Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Calm & Resilience

Category Archives: faith


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Swimming with the Rip Tide

Instinctively, as I get caught in the tugging, dragging, pulling pressure of the rip tide, I tense, tighten, and fight for control. I can’t see it but I struggle violently against this force that seems bigger than me. Then, just when all seems hopeless, I let go. I allow the tide to carry me.

Suddenly now I am floating on its surface instead of kicking against its hold on me. Instead of feeling I have lost control, I trust the waters to carry me.

Just then the fighting stops. When I release the resistance, I gain my freedom.

The current carries me farther and farther out but I relax more and more into the rocking motion of the water and the excitement of going somewhere new.

And then the current changes. I gradually float closer to the shore. I arrive not in the same place but still me, having lost nothing by giving up that control.

I stand at the water’s edge now wondering what other hidden currents are calling me to let go of resistance in order to arrive at some place new.


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Awakening

Awakening

What if your daily experiences were really no different than your dreams – simply stories pieced together to provide information.  Stories intended to awaken in you parts that are dormant, numb, forgotten or that would otherwise go unnoticed.  Each of these stories placed before you to illuminate a potential to think, feel, and engage differently beyond what is familiar and routine.

When I move my body in a new way, I awaken unfamiliar yet exciting new connections with muscles and bones. When I move my thoughts with curiosity, not always believing I have the answer, I am no longer reticent but have rubbed the sleep from my eyes.  When my emotions flow freely, even to the point of creating discomfort, I welcome the new dawn of compassion, courage, trust, and forgiveness.

I awaken an inner knowing, like the sun illuminating the sky.  I am suddenly aware of something far greater than these dreams.  I rise from the darkness knowing my capacity to explore, play, experiment, feel and know, all the while aware that the stories do not make me.


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Stepping Stones

There is a tendency for us to focus on the negative in the situations that are unfolding around us – to see the hate, the violence, the suffering, the injustices. We may see where we are and what is happening around us as a time of struggle, hopelessness, despair, darkness. We worry about what life will be like tomorrow. We may even fear hardship for our children as if the world around us is falling apart.

But our children are not afraid. They have confidence, perhaps just like we did when we were younger, that they are simply learning and evolving. They have a deep knowing that where we are today is an opportunity for them to succeed tomorrow. Those who are following their internal GPS are filled with hope.

So maybe instead of fretting about the politics, being angry about the hate and violence, and focusing on what is wrong or lacking, we are meant to relax into this darkness so that we can discover the light and have confidence in our children to know the way. Maybe what we see happening around us and to us today are actually the stepping stones our children need to lead us all to happiness, peace, and universal love tomorrow.


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Presence

Connect with your inner essence and conduct yourself in alignment with what is best for you – not what is best materially or socially, not what is best to correct the past or to position you for the future, not what you are craving or what you believe you need, but knowing your place and greater purpose.

Stand up fully for yourself and confidently guide your experience with grace.

This is what it means to be present.


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Courageous

If there is ever a time when I feel lost, overwhelmed or confused by the voices of mind and emotions, I need only to take a deep breath. Like a giant bright-colored arrow, my breath points me right back to the space of my heart. Each inhale reminds me of the limitlessness of my self knowing. With each exhale I find the power to trust the truth in my heart, to fearlessly and squarely face whatever lies before me, inside or out. There I find true courage.


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Crystal Clear

My mind says the work shows my value.

My emotions say the work provides purpose.

But my body say the work is tiring.

When out of balance, my body knows suffering, strain and illness.

It goes along with the plan for quite some time until systems become so taxed that it begins to breakdown, accelerating the natural limitlessness of this container.

And still I push on, the ego shouting louder about value and emotions crying for purpose.

Desperate for ease and repair the body collapses.

Foolishly, I believe that this is the only way.

Until I start to listen.

I hear my body’s call for balance now long before exhaustion.

I put down the baton and slow the doing.

I rest.

And I rest.

And I rest.

Sometimes it’s hard to turn off the voices of the doing, the voices of the wanting.

But it is in the space of rest where the tiny voice inside of me reminds me that greater value and purpose is born of nurturing.

Of nurturing this body, this mind, this heart.

Not just feeding, but honoring and loving, all of these aspects of me equally.

In this space, the desire to do and be something blends with the peace and stillness and then it becomes crystal clear that I need nothing more.

It is in the quiet space of rest where I am most powerful, most beautiful, and undeniably most complete.


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Quilted Imprints

There is an artistry to the life we live. The patterns and colors that emerge as a result of our presence here in this space are unique. No two of us the same, yet all of us connected, we weave together the tapestry of this existence. The fabric of each moment carries the design of what we choose to contribute and what we choose to leave behind — spaces forever colored by our presence…long after we have left the room.


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Resilience

How is it this cut flower, detached from its roots, has the capacity to re-grow itself, to expand in a new form, and when it seems to be at the end of its existence is capable of new life?

Resilience.


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By my side

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I keep joy by my bedside

Nestled in shells that sing the song of freedom

And the flickering light of grace in my heart

To remind me that I am love

To remind me that all is love.


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The Flurry

Snowflakes are gently falling, wet, heavy, cold. The air is still.  Yet, as if aligned with a predetermined path down, they fall, curling and dancing on invisible threads. How beautifully and carefully they weave the fabric of the newly formed blanket of white.

The landscape now changes. Familiar objects and colors fade as I grasp for their memories.  Each flake masking more and more of what I know, as more of my roots and my foundation fade.

They blur my vision as they spin and race to weave the blanket. They only create the illusion that what I know is no more.

For when I pause to breathe, I see. These dancing flakes inspire a new kind of looking, as if through a clouded window that needs to be cleared. My breath the cloth that wipes the window clean.

Faith reminds me that I know where I am, who I am, even as all I know disappears under the blanket.

And then, almost as quickly as the storm started, the flurry ends. Almost as quickly as they appeared the flakes melt away.

With this new moment, the sun shines. With this new moment, rays of light now dance on the same threads that wove the blanket.

Once more I am reunited with the familiar. Finding my roots and the landscape just as I had left it – once buried, never lost.