Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Peace & Resilience

Category Archives: adversity


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Stepping Through

Every change has a transition, a pause between what has happened and what is left to do.

This threshold offers a clear and open vantage point,

an opportunity to be fully present, not leaning back or lunging forward, but knowingly and confidently stepping into who we are now ready to be.

Whether recovering from an illness, overcoming loss, or realizing dharma, we come to this threshold not by accident or failure but as a reminder of our power to heal and know greater peace and ease.

In this doorway lies an intricate and yet simple network of universal connections fueling our every desire and supporting our every need, holding us, preparing us, reminding us we are ready to carry on. We are never alone.

We do not need to know what lies beyond this doorway, or to worry about being received on the other side.

We need only remember the full and unwavering choice we have to be here, to step in and step through to the wild and beautiful landscape infinitely sprawling before us.

Photo credit: Clifden Castle Ireland, gateway to the wild and beautiful, captured by my mischievous soul sister.


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Budding freedom

Taking away someone’s freedom is the ultimate infringement on being.

When I impose my ideas, my values, and my beliefs on you, I limit your freedom.

When I think that any part of your mind, body, or spirit needs changing, I build barriers to your freedom.

When I create obstacles that exist from my assumptions and preconceptions and believe I do not have the power to change the way we co-exist, you cannot be free.

When I say I am powerless to impact your sense of freedom and that it is totally up to you, I am shirking my obligation to give you space to be free.

It is not just you that controls your ability to be free. If I lose sight of the light of love that shines in every one of us – in you and me – the light that has a right to shine – we cannot be free.

Today I vow to do my best to cultivate your liberation, your resilience and your fortitude, to be free.


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Find the way

Caught my finger briefly in the door.

Intense sensation.

Rush of pain.

Momentarily immobilized.

No blood, no mark, and yet I felt such an enormous affront.

Breath gradually returns.

Senses calm.

Back to OK.

Realizing how deceiving hurts can be on the outside…no way to know how the hurt is unfolding on the inside.

What seems like such a minor encounter could feel quite crushing on the inside.

Perhaps it would serve best to judge less and avoid assessing whether feeling hurt is appropriate and rather focus on finding the way back to OK.


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Luminosity

The sun typically illuminates the moon.

The moon relying on the sun to be seen.

On occasion they come into complete opposition.

The earth interferes with the sun’s capacity to light the moon.

For a moment there appears to be total darkness.

And then the moon emerges more strikingly in the sky than ever before, full of deep, rich color.

The moon becomes something new,

The dark more luminous,

The sun still shining.

Adversity the catalyst,

Throughout the darkness.


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Holding on too tight

Control creates the illusion of safety.

The more I seek control, the more insecure I become.

The more I allow myself to trust the not-knowing to result in wisdom, the uncertainty to to inspire clarity, and the gift of others’ feedback to grow my confidence, the less I approach life as a field of potential failures and instead find a river of opportunities.

The less I grapple with control, the more I understand how much there is to learn and realize how much I already know.


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Relief

The deadline was met.

The difficulty has passed.

The challenge is complete.

Is there a way to just feel rest instead of collapsing into this state of completion?

Must dread and arduousness accompany the work?

Why have I created this belief that I need struggle in order to be worthy of the prize of rest?

Could I move instead from a place of ease in such a way that the work is joyful, the learning graceful?

Could challenge instead be reframed as delightful growth?

Yes, if I choose to make it that way.


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Unfolding Into Me

It’s so hard to come out of this cocoon,

Perfectly fitting around me,

The barrier I need to dampen sensations and dull the sharp contrast of the outer world and what’s going on inside of me.

I arrive at the precipice of transformation, the seal broken on my familiar encasing,

The time now ripe for my evolution.

Thinking the hard part is past me,

The formation of this new way of being is here.

And yet as the cocoon slices open, there is no longer a sense of security, of the familiar, or predictability.

These new wings are wet and heavy, my footing unsure.

My nourishment and direction are uncertain.

Yet, I find the courage to spread my wings, scattering the newly applied and still wet coating that will ultimately protect me.

Now settling into this new being,

I look out at the vast horizon.

Vibrant colors, textures and shapes seem distantly familiar,

Invigorating my curiosity,

Reminding me vaguely of what I once was and what I now will be.

It is time.

I flutter my wings.

I am free.


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No loss, just lessons learned

Change can be a trigger for grief when I view it as resulting in something I don’t want, something that requires me to lose what I have.

But when change is received as a marker of accomplishment of a stage or triumph over a challenge, it inspires a sense of renewal and growth.

To receive change in that way requires diligence and optimism. It requires a belief in me that all of my experiences are opportunities to get to know myself better and to play in the dance of life with you, this body, this world, even if it means it looks different along the way.

In this way, change becomes not suffering but nourishing, evolutionary, and a source of freedom.


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Loss, Not Lost

Grief…it’s not about the loss as much as creating and being able to access a little warm place in your heart where you hold that connection forever.

I used to think that grief was the act of severing ties and throwing away something special because it was lost.

But now I know that grief is a process of storing the memories of the specialness of every experience regardless of its labels, conditions, and how it came to be or not be.

Grief is experiencing the loss without getting lost.