Monday Mindfulness

Cultivating Strength, Joy, Peace & Resilience


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Bad and Beautiful

The Ackland Museum at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill just hosted an exhibit entitled “Good Object/Bad Object,” inviting visitors to examine works of art that defy customary decorum and could be called “bad” because they are unpredictably designed yet they achieve an emotional depth and resonant beauty equal to “good” art.

Bad objects are opportunities to explore the edge of our comfort zone and try on new ways of seeing the world.

When the role is taken on responsibly, a bad object can be the catalyst of change and inspire different thinking.

Isn’t it interesting how quickly we humans need to label things as good or bad when often those characteristics are circumstantial. Nature doesn’t operate that way.

In humans, often when a bad object occurs without sufficient planning and understanding, the artist might become defensive or even resentful, denying accountability for their creation. If they have not been provided the encouragement and freedom to create outside of traditional constructs, the artist might try to hide the bad object, its potential emotional depth and beauty lost.

More often than not these days I find myself stronger, more confident, and more accomplished when I step into the role of “bad object.” It is not that I am not good at these times. It is that I willingly take responsibility for non-conforming, breaking a patterned interaction, and inciting a shift in perspective to achieve a familiar level of resonance in an unfamiliar way.

There is a role for each of us as good objects and bad objects. The contrast reminds us of our undeniable ability to contain emotional depth and resonant beauty in the most surprising ways.


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Resonance

There is something timeless in the rolling sea.

Individuality is lost as droplets leap into the air then instantly become consumed by the primal tugging, pulling, pushing, of the random rhythms.

There is something familiar in the curling, crashing surf. A sound and feeling calling me into its whisper, a deafening roar somehow barely audible.

It speaks of protecting me,

clearing my hurts and the world’s imperfections even before I know of them.

The spray catches my cheek.

Resonance of life force and love pulsing on the tide, pulsing through me.

I am consumed, transported back to the space and time when all I knew was the wooshing, whirling roar of silence in the womb.

My individuality is imperceivable.

I know precisely who I am…I am all.

It is with this magnificence that I crest the next wave dancing momentarily, singularly in the air and time and time again am happily reabsorbed into the flow,

into the moment of truth where I know I am the love and the life force that pulses with and through it all.

I am the resonance.


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What a mistake

I don’t make mistakes. Hold on now – I’m not saying I’m perfect!

Actually, I make choices and I make plans founded in my choices.

My plans may result in particular experiences which allow me to make more choices. Some of those choices may produce complicated results and challenges beyond my imagination, but they give me the opportunity to grow and change, perhaps, even heal and thrive.

So, go ahead and call my choices, my challenges, or my experiences a mistake, but to me, it is just living fully.


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Relying on my internal GPS

I may not always be able to see clearly,

But I can always feel clearly

When I accept that where I am is where I am.


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Reflections

I am an open landscape on which you paint your experience.

I mirror back to you just what you put out there.

If you aren’t sure of what you are painting,

pause,

step back,

clear your mind,

open your heart.

Come sit a spell in my grand, vast emptiness before you start to fill the canvas with elements that may not produce the landscape best for the both of us.

Tread gently on the rolling hills,

pause and watch the rising and setting sun,

see ocean…

flowers…

wild flowing grasses…

Deep wooded forests.

The landscape is yours in which to play.

Just remember that whatever you add to this landscape – the meeting of your choice of media, colors and textures – is yours to assimilate and accommodate, not mine.


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Every day

Even in the presence of the greatest fear or anger, I can exercise refined goodwill, fluid kindness…grace. Tactfully navigating life’s challenges is one of the greatest opportunities we have to embody love. Not just in the big confrontations but in the small everyday exchanges.


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Resonance

Cold or crisp

Jagged or pronounced

Lonely or spacious

Lifeless or still

Lifting out or melting down

Eerie or quiet

Feel it in your heart

Attune vibrationally not visually to your surroundings and your experiences

Feel the heartbeat of living things

The resonance.

Photo Credit: Iceland by Lindsey Simpson, @yoga_with_Miss_Lindsey


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On a branch

Let’s just meet on a little branch somewhere,

nestled in between the flowers,

shaded by a tall leafy tree.

We can find a little nourishment,

share a little love,

not limited by the constructs of time

or burdened by emotions or heavy thoughts.

Let’s meet on a little branch somewhere

and consider doing this more often.


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Delicious

Sweet, ripe, bits of tartness, sometimes mushy, juicy, occasionally messy and on the verge of rotten.

Dripping with flavor and full of surprises.

A steady flow of tastes and textures that overlap and give way to each other.

It has taken me all these years to realize I am not just the piece of fruit.

I am the whole fruit salad, meant to be experienced and enjoyed as a whole.


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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.