When I “try” I am saying “a part of this doesn’t resonate with me.”
When I am “trying” I enter a space of potential failure, guilt, or shame.
Trying creates a river of resistance.
Instead, I think I will simply choose to “do” – do what feels right, do what I can do, do what resonates as what I am supposed to do.
Do without resistance.
Know that your kindness, your happiness, and your goodness are what sparkles and shines in this world…and that IS enough.
Compassion, peace, and calm cannot be forced. One cannot demand that someone be compassionate. One cannot command peace and calm. Rather, one must model it, live it, and know that the path to peace in ourselves and others is a steady process of balancing ego and replacing envy and judgment with love and inspiration. And that is the hard work that we must individually choose to do.
No matter that anger laps at your feet,
No matter that fear and distrust appear to form walls around you,
No matter that hope feels smothered,
Spiral upwards, out of the ashes of perceived despair,
Fill the air with compassion.
As long as the flames of compassion dance,
We can know only peace and joy.
Why pursue happiness when you can just have it?
Contrast arises in our experiences as a guide. Like bread crumbs scattered on the path, contrast draws attention, redirecting us back to the path, pointing out the direction in which we should head so that we can find our way back to what nurtures and restores us.
My body is the vessel of my being.
It holds me, carries me, represents and protects me.
Why do I judge it, harm it, ignore it?
My body has unconditional love for me, always doing its best to support whatever next idea I have about how to decorate it, what to put into it, how to use it.
It will not last forever and it may not always be able to do or give me what I want, but in the still of the night, no matter what I ask of it, if I listen very carefully, I can hear it saying, “I love you”…every organ, every bone, every muscle, every cell.
It’s time to love it back…unconditionally.
There isn’t one way…there’s one feeling.
When you remove the pit in the center and scoop up the pulp on a chip, you are left with a perfect little craft in which to float through your day, cradled and nourished in your own shell.
Float, bob,and sail on…
It’s the gnarled bark
the splintered edges
and the twisted growth
that craft the greatest character.
Monday Mindfulness 