A Fresh Start to 2021
Welcome to our 15 Day Challenge Home Page
January 4th to the 18th
“Everything has a beginning, a middle and an end… followed by a new beginning.”
On this page you will find:
links to all workshop and daily reflection emails
prerecorded guided meditations and optional writing prompts
quotes and additional resources
Workshops:
Foundations of the Body
Monday, January 4th
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, January 11th
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, January 18th
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. In the west, we often forget the important of the heart, a necessary and integral piece of the practice, bringing more benevolent qualities into our moments. We will close our time together with an intention setting exercise.
** Zoom Info and ID: 895 918 8232 with the Passcode: 2021
Daily Practices and Reflections:
** links will be enabled on the day of each challenge
Day 1: January 4th
The power of a pause
Day 2: January 5th
One breath at a time
Day 3: January 6th
Curiosity
Day 4: January 7th
Appreciative awareness
Day 5: January 8th
STOP
Day 6: January 9th
What IS rather than what IF
Day 7: January 10th
What brings you joy?
Day 8: January 11th
Recognition or mindfulness?
Day 9: January 12th
Being rather than waiting
Day 10: January 13th
Assume a postive outcome
Day 11: January 14th
Where do you find inspiration?
Day 12: January 15th
Generosity and Grace
Day 13: January 16th
Begin again
Day 14: January 17th
Befriending the moment
Day 15: January 18th
Love
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]
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 guide 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]
Dealing with Difficult Emotions Meditation:
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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?
GOOD READ: According to Harvard Medical School, the opposite of MULTITASKING is MINDFULNESS.
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?
GOOD READ: on The Absurdity of Thoughts by Bryan Kest
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
Quotes and Resources:
