Ease in movement
Confidence in heart
Peace in spirit
Clarity in thought
Patience in receiving
Kindness in expression
Assurance in being
Joy in doing
Stillness in action
Flourishing intuition
Thriving in grace
Abundant in gratitude
Living in love
Don’t wait for them to see the richness and uniqueness – see it yourself…
Unwind your tangled perception of you…
Enjoy the where you are and the where you will be, each full of challenges and delights…
Please love yourself just a little more…you are harder on yourself than anyone else ever could be…
Do all things because they feel good and nurture you not because they are “right” or provide a shield from the deep dark thoughts and feelings that face you…
Fearlessly take the hands of hurt and pain and walk with them for a bit, let them guide you out of the darkness until together you find the space to release each other…
Take your time in the process of caring for you above all else…slow down and tend to each and every element of you as if massaging a baby tenderly with the balm of divine love…
Feel grateful for the ease and healing in every breathe…
Move your body with the joy and freedom it was designed for…
You, my friend, are made of love and all those with truest loving eyes will see that and that is all that matters…
Turn your truest loving eyes towards your own heart and hold it sweetly, love it dearly, and this will be enough.
Photo compliments of Pauline Campbell.
Once there was an old belief that said,
“I am afraid…afraid of hurting others because I feel their hurt as if my own…hurting others jeopardizes my relationships and in that I run the risk of feeling their anger or worse, their scorn and disappointment. It is better to deny my joy than risk upsetting theirs.”
For a long, long time that belief walked confidently along its path unhindered. One day, it stumbled on that well worn path upon a rock of joy. It tripped over pebbles of power, and fell upon a bolder of truthfulness. As the belief lost its balance, it fell into a net of beautiful jewels all connected by a golden thread of love, of creativity, kindness, and great joy.
The belief grasped at the edges of the path, grappled with the sensation of free falling, longing for the predictable order of its existence. In the blinding beauty of the sparkling jewels, the belief had no choice but to release its fear, to drop into the wide and open net, to be held by a greater force in the space of free will and joy.
Gradually, the belief allowed itself to let go of the path and discovered its power to attract truthfulness and joy. It found that in that vibration there was no room for fear, hurt, or loneliness…only love.
So, I sit here day after day wallowing in my mistakes, misfortunes, pain, and suffering.
I hold onto them in my body like appendages…the tension in my muscles, the crookedness of my bones, the heaviness of my head…and heart.
I carry them as reminders of my faults and flaws.
And yet, when I sit in stillness, when I fill and empty with awareness on my breath, I find only peace…ease…joy.
Remembering…
…the gentle touch of others, through their hands, hearts, and smiles.
…the power of my cognition to work the puzzle pieces of every day life.
… the essence of my kindness and great capacity for love.
…the gifts of receivership and gratitude that present so abundantly and frequently.
I’ve been conditioned to hold onto and dwell on the lack and sorrows as if they belong permanently.
Love, joy, and freedom are somehow deemed as temporary.
Today I give myself permission to release it all – to breathe in and out with equanimity in every moment, to imbibe and cleanse, receive and release, storing none as defining me and simply allowing it all to live through me without reliving or retaining any of it as me.
Clearing the channels of experience so that all flows, informs, and re-minds me that I am everything and defined by nothing.
When I am afraid, I just need to pause.
When I am tired, I just need to soften.
When in doubt, I open my hands and stretch my fingers to let go of the burdens I am carrying.
It’s time to release the bags full of insecurity, judgment, and uncertainty,
to relieve that heavy weight off my shoulders,
unlock my hips, knees and feet
and walk confidently into the less than clear,
the less than perfect,
the unknown.
I will be patient with myself and with others.
In that patience I will grow confidence.
I will seek compassionate words that promote truth to foster ease, healing, and happiness in myself and others.
I will not need approval,
and in fact,
I will revel in my stumbling.
I will cultivate pauses to inquire,
and to see the unknown
not as daunting,
but as freeing.
The only thing I will hold onto
is the hand of the little child within me.
Seeking love and assurance from within,
I will open my hands, spread my fingers and let everything else go.
I will no longer grasp limitations that hinder my ability to see and be grateful,
that mask the abundance before me,
the joy within me,
my capacity for unconditional peace and love,
and my ability to know in the unknown.
I’m not waiting.
I’m allowing.
I’m unlimited creative genius,
Divine!
I am not waiting to be rescued or for my destiny to find me.
I am getting out of the way!
Waiting means I’ve got it all planned out and everything is going to be step by step as I envision.
I know that I don’t make it happen.
I allow it to happen.
So many other forces are at work. Why would I think it’s just me marking my path.
It’s me counting on you and everyone and everything around us.
In that way I cannot control the direction I go in.
All I can do is know that I am headed that way.
I know what it feels like to have the future I am destined for.
The how is irrelevant.
Why is it when I step out of my suffering, I am uncomfortable with the suffering of others?
Guilt arises at the feeling that I am free of pain somehow at their expense.
It is difficult to exercise compassion for the suffering of another when I hold no compassion for myself and the value of feeling pain free.
Compassion wrapped in guilt results in creating a false story in order to take on someone else’s.
True empathy is understanding suffering, holding a space of great strength and courage – enough for both of us – rising from my own pain and rising even higher from my own joy and knowing that by maintaining my balance, finesse, and freedom I offer more room for healing than by falsely taking on the suffering of others.
Compassion without guilt provides a clear path to alleviate suffering.
Compassion filled with joy brings independence, hope and healing.
Compassion is powerful.
Guilt smothering.
Empathy delicately empowering.
There is not just one way to be happy.
one form of happiness.
We are limitless beings with infinite possibilities for happiness.
There is always the potential to find fulfillment, accomplishment, significance, and satisfaction in absolutely every experience.
When locked into one way of feeling or recognizing happiness, faith and trust are trampled.
Happiness is bypassed for the more familiar feeling of disappointment, failure, lack, and shortcomings.
When we step out of the familiar way of seeing things
and can imagine the potentiality for happiness in every moment,
we cannot help but to live happier.
Boundaries contribute to positivity.
When I establish a parameter by which I can protect my values,
I increase my sense of stability and clarity.
That directly enhances my capacity to remain sure, confident, and clear.
In that state of certainty I am able to tamper negativity and remain open and flexible.
I maintain absolute dedication to my own well being.
I feel greater patience accompanied by assurance.
This cultivates positivity that directly fuels my ability to love.
Here, I feel nothing but joyful, confident, and free.
Today I awoke feeling like a snake shedding its skin.
Soft, vulnerable, sensitive, expanding, growing, free.
Ripping through the layers of being that have protected, carried, and framed who I am, I thank those parts of me that no longer fit.
Purifying tears accompany the molting, helping to dilute any doubt.
Courage thrusts me onward – there is no halfway point in change.
The last pieces falling away, I barely recognize me.
For an instant I long for that familiar container.
In the very next instant it is clear I cannot squeeze back into that way of being.
I am destined to be soft, vulnerable, and sensitive
and for now that is what I am.
Monday Mindfulness 