Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Calm & Resilience


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Bursting with Power

It doesn’t matter how much power you have if you don’t allow it to burst out and serve you.

So many times I have used my power to suppress my own needs, my voice, my self-advocacy…all for the sake of “preserving the peace.” But, how can peace be preserved when a battle rages within me to suppress my own feelings and needs simply to avoid the risk of imploring you to revel in my power to know myself. Ah, yes, there is a chance that you will be wounded in the wake of my power, but that wound I can hold with much greater compassion than the devastation that comes from turning my power against myself.

My power transforms from exploding within to bright and shining rays of love and truth when authentically attuned. I begin to recognize that honesty is a demonstration of true prowess and the recognition of woundedness an opportunity to be powerful in kindness, forgiveness, and grace.

My power magnifies when I allow it to burst out and serve me, so much so that it can hold all of the discomfort, all of the woundedness, all of the needs and feelings — yours and mine – and in that outburst peace is preserved.


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Living in the space of AND

White flowers

Dark textures

Straight lines

Soft edges

Living wholeness

Dried pieces

Flowing lines

Still emptiness

Warm touches

Cool feeling

Hope and breath

In the spaces

Photo courtesy of Susan Kerr.


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Sheer Connectedness

Sometimes I just don’t realize the sheerness of the stories I wear.

How they seem to protect me and at the same time be filled with holes.

I wear them to create a sense of separateness, of control, and the ability to shield myself from others.

I can never truly hide from that connection. A part of me will always remain exposed.

Perhaps a part of me pokes out beyond the edge hoping to be seen so that I can come out from under the stories.

When the veil of story is pulled back authentic, vulnerable, unfiltered connectedness can begin.


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Wide Open

Hope you stay open today to all the world out there has to offer you.

There are no wrong choices…even if you choose to be the object of pain or discomfort for yourself or someone else. There is a lesson in it all… a forward momentum.

Sense when to watch and when to leap. Don’t be afraid to feel – all of it. Know that it is all there for you to experiment with and none of it bigger than you…because it is there as a part of you.

Seek adventure curiously and joyfully…in your heart, in your mind, and in every action or inaction. Take on all that is out there in whatever way will grow and inspire you best.

Lift the blinds. Open the window.

Breathe it all in.

Now go live in it.


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Manifesting

Like begets like.

Peace leads to peace.

Kindness breeds kindness.

Suffering can lead to ease.

Mistakes become opportunities for growth.

Loss makes room for freedom.

Fear dissolves in faith.

Whatever I cultivate as my experience, I have the ultimate power to accept or shift the paradigm. Every experience serves me even when on the surface it may look grim. When I align an experience with the goal of knowing love, the love that is there always – not between people but that creates people – everything comes into balance, harmony prevails.

I no longer need to label my experiences as good or bad when I know that all experiences unfold before me so that I can explore what it is like to be my best self.

This is the process of trust.


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Showing up

I am experimenting more and more with loving myself these days…not being safe or shoring up relationships to develop a sense of connection but authentic appreciation for who and where I am. I am showing up in the knowing that I have my intuition (that I will call Self) as a guide and while connection with community is an important element of the human experience, connection with my Self is just as crucial.

As I am learning to love myself, I am maneuvering through the awkward balance between selfish and selfless to find the sustainable space between…where ego informs, intuition guides, and I hold onto no preconceptions of what that will look and feel like as I determine what best serves.

The chain that secured the familiar is rattling. Full of insecurities, yours and mine, it informs as I release its grip on my heart, rusty links untangling for all of us to see that freedom is possible.

As I am rattling the chain around my heart I ask that you consider letting your chain rattle too to make room for a new way of showing up for you and for me.

Either way, I will be free but it might be more fun to conspire in the unchaining together.


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Resonance

There is something timeless in the rolling sea.

Individuality is lost as droplets leap into the air then instantly become consumed by the primal tugging, pulling, pushing, of the random rhythms.

There is something familiar in the curling, crashing surf. A sound and feeling calling me into its whisper, a deafening roar somehow barely audible.

It speaks of protecting me,

clearing my hurts and the world’s imperfections even before I know of them.

The spray catches my cheek.

Resonance of life force and love pulsing on the tide, pulsing through me.

I am consumed, transported back to the space and time when all I knew was the wooshing, whirling roar of silence in the womb.

My individuality is imperceivable.

I know precisely who I am…I am all.

It is with this magnificence that I crest the next wave dancing momentarily, singularly in the air and time and time again am happily reabsorbed into the flow,

into the moment of truth where I know I am the love and the life force that pulses with and through it all.

I am the resonance.


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Uncovering

Don’t be afraid of being weak.

Where we find our weakness,

we also uncover our potential for strength.


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Exposed

Sanding and scraping at the scars, dents and built up layers of protection releases not only the renewed beauty of the untouched core but reawakens all the senses as the scent, taste, and feel of the raw nature is revealed.

It is hard work to peel away the layers and return to that soft exposed space of vulnerability. It also comes with a lightness and freshness that invites expanded breath and awe at the ability to renew and return to untouched purity.

It is the purity and vulnerability that allow the true Self to be revealed, rekindled, and invited to be seen, smelled, tasted, and heard.

I sand, scrape, and rub at the layers of my existence to expose the grain of my soul, renewed with freshness, clarity, and beauty in my raw, natural state.

While I may still need a soft coat of protection for survival, this time it will be applied lovingly and gently by me, and leave room for my natural imperfections to shine through.


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Reclaiming Ground

Cracks in the foundation.

Gotta dig deeper.

Move more dirt.

Secure the footings.

Rising fear like flooding waters.

Climbing higher

Full of frailty

Mounting doubt

Insecurity

in the instability

existence threatened

Could it all crumble?

Maybe it should.

Digging deep.