Tag: strategy

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My once-a-year opportunity

As a former professional musician/freelancer, I’m continuously struggling to overcome a lifetime of erratic hours and late night habits in order to establish more of an early-to-bed, early-to-rise routine.

So, when the time comes to fall back and regain the hour we lost in the spring, my latest strategy is to pretend nothing changed. But in the back of my mind I’m counting on the fact that I can set my alarm a little earlier without it feeling so early.

By the same token, when the clock says 10:30 p.m., my body feels like it’s 11:30, which –hopefully — makes it easier for me to get to bed on time.

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Getting ready — again!

Free Fantasy Dandelion photo and picture

I just discovered a blog post from December 2021 in which I outlined my strategy for gathering stories about Swamiji and finally getting them written down. I made a chronological list and was excited to start looking for photos.

But then life took over, as usual.

No matter! I’m ready to try again, keeping in mind Swamiji’s quote: “I haven’t succeeded YET.”

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Accepting and embracing it all

This was the message I received on my Momentum Dash the other day. Not surprisingly, it made me think about, not just the current challenges I’m facing, but how best to approach living in general and life itself.

I believe it’s basic human nature to want to deny and reject experiences that we find painful, difficult, or uncomfortable; I’ve done it myself time and time again throughout my lifetime. But it’s contractive, which is not a good strategy for actually rising above those experiences.

In order to accept and wholeheartedly embrace what in front of us — no matter how painful or difficult or uncomfortable — we have to raise our energy, draw on inner strength, listen to intuition, and be open and receptive to all kinds of help.

And that’s expansive, which is our best, most excellent strategy for creating a life experience filled with love, joy, peace, and abundance.

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Gathering my stories of Swamiji

Swamiji listening while Dharmini Iyer and I performed with Jeannie Tschantz (not pictured) during Spiritual Renewal Week (probably 2008 or so).

The stories that came up during last night’s satsang with Jyotish and Devi rekindled my determination to capture in writing my various experiences and time spent with Swami Kriyananda over the years.

I’ve been saying I’m going to do it ever since he passed away in 2013, but it’s starting to grow in urgency.

So, in order to simply get started and move some energy, I’ve decided to devote some of my daily blog posts to this process.

The idea is to begin by outlining things chronologically, then gradually flesh out the different categories as I go along. We’ll see if this strategy enables me to finally make some progress.

Well, here goes nothin’! 😄
1. My first experiences of Ananda and the music
2. Becoming part of Ananda Palo Alto
3. My first “meetings” with Swamiji
4. Oratorio choir tour to Italy
5. Moving to Italy and then Switzerland
6. The one year leave-of-absence that’s lasted fifteen years
7. Ananda Village (1)
8. Los Angeles
9. Ananda Village (2)