The Art of Zenning

My hubby sent me a video to watch and asked me for my comments on it. It was a video of Robert Sapolsky talking about his book, “Detemined: A science of life without free will.”

Free will or destiny; is a topic that we have both discussed from the point of view of science and spirituality on a regular basis so I was really intrigued by the book and a behavioural neuroscientist’s conclusion that there is in fact no free will.

It basically refuted three of the core beliefs of humans that we are free or morally responsible or even an active agent of our actions.

Sapolsky sums up his position as:
“You cannot decide all the sensory stimuli in your environment, your hormone levels this morning, whether something traumatic happened to you in the past, the socioeconomic status of your parents, your fetal environment, your genes, whether your ancestors were farmers or herders. … we are nothing more or less than the cumulative biological and environmental luck, over which we had no control, that has brought us to any moment.”

After a thorough analysis of all the scientific claims in the book, I told my hubby, it makes sense but free will is more complicated than that.
Do we have someone separate from our biology telling us what to do. A neuroscientist may have a hard time conceiving that but the answer lies in that part of us not just in our neurobiology. What is that part, my hubby asked. The awareness of our consciousness. The part of us that can see a situation without identifying with it. The more neutral you can be, more space there is to exercise free will.

We want to expand and grow. That is not free will. That is biology. We expand and grow based on our genes, environment and our previous experiences but that combination can have unlimited permutations and experiences. We may be forced to choose one but in choosing that is the free will. It is not absolute. It is quite restricted but it is there.

However what determines that I will be able to be in control of a situation rather than the situation controlling me. Practice when it is easy. Yoga calls it svadhyaya, study of the self. Know your own patterns. Who are you? What are your triggers and glimmers?

A tomato seed will give rise to a tomato tree in your garden and it will respond to water and soil and sunlight to help it grow, no free will in that or is there. The plant will continue to thrive or an animal will eat it or a storm may destroy it. Is there free will when you want to plant a tomato seed or not. What brought you to the decision of choosing to plant a tomato plant, is that free will or fate. Science can have conclusions, philosophy can’t.

One thing that book did for me. It told me we are all equals, no one is that praiseworthy or no one is to blame if we dig deeper. Yoga calls it let go of all labels, the good and the bad. Perhaps that is the only free will there is or is it a gift of fate. The ruminations continue!

“Take more selfies. Not because you need validation or likes or comments. but because you are here on this earth. Alive and holy and true. And yes, your beauty deserves to be seen and known, most especially by you. You are worthy of being the subject of your own art. It is okay to capture the process of your own becoming. To be your own kind and gentle and fierce witness. To learn the truth of your eyes and your skin and your bones. To choose to show what wants to be shown, to name what wishes to be named, to claim ownership of the story that is told about you by being the one to tell it.

Dear girl. YOU are the greatest art you will ever create. The masterpiece. The magnum opus. You’re it. However you want to be.

Look at yourself now, miracle that you are, look at yourself and soak in the wonder, until you no longer want to look away.”
Jeanette LeBlanc

I just watched the Wimbledon 2023 final and saw a twenty year old Carlos beat an all time best 36 year old Novak to create history. I imagined what would it be like to be Carlos and to be Novak and in a way having lived all these years, I know.

I know that an unimaginable win can be a fleeting moment of joy and an unimaginable loss can cause hurt until eternity unless you learn to exercise your power on both. Those are the moments that bring us to our present moment like nothing else.

In a way there is not much difference between winning and losing. They both require the same journey. There is a price to pay for success coming too fast and success leaving too fast. There is a price to pay to holding onto success and beating it every time.

We pay that price every day. It is the price of living, the price of the choices we have made, we will make.

We all strive for that success and fear that failure. All of it keeps us going and in the end just like Novak Djokovic said, “it is all even steven.” We just have to remind us of that whatever journey we are on.

What do you really want? I often dissect it and I realize that I do not even know and that it changes from moment to moment.

It is the journey that counts, beginning, middle and end and all the rest of it. Just hold onto the successes a little longer, let go of the failures a little faster and stay curious and excited for what comes next.

Often times we confuse spirituality with goodness, doing something good for the world.

My dad had a guru who had a big following. He visited our house a couple of times and there would be a huge line up to get his blessings. I always looked at him with suspicion. My dad called him enlightened.

My young mind wanted to prove he was no better than us. I happened to be in the car with him and dad one time; and we stopped to get a drink. His disciple brought him a drink with no ice. It was the middle of June and really hot and he got a bit upset and firmly asked him to return it and get one that was ice cold.

I immediately dropped my reverence for that Guru. I assumed if he was so enlightened why did it matter to him if the drink was cold or not and why did he have to let out his demand for an iced drink so firmly. I myself was pretty flexible that way.

It would take many years for me to realize that spirituality has nothing to do with doing good or even right, even though it is a side effect often times of being more aware. Good looks so different for everyone.

Spirituality means feeling good all the time. When you set your boundaries, when you say no, when you stand up for yourself, when you give in, when you accept, they all come from your centre. Nothing disturbs your peace. It is all about feeling good.

Doing good will happen automatically when it is meant to. Spirituality means fearlessness, it means self awareness, it means being able to see it all, the big picture, it means letting go of perceptions, being open to change, setting boundaries without guilt, saying no without fear, knowing what you want and what you don’t.

Spirituality is also knowing we are all different, yet similar. It is also realizing that there are many ways of looking at the same thing and they are all right.

I could be a person who is okay with sub optimal service, another may be very particular about it and I could change from one to the other. It is all good as long as you feel good doing what you do or accepting or rejecting what is done to you.

Life has taught me to be less judgemental when someone acts in a way different than what my definition of the right thing to do is.

After all we are all doing our best to maintain that inner peace and joy. Everything is a great learning.

It always helps to be less judgemental, then you are open to what the other person can teach you or give you. Often times when a person claims to be virtuous, we shoot him down by finding faults in him, by proving he is just another mortal human being. Aren’t we all; yet there is something extraordinary in all of us.

Just take a minute to breathe when the being doesn’t feel good. There will be many, many moments throughout the day when that happens and say my favourite yoga sutra, “Be friendly to the happy, be compassionate to the miserable, be joyous for the virtuous, be indifferent to the evil.” These four things are the key to solving every single problem in the world.

Yes, complex things have simple solutions. The only problem there really is that you do not feel good and the only solution is knowing that you can. You have the key and the key is to cultivate attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous and disregard toward the wicked, then the mind will be at peace and the inner being will know it’s bliss!

Pic: 🎇🌆didn’t know what pic to match with the write up so asked AI to take a pic of me at the gym, my feel good place and here it is!

🐠💐Did you know sadness lives right next to love.

😎😡Everything I mean, everything has it’s opposite attached to it. You chase joy, sorrow will follow. You chase power, you will realize how many ways there are to make you powerless, you chase success, you will have to taste failure many times.

💰🛖There can be no other way if you are chasing a part of. When you want to take your journey to one pole, the other pole will not give up it’s pull on you. There is a reason for it. Unless you have tasted failure, success is meaningless. The opposites add meaning to what you want and desire.

🧘🕊️Yoga says give up the longing for the good and the bad because you can’t have one without the other. Pleasure and pain follow each other but if you drop your attachment to both, you step into your power.

🌝🌏I know, I know; it is easier said than done but it is good to practice it routinely and you get better and better with each passing day, playing this game of life.

👩‍⚖️🧑‍⚖️This weekend I was having dinner with my dear friend. We were talking about a similar situation we both face and we both know what to do but we realized it is easier to preach than to practice.

🌍⭐️Why is it easier to preach than to practice because when we preach to someone, we are not attached to the outcome. There is a distance between us and the problem. The problem is being faced by another party. We are not directly involved.

🪷🥀We have to learn to do the same to things we face so it gets a little bit easier to practice. Next time, you get too carried away by a situation, think of it as something your friend is facing. What advise would you give to them? Then try and follow it.

🌈☂️❄️It will help you create that distance so you can see the big picture, so you can see it more clearly, so you can respond rather than react.

🌤️🌦️☔️One simple deep breath can sometimes help you create that distance. Do a little bit of self inquiry to make you realize you have to be your best friend in that moment by following the advise of your best friend.

🏖️🌼”I may be alone, but I am never lonely. I am always with my best friend, and that is me.”
Debasish Mridha

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Don’t be limited by your fears. Be inspired by your potential. You got this! 💪🏼

❤️🌺”One of the most expensive thing you can do is to pay attention to the wrong people”. Let me take it a bit further, one of the most expensive thing you can do is to lease/rent/sell the real estate of your mind to a perspective that does not serve you.

🌼🌹Why because your attention has great power. It shapes what you experience.

🐠✈️Different people can have the same experience and one can characterize it as exciting and the other as boring, one can see the opportunity and the other can see adversity.

⌚️⏱️I recently went to a Rolex store. I did not realize Rolex was totally sold out in the entire world. There is a few year waiting to get a Rolex. Infact every asset class gets sold out close to a recession.

🌼💐Downturns generally don’t last as long as expansions but they can be very costly to most investors and very lucrative to some.

🍄🦄Every investor knows that they cannot time a recession in time to take their assets to safe harbours but they can do something to minimize it and that is to have a diversified portfolio at all times. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket and make sure you have multiple baskets and they are as sturdy as possible.

😎🙈🙉🙊Same goes for your inner being. You have to pay attention to your attention. Invest it wisely. Refocus when necessary. Prioritize things that energize you, minimize things that drain you.

🌊🏖️🏝️Practice self care, relax, rejuvenate. Let doing be a side effect of your non doing. Work smarter, not harder. Be, breathe and let the universe do its magic and know that this too shall pass!

© Sandy Lamba

😊🌺I have heard it often that if you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them.

🧘‍♂️🤔 What if I told you, your limitations are your gifts and if they don’t appear like that; maybe you are looking at them from a different angle.

🕊️🍄What if you shifted a little bit and found a different point of view. It is all about your point of view; to align your life with your point of view or align your point of view with life. Which one is easier?

💕😊Life has its flow. You join it or fight it. I had a very profound realization when I did my yoga teacher’s training.

🌏🪐I always wondered how 5000 years ago, the yogis found out so much about the human body. Clearly they were not dissecting the human bodies to see what was inside.

🌈🌎Having gone through dental school and having dissected a human body, I know it is hard to learn enough from a dissection. It can be a good start to get to know this amazing mystery but not the way to know the actual functioning.

🧘🧘‍♀️That was my first question in my anatomy class for yoga teacher training. I realized there is a fundamental difference in how science studies the human body and how a yogi does.

🕊️🧘‍♂️A yogi learns about something by being one with it. Science learns about something by sometimes destroying it.

😇👩‍⚖️I am not saying one way is superior than another. All I am saying is often we need both.

⛑️👜Most scientific discoveries are actually a result of that union.

✈️💨Your limitations are not a problem to solve, they are a mystery to realize. For a moment let go of your belief about them and look at them with curiosity.

🐣🐥What use does your impatience serve in your life, you may ask. Maybe it enables you to get things done.

💢😡What use does anger serve. Maybe it makes you realize what you want or it pushes you to set boundaries.

🧆🍛What use does your overeating serve. Maybe it helps you to ease your emotional pain.

🕹️😍Everything is useful in some way. Maybe for a moment shift your focus from limitation to a gift by asking yourself a simple question.

🌺🍄It won’t change the situation but it would definitely give you some options to explore.

🐠🦈Yes I am giving you an easier option. Be at peace with your limitations, no fighting for them or against them. Know them, observe them, be curious about them and then notice where they lead you or you lead them.

💐🌹🌼It is that simple. What you resist persists, what you accept dissolves or becomes something better.

© Sandy Lamba

🍄🌺Do not see in anyone the barrier to your expression.

🎀Over the years, I felt that I learnt to tone down me; dim my light, not say what I really feel and one day I realized I was empty.

🧘‍♂️📿That is when I realized I had to take that journey within trying to find me. I remember one year trying to decide what I really wanted in life and I did not know. I did not know what it would take to make me happy. Then, how was I to go find it. I had to go and seek clarity on this.

🕊️😌The journey of finding happiness took me inwards. Yes I wanted my kids to be happy, I wanted to be so financially abundant that I could find time to do all the things I loved. I wanted me to have a happy marriage, have a great bond with my extended family. I wanted the cars and the houses I desired. I was there, now what.

🎊🛍️Nothing filled that emptiness. Every time you get what you want, a new desire sets in and the new desire for me was seeking purpose in my life. What is the purpose of this life?

🏂🧘‍♂️That seeking took me to a sacred place, the place that is not made of things or people or events or experiences, it is made of you, the real you, the authentic you, beyond your personality and your ego version of you.

🙈🤔What is ego? You may ask. Ego is all the things you think you are, your name, your identity, your beliefs, your possessions. Ego is your worldly definition and it wants to preserve it at all costs.
The purpose of life is to realize that you are not your ego.

🥇🏆🥇I am not talking about a grander, more infinite, magnificent version of you, I am talking about its nothingness, the smaller, the miniscule the insignificant version of you as well. After all, you are all of that and more.

💡⏰Over the years I have desired to be so many things. When I was little, I wanted to be Oprah Winfrey. I imagined myself hosting a talk show and changing the world through my conversations.

🎆🌇When I grew a bit older, reality set in, my goals became more in line with my present reality, to get a good education and a stable career and later on to change the world through housing.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦❤️Getting a bit older, my dreams became all about my kiddos living their dreams, my parents health, time with friends.

🏠🏎️🌁Getting this, needing more, losing this, substituting it with something more significant seems to be the theme of most lives and was of mine until one day I looked back.

🚣‍♀️🔐📈It was really funny, my life had a pattern that whatever I had believed in without doubt had come true, yet no thing, person or event can ever give you one thing that you truly seek which is to be content with the moment.

🎪🌋Most often than not, you are at one place wanting to be somewhere else. I started to notice that more. When I worked out, I was waiting for it to end so I could go on with more important things for the day. When I was eating, I was worrying about gaining weight. When I was working, I couldn’t wait for the day to end so I could be at home, when I was with my kiddos, I waited for the babysitter to show up, when I left the kiddos with the babysitter, I wanted to go home to them, wanting, wanting, wanting something other than what is.

🪬📿That was the root of my problem. It is for all of yours as well. You are waiting for that perfect moment to show up and it is here, right here. It has always been here, always will be. Just take notice of it.

♠️🕛Something changed with that witnessing. When I work out now, I enjoy the music. I notice my body moving. I notice my breath. The key to being me and finding me is in this moment. I am already what I was meant to be. Tomorrow may bring a different version but this one that is right here is all that I need.

🥰😊It is easier to be me when I stumble on this way. Then no one in front of me is a barrier to my expression and I am not a barrier to theirs.

❤️Losing the fight is winning the fight in life. Losing it to your ego, to your hypothetical, ever changing version of you.

Good morning and happy Monday everyone. “Remember that we bend so that we don’t break.” Yoga therapy and private one-on-one sessions now being offered at Ocean Bay Wellness.

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Weekend Unwind classes: Feb 3, 10, 17, & 24th, 2023 from 7-8pm
60 minutes of Active Meditation. Meditation with a side of healing!
Contact: [email protected]

Key to Happiness

❤️❤️🙏You know what is the rarest thing in the world, a friend you can call on when you have a good news to share, when you have achieved that long awaited dream and you are full of joy and you have someone who will joyously participate in it and celebrate it with you.

👯‍♀️🥰☀️It is easier to find someone to lean on in your moment of sorrow. You can tell a stranger about your tragedy and they may be empathetic and offer help but to have someone who genuinely congratulates you when you go up; that can be a rarity.

🌤️🌧️🌞Why is it that so many people cannot partake in another’s joy. Why is that when we hear someone has achieved what we dream of, we can’t genuinely be excited and happy for them.

🏡🎋🧘The reason is our belief in lack more than in abundance. We think happiness is limited or that success is finite so when we see someone achieving their dreams, instead of being happy for them, we start to get jealous as if they have taken something which belongs to us.

🧘‍♂️🧎‍♀️📿It was not until I studied yoga that I found out a way out of this.

📖📚My most favourite yoga sutra is:
Be friendly to the Happy
Be compassionate to the miserable
Be joyous for the virtuous
Be indifferent to the evil

🌁🎑🫵Once you start practising this, you will unlock the secret to happiness in life.

😎🦾🙏Yoga says when you see someone happy, be friendly to that happiness, participate in that joy. Then that happiness will rub onto you as well. The universe knows no lack. Don’t be jealous when others have something you want or are happy, by participating in their happiness you will bring it into your life as well. You will be surprised how the world will reward you with your own personal reasons to be happy in miraculous ways when you celebrate for others.

🌞😇When you see someone miserable, don’t become friendly with that miserly, be compassionate instead. Give them a helping hand and help them feel better. Don’t be friendly with that misery and drown in it; so the next time someone tells you how bad it is, listen and then gently point them to something that is more optimistic. Misery does not need a friend. It needs a helping hand.

🧚🏼‍♂️🧜🏼‍♀️When you see virtue, be joyful for it even if someone is bragging about their virtue, why not smile and genuinely bless them instead of pulling them down or finding faults in them. When you cannot find virtue, you are not looking deep enough. Take a closer look and you will find it in everyone and everything. Then, appreciate it and delight in it. If you can’t appreciate, be neutral at least.

👯‍♀️🙈🙉🙊Yoga says when you see evil, be indifferent. Don’t give it your energy. If you can do something to change it, by all means do it, speak up, take action but don’t let it occupy the real estate in your mind. By cultivating indifference to non virtue, you will stay calm and grounded.

🐣🦋🦄🦅 Yoga gives you these four keys friendship, compassion, joy and indifference. Use them and you will unlock all your problems and grow and transform and change your perception and your experience and the world around you will change. It definitely has been my key to joy .

🧘‍♂️😮‍💨Take a deep breath in and remind yourself to cultivate these attitudes.

❤️🙏🧘‍♂️The next time you feel jealous when you see that social media post, just ask your self why can’t I be happy for this person’s joy and you might be able to take a dive in to your inner peace which can be distant but never lost.

🌺🍄🐚Dive in and you will always find it there unshaken, unchanged waiting for you.

Our first Reiki class of 2023 is coming up and there are only 2 spots left! 🤩 These classes are full of fun and experiential learning. This is in an introduction to Reiki healing and will allow you to register as a student with the Canadian Reiki Association. You will learn how to perform Reiki healing on yourself, your loved ones and even your pets. 🐇🐕🐈‍⬛🐢Visit: www.oceanbaywellness.com for more info or to register. 📿
** We are an accredited training provider with the International Practitioners of Holistic Medicine and the Canadian Association of Holistic Practitioners. Join us today!

Good morning everyone! A little Daily Motivation for you: Take a deep breath and try all over again. It’s never too late to begin your healing journey. Book with one of our Holistic Health Practitioners today.

Thrilled to be a part of Ocean Bay Wellness. Looking forward to supporting our clients on their healing journey❤️🙏please book on our website.

We are over the moon excited to introduce to you, Dr. Sandy Lamba who has joined us at Ocean Bay Wellness.! To check out her full profile and schedule a booking, visit us at www.Oceanbaywellness.com Welcome Sandy! ❤️🙏🏼❤️🙌🏼

# reiki

Tathātā

This week I was fortunate enough to practice a powerful technique. 🧘‍♀️📿

🥲😖Last Thursday I woke up with intense pain in my back. I tried to rest but by Saturday morning, I was unable to sit up or walk and ended up in the ER and was diagnosed with Anterolisthesis.

🪐☀️😎Without going into too much explanation of what that is, I have spine issues which may or may not need surgery but for now I am walking with a cane and just ordered all my adaptive supplies so I can sit upright. My office is on my bed and this mind has been feeling extremely sorry for me.

🧘‍♂️🏞Now coming to the interesting part. Of course, I am no saint. When I was done crying for three days, I realized it was a perfect time for me to practice a technique called suchness, Tathata and it has given me some wonderful relief.

🌈❄️🌏Tathata is a Sanskrit term that means nature of reality. Buddha is known as Tathāgata which means one who is one with reality or suchness.

🌸✨Most powerful things in life are simple including this practice. How do you do it? Suppose I have a headache and in my case, a back ache, most likely I will do two things, either I will take a medication or I will try and somehow distract myself from it and most likely I will feel terrible as my mind will tell me so many unpleasant stories around it.

🪷🧘‍♂️💕Buddha says instead do this, when you have a headache, look at it twice. What that means is stay uninvolved.

🤯😎Your mind may start many threads of thought labelling it as bad. You just look at each thread twice, Tathata, what is, is. Such is the nature of reality.

📖📘Let your mind tell it’s story, you look at it twice, opinion, opinion, stay uninvolved.

☑️💝🧘When you accept what is a neutral expression of reality, 90 percent of your pain is gone as most of it is the projection of the mind and a silence prevails and you might then hear the true message of that pain.

🧘🧑‍🎤🧚🏼‍♂️Then do whatever you need to do, take your meditation, take rest but from that unattachment. Attachment is ego that it should not have happened or why it happened to me. It happened, that is true, everything else just noise.

🌷💐🌺🪷Let that noise go and be silent. That silence is suchness. Suchness is divine, Tathata and a glimpse into our true nature. Tathāgata. ✌️🕊

Ⓒ Sandy Lamba

🙏🪐In one of my WhatsApp groups I saw this comment, “she passed away recently.” I frantically opened the message thinking a friend of mine had passed away.

♥️🌈I breathed a sigh of relief as it was about someone I did not know.

🙈👱🏽‍♀️I immediately caught myself. When we know someone, it hurts. The deeper we know someone, the deeper it hurts but when it is a random person, it does not affect us at least not as much.

🌺Is this good or bad. Like all things it has it’s positives and negatives. Imagine being overcome with grief at every single thing you hear about; happening to some random stranger. That is probably a good safety net that your circle of influence affects you more than the entirety.

🌏🪐🌟There is another inherent truth though; everything affects everything. The reason you feel so sorry for you when something hits you close is just a conditioning just like it is a conditioning to not be affected by everyone’s grief.

😎🥵All conditionings are in essence making you less than what you are capable of, pulling you down, making you a victim. All suffering is that identification with your own conditioning.

🧘‍♀️🧘Yoga is a tool to let go of all conditioning or to at least question it. Once you question something, you realize you are agreeing to the fact that something more than what you perceive is possible.

❄️✨☀️Possibility is a great door into the infinity. Then maybe, maybe all suffering will affect us equally, affect us in a way that positive action becomes possible and identifications fall. Then, noone is a victim. You are all that is. That is the goal for all yogis.

💃🏻🌤Perhaps I will one day be there or perhaps I already am. I just have to remember that. Perhaps it is not at all about me or perhaps it doesn’t matter at all.

☑️💝🎀What does matter is when you can be compassionate, be. Let your compassions be regardless of who it is that suffers. Wherever you are, if you can, spread a kind word, share a smile, give a hug, shake a hand, warm a heart while someone somewhere is doing it for all the people you love and hold so dearly. It is a victorious circle where we all win! ❤️😎Love and hugs!

© Sandy Lamba, The Art of Zenning