Awakening

Many of us feel that we are constantly living at high speed, trying to balance the demands of work, family, relationships, health, mental well-being, and spiritual well-being. There doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to do what we know we should do. We feel like we're living out of control for increasingly larger portions of our lives. How can we take care of ourselves and make wise choices about balancing important commitments? How can we keep from exhausting ourselves so that we don't feel that our "gas tank" is always nearing empty or already empty?

The beginning of a balanced and healthy active life is to be deeply centered about our most important commitments. There's a huge chasm between knowing intellectually what we should be doing and knowing in our center what we should be doing. Our intellect is wonderful, but it only takes us so far in life. There's a deeper way of knowing and a deeper knowledge that we find when we develop a meditation practice. We find our center where we're in touch with our deep wisdom and passion. When we live from our center, we find more clarity about our decisions and more strength to follow through on what will bring us what we truly seek.

When many of us think of the concept of "awakening," we think primarily of a spiritual awakening. This book includes that idea but expands on it. This book expands the concept of awakening to make it holistic, personal, and more powerful. Awakening applies to every aspect of our lives. We learn to integrate our active life with the rest of our life. We learn to live and perform in ways that are free and constantly developing.

Awakening is intensely personal. Because you are unique, no one can legitimately tell you how your awakened life should look. This book gives you the tools to awaken yourself in ways that make sense to you. This book is about being active, healthy, and having a wonderful life in addition.

Research continues to support what many of us already know intuitively, that there are strong links between staying active and being mentally and physically healthy. Staying active is both a physical and mental discipline. We can use our active lifestyle as a way of maintaining physical and mental fitness.

This book of meditations has a different theme for each chapter and individual meditations on different aspects of being an active person. Each meditation has some thoughts for your reflection and has a unique affirmation at the end, which you use for your daily meditation. You mindfully read the reflection and then meditate on the affirmation. This book includes chapters on motivation, confidence, being healthy, being centered, being on a vision quest, having an active life and community, being joyful, having a plan, being a free spirit, being mentally tough, being in the zone, and dealing with barriers to improvement.

Meditation is a powerful practice in conjunction with working out because we learn to perform "in the zone" more often. When we perform in the zone, we perform at optimal levels and we enjoy ourselves more. This book assumes that you have no experience with meditation. Meditation may not be what you think it is. This form of meditation doesn't require you to sit for long periods in silence. You actively use your imagination. In as little as 15 minutes per day, you can make significant progress towards having the active lifestyle that you want.