Today I invite new consciousness,
Awakening to my experiences,
And clearing my mind of the familiar chatter.
I engage in devotion,
Not for the sake of routine or simple predictability and familiarity,
But because it fuels my heart and ignites my soul.
Frequently I stumble over my desire to align myself with someone else, to feel liked, to fit in.
Then, I realize a little piece of me is already aligned with everyone else and that is what allows me to stand out.
When you are suffering, my smile does not mean I don’t care. It may be that I am just opening my heart more in a time when yours may feel closed off.
I am holding a space of warmth and hope in which you can feel sad but not alone.
Allow my smile to soften your pain and be not a blinding light but a guiding light.
Feeling and noticing love and joy in others does not negate the loss. It just reminds us of our capacity to heal and honor loss without getting lost in it ourselves.
For each of us there is a layer that surrounds and holds our thoughts and feelings, that ties physical material existence to a sense of being. Built into the walls of that container are our beliefs, values, and desires, ever connected and blending with the feelings of others. These characteristics are what give the container strength but can also become places of vulnerability, weakness, and destruction. Stress fractures can begin to appear over time in the container where the values, beliefs, and habits are challenged, become inflexible and brittle.
Signs of wear or weakness are not markers of fault in the container, but a means for assessing whether repair or replacement could be useful. It may be the values and beliefs woven into that section are ready for reconditioning.
When I visualize the materials, tools, and mending — stitching the fabric, soldering the metal, molding the clay – and give myself permission to reshape the container, perhaps even layering different media, I can begin to fill and empty with experiences in a way that projects and protects the me I have come to be.
Smiles and laughter have a beautiful way of resonating in our hearts forever, like the vibration of music carried on the wind. The music is always there…we just sometimes have to stop to listen for it.
Why is it that I am so regularly seduced by over work at the sacrifice of self care and compassion?
Caught in the net of a never ending to-do list that lures me away from rest and towards the mirage of success.
In the end, it is not the amount of work I get done but my capacity to enjoy the work I do and that is only possible with sufficient compassion and care.
Every morning through my window I watch the airplanes carve a path through the sky, a seemingly straight line built of swirling vortices.
The pilots consider themselves on a steadfast course, honed to the coordinates entered.
But as I watch the swath cover the sky, I see that one path dissipates into a thousand threads of opportunity to go in a different direction.
What one perceives as the path another sees as the starting point. A straight line swirls and morphs into a cloud.
There is nothing wrong with the trajectory on which I ride, but I find it quite fun to imagine where else I might go.
The gentle breeze brushes the hair off my face, opening my eyes to all the possibilities that lie on the path before me.
Sunlight bends and shifts through the branches above me, sending waves of warmth and shadows dancing upon my skin, drenching my muscles down to the bones.
The earth below pushes up into the soles of my feet, every step met with a symphony of sensations – crackling forest debris, jagged rocks protruding through the dusty soil, the path shifting and bending me.
The pops of green in the scattered brush and the sprinkling of wild flowers and occasional sprigs of berries remind me of the lushness in this life.
Smells meld together, carving new trenches in my memory, designing a magnificent tapestry of infinite connections linking the past to the now.
My palm now meets the furry edges of the bark on the thousand year old gatekeepers of this sacred space, full of knobs, notches, and burn marks, all signs of a life well lived. It’s touch drains the deepest crevasses of my being, tears now flowing in synchrony with the close by river, eroding the stone edges of my cheeks, chin, and chest.
All the pain, struggle, and fears, begin to melt. All the doubts and failures dissipate. My body, my soul now willing, softness consumes me, not absent strength, but expanding into the subtle power of me.
It is here that I witness harmony, balance, and beauty in the inconsistencies, imperfections, death, and birth before me…within me.
It is here that I discover my own capacity for healing.
It is here that I meditate instead of medicate.
When the energy in a situation gets big do you get bigger?
When the energy gets big, do you get littler?
Neither is right or wrong, they just produce different effects.
Where I match the energy carefully and skillfully in its bigness, riding the inhale to its peak, I can take that energy by the hand and usher it to a more stable space.
When I remain small in the big energy I model a means to come back to center, a way to arrive home on the wave of the exhale.
So I can choose whether to breathe in and ride up or breathe out and come back. Where I get into trouble is if I only head one way and forget that there is an inhale and an exhale in every encounter and that big and little are compliments as much as contrasts.
Settling into my breath, I find the spot where the inhale meets the exhale – the moment of attachment of my body to the breath, the point of connection to my inner knowing.
At that point, I find stillness. Projecting from that stillness is a clear and receptive space of awareness.
From that awareness, I follow the path of least effort to discover my intention – the sensation, word or object that reflects my true state of being. In that intention I find reassurance, guidance, and confirmation in my decision making.
I sit for a moment longer in the stillness, awareness and intention until I can let go of all discomfort. Full of ease and comfort, my sails fill confidently with my inner knowing, fulfilling my purpose and potential.
Finding stillness, awareness, intention, and letting go, I sail away home.
Monday Mindfulness 