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.
“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
“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)
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.
“For me mindfulness is like building a house,
so, the next time the tsunami
that depression is comes,
I’ll have a structure to resist it.”
Ruby Wax
“Regardless of how dark and downbeat
the places you may find yourself,
there always exists the potential
for another path.”
Richard Gilpin
“You don’t have to control
your thoughts.
You just have to let them
stop controlling you.”
David Millman
Image: © Lorraine (filling in for Wendy; using the theme she had chosen)
“Piglet noticed that even thought he had a small heart,
it could hold a rather large amount of gratitude.”
A. A. Milne
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
Dr. Seuss
“The moment one gives close attention to anything,
even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome,
indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
Henry Miller
Image: Lorraine 2018 (filling in for Wendy)
“All the suffering, stress, and addiction comes from
not realizing you already are what you are looking for.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn
“Healing may not be so much about getting better,
as about letting go of everything that isn’t you –
all of the expectations, all of the beliefs –
and becoming who you are.”
Rachel Naomi Remen
“You wait a lifetime to met Someone
who understands you, accepts you as you are.
At the end, you find that the Someone,
all along, has been you.”
Richard Bach
image: © Lorraine; close up of installation “Birds Watching”, Jenny Kendler, from “Indicators: Artists on Climate Change,” Storm King Arts Centre, NY.
Wendy is fine; her recovery from surgery continues. She will soon be back to doing her Mindfulness Mondays.
“Who looks outside, dreams;
who looks inside, awakes.”
Carl Jung
“You must live in the present,
launch yourself on every wave,
find your eternity in each moment.”
Henry David Thoreau
“Writing can be an
incredible mindfulness practice.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn
image: © Lorraine (please do not use without permission)
I’d like to thank Lorraine for all her help during my recovery, she’s just the best! Be sure to jump over to her blog and say hello. Lorraine’s Frilly Freudian Slip
I wanted to give you all a little update on my surgery. I’m doing very well, much better than I expected. I’m able to do much, much more than I thought I would. (Dr. Google was very wrong on that one) I’m working on a post giving a proper update, I’m just slow going right now, but wanted to let everyone know that I’m doing very well, and thank you all for your well wishes through this challenge. I don’t know what I’d do without my blog family. “See” you soon. ~ Wendy
“Mindfulness of the breath is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful practices. Our breath is with us always and as we develop our ability to remember to focus on the breath, we can ride the breath through many waves and storms in our lives. The breath will carry us and help us to be present for what is showing up, whether it is in people, situations or our own hearts and minds.”
Diana Winston and Greater Good Science Center
“Relax. You are enough. You do enough. Breathe extra deep, let go, and just live right now in this moment.”
Shunryu Suzuki
“Mindfulness is when you are truly there, mind and body together. You breathe in and out mindfully, you bring your mind back to your body, and you are there.”
Anonymous
“De Quervain’s tenosynovitis in my left wrist/thumb earlier this year (you can read about it here), but you may have missed that I now have it in my right wrist. The left wrist was treated with a cortisone shot and since then I’ve had no problem. I’ve had 2 cortisone injections in my right wrist and I’m still in pain. … My surgery is scheduled for Tuesday, the 7th. It is a minor surgery, I’m not even put under general anesthesia. They just put a little incision on the inside of my wrist below the thumb (on the side, not the palm) and snip a little to release the tendons.”
But, during the recovery/rehab period, Wendy isn’t sure if she can use her dominant hand to type out wonderous things like Mindfulness Monday. So, I’ve stepped in to give her a “hand” – pardon the pun.
First, of course, I know you will be sending good, healing thoughts Wendy’s way. She may have difficulty communicating by keyboard for up to six weeks; if she doesn’t post or respond to a comment, it doesn’t mean she hasn’t been writing them in her head.
My Tai Chi instructor has been focusing on co-coordinating our breathes with out movements. Each pose has an inhale and exhale component. As we relearn each pose with breathing, the meditation in motion of Tai Chi is strengthened.
So, today’s post concerns mindfulness breathing. Hope you find the quotes intriguing enough to explore mindfulness breathing. It is the key, the core to mindfulness in many ways.
“In this moment, there is plenty of time. In this moment, you are precisely as you should be. In this moment, there is infinite possibility.”
Victoria Moran
“Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.”
Mother Teresa
“Welcome to the present moment. Here. Now. The only moment there ever is.”
Eckhart Tolle
* Wendy is settling into her new life in Tucson and asked me to fill in for her today. When she gets the chance, she’ll post about her adventures.
This week, I’m returning to the simple principal of mindfulness (as Wendy has taught me): be in the moment.
© Lorraine (detail of tile mosaic, Natural History Museum subway station, NYC)
Picnic with Ants 
