Tag: Mindfulness Quotes

Mindfulness Monday – Earth Day

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Invisable Illness, Mindfulness15 Comments
image courtesy of pixabay


Love the world
as your own self;
then you can truly care
for all things. 

Lao Tzu

Just feel the magic in the air and the power in the breeze,
Feel the energy of the plants, the bushes and the trees,
Let yourself be surrounded by nature at its best,
Calm yourself, focus and let magic do the rest.

Sally Walker

In all things of nature
there is something of the
marvelous.

Aristotle

The days are so beautiful this time of year, urging us to come outside and linger, yet we often get so distracted by everything going on inside that we miss what mother nature is trying to tell us. My allergies are keeping me indoors more than I’d like, but I’m taking time to sit by my window each day and taking note of how my surrounding are changing, each day seems to bring a new bloom, a new color. The flora in the desert is much different than I’m used to on the east coast. there, there are so many blossoms it is hard to appreciate the individual plants, the individual blooms. Here flowers are often found alone, or in small groups, but the blossoms are often bright and beautiful and standing out in all their glory. I can look across a field and see a single flower blooming that I know was not there the day before, it is wondrous. The cactuses are starting to bloom and that is just amazing! I hope all of you can take some time and take a nature break.

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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.

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.

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: 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

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.

Mindfulness Monday – Thich Nhat Hanh On Fear

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Mindfulness, Quotes5 Comments

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When I am in need of comfort, and have a desire for knowledge, I often turn to the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh.  His words resonate with me and make me feel understood.  I hope you find his words as compelling as I do.  (Thich Nhat Hanh is often referred to as Thầy, meaning Teacher, throughout this post I will also refer to him as Thầy)

Below you will find quotes by Thích Nhất Hạnh, from his book Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm. with comments by me on how these quotes reflect my life right now and help give me peace.

 

“The only way to ease our fear and be truly happy is to acknowledge our fear and look deeply at its source. Instead of trying to escape from our fear, we can invite it up to our awareness and look at it clearly and deeply.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh

During the past week I have been having vertigo again, even though I’m feeling much better now, the fear of the possibility that things could get worse has been creeping up.  My first instinct is to run from this fear, or push it down and refuse its validity.   After reading this quote I realized how much I have been trying to escape from my fear, I now understand that I need to investigate it’s cause and think about it rationally.

“When we recognize that we have a habit of replaying old events and reacting to new events as if they were the old ones, we can begin to notice when that habit energy comes up. We can then gently remind ourselves that we have another choice. We can look at the moment as it is, a fresh moment, and leave the past for a time when we can look at it compassionately.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh

Thầy really hit the nail on the head with this one.  For the sake of this post I will only talk about what has presently caused me to replay old events – a vertigo attack.  My automatic response to this attack was a flash back to my worst days experiencing vertigo.  The many days where I could do nothing but watch the world spin were suddenly replaying themselves in my mind.  It is refreshing to know that I have another choice.  I can take this attack as it is, a singular event, it is not part of my past  (well it is now…hopefully you get what I’m saying).  What happened this week was new, yes I’ve had thousands of vertigo attacks, but this was a different one, it was not one that I had already experienced, it was new.  It’s time to let the past go, to look at that time with compassion, especially for myself.

“We are very afraid of being powerless. But we have the power to look deeply at our fears, and then fear cannot control us.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh

How liberating this quote is!  I often feel that everything in my life is out of my control, that I am powerless.  I lost so much of my independence and then got some back, the vertigo attack brought back all the times that I was so dependent on others for everything.  It’s that loss of control (power) that scares me.  Thầy teaches that we always have power over our fear, yes we will always feel fear, but if we look closely at our fears and really get to the root of it, we can then see that our fear does not control us, we control it.

 

I hope you enjoyed this variation on Mindfulness Monday, if it is well received I may do this type of post more often.  

*photo by W. Holcombe – night sky…yes it really is the moon..in Tucson.  Please do not use without permission.  All rights reserved.  ©

 

Mindfulness Monday: anger

On By LorraineIn Mindfulness, Quotes1 Comment

“For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When you are caught in the heavy rains of anger, open the umbrella of the mind, [and] take refuge under the roof of reason!”

Mehmet Murat Ildan

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

Buddha

As Wendy indicated in her recent post, “Out of Touch”, she is having “technical difficulties.”

I find myself often full of anger, “righteous” or otherwise, thus another self-therapeutic Mindfulness Monday.

And remember:
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

John Milton

image: (c) Lorraine (please do not use without permission)

Mindfulness Mondays: worry

On By LorraineIn Chronic Illness, Mindfulness, Quotes3 Comments

“Do not lose yourself in the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. Do not get caught in your anger, worries or fears.Come back to the present moment, and touch life deeply. This is mindfulness.”

Thich Njat Hanh

“The day you stop worrying will be the first day of your new life; anxiety takes you in circles, trust in yourself and become free.”

Leon Brown

“Don’t believe every worried thought you have. Worried thoughts are notoriously inaccurate.”

Renee Jain

As Wendy indicated, I will drop by from time to time to do the Mindfulness Monday post.

Finding mindfulness quotes concerning worry was an excellent therapeutic exercise.

As an added bonus because I really like the idea:

“Worry is a misuse of your imagination.”

Curiano

Image: © Lorraine (Please do not use without permission)

Mindfulness Monday – Self

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Mindfulness, Quotes7 Comments

“The most powerful

relationship you will

ever have is the

relationship with yourself.”

~Steve Maraboli

 

“To be beautiful means

to be yourself.

You don’t need

to be accepted by others.

You need to accept

yourself.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh

 

“Be the silent watcher

of your thoughts and behavior.

You are beneath the thinker.

You are stillness beneath

the mental noise.

You are the love and

joy beneath the pain.”

~Eckhart Tolle

 

I’m thrilled to announce that Lorraine has agreed be a regular contributor to Mindfulness Monday. She has been so amazing filling in for me on the many days when I just didn’t feel like I could look at the computer; and, I think you’ll all agree, she has done an awesome job. I hope you will welcome her and continue to enjoy the quotes and photos she shares with us.

Don’t worry, I’m not giving up my blog, or Mindfulness Monday. It is my hope that I will be able to focus on more in depth posts again, and I will still contribute to Mindfulness Monday as I increase my mindfulness practice.

*self portrait by W. Holcombe. My many faces of self.