hope | Monday Mindfulness

January 16, 2023
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Waking Up Happy

This morning, just as dawn broke in the sky, my eyes fluttered open.

Immediately my body tensed as I filled my head with to-do items, remaining self-criticism of all my failures and missed deadlines and opportunities of the day before, and doubts about whether I could make anything worthwhile out of today.

And just before I peeled back the covers and dashed off to start another arduous day, I wondered what was it like when I would just wake up happy?

There must have been a time in life when my first thoughts weren’t of the past or future but of noticing right now,

Where I simply noticed the cool of the morning air on my cheeks, the stillness of my body, the comfort of my bed.

A time when I felt whole, complete and not in a rush to hurry on or recoil into hiding.

I felt my way back into my body with a kind reacquaintance as if welcoming back an old and dear friend.

I noticed little sounds and followed them rhythmically in my mind sometimes as they travelled to me and sometimes back to their source.

I made no plan for what was next.

And on the voice that travels through the cells of my body softly said

This is love,

This is joy,

This is who I am.

I waited and waited there until that one memory resurfaced of that time when I awoke like this…or at least it conjured the feeling I had awoken like this.

I felt into that fully…waking up as enough, waking up with my heart open, waking up in love with myself and knowing that anything is possible when I wake up happy.

January 2, 2023
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Seeking My Place in the Sun

I am never quite sure what challenges lie ahead.

I reach out, spreading my branches despite the fog.

I do not know what I will touch or be touched by.

I cannot help but feel a darkness lurking there, fear ever present in knowing there may be hurt or pain in the unknowns and unkinds that secretly swirl around me.

The fog fuels my insecurity as the branches of other trees press against me further threatening my place in the sun.

It is then that I remember that I am made to bend and sway.

I reach not with my branches but deep down through my roots.

I extend my roots for both of us, steadying me and gently holding you so that together we can face the fog and darkness with greater certainty.

I am grateful to feel your roots hold me in return.

Under the pressure to withstand, when I feel and share my roots I need not push away those that cast shadows.

We need not struggle to find our way alone.

As I lend strength, I find security.

As I steady others, we stand together,

equally thriving,

despite the fog.

November 14, 2022
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Heart Bloom

Softening into the knowing, she returns again and again to the stillness for answers.

There is no less hurt, confusion, and loss in the world out there.

It’s just that in the stillness she can allow the pain and suffering to pulse through her, filtering and channeling it in ways that free her.

Her nature is to swirl and flow in love.

Her job is to know and feel all that is there and embody love above it all.

She rests in the inner knowing that her heart is meant to bloom.

Artwork Credits: This beautiful sand sculpture was hand crafted by Isabelle Gasse at the 2022 Siesta Key International Sand Sculpting Festival. Isabelle is a well known ice and snow carver from Quebec, Canada, who is enjoying the fact that she can do this carving in shorts. Her carvings are as exceptional as her spirit.

September 12, 2022
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Mercy

I am not broken.

I am not fragile.

But I am deserving of your kindness.

I do not have to have something wrong with me for you to hold me in your grace, comfort me, love me.

Let me be strong, smart, brave, and wrapped in your love…

and I will do the same for you.

Then, maybe our hurts won’t need to be so big, so often.

August 22, 2022
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The Power

Rolling in, rolling out.

The waves may be big. The waves may be small.

There may be great space between or a quickness that causes me uneasiness.

For a moment I feel unsteady, unable to trust. Is it the waves or is it me I doubt?

I soften and focus my awareness.

I find a rhythmic ebb and flow within.

Doubt disappears as my internal rhythms take over. I settle into the flow.

I create the ease that I crave. I am not the waves.

I am not the fear.

I am the power behind it all.

July 11, 2022
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Likeness to Lillies

I imagine to the universe we are much like day lilies,

endless varieties,

no two alike.

Ages in the making,

we are relatively predictable in our growing,

blooming just for an instant.

The landscape of our world is ever changed by each little bud and blossom as it pops briefly open and vanishes instantly, leaving just its memory imprinted on the wind in its unique and lasting fragrance.

March 21, 2022
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Unfolding Into Me

It’s so hard to come out of this cocoon,

Perfectly fitting around me,

The barrier I need to dampen sensations and dull the sharp contrast of the outer world and what’s going on inside of me.

I arrive at the precipice of transformation, the seal broken on my familiar encasing,

The time now ripe for my evolution.

Thinking the hard part is past me,

The formation of this new way of being is here.

And yet as the cocoon slices open, there is no longer a sense of security, of the familiar, or predictability.

These new wings are wet and heavy, my footing unsure.

My nourishment and direction are uncertain.

Yet, I find the courage to spread my wings, scattering the newly applied and still wet coating that will ultimately protect me.

Now settling into this new being,

I look out at the vast horizon.

Vibrant colors, textures and shapes seem distantly familiar,

Invigorating my curiosity,

Reminding me vaguely of what I once was and what I now will be.

It is time.

I flutter my wings.

I am free.

February 28, 2022
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Ready to Receive

The more connected I am to you in compassion the more I realize my capacity to give and receive love.

It is in the receiving that I find connection to my higher knowing of my strengths and goodness, of my value and purpose, of harmony and grace.

Love me, but above all may I be capable of receiving that love.

For the love in me becomes the roots and branches of all that I am.

February 14, 2022
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Loss, Not Lost

Grief…it’s not about the loss as much as creating and being able to access a little warm place in your heart where you hold that connection forever.

I used to think that grief was the act of severing ties and throwing away something special because it was lost.

But now I know that grief is a process of storing the memories of the specialness of every experience regardless of its labels, conditions, and how it came to be or not be.

Grief is experiencing the loss without getting lost.