1-Minute Retreats – One Minute Retreats

Category Archives: 1-Minute Retreats

The Morning Shower Meditation

July 3, 2009 – 12:11 pm

relaxing-shower1 For every new day, nutritionists and exercise gurus can suggest several things for your health: eating a hearty, balanced breakfast and doing stretches, cardio exercises and strengthening routines. But what about your soul?

Early morning must be a treat not only to the person’s ‘corpus’ but also to his ‘anima’ (call it inner self or soul). The Chinese usually go to the park or in their gardens to do tai-chi, which relaxes both body and mind. But you can do something simpler than that right inside your own home.

While it’s fine to meditate during your leisure time, it’s even better to start your day meditating. Having a fresh mind for another day of work and keeping yourself attuned to life’s essentials will keep the negativity at bay. Thus, you are better able to handle stress after several hours at work or school.

You may meditate right before, during, or after you take your shower. Nature and mankind are generally still, restful and peaceful at daybreak. Your mind is freshest at this moment, like a new canvas or a blank piece of paper waiting for the day’s masterpiece.

Before your daily grind begins, think clearly about the things that matter and immunize your thoughts and feelings from the excesses of your desires. Take a warm shower. Let the soothing heat and calming flow of water ease your mind. Let your worries come later; for a couple of minutes, free yourself from them.

Hindus call the hour before sunrise ‘Brahma muhurta’ (hour of ‘god’). Even devout Muslims, Christians and followers of other religions find morning prayers indispensable to their faith. Whatever your beliefs, the important thing is that you give yourself enough time to think positively about life before you step into life’s realities.

Morning shower meditation may sound odd if you consider what meditation usually requires: peace, concentration and calming environment to help you go smoothly through the process. How could you ever meditate when you are ‘disturbed’ by the water?

The proponents of this type of meditation believe that all of the worries, tensions, problems and any sort of bad thoughts retained in the mind can be washed away figuratively and even mystically by the flowing water. Such a notion somehow creates a great relevance of the natural healing and calming effects of water. Indeed, water’s characteristic as a ‘universal solvent’ extends beyond the laws of physics.

A Note From Doctor Cynthia

Hope you have been enjoying these one minute retreats.

If you feeling stressed out, overwhelmed and out of steam running through life at breakneck speed, unable to even take a breath? Consider my upcoming three day retreat to rediscover, rejuvenate, recharge Your Life

This retreat is the perfect opportunity to remove yourself from the stresses of life, to renew energy and gain clarity about the things you really want.
During the course of this one day retreat, you will learn how to:

Relax

Put yourself first

Do what matters most to you

Make self-care your top priority

By Doctor Cynthia | Tagged bath rituals, meditation, one-minute retreat, relaxation, stress busting | Comments (1)

Find Wonder in Little Things

June 26, 2009 – 5:24 pm

wonder-in-small-things1 ‘Everything is extraordinarily clear. I see the whole landscape before me, I see my hands, my feet, my toes, and I smell the rich river mud. I feel a sense of tremendous strangeness and wonder at being alive.’ – Gautama Buddha

If ordinarily mortals like us saw life the way the Enlightened One did, there’d be no cause for suffering — for the negativity that consumes most of our passions. Perhaps heaven is not a place after all but a way of seeing things.

No matter how abundant their lives seem, some people tend to crave more or better things. Like a painting collector who’s always looking for the next Picasso or Rembrandt on auction, like a tycoon who can’t have enough business acquisitions.

It’s not unusual for humans to desire things, but becoming a slave to one’s desire is another thing. For some people satisfying a desire means replacing it with a higher one. They keep raising the ante and ultimately get frustrated.

It pays to keep things simple. We tend to dislike life because of unrealized goals, but we forget to be grateful for the little things that bring us happiness. The little conversations we have with our kids, the way your dog looks at you and wiggles its tail, or how your cat purrs and rubs against your legs. These little things can be uplifting.

You may be surrounded by beauty, but just keep looking past it. So the next time, look at the moonlight on your window pane, the gauzy curtain blown in by the breeze from an open window, the sun shining on a neighborhood covered by last night’s snow, someone gracefully walking, taking her time in a busy throng.

Sit back and enjoy the little things around you. You can appreciate your loved ones better that way. The way your life partner touches your shoulder after he or she gives you a mug of coffee should be the source of a little pleasure. The way he or she smiles when you say your goodbye, heading for work. Little things like these should all add up at the end of the day, so you’ll have something to feel grateful about and so you’ll welcome the next day more enthusiastically.

At one point in your busy day, you should spend one minute to think about the pleasant, little things that have happened. Life often gives its gift of pleasure to us in little installments. All you have to do is count them, think how they’ll positively affect your life in the long run, and they will.

A Note From Doctor Cynthia

Hope you have been enjoying these one minute retreats.

This retreat is the perfect opportunity to remove yourself from the stresses of life, to renew energy and gain clarity about the things you really want.

During the course of this one day retreat, you will learn how to:

Relax

Put yourself first

Do what matters most to you

Make self-care your top priority

By Doctor Cynthia | Tagged 1-Minute Retreats, meditation, relaxation, stress busting, take time out | Comments (0)

Steal Away from the City

June 23, 2009 – 3:10 am

city-escape Nature offers a perfect setting for recreation and more. Instead of just unwinding and detoxifying your mind from your numbing routine, you can also get to know yourself better. This is what meditation is all about.

You don’t have to subscribe to any particular belief system to be able to meditate. You don’t have to memorize prayers or repeatedly utter ‘the spoken essence of the universe’ (the Hindu and Buddhist ‘om’). It’s a simple means of self-rediscovery without the complicated philosophies, theologies and myths.

Just sit comfortably and think about what you did wrong and what you did right. Think about how to make things better, about what makes you deeply happy. The last part may seem tricky, as we tend to accumulate layers of wants that we often mistake for goals that lead to happiness.

Perhaps it’s best to think back well into your past. What things made you happy as a child? If you can remember them, you might find your prized acquisitions and honorifics dispensable.

Think of your beginnings. And what better way to ‘live the metaphor’ than to meditate among nature’s offerings during the season of beginnings – spring.

Meditating on a cool spring day perhaps sounds like something you haven’t done before. Do it this time.

Gaze at budding flowers and the leaves of grass turning green; at the drops of dew on the tree leaves; at the birds coming home to fill the air with their lively twittering; at the puddles of water after a short fine rain; and take in the fresh smell of everything coming back to life.

Steal away from the city. Ignore the malls. Find a safe place in the woods, a spot on a secluded beach, a scenic perch up a mountain, a good hideaway near a babbling brook or a singing waterfall, or anywhere that doesn’t remind you of work.

Each day in spring should be lived with what the season represents – hope. Hope for happiness. Hope that the best is yet to come. Hope for nature.

So skip the busy life as often as you can and be a naturalist. Don’t just read about Henry David Thoreau’s life at Walden Pond. Live bits and slices of it, too. Bring a camera or a sketch pad or just commit to memory the beauty you see.

Spring is only the beginning, really. You can enjoy nature well into summer, which may turn the jungle of concrete, steel and glass too hot for comfort. And would you want to miss the harvest and the colorful ‘adieu’ of tree leaves in autumn?

The thing is: you need to commune with nature every chance you get, because nature detoxifies. Nature brings us closer to our true selves.

A Note From Doctor Cynthia

Hope you have been enjoying these one minute retreats.

Relax

Put yourself first

Do what matters most to you

Make self-care your top priority

By Doctor Cynthia | Tagged 1-Minute Retreats, meditation, relaxation, retreat | Comments (0)

Restorative Bath Rituals

May 29, 2009 – 11:10 am

bath-ritual Long time ago, the water is considered a perfect source of life-giving energy. Travelers kneel down before the creek or any stream they would come across and help themselves with the cool and healing wonders of the water. And many young people bathe on the flowing water because of the thought that it has a great connection to the Divine.

Such belief observed by many cultures from different parts of the world continues to live on. That is why, most of the ‘health-and-beauty’ establishments like salons, and spas are promoting the same theme to all types of weary people. Add to that, the majority of us are deeply engaged with these bathing rituals to give ourselves the best time to exude the beauties we are hiding within.

That’s actually what we know: that bathing rituals are only good for bringing out the beauty of each person, but there is more than that. And that is to feel back the weary spirit and energy once lost in the course of acting on each of our responsibilities.

So what are these bathing rituals that are believes to restore lost energies and vigor?

Unlike your customary way of bathing under the shower or soaking yourself in bubble bath, you can make it healthier and more relaxing if you infuse the soothing wonders of the aromatic oils, and the detoxifying effects of salt.

These oils, which are usually extracted from different plants, are proven best cures for ailments. Once inhaled, these stimulate the olfactory nerves that reset the emotions such as anger and anxiety. And apart from that, these are also great pain relievers when absorbed by the body.

The use of the flower petals too has the great effects when added to your bath. Cleopatra, the famous Egyptian queen, had her bathing made more rejuvenating with the help of the rose petals. This is due to the aphrodisiac qualities of the fragrance brought about by this universally known flower. But aside from arousing your sexual energy, the rose scent is also known for uplifting your spirit, and also giving you firmer, younger-looking skin.

Aside from rose, there are even more therapeutic aromas that you could incorporate in your baths. These are lavender, hibiscus, cadres, citrus, tangerine, orange, mint and pines. Each of these has a distinct effect in cleansing, purifying, warming, and invigorating your body.

Peppermint and spearmint, on the other hand, have cooling and revitalizing benefits that make it the popular choice among some Olympic athletes before they engage in their different events.

The aromas given out by these different herbs and flowers play an essential part in making your bath a restorative ritual. This is because our sense of smell is powerful enough in treating the ill thoughts that our mind harbors.

But you can also associate the colors, such as the ‘Japanese five elements,’ which deal on the choice of colors of the auspicious flowers. These colors are white for air, blue or violet for water, red for fire, yellow for earth, and deep reds for the energy of the woods.

Whatever your bathing ritual includes, what matters is that you should feel it’s the best way to indulge your senses and that you believe it works wonders.

A Note From Doctor Cynthia

Hope you have been enjoying these one minute retreats. Please consider taking a 15-30 minute self-guided Gratitude Retreat. The Retreat to Go Moments of Gratitude is filled with everything you’ll need to successfully complete your self-guided retreats. It includes:

- Gratitude Journal. Consisting of lined, dated pages where you list five things you are grateful for each day plus a collection of
- Inspirational quotes to inspire you throughout the year along with “Powerful Intentional” gratitude practices
- Step-by-step user-friendly instructions. The kit includes everything you need to start planning an hour, half-day, or full day retreat, on your own Candle Pen http://www.freestyleretreats.com/retreat-to-go.html

By Doctor Cynthia | Tagged 1-Minute Retreats, bath rituals, essential oils, invigorating, relaxation, stress busting | Comments (1)

Creating a Garden Sanctuary

May 22, 2009 – 5:03 pm

garden-sanctuary Gardens are designed, cultivated and maintained to serve a higher purpose that just being eye candies. The Japanese garden, for instance, helps in Zen meditation; it relaxes the senses and takes the mind off concerns that cloud one’s consciousness. The Good Book shows Jesus unloading the burden in his heart in the garden of Gethsemane.

If you think your garden is just a place for you to grow ornamental plants and veggies, think bigger. It shouldn’t just give you the satisfaction of watching your plants in bloom or your lettuce and tomatoes looking ready for the salad bowl.

A garden is a perfect place for reflection and meditation, for relaxation and introspection, a place to nourish one’s peace of mind. Your garden, whether huge or not, is where you explore your self and see the world clearly from beyond your ego.

It is a sanctuary where you can achieve deeper self-understanding and fulfillment, an asylum where you are invulnerable, albeit for a fleeting moment, from the hassles of life. This is where you can find the meaning of your existence.

So how do you create a garden sanctuary?

Make a special entrance that will create a sense of a peaceful environment. What’s inside is essential, but a façade can also be beneficial.

Then think of the colors of the items included, as these will exude different emotions and appeal.

You may integrate water to give you its unique psychological, physical and spiritual effects. Consider putting a pond, a birdbath, a simple fountain, running water or combinations of these.

And you can also add up other elemental representations, such as rocks, wind chimes, as well as lights, to bring out the closest-to-nature garden setting of yours.

Think of your garden as your escape from the rigors of rat race. It should encapsulate nature’s beauty in an orderly landscape, as in a Japanese garden, which uses carefully-raked pebbles to represent the sea, dotted with rocks, a picture of fortitude and calm; highlights the water element with its koi pond and water chimes; and uses bamboo and flowering shrubs, representing the beauty that comes from the earth.

Let your garden be your breathing room where you draw strength and keep your thoughts in good balance. It’s your slice of bliss in a harried world. It’s where you shed your masks and simply be.

A Note From Doctor Cynthia

By Doctor Cynthia | Tagged 1-Minute Retreats, Japanese garden, solitude, Zen meditation | Comments (0)

Take a Stroll

May 15, 2009 – 8:30 am

Take a Stroll

Boredom is a state of mind that sets in when you’ve forgotten simple pleasures or when you allow a sense of emptiness to dwell in your heart. It’s not something you can just ignore, considering how it can affect a person’s work, relationships and perception of life in general.

It seems ironic but you can learn a simple ‘cure’ to it by observing a child, who looks at ordinary things in amazement, laughs at funny gestures and enjoys ordinary treats. Perhaps it’s time to rediscover the child in you.

We often disregard the little things that can paint smiles on our faces and leave remarkable impressions in our lives: the flowers in bloom along your way, the hot, good-smelling cup of coffee on your table, the affectionate smiles of loved ones. These are life’s simple treats, but they add up to a bigger, happier picture.

The earth is blessed with riches. You don’t need to locate the remotest goldmines or buy a mansion on a hill amid a breathtaking landscape to know how to appreciate your stay. Simply take a stroll and be mindful of the beautiful things you see around you. And when you do, in a minute or two, you’ll feel you’ve come back to life.

There are plenty of wonderful things beyond your walls. Take a stroll through those long lanes flanked by colorful flowerbeds. At the park you can observe children playing, families enjoying their time together, young and old couples taking time with each other.

Observe the grass, the sky, sunlight on the pavement, sunlight on someone’s lovely face, the breeze blowing strands of hair away from a girl’s forehead, someone whistling a tune, the flight of pigeons, leaves of trees filtering the sun’s rays, the smell of bread from a bakery, glass windows and waterways glistening in the noonday sun.

Let your feet take you to scenic locations in your area or just in ordinary places. But this time, observe everything in childlike wonder. With your senses you’ll fill the emptiness in you. You’ll feel a lot better, readier for life.

A Note From Doctor Cynthia

- Gratitude Journal. Consisting of lined, dated pages where you list five things you are grateful for each day plus a collection of
- Inspirational quotes to inspire you throughout the year along with “Powerful Intentional” gratitude practices
- Step-by-step user-friendly instructions. The kit includes everything you need to start planning an hour, half-day, or full day retreat, on your own Candle Pen http://www.freestyleretreats.com/retreat-to-go.html

By Doctor Cynthia | Tagged 1-Minute Retreats, boredom, one-minute retreat, serenity, stress busting, walk in the park | Comments (0)

Find Serenity in Nature

May 7, 2009 – 3:00 pm

Finding Serenity

City Life can be tormenting in so many ways. It could be the loud music from your the next-door neighbor or the general din of the busy streets. It could be the motorists that cut you in traffic or people who shove you in the subway station at rush hour.

The blurry pace of urban life and work-related anxiety can strain relationships, affecting your marriage, family life, circle of friends. Stress seems magnified in your jungle of glass, steel and concrete, and there’s hardly any time for letting your soul breathe.

We want to live our lives differently, reside in the suburbs perhaps, with white picket fences, oak trees and all, but we seem too engaged in the trappings of city life and, there are financial realities to consider. But as Pandora’s opened box introduced the worse things in life, what remained inside it is the ‘unique and undying hope.’

We all hope for serenity but it’s not something we get over the counter or at a hotel lobby or on the rooftop of a skyscraper. Yoga and other meditation techniques can only do so much, and not a lot of people want to find serenity with eyes closed and limbs stretched, mumbling a mantra.

Nature remains the best source of serenity. The sight, smell and sound of the natural environment can revitalize both body and soul and make you see things clearly. That was perhaps why Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane or why Thoreau sought wisdom in Walden Pond.

You can plan a trip outdoors. It doesn’t have to be far. The calming sight of Tahiti’s turquoise water and white-sand beaches won’t be as serene as you want it to be if you find yourself hobnobbing with other tourists. You can go to the nearest place in your state or province that has a magnificent natural view.

Nature offers a lot of breathtaking sights: a waterfall deep in the forest, a quiet creek, a misty mountain, rock formations in the desert, waves on a rocky shore, a veil of fine rain falling on grassland, autumn leaves in a lonely grove, a snowcapped peak, a frozen lake, an eagle flying in a clear sky.

It can even be nearer. All cities have parks – pockets of nature in an unnatural jungle – and some of them are not filled with too many people. They can be worth discovering. A bench in a quiet spot deep in the park can be a good place to hear the birds or see some squirrels or just feel the sunlight and the breeze on your face. Your one minute matters if you make it a daily habit.

By Doctor Cynthia | Tagged one-minute retreat, relaxation, serenity, stress busting | Comments (0)

A Quiet Mind in a Busy World

April 30, 2009 – 6:39 am

quiet-mind Our mind can hold a lot of different thoughts in a day. In fact, these ‘noisy thoughts’ are what keep us busy day in and day out. We are driven by our thoughts and often they seem too big, too heavy for comfort.

Whatever we have today, pleasant or not, is the end result of previous actions triggered by the thoughts we entertain in our mind. Often, our thoughts even color certain circumstances. A bad fix gets even worse if we think quite negatively about it. So when we think of our lives being messy, if we focus on that, it’ll probably get messier.

It’s all in the mind, they say. But it’s not just a test of your outlook on life: of the bottle being half empty or half full. Whether you like it or not, your thoughts, including your insecurities and fears, attract more of the same, until they rule your life.

And let’s face it: we can’t keep happy thoughts for long. It’s a rare gift to be able keep thinking pleasant thoughts for long in this harried world, with mass media bombarding us with unpleasant images and texts. Indeed, if we were gifted enough to exclusively think happy thoughts despite the negativity, we’d all be flying to Never Land, wouldn’t we?

Thus, in this day and age, quietude has become a personal treasure we should nurture. Quiet thoughts – neither happy nor sad – in this noisy world may seem like a ripple-less area in the middle of a choppy sea, but they’re not impossible to achieve.

Let’s do this: lie comfortably in a quiet place for one minute. Let’s not think about work or family; about what we have or have not; about what should have, could have and would have; not even about the best days of our lives because they’ll just make us feel sad that they’re difficult to have again.

If nature provides the best cures for physical ailments, it works even better at clearing up our cluttered thoughts. Think of a rainbow trout in a clear stream, a golden field of barley combed by the breeze, a butterfly on a dewy bloom, the Sun mellowed by light clouds, white sand and turquoise shallows in the tropics.

Let your mind find a good retreat from the busy world. Nature offers countless quiet images to unburden the mind. They’re beautiful, unobtrusive, and demand nothing from us, except that we let them be.

The closest thing to any thought about nature that works just as well, is perhaps the image of a calm face in a busy crowd. Let that be your face, even just for a minute.

By Doctor Cynthia | Tagged meditation, one-minute retreat, quiet mind, stress busting, take time out | Comments (1)

Stop And Smell The Roses

April 13, 2009 – 8:28 am

Smell The Roses For 1 Minute

The demands of life are getting more complicated. We talk of advancement in the way things are done, but what it really means is that the pace of everything keeps getting faster. We do things quickly so we can do more things.

It’s not really society that progresses but technology. We are now more concerned about getting things done for our jobs or careers and there are high-tech tools to do the task well. We think little of what nurtures humanity, of the simple pleasures life used to afford us.

We rush daily, from the simple household chores to our tasks in the workplace. It’s good to make use of time for productivity’s sake, but when it means your personal failure in the end, that’s another story.

Everything goes by in a blur if you rush and that’s tragic if you consider life, as philosophers do, as a journey from cradle to grave. You need to relax and let your mind see things clearly.

We all love to know the purpose of our existence, but you don’t have to read tomes or follow mystics and gurus to think about yours. Simply identify important things or parts of your life that you can’t live without. And you can only do that if you slow down a little.

What color are your neighbor’s eyes for instance. You might have noticed they’re blue, but how blue? Or do you still see amazing shapes of clouds in the sky the way you used to when you were a kid? Is the cottony elephant still up there?

Important things are relevant, but not all relevant things can be a reason for happiness. Knowing the essence of our existence doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, it will take time before we could realize that our happiness is found among simple things around us.

So take a minute off to stop and smell the roses. Life is essentially not about your paperwork; it’s about nature. Take time to smell the fragrance of nature and capture its magnificent beauty without worrying about the next step. Sneak into a garden and stay awhile. Or just feel the warmth of the sun on your face.

To live a happy life, you have to zoom in and see, nay, feel the smaller, clearer picture. The grass that grows out of a crack on the pavement, the breeze that rustles the leaves of trees, the bird that blunders into your living room – they stand for all the simple things that make life more breathable.

By Doctor Cynthia | Tagged smell the roses, take time out | Comments (0)

Category Archives: 1-Minute Retreats

The Morning Shower Meditation

Find Wonder in Little Things

Steal Away from the City

Restorative Bath Rituals

Creating a Garden Sanctuary

Take a Stroll

Find Serenity in Nature

A Quiet Mind in a Busy World

Stop And Smell The Roses

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