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Week 626: Return to Kindness
Given the tone of some of the political discourse these days, it seems worthwhile to revisit the importance of kindness as one of the primary qualities we can choose to express in our day-to-day interactions with other people. Read More “Week 626: Return to Kindness”
Week 647: Resonating with Your World
One of my primary practices doesn’t have a name, or at least I don’t know of one for it. It has to do with noticing and then choosing the quality of thoughts, emotions, physical states, and energy with which I resonate as I move through the day, as an exercise in shifting to a more constructive frequency. When I first learned mindfulness and realized that each moment offers a new choice as to where I place my attention and energy, Read More “Week 647: Resonating with Your World”
October 2020 Meditation
For those of you who prefer a meditation with images, here’s our YouTube version of this meditation:
912th Week: Responding to Challenges
I haven’t posted a practice in conscious living for a few weeks now, as life has intervened with some challenges that have required my deep attention. As I’ve thought about this recent time, I want to share a practice I have engaged that may be useful to describe.
One of the sweet feline family members who live with me has required medical attention and I found myself faced with having to give him a subcutaneous infusion for hydration every day, to support what his kidneys can’t currently do efficiently right now. My relationship with needles has mostly been around experiences of blood draws, shots, and acupuncture, but I haven’t been the one managing the needles. So, I found myself dealing with some anxiety about having to use a needle each day to deliver the hydration to my dear feline.
Moving through this experience reminded me of the importance of grounded, steady presence and of being mindfully connected to this present moment. I decided to take on the daily process as a spiritual practice, bringing awareness, calm, and love to something that would allow my furry family member to survive. Along with focusing in my heart and connecting with my love of this sweet being, I have asked myself to track my internal state so that I am calm and centered during the infusions. Even as I give the infusions, I track my body and go back into calm if I find myself tensing or becoming anxious. Gently breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth helps to return to a more settled state and I sense how that state in me helps my furry friend to relax a bit more.
And so, for this week’s practice in conscious living, I invite you to notice whatever challenge may come into your life that requires you to dig a little deeper, perhaps into your capacities, your emotions, your ability to stay grounded in the presence of something that might be upsetting, etc. Then, notice what you experience when you choose to take on the challenge as a spiritual or psychological practice where you can develop some new or deepened skill or response that helps you move through the experience.
Read More “912th Week: Responding to Challenges”746th Week: Everyone Has A Story
Walking to an appointment the other day, I passed a man who carried a large manila envelope filled with what looked like x-rays. Whatever they may actually have been, I imagined that he was going to or from a doctor’s appointment. That got me to thinking about how everyone has a story, everyone has experiences and circumstances at some point in their lives that challenge them as I imagined this man might be being challenged in his life right now.
This also got me to thinking about how important it is to remember that everyone—every human and every other living being—has the capacity to suffer and wants to be free from suffering. I found myself thinking about the importance of cultivating and strengthening my capacity for empathy, to nurture a habit of remembering that even people with whom I fervently disagree also want to be free from suffering, just as I do. What I find, again and again, is that insisting on orienting to empathy—which has nothing to do with agreeing with someone—can be very hard at times.
Read More “746th Week: Everyone Has A Story”Week 634: Moving Beyond “Us and Them”
During this political season, there are constant and vivid examples of how we humans have a tendency to create categories of “us” and “them”. It seems to be a natural response to difference of just about any kind and often emerges from an underlying fear or discomfort in the presence of people, ideas, behaviors, and species who are different from how we know ourselves and our world to be. Read More “Week 634: Moving Beyond “Us and Them””