Moving from experience to experience, fertilizing each moment with the lingering imprint from where I have been.
Carrying just enough with me to grow a place to land tomorrow.
Taking my time right here and now to nourish and enjoy myself is the only way to ensure that enough of this experience sticks to me fruitfully.
Life flowers fully before me when I linger where I am and carry only the good stuff with me.
Right there, in between the meandering branches of my life,
the shifting sands of time,
the ebbing and flowing waters of my mind,
and the soft current that carries my heart,
there is a bright and constant light
that moves and shines through my existence,
the steady point that reminds and renews me over and over again,
guiding me back like a porch light,
to the warm, quiet, stillness of my eternal home within.
Photo credit: Brian Danahy (from the port of Mykanos, Greece)
Fear is born of the past.
Worry is tied to the future.
In the stillness of this moment
fully present
there is joy.
Instead of trying to form my being
If I allow myself to be
I find joy.
How to be strong and vulnerable.
Look others in the eye.
Listen deeply.
Be Aware.
Allow.
Accept.
Fear less.
Laugh more.
Love.
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.
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.
Sometimes life really is as simple as following the messages around us to get back to the place within us to feel whole, loved, and enough.
Today I invite new consciousness,
Awakening to my experiences,
And clearing my mind of the familiar chatter.
I engage in devotion,
Not for the sake of routine or simple predictability and familiarity,
But because it fuels my heart and ignites my soul.
Today I begin again…not as a punishment or starting over but launching from a new starting line.
To begin again is to feel into an experience in a new way and invite…and then allow… an unexpected outcome.
To joyously and curiously invite variety, spontaneity, and change in such a way as to begin again and begin again, freely cultivating an openness to the unknown while at the same time feeling stable, connected, confident, and grounded.
To begin again is to be fully present, wildly open, and happy in every moment.
When you are suffering, my smile does not mean I don’t care. It may be that I am just opening my heart more in a time when yours may feel closed off.
I am holding a space of warmth and hope in which you can feel sad but not alone.
Allow my smile to soften your pain and be not a blinding light but a guiding light.
Feeling and noticing love and joy in others does not negate the loss. It just reminds us of our capacity to heal and honor loss without getting lost in it ourselves.
Monday Mindfulness 