Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Calm & Resilience


Leave a comment

Ripples of recovery

Pain provides an opportunity to turn towards lessons and lessening or to adopt as a wounded state as a part of identity.

For sure, the wave of wound on the heels of pain can feel logical and essential. It may perhaps be needed in order to make a choice. The wound from pain can be like a riptide that is easy to get caught in…that can provide great struggle and even the potential to drown.

However, to ride that current, perhaps even begin to understand it’s make up and direction and feel more fully into it just briefly, produces the wisdom to release the struggle and be propelled to its edges by its own force.

Without resistance, the riptide has nothing to hold onto and pushes away what it cannot drag down.

In due time, the churning and swirling when met with curiosity, tenderness, and patience has the capacity to deliver an object once more to calm and safe waters.

It is in returning to this calm space where wisdom is found…the pain lessened and the wound converted to a lesson.

While woundnedness perpetuates a perceived lack of safety imposed externally, wisdom reinforces the notion that safety is created in the choice to experience but not drown in the wound.

While ideally the sea of life hopes to offer smooth, calm, clear waters, it also aspires to shape future landscapes and to never remain the same, retaining unintentially in its purpose the potential for pain.

And in this way, there lie endless opportunities to ride or resist, to learn or succumb.


Leave a comment

Unconditional

I am love and have the love and support of something greater within me.

I don’t need to settle on attachments that artificially promote my worth.

I was born worthy of placement in a world where I can be truthful, feel universal love, and never have to prove my value.

I am the embodiment of love and peace and joy.

I need not seek confirmation of that from anyone but me.

I can stand on my own.

I turn to my own heart for safety and reassurance.

I choose self-love over attachment.

I choose to love who I am more than anyone else ever should or can.

The deepest, truest love is the love I have for myself.

I remember. I choose.

No longer led by the illusion that I must earn love from others.

I turn to the unconditional love that I already am.


Leave a comment

Eyes open, heart full

There is such magic in this world.

In the way my body carries me.

The movement of the wind as it caresses my cheek.

The coolness of the tears that release my tension and heaviness and fall as readily with joy as sorrow.

In the songs of the birds and insects busy with their work.

The smile of a loved one.

The deep knowing in the eyes of a child.

The way the earth holds onto me.

The playful dance of the ocean under the moon.

The squish of sand…mud…and grass between my toes.

The twinkle of the sun peeking through the forest leaves.

The wiggle and prance of unconditional love in a dog’s greeting.

The soul connection of a cat’s purr.

The goodness in the food I eat.

The nourishment and brain power in a sip of water.

The laughter of my children.

The echoes of love that I feel as unborn babies prepare to create more magic in this world.

The gifts are endless, seamless, and there for me even when I forget, become distracted, or look away.

The magic remains and returns again and again.

All I have to do is be still and it appears so clearly before and within me.

It’s really not magic at all.

What a beautiful thing to let love guide me and choose to see the good in the world today.


Leave a comment

Oohh, so very powerful!

Not coy,

confident.

Not tethered,

anchored.

Not drifting,

opening.

Rooted in the earth.

Expanding the mind,

not with thought derived from past experiences but with ideas inspired by the unknown.

Capable.

Clear.

Strong.

Assured not in the direction in which I will head but in the magnificence of who and where I am right now.

For when the stillness and quiet fade,

I will continue to embody grace and power.

I will not forget that I am

omnipotent.


Leave a comment

The fruits of loss

For so long I have worked to convert false and illusory love into something genuine and real.

I took every secret, every lie, and tried to make good of it, convert it with my own love, and hold it in my heart as if somehow sacred.

It cut me off from believing I was worthy or capable of experiencing authentic love…so much so that I lost the connection to my own self love.

My heart never forgot. It diligently safeguarded that little piece of me while it held all the other illusions and hopes.

The portion of my heart that held onto dreams of apologies and repair finally grew so heavy and full of empty promises that it ripped itself away. Painfully it twisted and tugged, like an overripe piece of fruit trying to resist gravity’s pull. It finally fell away. Oh the sorrow. Even letting go of something rancid and rotting is still a severing, a deep and real loss.

As that fruit of my broken heart smashed to the ground, its void still consuming my awareness, little seeds of potentiality embedded in the ground. I saw in them hopes that somehow we have all learned from these lessons of untrue love.

Somehow we will remember that without filling there can be no emptying. Without love there is no hope. Without unabashed openness and courage, the fruit cannot ripen and go on to somehow grow into something beautiful.

And in the meantime, the void from the fallen fruit begins to fill with new leaves.


Leave a comment

Self-Centered

I follow my breath to the small, tender space of my heart.

This is where I find security and assurance.

This is where in the quiet and stillness I hear the sweet voice of my Self.

I feel the very center point of my existence.

From this center, I am clear as to what I am and what I am not.

From this center, I am kind, courageous, creative, curious,

and, oh, so, very smart and strong.

From this center, there is enough of me to hold both of us joyfully in our play as humans.

From this center, bright light radiates out and all around me full of unconditional love that doesn’t just give and fix and please.

No, this bright, magnificent light protects, defines, and honors my deepest self which in return brings forward my best self for all of us.

Centered in my Self I know more clearly who I am, and who I am not, washing away fear and doubt, posturing and grasping, and external pressures to conform or contract.

Centered in my Self I experience peace and confidence, ease and joy, harmony and health.

I long to be Self centered.


2 Comments

Indelible

Step softly, so that the heart of the earth feels the massage of your gentle touch and yet you leave no visible marks on her outer edges.

Speak confidently with love so that your words are heard clearly without hurting.

Experience wide open spaces without taking up residency or ownership.

Follow the rising sun as the rippling wake of warmth washing over the landscape.

Offer cool crevices like the moon without swallowing up the light.

Be your most wild, magnificent, vibrant self, touching the world lightly and leaving an indelible mark.


Leave a comment

Weeping

How can something weeping be so beautiful?

Branches sinking towards the ground,

heavy with the promise of spring.

Blossoms like tears,

dripping from overflowing eyes.

Swaying soulfully in the wind, the blossoms sing a song not of loss but of rebirth.

These branches remind us to remain soft,

to bend and hang low,

to let life flow.

See the beauty and freshness that comes with letting go.

With the same courage that the tree has in these uncertain temperatures and conditions to bravely unfurl its blossoms,

weeping thoroughly,

signs of growth,

remind us of the beauty in letting our tears flow

for behind them comes a richness of life and growth

the likes of which have never been seen or felt before.


2 Comments

Rising from the Rubble

I had no idea that as I tore down the wall to rescue my abandoned self that I would nearly smother in the rubble.

Even when loss is experienced in a way that relieves abuse, abandonment and betrayal, the disruption it causes and the pain of breaking through the barriers to healing oneself are great.

And those who helped to build the wall, who reveled in the obstructing and ostracizing of that true self, walk away unphased by the devastation left behind. They go on to build thicker walls around themselves and others.

While their departure ensures the wall they left behind is not reinforced, it hurts that they do nothing to help remove the heavy stones, broken shards, and pieces of what they worked so relentlessly to build.

That burden rests on the shoulders of the self behind the wall. One by one the stones are slid aside. The dust settles. The light starts to shine through the piles and pieces as the opening grows wider and wider.

The power in seeing that self emerge, pale and weak at first – labored breathing, heavy and slow moving, still patiently and methodically forging ahead and finding its way – is so sweet to witness…even in its efforting.

That self digging out from the rubble need not feel animosity, anger, or resentment. No, that self is not needing to be rescued.

That self is triumphing in the freedom of self-acknowledgment, self-care, and self-worth.

Much of the power in healing comes from the self not needing to be rescued. The power is in putting aside the rubble and freeing oneself.


2 Comments

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.