Beautiful evening star

I don’t have real photographic capabilities, but I still can’t resist trying to capture beautiful moments like this.

Venus, the brightest planet in our solar system, shines more brilliantly than any of the actual stars in the sky.

Isn’t she beautiful?

Wisdom from Rumi

It’s up to us to shine our light.

And that means every single one of us, no exceptions!

The world needs as many warriors of light as it can get right now.

Congrats to me!

I started 2020 determined to shift some longtime behaviors (as described in my blog post: Off to a great start). But I know better than to attempt a dramatic, sweeping transformation; instead I was aiming for incremental, gradual but consistent change in three key areas of my life.

Well, two out of the three were incremental and gradual; the other not so much. If my goal had been to “earn” one star each for successfully getting up early, meditating, and rebounding every day, I’m pretty sure I would have failed. I would have gotten frustrated when I only had two stars, or — heaven forbid — only one!

Instead I decided that — so long as I was making a good effort in the right direction every day — I earned my star!

So, what was the bottom line? The incremental, gradual changes went pretty darn well. I started with just a few minutes at a time several times a day on the rebounder and it felt great. I never missed a day and I can feel definite changes in my energy, stamina, and strength as a result.

Getting up dramatically earlier allowed me to gradually rebuild a consistent meditation practice, which feels incredible!

But as it turns out, “forcing” myself to get up early no matter what time I went to bed wasn’t sustainable — I was feeling rundown, getting cranky, and it was affecting my ability to function. However–! It did allow me to get off to a good start with my new year routines; in fact, over the course of the month I found myself spontaneously adding in other little healthy habits and improvements. And even though I had to back off the super early waking up, I’m still getting up way earlier than before.

So that’s why I’m saying “Well done, Bhagavati!” and “Congrats to me!”