Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Calm & Resilience


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Branching Out

Today I want to be a tree,

providing steadiness and sturdiness in the world,

receiving assuredness and ease,

knowing precisely where I stand.

Anchored in the strength of the earth.

Expanding gently, respectfully and gratefully into the air and space of others.

I want to be a source of clearing of thoughts,

feelings,

worries,

suffering,

not absorbing it as my own,

simply removing the impurities and toxins.

I want to breathe in and receive

the light

the water

the nourishment of family and friends

the success of work

the richness of creation.

to feel my beautiful roots and my capacity to grow endlessly upward and outward.

I embrace the simultaneously simple and complex nature of me

Inviting gratitude and joy as my guides

Growing ever stronger and steadier in who I am

and how I show up in the world.


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Shape Shifting

For just a moment,

I breathe.

Stories begin to evaporate.

Expectations

Fear

Doubt

Dissipate

Ceasing to exist without the stories.

Spreading my fingers, I release the hold,

Unbridle the mind

Widen the heart

Let it all go.

Clearing spaces

I grow lighter

Longer

Looser

Expanding

Into lightness

I deepen my capacity

I feel into my power.

My power is

Joyful

Assured

Easy

Bright

Clear

Not taking on a particular form, shifting fluidly between states and forms as they serve me.

Diving into limitless potentiality

Alive with creativity

I can be

or do

anything

Or nothing.

Feeling into my greatness

There lies freedom to choose.

Growing

Into my capacity.

I am powerful

Whatever shape I choose.


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Abundance

When I feel rich,

My breath is full and steady,

My brain is open and organized,

My body is calm and healthy.

When I think I am rich,

There is no striving or grasping,

I am courageous and confident,

Projects move forward and my work is authentic.

When I believe I am rich,

I am grateful.

There is no rush to accomplish anything.

I am focused and clear.

I make powerful and positive decisions.

When I know I am rich,

All fears of unworthiness, lack, and disappointment dissolve.

Opportunities and answers arrive easily.

Wealth occurs naturally.

Love flows freely.


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Adulting

When I was a small child, I had needs.

My survival relied upon having my needs met by others.

I developed coping strategies to optimize the potential my needs would be met.

I had to believe I would survive. I was reliant on others.

As an adult, I can survive on my own.

I can need nothing.

My needs are now replaced with wants.

Wants are preferences that guide my choices and mold my experiences.

From the space of wants, I transition from believing I can survive to knowing I can thrive.

I move from engaging coping skills and relying on others to making choices in collaboration with those who authentically support my growth along with theirs.

There is power in wanting and knowing.

Wanting and knowing bring assuredness, clarity, and focus.

Expectations fall away, choices become simpler, and I begin to align more and more with my sense of fulfillment, harmony, and success.

Feeling the difference…

I need. I want.

I believe. I know.

I want.

I know.

I know.

I know.


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New Beginnings

On the other side of the door

Is a bright spacious light

Guiding me into confidence,

Inviting my voice to be heard,

My gifts to be shared.

I replace worry with curiosity,

Hunger with satiation,

Hope with appreciation,

And old patterns and beliefs

With the great, beautiful unknown.

Flashes of doubt and distractions hold me back, producing a veiled illusion that I’m not ready.

I was born ready.

I am here to be curious.

I am here to expand,

To learn

To grow

To create again and again,

To step more and more into me.

The hinges are well-greased,

There are no locks.

Softly I focus my gaze,

Clear my throat,

Open my heart,

And turn the knob.


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Bad Me

Jealousy points towards unmet desires.

Disappointment implies that joys and successes rely on others.

Anger signals the breaching of important boundaries.

Fear rises from insecurity and a false sense of incompleteness or inability.

These are not bad or broken parts surfacing to limit and constrict.

These are powerful markers built into me that arise over and over again not to point out my weakness, lack, or flaws but to strengthen my knowing and clarity.

My power lies in being not formed by them but informed by them.


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Fearless Living

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.


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Clarity fleeting

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.


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Free Will, Free Me

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.


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Divine Wisdom

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.