Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Calm & Resilience

Category Archives: Uncategorized


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Budding freedom

Taking away someone’s freedom is the ultimate infringement on being.

When I impose my ideas, my values, and my beliefs on you, I limit your freedom.

When I think that any part of your mind, body, or spirit needs changing, I build barriers to your freedom.

When I create obstacles that exist from my assumptions and preconceptions and believe I do not have the power to change the way we co-exist, you cannot be free.

When I say I am powerless to impact your sense of freedom and that it is totally up to you, I am shirking my obligation to give you space to be free.

It is not just you that controls your ability to be free. If I lose sight of the light of love that shines in every one of us – in you and me – the light that has a right to shine – we cannot be free.

Today I vow to do my best to cultivate your liberation, your resilience and your fortitude, to be free.


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Delicious

Sweet, ripe, bits of tartness, sometimes mushy, juicy, occasionally messy and on the verge of rotten.

Dripping with flavor and full of surprises.

A steady flow of tastes and textures that overlap and give way to each other.

It has taken me all these years to realize I am not just the piece of fruit.

I am the whole fruit salad, meant to be experienced and enjoyed as a whole.

◦


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Find the way

Caught my finger briefly in the door.

Intense sensation.

Rush of pain.

Momentarily immobilized.

No blood, no mark, and yet I felt such an enormous affront.

Breath gradually returns.

Senses calm.

Back to OK.

Realizing how deceiving hurts can be on the outside…no way to know how the hurt is unfolding on the inside.

What seems like such a minor encounter could feel quite crushing on the inside.

Perhaps it would serve best to judge less and avoid assessing whether feeling hurt is appropriate and rather focus on finding the way back to OK.


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Ripples

May ripples of love and acceptance help you see all the good in others so that you can see it in you too.


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Here and Now

Fear is born of the past.

Worry is tied to the future.

In the stillness of this moment

fully present

there is joy.

Instead of trying to form my being

If I allow myself to be

I find joy.


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Luminosity

The sun typically illuminates the moon.

The moon relying on the sun to be seen.

On occasion they come into complete opposition.

The earth interferes with the sun’s capacity to light the moon.

For a moment there appears to be total darkness.

And then the moon emerges more strikingly in the sky than ever before, full of deep, rich color.

The moon becomes something new,

The dark more luminous,

The sun still shining.

Adversity the catalyst,

Throughout the darkness.


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Alone

I sit in the darkness of my own shadow.

With the bright light of others filtered out, for a moment I don’t know where to turn, which way to go, who I am.

Alone with my own being, fear is gradually replaced with Spaciousness.

Space gives way to Clarity.

In the clarity I find peace,

Able to rely on me,

Trust me,

Know my way,

without others to inform me.

Alone I choose to be still,

to notice the internal motions of my being,

making the journey alone,

far from lonely.


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Lessons in Humility

How to be strong and vulnerable.

Look others in the eye.

Listen deeply.

Be Aware.

Allow.

Accept.

Fear less.

Laugh more.

Love.


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Breaking ground

The darkness is thick. The confines of my surroundings heavy. Lingering cold immobilizes me.

Yet, something stirs inside, an irresistible call to grow, to rise, to be something different.

The process anything but easy still seems more plausible than remaining here.

But where is the growth without the restrictions and uneasiness to push against? These guides assure my strength along the way.

Yes, the breakthrough is near. I sense the spaciousnesses, feel the glimmer of light, know the way forward.

I sprout. I push on. I prevail against the struggles of facing the unfamiliar, knowing there will still be frosts, others competing for the light, and the inevitable timing out of this opportunity to grow.

And still I rise.


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Unlearned lessons

I’m learning that your opinions about me come from your experiences not mine.

Your beliefs, values and habits were formed not by my behaviors but by your experiences.

So next time I judge you or think you are making a mistake, I will remind myself to pause and explore the roots of my feelings.

They were more likely than not aimed at something or someone that came long before this moment with you. This encounter just somehow shook them up or rattled them loose.

If we can both remember this we can both forgive and understand that the mistakes of other are really just reminders of our own unlearned lessons.