Nothing lasts forever. Sound pessimistic? Think about it. Do you look today like you did a decade ago? Are those pretty flowers you received for Mother’s Day still fresh and alive? Do you still have the headache you woke up with last week? Nothing lasts forever. When we think of mindfulness, we primarily associate it […]
It’s tough to acknowledge our distress and admit our vulnerability. Instead, it’s so much easier to allow ourselves to fall into whatever story we have been telling ourselves on repeat than to stay with our experience. The way you speak to yourself matters. What are the messages you've been sending to yourself? Take responsibility for the […]
If we walk around believing everything we think without question, particularly the not so pleasant self-doubting thoughts, it’s pretty hard to see any other viewpoint than our own. If we tell ourselves certain things about ourselves long enough, it may never even occur to us to question our own thinking.
Meditation isn’t about trying to stop thinking. Instead it’s about noticing the thoughts as they arise and allowing them to be. To be able to have access again to our ground state of being which is already whole and complete, we must recognize how we’ve allowed ourselves to be hooked by the stories and conversations we tell ourselves in our own minds. Most times, we don’t even question the thoughts, perceptions, judgments or beliefs and instead believe our own thinking.
What if your happiness, joy, peace and fulfillment is just covered over by an old mindset of limiting beliefs and assumptions? Making positive changes starts with a shift in mindset. Once that takes place, the rest will follow.
As humankind is in need of more widespread and global empathy and altruism, we find ourselves desperately cultivating compassion. Learn more about the Dalai Lama and his role in raising awareness of the healing power of compassion.
Consider that most of your mental suffering actually comes from how tightly you hold on to your beliefs. What if you were to discover that your stories do not fully define who you are and what is actually happening to you? With mindfulness, we can step out of the story we tell and simply notice the telling of the story.
How in the world was last week already Thanksgiving? This year has zoomed by (but thankfully, not on Zoom every day, lol!) I took some much-needed time with family and friends to reflect on all that we have to be grateful for. I hope you did the same. Gratitude is good for the soul. While […]
Meditation is not about ridding yourself of your thoughts, since that's virtually impossible for anyone to do. Meditation instead, is literally about noticing that your mind has drifted into thoughts and then practicing bringing your mind back to a place of stillness - over and over again. The noticing IS the practice.
Through the practice of meditation, you develop what is known as “witnessing awareness” which allows you to observe your thoughts, feelings and stories with greater objectivity and distance, rather than getting pulled into the drama and emotional reactivity. Over time, you will begin to notice that some space has been created around difficult emotional states. You will start to see that there is more to who you are than your moods or thoughts, and you may also observe that the sensation associated with the negative feelings dissolve altogether. I like to say that you begin to develop a sense of responding as opposed to reacting.