I love love love ‘follow my nose days.’  I aim to have a ‘follow my nose days’ at least once a week.  These days were inspired by one of my long time favorite books, “The Secret River” by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

These are the days I wander through my life, following my nose.  It feels like finding and re-aligning with the Current of Life moving through me in the present moment—rather than setting out to accomplish a set of prescribed tasks.

Following your nose if the mindful practice of sensing the impulse of Life within, mindfully attending to whatever I’m doing until that impulse leads me elsewhere.  Being while doing.

Humans are a hidden stream whose source is hidden. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

On one recent ‘follow my nose days,’ I felt drawn to unload the dishes, mindfully.  This lead me to cleaning out underneath the sink, mindfully.  This lead me to deep cleaning my laundry room, mindfully.  On any other day, I might have called these activities ‘chores.’  On this day, these activities led me to a state of bliss.  I kid you not.

On other ‘follow my nose days,’ I’ve read, walked, played with the dogs, rolled around on the floor and stretched.  The trick is to do whatever you are doing with complete attention and when you feel drawn to do something else, do that, EVEN if the thing you started is not finished.  There are no rules, no shoulds.

In fact, following your nose frees you ‘should’ and teaches you to release the tension of ‘should’ in each moment.  These are the days I practice living as Brother Lawrence, as if there were no one but Thee and Me in the world.

The perfectly precious gift of following my nose is realigning myself with the Current of Life in me.  The bonus prize is the pure peace that comes from aligning with that Current.

If you can’t take a full day, take a morning or an afternoon.

If you can’t take a morning or an afternoon, take an hour.

If you can’t take an hour, take a half hour.

Follow your nose.  What happens?  What Wisdom flows to you when you are aligned with the Current of Life in you?  Can you sense the Source of your stream?  I’d love to hear your stories.

It’s been a while since I’ve written.  My apologies.  I’ve been quiet inside myself for a while — I went a on a silent retreat in early March and seemed to have just continued in the silence inside myself.  I treasure these times of silence and didn’t want to push myself to write when really I just felt silent inside.

I find silence to be nourishing to my soul.  It gives me a chance to hear the rumblings beneath the surface of my mind and uncover new insights, places in my life that are calling for my attention as well as helping me to become more present for my life.

This silence doesn’t always mean just an outer silence, but an inner silence — a willingness to be quiet for a while and listen —

In this most recent listening, I found some places in me that were hurting a bit and just needed a little time to be noticed.  I noticed the excitement I’m feeling about a couple of projects I’m working on (Provence Retreat for Women & an audio series, Reclaim Your Life).  And, I found myself delighting in the simple pleasures of life ~ my family, my dog, & my breath free of seasonal allergies

Huxley

If you gave yourself just a bit of inner and outer silence, I wonder might you discover.  What’s calling for attention in your life?  Consider practicing a bit of silence and see what you discover.

1.  I got a migraine today.  I haven’t had one in years.  The good thing is that I had the time and space to lay down and rest in the middle of the day.  I took care of myself with relaxation and EFT and felt a lot better.

2.  My dog, Huxley, did not lunge aggressively at the three large standard poodles we encountered on our walk today.  Huxley is still a pup and has lately been lunging aggressively at other dogs on our walks.  Like the rest of us, he can be a little full of himself sometimes.

3.  My husband just brought me a piece of dove dark chocolate.

With the rush rush of life, I’m hearing more and more from my clients that they are stressed!  Relaxing is something that many of us haven’t consistently tapped into our palm pilots, iphones or even put on the to do list.  Some of us have forgotten how as we move from this urgent task to that urgent task.  I am no exception.

Last night I received some unpleasant news and I reacted.  I didn’t respond.  I reacted.

For those of you who have been reading for a while, know that I think it is our primary responsibility to protect our personal state and return ourselves to peace as best we can as soon as we can.

So there I was reacting.  After a few minutes of that, I noticed my teeth were clenched and my forehead scrunched.  OK.  So, I’m not a saint . . . yet

Anyway, noticing the reaction was the first step, resisting the urge to indulge the reaction was second and finally, finding my way back to peace.  On this occasion it was to relax.  Relax my body, relax my mind and relax my worried heart.

After a few easy breaths and walking to the window to listen to rain, I felt better, relaxed even.

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be offering a class at the University of Tennessee, “Learn to Relax, The Easy Way.”  If you’re in the neighborhood, I hope you can join us.  If not, stay tuned for PeaceFruit.com where I’ll be finding a way to share some of the material with my distant friends.

In the meantime, join the discussion.  How do you relax?

Breathing easier,

melanie