In life we will find ourselves drawn and pulled towards certain people, places, events and lifestyles. 
 
One such lifestyle and tradition I have been heavily drawn to is Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). At a time when I was in transition, moving away from my young partying ways to a cleaner and healthier way of life and just beginning my journey with yoga, I came across these two books which really resonated for me…
 
Higher and Higher& The Perfect Day Planby Jost Sauer.
 
Acupuncture and TCM are based on the Meridian Theory. Meridians are the energetic pathways throughout the body, similarly to the physical nervous system, that carry the life force or Chi energy to different organs. In yoga, we would refer to it as Prana moving along the nadis. 
 
These two books introduced me to the Meridian Clock where every 2 hours the Chi moves to a different organ of the body and if we are to do particular activities during these times we can support the health of the organ and the flow of Chi around the body.

Recently when I began to suffer from a bout of insomnia and kept waking at around 3am - 430am regularly, I knew something was out of balance and if I could get back in time with the Meridian clock as much as possible that I could restore my good night's sleep patterns which happened within a few days of adjusting my routine.

So to give you a little taste of what a day living in tune with the Meridian clock might look like, here are the times and organs, as well as a few suggestions (and quotes) of what to focus on during those two hours as taken from The Perfect Day Plan book by Jost Sauer, which you can refer to if you are intrigued to know more.
 
3am – 5am: Lungs. The Meridian clock is said to begin here as this is the first organ we use when we take our first breath of life. At this time it is said the soul is returning from the dream state where we may have been during sleep. It is a yin time, and insomnia at this time could suggest we are yin deficient. If not yin deficient, we can utilise this time to connect with the soul, interpret our dreams, meditate or practice yoga. But for most, this time is probably best used for sleep.
 
5am – 7am: Large Intestine. This is the time when “we can cut out what we no longer want, vanquish our inner demons and win the battles that will help change our lives.”  A perfect time to sit on the loo for a regular bowel movement and letting go of the old ;) After which we can then replace the old with the new, through meditation, yoga, qigong and/or weight-bearing exercise.
 
7am – 9am: Stomach. The perfect time to sit for 10 minutes and eat something nourishing and warming. “Our taste for life comes from our stomach, so by eating the right breakfast with the right attitude we will naturally want to sample everything life has to offer.”
 
9am – 11am: Spleen. At this time, the spleen gives you full support for action and it is the best time to concentrate and memorise information. Hence, its the perfect time to put your head down and plough into your work and studies.
 
11am - 1pm: Heart. The best time to express yourself is when the chi is in your heart, a time all about purpose and joy as we have access to the soul. Spend some time doing what you love or thinking about what you want, journaling, setting spiritual goals, speaking with people about whats closest to your heart or who you are. If at work, work smarter not harder as the energy moves from yang in spleen time to yin in heart time. 
 
1pm – 3pm: Small Intestine. Slow down a little. Have lunch and a siesta if you can. Make lunch something warm and celebratory to nourish your blood, Chi and organs. “Our small intestine is paired with our heart, and it too plays a role in ‘editing’ how we present to the world. Physically, it is responsible for separating the pure and impure and sending the latter to the large intestine for excretion… The small intestine gives us mental clarity and wisdom.”
 
3pm – 5pm: Bladder. 330itis could be a sign we are not in the flow of our Chi. At this time we want to “put cruise control on, go with the flow and feel the power.” Do work that is enjoyable and not hard, such as the easier tasks of the day in a non-urgent manner.
 
5pm – 7pm: Kidney. Time to switch off, if we can or “keep reminding yourself that this is kidney time, a time when everything is fine, everything is good, everything is perfect. Time spent well here can ensure a good night’s sleep. A great time to acknowledge our skills and strength, share a laugh and have a massage or sex ;) …. All allow us to make the switch from yang to yin. “By 7pm you need to have consciously handed over the quarrels and stresses of the day to the motherly embrace of your kidneys. Otherwise you will be taking the stresses to bed.” Exercise is not a recommended way to switch off in the way your kidneys need. 
 
7pm – 9pm: Pericardium. This is the membrane around the heart. It is said to be the line of defence that protect the heart. This focus on protection and safety makes it the perfect time to feel at home, get creative (read a book, listen to music etc), be yourself and have a light dinner. Getting changed is a great way to be yourself after a day at work. 
 
9pm – 11pm: Triple Burner or San Jiao. This is a mysterious organ, with much debate as to whether it is an organ or a function? Either way it is important to the chi cycle. This is the time for sleep, or at least preparing for it and allowing yourself to drift away. 
 
11pm – 1am: Gall Bladder. “Being asleep between 11pm and 3am, the four hours of the wood element, is crucial for health and happiness…. If we are asleep during gall bladder time we can actually access the universe’s problem-solving service.” Lack of sleep at this time is a sure sign of being out of alignment with the chi cycle and an important sign that building yin is necessary. 
 
1am – 3am: Liver. Restoration time. The time of most yin when we too should be yin and sleeping. “While we sleep our blood returns to the liver to be cleansed and revitalised.”
 
“The more things we do right by one organ, the better our whole system works.”

Eckhart Tolle & I go way back. Over a decade actually!

Funnily, it wasn't always this way...  You know this saying?
 
"When the student is ready, the teacher appears"
 
Well, this wasn't the case with Eckhart.
 
When I first came across his book, The Power of Now*, I had just moved to Melbourne and my cousin gave it to me saying, "I think you'll get into this." And he's usually right. But I just couldn't get into this one. In hindsight, I believe Tolle would have said at the time, I just wasn't ready.
 
Fast forward a few years when I'd started working at my acupuncturist's on reception, a client gave my boss the book and it sat on the reception desk before that one fateful day I decided to open it. The words on that random page hit me hard, and every other time I opened it, and thus began our relationship.
 
Soon after, Tolle next appeared in my life in audiobook form thanks to a friend. It was his latest book at the time, A New Earth*. I also discovered Oprah had started a book club for it and this is when my practice truly began. Don't ask me the exact lessons I learnt from the book because it was a very practical experience for me. But in a nutshell he teaches that the only moment of true power we have is this moment. Now! The more I practiced connecting to the inner sense (innocence?) of presence he talks about, the more it opened up within me and was guiding me down some truly magical paths, one of which lead to becoming a yoga teacher.
 
Some find it hard to listen to Tolle's unique voice and tone on audio. But as he often says when the awakening has begun within you, you'll hear these teachings in a new light. For me, every time I found myself emotional, stressed or scattered, I was drawn to taking a drive and listening to Eckhart. It would never take long with his guidance for me to feel myself, present and calm again. Our relationship continued for the rest of my time in Melbourne in this way and I lived there for 10 years all up.
 
But then life fell apart, got busy, and changed direction completely and somewhere along the way we had stopped connecting in the way old friends do. That is until now...
 
Not often does a spiritual teacher like Tolle come out to little ol' Perth, so after much deliberation over price, I bit the bullet and bought a ticket, as I knew in my heart I couldn't miss it. And of course, I'm so grateful I did.

It was like reconnecting with an old friend again. We clicked straight away, laughed easily and had many an ah-ha moment. It was the perfect reminder from Life of how much these teachings resonate for me and to reconnect with them. The biggest ah-ha was recognizing my love of yoga in so much of what he taught. 

So, in case you're curious,
here are 18 things  (only because I couldn't narrow it down any further) I learnt on my date with Eckhart...

• There needs to be a little crack/opening in the stream of mental chatter for consciousness to penetrate.

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• Beyond the personality is a deeper essence of which you truly are.

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• Flashes of spaciousness, when we dis-identify with the voice in the head, keep us sane.

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• Once we can transcend above the stream of thinking and not identify with it as who we are then we can use thinking for creativity and manifesting and more.

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• True “happiness” comes from a deeper place inside of you connected to the essence of who you are, beyond the personality.

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• The question of “Who am I?” is nothing you can speak or think, but rather what is left when you let go of looking for yourself in thoughts.

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• You don’t have a life. You are Life!

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• Discover who you are beyond all the physical identification. Move from form identification to essence identification.

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• Accept each moment as if you had chosen it.

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• Suffering comes from what your mind thought about it.

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• Let go of the commentary and imposing thoughts on things – accept what is as it is.

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• There are 4 Portals into Presence:

1) Get out of the mind and into the body.
2) Breath awareness
3) Awareness of sense perception without labeling.
4) The present moment
(note: it's everything we practice in yoga)

• The more you choose presence, the deeper you go into it, until it choses you and comes through you with time.​

 

• Allow presence to come through you into the world.​

 

• Presence is who you truly are​

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•  Success is to become a vehicle for consciousness and help bring it into the world.

 

• Don’t allow crisis to take you over, use it as an opportunity to turn up the volume on your light and presence​

 

• The "Now" is the narrow path that leads to Life. Become a Master of Presence. ​

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I'd love to hear in the comments if you are a Tolle fan too? Is there one teaching in particular you love?

What can you do today to deepen your connection to the only real point of power we have....this moment! Now!

 Have you heard of the movie, The Secret?
It's about the law of attraction, and I realised the other day, after a student asked about my tattoos, that this movie is partly responsible for me becoming a yoga teacher!

Strange story, but you see, I have one tattoo from 2003 of a moon surrounded by waves representing my star sign, Cancer, a water sign ruled by the moon. And around it is a cuff-like tattoo I got in 2007 of 8 number 8s that are meant to look like ripples in water to represent impermanence and to remind me of a turning point in my life.

This pivotal event was my appearance on Deal or No Deal, a popular game show on TV that my mum used to watch religiously every afternoon. If you haven't seen it, there are 26 brief cases with $ amounts in them from 50c to $200,000. You pick one case and then one by one open the other cases, and at the end of each round you are offered a deal to take or risk it to see what you have in yours, hoping you have the $200K or get a higher offer deal.

Yep, probably not the turning point you were thinking it would be.

It was around the time I was told my audition was successful and I was invited to the show's taping in two weeks,
I had watched the movie, The Secret.

Excitedly I told my friend about it and we started to actively visualise.
By actively, I mean we got clear on what we wanted to have happen, and then we visualised it repeatedly along with the feelings we would experience in that moment. So we decided I would be the contestant called up, as she didn't want to and I was doing this for my folks.  We then visualised ourselves high fiving each other after winning $100,000 and every time we saw each other we would high five each other and say "$100,000" recreating this moment.
We had a lot of fun doing this!

Funnily, my friend hadn't even seen the show yet! So one night she sat with her dad to watch it, when he said to her, if Tash has $200,000 in her case and you have $100,00 in yours, you'll get an offer of $150,000 guaranteed.
So then we upped the anti and started visualising that as well!

A bit of a side note, but an important part of the story, the night before the filming day, I lay in bed asking myself what number I would choose (I have a few lucky numbers) if I was called up. I remember this moment as if it was yesterday. The number 8 came to me and I thought to myself I should write it down, the pen and paper were right beside me, but then I tell myself I won't forget as it's my birthdate.

BUT, of course, the next day in all the excitement of being in the studio and watching the shows being taped the number 18 got stuck in my head after my friend mentioned the number during one of the games.

After watching 3 games being taped, the moment they called me out as the next contestant was so surreal. I remember us jumping up hugging and saying to my friend "We did it!", which you can actually hear me say in the show. As they prepped me with mics and make up etc, I was racking my mind about what number to pick as I knew 18 wasn't quite right but it was stuck in my head. It didn't help that the adrenaline was well and truly pumping and the number 18 case was right up the front. So when they asked, I said 18.

I remember looking up at the sea of other cases before me to pick my first one to open and the number 8 was shining brightly. And it had the $200K in it! Not the best way to start but at this stage I had completely forgotten what we had been visualising and that I was supposed to have picked the number 8 as my case.

I lost almost all the big cases in the first couple of rounds, except the $100,000, so I kept playing on, and the deals started to get bigger and bigger as the $100K stayed on. Until we were down to the last two cases, $100,000 and $5,000, my number 18 and my friend with number 2. It was at this moment that I remembered we had been visualising she would have the $100K and I would have the $200K, which I would have had had I chosen number 8!

Hence, I took the deal and though it wasn't the $100,000 we visualised, we still walked away with a mega $48,000.
And yes, she did have the $100K. 

After splitting it with my friend, I was shocked to realise I had received the exact amount I needed to pay off my debt, do all I wanted to that year and get ahead with some savings, all that I had written in a prayer and hidden at the start of the year... Apparently my manifesting had started a lot earlier than I realised.

So how is this all related to me becoming a yoga teacher??
Basically, I realised  after sharing my tattoos and this story with my students, if it hadn't been for this win, I would not have been in the financial position or had the space to even consider the teacher training when it came up. A training I initially I enrolled in for my own personal development and health with no intention of teaching.
Hence, it seems the universe had other intentions!​

Whenever I think back over this story it always serves to remind me of 3 valuable things...

1) We are powerful manifestors and co-creators in this world.
​What we think matters, our thoughts are powerful. As we say in yoga, Energy follows thought.

2) Always trust your intuition and do what it tells you.
This is what lead me to get the 8 number 8s tattoo so I never forget. Though I still often do :)

3) Everything happens for a reason
 Even if we may not realise it at the time, everything is unfolding perfectly.

4) Magic happens
I'm only one of millions of stories I am sure as living proof that it does. Don't stop believing!

At the start of the year I posted the 100 things I'm doing in 2015, a fun little way of putting into perspective what I want to do more of in the year, an activity I picked up from Leonie Dawson's workbooks.

I've never really been much of an avid reader, but it's always on my wish list of skills I'd like to pick up. So not surprisingly a few books ended up on the list and after hearing about my cousin's "read a book a month" challenge in 2014, the part of me that loves a good challenge to keep me on track lit up at the thought.

So here is my attempt so far. We're 5 books up on last year, which is huge for me! It hasn't been easy, but it is rewarding.

Have you read a great book recently?
​I'm on the look out for new books that are not necessarily personal development ones either. I realise I have an affinity for these types of books, but I am open to anything inspiring. Let me know in the comments.

Happy reading, 
Tx

JANUARY
FREE TO FLY - Evelyn Douglas
Inspired by my friend Evelyn's commitment and dedication, not only to yoga, but the writing of her own story and self-publishing her own book, I purchased it as soon as I heard of it's release and it was my first book for the year. It's her story about a troubled time in her marriage, which lead to its end, and how she kept it together picking up the pieces supported by her yoga practice and awarenesses.

FEBRUARY
THE FOUR AGREEMENTS - Don Miguel Ruiz
This​ book has been on my "To Read" list for eons, I think it could even be over 20 years! But as they say things will only happen when the timing is right, and it makes me wonder if these four powerful agreements  would have landed in the same way as they did at this time in my life. Definitely a read I highly recommend. I will be reading it again and probably making a post about it at some stage soon. It deserves it, it is that good.

MARCH
THE BOY WHO CAME BACK FROM HEAVEN - Kevin & Alex Malarkey
There was something about this title and the synopsis at the back of the book that drew me to it. It was a book my Dad had been gifted which I was reading as soon as he had finished. It's a true story about young Alex's horrific car accident and his recovery and recollections of his time in heaven with God written by himself and his father. Raised a Catholic, I must admit I always have my doubts about religion, however the strength of their faith was undeniable and the miracles that took place were compelling. So much so, I read this book in 8 days....this was a good thing as it gave me a much needed head start for April's read.

APRIL
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI - Paramahansa Yogananda 
This book was another that had been on my "To Read" list for a long time, since I graduated from my yoga TT in 2009 really. But being an epic read with over 40 chapters, including side notes and huge words I had trouble pronouncing let alone understanding, it was a daunting book that I attempted to start without success on several occasions. However, this time I simply stuck to my guns, and I'm so glad I did. What an inspiring yogi Yogananda was. So many inspiring tales of yogis mastering mind, body and spirit and creating so much positive change in the world. It actually took me all the rest of March, the whole of April and much of May to complete this book, but synchronistically I found out in June that a movie about his life was being shown in early July, so it made the accomplishment even sweeter when I went to see it. 
Inspiration plus!

MAY
E-SQUARED - Pam Grout 
Nine Do-It-Yourself energy experiements that prove that your thoughts create your reality. The subheading says it all really. It was a very powerful read, though I squeezed it into the tail end of May that was remaining after I finally completed my April read. So must admit there a few experiments I would really like to go back to test further as I have heard stories of people manifesting some amazing things whilst reading this book!

JUNE
OVERCOMING UNDER EARNING - Barbara Stanny
A life coach introduced me to this book last year, but at the time I only read about 2/3 chapters. This was the sort of reader I was. But that's all changed now that I have actually completed 6 books in 6 months!!! I read this book as I really wanted to get on top of my finances. It isn't THAT sort of book though. Rather it really makes you look at your relationship with yourself and your self-worth and how this is reflected back in your relationship with money. Enlightening! Must say I am in a much better place financially now since reading it and I'm still implementing new tools from it all the time.