Waking Up Gently

17 May 2012 8 Comments

by Powerful Goddess Portraits by Sharon Birke of DoubleSmart LLC in Boudoir Photography, Glamour Portraits, Mind and Body Tags: , , , , , ,

Never work before breakfast.
If you have to work before breakfast,
eat your breakfast first.
Josh Billings

From Jon Kabat-Zinn in “Waking Up to Our Senses”:

We go from one thing to the next all day long, virtually addicted to distracting ourselves, afraid of what might happen if we didn’t fill it up, if we stopped interrupting ourselves and just settled into now.  We fill up our time and then wonder where it all went, why we feel so far from the mark, so far from our deepest aspirations, from contentment, from peace, from really being at home within ourselves and in deep connection with others.

What would it be like to settle into our own body, just lying in bed or sitting around for a few moments?  You can drop in on yourself and purposely not fill the present moment with anything, especially anxieties about the future and everything you”should” be getting done, or resentment about what has already transpired and hasn’t gone exactly as you desired.  You can play with seeing what it’s like to linger with such feelings and breathe with them for a tad longer than you are likely to think you can possibly stand.

Click on the “Leave a Comment” (above left) to tell us how you connect with yourself best in the mornings.

PS  Thank you so much, Powerful Goddess Gina Bonati, for gracing my blog with your divine beauty!

xoxox

Sharky

© Sharon Birke

Let’s celebrate you today!

201 697 1947

www.PowerfulGoddess.com

Photography for the Goddess in Every Wife & Mother

xoxox

Hot In The Kitchen

30 Oct 2011 3 Comments

by Powerful Goddess Portraits by Sharon Birke of DoubleSmart LLC in Body Image, Boudoir Photography, Empowerment, Women Photography Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well,

if one has not dined well.

Virginia Woolf

I envy people who love cooking, people who create magic in their kitchen with gourmet meals and  homemade desserts–sure magnets of warm conversation, laughter and conviviality.  When such a cook looks like the Goddess in this photo series, you can triple my envy.    I used to be torn between thoughts like ” I want a mother like that!” and “I want to be a mother like that!”  until I surrendered to the fact that my talents lie elsewhere–like eating the amazing food they make! 😉

When in the company of passionate gourmands, may we savor everything their table offers and skip talk of our latest diet.   Geneen Roth, author of  “Women, Food and God” and “Lost and Found” wrote in “When Food is Love:”

A diet is similar to an oppressive, authoritarian parent who tells you what to do and when to do it.  Diets perpetuate the child in each of us who was treated with mistrust and restrictions.  Diets keep us focused outside ourselves–on what we are allowed to eat, when we are allowed to eat it, and how much of it we are allowed to have at one sitting.  Diets keeps us dependent on a source outside ourselves for our sense of well-being and self-worth.  With a diet, the anger and humiliation stay forever self-directed, we spend our lives punishing ourselves for not being good enough.

In breaking free from diets and the ensuing self-punishment, we make a choice to stop being a victim.  It creates an awareness of how our culture encourages us to define our self-worth according to externals–what we look like, how much we weigh, how much money we make.  In paying attention to what our body wants instead of imposed rules, we learn that our body is our ally, our instincts are wise, we have many choices, and we can rely on our wisdom to live compassionately with ourselves.

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© 2011 Sharon Birke

www.PowerfulGoddess.com

Photography for the Goddess in Every Wife & Mother

Powerful Goddess is a trademark of DoubleSmart LLC

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