Welcome to our 15 Day Challenge Home Page
the foundations of mindfulness through the body, mind, and heart
September 14th to September 28th
On this page you will find:
Workshop information and links
Daily Reflections and Challenges
Prerecorded Guided Meditations
Optional Writing Prompts
Quotes, Inspirations and Resources
All here to support you throughout this journey together
Workshops:
Foundations of the Body
Monday, September 14th
6 to 7:30pm PST
Sit and know you are sitting and the whole of life will appear
What is mindfulness anyways? We will answer this question and look at mindfulness through the first foundation: the body. Connecting with our bodies rather than just living in our heads is the first step towards being more present with our embodied experience. We will explore various practices through sensations of body and breath.
Foundations of the Mind
Monday, September 21st
6 to 7:30pm PST
We quiet the mind so we can tend to the heart
Continuing on the journey of presence through the exploration of the mind; by bringing awareness to our moods, attitudes and mental states while learning how to navigate this terrain in a more skillful way, helpful way, even an embodied way.
Foundations of the Heart
Monday, September 28th
6 to 7:30pm
If you lived in your heart, you would be home by now
Our last session will we explore various heart practices.. Often in the west, we forget the important of the heart, a necessary and integral piece of the practice, bringing more kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity to our lives. We will close our time together with an intention setting practice.
Daily Practices and Reflections:
** links will be enabled on the day of each challenge
Day 1: September 14th
The power of a pause
Day 2: September 15th
The practice….
Day 3: September 16th
What can you appreciate today…
Day 4: September 17th
STOP practice
Day 5: September 18th
Practice curiosity
Day 6: September 19th
What brings you joy?
Day 7: September 20th
Practice “being”…
Day 8: September 21st
Where do you find…
Day 9: September 22nd
Practice GIVE
Day 10: September 23rd
WHAT IS rather than…
Day 11: September 24th
What would happen if you assumed…
Day 12: September 25th
Pause… Relax… Open
Day 13: September 26th
Take a simple idea…
Day 14: September 27th
What would love…
Day 15: September 28th
Can you befriend…
Guided Meditations:
“Most of us have spent our lives caught in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt, or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war.” - Jack Kornfield
5 Minute Breath Meditation:
Use this short 5 five breath meditation to help bring a little more calmness and clarity to your busy days. [5 minutes]
Basic Body and Breath Meditation:
A guided meditation on the first foundation of mindfulness: the body. This meditation helps us get out of our thinking mind and down into our feeling body; moving from thinking and into feeling. [12 minutes]
Dealing With Difficult Emotions:
This meditation is for strong or difficult emotions and one way of doing this practicing seeing the difference between recognition and mindfulness… learning to be okay with what is in a kind and compassionate way. “It’s okay” can be a magical phrase for settling the mind into an acceptance of whatever the emotion might be and becoming the foundation for the appropriate response. [17 minutes]
Making Space Meditation:
They say healing is our acceptance of what is happening in the present moment, our allowing of whatever we are feeling, perceiving or experiencing. This meditation will guided you through the various emotions you might be feeling in these times of uncertainty and not knowing in possibly a more skillful and helpful way. May we all be well and take the next loving action. [13 minutes]
Loved You Into Being Meditation:
This meditation is a beautiful reflection on all those who loved you into being inspired by Mister Rogers and his neighborhood. May we all be well and take the next loving action from our hearts. [20 minutes]
Compassion Meditation:
According to Thich Nhat Hahn, “Compassion is a verb.” It is something we can do, an action that we can take. Compassion is at the human morality, an appropriate response to pain and suffering, our own and others. Use this meditation to cultivate a more compassionate, open heart to the challenges and difficulties that we are facing. [11 minutes]
Gratitude Meditation:
“Gratitude can’t be forced or demanded but it can be cultivated. With an eye to what delights us, we can naturally find gratitude. What happens when we slow down and take notice of all the small things in our lives that brings us a sense of tenderness, of safety, amusement, beauty? We may find that the small things are not so small after all.”- unknown. Gratitude is probably the most studied and proven technique for rewiring the neural pathways in our brain and is often considered the remedy to all that ails us, focusing on the goodness in our lives rather than worrying about the bad. [10 minutes]
Ending the War with Yourself Meditation:
Often our deepest suffering is the sense that something we have done something wrong or that something about us is fundamentally unacceptable. Finding a way to make peace with our selves, making peace with our human imperfections is the ground of all healing. Healing is the application of love to where it hurts. [10 minutes]
Writing Prompts:
Journaling can be a powerful way of integrating mindfulness and presence. It is contemplative practice in itself, a way of reflecting and expanding your understanding. Through inner reflection and articulation of your experience, you deepen your learning. I encourage you to write like no one is watching… cuz no one is. Just let it flow and enjoy…
Writing Prompts Round One:
What keeps you from being present?
Do your thoughts tend to jump back into the past or forward into the future?
Do you experience regret about the past or worry about the future?
What thoughts or patterns of thoughts (i.e. planning, judging, controlling) keep you from being present?
Do you find yourself multitasking throughout most of your day or can you uni-task, do just one thing at a time?
And what do you experience when you bring your attention back to the present moment?
What happens when you take a moment to connect to your body… feeling your feet on the ground or relaxing the shoulders or jaw?
What happens to your nervous system… your perspective when you pause to take a few cleansing breathes?
According to Harvard Medical School, the opposite of MULTITASKING is MINDFULNESS. Read about it here.
Writing Prompts Round Two:
It is said “the quality of our awareness directly relates to the quality of our experience.” So, from lens of the BODY, the first foundation of mindfulness….
How does it feel in the body when your mind is connected rather than contracted?
How does it feel in the body when your heart is undivided rather than divided?
How does it feel in the body when you are generous and giving rather than self-centered and stingy? When you are inclusive rather than exclusive?
How does it feel to hold someone in your heart rather than keeping them out?
What do you feel when you are kind and loving? When you are forgiving and understanding?
How does the quality of your presence affect the quality of your being?
Writing Prompts Round Three:
How do you define happiness?
How do you define success?
Where do you found peace?
What does connection mean to you?
How does connection feel in the body?
What matters most to you?
What has heart and meaning?
What would courage have you do?
Who would courage have you be?
Writing Prompts Round Four:
What would it be like to be free from the anxiety of imperfection?
What would it be like if there was nothing prove? Nothing left to fix or solve?
What if you didn’t believe all your thoughts… believed them to be true?
Who would you be without your self-limiting beliefs?
Who would you be if you didn’t believe something was wrong with you?
If you couldn’t fail, what would you be moved to do?
“A real sign of progress is when we no longer punish ourselves for our imperfections.” -Yung Pueblo
Writing Prompts Round Five:
“Presence is the greatest agent for change.” – Eckhart Tolle
We can only change the things we are aware of.
Are there aspects of your life that you wish to change?
As someone wise once said, “a miracle is simply a shift in perspective”. Where could you shift your perspective through the practice of presence and compassion?
Where in your life could you be more forgiving, especially with yourself?
Could you be more curious and compassionate to “be with” the parts of you that you normally don’t like to look at, the part that you don’t like to feel?
With this practice, we are finding our edges and softening… softening with the heart.
Quotes and Resources:
