Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Peace & Resilience

Tag Archives: joy


by Leave a comment

Love as one

Love everyone and everything around you as if it were an arm, a leg, an extension of you.

We are all formed of the same chemicals and the same energy as everything around us. In that way we are all connected – we are one.

So, when we love beyond the perimeter of what we perceive as our structure and identity, we exist in a pure space of love…of ease…of freedom.

Oh, but wait…that would require pure love for oneself! Perhaps the true challenge lies in forming a steady stream of love for ourselves in order to feel pure connection through love beyond us.

Love requires truth. Truth requires fearless looking. Looking requires unconditional feeling. Feeling requires objective knowing.

So what if we open our eyes to see without fear, our mouths to speak authentically and empathetically, our hearts to feel without labels and judgement, and our minds to accept unlimited possibilities?

What if we can each find the “coeur”age to unconditionally love ourselves, to bathe ourselves in love?

Then, could we live as one love?


by 1 Comment

Pretending to be bored

Waiting for my thoughts to quiet.

With each breath, feigning an attempt to soften the tension in my muscles.

Always on high alert, my body is the ever faithful soldier standing at attention, ready to advance, attack, or defend.

My thoughts and feeling providing constant counsel, conducting their business at all hours of the day and night as if essential personnel.

It is a strange request I make that all the components that serve me in my daily busy-ness are called upon now to rest.

They are troubled by this pause as it could imply they may no longer be needed. They resist – the body…the mind…the emotions that want to protect and define me.

And yet, a strange and delightful spaciousness coats my experience when I am willing to just sit down and breathe.

It frees them all to not disappear but to serve me better. They become my friends, sipping tea on the deck, holding hands and dancing in the absence of mission and doing.

Oh, the joy of knowing my thoughts, my feelings, my body in the absence of need.

We rest here for a bit together, finding a freshness in how we coexist…

…and then we agree to do this much more often.


by Leave a comment

Hard work or heart work?

Are my decisions truly aligned with what is best for me?

Do I jump into action to make a big splash?

Are my actions tied to some sort of outside message board?

Can living just to feel happy be enough?

What if I chose empathy for myself instead of sympathy?

Or kindness and forgiveness instead of shame and blame?

Can I integrate my experiences, even the ones that result in mistakes, redirection or pain as essential parts of me?

Am I working to prove something?

Or am I living in these moments for my own higher good?

Could it be that by holding a space of peace and love for me I am holding it for you as well…

…and that is heart work.


by Leave a comment

Swinging on a Heart Thread

Working through the challenges of life is like swinging on the bars of a jungle gym. Each requires a certain amount of preparation, a great deal of follow through, and the ability to balance risk and excitement all for the sake of getting to the next rung.

Taking that leap…feeling that joy.


by Leave a comment

Choices

There is always peace.

There is only joy.

Unless you choose otherwise.

It is always your choice.


by Leave a comment

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.


by Leave a comment

Self Conscious

 

I see myself…not in the mirror, but in your actions, in the rippling waters of emotions that swirl as I step into this experience with you.

Connected not because it pleases or displeases you or me but because it is aligned with a greater consciousness.

Most diligently and kindly I attend to my own being, more keenly aware of myself as the stone tossed into the river.

I am moving, yet still. You are moving, yet still.

With every breath, more aware of my existence.

Deliberate attention to the essence of peace and joy and love and grace in me results in the current that flows as me…

…when I am Self conscious.


by Leave a comment

Strutting and Swirling

My heart feels quickly, as if flowing on subtle currents in the air. Ego moves faster, thrusting against the wind. Emotions lag behind but still they dance closely together, ego and feelings.

Guided by the dance, I strut and swirl around with urgency, bravado, and sprawling feathers. Responding to surface winds, impulsively flying in a defensive posture, these auto-pilot movements are built on the residue of my stories.

Something shifts and suddenly I am still. For a moment, my intuition takes the lead. There is no need for flight , no rush to action. I know all I need to know as I slow these frenetic motions.

I land. I unruffle. In the not-doing, I am even more than I was just moments before. I hang here in the peace and stillness of slow-looking.

When I land, I am my most powerful.


by Leave a comment

Finding Joy

I love finding joy in unusual places.

In the raindrop that pokes my cheek and the wind that tosses my hair.

In the pattern of seeds that accidentally scatter on the floor.

In the slow looking that comes with the crowd of cars extending my commute.

In the exhale.

Here I am in my natural state of being. I feel no urgency, only a sense of calm and strength. I begin to know the essence of love.

Maybe finding joy is my super power.


by 1 Comment

Just Ripe

When I am balanced mind and body, I am just ripe. There is no bitterness, no tough skin to cut through. I am neither too soft and falling apart.

Picked too soon, I am raw, needy, unready. Left to ripen too long and I begin to sour and decay.

Perfectly cultivated and connected to my core, I am a source of sustenance, giving flavor and nourishment without expecting anything in return.

Delicious, sweet and juicy, is what you get when I give myself ample time on the vine.