Snores and Mirrors
In my last post I talked about that great usurper we call Fear. This week I’d like to turn my attention to something called Resistance. What do I mean by Resistance?
For me, Resistance occurs when something bothers me in another person or situation, something I don’t like or something I don’t agree with. As an attorney, this is something I must deal with every day. I have come to realize that in the courts there are three sides to every story – my side, your side and the truth. I don’t personalize that kind of resistance because it is part of the trade.
The kind of resistance one encounters in personal relationships is much more difficult to ignore. That’s because the bothersome things we see in other people are present in every one of us – otherwise we would not know what we are looking at! We can either choose to resist that which bothers us or give ourselves the freedom to love it.
Let’s take the case of how I grew to love my husband’s snoring as an example. For years I would despair as my deepest slumbers were rudely shattered by the sound that emanated from my husband’s nostrils every night. I just could not sleep through it. I would become angry and because I was angry, I would feel like I needed to react, and what was my reaction? Waking him, pushing him, elbowing him and calling him names. Of course none of that helped and he kept snoring away.
Who was suffering? Me.
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at
someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
-Buddha
Now that I have discovered the benefits of Yoga and its philosophy, now that I have meditated on mountain tops and practiced asanas in the rain, how do I deal with a snoring man in the bed now?
Love. Love is the antidote to resistance. Love enabled me to accept the reality that my husband snores. People snore. It dawned on me that snoring is not any easy thing to change and it is a part of who my husband is.
How misguided I was to think I could grant or deny him permission to be who he is. I decided to accept the snoring and then go beyond the acceptance and love it, because I love my husband. Besides, whenever I point my finger at my husband, how can I ignore the three that are pointing back at me?
We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
– Buddha
And guess what? I don’t hear snoring anymore…unless it comes from me!
Denise K. Bonnaig
Authentique Coaching
(212) 374-1511
dkbonnaig@gmail.com
From Fear to Freedom
Non-loving feelings are like rogue waves in the ocean. Appearing out of nowhere and swelling to enormous proportions, they take away our breath and toss us around until we lose track of which way is up.
As Hafiz wrote centuries ago, there are consequences to these destructive forces:
Selections from I Know The Way You Can Get
Hafiz
O, I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:
Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.
—–
You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.
You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.
You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.
– Selections from I Know The Way You Can Get
To me, fear is the most insidious non-loving feeling of all. Fear of death, fear of financial ruin, fear of not looking good enough – it springs from the mind like a predator pouncing on its prey, beguiling us into believing that there is such a thing as failure. In reality, you cannot take a picture of fear or feel the texture of failure because they don’t exist outside of the mind. Whenever you feel fear, remember that your mind is creating it and remember that what you think is what you get.
Do the thing you fear most, and the death of fear is certain.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
In order to reach a state of quiet confidence filled with Love where nothing can bother us, we must change our minds, not simply our behavior. If you begin to detach yourself from your mind, you also begin to detach yourself from these non-loving feelings.
I have found that can be as simple as remembering to be authentic.
That means loving who you already are and not caring if you look good walking down the street or if you look silly slipping on a patch of ice. Someone who is authentic is comfortable in her own skin, because she knows it’s the only skin that she will ever have.
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved
for what you are not.
―André Gide, Autumn Leaves
Q: How can I rid myself of non-loving feelings?
There is something you can do to banish the non-loving feelings from your heart, and that something is nothing.
Whenever you are afraid, it is a sure sign that you have allowed your mind to mis-create and have not allowed me to guide it.
– A Course in Miracles
If you think of yourself as nothing, then nothing will bother you. What other people think about you is their business, it’s none of yours. That means you will not want approval from anybody else. You will not need any person or any thing to feel secure.
I leave you with a quote on this theme from one of the greatest spiritual leaders alive today. I hope it will inform your day and get you thinking:
There is nothing to trust seeking happiness from outside, you will only become exhausted with suffering,
which is without satisfaction and without end.
– His Holiness, the Dalai Lama
Denise K. Bonnaig, Esq.
Authentique Coaching
(646) 483-4737
denise@authentiquecoaching.com
A Flu Shot for the Mind
Science has extended our physical lives through discoveries about exercise and diet, even going so far as to eradicate smallpox from the world. But while vaccines and antibiotics ensure our physical longevity, what can we do to inoculate our souls against the challenges we face in our day-to-day living?
We can literally, do nothing; stillness is the cardio of our minds. The act of mindfulness, of being aware of your thoughts in the present moment, is like being aware of your blood pressure or pulse. It alerts us as to what we need to work on, and provides us with insights as to the nature of our selves.
“The way to do is to be.”
– Lao Tzu
I like to “be” by incorporating the practice of yoga and mindfulness in whatever I do. We may not have the luxury of living in caves and meditating all day, but even the busiest person can reserve 20 minutes out of his or her day to do so. I was recently reminded of an old Zen adage which proves that the problems of today are the same as the problems humanity faced centuries ago:
“You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day—unless you’re too busy; then you should sit for an hour.”
“Do your duty, Arjuna.”
Krishna to Arjuna, Bhagavad-Gita
The duty of humanity is to shed our divisive past in favor of Love. Love is the essential healing force in a chaotic world filled with alarm clocks, endless meetings and deadlines. However, if we do our duty to ourselves and do the best job we can, our minds will not be self-critical. One’s ego will no longer criticize him or her for not doing enough or not being good enough. So Love is like a flu shot for the mind, preventing us from getting sick with regrets and second thoughts. It allows us to nip our regrets in the bud – which quiets the mind, in addition to calming our bodies.
There’s no wrong way of doing this. All it requires is having the courage to make the decision to open the door to Love for ourselves, and the audacity to reject the non-loving feelings that taint our hearts. It’s a way of giving approval to ourselves. It’s a way of accepting who we are with whatever is working well in our lives at that particular moment. Right now I’m sitting. I’m grateful for that. Whatever is not working well, I’m still grateful for it. I’m grateful for the lessons that I may learn from that. I’m still grateful for the opportunity to do something else.
“To love is to recognize yourself in another.”
Eckhart Tolle
As a coach, I share with my clients strategies to vaccinate themselves against non-loving feelings – in other words, we build an immunity against self-defeating thoughts, laying the groundwork for prevention rather than just sticking a band aid on the problem.
Contact me today to find out more.
Authentique Coaching
Denise K. Bonnaig, Esq.
(212) 374-1511
25 Murray Street
New York, NY 10007
denise@authentiquecoaching.com
Be Grateful For Who And What You Have
It was my third year in America when my son Nicolas was attending preschool. One day in November he came home and said to me, “Mommy on Thanksgiving we eat turkey.” 
That year was my first Thanksgiving celebration and soon my sister, and only close relative in America then, joined in on all the Thanksgiving traditions. We, too, were using the time off to be together and create memories.
That is what is so special about Thanksgiving: The getting together of families.
The family gatherings where I come from tended to occur, unfortunately, through funerals. That is why I am so grateful this year to see my sons and my first granddaughter, my sister and her family, in a setting of celebration. That is a tradition I will maintain: Sharing and moving forward together as a family – two things to be so grateful for.
Gratitude, I would define as the appreciation of Life, the appreciation of the things we might otherwise take for granted.
Growing up in a religious family, I felt my father gave away much more money to the church than he did to us children. This instilled a deep sense of service to others in me, as well as a recognition of all the things I have. I think that is the reason why my mission, my purpose in life, is to help people discover that they will be happier if they appreciate all of the little blessings in their lives – in other words, to empower themselves.
The hurricane reaffirmed to me that point.
What we perceive as a curse can just as easily be turned into a blessing. Like everyone else in lower Manhattan, I was without power. But I empowered myself; I spent some great moments getting to know myself, reflecting on myself and meditating. I wrote Thank You notes to the people I love and I went through my address book to see if there were any relationships that needed mending.
Likewise, my intention is to empower my yogis and my coachees to discover that they have the power to turn a situation around, from one that hurts to one that heals. To turn “I can’t!” into “I can!”
That is not possible without gratitude for the unnoticed, little things; without appreciating of the breath of life. As Meister Eckhart said:
“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘Thank you,’ that would suffice.”
This ThanksGiving, I invite you to share in my journey with an invigorating physical and spiritual two hour Meditation and Power Vinyasa Yoga Workshop at Dance Exposure II in Princeton.
Discover Your True Self And Allow Your Authentic Personality To Shine!
You will leave feeling stronger, more flexible and energized, and most importantly—full of gratitude on this day of giving Thanks.
Prayer For Sweetness
May the wind blow sweetness,
the rivers flow sweetness,
the herbs grow sweetness,
for the People of Truth!
Sweet be the night,
sweet the dawn,
sweet be earth’s fragrance,
sweet be our Heaven!
May the tree afford us sweetness,
the sun shine sweetness,
our cows yield sweetness —
milk in plenty!
– Author Unknown
Memories of Meditation and Mindfulness
All of man’s difficulties are caused by his inability to sit, quietly, in a room by himself.
–Blaise Pascal
Back in 2005 I was at a Baron Baptiste Power Yoga event in Rhinebeck, New York. During the lunch break, I saw there was another group sharing the venue with us. There were so many of them, and they all ate their lunch in silence! I eventually got to talk with a few of them and I asked what they were doing there. They were attending a Mindfulness Meditation retreat led by a medical doctor named Jon Kabat-Zinn. They recommended that I check out his book Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through 
Mindfulness.
I rushed to the bookstore and devoured the book. I later learned that Mr. Kabat-Zinn would be doing a book-signing at the bookstore that evening, and I decided I must go and meet the man. I stood on the line for over an hour, with the book in hand and full of emotion. When I finally got to meet him, even though the line was long, he spent some time with me.
I told him that I practiced yoga but I had trouble with the resting pose. I said “I am just restless, I think I feel like I’m wasting my time. I want to work out, not just sit there.” He listened to me, encouraged me, and personalized my book, writing “May this be the door in,” in addition to the stamp he imprinted on everyone’s books: May your mindfulness practice grow and flower and nourish your life from moment to moment and from day to day. It was just so beautiful. That was back in May, 2005. And that’s when I truly started to meditate.
Be – don’t try to become.
– Osho
If you ask me now, seven years later, “What is the meaning of meditation?” I would just say it’s the art of quieting the mind. But how is that possible? Scientists say we have 6,000 thoughts a day, so how can we eliminate those thoughts? What I suggest to my students is that once you sit in meditation, all you need to do is check in with your Self, with the present, with what is happening now.
At first it might not be easy. My very first meditation when sitting down was really painful. My nose itched, I was restless, I was aching and my mind kept wandering on and on. Why was that happening? It was happening because I was pretty much results-oriented. In order to do something, I needed to know where it would lead to. I needed some specific results. I felt that just sitting down and doing nothing was such a waste of time. That’s how ignorant I used to be.
It’s not so much about doing as about being.
– Jon Kabat-Zinn
In stillness there is really no thinking. Thoughts evaporate because they become meaningless to you – no matter what those thoughts are. Non-duality is so important because our world is the world of contradictions. Black, white. Good, bad. Beautiful, ugly. I meditate to get away from that and the independence I achieve brings me to a oneness, and from oneness to non-limitations, and from non-limitations to abundance everywhere.
Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.
– Eckhart Tolle
Like everyone else, sometimes I am faced with outrageous tuition to pay or other devastating bills, and I always find my solution by meditating. “How am I going to pay that bill?” I ask myself, in a non-judgmental way. I say yes to it. I love the bill and I’m OK with it. Guess what? Somehow I’ll get the funds to pay. I’m going to make that tuition. I’m going to do this and pay it all. Somehow I will find the funds. I know that I always come up with it. Whatever it is.
Meditation to me is priceless. If I don’t meditate first thing in the morning, I won’t get out of my bed.
If every 8-year-old in the world is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from the world within one generation.
-Dalai Lama
How do we get to that point? You have to say to yourself that meditation is something that is very, very important – not just to you, but for the world. It requires some discipline. It can’t be, “Oh I’ll do that once in awhile.” Just like the muddy water in a puddle needs time to settle before the water become clear, you have to let your practice of meditation take its course to settle your reckless thoughts, consistently, for a long time.
And that’s where my coaching comes in. Because if your mind is full of clutter, if you have so many nagging things from the past, that are haunting you, if you’re not living in the now, in the present moment, how can you find stillness?
Through release techniques, through rebooting your mental “operating system”, you and I will quiet the turbulent waters and let the mud settle down until there is nothing but you – on top of all your problems.
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You Are Not Your Age
If your body is going to age, does your mind have to age as well? Who said your body and mind even have to age?
Age, as we define it, is just a number. When we meet strangers, they can only guess how old we are. Yet we give such importance to every year, every month of our own age. Even though we really do not feel any different, we’re almost forced to feel different on our birthdays. According to Albert Einstein’s work, a body in motion ages less. It’s not a coincidence, then, that I call myself a “coach”; My job is to keep you moving and to keep you young.
Yoga is an excellent way to keep a body in motion. My practice of Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga strengthens muscles, enhances flexibility and increases endurance. At my yoga classes, boot camps and retreats, I have personally witnessed astounding transformations in my students – just by bringing their bodies and minds closer together. Arms, legs, hands, feet…they have no idea what “43” or “57” is.
It is just as important to nourish our spirits as it is to nourish our bodies. At Authentique Coaching, I work with coachees to tailor successful plans to surmount the various traps and stalemates of modern life. The human spirit yearns for loving feelings, and I will show you how love can interrupt the self-defeating thoughts of an exhausted mind. Changing your thoughts is the only way to change your destiny. Throughout your journey to a lasting happiness you will find that history’s greatest thinkers owed their success to unleashing the power of the subconscious mind. If you are full of thoughts like “I can’t do this” or “I can’t afford that,” then your subconscious mind will take you at your word and ensure that you do not have the ability or money to live as you choose.
If you allow me to, I will demonstrate that happiness isn’t found in winning a conflict or obtaining more money, but rather within yourself. To free your ageless spirit, we’ll first put it to work by letting go of your past. When you let go of your past, you become hootless, where no bad memories or sense of doom ever bothers you.
Every journey starts with the first step. Whether you are 30, 50 or 70, it’s never too late to start moving. Resist being defined by your age. Remember, there is no rule which says you have to tell people how old you are; whether consciously or unconsciously, people will make assumptions about you based on that number. However, if you remain true to yourself, do what you can, and stick with it, the only limitations holding you back will be the ones you put on yourself.
As a mother of three, an accomplished attorney and a sought-after yogini, I am here to tell you that it works, and I am available to share my strategies with you. To take that first step on your journey to lasting happiness, click here.
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Forgiveness
I often hear from coachees: I feel like I’m punch-drunk from growing up with my parents. When will I forget my childhood?
When you come to me with your boxing gloves on, fresh from a battle with life, it might be difficult for you to see that your gloves are actually removable. They may have served you very well, protecting you from the hard, often hostile world around you. As a retired “boxer” I’m here to tell you there’s an easier way.
During our childhoods we develop a storyline that becomes our “operating program”. This is the program that will parse out our lives, feeding us instructions and processing the way we interact with ourselves and other people. Any sort of abuse or neglect which occurred to us as children has a way of embedding itself deep in our hearts and subconscious minds. Unfortunately, more often than not, we do not realize we are carrying these non-loving feelings around with us. (more…)
Coaching, The Natural Thing to Do, And Why It Works
Before embarking on my own self discovery, and the self inquiry process that led to my personal transformation, I was one of those “bring it on” types. I was going to box my way through life, no matter what. And to make sure that I got the proper training, I went to the gym daily, sometimes twice a day and took boxing classes, pumped iron, and ran 40 miles per week while my mind also sprinted through my to do list. There was no time to waste!
Then there was the three hour daily commute filled, as you can imagine, with more checklists and charts, and only lifting my head once in a while to cast a stern look on those people who sat idle letting life pass them by. Elbowing my way through trains and subways, I would get to my office and face my work with the same mantra: Come on girl, come on girl, you can do it, just keep punching, keep hitting, hit harder! That’s a girl!
Late at night, as I laid down, I could see the next day and its load peering at me. It was all about teeth grinding, but I thought this was the only way to live.
- I did not know that the gnawing feeling at the pit of my stomach could vanish.
- I did not know I could feel lightness as I glided through my day.
- I did not know that imperturbability could become a way of life.
- I did not know that I could have, be, and do what I chose, when I chose.
Over the years, I have explored and uncovered techniques and strategies that have transformed the lives of many clients and hundreds of attendees to my workshops, boot camps, and retreats. And let me tell you something: they work!
Indeed, I witness my clients transform chaotic lives into happy, effortless, abundant and successful lives, based on my creating a customized blend of spirituality and strategy for them. As I often say to participants, you don’t have to believe what I say, you can check it out for yourself
The strategies I share have worked, and continue to work for me, and others. I have used them through illness. I use them with my three sons and can already see how two of them who are medical doctors apply those strategies to their practice. I have used them to face the thousands of documents I have to read for my court briefs with a grace, and alacrity I could never have imagined. I use them in my relationship with my husband of 30 years, and in all my relationships.
We are the architects of our lives.
Freedom is there for us to grab.
Would you like to take off the boxing gloves? I would love to hear from you and share stories that my clients tell me. Feel free to leave a comment in the box below.