Meditation should be as easy as a child dreaming nice thoughts, but we run into our active minds, our worried minds, we have distractions, we worry we’re not doing it right..... there are so many ways we can lose self-compassion and increase our personal stress.

These days we get caught in judgment all the time.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see things clearly, without being caught in evaluations?

Judgment is a human characteristic, developed over many generations as our species learned to survive in the jungle. We needed to know what was safe, and what wasn’t. Who was safe, and who wasn’t. Judgment is deeply ingrained in our consciousness.

We can’t get rid of it, but we can learn to manage it.

We can train with Mindfulness to manage it.

In this digital age we rush around until we’re dizzy. There is another way. The snail way. Slower. In this mindfulness meditation we cultivate slowness. And then, with the centeredness that comes with it, we ask an important question: What is your heart’s desire? Enjoy.

I considered various resolutions and finally came to resolving to be more connected to living with intention.

Sometimes change can be frightening. At other times, it can be a blessing, as when we recover from an illness, or see a child learning a new skill. But, as Thich Nhat Hahn has said, if we look deeply, we come to realize that change is neither good nor bad -- it just is.

Most of us have an ingrained tendency to judge ourselves and others harshly, based on messages we received from those around us, the larger society, and past experiences. Many of our judgments are unconscious and inaccurate, and interfere with our ability to be open-minded, kind, and truly present.
In this meditation, we practice detecting and releasing any judgments about our moment-to-moment experience, and then review our day to see how many critical judgments may have gone unnoticed. We also sense into the body to see how it feels to judge versus how it feels to let judgment go and see with fresh, or even kind, eyes.

I stood and watched the 10-year old girl release the trapeze bar and float freely, high in the circus tent for a few moments, before her expert trainer gripped her arms and swung her back to the platform. She’d been practicing for a week, and this was her performance for her parents and other guests, me among them.

Even with the safety net below, letting go was an act of courage for that young girl, and it took a week of training to get the skills needed to go with the courage.

Do I need courage to let go of things in my life? You bet I do. How about you?

What would it take, say, for me to let go of distracting thoughts so that I could contemplate my own death.? (I don’t know when it will come, and I am not sick, but I do know it will come some day.)

Letting go of any challenging idea takes skill and courage. It means learning to drop the defenses long enough for the mind to clear out thoughts that are quite tenacious. It means developing courage to face the emotions that the busy mind is trying to keep out of awareness.

This probably is not how you understand the purpose of….

Motherhood, Mothering, Mother … this (upcoming) Mother’s Day, how do you relate?

Is this the journey toward Motherhood? The 28-day cycle of possibility-anticipation-disappointment, on repeat. Some days filled with positivity in the process and others consumed by its negative feedback.

Is this the shift of Mothering? The emotional juggle of unconditional love, tough lessons, sleepless nights, or guilt over being “enough”. Finding yourself balancing thoughts of gratitude for these precious beings while also looking for time and space to prioritize your own needs.

Finding peace and comfort in the Journey

8-Week Mindfulness Workshop

Tuesday Evenings: May 11, 2021 – June 29, 2021, 7p-9p (ET)
Cost: $750 *Financial assistance available to those in need*

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is an empirically based treatment that combines mindfulness and meditation with cognitive behavior therapy to help work with negative thought patterns and our bodies' automatic responses to them.