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.
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.
I find fear exhausting.
Negative thoughts so draining.
Judgment and greed just tie me up in knots.
Why do we have to find fault and blame?
My breath flows so freely when I express kind words.
My muscles glide with ease as I extend gratitudes.
Joy makes my whole body sparkle.
This bright side is where I want to live,
no pain in perceived inferiority,
no striving or comparing,
no forgetting that everyone is always doing their best
and mistakes are the delightful gifts we are given to develop our curiosity, wonder, and awe.
Meet me here in this place of freedom to be the splendid, courageous, bright and imperfect beings that we are intended to be.
I think my goals will no longer be based in outcomes…
But instead freedoms.
Giving
Receiving
Fluid
Unrestricted
Uninhibited
Without attachments
Without stipulations
Or boundaries
Adaptable
Accommodating
Peaceful
Gentle
Joyful
founded in Love.
When I tap into the channels of giving, grace, and peace in me, I become a place of respite.
Like a leaf offering shade or a branch to swing upon, I bend and sway to provide a universal place for all to play and rest,
where we can breathe, soften, and melt into the essence of our being.
For when I open these channels of love to you, my roots find strength.
I stretch into my purpose.
Together we branch out.
In our oneness, we more fully expand into who we are each meant to be.
Holding out hope for resolution or dissolution of pain or suffering brings heartache…a direct misalignment of the brain and heart as the heart knows that change is needed but the head resists the shift because it’s too much work to reorganize the memories, beliefs, stories. Gestures we make toward evolution instead of resolution free us to make transitions knowing all will be ok.
The shift doesn’t erase or do away with feelings – it alters receptivity and focus, it forges new pathways of being and seeing and offers a beautiful contrast informing contentment, the capacity to just be, absent good or bad. Contentment when fully present and balanced fuels joy and joy fuels awe…unconditional delight in experiencing evolution over resolution.
Together we navigate the waves and sands of life,
Asking simple questions like “what shall we eat today?”
Or “do you think it will rain?”
We sometimes gather with the flock to catch up and share in our collective presence and strength.
There is always the hierarchy to navigate and the stories of others that come into play – no less delightful but requiring a different form of focus and care nonetheless.
But when we walk alone at the waters edge in the silence,
knowing each other’s thoughts,
sensing the world together,
equal in the space we occupy,
that is when I feel at my best
and know my Self the most.
What’s yours is mine and mine is yours — at least that’s what we learn as children, right?
But sometimes it’s hard to share, to let someone have something we treasure…a favorite object, a delicious treat, our time, or our work product.
It sometimes makes me want to stop creating, contributing, doing and having!
But we know that renunciation — refraining, withdrawing, doing without — or non-action does not eliminate the fears and attachments. In fact it may even make them grow as in the unknown still lurks the possibility – even in doing nothing – that I might have something to share.
Instead, I think I will listen more, align myself with actions that fulfill me as I do them, and find such joys in the doing, creating, and connecting that I can unconditionally share anything of mine knowing that I am satisfying the tenants of pure love and that in giving to you I give to me.
There lies a place in me that has grown numb and is forgotten, a place that in the cool darkness has fallen asleep.
The every day routines of existence have turned off the spigot of kindness, creativity and possibility. Even many of those rituals established to keep me awake and alive are void of meaning, passion, and connectivity.
I must step out of the sleepiness, the lethargy, and the isolation. I can no longer await the awakening. I must create it.
In the darkness I will dance until the vast potential and possibility within me are moved and my heart connected to the fullness, freedom, and gift of my essential self.
In the daylight hours and through the night, I will stay alert to those parts of my life that have fallen asleep, that are passing me by…and I will sing and dance and engage in such revelry and play that no part can remain unmoved, I cannot escape the awakening.
There I will find my essential self, my capacity to joyfully meet my needs as well as yours, and celebrate the wonder of life.
Special thanks to Greg Young of RGY Photography for the beautiful photo accompanying this post. See more at http://www.rgyphotography.com or on Instagram @randygyyoung.
My new year wish for you…
Not that you make time for me or to do other things.
Not that you resolve to be any different than you are right now.
Not that you set out to accomplish anything more than you already have.
Not that you accumulate more than what is already there .
My new year’s wish for you is that you be safe where you are,
that you be fed on the soul level,
that you feel love,
and you fully and completely believe in the power of you to be a bright beacon for yourself and others
and in that light you thrive.
Monday Mindfulness 