relaxation – One Minute Retreats

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Take 1 Minute Meditations for Life

August 10, 2009 – 7:28 am

daydreaming-woman When you’re a top executive in a Fortune 500 company, the last thing you have on your mind during working hours is a retreat. It’s even likely that you haven’t the faintest idea what a retreat might look like, since all you know is consistent hard work. Finding time to look out the window for a minute to break away from the daily barrage of meetings and phone or conference calls might be like a retreat to you.

The good news is that you don’t have to take three days out of your busy schedule to get some “me time” and, you don’t even need to think of going to the gym or cafeteria if you just want a peaceful 5 minutes away from the daily routine and clutter.

Just by closing your eyes and sitting down in your office, you can meditate for one minute to regain calm, peace of mind, and self-control. During this minute, try being like a child … swivel that chair! You’ll be amazed that what you intended just to be one minute will become five and your mind will ready to take on the next task of the day, stress free.

If you’re not sure what to mediate on, you could simply think about some of the happy times you’ve had, remember the things you’ve enjoyed doing the most – especially hobbies. If you’re a parent, one of the best ways to clear the clutter from your mind is to think about the joy your children give you. In fact, why not keep a photograph of your child on your desk (especially as a toddler) and just reminisce about some of the things the child has done to make you laugh, the funny things they’ve said, or the times they’ve said something so sweet it brought tears to your eyes.

Remember a retreat isn’t just all about clearing the mind of clutter. It’s also about filling the mind with those things that bring joy to your heart.

A minute of meditation can be done any time you want and although today it’s in your office, tomorrow it could be when you arrive home — the house is empty and you just sit on the sofa and close your eyes for a few minutes.

It may seem as thought it’s just a few minutes of stress release, but the benefits outlast the focused time and brings with it many health benefits. Take note the next time you stop to meditate, how much more productive you become afterwards and just how much more relaxed you feel. It will encourage you to take more time out during the day for that one minute of meditation.

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 | Posted in 1-Minute Retreats | Also tagged 1-minute meditation, one-minute retreat, take time out | Comments (0)

Try Your Hand at Creativity

July 10, 2009 – 10:48 am

Creative Hands

‘Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled, to concentrate, to accept conflict and tension, to be born every day, to feel a sense of self,’ says the social psychologist Erich Fromm.

‘To be born every day’ means to be constantly amazed by the things life has to offer, to not tire of watching the sunset, the moon peeking from the fleeting clouds, the crowd of stars on a clear cool night, the sunlight on the breakfast table.

Even the unpleasant twists and turns, the bad news and disappointments can become stimuli for better things, the way art also portrays the dark areas of the human psyche. Indeed, creativity’s best tool is its transformative quality.

True, life is uncertain. We can’t expect everything to run smoothly according to our wishes and aspirations. No matter how well we plan our course, sometimes things don’t turn out the way we want them. Problems do arise, and we can’t stop them from coming. But creativity – the mother of resilience – helps us get by. It’s what allows us to turn lemons into, well, a lemon meringue pie.

We don’t need to search for creativity. It’s not something we can only learn after a trip to Tibet or an apprenticeship with an acclaimed author. Human beings are born with creative qualities which just need to be nurtured.

So how do you develop your creativity? Meditation, first of all, can help you discover your creative potential. You don’t need to sign up at any center that might give you a whole new vocabulary of philosophical and mystical ideas. The purpose of meditation is to keep things simple so you’ll see what’s important, to see through the blur and marvel at the fine picture hidden by your worries and excesses.

As the actor Alan Alda puts it, ‘The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.’ Fromm calls it discovering a “sense of self.”

You can find several venues for your creativity. You can try writing, painting, drawing, sculpting, graphic design, and the like. It doesn’t have to be art-related. You can also use your creativity in improving your finances through entrepreneurial pursuits or technological creations. It may not even be that ambitious. Homemaking, gardening, cooking, parenting or engaging in a hobby all require creativity, too.

ll you need are some time to relax and to put things in order, some privacy to think things over, and the optimism and patience to carry on. You have to know, too, that you can’t reach your potential in a snap. But you have to pursue your creativity. Being creative means finding your true worth.

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 | Posted in 1-Minute Retreats | Also tagged 1-Minute Retreats, get creative, meditation, stress busting | Comments (0)

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.

Relax

Put yourself first

Do what matters most to you

Make self-care your top priority

By Doctor Cynthia | Posted in 1-Minute Retreats | Also tagged bath rituals, meditation, one-minute retreat, 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 | Posted in 1-Minute Retreats | Also tagged 1-Minute Retreats, meditation, 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 | Posted in 1-Minute Retreats | Also tagged 1-Minute Retreats, meditation, 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 | Posted in 1-Minute Retreats | Also tagged 1-Minute Retreats, bath rituals, essential oils, invigorating, stress busting | Comments (1)

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 | Posted in 1-Minute Retreats | Also tagged one-minute retreat, serenity, stress busting | Comments (0)

Tag Archives: relaxation

Take 1 Minute Meditations for Life

Try Your Hand at Creativity

The Morning Shower Meditation

Find Wonder in Little Things

Steal Away from the City

Restorative Bath Rituals

Find Serenity in Nature

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