Finding the Deep River Within

In a fun twist of fate, I won a book on Sonja Haller’s blog: http://blog.sonjahaller.com/.  The book is Finding the Deep River Within by Abby Sexias.

First off, I love Sonja Haller’s work.  She writes about things that are important to me like: how to balance work, Motherhood and life, meditation, yoga, self-awareness, self-discovery, etc.  So it would figure that I would win a book on her blog (like attracts like…I was reading about stuff I liked so …).  You get the Law of Attraction picture.  And to further that end, I was at a spa at The Phoenician when the drawing actually occurred…conclusion: do what you love and good things will happen effortlessly.

Anyway, about the book.  I found Finding the Deep River Within to be a good read about how to get beyond the “busyness” of everyday life and into the deep, meaningful landscape that we all desire.  Abby’s style is warm and inviting.  She is comforting, real, down to earth, authentic.  And given that she’s a practicing psychotherapist whose worked miracles on working mothers up and down the Eastern Seaboard, she truly feels like an expert in life balance.

In particular, my favorite chapter was Chapter Eight: Practice Presence.  As I go about my everyday tasks and chores, this is what I aim for: to actually be doing what I am doing when I am doing it.  How many times are we multitasking and not really doing any (fully) of the activities in which we’re engaged?  We’re planning dinner while doing yoga.  Planning tomorrow’s workload while reading to our kids.  I find this mind-boggling that our brains can actually be involved in something as technical as reading a book yet clever enough to solve whole other problems simultaneously.

So check out Abby and her book: http://www.deepriverwithin.com/.  Here’s one of my favorite excerpts to peak your interest:

In order to slow down and experience life with more balance, depth and satisfaction, we need to address both the outer and inner dimensions of how we live.  The practice of presence addresses internal busyness, the constant stream of mental chatter that can fill even the most spacious times our calendar has to offer.  This habit of mental busyness effectively blocks us from the one place where we can experience life fully and deeply: the present moment.  It is in the here and now that life really happens: we engage with what matters, open to ourselves and others, experience joy.  All of these are also hallmarks of living with access to the waters of the Deep River.