2010

Today I am choosing...

to follow myself
Inspire myself
Link to myself
Feature myself
Not comment on myself
And
Subscribe to my own feed...

^_^

I was thinking this year to NOT do a new years resolution...
I never keep them and tend to make myself feel bad about it all year ...
But then...
I did feel I needed a goal... A vision...
A change ... (if I may...) to fly forward into the fresh new year...
So I thought of going about the resolution differently...

What if I just seek to be more mindful?
One goal...
Just being aware of myself and my life and the people, friends and family whom I love around me...
Keeping myself reflective in a positive wAy...?
Shutting down self criticism ...
My lack of confidence...
Keeping present here BUT forward in how I live life...
Keeping mindful ... finding the laughter and humor in the challenges that everyday life brings?
Living in as much joy possible ... Sending that joy out for others to receive... No expectations ...
Just living in present moment awareness ...
In joy... In love and from love.

If the "resolution " is just to be mindful...
Quieting that monkey brain chatter would be easy...?mmmm
And there would be no expectations ...
No dissappointments of what preconceived ideas or ideals there might be within me...
Just being authentic ...
Easy?

I will be more mindful.


On Friday 2 good friends came over to visit with their children. Normally our playdates involve baking , or making art and lots of playing and read alouds...
But this time... The mama's sat ... And thought... And reflected on themselves.., for just a littlebit... And then we went into ourselves... In silence... And created art. Our own.
We each took a large piece of paper and created a vision collage using old magazines to cut out words and images that might resonate within us... A vision collage of some things that were grounding and important to us... We each focused on a word to look onto on the new year and in quiet...together...
We found inspiration for this new year.

Here's mine...












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And I'd like to share 2 books I love...
That sit by my night table and I use as daily inspiration to nurish my thoughts on what's most important to me...
Parenting.

Everyday blessings by Myla and Jon-kabbat-zinn is a beautiful beautiful book and as I finish this post , I'd like to quote just a little bit...

On presence

"When a child walks in, can we take a moment and really see her and acknowledge her presence?
We do that with acquaintances but we often don't with those close to us. The quality of our presence with our children is central to the quality of our relationship with them. As we have seen, presence lies at the heart of mindfulness.
To cultivate it requires conciousness, sustained effort, attention, a willingness to be authentic, awake, attuned. When we are authentic with someone we are being genuine. We are not hiding or pretending. We don't descriminate against certain feelings in ourselves or in our children.
But, if we've grown up having to hide our feelings or dissimilate in order to feel safe, being authentic can be extremely difficult and scary. It may be new and unknown territory. It helps to keep reminding ourselves. --- literally to come back to our mind and to our senses.
We remind ourselves to come back into the present moment, to be aware if how we are feeling. The breath can be our ally in this. Intentionally focusing on the senses of breathing brings us back into the body. The more we are aware of how we are really feeling in each moment, without judging ourselves the more we embody authentic presence.
The more we live in this way, the more our children will feel it, know it and embody authentic presence themselves."