Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Peace & Resilience

Category Archives: faith


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Heart Bloom

Softening into the knowing, she returns again and again to the stillness for answers.

There is no less hurt, confusion, and loss in the world out there.

It’s just that in the stillness she can allow the pain and suffering to pulse through her, filtering and channeling it in ways that free her.

Her nature is to swirl and flow in love.

Her job is to know and feel all that is there and embody love above it all.

She rests in the inner knowing that her heart is meant to bloom.

Artwork Credits: This beautiful sand sculpture was hand crafted by Isabelle Gasse at the 2022 Siesta Key International Sand Sculpting Festival. Isabelle is a well known ice and snow carver from Quebec, Canada, who is enjoying the fact that she can do this carving in shorts. Her carvings are as exceptional as her spirit.


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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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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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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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Signs are Everywhere

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.


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Dream on!

Your dreams are never out of reach.

Because they are yours to touch, change, create or release at any time.

They can never be bigger, scarier, or beyond you because they are an extension of you,

Here to serve you,

Linked to your greatest potential,

Always with the intention of informing your highest good.


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Devotion

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.


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An antidote for loss

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.


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Sail Away Home

Settling into my breath, I find the spot where the inhale meets the exhale – the moment of attachment of my body to the breath, the point of connection to my inner knowing.

At that point, I find stillness. Projecting from that stillness is a clear and receptive space of awareness.

From that awareness, I follow the path of least effort to discover my intention – the sensation, word or object that reflects my true state of being. In that intention I find reassurance, guidance, and confirmation in my decision making.

I sit for a moment longer in the stillness, awareness and intention until I can let go of all discomfort. Full of ease and comfort, my sails fill confidently with my inner knowing, fulfilling my purpose and potential.

Finding stillness, awareness, intention, and letting go, I sail away home.