Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Peace & Resilience

Tag Archives: hope


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the donning of my awareness

I hear the birds calling.

I feel the rustling of the earth as outside the dawn awakens.

Sleep fell so swiftly upon me as the full moon watched over and with a new sense of soft inquiry my eyes flutter open. My awareness rustles with the sounds, colors and shifting environment around me. The morning presents itself to me, as my awareness awakens with the dawn.

In this moment, as my awareness shifts from my inner state of attachment to an interconnection with what is around me, I feel a different state of aliveness. An aliveness of knowing simultaneously what is happening on the inside and the outside of the container that I perceive as me.

This awareness is scintillating and soothing, clear and not completely definable. I am aware of all and nothing.

My awareness flutters and swirls like the newly arising birds that sing and dance just outside my window, tuned as well into the mystery of awakening.

It is in the awakening of the dawn that I can explore the awakening of my awareness. It is in the awakening of my awareness where I come closer to knowing the true sense of who I am…if I am who at all.

I begin to wrap myself in the dawning of this awakening. In donning my awareness, I welcome the awakening of this harmonious interconnection with all that is around me.

…nurturing the I iN All.


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The mist of the unknown

Change sinks in like a heavy fog.

It distorts my view. I become disoriented as it wraps around me.

I am afraid. All that is familiar is disappearing before me.

I am now isolated in its grips. It presses in upon my weary bones and tests the strength of my very constitution.

Somehow I find the courage to endure its press upon me as it softly whispers…”trust me.”

And just when the weight feels too much to bear, I surrender. I surrender the need to know what lies beyond. I trust that the weathered framework that is me will endure.

And then the winds shift and rays of sun seep in. My surroundings reappear with some familiarity and yet a brightness and clarity that tunes my eyes to seeing what went before unnoticed.

In uncoiling from this temporary isolation, I see that I am still here. I have withstood the pressure in the mist of the unknown.

All is brighter and inviting now as I embrace this new vision and carry on.


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House Cleaning

Life is not about suffering. Yet, frequently I fall into a pattern of thinking I am not fully living my life if there is not conflict or hardship.

I have made up a story that there is no room for me to be happy, no time or purpose for self care, rest, nourishment, and companionship. No space for laughter, play, and love.

Yet without those features my life is not complete and I move farther and farther away from my natural state of being.

I don’t even realize that the life I think I should be leading, the life that constantly tells me I am not worthy and not enough, is shrouding me in darkness, not because that is who I am supposed to be but as a reminder of what I am deeper inside.

I am enough just the way I am. I am successful right here and now. I am capable of feeling strong, happy, and healthy always. I am worthy of goodness.

I am made of love and my real purpose here in this place and time is to be a source of love for myself and others.

All the other stuff – the striving, the suffering, and self-deprecation — is just like cobwebs and dust, painting a picture of dismay and decay. However, quite easily with a swift and conscious swipe I can clear them all away to restore the beauty of the forgotten objects that reside just below.

In this cleaning of my house, I once more feel the freshness, spaciousness, and goodness that is intended to be. In devoting just that little bit of time and attention, that quick swipe, to restoring the luster, everything seems to fall into place. When that shroud is removed all that remains is the goodness that is in fact my life and who I am supposed to be.


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Agency

Poor behavior is a sign of a loss of agency.

Lashing out at the circumstances around me instead of diving into the power within me.

There within I always have the capacity to choose, to “re-cognize” and bring back into my mental awareness my own tools of agency. I don’t need someone else to pick me up, to defend me, or clear the way for me.

I can feel confident, strong, and happy through my own decision making.

Whatever the story, with agency I can produce my own powerful, beautiful ending.


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Crystal Clear

My mind says the work shows my value.

My emotions say the work provides purpose.

But my body say the work is tiring.

When out of balance, my body knows suffering, strain and illness.

It goes along with the plan for quite some time until systems become so taxed that it begins to breakdown, accelerating the natural limitlessness of this container.

And still I push on, the ego shouting louder about value and emotions crying for purpose.

Desperate for ease and repair the body collapses.

Foolishly, I believe that this is the only way.

Until I start to listen.

I hear my body’s call for balance now long before exhaustion.

I put down the baton and slow the doing.

I rest.

And I rest.

And I rest.

Sometimes it’s hard to turn off the voices of the doing, the voices of the wanting.

But it is in the space of rest where the tiny voice inside of me reminds me that greater value and purpose is born of nurturing.

Of nurturing this body, this mind, this heart.

Not just feeding, but honoring and loving, all of these aspects of me equally.

In this space, the desire to do and be something blends with the peace and stillness and then it becomes crystal clear that I need nothing more.

It is in the quiet space of rest where I am most powerful, most beautiful, and undeniably most complete.


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Part of Me

part of me - clouds

The pain weighs so heavy on my body,

Pressing deep into my chest,

Down into my bones,

Constricting every drop of my being.

 

Yet, the breath still flows

Light and free.

There is courage, hope, relief

As I recall that the pain is just a part of me.

 

No matter how sad, or mad, or defeated I want to feel,

The pain can never be bigger than me

Because the pain is just a part of me.

 


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Soft ripples

A rhythmic flow of thoughts, sensations and movement ripple along the surface.

There is a stillness in that rhythm, a fluid sense of presence, direction, clarity and completeness.

There is no pressing onward, no need for more. In the stillness, I am the me that I am to be.

So why do I seek waves and torrents when the stillness is the essence of my being?