Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!

     What a great morning! Hot, freshly ground coffee. Freshly baked bread. A little Schlock Mercenary to accompany. And now my first post on the new computer.
       The week before last my computer gave up the ghost. Oh, it would turn on; it just wouldn't do much after that. I tried finishing up a solar eclipse post on the 22nd of August and it just laughed at me. I would do the writing on my iPad, then go to the computer to add the pictures when I could get it to work. Two hours later, no finish in sight. It was time.
     So today is Christmas, three months early. I hope the joy that is abounding in my house spills out to you. Have a great Thursday and I'll get back to regular posting once I get all of the computer stuff up and running. Tomorrow sound good to you? It's a date.

Enneagram Type 5- The Investigator

image from https://strangenotions.com/einstein-god/

    When I think of a Type 5, my mind goes immediately to an absent minded professor- someone who thinks and plans their way through life. A five is interested in knowing things and feels more secure when they know them deeply. They are the obvious 'head' person, living a full, productive, satisfying life completely in their minds.

Reiki in the Movies at Last! Magic Mike XXL

  What better way to start a weekend than with this great picture from Yesmovies.
     Now, I must admit, I've never seen Magic Mike XXL, but when I was clicking around the web this morning looking for something different about reiki, these gorgeous hunks popped up. The character, Ken, has level three reiki. Too cool!
     Here is an article from Cosmo and one from Bustle about the movie and reiki. No wonder more and more people know what I'm talking about when I say I'm a reiki master.

Enneagram Type 4: The Romantic

    When I think of a type 4, I think moody, artistic, creative, the need to be distinctive. This photo of Bob Dylan from the New York Times just captures the feeling of a Four. They create so much beauty just by being willing to embrace the darkness in life.
     Being friends with a Four can be a wild ride. As a Two, I always want to fix things and make you feel better. My friends who are Fours don't want to be fixed, in fact, they tend to create more chaos for themselves because in sadness and strife they have more energy and creativity.

Get Rid of the Pain in Your Neck: Beneficial aligning posture exercises

   

      As I've mentioned before, in 1989 I was in a significant auto accident. It left me with a cervical vertebra that doesn't move quite right. This means I need to take exquisite care of my neck and can still have problems.

     I've tried many different things over the years, but these are by far the best exercises I found. They  have made a great difference for me. They keep my neck supple and moveable, even though it still has bad days.

Beneficial aligning posture exercises 

*Do 1-3 sets, 10-15 reps, everyday when possible 

-shoulder rows backwards motion 

-shoulder squeeze (chest in an upwards motion)

-head side to side (keeping shoulders squared in place, I call this one ‘tick tock’)

-overhead single side stretch (hold each rep for 10 sec, do 3 sets)

-doorframe stretch (forearms on doorframe and lean into it till you feel the stretch, hold for 20-30 seconds)

-rag doll (hold for 30 sec, no bounce)

-standing/stretching backward bend (hold for 20-30 sec)

-chin tuck (neck backward)

-chin tuck with backward tilt-up

-turn head side to side/left to right, trying to stretch a little farther each time

-turn head to one side as far as it will comfortably go and then rock head up and down 10 times, then switch to the other side and do it 10 times, repeat if time allows.

I like to do these exercises when I listen to a podcast or a book on tape. The reward entices me back each day—I hope it does for you as well. Enjoy a pain free neck! 

Enneagram Type Three: The Achiever

   This comic by Clare Cherikoff says it all! Type Threes are the achievers. They are often good looking, have a presence that helps them stand out from the crowd, and measure their lives by how successful they are.
     I was fortunate to be part of a long standing book group run by a Three, and ably assisted by another Three. We always had the next book picked out early, everything was on time, and she could somehow attract more people when others moved on. When she got a new job and leadership of the group passed to a Seven, the group began to struggle. Nothing was wrong, but slowly people stopped coming. When the other Three withdrew,

Non- Dual Thinking: How to be of two minds and enjoy it

       What if I told you that one of the deepest, most abstruse concepts I ever learned, I first heard about from a fifth grader? I was working with a pair of Speech and Drama club members on how to improv.   It was their first foray into duo improv and it was not going well. After I heard one of them in the hall complaining abut the other, "doesn't he get yes, and?" Of course I had no idea what they were talking about. All I knew was that the two of them just couldn't get along, couldn't decide on an idea during their prep time.
     Since I was so new and not ready to relinquish any authority, I waited until after practice to ask the coach. She said the idea behind 'yes, and' is that anything your partner says, even if it is not what you agreed to in the prep, you say 'yes, and...' Once you start playing around with it, what a powerful notion it becomes. The sky is falling. Yes, and it is made of chicken soup. Yes, and I'm allergic to chicken. Yes, and I have a super vaccine. Yes, and I'm deathly afraid of shots.
      Everything becomes legal. Everything becomes within bounds. Too much fun for a way outside the box person like me! The further I get into energy medicine and meditation, the easier this becomes. One is not either right or wrong, but can be both and neither at the same time. In my spiritual learning it's called non-dual thinking.  Wikipedia defines nondualism as "a mature state of consciousness, in which the dichotomy of I-other is 'transcended,' and awareness is described as 'centerless' and 'without dichotomies.' Simply speaking, we're both right. In the past I've written about it here and here. This article from the Huffington Post has Richard Rohr's description.
     If you'd really like to get a feel for this, I love Melinda Butch-Kovacic's Tedx talk on Polarity thinking. She gives a great real life example of how to avoid the traps of dual or black and white thinking.