Category: Creativity

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Live Tea Time with Creator of the Monk Manual

Live Tea Time with Steve Lawson
Monthly Monk Manual PagesJoin Samovar Tea founder and Monk Manual creator on October 29 at 12pm PT for an interactive tea time and discussion about productivity in times of stress

The Monk Manual is the one to-do manager you’ll love to use. Because it’s so much more.

On October 29 at 12pm PST Samovar Tea founder, Jesse Jacobs, will be joined by Monk Manual creator, Steve Lawson, for tea and discussion — and you’re invited. This talk is exactly what we all need – an intimate and personal talk about tools that help us deal with the challenges of the day and the philosophies that guide us towards an inspired life.

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Why I Love the Monk Manual

The Beautiful Monk Manual
My morning ritual starts with waking up before the sun, brewing some Masala Chai, and opening my journal to a blank sheet. The pen flows and my book becomes a sacred placeholder for thoughts, feelings, and to dos. Starting the day by clearing my mind has always left me more refreshed and more serene. It’s a habit I stick to without interruption. No matter what’s transpired in the world or in life, thinking, feeling, and writing with pen and paper just…works. Morning journaling is a sacred, creative, cleansing act. And if you’ve never started, now is the time.

Four  months ago this morning ritual got a rude but transformational interruption. My wife came downstairs at 5am and killed the flow by dropping a copy of the “Monk Manual” down on the kitchen table in front of me. It knocked my pen to the side and wrinkled the paper in my journal. “What the heck?!….” Continue reading Why I Love the Monk Manual

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Why Rituals Matter Part 1: My Daily Tea Ritual

It seems that as life has gotten faster and faster, we humans have managed pretty well to keep up with the speed. But I I believe Gandhi: “That there is more to life than increasing its speed.” In fact, I’d suffice to say that things get better by decreasing their speed. Slow is good.

Rituals slow us down and connect us to this moment here and now.

Enter rituals. Rituals slow us down and connect us to this moment here and now. I’m not talking about big, ornate cultural or religious  rituals. Instead I’m referring to simple actions that connect us to ourselves, our place, and the present moment.

These kind of rituals allow us to both forget ourselves and our worries, and to escape into the present moment. They allow us to enter flow – the state of being where we’re actually not thinking, not aware of any single thing other than the act of what we are doing.

Continue reading Why Rituals Matter Part 1: My Daily Tea Ritual

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10 Ways to Blissful Emptiness

Only in emptiness can we be truly creative and imaginative.

Like an empty teacup or a blank sheet of paper, emptiness is unlimited potential. In emptiness, literally anything can happen.An idea, a scribble, a masterpiece, a to-do list, a mind map. It’s when clutter and noise and distraction fill us up that there is little room left for greatness. So if emptiness is so great, how come we don’t all achieve more of it? Because emptiness is really scary.

Ask any writer staring at a blank screen “how do you feel?” Writer’s block is total sweaty-palmed panic. An interesting analogy can be made between emptiness and the color white. White is not color. It is the absence of all color, ie “empty.”

The Japanese character for white is this:

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