As I’ve been preparing for my conference presentation next week on Everyday Mindfulness, I am reminded yet again of how simple mindfulness practices can make such a big difference in our sense of well-being and our overall stress and health. I always say that I teach what I need to hear and this is no exception. 😊 Regular brief pauses for breathing, grounding, and releasing tension allow us to down regulate and come back to the present moment. I invite you all to identify at least one time each day when you consistently take an extra moment to pause and engage in a mindfulness practice. If you need some ideas or support in integrating mindfulness into your daily life, reach out and we can schedule a consultation or coaching session.

Today is the Lion’s Gate Portal 8/8, which is amplified as our year also adds up to 8. It is a powerful day to set intentions, spark creativity, reconnect with our authentic selves, and recall our spirit energy back to ourselves. To learn more and explore practices to take advantage of this fortuitous energy portal read this from Forever Conscious.

Welcome to August! As we move into this new month I am grateful to have had the time to rest and allow my body to recover from my illness. While I am still not one hundred percent, I am definitely on the mend and feeling a little better each day.

I hope this finds you well. We returned yesterday from our adventures in England and France and while we had an amazing time, we are glad to be home. Traveling is such good practice in being present in the moment and going with the flow. We experienced many bumps in the road as we navigated through our journey and enjoyed ourselves so much more when we focused on what was instead of what wasn’t which reminded me of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s quote, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” We also went into our trip with very little expectation, which truly allowed us to be present to whatever opportunities arose.

I hope this finds you all safe and well as our country celebrates the 4th of July amidst the turmoil of recent events here and abroad. It is yet another opportunity for practicing equanimity and truly holding all that is present as it is. Celebrating all the good in our country and its potential, while recognizing, acknowledging, and taking action to make a difference in its harms is one way of practicing equanimity. We can sometimes feel daunted by our own personal challenges not to mention the breadth and depth of all the difficulties beyond us. I encourage you to pause, take a breath, and do the next right thing that you can. Remember that you don’t have to change it all at once and you don’t have to do it alone.

I hope you’ve been soaking up this first full week of summer and finding time for rest and joy. I have slowed down this week to recharge and have been loving both quiet time to myself as well as sweet connections with friends and family. In reflecting on what kind of rest I needed I found that unscheduled time, following my intuition toward activity or naps, and allowing myself to just be without expectation have brought me both peace and joy.

Happy Summer Solstice!!☀️ As a summer baby summertime has always been my favorite time of year. I love the time to play, explore, connect, be outdoors, and savor the abundance of the season. I am grateful to have spent this week leading up to the solstice with a wonderful group of educators in the beautiful setting of Drala Mountain Resort. We explored and practiced tuning into our intuition and offering ourselves compassion. Dedicating the time and space to truly care for ourselves is a revolutionary act that can change the quality and often the direction of our lives.

It continues to be a time of beginnings, endings, and holding space for the unknown, reminding us all that the present moment is all we have. Everyone I know seems to have big shifts happening in one way or another and we are all about to shift into the season of Summer. These shifts can be overwhelming and they can be opportunities for us to intentional engage in our practice. Practice noticing our habitual responses, trying something different, and observing what happens when we do. With so much change energy in the universe, it is the perfect time to try something different and let go of the reflexive responses that no longer serve us.

Yesterday was a Gemini New Moon bringing in the energy of love and compassion. We can use this energy to reflect on our relationships with both ourselves and others. How are we speaking to ourselves and our loved ones? Are we responding from a place of love or fear? Are we in the present moment or re-experiencing past pain? Exploring these questions with curiosity and gentleness can help us to see our patterns and make conscious decisions to change them if we desire. As humans we grow, change, and evolve throughout our lifetimes and our relationships must do so as well.

It is definitely beginning to feel like summer with the temperature rising and school getting out. I love summer so much that I can sometimes get so caught up in its brevity that I miss enjoying its wonders. This week I have been practicing non-attachment for many reasons and have found reminder lessons in the beauty nature offers.

For the last year I have been preparing for tomorrow, my last day as a full time employee of Aurora Public Schools. Retiring after 30 years is a big decision and one I am so grateful I made. I have had a wonderful career working with amazing students, families, and staff. My work has helped me to grow in ways I could have never imagined in 1994 and I appreciate all the joys and challenges that have brought me to this moment. While I have a long list of things I want to do, I am realizing that I truly need to let myself rest deeply this summer and beyond. I have written often this year of rest and restoration and how essential it is to our well-being. I plan to create space not only for me to rest, but also for all of you to join me in restful, healing opportunities. Stay tuned!

I have addressed the topic of equanimity a number of times this year and it continues to be front and center in my life as I navigate the joys and challenges of human existence. Many of us turn to dark humor in difficult times to manage the stress of situations we have no control over. This week I found myself laughing uncontrollably during a conversation that was truly tragic as a way to manage the difficulty. I’d made a horrible pun that made us laugh and found that holding the hilarity of the pun with the pain of the tragedy made it bearable in the moment. So much of life is both difficult and wonderful all at the same time. Learning to embrace all of it and do our best to ride the wild waves along the way is a gift we can give ourselves.

The concept we practice in Mindful Self-Compassion called savoring has been on my mind a lot this week. Savoring the beginnings that spring offers with its budding flowers, unfurling trees, and chirping birds along side the endings of the school year, graduations, careers, and even lives. All provide the opportunity to rest in the moment, hold it gently, then let it go. It is not always an easy practice, but it is most definitely a worthwhile one.

Last night I had honor of attending a retirement dinner to celebrate my 30 years with Aurora Public Schools as a school social worker. As I look back at the beginning of my career I could have never imagined all of the opportunities (and obstacles) I would encounter, nor the relationships, knowledge, and skills I would gain. Along the way there were many times I explored other options due to frustration, burnout, and feeling stuck. Each time I found myself in that position a new possibility opened up creating just enough of change to help me see a new path. Sometimes I was a willing participant in the change and sometimes I went kicking and screaming, but each and every time the changes allowed me to grow personally and professionally.

Spring is a time of change and represents new opportunities and growth. It is a wonderful time to let ourselves dream about what we want next in our lives and to begin taking steps toward bringing it to fruition. When we’re feeling overwhelmed or stuck, our vision becomes narrow and our choices and opportunities can seem limited. Envisioning what might be can help us to get unstuck, releasing feelings of stagnation, frustration, or disillusionment. 

It has been a reflective week of allowing things to be as they are and practicing non-attachment. I think the brief moments of Monday’s eclipse are a great metaphor for this. We often want a moment or an experience to last longer and we focus our attention on clinging to it or lamenting its eventual passing, rather than on experiencing the moment as it is. But as the eclipse teaches us, the world literally keeps turning and one moment moves onto the next.

This week we continue to reside in the liminal space between eclipses, Mercury going retrograde, and the coming Aries Full Moon Eclipse on Monday. It is an intuitive, reflective time that can allow us to listen to our inner wisdom and open to what the universe has to offer. You can read more about these astrological influences at Forever Conscious and The Power Path.

As we process the energy of this week’s new moon and lunar eclipse, we may still be feeling a bit unsettled. Allowing ourselves the opportunity to hold the space rather than needing to understand it all and take action can be challenging. It is a good opportunity to practice equanimity, which I feel has been a theme for me over the past month.

This week we are faced with yet another incident of mass violence in the midst of multiple anniversaries of the same and the ongoing violence impacting millions of people around the world. It can be overwhelming to process and hold all of this suffering in our hearts and minds. The the practice of equanimity can offer us a supportive path in navigating the difficult emotions that arise from witnessing the suffering of others. Equanimity allows us to hold space for the suffering and pain of others without taking it on as our own; to offer what we are able (compassion, energy, advocacy, action) while letting go of expectations of its results. It allows us to stay present and connected to our own experience and open to being compassionate towards the pain of those both experiencing and perpetrating harm. With practice we can stay open to what arises, release our habitual reactions of grasping or avoiding, and respond thoughtfully from a place of compassion. If you’d like to explore the practice, this recording of Compassion with Equanimity by Chris Germer is a lovely place to begin.

Hello Friends~

February 1-2 is Imbolc and St. Brigid’s Day in the Celtic tradition honoring the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. We’ve reached the point in winter where we can really feel the lengthening of the days and enjoy those extra bits of sunlight in the late afternoon. This growing light reminds me of the Maori saying, “Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows fall behind you.” We can all get mired down in the gloom of winter’s dark, cold days, yet turning toward the light can give us hope. It might be physical light such as the sun or twinkle lights in our homes or it may be the light within ourselves and others that provides illumination allowing us to feel the promise of the coming spring.