So, for mindful May I'm sprinkling favorite things and good ideas. Today I'm pulling some self-care ideas from here and there and everywhere. Starting with this:
Happiest of Mondays and Mindful Mays, my friends. May you have many moments of merriness and sparkle.
Hello, my friends. Happy Mindful May.
Here are more sprinklings of happy mindful things. In
case you missed it, this is a favorite. And so is this, from a few years ago.
Twenty-seven more mental health and feelings books for kids
can be found here, four of which are free if you click on the links provided via
Waterford’s website (I’m linking them below too, but they redirect back to Waterford's resources):
I Met a Monster,
by Donna Lugg Pape
Moving Day,
by Clarence Turner
Lizard and the Painted Rock,
by Elizabeth Lane
Duc Tho Le’s Birthday Present,
by Jo G. Bell
Waterford Upstart is amazing, by the way. If you have kids within the age range they support with reading, you should consider registering. You won’t regret it. It’s definitely one of my favorites.
Wishing you much love and many mindful moments of joy, my friends. Today, tomorrow, and many days to come.
Hello, my friends. Happy May—which is to say, happy mental health month. To round out the rest of the month I’m sprinkling here and there some happy mindful things. Some of my favorites. Starting with this:
And then this:
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Happy Mindful Monday, friends. We’re finishing up our exploration of the L2B program, today, and thus far we’ve gone over these themes:
B: Body, learning to listen to our bodies
R: Reflect, reflecting on our thoughts
E: Emotions, we can surf the waves of our emotions
A: Attend, attend to what’s inside and outside of us
T: Tenderness, try some tenderness; take life as it is
H: Healthy habits; practicing healthy habits of mind
Last, but not least, we have E: Empowered
When we learn to slow down and listen to our bodies,
reflect on our thoughts and emotions, attend to what’s inside and outside our
bodies, practice tenderness towards ourselves and others, then create healthy
habits so we continue to do all these things—this is when we feel empowered.
Which is not to say we’ll always feel successful in
doing all these things.
But that’s when we practice any one of the themes some
more. Empowerment isn’t always succeeding, but rather always knowing we have
the tools to help us succeed.
That knowledge is power.
And you, my friends, are powerful. I wish light and
love and peace as you move more mindfully into your week.
*If you’d like a way to put more
mindfulness into practice, this holiday season, consider getting one of these
Holiday Thrive journals I’ve put together. They are self-care guides to help you
not just survive the stresses of the holidays, but thrive through them.
Happy Mindful Monday, all you fantastic people. We’re back to discussing L2B and thus far we’ve gone over these themes:
B: Body, learning to listen to our bodies
R: Reflect, reflecting on our thoughts
E: Emotions, we can surf the waves of our emotions
A: Attend, attend to what’s inside and outside of us
T: Tenderness, try some tenderness; take life as it is
Today we go over H: Healthy habits; practicing healthy
habits of mind
So many times during our days we’re given external
cues from family, friends, teachers, co-workers, media, advertisements, etc.
Cues can be powerful things, poking us in just the right way to get us to do
something.
We can do this for ourselves too, give ourselves
mindfulness cues. Here’s a worksheet of suggestions.
And here’s a video about healthy habits of mind.
Putting these together, what are things we can do to help us create habits of healthy living, healthy thinking, being more mindful?
I would love to hear your thoughts.
*If you’d like a way to put more
mindfulness into practice, this holiday season, consider getting one of these
Holiday Thrive journals I’ve put together. They are self-care guides to help you
not just survive the stresses of the holidays, but thrive through them.
Happy Mindful Monday, everyone. We’re back to the L2B
thing and thus far we’ve gone over these themes:
B: Body, learning to listen to our bodies
R: Reflect, reflecting on our thoughts
E: Emotions, we can surf the waves of our emotions
A: Attend, attend to what’s inside and outside of us
Today we add on the T: Tenderness, try some
tenderness; take life as it is
The Davis Behavioral Health L2B team has put together
a series of cards that can be found here. The cards have questions or prompts
for each of the themes that help explore the themes and ourselves more deeply.
Some of the Tenderness cards include the questions:
· “What
kind thoughts can I practice saying to myself?”
· “How
can I be kind at home? School? Work, etc.?
· “How
does it feel when someone is kind to me?”
These are great journaling prompts to get us delving
into our hearts and minds so we have more positive go-to thoughts when things
start to spiral up or down or out of control.
May we never be out of control. That feeling’s the
worst.
And may you have the best of feelings as you move more
mindfully into this week. I hope this helps you feel, look for, and have
gratitude towards moments of peace and love.
*If you’d like a way to put more
mindfulness into practice, this holiday season, consider getting one of these
Holiday Thrive journals I’ve put together. They are self-care guides to help you
not just survive the stresses of the holidays, but thrive through them.
Happy Mindful Monday, all you lovely people. We’re working through the L2B program and so far we’ve done these themes:
B: Body, learning to listen to our bodies
R: Reflect, reflecting on our thoughts
E: Emotions, we can surf the waves of our emotions
So, today we are at A: Attend, attend to what’s inside
and outside of us
For this, I’m simply going to borrow from here, a memo from the Body-Mind to all Body-Mind Owners:
And now, what do we do with this? Slow down, be more mindful and present with everything.
Mindful eating includes paying attention to sensations
as we eat; practicing gratitude for all the people whose work made it possible
for us to eat this food.
Mindful walking includes paying attention to movements
of our muscles, our lungs, our arms swinging, our hips swaying; practicing
gratitude for our abilities to move in whatever way we can.
Mindfully going into this week includes paying
attention to our intensions and what we hope/plan to do, closing our eyes and
seeing how things will play out; practicing gratitude for our skills,
abilities, and all the people in our lives whose work make it possible for us
to likewise work toward what we want to do.
I am wishing this for you, my friends, that your week
is blessed and full of peace and love as you move more mindfully through.
*If you’d like a way to put more
mindfulness into practice, this holiday season, consider getting one of these
Holiday Thrive journals I’ve put together. They are self-care guides to help you
not just survive the stresses of the holidays, but thrive through them.
B: Through this program we’ve explored the idea of
learning to listen to our Bodies and the practice of doing mindful body scans.
For a review of this theme, go here (Oct 3) and here (Oct 10).
R: We’ve also explored the idea of Reflecting on our
thoughts. To reflect on them more objectively—thoughts are just thoughts—and to
replace them, when needed, with more helpful and/or productive thoughts. Spots,
affirmations, positive thinking. There are so many tools available to help us
reorganize our brains. For a review of this theme, go here (Oct 17) and here (Oct 24).
E: Now, we’re going to take the two previous
explorations and apply them when looking at our Emotions. A short mindfulness
practice we can do daily is simply this—
· To
begin noticing our thoughts, the emotions that go along with them, and where we
feel these physical sensations in our bodies as they arise throughout the day.
· Practice
being kind to ourselves when uncomfortable feelings come up. Don’t try to push
them away, but rather pay attention to how and where they show up in our
bodies.
· We
can view the strong emotions (anger, frustration, sadness, boredom, jealousy,
etc.) as strong energy in our bodies and minds.
· Then,
as we breathe and find calm, redirect our thoughts to more positive/productive
thoughts, we can ride the waves of those emotions as they get smaller and
smaller.
Thoughts are just thoughts and emotions are just
emotions. We can choose to act on them, or we can choose to act in other ways. Ways
that are truer to who we feel we are at our cores. Whatever you choose, my
friends, I hope it brings you more joy and peace and love as you move more
mindfully into this week.
*If you’d like a way to put more
mindfulness into practice, this holiday season, consider getting one of these
Holiday Thrive journals I’ve put together. They are self-care guides to help you
not just survive the stresses of the holidays, but thrive through them.
Happy Mindful Monday, lovelies! Happiest of Halloweens! I'm wishing you an extra haul of magic and love and peace to move you mindfully through the week.
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Happy Mindful Monday, people of the world. Here we are
again. Let’s reflect on the power of thoughts again.
Years ago, one of my good friends introduced me to RecoveryInternational. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, baby. This is wonderful stuff. I’m
not going to go into depth, here, but if you want tools to identify and change
your thought processes and patterns, look into cognitive behavioral training
(or retraining?).
I bring up Recovery International specifically because
they incorporate these things called ‘Spots’ that help you replace the negative
or unhealthy thoughts and feelings with more useful and positive thoughts or
feelings. Phrases you can use to remind yourself in the moment, or on the spot,
that will support your mental health and wellbeing.
Some examples include:
“Any decision will steady you.” –for those moments you
just don’t know what to do, and emotions can well up and even paralyze you. Making
a decision will help you move forward, and any outcome becomes a learning
opportunity.
“Fear is a belief—beliefs can be changed.” –oh, yes, I
know this one well. I need to practice it almost daily. And then…
“Muscles can be commanded to do what one fears to do.”
–right? So if I can’t wrap my brain around changing my fear-belief, and I still
feel stuck, I can command my muscles. Refocus my attention. Do.
“Humor is our best friend, temper is our enemy.” –this
is one of my favorites. I love this one. Humor can fix almost anything.
So, my friends, what are your thoughts about all this?
About any of the above, or anything else that helps keep your brain boat
afloat?
As always, I hope something in here helps you this
morning, this evening, whenever you’re reading this. And I wish you peace and love
as you move more mindfully into this week.
Happy Mindful Monday, everyone! Do you ever have negative thoughts? Destructive things you tell yourself, or just pop up in your mind? Maybe you pick on yourself in ways you’d never do to others. Or maybe you’re just confused. Too many options to choose from. Too much, too much, it’s all too much.
I do.
Big breath, right?
Thoughts are just thoughts.
If you click on the ‘R’ in this link, it'll take you
to a guided meditation on how to work with these thoughts. Mindfulness of
thoughts, and mindfulness of thinking, incorporating awareness of breath into
working through them.
And clicking on the ‘Theme: R’ in the Tips to Take Away section of the same link will bring you to a page that looks like this:
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Reflect on these four points, people. How sweet is it
to realize a thought is just a thought? The thought, alone, can’t actually harm
you. You can let go of the anxiety or negativity surrounding that thought and
empower yourself with a more positive and/or constructive thought instead.
We can do this, whatever ‘this’ may be. This moment,
this day, this week is going to be okay, and we’re all going to be okay. I wish
you peace and love as you move more mindfully into this week.
Hello again, my friends, and happy Mindful Monday! Last week we did some body scan practices and that was nice, right? Nice to slow down, breathe, pay attention to sensations and feelings in our bodies. So, let’s do some more. Here’s a short exercise you can do anywhere:
In the crazy rush of this world, I hope slowing down
and being present in your body is helpful for you. I hope it
gives you a moment of calm, and the ability to breathe, then continue on. Most
of all, I wish you peace and love as you move more mindfully into this week.
Happy Mindful Monday, my friends! Today we’re living through two more doctor appointments for Hubs. Living is the key word, here. I’m so grateful Hubs is still alive, pushing through all this illness stuff. I’m grateful for the doctors who’ve helped him and are still trying to help him.
Today we need mindfulness more than most days.
A sweet bit of synchronicity is that, this year, Davis Behavioral Health is working closely with our children’s school to teach
the Learning to Breathe program which helps kids learn to focus, regulate
emotions and/or feelings in their bodies, ways to be calm, etc.
So, while our family struggles with things that are
hard to deal with, our kids are learning tools at school that can help them
deal. And we, as parents, can learn along with them.
And I, as a person trying to learn and share
brain-healthy tools, can include some of these resources in my Mindful Mondays.
Today, then, we start with Body—Listening to our
bodies. Learning to pay attention to, and be aware of what’s happening in
different areas of our bodies. If you click on the ‘B’ in this link, it will
open multiple options of audio recordings leading you through guided
mindfulness practices that help you check in with your body or help you with
mindful breathing.
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As you recognize each part of your body, maybe being grateful for the things your feet, your elbows, your neck allow you to do, I hope this brings you peace. Even if just for the moment.
I’m grateful for Hubs’ feet and elbows and neck. I’m
grateful he’s alive, and that I’m alive, and our goobers are alive, and you—my friends
and readers—are alive. I wish you peace and love as you move more mindfully
into this week.
Hello Everyone! So, there's this 21-day meditation thing going on over here that's guided by Alicia Keys and Deepak Chopra. Did you know about this?
I didn't. Which is why I'm bringing it to you on day 6. Get on this, people, because it's free and fantastic and all about activating the Divine Feminine. Something all of us, no matter how we identify, could use, hmm? Joy, and peace, and healing. Yes, please.
Each day has a message, a centering thought, and a mantra. Each day holds potential for at least 18 minutes of space where you can breathe and find calm at the heart of you. I wish this for you, a pocket of peace and space in your day.
You are wonderful, my friends, each day. Let's continue making a merry May.
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Hello Everyone! Today, Omega turns five. It's official. He's gone around the sun five times. Five things I love about him are:
1. The way he tilts his head just so, when I ask if I can give him a kiss, so I end up smooching him on his crown.
2. The way he cuddles without question or reserve. Even when he's mad, or distracted, or has other things to do. A quick cuddle, then off running again.
3. The way he speaks with such confidence, like his heart is talking through his mouth, and his eyes confirm every word.
4. The way bugs are endless entertainment. And plants. And the world in general. Except broccoli. The only thing entertaining about broccoli is how it bounces on the ground.
5. The way he loves his siblings. He's fierce for them, and with them, and he knows he's an integral part of us. He has no doubt about the most important things.
He wants a scorpion birthday, this year. I shudder. He's like, "Yuuuuus!" So here's our compromise (do you think scorpions ever smile? Double-shudder):
For our quest on mindfulness today, I bring you Nancy Tillman's On the Night You Were Born. Have you read it too? It's one of our favorite birthday books because it uses imagination and sensory details to engage in celebration of individuals and how special each of us are.
I hope you enjoy this rendition, or if you have the book you read it again with someone you adore, and that you know that--even if it's not your birthday today--you are loved:
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