularly restful and warm vacation!  I was warmed by the sun for 10 whole days, which I didn’t realized just how much I needed it until I was down there.  It’s been unprecedentedly cold here in New England and I was in desperate need of some natural vitamin D.  Though that said something was going through my head while I was down in sunny southern Florida.

 

“Wherever you go there you are”: I have been in love with the writings of Jon Kabat-Zin since the mid 90’s and his book Wherever You Go, There You Are is something that I think of often.  We take ourselves with us everywhere we go.  All of what we are is with us all the time.  And I was reminded of this.  Everyone leaves for their vacation with either hopes, expectations or intentions for their time away from home.  And sometimes while away our time doesn’t live up to what we were hoping for.  So a shift in expectation is needed.  A thought reframe is needed (or in my case a reframing of my thoughts about returning home to the cold 🙂 was needed).  Then there are the thoughts we have about our vacation, I’ll be more…. peaceful, active whatever your thoughts are and then you’re attached to those expectations.  What would happen if we let go of that? Allowed ourselves to be exactly as we are the way we are?

“You might be tempted to avoid the messiness of daily living for the tranquility of stillness and peacefulness. This of course would be an attachment to stillness, and like any strong attachment, it leads to delusion. It arrests development and short-circuits the cultivation of wisdom.”

In the next few weeks I thought I’d introduce you to some of my favorite people who have guided me on the road to awareness and today it’s Jon Kabat-Zinn.

 

Energetically,

~Sarah

 


 

Celebrate the small things! February 6, 2015

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img_0670My birthday just passed and I was thinking about celebrating and what that means to me….   We are all so use to celebrating the big things like momentous birthdays, graduations, births and so on.  But what do you so for the smaller, the less acknowledged road markers?  What do you do to honor or celebrate the small things?  I believe that if we give ourselves permission to celebrate the small things (and who’s to say that they are even really small) we will have more to celebrate.  And then there will be more big things to celebrate.

Today I do not have a headache, which for me is something to celebrate.  So how am I going about celebrating. I am listening to records as I work!  Which I am normally unable to do when there is pain in my head due to an inability to concentrate.  How you celebrate is really irrelevant.  What is relevant is that you acknowledge the moment.  Give it its just dessert.  Ohhh and I think I will have some dessert to celebrate! In all seriousness, acknowledging the good in ones life is as important as acknowledging any feeling.

In all my years of coaching I see people focus more on the bad feelings and gloss over the good.  Those two words are italicized because they are only as weighted as we make them.  Everything is impermanent so why not acknowledge more of the good!  Celebrate!  Celebrate! Because if you choose to focus on the juicy things you’ll have more yummy things to celebrate!

 

Happy Celebration!

~Sarah

 

 

Do you hibernate? February 2, 2015

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SnowfallSince today is groundhog day I think it only apropos that I confess about winter.  Every year when it rears its head I feel the need to hibernate.  To crawl into bed and stay there until spring.  To metaphorically plug up my but like a bear and not climb out of my cave.  But in all seriousness I have a harder time being productive, or at least I think I do.  I start to feel guilty the moment the cold weather sets in because I feel like I “should” be doing things differently.  But this winter I’m doing things a bit differently… I’m allowing myself to be exactly as I am.  Leaving myself alone. Allowing the slowness. the needing more sleep and wanting to keep warm.

I’m from a family of “workers”  if we are not busy we are not being productive and when I am not… I feel guilty.  So I have asked myself what would happen if I left myself alone?  Allowed myself the comfort of the warmth. Although in my mind I thing that the world would fall apart but in reality I still get up meditate, exercise and get to work.  So what’s the worst thing that could happen?  ….Nothing that make my world fall apart .  How much more productive would I be by allowing myself a little extra sleep, a nap or a day here and there where I stick to my heating pad?  Well for myself I’m more productive with the time I have since I am releasing the guilt.  Why waste my time with that catabolic thought process which immediately takes me out of the moment and into feelings which don’t support me.  Somehow I seem to be enjoying the winter a bit more.  I will admit I enjoy it so much more since I work from home and I don’t have to drive anywhere.  What a spectacular thing!  So this winter I am learning to rephrase the way I look at it.

So I guess, how gentle are you with the things that you think you “should” do?  How do you keep from piling a lot of “should” on yourself? How do you handle to winter?

 

Energetically, albeit with a heating pad

~Sarah

 

 

How can we change an obstacle into pure joy? November 26, 2014

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This video came across my Facebook feed the other day and I simply fell in love with it.  First off I’ll admit I have a soft spot for sweet animal videos but this one really got me.  So I contacted the young woman to see if it was on youtube and if so may I use it.  Hence it was uploaded and here is a horse who’s name is Magic… Really, I love it! This lovely horse was frightened of the water until his amazingly young rider helped him to move past the fear (who’s the life coach here? 🙂 )  And not only did he move past it it but it became pure joy, for both horse and rider.
Which got me to thinking about how one can move past a fear and not only turn it into joy but create joy for someone else as well.  And the answer is perception. How are you viewing the fearful situation?  If you change the way you view it it just might surprise you.  It will change.  A question I ask myself when confronted with a situation or something I’d rather not have in my life I ask myself, “What can I learn right now?” or “Where do I want to go from here”  There is always something to learn in any given situation. And then I ask how I can shift my energy and for me I find 10 things I’m grateful for.  Which immediately brings me into the moment and straight into Gratitude.
What a perfect time to talk about gratitude!  Thanksgiving is tomorrow in the States and it’s a wonderful opportunity to look at all that is abundant and wonderful in our life.  Wishing you a joyful grateful Thanksgiving!  What a spectacular way to move into joy and shift from… well, just about anything!
Have a Magical Day!
Lot so Love
~Sarah
 

“It’s a blustery day in the hundred acre woods” November 2, 2014

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This morning our power went out, luckily only for a brief stint but our internet went out for… well it’s out now and we’re not certain when we will get it back. I love this weather enforced down time. Our television is web based and when the internet goes so does the television. The quiet in the house is really lovely. All I hear is a man tinkering and a little one playing and creating stories with her legos.

 

I don’t know about you but when I get going I go! I can lose track of the quiet times, the down moments, the not doing. With all my focus on staying in the moment I can get wrapped up in the doing. So this begs the question: What do you do to stop and smell the proverbial flowers? Or fly the kite? I’m looking out my windows at the trees swaying to the remarkable wind that is definitely a Winnie the pooh kind of day.  Today for me it was loosing our power and internet (this post is obviously posting after the fact).

 

Hope you are all enjoying your Sunday!

Lots of Love!

~Sarah

 

How attached to “Woundology” are you? October 29, 2014

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Today as I was doing my physical therapy in the pool today I was reminded of a word: Woundology.  Often when someone has been through some kind of life altering illness or situation that understandably becomes their raison d’être, their focus… their defining sense of self.

“They are striving to confront their painful experiences, valiantly working to bring meaning to past traumas, and exercis- ing compassionate understanding of others who share their wounds. But they are still not healing. Rather, they have redefined their lives around their wounds and the pro- cess of accepting them.”- Caroline Myss

As we try to connect to others we do so by finding a common ground but by doing so it tends to be around our wounds and that becomes our language.  I still catch myself doing it after a week of migraines I’ll say, “Sure, I can but I have to see how I feel” which I see as taking care of myself but in actuality it is setting myself up for the pain.  As opposed to simply, “Sure I can!” and then cross that bridge later when I get to it because simply since something has happened in the past doesn’t mean it will happen again.  I’m not saying it’s easy but small steps in staying in the present moment is the way to go.  There are a lot of other factors that come into play here as Ms. Myss states but for me all is aided by staying in the moment.  I focus my language around what is positive and healthy.  I also look at what the present “pain” might be telling me.  How can it inform me as to what I may not being seeing in my life.  How do I choose to be healthy? And currently I choose, as some of you may have read, something Radically Beautiful.

So I wonder, how do you talk to yourself and to others.  How do you define yourself?  And the big one what story of yourself do you create?

 

Lots of Love,

~Sarah

 

 

 

#RadicallyBeautiful October 5, 2014

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#RadicallyBeautiful

Michael Allen Wells

Mine Hill Roxbury CT

 

 I have been chatting a bit about finding something Radically Beautiful with my clients recently.  This effort is a great way to bring you back into the moment when we find ourselves crazed from the day.  I tend to find the way the light looks as my radically beautiful thing.  Here a couple of pictures to illustrate some light I find pretty breathtaking.  My friend Michael Alan Wells took the picture on the left.  Now let’s take a deep breath in and a deep breath out… Ahhhhhh.  Taking advantage of this skill can do so much for you.  It not only brings you right back into presence but it goes so far as to immediately lower your blood pressure.  I find seeing that which is Radically beautiful is even better than asking myself “Where are my feet right now?”.  Which has been my go to, to bring myself back into the present moment.  This skill helps us to see the beauty in the world instead of the thing that might be taking us out of the moment because we don’t like what’s currently happening.  Once we take a beat and stop and “look up and look out”  and relax into the moment we have an easier time assessing what is really going on for us.  so that we can choose what we want to feel and think.

Which leads me to my next thought.  I was out and about today with my sweetie and A-bomb and was looking at my phone when I stopped and looked up and looked out and realized I was missing the day.  How often have you been lost in a gadget and missed out on what was really happening right in front of you?  I almost missed out on a spectacular day.  So put down that gadget (of course after you stop reading this post :-)) and get out of the house today!

Share your #RadicallyBeautiful thoughts with me today!

Lots of Love

~Sarah

 

Starting the day over…. October 1, 2014

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IMG_1903“We live in a non stop world!”  This phrase has been stated over and over again usually in the same sentence with the internet, social media, children, work and everything else one can imagine. Now today was one of those days for me.  It seemed as if I wanted to start my day over the moment it began.  That said there are many people who say to simply change your thoughts about the day.  Meaning that we say, “Ok now my day is exactly as we make it and thus it’s a great day!”

There is some validity to this.  To quote Dr. Wayne Dyer, “If we change the way we look at things the things we look at change”.  Yet, I know that my day starts with a ritual of meditation and coffee.  So if it switches up as it did today, I can have a hard time getting back on tract.  So in the vain of seeing things that are radically beautiful today (look at last weeks post) I took a few minutes to make another cup of coffee and sit down for a sip or 2 to recalibrate.  This moment stopped me from a down hill slope.  Which gets me to my point, How do you stop the habitual pattern of the “down word spiral” of unhealthy thought?  The thoughts that keeps us in a habitual pattern that feeds our stress.  We don’t always make it easy on ourselves to simply change our thoughts on a dime.  Hence finding a way to re-center our thoughts.  I used a few moments to breathe and slow down, if only for a few moments but it worked.  This moment was #radicallybeautiful to me.  I was incorporating a centering breath with the comforting warmth of my coffee.  So how can you stop, breathe and move forward with a fresh thought pattern.  Awareness can take a bit of work.  To catch yourself before the stress or the craziness of the day gets the better of you is the goal.

I will save a whole post about awareness for another day.  But for today, take a moment to breathe and  and take into your lungs the freshness of a centered self.  Now carry on with your day, fresh.  That’s if you have had any day like mine, which of course is now quite lovely!

 

Lots of Love!

~Sarah

 

How do you handle stress? September 17, 2014

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window

Loving Light

I recently moved into a new house with my sweetie and it’s beautiful!!  Though with all the excitement and joy of finding a home I have forgotten to do one simple thing… Stay in the moment.  I have gotten caught up in the, “I have to do’s”.  You know the, I have to unpack the bathroom today.  I have to get a recycling run in today. And I have to organize my office…  The list goes on.  Albeit being excited about my new adventure I haven’t taken the time to smell the roses…literally.

So as the Universe is want to do, I was listening to a dharma talk by Tara Brach, which I was doing while on the excercise bike no less… (of course maximizing my time, no judgement please).  The moment she said “Stress is fear of the moment”….. I stopped biking and continued to listen because I was meant to hear it.  She said if we stop the moment we are aware of our stress and radically notice the beauty around us we’re immediately brought back into the moment.  She went on to remind me of so many salient points of my seminar that I started to laugh.  I, was not living in the moment.

We all need reminds every now and then… So… right now the sun is shining through my windows creating the most luxurious light in my house that I feel wrapped in loving light…. You get what I ‘m saying, right?  So, I wonder where you might be allowing stress to dictate your way in the world?  How can you take a step away and ask yourself:  Where and I right now?  How do I feel right now? Am I able to accept it?  And…. What is radically beautiful in my presence right now?

Go ahead be radical!

Lots of Love

~Sarah

 

Full of Gratitude… June 5, 2014

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I haven’t written in a few weeks.  I have been recuperating after back surgery.  Some of you may know that I had asked for help.  I knew I couldn’t do it on my own….  Well what transpired was far beyond anything I could have imagined.

In less than a month and a half the whole amount was covered.  I’ll say it again the Whole amount was covered….  The money came rolling in and has literally left me speechless for the entire time.  I am humbled by all the generous souls in the world.  What was interesting this morning is that upon seeing that my goal was made, I started thinking “I did it!  I did it!” and within a split second I changed to “You did it!!  You did it!!” because there is no way I could have done this by myself.  So I didn’t do it.  You helped raise the money, you did all the heavy lifting.  Thank you! Thank you!  I will live the rest of my life knowing you helped me get well.  Being able to pay for a bill with complete faith that there is money to cover it has done more for my healing than almost anything else.  I regularly say that no person is an island and we can’t get anywhere alone.  We can’t succeed without someone else to aide us in our goal.  This is yet proof yet again that, “I am because we are” –Ubuntu

 

All I can think go today is:  Thank you…

 

All my love,

~Sarah

 

 
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