Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Calm & Resilience

Category Archives: children


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Havier’s Heart

I know not how

to befriend you.

There are no words or actions that I have learned

to guide me in this seemingly simple endeavor.

Yet I sense

it is crucial to my survival.

I long to connect

and belong.

It is not for a lack of love

or desire

that I appear

so unwilling or unable

to conduct myself as

a friend.

I simply do not know how.

I do know my capacity to love and the kind space that exists

within me

so ready to receive and serve you.

All I can do right now is

breathe in,

expanding and opening myself

just a little more,

building trust in my inner knowing

that I am part of the unseen bond that exists between us all,

and that your care and patience will help me find my way.

With each exhale, I extend myself

slowly and courageously

Into the edges and folds of you

in hopes that my melding

feels as gentle

and loving

as I intend it to be.


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Feeling in

Through your accomplishments I gain confidence in my ability to move the world.

In your mistakes I recognize your willingness to be my teacher.

In your humility I lay down my need to fight for my existence.

In your weakness I see the most incredible power.

Each time I pause to notice, I cannot help but shed tears of incredible gratitude and honor in feeling into life through your heart and eyes.


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Open Seat

Both chairs are always available to you. One sits above and allows you to sprinkle your wisdom confidently, but also requires you to hold a caring space, to lift me up. The other sits at the feet of the first, providing a place to listen, learn and receive, ignighted by curiosity and wonder.

Which seat do you choose? Can you find a way to sit under, to humbly receive and accept knowledge and perspective from others? Can you sit above without looking down and casting a shadow?

Is there a way you can fit in either seat depending not on what you desire but on what I need?

Please come sit with me for a spell.


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Going Bigger

I breathe in, filling with the life force that moves me into every adventure, like the climbing of a roller coaster to the peak of its highest rail.

I teeter at the top, momentarily suspended in the gap of the breath the frozen space of fear.

And then I soften, surrender, and remember I am bigger than the gap. When I become bigger in the space of fear, fear becomes a place of play.

I can wade, jump, dive, trickle or race through the gap, inviting the breath to meet me at the other side. As I move more fully into each turn, each bend and dip in the rail, I become bigger and bigger with every breath.

In the bigness, I am fluid and free. There, in that space, I cannot help but smile in the excitement I find in being me…in breathing excitement into fear.


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Collective Liberation

When I learn to let go of anger, you begin to feel ease.

When I stop shaming myself, you become less judgmental.

When I no longer let my past determine my future, you gain hope and excitement.

When I can forgive myself for every and any mistake, shortcoming, and perceived failure, you let go of regrets.

When I remain in a positive state, your fears begin to fade away.

When I unconditionally love myself through the darkness and fears that arise, I invite your inner light to shine.

When I love me, you love more.

When I free myself, I free you.


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Splat! Eeek! Oh!

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Thought I had the shower all to myself.  Turns out a little frog thought the same.

As I hurried around the corner to turn on the water, it sprung from the wall to the ground with a giant splat. The sound was enormous!

My heart recoiled at the explosion.  Fear grabbed me.  It pulled the breath from my chest.  My body tensed from head to toe ready to respond.  My mind raced through the options…fight…or…flee…I froze.

It was at that moment I wondered – if I hadn’t been in such a hurry, if I hadn’t been so distracted with thoughts and urgency, would I have had the same reaction?

If I had been truly present and more attuned to my surroundings, would I have rounded the corner more gently?  Would the frog and I perhaps have exchanged a glance but then carried on with our business?

Because I was in such a hurry and so distracted, I had created an unsettled space for both the frog and me.

Oh, how fear takes advantage of us and sneaks in to catch us when we are off balance. And how our actions impact others’ experiences.  That poor frog would certainly have benefited from a little more care and focus from me…and I would have actually been able to get a shower instead of taking that time to sort through my surging fears and emotions.

 


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the donning of my awareness

I hear the birds calling.

I feel the rustling of the earth as outside the dawn awakens.

Sleep fell so swiftly upon me as the full moon watched over and with a new sense of soft inquiry my eyes flutter open. My awareness rustles with the sounds, colors and shifting environment around me. The morning presents itself to me, as my awareness awakens with the dawn.

In this moment, as my awareness shifts from my inner state of attachment to an interconnection with what is around me, I feel a different state of aliveness. An aliveness of knowing simultaneously what is happening on the inside and the outside of the container that I perceive as me.

This awareness is scintillating and soothing, clear and not completely definable. I am aware of all and nothing.

My awareness flutters and swirls like the newly arising birds that sing and dance just outside my window, tuned as well into the mystery of awakening.

It is in the awakening of the dawn that I can explore the awakening of my awareness. It is in the awakening of my awareness where I come closer to knowing the true sense of who I am…if I am who at all.

I begin to wrap myself in the dawning of this awakening. In donning my awareness, I welcome the awakening of this harmonious interconnection with all that is around me.

…nurturing the I iN All.


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In the Sea of Knowing

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Funny how we assign emotions, assume other’s perspectives, and assimilate outside experiences as our own.

The body works so hard to represent the advisory panel of our thoughts, feelings, and sensations, but sometimes it doesn’t always get that representation right.  Sometimes we read too much into posture, expression, engagement.  We jump to conclusions.

All along, it’s just a series of labels we attach to things to create order — an illusion that we have some sort of control.

Let the labels wash away and then what is there?  Energy — plain and simple chemical reactions — that whimsically attach to illusions.  Eliminating the labels, we engage our intuition, not just our eyes, to interpret our surroundings.  It is not always what I see that informs, but how it bumps up against me energetically.

The real gift in communication and connection is tapping into that energy.

Bored…or relaxed?

Impatient…or enthusiastic?

Sad…or peaceful?

Or maybe the energy isn’t connected to the expression at all.

Lose the labels…make the deeper connections…feel the power in knowing beyond seeing.


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Nudge

Let the world press against you – not to criticize or judge you – but just to let you know where you are.


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Disintegration

I hold a piece of clay, cool, heavy, undefined.

As I push and pull upon it, a shape begins to form. The temperature, texture, and identity of that clay grow with me.

As my best efforts produce an uneven, imbalanced figure, one to which I have nonetheless become attached, I realize more work needs to be done.

To bring the work into balance requires undoing what I have created, detaching from what is currently there before me.

The chemical reaction in my brain, the visceral response in my body, and the tugging of my thoughts and emotions make reworking the clay painful.

To restore balance, I must pull the familiar apart. I must disintegrate the work. It is not without labor and discomfort that I destroy the familiar and let go of what I knew as my best work.

I tremble with fear and doubt – I cannot imagine a greater work than before.

And there it is. After the pain of disintegration comes release from what was…freedom from past bests.

Pleasure and pride arise as the new shape takes form, coming closer into balance.

With faith and perseverance, disintegration leads to evolution.