babysteps for presence

do you feel it?

that steady increase in tempo now that we’re in the holiday season?

i sure do!

we made it through black friday. and cyber monday.

but now it’s countdown on shopping days before christmas.

we have to find the right gifts for the right amount of money…

we are bombarded by the outer world, inviting, enthralling, dare i say it–manipulating us into focusing on outer fulfillment. just one more piece of chocolate, one more task off the to-do list, one more special stocking stuffer…then all will be well. then i’ll stop. then i’ll rest. then i’ll be satisfied.

it feels like life is speeding up as we move from thanksgiving through the winter holidays and into the new year.

what can we do to be present
in the midst of all of this?

1. first things first. notice how you get off center. notice what makes you lose your cool, feel off balance, get irritable, impatient, anxious…whatever your version of “off center” is. without awareness, nothing else is possible!

2. in the midst of it. turn to yourself with kindness and friendliness. instead of telling yourself to “get over it,” to “put a good face on it,” to “fake it until you make it,” take a moment and gently acknowledge that it’s hard to feel off center. it’s hard to be this busy. it’s hard to feel disconnected from yourself. with compassion, things soften and change in often unexpected ways.

3. when your heart feels more open, let your brilliant mind help you out some more! what one small thing could you do, RIGHT NOW, to help you be more present. you already are a little more present just from steps #1 & #2. what else would support you? could you stretch, sense your feet on the floor and your breath in your belly, dance, get up and walk around, take a breath of fresh air, get a cup of tea, take a nap? what would support you right now?

4. take that babystep! do it! don’t wait until you finish THAT THING. even if it’s just one minute, give yourself what you need to be more present RIGHT NOW. this is living our practice. this is waking up. this is how real change happens, one babystep at a time. it can be that simple.

Practice: EGS–Enjoyed, Grateful, Satisfied

I learned this sweet practice from Dr. Patrizia Collard’s The Little Book of Mindfulness and it is my go-to gratitude practice these days.

I find falling asleep is the time I most need to calm my mind and orient it toward what is good in my life; otherwise, my mind wants to spend time thinking about all the things that still need managing from my day—whether it does any good or not!

So, once in bed, I say a prayer of surrender and then go over my day:

Remembering what I Enjoyed,
Remembering what I am Grateful for,
Remembering what I am Satisfied with.

While Dr. Collard doesn’t describe the practice this way, I find this progression works really well for me. If it was a hard day and I have trouble finding something that I Enjoyed or something that I am Grateful for, I can always find something I am at least Satisfied with!

And if I get granular enough, I can usually find multiple examples in each one—I Enjoyed seeing the sunrise, sitting by the woodstove…I am Grateful for the nourishing food for lunch, for the client who is finding new openings…I am Satisfied with getting my winter clothes down from the attic, getting outside to walk…

As Marge Piercy says in her poem The Seven of Pentacles, “Connections are made slowly. They grow underground.”

Try some EGS at bedtime, allow new heart connections to grow underground, and see if it helps you reorient and gets you back in touch with the goodness in your life!

Yearning for more presence and less overwhelm?
Check out my e-book for 10 Simple Ways to
Welcome the Sacred into Your Daily Life!

trust

“Trust in the fires of disintegration.
For everything less than whole must be
burned away, and out of the ashes of
the unknown, love will emerge
in the most astonishing ways.”
~ Matt Licata

What does that mean in the wake of this recent election?

I am trusting that even though the majority did not vote in Donald Trump to be president, that there is some reason, bigger than my mind can grasp, that he is our President Elect. I have been reading many thoughtful and heart-full analyses–a few that remain uppermost for me:

We are being forced to look at the shadow side of the US–at the bigotry, racism, misogyny, prejudice, white supremacy leanings–that we don’t want to see. Those who have been suffering from it already knew this. It’s in our privileged-white faces now. We look away at our peril.

We are being asked not to respond in kind—to instead practice tolerance, curiosity, and acceptance of others’ election decisions. Can we, with openness, ask what they hope Trump will do for them? Perhaps we can learn more about our differences and more about our common humanity and common dreams.

We are being invited to step up and protect those who are potentially under threat–perhaps from the new administration, perhaps from some of its supporters. We must do more than wear our safety pins. How can we show our support with meaningful actions?

We are being opened to the unknown. Our belief that we know what was best for our country…our belief that we know what the American people want…our belief that this is a bad outcome. We don’t know.

There is a force bigger than our minds unfolding in and through us. I call it True Nature; others call it God or the Divine or Higher Power. I am practicing to trust that True Nature has a hand in this!

We must continue to practice so that we can know what right action to take, each in the ways we feel called.

Let’s allow this upset to be a real wake-up call.

Let’s do the healing work to be one family.

Let’s trust and act in the truth that “out of the ashes of the unknown, Love will emerge.“

Join Me to Practice Presence in Community!

Sunday, November 20th: Healthy High Tea
a gluten- and dairy-free experience, paired with meaningful conversation
$20 or $17 Plum-Deluxers
I’d love to enjoy tea and meaningful, mindful connection with you!

there shall I be

Freud said that the happy result of therapy is

“Where it was, there shall I be.”

At the Mankato Women & Spirituality Conference this past weekend and teaching this morning at St. Kate’s Staff Circles, I was sharing practices to move from being caught in “it,” in what Dave and I call “normally neurotic ego,” to wholeness.

Moving from Criticism to Compassion focused on the Inner Critic and how it keeps us stuck and separate from ourselves, most directly from compassion. Welcoming Joy in Your Daily Life focused on how we keep ourselves from opening to joy as our essence, our very being.

In each workshop, I was struck how the participants had moments of reclaiming their true sense of the “I” Freud refers to (the Self, our True Nature, our Buddha Nature, Divine Nature, etc.)–

Through mindful attention to the ways the Inner Critic talks to us.
Through acknowledging the ways we unconsciously react to try to get the Inner Critic to stop.
Through trying on something new to open up the heart to joy.
Through seeing clearly the ways we check out and leave presence.
Through creating a different more conscious relationship with ourselves.

Consciousness moves “it” towards “I.”

Understanding opens.

Compassion blossoms.

Tensions melt.

Moments of being in touch with Who we are shows us a new way of being, which can hold, contain, and respond compassionately to “it.” We are reclaiming these lost parts of ourselves, coming more deeply home by including “it” as “I.” No more separation and fighting against shadow parts or ourselves.

All are welcome.

Moments of grace arise.

As my Diamond Approach teacher would say–

we do our practices so we can be “accident prone to grace”

and reclaim our innate wholeness.

Practice: Haiku-like Mindfulness Verses

One way to nourish yourself in your life, whether you are carrying something difficult with you or just wanting to connect more deeply with yourself, is this practice I learned from Sara Avant Stover on SHE Retreat last year, which we also enjoyed a few weeks ago on this year’s retreat.

Writing in short, Haiku-like verses
can catch the moment
with fresh eyes, and give perspective
about your life in the moment.

You can practice Haiku-like verses any time, but it’s especially helpful when you are processing, working with, or integrating something. I found when my brother passed away unexpectedly in August, that it was extremely helpful to put my feelings into these short verses. It gave them form and beauty, and revealed deeper meaning. It helped me express myself to myself succinctly, hearing and receiving myself with mindfulness.

This past SHE Retreat, I found myself writing them more in the flavor of capturing moments during the silent retreat. You can read those on my blogpost Retreat Practicing.

In this practice, we are not counting syllables like traditional Japanese Haiku verses, so don’t worry about making them 5-7-5! If it pleases you, you might want to make the 1st and 3rd verses shorter than the middle verse, but it’s more important that you follow your own flow. You can read a lot online about writing Haiku—we’re doing something simpler and more intuitive here.

Try this on:

Pause and sense into your body and feel into your heart.
What’s here in the moment? It could be something outside you or inside you or a combination of both. Often Haiku verses combine something from nature with some internal state, capturing feeling and image.
Write one short, pithy phrase.
Write the 2nd, perhaps juxtaposing it to the first.
Write the 3rd, perhaps showing their relationship in some way.

Here’s one for you that arose as I wrote this practice:
Writing, thinking, clarifying
The trees turning a delicious yellow outside my window
They need no thought to ripen.

Enjoy!! I’d LOVE to read some of your haiku explorations if you’d like to share.

Looking for more practices?
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Retreat Practicing

I received the gift of retreating with Sara Avant Stover to assist her SHE Retreat at Kripalu last week. It was such a blessing to practice with other devoted women in silence, surrounded by the beauty and support of Kripalu!

Many things come up on retreat, especially when you’re in silence. One of the ways we practiced was to write short haiku-like verses to express what was moving in our being. I am sharing some of mine that capture my process on retreat a bit. I’ve grouped them approximately by theme, but the process was not this linear. It rarely is—which is the beauty and scary part of going into the unknown. Note: “Kimmy” is my inner little girl.

Stillness calls clearly.
Leg resists, hearing occludes.
At rest and suffering.

Bells call me to prayer.
I hear only clashing metal.
Let me sleep.

Small power calls me.
Darkened sky threatens rain.
Light awakes within.

Boat adrift at sea
Tree rooted, bending in the storm.
Anchor me. Root me.

Many moments of One.
Christmas trees call me back to small self.
Green hills and blue sky smile.

Stillness beckons my soul.
Body is willing but sticky.
Mind grabs and craves.

Laughter bubbles up,
Taking over my face with abandon.
Kimmy’s in the whirlpool.

Can pain and sorrow soften?
The soul becomes more malleable.
True Nature shining through.

Take me, Mother, now.
Lift these veils of untruth.
Receive me in Your arms.

Removing my armor.
Can You find your way inside?
I yearn to be Yours.

Immensity calls.
Mind anticipates the direction.
SHE waits in Love.

Are you yearning for some retreat time? I’d LOVE to support you in finding some! It is indispensable to your wellness.

Autumn Self-Care Mini-Retreat, Sunday, October 16th, 2:00-5:00
This Way of the Happy Woman® retreat will help you align with the rhythm of Fall through women’s circle practices, yoga, meditation, and journaling.

Free Welcoming the Sacred E-Book
Sign up for 10 simple ways to create more presence and less overwhelm in your daily life!

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Falling into Fall…

Leaves are falling.

Life is falling. Into the earth.

Fall. Falling. Fallen.

We are falling from one season into the other at Autumn Equinox, on Thursday, September 22nd, at 9:21 am CT, the day when the light and dark are equal in length.

Falling into Autumn.

It can feel like that.

All of a sudden, it seems, the days are shorter.

Darkness comes earlier and lasts longer.

It’s time to light a candle. To come inside. To consider your harvest.

What flowered, spread its seeds, and died?

What are you harvesting from this wild abandon?

For my part, while the Summer was full and beautiful, a few things have blazed out and fallen.

A part-time job I loved is over and the ending still unsettled and confusing.

My brother is gone, returned to the earth.

I am reflecting on this harvest. It’s not what I wanted. And yet, it is.

This eternal cycle of return, of rising from
and falling into the earth.

There is a grace of falling. Of falling into. Of being held, finally grounded, completely surrendered. Into the unchanging ground of support.

There is a release in this.

I am still in the process of understanding the harvest from my losses. And in the midst of this, I am celebrating the abundance of loving holding from family and friends.

I also celebrate, from the eternal promise, that
living is hidden inside dying.

To this, I bow down.

Within the darkness, light is always arising.

Renewal is always becoming.

I am practicing patience and allowing this rhythm to live within as it lives without, for the right timing for renewal to grow from the seeds that returned to the earth.

What is falling, perhaps fallen for you?

How are you living
with your harvest this Fall?

If you’d like to include some ritual in your acknowledging of Autumn Equinox, I have a few suggestions on my blog from past years:

A practice to remember that this life, this harvest, this you-ness is enough.
A breathing practice to embrace your harvest—both regrets and celebrations.
A gratitude practice.

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Mindful Living–and Ways to Practice with Me!

What does mindful living look like when you’re going through hard times?

What does mindful living look like when someone you love dies? Like my brother this past month…

What does it mean to be mindful, anyway?

Mindfulness, as I say to my clients, is using the amazing capacity of your mind to be mindful of what is arising in your body, heart, and mind.

Mindfulness is being mindful—sounds circular, doesn’t it. Hmm…

Mindful = using the fullness of my mind, the full capacity to attend, to give my attention to something.

If am working and finding myself distracted, my capacity to be mindful is not being exercised.
If I am multi-tasking—which researchers say is not possible for the brain—we’re just moving very quickly from task to task—I am most likely not being mindful.
If I am wool-gathering, I am not being mindful.
If I am on autopilot going over all the details of my brother’s untimely death again, I am not being mindful.

When you use the fullness of your mind to attend to your life, what does it look like?

Paying attention to what your senses are taking in is the easiest way to practice:

Being outside and really sensing the quality of air on your skin—temperature, texture, movement…
Sipping tea and taking in the aroma, the steam, the temperature, the taste, the texture…
Hugging a loved one and feeling the touch and temperature of their body, taking in their particular scent, sensing their touch of you…
Gazing at something and really seeing it—all the contours, details, colors, textures, etc.

This practice saves me when I get lost in sad thoughts about my brother. It brings me back to the moment, the life that is living in and around and through my senses and my bodysoul right now.

We can also place our full attention on what we are feeling and what we are thinking.

If I am mindful of what I am feeling, then I notice the sensation of the feeling, it’s location in my body, its intensity, its particular shape. I might even name it. As I grieve my brother: Constriction and collapsing in my chest. Grief. Confusion. Pain.

Being mindful of thoughts is a common form of meditation. In this case, it is especially helpful to find an anchor to return to when I start thinking, like my breath, or concentrating on my belly or the sensation of my feet on the ground. Establishing this anchor first, I then open my awareness to notice my thoughts instead of allowing them to think me.

I am mindful of what I am thinking, using the mind to attend to the mind. I might label the type of thoughts I am thinking in a practice called Noting: worrying, planning, perfecting, anticipating, judging, ruminating, conceptualizing, fantasizing, etc. I might also notice how they are affecting my body and heart.

In these last few weeks of processing my brother’s unexpected death, I have continually practiced returning to mindfulness. Allowing a wide range of feelings to wash over me—from grief to love, from confusion and pain to sweetness and happiness. I sense them, being mindful of how and where I experience them, not holding on to them, but letting them flow through. When the thoughts are looping, trying to make sense of it all, I notice them, sense them, label them, and return to my breath, to my belly, to my feet, and to other senses so that I can come back to the moment that is here. Sunlight, birdsong, aroma of wet earth, warmth of teacup, solid feet… From here, I am resourced. I am open. I am available to live my life as it unfolds with body, heart, and mind—mindfully.

How do you return to mindfulness?

This Fall I am offering a number of opportunities to practice mindfulness—I hope you will join me!

The Mindful Art of Tea, Thursday, September 22nd, 2016
Enjoy the ritual of tea as a vehicle for mindfulness practice.

Autumn Women’s Self-Care Mini-Retreat, Sunday, October 16th, 2016
Give yourself a chance to slow down and welcome the Autumn Season with yoga, meditation, journaling, and more in women’s community.

Choosing Happiness Habits Using the Enneagram, Mindfulness, and Play, 4-Part Series, starting October 18th, 2016
Learn how to access your innate happiness through experiential exercises, new awarenesses, and mindset shifts!

Healthy High Tea, TBD in November. 2016
Enjoy healthy food and mindful conversation in your mindful tea ritual! Watch my calendar.

Free Online “Practice Presence for Life Journey,” TBD in 2017
Join a community to make daily, simple choices to live a life of presence, one mindful choice at a time. Watch my calendar.

NEW: 1-off Holistic Life Coaching and Enneagram Sessions
Get some quick and practical support with ways to approach your life with an attitude of mindful practice.

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be alive!

Excerpt from Mary Oliver’s The Singular and Cheerful Life:

“The singular and cheerful life of any flower in anyone’s garden or any still unowned field—if there are any—catches me by the heart,
by its color, by its obedience to the holiest of laws:
be alive until you are not.“

Be alive until you are not.

What it means to be alive can seem so different for each of us, but in the moment, it is always the same.

To be truly alive is to allow life to fully express in and through us regardless of circumstance as it flows in any moment.

That singular and cheerful flower’s life will grow and blossom in a tended garden or simply along the roadside amidst the weeds.

We, too, are asked to follow the expression of our own nature—to unfold and blossom in whatever shape that takes, wherever we find ourselves.

In my life and coaching, this comes down to cultivating and allowing our aliveness to express through us.

How do we do that?

Our aliveness expresses on a continuum of quiescence to excitation. Where do you find yourself? Try playing around with the edge and adding a little more of the one you least often allow expression.

Another facet is to become aware of how we block our aliveness. What beliefs, stories, emotions, or behaviors are keeping you stuck? These affect the way your life force energy flows through you, too. Work with understanding and releasing these thoughts, feelings, and behaviors…and see what happens.

Notice your familiar ways of expressing your aliveness—your habits. Can you try on something new? Can you approach something you have labeled taboo? All, of course, in a safe and nourishing way.

One client said at the end of her 6-month program with me:

“Now, I’m happy to say that I have laid the foundation for a company I had wanted to launch. I achieved my weight loss goal by better understanding not only the reasons I was eating, but also the real effects of the food. And I am ready to live this second half of my life, feeling more alive, sexier in my skin,
and more full of passion than I have in a long time!”

Whatever you do, be obedient
to the holiest of laws:
be [fully] alive until you are not.

If you would like some support following your aliveness, I still have a few spots for holistic life coaching.

Love Unfolding

If Love is the greatest force there is, then fear cannot win.
Fear cannot be.
Fear is an idea, an experience, a physical reaction, not a state of Being.

If Love holds all, Love can hold fear.

And Love can hold darkness.

Love can even lead us into the darkness when there is something there we must learn.

Love shines brightly between people in love.

Love can also express in ways that get us into trouble. For that trouble is necessary.

Who knows what Love wants to unfold from its depths?

Love helps us to show up truthfully even when it might be risky.

Love invites us to trust that we are walking our path and will be taken care of.

Love can express through injury, through heartbreak, through loss.

It is an invitation to open ourselves, to grow, to expand, to see how even this is an act of greater Love.

Love breaks us open,

out of our limited vision, our limited versions of ourselves, our narrow perspectives on reality… so that we can be more true, more kind,
more full of Love.

“Roar, Lion of the Heart, and tear me open.” ~Rumi

*****

Do you see your life as an expression of Love unfolding? Can you make sense of even the darkest night if you take the perspective of Love?

*****

I would love to support you in orienting to the
unfolding of Love.