Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Peace & Resilience

Category Archives: life


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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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Just My Thinks

There are thinks I follow through on and thinks that follow me.

There are thinks that motivate and thinks that discourage.

There are thinks that build me up and thinks that crumble me to the ground.

There are thinks I think of doing and thinks that do on their own.

There are thinks I engage and thinks I avoid.

There are thinks I want to have and thinks that seem to taunt me.

There are thinks I hope to have and thinks that linger long past their usefulness.

It seems my thinks are here to stay.

Thankfully, I know they are not all that is me…they are just my thinks…just resting in a small crevasse of my being…

…and it is okay to let some get away.


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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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breaking down

I send messages to myself in little ways to care more, nourish better, rest more fully, And then I blatantly ignore those messages.

I harden on the outside, contract on the inside, and push on at the most critical junctures because sometimes it’s easier to set myself up for the transition by considering myself broken and needing fixing.

So I let myself become weak, vulnerable, malnourished just so I can love and tend to myself.

It seems an innate component of the mechanics of being that sometimes we need to breakdown to build up.


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In a hurry to go nowhere

Motion around me could easily create a distraction or even be perceived as a danger. Motion around me could be a sign that things are passing me by.

Or, motion could be a wonderful reminder to feel my own stillness, to watch without attachment, and not be in such a hurry to get somewhere.


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Pretending to be bored

Waiting for my thoughts to quiet.

With each breath, feigning an attempt to soften the tension in my muscles.

Always on high alert, my body is the ever faithful soldier standing at attention, ready to advance, attack, or defend.

My thoughts and feeling providing constant counsel, conducting their business at all hours of the day and night as if essential personnel.

It is a strange request I make that all the components that serve me in my daily busy-ness are called upon now to rest.

They are troubled by this pause as it could imply they may no longer be needed. They resist – the body…the mind…the emotions that want to protect and define me.

And yet, a strange and delightful spaciousness coats my experience when I am willing to just sit down and breathe.

It frees them all to not disappear but to serve me better. They become my friends, sipping tea on the deck, holding hands and dancing in the absence of mission and doing.

Oh, the joy of knowing my thoughts, my feelings, my body in the absence of need.

We rest here for a bit together, finding a freshness in how we coexist…

…and then we agree to do this much more often.


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finding the way

Rain pounds down on the door of the earth.

The soil parts, making way for movement.

Creatures on the move rise to the surface.

Suddenly the water rushes in carrying us to unfamiliar spaces.

Momentarily stunned with uncertainty this new uncomfortable vantage point becomes home.

Gradually settling into a new way of being and heading in a new direction provided solely by the force of another.

Sensing the way, knowing now a different path.

Facing challenges and significant dangers, but moving forward just the same… determined to make good on this shift.

With the pouring rain comes fresh possibilities to establish new pattens, make new discoveries, test adaptability, and make good in the face of adversity.


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The walk

Do not worry, my friend…we know the way. To stumble or feel unsure does not require that we abandon the walk. Rather, it is simply calling upon us to step more genuinely and confidently across the stones, to move more freely to the rhythm of our own knowing. We have been preparing to walk these stones, this path, for a lifetime. You know the way.


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True Love

There once was a bright and shining little girl who truly knew her path and her gifts.  Even at a very early age, contrary to her young counterparts, this little girl spoke her truth.  “I won’t eat that animal…I just won’t,” she would cry even when it was the only opportunity she had to be fed.  I will dance and run.  I will play on my breath.  I will have struggles and need experiences along the way to help me remember who I am, but I will make my own way.  What she didn’t realize was how many others she would touch with her shining light, like a glowing ray of sunshine.  And so she grew, in her own way, finding adventures far beyond the comfort of many others in her circle of family and friends.  Yet, she never stopped listening to that voice of her truth – she stood up as she needed, she walked away with forgiveness and grace at times when others fell into compliance and complacency, and she shared and shared all of who she was and knew everywhere she went.  She didn’t need a title or a label for what she spent her whole life naturally doing.  In fact, others took her guidance and called it theirs.  Others wanted to ride the wave of her knowing as if they could capture that spirit through study or association.  And routinely many prodded and questioned her, demanding validation and justification around the path she chose. Nonetheless, she carefully sifted through all the disingenuous tethers, all the glitter and temptations, and stayed on her path, flanking herself with friends, colleagues, and ambassadors of truth, of inner knowing, of love…and she let the rest melt away (not always without sadness, anger, or feelings of loss, but carefully on the rhythm of each breath returning to wholeness).  She is a daily reminder of the gifts of expressing, honoring, and living as authentic self….of living as love.

 


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In Every Moment

Love each moment.
That doesn’t mean be comfortable, fulfilled, happy, easy in every moment.
It means LOVE – feel, find, share, know, and be the essence of love – each and every moment.
It is the love that defines the experience…not the moment.