Relationships | Michelle Cromer

Walking Meditation For Anxiety

Michelle Cromer August 26, 2024 Leave a Comment

Walking meditation offers a beautiful synergy of movement, nature, and mindfulness to create a holistic experience for both the body and the mind.

The act of walking itself is a gentle form of exercise and a meaningful way to move your chi by stretching muscles, increasing circulation, and invigorating the body. Outdoors in nature, you soak up all the sounds of natural goodness around you, fresh air, and sunshine, it’s like a nature retreat.

Walking meditation also offers an opportunity to deepen your connection with your body.

The benefits are many – enhances physical health; improves focus; deepens your connection to your environment and certainly lowers anxiety.

Here is my guide to walking meditation:

Choose your path – a quiet path, park, beach, or corridor in your home.
Connect with your breath – take three deep breaths through your nose and release through your mouth.
Pay attention to your senses and sensations – what are you seeing, smelling, touching, hearing, and tasting?
Keep a mindful posture – Keep your back straight, your shoulders relaxed, and your gaze softly focused on the path ahead.
Find your rhythm – synchronize your breathing with your steps. When I was walking El Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain, I walked around 18 to 20 miles per day, day after day after day and each day became a form of walking meditation. I had my walking sticks and used the rhythm of my breathing and the clicking of my sticks to keep my focus on the present moment.

With each step, you become more attuned to the sensations and movements of your physical being. You become aware of how your feet touch the ground and how the breeze feels on your skin. This heightened awareness fosters a sense of presence and mindfulness.

What’s truly wonderful about walking meditation is its accessibility. You can seamlessly integrate it into your everyday life, whether you are commuting to work, enjoying a leisurely stroll in the park, or simply unwinding after a workout. It’s a practice that meets you where you are, inviting you to infuse mindfulness into the ordinary moments of your day.

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Tibet a Vanishing Nation

Michelle Cromer July 22, 2024 Leave a Comment

On a remote plateau thousands of feet above sea level, there used to exist a place whose chief attraction was the traditional virtues embodied by its culture; warmth, humility, and devotion. That place used to be Tibet. When I visited Tibet in the summer of 2005 I discovered a country holding fast to its identity but facing an uncertain future. I just returned from my second trip to Tibet and I found the culture destroyed, the people murdered, and a country with no future.

My son August wanted to go to Tibet after he graduated from high school. I tried to talk him out of it. The trip is hard. Hard physically because Lhasa sits at 13,000 feet and I knew we would travel up to almost 18,000. Hard emotionally because August has never seen what a communist country can do to the powerless. Hard spiritually because tourists are forced to witness the manipulation and extermination of a culture and its belief system.

Chinese military officials supervised our arrival at the Gingko airport. The borders were closed days before our arrival, yet somehow, we still got our visas and made it in. No one on our plane out of Kathmandu was allowed to stay.

Our guide met us outside the airport, which used to be in the middle of empty countryside. Now, government buildings and blood-red Chinese flags surround the entire airport. The barley fields next to the broad river are still there, but the surrounding mountains are now filled with tall silver utility polls, stuck on the mountaintop with no regard for the land. Shiny billboards cover what used to be deep blue skies.

As we drove into Lhasa it was clear that what was once the coexisting of several centuries is now only modern China. In the last six years, Lhasa has mushroomed from the size of Santa Fe to the size of Phoenix, complete with car dealerships, shopping malls, and a Times Square-looking video sign in front of the Potala Palace.

“Religion is poison,” Mao Tse-tung had told the Dali Lama in 1954, early during the Chinese occupation of Tibet. After 1959 when the Dali Lama fled to India, the Chinese moved to undercut the power of the monasteries, which owned most of the arable land and loaned money to the poor villagers. Red guards, fired up by Mao’s denunciation of religion, pounded Chortens and statues into dust, some of which have been rebuilt but they now embody tawdry kitsch produced by Chinese-led restoration efforts in Tibet.

What was obviously missing were all the Tibetan people. I only saw old Tibetan women, who were routinely shoved off the sidewalks and into the streets by the military which filled the streets with their green uniforms. We were told that due to a hunger strike led by the monks in March of 2008, which enraged the Chinese government, 5000 Tibetans were kidnapped, NEVER TO BE SEEN OR HEARD FROM AGAIN!! There is a genocide occurring in Tibet and no one knows about it!!

The military marched all day and all night up and down the streets carrying weapons. Also crowding the streets are Chinese tourists who have been encouraged to visit Tibet, rather than the Chinese Disneyland version of Tibet.

After having suffered Communism, Tibetans now confront a dissolute capitalism, one that seeks arrogantly, often violently, to turn their culture and beliefs, and the world’s diverse humanity into middle-class consumers. It has been Tibet’s fate to be the laboratory of the cruelest experiments humanity has performed upon itself in the modern era. However, faced with an aggressively secular materialism, the Tibetans may still prove, almost alone in the world, how religion, usually dismissed, and not just by Mao, as “poison,” can be the source of cultural identity and moral values.

I know we all live halfway around the world from this magical and mystical place and you might not think these affect you, but it does in more ways than just “we are all connected.” The Chinese government is murdering thousands of innocent people simply because they are not Chinese, and they are getting away with it! Many Chinese are being murdered because they refuse to “toe the party line. “China is about to surpass America as the next big superpower. And, America owes China money! Pick up anything in your home or office and look where it is made, CHINA! By allowing the Chinese government to exterminate Tibet, we just put more fuel in the fire of this big red murdering machine. Please get involved to free Tibet. There are many organizations out there that are trying to help like www.freetibet.org. Buy a tee shirt and wear it or give up coffee for a morning and donate the money you would have spent. If you do nothing else, please pray for the Tibetans. After all, they have been praying for the rest of the world, every single day, for centuries.

What is the Meaning of Life?

Michelle Cromer July 18, 2024 Leave a Comment

I’ve been thinking about the meaning of life and the impermanent nature of it all. Observing how we do what we do, the struggles we put ourselves through, the drama, the pain, and the suffering.

When I look around, I see struggling—in my own life and in the lives of others. It seems like, even though there’s an abundance of goodness in our lives, the prevalent theme seems to be this struggle to find balance, peace, and happiness.

I race and I chase, all so that I can make more money, have more success, be more attractive, and hopefully be happier in some distant future when I’ve hit some superficial and randomly selected target. But will that day ever arrive? You and I both know how this game goes: the wanting for more never ends; and happiness will always (unless we intervene) appear to be just a reach away, in “some day” land, when we’ve finished this project or have reached that goal. We stride through life as if we will live forever. We treat time as a cheap commodity that we blindly waste. We become consumed by negativity. We hide behind victim stories. We get stuck in jobs and relationships that we dislike.

We surround ourselves with anxiety, stress, and depression. Failing to recognize that these “dis-eases” and uncomfortable emotions are our soul’s way of saying, “Wake up! It’s time for a change, baby. This isn’t working.”

We give up our dreams, our art, and our purpose, and trade our lives in exchange for money so that we can make a living. While making money to sustain our needs is inevitable, in the making of a living we sometimes forget our unique gifts, we temporarily lose touch with the enormity of our inner being, and we distance ourselves from the confidence of our unique expressions.

It’s all so exhausting.

And before we know it, the sands of our hourglass run out, and we face the end of our brief existence on this planet—unfulfilled and regretful for all that we’ve missed.

I know this may sound harsh, and it is. Viewing how we live in its blunt, naked candor can feel rough around the edges. Truth stings. At the same time, we can use this emotionally charged observation to our advantage—to inspire us and to move us such that we begin to live. It’s time to restructure our lives, how we live, how we prioritize, and how we contribute.

Perhaps, the only thing that matters is love, and all the chasing we do is just misdirected energy.   Perhaps, all the stress is unnecessary, and we are making life a lot more complicated than it needs to be.   There’s an easier route to happiness—by focusing on doing good work, contributing value to society, sharing joyful experiences with people we like, and remembering to slow down to savor the moments.

So what is the meaning of life?

I don’t think any single answer can be ubiquitously shared and be applicable to everyone. So I’ll answer for myself, from my current state of understanding. Life is whatever meaning we give it—and we can literally give it any meaning that “feels right” to us. There’s a blank canvas in front of you. You are the artist of your life, and you are free to paint any picture that pleases you—and change it at any time for that matter.

Life is short.
Life is precious.
What are you dreaming about?

Go do it. Go make it happen. Go do it despite fear and doubt and the opinions of others. Go do it, because it makes you happy. Go do it, because it makes you come alive.

Who are you holding a grudge against? Forgive them, today, right now. Decide that you will heal, and decide to tell a different story.
Where do you want to visit? Plan for it, even if you don’t yet have the money. Keep moving in that direction, and I promise you that you will find a way.
Who do you love? Give them your full attention. Create the time and space to connect with them. Put love at the top of your list.

In the end, love is all that matters. Love for ourselves, for other people, for our work, for all the unique experiences of life, and for God. Life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Let’s make it simple again.

Cultivating Inner Calm

Michelle Cromer July 8, 2024 Leave a Comment

I had a timely question – with everything going on in the world, how can we remain calm? Good question.

When the world or our lives are in chaos, we can still have our own inner peace and maintain calm.

I have a friend Eric whose life has been in chaos for almost a decade due to managing the care and well-being of many sets of parents, all of whom he’s in charge. He is navigating all of their lives, and his, all at the same time. And yet when I speak with Eric I get an overwhelming sense of calm.

People who maintain their sense of calm when things around them are in a state of confusion are always a joy to be around. We feel at peace just being near them as if they have activated our own sense of inner peace. From them, we learn that we too can be calm, even when everything around us is in turmoil because we know that no matter what happens, this inner sense of calm will help us to function well.

Often, times of confusion are the times that enable us to find that part of ourselves that knows how to cope, and how to be a light to others in the storm. If we can locate the stillness at the center of our hearts, in the center of our souls, we can find composure in almost any situation. In addition, we provide a safe place for our friends and family, who are also prone to taking on the confusion of a world in flux.

Most of us just want to find our way to being at peace with whatever happens, and we can find this peace inside. Cultivating our inner calm can be as simple as developing a meditation practice, journaling, and reading words that inspire us, going out in nature and planting our feet in grass every day, developing a routine, and moving your chi every day with exercise, this will lead us to that place inside us that’s already there, just waiting for us to discover it.

Are you wearing the best colors for you? According to the ancient art of Feng Shui, each of us has a power color based on the five elements and the day we were born. Sign up for my email list and provide me the day, month, and year of your birth and I will send you your birth element and power color!

Searching For Your Passion

Michelle Cromer June 18, 2024 Leave a Comment

Searching for your passion and yearning for your true calling seems to be an integral part of the human experience. Here is what I have learned from my search – you can’t strategically discover your passion through some intellectual scavenger hunt.

Passions are born out of experiences.

Think about experiences that left a mark on you. You’re crazy about that one movie because of how it made you feel when you watched it for the first time. You cry whenever you hear that sad song because it was the first song you heard after you broke up. You love surfing because you like the taste of salt on your lips, water in your hair, and sun on your back. The emotions that they conjure up — the passion that you feel — only came after that initial experience.

Discovering your passion follows that same pattern. If you want to discover your burning passion, then put yourself in a position to have a burning experience.

Read something new, talk to someone new, go somewhere new. Maybe you know a lot about dolphins, but you’ve never been to Hawaii where you can swim with them. Go there. Try it out. See where it takes you. Have a new experience — whether that’s around a familiar topic or an unfamiliar one.

Before discovering your passion, be curious and take action. Make different choices. Search out new opportunities. Create new experiences.
It is in the act of creating new experiences that we discover who we are.

If you’re searching for your passion now and haven’t found it, what makes you think continuing your search in the same way will magically bring your passion to you? Change your actions if you want to change the outcome.

If you want a new passion, then you need to create a new experience. Most people will tell you to start with what you know. I disagree.

If everyone only did what they already knew, then we would never learn new skills, change careers, or try anything different.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with utilizing your current skill set. I encourage that. There’s no reason to waste the talent you already have. But don’t choose a new path simply because you can do it.

Your choices should be based on what you like and not what you know. What you like is different than what you’re passionate about. Likes may turn into passions eventually, but they are simply interests right now. Everyone has an interest in something.

To find your passion, you need to dedicate yourself to a cause.

Eventually, the new experiences will deliver you to the next step: finding a goal to work towards. Just the simple act of having a goal and striving for it, whatever it is, plunges you into a strong current that carries you to places you could never have expected or believed were possible.

The value in having a goal and pursuing new experiences is as much the journey it leads us on — the experiences we have, the lessons we learn, the doors it opens — as it is the accomplishment of reaching it. You cannot predict where a journey will lead and what passions it will reveal. You can only start the journey and let the passions evolve naturally.

The pursuit will bring your passion to you.

I’ve been fortunate to have perfect moments when I have said to myself, “This is it, and this is what I am meant to do.” I can tell you that you don’t find moments like that, they find you.

And when you show up every day and dedicate yourself to a cause and continue your journey towards new experiences and new goals, those perfect moments have a tendency to find you more often.

Finding your passion isn’t about knowing with certainty that you have chosen the right direction for yourself. It’s about picking a direction and pursuing it with urgency, consistency, and enthusiasm.

And if you do this, then the experiences that you have will bring your passion to you.

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