Melanie Parish | cruciblebookii.com

200 Days of Yoga: Mindful Meditation or Mindless Meditation

Apr 11, 14

I breathe, I rest, I lie face up on my mat with my head toward the mirror. I feel my shoulder blades under me opening up my chest. I stretch my feet just outside the sides of my mat. I place my heels just over the ridge that is my mat onto the floor. I let my feet fall outward. My palms face up. Ready to receive, I think. My head tilts back slightly. I breathe deep into my belly. When I do the first deep breath on my mat, sometimes there is a breath so deep it is like it finds an extra pocket in my lungs and more air goes in at the end. Not every breath is like that but when it happens there is a sweet release. My favorite breath starts with a really good exhale. Sometimes I realize I don’t really finish breathing out before it is time to breathe in again. I lie in shavasana trying to keep my mind clear, focusing on my breath. As thoughts come, sometimes I try to clear them, sometimes I watch and release them, sometimes I work too hard trying to turn them off. As I become more fit, my mind is more and more active. I am having more and more challenges as my mind tries to get work done during my yoga practice. In the beginning, this was almost a non-issue. I was really working on the postures and breathing and I didn’t have all those racing thoughts. Now I actually need strategies for my emerging thoughts. I have tried breathing and holding a thought like “clear” or “present’ in my mind with each breath. The other night during a discussion about meditation, a guy I had just met told me to notice my thoughts and release them so I have been trying that, although I have to admit, I may lack some discernment by implementing new methods into my yoga practice just because I talked to a guy...

Out of the Box

Apr 09, 14

Posted by Melanie in Art

Ones and Threes in Business

Apr 08, 14

Posted by Melanie in Business

Someone told me recently that in business, the ones and threes are hard. “What does that mean?” I asked. “It’s the ones and threes that matter.” He said. “When you first start in business, it is really hard to get to $100,000. You have to figure it out. After you get to $100,000, you have to change almost everything in order to get to $300,000. Then, everything has to change again in order to get to a million in annual revenue. After a million, everything has to change again to get to 3 million, and so on….” “That’s really interesting,” I said. “It’s true for employees, too. The first one is hard, then it is hard at three, then ten, then thirty. The ones and threes are hard for employees, too.” “Hmmm,” I said. I love this. It fits exactly with what I do as a coach. Probably the biggest One in business is the very first dollar and the hardest employee is the first one. That is why so many businesses hang their first $1 bill on the wall and why so many entrepreneurs think, “I’ll just do it myself!” In order to take that first $1 bill, all the parts of the business have to be in place and operational. In order to hire the first employee, the business owner has to start making explicit what they have been doing intuitively. In my work as a business coach, I help people figure out what has to change in order to get to the next milestone. Many times there are a few levers that free the business up to slide more easily to the next level. I start with businesses that are ready to reach for a new level. Often, I come into the business around the ones or the threes. With business owners who are pretty successful at the $100,000-300,000 range, I find a leader who has big dreams and who wants to leave some kind of legacy–they want to bring...