Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Peace & Resilience

Category Archives: joy


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Love as one

Love everyone and everything around you as if it were an arm, a leg, an extension of you.

We are all formed of the same chemicals and the same energy as everything around us. In that way we are all connected – we are one.

So, when we love beyond the perimeter of what we perceive as our structure and identity, we exist in a pure space of love…of ease…of freedom.

Oh, but wait…that would require pure love for oneself! Perhaps the true challenge lies in forming a steady stream of love for ourselves in order to feel pure connection through love beyond us.

Love requires truth. Truth requires fearless looking. Looking requires unconditional feeling. Feeling requires objective knowing.

So what if we open our eyes to see without fear, our mouths to speak authentically and empathetically, our hearts to feel without labels and judgement, and our minds to accept unlimited possibilities?

What if we can each find the “coeur”age to unconditionally love ourselves, to bathe ourselves in love?

Then, could we live as one love?


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Swinging on a Heart Thread

Working through the challenges of life is like swinging on the bars of a jungle gym. Each requires a certain amount of preparation, a great deal of follow through, and the ability to balance risk and excitement all for the sake of getting to the next rung.

Taking that leap…feeling that joy.


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Doable

passion and common sense (2)

When passion and common sense come together they bring with them a whimsical assuredness.  Their rhythmic dance is reverent and focused, yet meandering and joyful.  Together they carry me forward with comfort and ease.

With a balance of passion and common sense, life seems quite doable…anything seems doable…everything is doable when we walk this path together.

 

 


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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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the view

I stand at the window looking outward. Not noticing the shining sun or the beautiful signs of life flowering around me. Instead I focus on the water spots, dust, and debris collected on the window pane. I am quick to blame outside factors for my spotty view.

But then I remember that I can wipe that window clean. It is not a conspiracy that the rain and flowers and earth have stirred up and thrown at me. They are not trying to obstruct my view. Rather they invite me to step outside, to clear the lens, and look in to see the beauty that lies there.

And so each time that window gets dirty, I know it is just a reminder to brush off the outside and look within. And when I focus inward with clarity, what I see looking outward shines more brightly too.


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Thriving In My Humanity

In this skin, there is challenge.

In this skin, there is weakness.

In this skin, there is pain.

In this skin, I know the frailty of my humanity.

This skin, at times limiting and restricting, full of imperfections, is also the container that holds me, that cradles my every thought and feeling, the heart of my being.

In this skin, I know nourishment.

In this skin, I sense and feel fully.

In this skin, I explore edges and learn boundaries.

I know full contentment when I allow it, in this skin.


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Turn Into the Wind

Can you turn your face to the wind and welcome it?

Does the air upon your face invite inquiry?

Opening all of your senses to each moment can be so freeing, exhilarating, curious, pleasantly undefinable.

Relaxing into the current of wind pulsing against my face, I need no answers, I need no direction.

Turning into the wind reminds me what it is to be alive in this body at this time.

Close your eyes, relax your cheeks, open wide and invite the winds of life to press into and delight you.


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Inspired Action

I breathe in…

inspire…

inspiration…

awakening inner wisdom with the breath.

Stress and agitation squeeze that breath. In the absence of breath, there is no action…

Stagnant…

Stagnation…

No connection …

Nothing flows.

I am stuck…until I exhale.

With the exhale, the dam of emotions is released…

tension dissipates.

The breath comes rushing back in. As if startled awake, I tune once more into my source.

Inspired action always takes me back to joy!

Photo credit:

Inspired by Jack Blackwell. So grateful, Jack, for your sharing your photography talents here!


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Jagged Edges

Tucked into the crevices,

Buried between the rocks and sand,

Are little moments,

Precious little glimpses of life’s greatest gifts hiding just beneath the surface.

I could easily pass them by if not for the jagged edges that reach up, poking at my being.

This uneven landscape calls for greater awareness.

I draw upon my deepest core for balance so that the pressure and discomfort do not become too great.

Those jagged edges remind me that I have not chosen the easy path, but I am capable of walking this path just the same.

Those jagged edges belong to the moments that will require the greatest courage and persistence, but unquestionably will cause rise to the fullest form of me.


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Finding Joy

I love finding joy in unusual places.

In the raindrop that pokes my cheek and the wind that tosses my hair.

In the pattern of seeds that accidentally scatter on the floor.

In the slow looking that comes with the crowd of cars extending my commute.

In the exhale.

Here I am in my natural state of being. I feel no urgency, only a sense of calm and strength. I begin to know the essence of love.

Maybe finding joy is my super power.