Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Peace & Resilience

Tag Archives: monday mindfulness


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Contain Me

For each of us there is a layer that surrounds and holds our thoughts and feelings, that ties physical material existence to a sense of being. Built into the walls of that container are our beliefs, values, and desires, ever connected and blending with the feelings of others. These characteristics are what give the container strength but can also become places of vulnerability, weakness, and destruction. Stress fractures can begin to appear over time in the container where the values, beliefs, and habits are challenged, become inflexible and brittle.

Signs of wear or weakness are not markers of fault in the container, but a means for assessing whether repair or replacement could be useful. It may be the values and beliefs woven into that section are ready for reconditioning.

When I visualize the materials, tools, and mending — stitching the fabric, soldering the metal, molding the clay – and give myself permission to reshape the container, perhaps even layering different media, I can begin to fill and empty with experiences in a way that projects and protects the me I have come to be.


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For a Smoother Takeoff

“Prepare your doors for departure and cross check, please” said the pilot before departing the gate.

How often in our daily lives do we launch without proper preparation?

The brief pause to transition from one moment to the other – to conduct a cross check and prepare for what comes next – provides clarity, confidence, and confirmation that I am ready to move forward.

This cross check also eliminates potential danger and reduces the likelihood of unfortunate outcomes.

On the rhythm of every breath lies the opportunity to prepare for departure, to make wiser choices, and be ready for what lies ahead.

And, with that next exhale, looking keenly and calmly ahead, I softly whisper, “Cross check complete.”


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Free falling

Whether a soft trickle or a torrent force, allow your life to freely move through and around you.

Maintain the firm and steady sense of earth below you and feel your life caress your edges gliding smoothly along your seams and boundaries. Let that be the reminder of who you are.

This is what it means to be in the flow.


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See you on the bright side

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.


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Freedoms

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.


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Branching out

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.


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Real

When I feel angry, my world appears abrasive and confrontational.

When I am confused, all is cold and insensitive.

The more beautiful my world feels, the more gentle and receptive it seems.

As I play in this world with wonder, curiosity, and awe, the world invites me to laugh and be free.

When I feel wrapped in care and comfort, I find the world worthy of love.

My world is a reflection of my beliefs, a reflection of what I see on the inside.

My world gives me just what I see.

This is what is real, as long as this is the story I want to see.


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Asymmetrical

Some of the most beautiful things in the world are uneven, off kilter, imbalanced.

As hard as I try to always be in control, to have an answer for every unknown, and to maintain balance, there are those days that remind me that true harmony arises not in maintaining order but in remaining open to the form of the mismatched nature of my experiences with my expectations.

Sometimes imbalance is not only refreshing for the eyes, but needed to reset the soul.


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Arabesque

The tightrope wire is taught and thin leaving not much room for play.

Inching along trepidatiously, the other side seems so far away.

Moved – or frozen – by memories and worry, I slide foot after foot on the barely visible line.

And then a pause to fill myself with breath returns me to my center.

Without any planning and responding only to the invitation of my breath, my body begins to relax.

My back leg lifts, my heart turns to the sky, and suddenly what I thought was only one path, becomes my playground.

There is still a bit of cautiousness – for I am in human form — but I give way to curiosity and before I know it there I am in a full arabesque on the wire.

Hanging on or flying free is the choice that is always there for me.

Thank you Jean McDonald for sharing this photo and your courage with all of us!


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Stillness in Motion

Have you ever noticed the calm in movement? A dancer fills the stage with motion and even in the flow of the dance there is a sense of breathlessness, of suspension, and stillness.

Take a moment to sit and watch the falling snow or a drip of water in a faucet. Notice the stillness present in every motion. See the pause of the droplets, the gaps in between the snowflakes, or the steady space that is filled as you watch one flake make its way down, down, down right after another…one drip chase another. The moving object becoming the stillness itself. Feel time pause, honoring the power of stillness in the movement.

Move your body. Move your breath. Move your mind into the deep crevasses of the movement until you find the stillness.