Category: Quotes

A Mindful Monday

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Mindfulness, Quotes12 Comments

As I’ve wandered through the past couple of weeks I’ve realized how much I have strayed from my mindfulness practice and how much my Mindfulness Mondays helped keep me on track. Each Monday I was reminded how important mindfulness is and how to obtain it. It is time to refocus on this present moment with a few of my favorite quotes and a few photos from the desert.

Mindfulness isn’t difficult.
We just need to remember to do it.

Sharon Saltzberg

This quote is very meaningful for me right now as I remember how important mindfulness is, it is so easy to do, if only I remember to do it.

Mindfulness is simply
being aware of what is happening right now
without wishing it were different.
-Enjoying the pleasant without
holding on when it changes
(which it will)
-Being with the unpleasant without
fearing it will always be this way.
(which it won’t)

James Baraz

This quote by James Baraz is my all time favorite quote. Be with this day, whether it be pleasant or unpleasant, for it will always change.

Mindfulness means paying attention
in a particular way;
on purpose,
in the present moment,
and non-judgmentally.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

What I love most about this quote is the last word, “non-judmentally”. I am notorious for judging myself very harshly, and it has held me back in many ways. Another quote by Jon Kabat-Zinn, in part, says “Instead of ‘let it go’ we should probably say ‘let it be'”. I need to just let it be, and stay in the moment.

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Mindfulness Monday – Changing.

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Mindfulness, Quotes5 Comments

I’ve decided to change things up a bit on my blog. I won’t be posting a Mindfulness Monday every Monday. I will still post once or twice a month, I’m hoping to blog more often with different topics. (health allowing) xo

Remember…

This is my favorite quotes. I hope you enjoy it, I know I’ve used it before. xo

**Image by W. Holcombe, please do not use without permission.

Mindfulness Monday: mindful miscellanea

On By LorraineIn Chronic Illness, Mindfulness, Quotes4 Comments

“Turn your demons into art, your shadow into a friend, your fear into fuel, your failures into teachers, your weaknesses into reasons to keep fighting. Don’t waste your pain. Recycle your heart.”

Andrea Balt

Delving for Mindfulness Monday quotes is very therapeutic. I find new mantras, viewpoints, concepts and challenging thoughts to ponder. I have several “file folders” on my computer stuffed with “left-overs;” quotes that didn’t appear in the final draft of a post.

The new year: a time to declutter; to re-heat frozen left-overs from holiday feasts; to continue the spirit of giving and sharing.

To welcome a new mindfulness year, I’ve dipped into my cache of quotes. I hope you find one that resonates with you. 

“Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

[Anon]

 “If you get tired, learn to rest, not quit.”

[Anon]

“Start somewhere.”

[Anon]

 “Wonder is a bulky emotion. When you let if fill your heart and mind, there isn’t room for anxiety, distress, or anything else.”

Diane Ackerman

“Worry is a misuse of your imagination.”

Curiano

 “Into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.

[John Muir]

“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.”

[FQL] 

“Good friends help you to find important things when you have lost them . . . your smile, your hope, your courage.”

Doe Zantamata

I wish you a mindful, whimsical, playful, meaningful, exceptional, educational, experiential and hug-filled 2019.

Please remember:

“When it rains, look for rainbows. When it’s dark, look for stars.”

Stacey Colegrove.

 “Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense.”

Robert Frost

Images: © Lorraine

Mindful New Year

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Mindfulness, Quotes4 Comments

“Do not wait until the conditions

are perfect to begin.

Beginning makes

the conditions perfect.”

~ Alan Cohen


**************************************************************

“Begin doing what you want

you want to do now.

We are not living in eternity.

We have only this moment.

sparkling like a star in

our hand and melting

like a snowflake.”

~ Marie Beynan Ray

**************************************************************

“Be mindful of how you

approach time.

Watching the clock

is not the same as

watching the sun rise.”

~ Sophia Bedford-Pierce


**************************************************************

“Although no one

can go back and

make a new start,

anyone can start

from now and make

a brand new ending.”

~Carl Bard



**I hope everyone finds more joy, health, love, and compassion in the upcoming year. I know it’s been a hard one for many of us. Just a few quotes to share today, more words from Wendy coming soon. 😉

Mindfulness Monday: on being mindful

On By LorraineIn Chronic Illness, Mindfulness, Quotes2 Comments

“Be mindful even if your mind is full.”

James de la Vega

 “Mindfulness isn’t difficult, we just need to remember to do it.”

Sharon Salzberg

 This time of the year can heighten both joy and despair; laughter and tears; friendship and loneliness; comfort and pain. Being present in the moment among the presents and presences can ground us as the season swirls by. Mindfulness can act as anchor, guidepost, tao. Bringing us back inside, to quiet, stillness. Mindfulness can help us do what is so important: breathe, love, live.

 This week is a selection of quotes around the idea of mindfulness, grounding, coping. I hope these resonate with you.

 “Mindfulness is a way of befriending ourselves and our experience.”

John Kabat-Zinn

“Life is a dance. Mindfulness is witnessing that dance.”

Amit Ray 

“When you look into a field of dandelions, you can either see a field of weeds or a field of wishes.”

Anon.

 “Regain your senses, call yourself back, and once again wake up. Now that you realize that only dreams were troubling you, view this ‘reality’ as you view your dreams.”

Marcus Aurelius

Wishing everyone all the best of this festive season, and in the new year to come. Charles Dickens wrote, “Christmas would not be Christmas, but for the exchange of our good wishes.”

 Image: google images/pininterest

Mindfulness Monday: pain

On By LorraineIn Mindfulness, Pain, Quotes2 Comments

“Healing is an art. It takes time. It takes practice. It takes love.”

Maza Dohta

Being present, being in the moment can be difficult when in physical pain. To transcend that barrier; to be aware of breath and heartbeat over the noise of pain synapses. When the levels of my physical pain increase, as they have of late, I struggle to own my pain, rather than it owning me.

Helping Wendy with Mindfulness Mondays is therapeutic; choosing a topic; searching out the quotes; formulating the post – all help me focus, to remember to breath.

I hope this week’s Mindfulness Monday quotes help you be mindful of the pain and of the moment.

“Some people think that to be strong is to never feel pain. In reality, the strongest people are the ones who feel it, understand it, accept it.”

Anon

“Mindfulness can play a big role in transforming our experience with pain and other difficulties; it allows us to recognize the authenticity of the distress and yet not be overwhelmed by it.”

Susan Salzburg

“Chronic pain or other challenges are invitations; gifts that challenge us to learn how to manage the mind.”

Cheryl Richardson

image: (c) Lorraine

 

Mindfulness Monday: #GivingTuesday

On By LorraineIn Mindfulness, Quotes3 Comments

“Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.”

J.M. Barrie

“. . . It’s a beautiful dance, this giving and receiving!”

Heather Powers “Grateful Girl”

“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under who shade you do not expect to sit.”

Nelson Henderson

Tomorrow, Tuesday November 27, is #GivingTuesday (Giving Tuesday) — the first Tuesday after American Thanksgiving.

“#GivingTuesday is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration.  . . . One of the best ways to get involved is in your own community. . . join the movement and give – whether it’s some of your time, a donation, gift or the power of your voice in your local community.” #GivingTuesday

I am grateful to Wendy for her friendship, compassion, caring, and the chance to participate in Mindfulness Mondays.

Tomorrow, I will give some of myself.

And, just because:

. . . With an open smile and with open doors

I bid you welcome, what is mine is yours

With a glass raised to toast your health

And a promise to share the wealth . . .

Stop and look around you

The glory that you see

Is born again each day

Don’t let it slip away

How precious life can be

With a heart that is wide awake

. . . with a thankful heart

“Thankful Heart,” Paul Williams, A Muppet Christmas Carol

 

Mindfulness Monday: calmness

On By LorraineIn Guest Post, Mindfulness, Quotes3 Comments

“Calm the winds of your thoughts, and there will be no waves on the ocean of your mind.”

Remez Sassoon

“Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet, it is a way of entering into the quiet that is already there – buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.”

 Deepak Chopra

“Empty your mind of everything – let the mind become still.”

Lao Tzu

I create personalized “mindfulness” or “grounding” cards. On different coloured index cards, I print out a quote; a saying; a thought gleaned from elsewhere, or sometimes from somewhere inside me.

I carry two with me . . . always.

The first is a grounding exercise to use when I have a panxiety attack, feel like I’m drifting too far from shore, or to help be mindful of my surroundings by using all my senses. *

The other:

“Calm as a koi pond.”

Lorraine

* Borrowed from the “web of thoughts.” Can be modified to suit a person’s abilities and needs; I took the whole.

Look around you and find:

FIVE things you can SEE

FOUR things you can TOUCH

THREE things you can HEAR

TWO things you can SMELL

ONE thing you can TASTE

And, Wendy (who is taking a break from Mindfulness Monday today) gave me a wonderful set of 65 Power Thought Cards, beautifully written and richly, colorfully, and playfully illustrated by Louise Hay.

On one side is a saying; the reverse is a longer meditation on that specific thought/phrase/concept.

I carry around two:

“I am willing to change.”

“I express my creativity.”

Thanks to Wendy, (and Mindfulness Mondays), I am “working” on both!

image: © lorraine

Mindfully seeing

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Mindfulness, Quotes10 Comments

“The best way to capture moments

is to pay attention.

This is how we cultivate mindfulness.”

~Jon Kabat-Zinn

 

This week I decided to try to get back to the basics of my mindfulness practice.  When I first started learning about being mindful I would take time to really look at things up close and see all the little things about them. I tried to keep my attention on the object and discover as much as I could about it, is it smooth? bumpy? soft? scratchy? colorful? alive?…… just trying to mindfully seeing the world, one piece at a time.  At one point I took my camera and took a ton of pictures of one object, seeing it through the camera lens made me pay even more attention to it.  This week I did that same exercise.  I’d like to share some of the photos I took.  These are all objects you might see in day to day life, I just got up close and personal with them.  I’m only sharing one photo from each object I looked at instead of a ton of one item, I thought it’d be fun to see if you can guess what each object is?  **answers can be found at the bottom of this post

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I challenge you to go out in your world today and pay attention to the world around you, one piece at a time.

What did you see today?

 

I hope you liked this version of Mindfulness Monday.

**The photos above are of a Dust mop, a plastic bowl on my kitchen counter, the shutters in my living room, the metal grating on my front door (like a super duper screen door, but with heavy metal), and the refection of the pool shining on my ceiling dancing with the shadow of the fencing.  (I have to say the last one isn’t nearly as interesting as it is when you see it literally dancing on the ceiling.)

All photos are the sole property of W. Holcombe.  Please do not use without permission.

 

Mindfulness Monday – Life as it is

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Mindfulness, Quotes14 Comments

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“What would it be like if I could accept life

– accept this moment –

exactly as it is?”

– Tara Brach

 

“How you look at it is

pretty much how you’ll see it.”

 – Rasheed Ogunlaru

 

“Every experience,

no matter how bad it seems,

holds within it a blessing of some kind.

The goal is to find it.”

– Buddha

 

“Don’t let life harden your heart.”

 – Pema Chödrön

 

Today I searched for quotes to help me simply accept life has it is right now, and change my thought process about it all.  I promised someone recently, “Don’t worry I won’t let her steal my joy”, but by the time I said that, I realize I had already allowed that to happen.

The serenity prayer states, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.”  My biggest problem right now is that I don’t feel I have the wisdom to know the difference.   I’m spinning my wheels trying to figure out what I can change, and if I can’t change things, how can I just accept that?  What blessing do I find in it?  The greatest comfort I have right now is knowing that everything changes.  This is just a blip in my life, it will change…..right??  Please tell me it will change.  Between the stress in my personal life and the stress of politics right now, I just feel overwhelmed.

The holidays are coming up.  I was really looking forward to having the holidays with family, but it is way too complicated for me.  I’m ready to run away and hide for the next couple of months.  Anyone want to come with?

 

*photo by W. Holcombe, all rights reserved.  October Sunset in Tucson.