Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Calm & Resilience

Tag Archives: gratitude


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Standing At The Gate

Loss and grief are proof that you have loved.

Love is the gateway to joy,

joy to peace.

You have loved and

known the essence of being loved.

Let the suffering move through you.

Rip yourself open with this grief.

Purify yourself with tears.

Beat your fists on the ground.

Pound your aching heart.

Take and give every punch with gratitude.

Shatter the barrier to feeling it all.

In the shallows of this darkness that accompany the pain,

Let every pain pour out.

Drop for a moment into the stillness,

this vast emptiness your refuge.

And, just as suddenly as the suffering began, a small space,

cleansed by your tears,

and broken open through your courage,

will begin to fill with sweetness, softness, kindness.

A slow, gradual unfolding will take place

as joy reveals itself

shyly,

purely,

authentically,

and more richly

than ever before,

because you have loved

and are willing to love and be loved again.


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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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Oh, beautiful body

I feel the greatness in your

growing, breaking, mending, carrying, holding, transporting, containing, connecting, relaying, transmitting, receiving, processing, absorbing, rejecting, integrating, mutating, protecting, defending, expressing, mobilizing, representing,

existing

just for me.

It is with exceptional gratitude that I celebrate your magnificence, always accommodating, rebuilding, recoiling.

Today, in this stillness, I send you life force,

out to your very edges from the deepest, purest center of my being.

Feel me in your heart,

warm, glowing, thriving, existing with and within you.

Such a cherished gift you are and have been all these many years.

May I never forget your devotion, consistency, and capacity to endure and co-create this being.


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Constant Source

Attract.

Repel.

Draw in.

Push back.

Play with gravity.

It is your choice how close or far away the energy they bring will orbit you.

Their rugged terrain, gaseous atmospheres, unruly conditions, or waterfalls, nirvana and bliss all belong to them.

See them,

Be grateful for them.

Allow them to be just as they are.

You are the sun.

The constant source of your own truth.

Capable of adjusting their orbits,

Cultivating trust and safety,

Assured in the joy and peace that comes from being at the center of your universe.


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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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Compass Rose

To the north I find the earth and sky.

The east brings new beginnings.

The west lowers the veil of transition, the mark of endings.

It is in the south where I meet my soul.

We sit and watch the rising and setting sun cast against the earth and sky over and over again.

Humbly and joyfully admiring the ever changing landscape of transitions, the beauty in the unknown as it takes shape each dawn and dusk, and the vast expanse of opportunity in between.


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Living Gratitude

impatient

Thankful for the gifts of mistakes…poor choices…and illness.

Thankful for the lessons learned through the suffering of others as they have so generously lit the way to the path of something else.

Thankful for the eyes that see flawlessness in the presence of imperfections.

Thankful for every scar that contributes to this living road map.

Thankful for the loss that serves as a beacon of hope.

Thankful for quiet act of forgiveness.

Thankful for the essence of grace.

Thankful for the peace that rests at the core of existence.

Thankful for this life of privilege,

and that you and I can be just as we are.

Thankful we can be.

 


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Love Songs on the Breeze

IMG_8573

Stand in the forest and just listen.  You will hear the trees singing.  It’s a quiet song that floats on the breeze as they gently sway in the currents of the air.  Their song says “I love you…for all that is you…no matter what comes with you into the forest.” The trees welcome you, happy to have you there, just as you are.

Carry the kindness of the trees with you as you move through the jungle of life. Welcome all, just as it is.  Then, feel the joy rise up in you that comes from this unconditional love.  Feel the joy of being a tree swaying in the breeze, singing songs of love.