Where are we heading to?

This question popped up just this morning when I opened Instagram.

I must confess, I like Instagram and I often go in and check and find inspiration and ideas how to live more sustainable, I see great campaigns against many injustices on this planet, I follow people I adore like Deepak Chopra or Ram Dass and this is great.

But what I also see is that there are thousands of women who call themselves influencer, mom blogger, whatever name you want to give them, who expose their whole families, grandparents and neighbors of neighbors to the world wide web. They literally “sell” their life and feel like kind of a celebrity.

I mean, seriously, I show my home, my sacred place and start to tag everything from the lamp on the ceiling to the rug on the floor, I give away shopping codes and link web pages while hoping that people love me and follow my life and at the end of the day BUY.

This kind of commercializing products is not only weird, it’s also going into a direction where being unique seems to be outdated.

Every mom blogger account has the same brands (at least for what I can see in Germany), the wear the same jewelry, call themselves even designer because they put their name on products they designed? To be a designer for you normally need to attend classes in a design school, university, whatever, but hey, this is the easy way, right? They eat the same, the drink the same tea, they own the same coffee machines in their stylish mainly white colored new built homes and their kids have the same toys and clothes and prams. All for the price of inviting people into their life on a daily basis, day in and day out, from morning to bedtime routine, being healthy or not feeling fine.

I’m honest and especially the ones who build up their life like this will not agree on it, but filling the washing machine with the camera in my hand or making a time-lapse of how I clean the kitchen is NOT real life and is far away from what we should do with our time.

As wonderful as all these technologies are, as careful they need to be handled. What do we teach our children when we document every step we take, inside and outside? What do we teach them if mommy is putting on her make up each day in front of the phone while she’s talking to the phone instead of talking to her child?

Did you ever check your screen time per day? I know that it hits you once you start to focus on it, at least it hit me when I checked it, because this screen time means that you spent the time with a phone in your hand instead of being in the real NOW.

Eckhart Tolle wrote this wonderful book “the power of NOW” and I can recommend this to everyone – we are all right now here and we should spend our time wisely.

If it’s your job and your income to advertise and to sell, that’s great, but do it need the 24/7 exposure to the whole world? Isn’t it enough to create good selling content and pictures and tutorials?

I may never understand but wanted to share as I feel we are heading to a time where personal contact starts to be rare and real life exists only in form of a hashtag.

Go out, meet friends, take your children to the playground and just sit there, watching the leaves dancing in the wind with the sound of children laughing and playing, that’s real life, at least for me.

Take care

misssfaith <3

Meditation Myths – What You Should not Believe

Meditation Myths – What You Should not Believe

I always try to explain why I would like to be able to meditate instead of just doing it.

As a mom the main reason is always: Lack of time!

Good excuse, isn’t it?

But honestly, it’s not the lack of time, it’s the weakness of willpower.

Sad but true, we find excuses instead of stepping in.

If I want something I surely will find the time.

So just a couple of days ago I decided that I want to change this and start a meditation routine, MY meditation routine.

Give it a few minutes per day! This is a start and everyone can find these five minutes!

But first, while thinking about this topic, I stepped over so many descriptions what meditation is and what it isn’t that I thought I need to write.

Write about what you please SHOULD NOT believe as it may ruin your attempts to find your own way of meditation.

Nothing fits into a certain structure, especially not a meditation.

Most of the people have no idea at all what meditation is.

They see it as an unknown factor and there the myth building starts.

Myths are:
  • Meditation is worshiping or praying – Noooooooo, it can be but it’s NOT a MUST!
  • Meditation is a religious act – Nope, again, it can be but it doesn’t have to be connected to any religion.
  • Meditation is nonsense – for people who are not willing to go deeper than the visible surface it’s a common excuse not to try it.
  • Meditation is hypnosis – no as this is a complete different field.
  • Meditation is relaxation – although you may feel relaxed after a meditation it’s not relaxation but a way towards relaxation.
  • Meditation is only for spiritual persons – another no because meditation is for everyone.
  • Meditation is neglecting reality – that’s so wrong, it’s a way of bringing reality up instead of neglecting it.
  • Meditation is for the weird – Yes, I love to be called weird because normal (whatever that is) is too boring and life is too short not to be weird from time to time 😉
  • Meditation is Magic and Mystical – I love the thought and even if it’s not considered magical – if that’s your approach to give it a try I would say YES, purely Magic!

So we have a list of what meditation is NOT but what is it then?

Meditation is…

This is the question which has 1001 answers because meditation has a million facets and faces. From my point of view it is something completely unique. Unique as the person itself.

If one person is meditating while walking through nature another one needs a special place and ritual to be able to meditate.

Some are chanting mantras and some need complete silence around them.

Some are able to quiet their mind and some are not but both are meditating.

An indeed wonderful description is the following from Deepak Chopra:

“Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet, It’s a way of entering into the quiet that’s already there.”

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It is there!

The good news are that we all have it in us! We all have this quiet place somewhere inside of us, this realm for the soul and mind. The way towards it is what let’s us struggle and feel incomplete, stressed and not at ease.

Our minds wander most of the time, it would be strange if we had a quiet mind because we have so many things which influence us daily. What we need is to find a way to find this quite place. One way is to sit down and stop what we are doing.

Let go

Mediation is letting go of all of these thoughts and bringing our focus back to one point. And this one point is preferably just a flickering candle or a leave on a tree, nothing that raises further thinking.

That one point can be anything, a song, our breath, a candlelight, a certain sound, chanting, felling ourselves – you see there are many ways to meditate.

Surrender

Give it a try and just start to surrender to what is, the benefits are limitless.

Good luck and Namaste