Please find our mindfulness posts below

Mindfulness: Instructions for the Journey

The self you leave behind is only a skin you have outgrown Don't grieve for it. Look to the wet, raw, unfinished self, the one you are becoming. The world, too, sheds its skin: It's easy to lose this tenderly unfolding moment. Look for it as if it were the first green blade after a long winter. Listen for it [...]

April 27th, 2020|Mindfulness|

Mindfulness: The Inner River

"Inside each of us there's a river - placid and contained sometimes, but raging and overflowing its banks at others. There's a lot to navigate." -Marc Brackett, Permission to Feel The birds seem to sing more loudly these days. So, too, are emotions "singing" more prominently. I wonder how much is actually heightened and how much is the time and [...]

April 20th, 2020|Mindfulness|

Mindfulness: No Mud, No Lotus

"Mindfulness has two functions. The first is to get in touch with the wonderful and beautiful things all around us. The second is to get in touch with the difficult emotions, like anger, fear, pain and sorrow inside and around us. Mindfulness can help us recognize and embrace these difficulties and transform them. Not only is paradise available in the [...]

April 20th, 2020|Mindfulness|

Mindfulness: “The Second Music”

Now I understand that there are two melodies playing, one below the other, one easier to hear, the other lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard yet always present. When all the other things seem lively and read, this one fades. Yet the notes of it touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound of the names laid [...]

April 16th, 2020|Mindfulness|

Mindfulness: Stop, Look, Go

"A practice of gratitude is not about dismissing sadness, anger, fear, or confusion. Rather, it offers us the opportunity to see that we often experience multiple feelings at once; to welcome joy into the same places where we hold grief; to turn our attention to what is quietly growing and breathing day by day, which, to our possible surprise, includes [...]

April 13th, 2020|Mindfulness|

Mindfulness: Listening to the Breath

"If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath." -Amit Ray Soon after reading the first mindfulness post and making the transition to his home office, my husband told me he started "LISTENING" to his breath when he sat down at his desk in the morning and also scattered throughout his workday. [...]

April 11th, 2020|Mindfulness|

Mindfulness: Good and Bad, Grasping and Aversion

Yesterday Isabella wrote, "Good and bad are just labels that individuals choose to put on their personal experience." I've been thinking something similar as I walk around town these days, Witherspoon Street in particular. For those of you local to our area, you might recall the precise time each spring that Witherspoon Street bursts into gorgeous snowy bloom while also [...]

April 6th, 2020|Mindfulness|

Mindfulness and Pilgrimage

"The idea of the pilgrimage was to get away from the endless and nameless circumstances of everyday existence, which by degrees build a wall around the mind so that it travels in a constantly narrowing circle." - Richard Jeffries "For pilgrims, traveling is a spiritual practice to access places of higher meaning." - Brooke Williams I believe this is, in [...]

April 3rd, 2020|Mindfulness|

Mindfulness of Inner Voice in Four Parts (Four…)

"I met a tiny frail nun once, in Australia, while walking along a harbor, and we got to talking, and she said no one defeats cancer, cancer is a dance partner you don't want and don't like, but you have to dance... I never forgot what she said, and think she is right, and the words we use about cancer [...]

April 1st, 2020|Mindfulness|

Mindfulness of Inner Voice in Four Parts (Three…)

From Brian Doyle's essay "On Not 'Beating' Cancer" "I know a boy with brain cancer. He's 16 years old. He isn't battling his cancer. It's no something to defeat. He is enduring it with the most energy and creativity and patience he can muster. He says the first year he had cancer was awful because of the fear and vomiting [...]

April 1st, 2020|Mindfulness|

Mindfulness of Inner Voice in Four Parts (Two…)

"There is a great and awful lesson there, something that speaks powerfully of human character and possibility. For all that we speak, as a culture and a people, of victory and defeat, of good and evil, of hero and coward, it is none of it quite true. The truth is that the greatest victory is to endure with grace and [...]

April 1st, 2020|Mindfulness|

Mindfulness of Inner Voice in Four Parts (One…)

"The words we use about cancers and wars matter more than we know" -Brian Doyle*** In the early months after Isabella's diagnosis, she grappled with what sorts of conversations to have with her self and this cancer that felt both OF HER and NOT HER. There might be something for us all to learn here. Wartime language is creeping into [...]

March 27th, 2020|Mindfulness|

Mindfulness

MINDFULNESS "I can scroll and worry indoors, or I can step outside and remember how it feels to be part of something larger, something timeless, a world that reaches beyond me and includes me too." - Margaret Renkl, opinion writer for the NYT and author of the book "Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss"

March 23rd, 2020|Mindfulness|

Beauty Hunting

"There are little beauties everywhere. We just have to look for them... Everything always leads to something else and when you feel sad and empty and like it all means nothing, you might look out and see two shopping carts and you might remember: I just have to look, listen, and tell the truth and the beauty will be there. [...]

March 20th, 2020|Mindfulness|

Kissing the Earth with Your Feet

"Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet." - Thich Nhat Hanh Staying grounded can be so helpful when it feels like our lives, what we know and count on, are constantly shifting. It might take some intentional practice to connect to a something that feels like stability. Connecting with the ground, the Earth itself, is one [...]

March 16th, 2020|Mindfulness|

Hand on Heart

"Wherever you go, go with all your heart." - Confucius Our culture teaches and encourages us to lead with our minds. Recent events might be pushing us to lead with our fears. This brief practice not only offers a bit of respite from the news cycle and ruminative thought, it also reminds us to stay connected to our hearts. Place [...]

March 14th, 2020|Mindfulness|
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