Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Peace & Resilience


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Manifesting

Like begets like.

Peace leads to peace.

Kindness breeds kindness.

Suffering can lead to ease.

Mistakes become opportunities for growth.

Loss makes room for freedom.

Fear dissolves in faith.

Whatever I cultivate as my experience, I have the ultimate power to accept or shift the paradigm. Every experience serves me even when on the surface it may look grim. When I align an experience with the goal of knowing love, the love that is there always – not between people but that creates people – everything comes into balance, harmony prevails.

I no longer need to label my experiences as good or bad when I know that all experiences unfold before me so that I can explore what it is like to be my best self.

This is the process of trust.


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What does it take to forgive?

To forgive requires an understanding of worth,

a belief that we are all equal and deserving of freedom,

free from the risks of learning.

It takes purity of mission,

integrity of intention,

clarity of thoughts,

truthful words,

and a loving heart.

Purity is the essence of forgiveness,

wiping away our grudges,

removing hurtles,

clearing the slate.

There is a lightness and ease for both the forgiven and the forgiver when judgment and expectation are released and we are each allowed to experience learning and loving

purely,

gently,

freely.


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Cloaked

Whether by myself or with many,

Warm or cold,

In a place familiar or the unknown,

At the moment I begin to feel disconnected,

I wrap myself in my memories and experiences,

The times when I felt or longed for love,

And those precious moments I encountered,

even if just briefly,

the unconditional essence of my being,

Always there, all ways there.

Cloaked in this love, I am never alone.


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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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Meditate Me

The gentle breeze brushes the hair off my face, opening my eyes to all the possibilities that lie on the path before me.

Sunlight bends and shifts through the branches above me, sending waves of warmth and shadows dancing upon my skin, drenching my muscles down to the bones.

The earth below pushes up into the soles of my feet, every step met with a symphony of sensations – crackling forest debris, jagged rocks protruding through the dusty soil, the path shifting and bending me.

The pops of green in the scattered brush and the sprinkling of wild flowers and occasional sprigs of berries remind me of the lushness in this life.

Smells meld together, carving new trenches in my memory, designing a magnificent tapestry of infinite connections linking the past to the now.

My palm now meets the furry edges of the bark on the thousand year old gatekeepers of this sacred space, full of knobs, notches, and burn marks, all signs of a life well lived. It’s touch drains the deepest crevasses of my being, tears now flowing in synchrony with the close by river, eroding the stone edges of my cheeks, chin, and chest.

All the pain, struggle, and fears, begin to melt. All the doubts and failures dissipate. My body, my soul now willing, softness consumes me, not absent strength, but expanding into the subtle power of me.

It is here that I witness harmony, balance, and beauty in the inconsistencies, imperfections, death, and birth before me…within me.

It is here that I discover my own capacity for healing.

It is here that I meditate instead of medicate.


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See you on the bright side

I find fear exhausting.

Negative thoughts so draining.

Judgment and greed just tie me up in knots.

Why do we have to find fault and blame?

My breath flows so freely when I express kind words.

My muscles glide with ease as I extend gratitudes.

Joy makes my whole body sparkle.

This bright side is where I want to live,

no pain in perceived inferiority,

no striving or comparing,

no forgetting that everyone is always doing their best

and mistakes are the delightful gifts we are given to develop our curiosity, wonder, and awe.

Meet me here in this place of freedom to be the splendid, courageous, bright and imperfect beings that we are intended to be.


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It’s time for an Evolution

Holding out hope for resolution or dissolution of pain or suffering brings heartache…a direct misalignment of the brain and heart as the heart knows that change is needed but the head resists the shift because it’s too much work to reorganize the memories, beliefs, stories. Gestures we make toward evolution instead of resolution free us to make transitions knowing all will be ok.

The shift doesn’t erase or do away with feelings – it alters receptivity and focus, it forges new pathways of being and seeing and offers a beautiful contrast informing contentment, the capacity to just be, absent good or bad. Contentment when fully present and balanced fuels joy and joy fuels awe…unconditional delight in experiencing evolution over resolution.


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Stillness in Motion

Have you ever noticed the calm in movement? A dancer fills the stage with motion and even in the flow of the dance there is a sense of breathlessness, of suspension, and stillness.

Take a moment to sit and watch the falling snow or a drip of water in a faucet. Notice the stillness present in every motion. See the pause of the droplets, the gaps in between the snowflakes, or the steady space that is filled as you watch one flake make its way down, down, down right after another…one drip chase another. The moving object becoming the stillness itself. Feel time pause, honoring the power of stillness in the movement.

Move your body. Move your breath. Move your mind into the deep crevasses of the movement until you find the stillness.


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There is but one design.

We are woven of a universal thread, patterned and cut in such a way, no stitch exactly the same.

And when we come together, we can compete for the title of most beautiful, richest, warmest, brightest, or boldest.

Or we can weave together in such a way that our beauty, our richness, our warmth are shared. We can accent each other’s best qualities to be the brightest and boldest of all.

For when I stand in the magnificence of you, I realize my magnificence too.


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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.