Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Calm & Resilience

Tag Archives: mindfulness


by Leave a comment

Clarity fleeting

So, I sit here day after day wallowing in my mistakes, misfortunes, pain, and suffering.

I hold onto them in my body like appendages…the tension in my muscles, the crookedness of my bones, the heaviness of my head…and heart.

I carry them as reminders of my faults and flaws.

And yet, when I sit in stillness, when I fill and empty with awareness on my breath, I find only peace…ease…joy.

Remembering…

…the gentle touch of others, through their hands, hearts, and smiles.

…the power of my cognition to work the puzzle pieces of every day life.

… the essence of my kindness and great capacity for love.

…the gifts of receivership and gratitude that present so abundantly and frequently.

I’ve been conditioned to hold onto and dwell on the lack and sorrows as if they belong permanently.

Love, joy, and freedom are somehow deemed as temporary.

Today I give myself permission to release it all – to breathe in and out with equanimity in every moment, to imbibe and cleanse, receive and release, storing none as defining me and simply allowing it all to live through me without reliving or retaining any of it as me.

Clearing the channels of experience so that all flows, informs, and re-minds me that I am everything and defined by nothing.


by Leave a comment

Repair

We are wired for connection…to thrive these connections must be established, mended, and maintained.

To Establish requires the courage to welcome something new and possibly quite uncomfortable.

To Mend calls upon our capacity to heal hurts and embrace the pains of growing.

To Maintain is the essence of flexibility and fortitude.

We watch and encourage the healing of the wounded body – its powerful transformation and rebirth, over and over again, ever celebrating its capacity to establish, mend, and maintain.

If only the heart and mind were afforded such a generous space of repair and connection.


by Leave a comment

Divine Wisdom

I’m not waiting.

I’m allowing.

I’m unlimited creative genius,

Divine!

I am not waiting to be rescued or for my destiny to find me.

I am getting out of the way!

Waiting means I’ve got it all planned out and everything is going to be step by step as I envision.

I know that I don’t make it happen.

I allow it to happen.

So many other forces are at work. Why would I think it’s just me marking my path.

It’s me counting on you and everyone and everything around us.

In that way I cannot control the direction I go in.

All I can do is know that I am headed that way.

I know what it feels like to have the future I am destined for.

The how is irrelevant.


by Leave a comment

Finesse

Why is it when I step out of my suffering, I am uncomfortable with the suffering of others?

Guilt arises at the feeling that I am free of pain somehow at their expense.

It is difficult to exercise compassion for the suffering of another when I hold no compassion for myself and the value of feeling pain free.

Compassion wrapped in guilt results in creating a false story in order to take on someone else’s.

True empathy is understanding suffering, holding a space of great strength and courage – enough for both of us – rising from my own pain and rising even higher from my own joy and knowing that by maintaining my balance, finesse, and freedom I offer more room for healing than by falsely taking on the suffering of others.

Compassion without guilt provides a clear path to alleviate suffering.

Compassion filled with joy brings independence, hope and healing.

Compassion is powerful.

Guilt smothering.

Empathy delicately empowering.


by Leave a comment

Infinite Possibilities

There is not just one way to be happy.

one form of happiness.

We are limitless beings with infinite possibilities for happiness.

There is always the potential to find fulfillment, accomplishment, significance, and satisfaction in absolutely every experience.

When locked into one way of feeling or recognizing happiness, faith and trust are trampled.

Happiness is bypassed for the more familiar feeling of disappointment, failure, lack, and shortcomings.

When we step out of the familiar way of seeing things

and can imagine the potentiality for happiness in every moment,

we cannot help but to live happier.


by Leave a comment

Positivity

Boundaries contribute to positivity.

When I establish a parameter by which I can protect my values,

I increase my sense of stability and clarity.

That directly enhances my capacity to remain sure, confident, and clear.

In that state of certainty I am able to tamper negativity and remain open and flexible.

I maintain absolute dedication to my own well being.

I feel greater patience accompanied by assurance.

This cultivates positivity that directly fuels my ability to love.

Here, I feel nothing but joyful, confident, and free.


by Leave a comment

Resentment

I didn’t listen to myself.

I didn’t present myself clearly.

My primary goal to avoid conflict,

I jeopardized my safety to ensure my survival.

And just like that I feel devalued.

My experience is in direct contrast with my values.

I chose inner conflict rather than anger.

Oh, I get angry, but I turn it all on me,

Suppressing outward expression out of fear,

For the sake of compliance.

Meeting the needs of others supplants

My capacity to meet my own needs.

Sacrificing my internal sense of security for connection

Causes an internal disconnection between my own heart and mind.

My body bristles at the assault and becomes a harbor for my anger

Disappointment surfaces as dis-ease and lingers

In my consciousness and beyond.

Suddenly, the sweet voice within that I so defiantly ignored

Grabs my full attention as it says,

“You did your best…

And they did too.”

“You are capable of keeping yourself safe now.

Be strong, consistent, and clear.

Make choices that preserve your freedom and safety.

Love yourself above all else

And you will never have to sacrifice your values for security.”

A new state of being immerges

Free of disappointment

Free of feeling wronged, hurt, and weak.

Free of resentment.

Free to be grateful.

Free to forgive.

Free of burdens

and unconditionally loved.


by Leave a comment

Making My Way

Today I awoke feeling like a snake shedding its skin.

Soft, vulnerable, sensitive, expanding, growing, free.

Ripping through the layers of being that have protected, carried, and framed who I am, I thank those parts of me that no longer fit.

Purifying tears accompany the molting, helping to dilute any doubt.

Courage thrusts me onward – there is no halfway point in change.

The last pieces falling away, I barely recognize me.

For an instant I long for that familiar container.

In the very next instant it is clear I cannot squeeze back into that way of being.

I am destined to be soft, vulnerable, and sensitive

and for now that is what I am.


by 2 Comments

At the Center of Being

Nothing matters…

Until I make it matter.

According to the principles of quantum physics, everything is made of particles. It is only when I apply my awareness that the particles become matter in my environment. My mind and heart work together to define how my environment becomes my experience.

While my existence is mind and heart over matter, so often I perceive it as the other way around.

What I perceive is what becomes. The canvas is blank, the potential limitless. Free from rationalization and explanation, inner knowing is my medium. I become the creator.

If I don’t create it, it doesn’t become matter.

It only matters when I make it matter.


by Leave a comment

Compass Rose

To the north I find the earth and sky.

The east brings new beginnings.

The west lowers the veil of transition, the mark of endings.

It is in the south where I meet my soul.

We sit and watch the rising and setting sun cast against the earth and sky over and over again.

Humbly and joyfully admiring the ever changing landscape of transitions, the beauty in the unknown as it takes shape each dawn and dusk, and the vast expanse of opportunity in between.