Everyday Mindfulness
Mindfulness is all about the human experience of every moment.
What are you feeling?
What are you thinking?
How can you breathe more life into your body?
How can you feel more joy now?
Mindfulness is a celebration of joy. It is feeling every moment with an intense satisfaction and contentment. It’s feeling it in your body.
When you decide to have a love affair with life and you are unobstructed by the self-created obstacles of your ego mind you are mindfully present to feeling joy.
The practice of mindfulness, according Dr. Shauna Shapiro, is one of gentle intention and kindness.
How can you soften your gaze upon life to view it from a rose-colored lens?
Shauna says, “What you practice grows stronger.”
Life itself is a series of habits created by choice to live a certain way—conscious or unconscious.
But those who walk the course mindfully are awake to joy—and even the smallest thing invokes passion. The ordinary becomes extraordinary with attention.
The heart fills with love and shares more with others.
Life itself becomes an ecstatic dance.
Even difficult situations can be dealt with joyfully and gently with mindfulness.
I’d love to share an example of this with you.
I am in the process of suing a public figure who has defaulted on a Promissory Note for $100,000 plus compounded interest at 10% for four years to me. This person is a life coach I had hired for two years and was a trusted friend who manipulated me into a guaranteed loan for his publishing company at a time in my life where I was grieving, vulnerable, and lacking discernment. Against the wishes of my financial advisor, I played into the palm of his hand, and bought this guy’s dream and enthusiasm–hook line and sinker. It was, afterall, a loan with interest.
I waited for two years, as I sent him many letters and demands for payment, without word or acknowledgement from him. I also waited for my deep feelings of betrayal to ebb into a passion for justice, not vengeance. (I’ll admit that I had those ugly feelings arise too.)
Now, I am going about this process very mindfully, aware of my stake in the ground. My initiation of learning that there are snakes that appear trustworthy has dissolved into his learning the lesson that widows are not weak and easy prey. In fact, just as the phoenix rises out of the ashes, I have grown stronger than I ever was as Richard’s wife.
I do accept these kinds of challenges as initiations—and well-earned lessons.
At this point, I am mindfully navigating what’s before me. I am choosing to feel peace instead of anger–and even forgiveness for this person’s weakness and moral delinquency.
But here’s how mindfulness works in conflict: I pursue justice without allowing it to impact my emotions negatively and without engaging in the drama of the situation.
This lawsuit is nothing more than a project that is no longer personal in nature. It is about business and accountability.
Once he commences payments, I’ll have no complaint except for the time wasted in chasing him down on his promise.
I am mindfully aware of my feelings, and I let go of those feelings that no longer serve me in exchange for being present to the joy happening—to all the good stuff that continues to flow into my field of attention every day.
Amidst navigating some very difficult situations, I continually choose to awaken to my most vibrant life and to the joy and passion I feel with everyday mindfulness.