Black Zen And The Weekly Wellness

For the folks that have been with us for a while, you know that we take a holiday hiatus for the month of December and devote that time to our personal wellness. We use that time not only to rest and recharge, but to evaluate how we can continue to help and support you. Now with the sudden realization that there are only two weeks left in November, we wanted to leave you with a ton of resources to get you through the rest of the holiday season. To do this we've reviewed all of our past wellnesses and pulled out our top 10 pieces of advice this year. To not overload you with all ten at once, here’s Part I of the countdown. And be sure to tune in next week for the rest of the best tips of 2019. Together, these two weeks of the wellness should keep you going (and growing!) until our January return…

If we look throughout history, every generation before us thought the world was going to hell in a hand basket. And yet, here we are. Our lives continue to evolve and the most important things like love, purpose and the ability to move forward still remain. When we meditate we give ourselves a chance to see society's problems on a much larger scale, our personal view gets a wider perspective, and we become equipped with a lens that sees all possible outcomes rather than just focusing on the current state of affairs. Being present and aware we will feel more and see more of what's really going on, and can then become the change makers to fix the ills that disrupt our world. Even more, it allows us to achieve these changes without sacrificing our own peace, damaging our emotional well-being, or affecting our physical health from the negative impacts of stress. Most of all, we grant peace permission to thrive no matter what else is going on around us…

It may come as no surprise that the same person who invented water torture for prisoners also came up with sleep deprivation as another form of punishment. Fam, the struggle is real! This week we’re giving you the tools you need to get your zzzz's back on track. We wanted to uncover the easiest and most effective ways on how to get consistently better sleep. Just like consistent meditation or regular exercise, good sleep is vital to our well-being. When we're getting enough of it, it allows us to be at our best. A healthy sleep schedule is more important than we think and it’s worth putting in the time to make sure we’re getting our best night’s snooze as consistently as possible…

No one likes to feel like their back is against the wall, whether it’s literally or figuratively. Being physically pinned in a corner, or “caught on the ropes” to borrow a well-known boxing term, can often leave us feeling like we’ve already lost the fight. This same situation can be true in life. When we’re in a match between our goals and our reality (which may be taking a bit longer than we’d like to catch up with our vision), it can make us feel like we’re trapped. Rather than take the beating lying down, we can make the best of a setback or an unanticipated set of events by having inside-fighting skills (another boxing term since we’re already on a roll)…

At Black Zen, we consistently look for ways to create the best conditions for our success and our peace, and the most important factor we've found in achieving this has been surrounding ourselves with amazing, ambitious and authentic people who inspire us to be our best. It's these folks who truly make up a winner's circle. When selecting your team it's also important to know when to trim the fat. There are some people in our lives who just aren't all that positive. While we would never cut them out of our lives entirely, it may be necessary to create a bit of distance to make sure their influence is not derailing our progress. Listen in to find out the best benchmarks to look for when picking your winner’s circle…

We’re celebrating our 100th episode of the Weekly Wellness podcast! In honor of this milestone, we’re taking some time to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about meditation. As we continue to grow our organization and move our mission forward, we hope each Weekly Wellness is an opportunity for you to enhance where you are, let you know that you've been seen and give you the motivation and the humor to keep on moving towards your best life! Humbled to be your partners in progress, The Black Zen Team

As people interested in meditation or for those of us with a developed meditation practice, we tend to hear a lot about being "present". Generally, we equate being present with mindfulness in our daily activities and noticing our lives as they are happening in real time. But what does being present in the day-to-day actually look like when you’re also an ambitious person working to put important plans in place for your future? In this Weekly Wellness, we set out to find examples of what being present looks like and how to remain in this state of awareness when working on long-term goals (even when your present is less than pleasant or downright sucks!)…

I'm going to go ahead and date myself here and say I miss the 80's! Gone are the days when I can hop on a bike and head to the Boys and Girls Club after school. There I would squander my days away with Chinese jump rope competitions and tetherball battles (more of a slaughter since Jasmine stopped growing in grade 2, lol). Reflecting on it now, I think I just miss being playful. And while we touched on this back in June in an effort to bring back the idea of a traditional summer vacation, I see no reason to relegate fun to just the summertime. This week's wellness is dedicated to taking the seriousness out of life and finding more playtime, in every season, and even in our meditation practice…

Recently someone asked me, "What do you want out of life?" and my immediate (conditioned?) reply was, "To just live comfortably and be happy." It wasn't until the "to just" came out of my mouth that I realized how small and limiting "to just" can look like in real life. The person I was speaking with nodded and seemed to agree with this sentiment which leads me to think this is the accepted and expected dream of most people. Fam, the dream of "to just" is not enough! When we start our expectations and goals with this phrase we are co-signing and then striving for average. It's time to think and dream bigger, and this week’s wellness is dedicated to re-framing our mindsets to do just that…

The butterfly effect concept was articulated best by meteorologist and mathematician Edward N. Lorenz. His theory stated that the flapping of a butterfly's wings has potential to cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. While this may not generally be the case, it's a good example of the idea that tiny changes in complex systems can cause huge and unknown effects. If we think of ourselves as the system being altered, how large of an impact could we potentially have in affecting our trajectory with tiny changes made in our everyday life...

I'm not sure why the "What's going on in your life?" question leaves me unnaturally inarticulate, but it does. It makes me question what the hell I've been doing for the last year and if anything has changed in what feels like quite a bit of time. Even without the holiday season looming, I'm sure we've all gotten questions from distant friends or new acquaintances asking, "What are you up to?" The clarity we provide for ourselves is an important step to being able to convey this information to others. And once we're aware of where we are in life, it becomes much easier to have conversations around what we’re doing…

I imagine all good habits from working out to eating right starts with a plan. When I started doing yoga, my only plan was to shrink the arse following me and to lose an extra chin. It was never my plan to learn a skill set that would prepare my mind and body for meditation, but that's exactly what happened. As it turns out, this is truly what the practice of yoga is all about…

Let's be honest. You know what you need to do to move forward on your goals. So the question is not, "What do you need to do?" but rather, "Why aren't you doing it?" You've read every "do better" article out there and probably have a stack of self-help and success books in the corner of your living room right now, but if all this knowledge leads to no action - what's the point?…

"Most people live their entire lives in prison, not physically but mentally, a mental prison of their own making, the mental prison that you have accepted to be confined in. You hold the keys within you to escape, a prison break must take place, let the one you want to be break you free from the cell of conformity that wants you to remain who you are. Project your mind forward and see the self-made successful [person] that you want to become. That individual, that vision, that dream is what can free you.” – Asad Meah. What we’ve come to understand at Black Zen is that dreaming big requires vision and clear thinking, and sometimes that process starts with clearing out the old misconceptions and limiting beliefs that were clouding our minds in the first place…

In the spirit of confronting our fears, this Weekly Wellness is all about how to name what we're afraid of so we can finally put it to rest - or at least have it close enough in our view that we realize it's not as scary as we think. Naming our fear loosens its foothold on us. It frees us up to move about our lives with confidence and ease. The dreaded difficult conversation or circumstance we're fearful about is understandably uncomfortable, but it's usually only scary because our imagination of what might happen is so much wilder than what the actual experience will yield...

It's been a minute since your girls have completely nerded out on a Weekly Wellness, so let's get into it! In this week's post, we're studying The Room of Requirement. If you are not a Harry Potter fan and have no idea what we're talking about, The Room of Requirement supplied the students of Hogwarts with whatever they needed in that moment. How great would it be to need something and then instantaneously have the means to acquire it? I know what you're thinking, and no, this is not a post about meditation being that room! In fact, that room already exists and everyone has access to it. Here's what we mean...

The keys to a more balanced way of life are none other than patience and equanimity. Equanimity is a $400 word defined as mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation. It's keeping our cool even when it looks like the needle hasn't moved on our progress or when unexpected emotions come up in our meditation practice. Once we learn patience with ourselves, it's that much easier to extend that patience to the people around us...

Imagine for a moment going into the store and getting every ingredient for the perfect meal. You come home excited to cook because you’ve already thought through all the steps to make sure this meal is epic! There’s just one problem. As you start putting all of your flavors together, you realize you’ve forgotten the most important ingredient of all – salt. Sometimes, this is how life without a meditation practice can feel. It’s like you’ve got all the right elements in place, but something crucial is missing. The flavors of your experience just don’t taste as good as they should, and day-to-day life seems to lack zest. For the Black Zen team, we’ve found that meditation enhances every moment by training us to be fully present and teaches us to enjoy the fullness of our experiences. This week, take a look at your life and make sure you have a well-seasoned plate of mental, emotional and spiritual food. And if you find any area lacking in flavor, like salt, meditation is always available…

You may be asking, "What do my personal finances have to do with wellness?" In short, it’s about having peace of mind. When I first began meditating, the common theme that ran through my thoughts were around money - not having enough of it to live comfortably, how I could make more of it, and what experiences I was missing out on because I didn't have enough. I knew then that to get the most out of my meditation time, I had to either develop a peace about where I was financially and/or change my financial situation. I chose to do both and we’re encouraging you to do the same. To save you the strife of living from paycheck to paycheck, this week's wellness is dedicated to getting your financial house in order. It all starts with finding peace in your current financial situation, and then taking ownership of that circumstance. From here, we can each make the necessary changes to reach our personal version of financial freedom and find peace of mind with our finances…

Embracing imperfection in ourselves is about looking at our internal cracks and personal quirks without disapproval, and instead seeing them as an opportunity to paint those perceived flaws with something wonderful. It’s a gentle process and it happens when we step away from the business of life to truly see the canvas we’re working with. Before our break we encouraged you to truly rest and enjoy the summer, and even to take a break from striving toward your goals if that's what you needed. We all know that soon our "summer-life" will fade and it's back to the grind. Yet, by embracing the cracks and imperfections that we all work with, we can keep a bit of that summer peace with us as the seasons change. When we view our process in the Wabi-Sabi way, learning to work on ourselves with patience and acceptance truly does take the "work" out of it…