Mindful Sunday

Today is my sabbath - when I step out of the fray and regroup. We are at the beginning of the end of summer, with an active week ahead, and I want to take time to prepare myself - body, mind, and spirit.

This is the yin time of the waxing crescent moon, a phase of growth, when I am planting my intentions and caring for them. I'll take time to discern and create clarity. 

Agenda:

1. Read "Your Heart Was Made for This"

2. Journal challenges and needs

3. Expressing Needs in the World

1. Read "Your Heart Was Made for This":

I'm reading this book by Oren Jay Sofer (2023), with the subtitle, "Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love". It has 26 short chapters on innate qualities we each have, that we can cultivate and develop as inner and external expression, meant to be read and practiced in order, one every 1-2 weeks.

Part One explores six core qualities, and the 4th is Mindfulness, about training my mind to stop endless habitual thinking, feeling, and reacting, and instead become wakeful, alert, receptive, and engaged. I can become awake to each experience moment by moment, feeling the air and my clothing, and really listening to what people say, in a balanced and curious way, without bias or need for control. "We're not judging what's happening, waiting for something else, or trying to get something. Thus mindfulness has two parts: Awareness and equanimity."

Practice being aware of the sensations of my body as I move: How my breath feels, my hands, sensations of walking, what I hear and see - and sustain this through my day. It will bring vibrancy to the world.

Mindfulness gifts us with precious moments we might have missed but also with the pain. It opens a chink in the armor we protect ourselves with, and replaces it with wisdom, compassion, and equanimity. Armor locks us from joy and also from the truth. "When we shut down the heart or put up a wall, we limit our capacity to be alive and to see clearly. What is the cost of the distractions we use to ignore the realities of climate chaos?" And so mindfulness of part of a transformative process; calmness comes from "engaging with the truth of our lives and living with integrity... Mindfulness is like a master key that opens the gates to all other helpful qualities on our journey."   

Reflection: Begin to pay attention to the habits and narratives that dominate my day. What are the tracks that play most often? (probably defensiveness, planning, and overwhelm.) I can give these names and notice them - how they feel in my body.

2. Journal challenges and needs:

My theme this month is balance and flow, which requires me to have equanimity, be present, find clarity in chaos, embrace paradox, and allow myself to flow with life’s uncertainty.

I remember that for each opportunity in life there is a challenge. The challenge to balance is obsession. If I am consumed by one part of my life or being, I can’t be centered. Practice gathering ki to be grounded. 

What are the creative habits I use to stay mindful and grounded throughout the day? 

 

Where in my life am I stuck and how can I step away from my comfort zone into the movement that creates flow and balance? 

 

What is my inner critic telling me and what is the still small voice advising?  

From my journal: I'm beginning to get a handle on my anger - I'm mindful of it and how it feels now. The anger journal, and Beingness practice have helped. At some point I might want to also become more aware of my overwhelm, which causes me to shut down and go within. 

3. Expressing Needs in the World:

On Sundays I often go through this Ongo practice to define the Needs I want to express: 

1. Sit for a couple minutes and then invite in three questions, and write the answers in my journal:

• "If I knew this was the last week of my life, what is one Need or quality of life I'd like to be or express more fully?" 
• "What's one quality of life I'd like to contribute more to one of my relationships?"
• "Whats one quality of life I'd like to contribute more to my community?" 

2. Consider each of these Needs, one at a time, and feel the surge of this energy in my body. 

3. Invite myself to take one action each day this week to express the energy of one of these Needs, or bring it alive in my relationships. Be sure it's done in the spirit of invitation, not demand, and that it is specific and doable.

4. After doing the action, be sure to take a minute to visualize the happiness or fulfillment I experience, and extend it out to all beings.

The Needs that come to me today are self-expression, reassurance, and aspiration. After sitting with the energy of these, I've listed some ideas for action:

• Aliveness in the moment: Practice 5-4-3-2-1; practice heightened listening; practice heightened seeing. 
• Exploration (preparedness): Be ready each day for adventure!
• Responsible contribution: Organize better, and fulfill my responsibilities.