How are you beautiful?

 
Sarah-Marie Hopf

I wanted to share about a great gift I’ve been given to reflect on and honor my journey and unfolding vision through my dear friend Alexandra Booth’s project “Inspiring People I Know.” I’ve been deeply moved by Alex’s generosity - her life-giving questions, the way she held space for my truth, and her deeply kind words. Having been so focused on “improving” myself, it took some time to fully allow myself to take in the enormous gift of being seen and affirmed in my essence. Through sharing our conversation, I’m leaning into the vulnerability of letting parts of myself and my story be seen in a very free flowing and unscripted way ...

As I write this, I remember David Whyte’s words: “To be human is to become visible while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.”

You can watch, listen, or read the transcript of our 50-min conversation here: https://inspiringpeopleiknow.wordpress.com/sarah-marie-hopf/

I hope you’ll find value and resonance in some of what I share. May it remind you of your own innate wholeness, goodness, and resourcefulness.

And I invite you to honor and celebrate your own journey and reflect on some of the (paraphrased) questions Alex asked me for yourself:

  1. Who are you?

  2. How are you beautiful?

  3. What about your story is important for you to honor or is maybe less known to others?

  4. What do you feel is most important?

  5. What’s the context you seek to create for others and yourself?

  6. Where do you see beauty in this world?

  7. Where do you feel you are expanding? Where do you feel you are grappling?

  8. What support might the universe offer to you?


With love,
Sarah-Marie

 

(Re)opening to Joy 🍓

 

I recently found a big, juicy heart-shaped strawberry in a box of strawberries as I was making breakfast (see proof below ). I LOVE strawberries and instantly was filled with excitement over receiving this unexpected gift wrapped in red and green. As I held the strawberry in my palm, I was transported back to childhood memories going strawberry picking in the fields during the summer. I remembered the smell of strawberries in the air, the thrill of searching for and discovering them under the leaves, and the absolute pleasure of eating as many of them as I could. I made the strawberry heart the crowning addition of my breakfast creation and savored every bite.

heart-shaped strawberry.jpg

Delighting in this strawberry filled me with so much joy. After 1+ years filled with challenges which have tested (and continue to test) us all, it felt like an invitation from life to (re)open to joy. To just be alive in the moment. To open to the pleasure of the senses. To find simple delights everywhere - the taste of a favorite food, a hug from a loved one, the light during golden hour.

Danna Faulds writes: “All you ever longed for is before you in this moment if you dare draw in a breath and whisper “yes”.”

It will take time to heal and recover individually and collectively, and it’s important to be gentle with ourselves and create space for all the emotions that need to be felt. We can go slow as we figure out how to re-engage with each other in-person and co-create new ways of relating and working together. Opening to joy and life’s simple delights can be a helpful companion along the way.

Given our evolutionary pull to focus on the negative, it takes intention to cultivate joy in our life. We can practice turning our attention to what’s good even amidst the challenges and actively engage in activities that spark joy in us. We can also actively open to joy and savor joyful moments when we’re in the middle of them.

What brings you joy? What does joy feel like in your body, mind, and heart when it arises?

In joy,

Sarah-Marie


 

🚶Getting out of your head

 
Coming home to the body.png

I have a tendency to get stuck in my head when I’m busy, stressed, and spend lots of time starring at a computer screen. I obsessively think about some problem to solve, get lost in elaborate stories about this and that, judge myself and others, worry about the future, … I'm mentally overstimulated and disconnected from my body. Everything feels urgent and time seems to be never enough. Maybe you can relate?
 
During a recent stressful period, getting my second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine brought me straight back into my body, into the present moment. My entire body felt achy and alive. It felt like an intense field of changing sensations – aching, warmth, throbbing, stabbing, tingling, … - which drew my attention.

I remembered a quote by Pema Chödron: “This very body that we have, that’s sitting here right now, with its aches and its pleasures, is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive.”

I took my achy body to a virtual somatics lab during which we practiced tuning in with our body’s intelligence. Slowing down and doing different somatic practices, I felt fully alive and present amidst the achy sensations and fatigue I was experiencing. My body and mind were in the same place at the same time. Listening inwardly and getting curious, my body told me what my mind hadn't wanted to allow: "Simply rest. Sink into comfort and ease."  
 
The body knows what's needed. The body always lives in the present moment and can bring us back to reality. It can be one of our greatest teachers and guides. I'd trust my body over my thoughts any day. 

Being more aware of our body can enable us to better engage with our family, partner, friends, colleagues, clients, and others. It can help us stay present and centered through moments when we get triggered, challenging conversations, and difficult decisions. It can support us in taking a stand for what we know to be true and better defining our boundaries. 

And yet, it's difficult for many of us to be fully home in our bodies. Trying to control our experience as a survival instinct, we're not fully present to the aliveness that's here. With practice, we can become aware when we're lost in thoughts and turn our attention to what's actually happening inside of us.
 
The following questions have been helpful for me to get out of my head and bring curiosity to my embodied experience: 

What is happening inside me right now?
Can I be with this?
Is there something the body (or a part of the body) is trying to say?

With love,

Sarah-Marie

 

Start close in - taking a self-compassion break 💗

 
Start close in. Start with kindness.

“We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time… Our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold and the car handle feels wet and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being soft and unrepeatable.” - Mark Nepo, from The Book of Awakening

I’ve been spent the past 10 days on a silent meditation retreat (at home!) “ungloving” myself to feel what’s real and alive. To pause, listen inwardly, and be as kind and gentle as possible with whatever called for my attention underneath my protective coverings. With nothing to do but be, there was no shortage of tough stuff to explore (especially in these intense times!). The familiar stories of being deeply flawed, undeserving, unworthy of love and connection until I’m “perfect.”

I’ve realized anew how easy it is to forget the truth of who we are – our innate goodness and belonging. It’s truly a tragedy how much time we spend trying to cover up our insecurity and be what we think others want us to be. As Galway Kinnell writes, “sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.”

I always find it helpful to remember our shared humanity: We all have messy lives and carry wounds of not feeling loved, accepted, seen, understood, and safe to varying degrees.

As someone who’s never felt that I fit neatly into any one community, I love this reminder by Sebene Selassie: “Weirdos. Will. Slay. Because not fitting in to any one community is a super power. But only if you choose to fit into yourself first.” (here’s a beautiful example of what that can look like )

Fitting into ourselves first takes self-acceptance and self-compassion. We start close in and bring awareness and kindness to our difficult emotions, experience, and hurt parts. We tend to ourselves first so we can better widen the circles of our compassion outward and support others.

One powerful way to cultivate self-compassion is through the practice of RAIN. It invites us to be with our emotions and actual lived experience with mindfulness and compassion. The acronym RAIN stands for:

  1. Recognize: Seeing clearly what's going on and how we are stuck inside an experience;

  2. Allow: Creating space to be with the experience just as it is;

  3. Investigate: Moving from the story and beliefs to getting in touch with the actual lived experience, with kindness; and

  4. Nurture: Offering kindness inwardly.

Here's a ~16 min guided RAIN practice.

I let it RAIN over and over again during the retreat and found more spaciousness, freedom, and a deep sense of love and belonging.

May you always remember your loveliness. And if you don't believe it, I'll believe it for you.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

 

How can we find our center amidst what is? 🌊

 
How can we find our center amidst what is?.jpg

This past week marks the one-year anniversary of all of us plunging into a global pandemic. Last March, I could never have imagined how much life as we knew it would change. Over the past year, we’ve also been invited to grapple with systemic racism, political polarization, climate change, our mental health crisis, and other painful truths of our time. It’s been a year of hard things and then some.

Tossed by the waves of change, we’ve all experienced loss, grief, and pain in one form or another. We may have been feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or frustrated. We may have been paralyzed by the uncertainty of it all and unable to imagine our next steps forward. Or we may have been in denial of the reality and magnitude of the disruptions.

Amidst change and uncertainty, how can we find our center to envision and create a path forward?

Equanimity is a helpful inner resource in these times of continued change and uncertainty. Equanimity is a sense of openness, care, and ease amidst whatever comes and goes. It allows us to stay centered and look beyond judgment and self-interest as we engage with a range of people and situations in our life and work.

Poet William Butler Yeats wrote: “We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.”

Equanimity involves clearly seeing what’s going on inside and around us and choosing to respond in a non-reactive way. It’s not indifference, withdrawal, or not caring. It means accepting (rather than resisting) reality so we can live, feel, envision, and create solutions and new ways forward, fully centered in what’s so.

We might say to ourselves: “This moment is like this... And it doesn’t have to be different right now. I can allow what’s here and respond with what’s needed.”

And equanimity also means realizing that despite our best efforts to be of service, we may not be able to care for and support every person and issue we wish to.

We can grow our capacity for equanimity through formal mindfulness practice. We can also cultivate it by focusing on intentions for equanimity throughout the day. Below are a few equanimity phrases that I've used:

May I find peace and ease amidst it all.

May I see the world with clear, calm, and compassionate eyes.

May I offer my care and support, knowing I cannot control others’ pain or the course of life.

May I have the inner resources needed to contribute where I’m needed.

May I be free from unconscious bias and limiting beliefs.

I invite you to find two or three that resonate (or create your own) and call them to mind at different times as you move through the day.

What if we met the coming months with an attitude of equanimity?

With love,

Sarah-Marie

 

What's the kind thing to do? 💗

 
What's the kind thing to do?

“I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I will give myself to it.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

“We have to consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit.” - Audre Lorde

In these deeply divided and polarized times, it’s easy to make others bad. There’s a saying: The world is divided into people who think they’re right (and that’s the whole saying). It’s easy to get into “us versus them” dynamics. It’s easy to become defensive when we feel threatened by people with different views.

Forgetting our shared humanity, we dehumanize others. We exclude rather than widen the circles to include others. We become more reactive in our relationships.

I’ve seen this play out in my own life. Since I was a child, I remember wanting to be “good.” It felt like a prerequisite for love, acceptance, and belonging. In my pursuit of perfection, I became quite rigid about what’s right and wrong along the way. I was quick to judge myself and others for falling short of my impossibly high standards. I got caught in anger when I saw injustice and unethical behavior. I was afraid to show vulnerability and truly let others see the real and messy me. I often felt disconnected from others.

What’s helped me counter our “us versus them” programming is practicing lovingkindness. It involves actively cultivating an attitude of kindness, friendliness, and openness toward others and ourselves.

How do we make being tender with each other a habit?


In lovingkindness practice, we try to look for the good in ourselves and others, beyond our negative qualities and conditioning, and acknowledge the complexity of being human. We start by sending friendly wishes for health, fulfillment, safety, and peace to ourselves. We then gradually widen the circles, sending kind wishes to a loved one, more difficult people (gradually working up to more difficult people), our communities, and all beings. When I have difficulty seeing the good in someone, I often envision them as a little child to better get in touch with kindness and compassion.

As we send friendly wishes, it’s helpful to get in touch with our actual experience of kindness when we feel it. What does kindness feel like in the body? Through the body, we can get in touch with a deeper level of connection beyond emotion. With practice, this can help us connect more easily with kindness as we move through the day.

Lovingkindness practice is proven to decrease stress and anxiety, decrease negative feelings toward yourself and others (i.e. anger, judgment, self-doubt, unworthiness), and enhance social connections with others. An attitude of kindness allows us to respond to people and situations in more intentional and friendly ways rather than being reactive.

And, importantly, cultivating lovingkindness does not mean condoning hurtful behavior and injustice. Without closing off our hearts, we can better discern the appropriate response which might mean creating clear boundaries to protect our safety and wellbeing, holding others accountable, and taking action to address injustice.

What if we led with an attitude of kindness? What’s the kind thing to do?

With lovingkindness,

Sarah-Marie

 

The road ahead - acting from our deepest intention

 
What seeds do you want to cultivate?

“Your mind is like a piece of land planted with many different kinds of seeds: seeds of joy, peace, mindfulness, understanding, and love; seeds of craving, anger, fear, hate, and forgetfulness. These wholesome and unwholesome seeds are always there, sleeping in the soil of your mind. The quality of your life depends on the seeds you water… The seeds that are watered frequently are those that will grow strong.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

You might be as reeling, heartbroken, and worn out as I am by the events this past week, only adding to the crisis load we’ve all been carrying.

Our society is in deep need of renewal and healing. We’re seeing who we become when we cultivate the seeds of fear, hatred, greed, ignorance, othering, White supremacy, …

How do we keep cultivating the seeds for a society rooted in integrity, equity, inclusion, and wellbeing for all?

How do we keep showing up to do the inner and outer work every day?

If you’re in need of rest, give yourself permission to stop doing, unplug, and simply be, even if for a little while. We cannot show up for each other and our world without periods of rest. This is a marathon.

As I think about the long road ahead, what’s been helpful for me to keep going is focusing on a long-term intention to contribute more kindness, integrity, healing, and justice to the world. Our intention is what we’re inclining our mind toward - the seeds we seek to cultivate.

May I meet each moment with clarity and kindness. May life use me well to bring more kindness, integrity, healing, and justice to the world.

Rather than focusing our intention on the wants and fears of our small, fear-based self, we can find strength and freedom in widening and deepening our intention. We can let it be an expression of our core values and what truly matters.

Finding your deepest intention might take some digging. It can be helpful to ask yourself: Does this intention feel alive in my heart and body, not just my mind? Does it energize and inspire me in the direction of becoming my wisest, most compassionate self?

When we get triggered, we can stop, take a breath, and reconnect with our intention before responding. We can let it be a guide as we’re moving through our day, doing our work, interacting with the people in our lives, and caring for our body, heart, and mind.

What’s your deepest intention? What seeds do you want to cultivate?

With love,

Sarah-Marie

 

What's the next best step you can take? 👣

 
Taking the next best step.jpg

Happy New Year! We’ve officially graduated from 2020. Maybe you’re feeling tired, relieved, sad, grateful, hopeful, or anything in between. I know 2020 has pushed me to my edge many times. So many of us have experienced loss and hurt this past year – I hope you’re creating space for what you need right now.

2020 was an extraordinary year: from the promise of starting a new decade, to the pandemic, to rapidly shifting how we live, work, and connect, to reflecting on and reckoning with systemic racism, to grappling with record-breaking natural disasters, to experiencing a divisive US election – with many big and small moments in between.

It has stripped us of our “normal” ways and unearthed so much that needed tending on an individual and collective level. It has broken us open to create new possibilities for how we live, work, and relate to each other and the planet. It has made some things simpler and others more complex. It has invited us to consider what truly matters.

Upon reflecting on 2020, I wanted to share four (of many) lessons and big questions I’ll be carrying into 2021 below. I welcome your thoughts, reflections, and living some of these questions alongside each other.

I’m deeply grateful for you and this community of wildly curious, purpose-driven, and kind people. Thank you for reading and your support. I hope 2021 brings more joy and ease than difficulty for you.

With love and gratitude,
Sarah-Marie

Turning the Page on 2020 with Four Lessons & Big Questions

1. Embrace our shared humanity.

While 2020 was the most physically isolating year of my life, it has also shown me how interconnected and interdependent we truly are. While I’ve intellectually known that we’re both separate and not, 2020 gave me an embodied sense of our shared humanity. We all experienced difficulty and hurt to some degree. We may have felt lonely and disconnected at times. And we all wanted safety, wellbeing, and connection for ourselves and loved ones. No matter what we go through, we are never alone in our experience. This knowing has given me comfort and allows me to access more kindness and compassion for myself and all beings.

How might compassion and kindness inform your actions in 2021?

2. We heal in relationship.

Most of us have our first experiences of hurt and trauma in relationship with others. And yet as social creatures, we also heal best in supportive relationship with others and ourselves. Our inner work and societal work are intertwined. We make up the communities and systems we’re a part of, and our actions matter and have ripple effects. 2020 has amplified a lot in our collective consciousness – from systemic racism, to polarization, to climate change, to collective trauma. We’ve got a lot to work with in 2021 and beyond.

To heal and address all that’s unjust and broken, we need to be in right relationship with ourselves, each other, and the earth. Reverend Jennifer Bailey said: “Relationships move at the speed of trust, but social change moves at the speed of relationships.” We need to recognize our shared humanity and meet each other across difference. May we remember that we’re all products of our conditioning and look for the goodness underneath. May we approach each other with respect and kindness in all of our interactions. May we honor and protect our planet.

What kind of context do you want to create for your relationships in 2021? What will most serve healing?

3. Give yourself permission to feel and be with. 

"'Free' is not free from feelings, but free to feel each one and let it move on, unafraid of the movement of life." - Jack Kornfield

2020 allowed me to experience the full range of difficult feelings. Fear visited often. As did Anxiety, Grief, Shame, Loneliness, and Anger. Maybe they came to see you as well. Whenever I resisted and turned away from the feeling, it just kept asking for my attention. It wanted to be seen and acknowledged for trying to protect me. Emotions have a beginning, middle, and end. Exhaustion happens when we get stuck in them - when we don’t complete the full cycle. When we fully allow what is to be here, we create space for our experience to change naturally.

For example, when we notice Fear (and associated negative thoughts), we can meet it with curiosity and explore our embodied experience of it. I often ask myself: What’s happening inside me right now? Can I be with this? Where do I experience Fear in the body? Then I try to stay with the changing sensations. I ask myself: What does the fearful part of me most need right now? And I extend kindness inwardly (and often place both hands on my heart to add a soothing touch). In this way, we can expand our capacity to be with more and more of life. We can be free to respond creatively instead of being reactive.

What do you need to give yourself permission to feel/be with in 2021?

4. Everything is workable.

2020 has humbled me. I’ve realized just how much is outside of my control. The year has changed plans for all of us and asked us to be creative and adaptable within new constraints. In my case, I tried settling in a new city while being physically isolated from others, adjusted to being in place after years of frequent travel and movement, adapted and moved all of my offerings online, …

I’ve realized that life becomes more workable when I don’t let the small, fear-based self run the show and make it all about myself. Every day, I affirmed my intention to let life use me well and be a contribution (inspired by my mindfulness meditation mentor). I've grown to trust that everything is an opportunity to grow and that we can pause and respond with intention no matter what happens.

We may not know the whole path, but life will always show us the next best step forward. We can trust in the self-generating mechanism of life. When in doubt, I’ve learned to go further in. Our body knows. We can take a moment to pause and sense how the whole of a life situation feels in us without judging or analyzing it. We can notice and cultivate our body’s innate “felt-sense” capacity—a subtle bodily sensation of a situation that lives somewhere between our conscious and unconscious mind. From this place, new awareness can emerge, and new perspectives and actions become possible.

What’s the next best step you can take in 2021?

 

What brings you joy? 😊

 
What brings you joy.jpg

What brings you joy?

I recently asked dear friends this question during a virtual gathering. Here are some of the things they shared that bring them joy:

  • Enjoying nature (sunsets, hikes, observing life all around)

  • Dancing and movement

  • Music

  • Expression (singing, painting, poetry, …)

  • Massages

  • Deep conversations and community

  • Serendipity

  • Sense of potential and possibility

  • CATS!

The more we cultivate joy and wellbeing, the more the benefits will ripple out to all areas of our life. In these difficult times, the world needs all the kindness and joy we can bring to it.

What stands between us and joy?

In our troubled world, it’s easy to fixate on the difficulties and get caught in spirals of anxiety and worry. Our brain’s negativity bias wires us to look for what’s wrong. We’re rarely present in the moment. We’re on our way to somewhere else, doing the next thing and anticipating the challenges that may await just around the corner.

Or we might get caught in “if only” thinking: “If only I had a life partner… If only I had complete financial freedom… If only I lived somewhere else... If only I had a different X…” We think something is missing for us to be truly content.

Henri Nouwen wrote: “Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”

Given our evolutionary pull to focus on the negative, it takes intention to cultivate joy in our life. We can practice turning our attention to what’s good even in the midst of difficult times and facing injustice and oppression. Albert Camus said: "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

Choosing joy does not mean pushing away difficult emotions when they’re present. Choosing joy gives us more space to feel all of our emotions and hold them with kindness and compassion. We give ourselves permission to be just where we are, while recognizing that things are always changing, and no feeling is final.

What brings you joy?

May you be present to all the goodness in your life.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources 

[PRACTICES]

Notice Joy When It's Here

Pay attention to when you are feeling joyful throughout your week. What does joy feel like in your body, mind, and heart when it arises? Open to and take in joyful moments when you’re in the middle of them.

Keep a Joy List

  1. Take a few minutes to write down everything that brings you joy (simple things, activities and experiences, etc.)

  2. Put a check mark next to the things that are already a regular part of your life.

  3. Circle the things that you could include in your life these days.

  4. Keep your list updated and regularly choose something from the list to practice cultivating joy. Try to be fully present for the joyful moments as you experience them.

Dance to Joyful Music

One of my favorite daily practices! Create a playlist with songs that bring you joy and dance to it by yourself or (virtually) with others for at least 10 min every day.

If you're looking for songs to try, I love Everything by City of the Sun and The Leap by Sounds of Isha. :)

[POEM] 

Walk Slowly from Go In and In by Danna Faulds

It only takes a reminder to breathe, a moment to be still, and just like that, something in me settles, softens, makes space for imperfection. The harsh voice of judgment drops to a whisper and I remember again that life isn’t a relay race; that we will all cross the finish line; that waking up to life is what we were born for. As many times as I forget, catch myself charging forward without even knowing where I’m going, that many times I can make the choice to stop, to breathe, and be, and walk slowly into the mystery.

[GUIDED MEDITATIONS]

 

Living in gratitude 🙏

 
Look for the good - inside and out

What will you do to make the upcoming year as good as, if not better than, this year?

When I heard this question deck prompt during a holiday party this week, my initial mental chatter was: Are you kidding? As good as 2020? That’s a low bar. 2021 better be MUCH better!

But then I remembered my renewed commitment to look for what’s good.

As I reflected on 2020, I thought of the many things I’m grateful for: good health; a strong body and mind; family, friends, and community; the opportunity to do meaningful work; an abundance of opportunities to learn and grow; enough resources to live well; collective healing and reckoning; the beauty and resilience of nature; access to clean air and water; …

Gratitude is a powerful antidote to our mind’s negativity bias. Judging and focusing on challenges comes easily. When we’re stressed and contracted, it’s much harder to access gratitude. For most of us, seeing the good takes effort.

The effort is worth it as gratitude has many benefits. According to research by well-known gratitude researcher Robert Emmons, gratitude can increase joy, attentiveness, energy and determination; improve sleep; lower symptoms of physical pain; and make us feel more connected to and willing to support others.

While we can’t force gratitude, we can set an intention to be present for moments of gratitude and appreciation when they come naturally. We can also actively cultivate gratitude through intentional practices. The more we practice gratitude, the more natural it becomes.

How can we intentionally cultivate gratitude?

Below are eight simple ideas for cultivating gratitude:

  1. Express your gratitude to others in the moment. Say “thank you” to others as often as possible.

  2. Think of three things you're grateful for after you wake up or before you go to sleep.

  3. Send someone a note of gratitude and appreciation.

  4. Take a moment to share one thing you’re grateful for at dinner.

  5. Do a daily gratitude exchange with a friend to both share what you’re grateful for that day.

  6. Keep a gratitude journal (see below).

  7. Do a gratitude meditation (see below).

  8. Write a gratitude letter (see below).

What are you grateful for? How are you cultivating gratitude and looking for what’s good?

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources

[PRACTICES]

Gratitude Journal 

This is one of my go-to practices. Every day write down three things you are grateful for in your life in a journal. To keep thinking of different things you’re grateful for, you may consider the following categories: relationships (both present & past that have nurtured you), opportunities, something great that happened or you saw, and simple things close to you.

Gratitude Meditation

Find a comfortable position. Bring your attention to your heart center. How’s your heart? Does it feel open or closed? As you inhale, visualize breathing in kindness. With each exhale, allow any negative thoughts or worries to be released. Continue to breathe in kindness and breathe out any negativity that is ready to be released.

Reflect on some blessing in your life: a person, a group of people, a thing in your life you’re grateful for. Invite an image of that person or situation. Take a moment to silently send a thought of appreciation to that person, or to life for that situation, with a simple, sincere “thank you.” Let your awareness fully experience your gratitude, taking time to feel in your body the energy of that good thing in your life.

Do this with two or so other blessings and notice how you feel. Let yourself be filled with gratitude.

You may choose to express your gratitude directly to people who've come to mind in this practice.

Gratitude Letter 

Recommended by psychologist Martin Seligman.

Write a gratitude letter. Pick someone who you have a lot of gratitude for and write a letter appreciating all the ways they’ve contributed to your life. Then, either send it to them or better yet, read it out loud to them. Even if you don’t share the letter, it has an impact on our wellbeing. (If the person has passed away you could still try writing a letter to them.)

I sent about a dozen gratitude letters years ago when I graduated college to thank people who were my biggest supporters along that journey. While it took me several days to write the letters, it filled me with tremendous gratitude for all the people in my life and was a beautiful way to acknowledge them. I'll have to do another round soon.

 

Seeing the good in others ✨

 
Remember to see the good.jpg

Who would we be as a society if we saw the good in each other?

Amidst so much division and polarization, it’s easy to make others bad. It’s easy to blame the other side. It’s easy to get defensive and angry. It’s easy to be self-righteous.

What takes worthwhile effort is seeing the good in each other and undoing the conditioning of separation and disconnection.

Seeing ourselves as separate, our differences become distorted into othering and give rise to systems of domination and oppression. We forget our shared humanity. While we are not the same, we are not separate. The victim and the perpetrator are not separate. Liberals and conservatives are not separate. Our impacted ecosystems and we who contribute to our climate crisis are not separate.

A very useful skill in these times has been loving-kindness - a quality of friendliness and well-wishing towards all living beings. In lovingkindness practice, we are undoing the conditioning of separation and disconnection. We are learning to see the goodness and express care towards others and ourselves. When we generate friendliness for people with whom we might disagree, it enables us to respond in more intentional and kinder ways.

The idea of loving-kindness may seem a bit counterintuitive, with so much hatred circulating in the system. Yet that's exactly what makes this inner counter-programming so important.

As Nelson Mandela said: "It never hurts to see the good in someone. They often act the better because of it."

And of course, the key first step towards generating friendliness for others is directing kindness towards ourselves.

I invite you to carry the spirit of lovingkindness as you move through the coming week and see how it impacts you and others around you. For example, I've been sending friendly wishes to people I've been passing on the street or in the park.

How might you generate more friendliness towards others and yourself?

Below is a guided lovingkindness practice and a few other resources to support you.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources

[PRACTICE] - Lovingkindness 

Start by bringing attention to your chest, to your physical heart, or to wherever you feel kindness and connection in your body, if you do feel it. Notice if your heart feels open or closed - or anything in between.

Begin by focusing on whoever most easily opens you to lovingkindness. Then expand your lovingkindness to include others and yourself. You can use or adapt phrases/friendly wishes such as:

  • May you be safe and protected from inner and outer harm.

  • May you be well and strong.

  • May you be free from worry.

  • May you live your life with ease.


Here's a 20-min guided Lovingkindness practice.
 

[POEM] 

Excerpt from "Please Call Me by My True Names" by Thich Nhat Hanh

“I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.”

[GUIDED MEDITATIONS]

 

Know that it's possible 💗

 
Know that it's possible

Deep breath out.

What a roller coaster of feelings this past week has been: Hope. Fear. Anxiety. Confusion. Exhaustion. Heartbreak. Hope. Grief. Worry. Relief. Hope…

I've heard many others express they've been through a similar roller coaster. Maybe you've been as well. It’s good to know we’re never alone in our experience.

While these are highly polarized times, there’s so much more that unites us than divides us. We all share the same fundamental human needs for safety, fulfillment, and connection. We all experience pain and difficulty in life.

Einstein said: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." We cannot solve the challenges of our time from a reactive and fear-based place which further divides us against each other.

We’ve got to lean into both the inner and outer work to heal division and dismantle our systems of oppression.

Along the way, may we see our shared humanity in all of our interactions. May we treat each other with respect and kindness. May truth and kindness guide our actions.

We seed the future through our actions today.

What kind of context do you want to create? What will most serve healing?

Know that it’s possible.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources 

[PRACTICE] - Recognizing Our Shared Humanity 

Try to recognize everyone's shared humanity in all of your interactions with others this week. Notice how this impacts you and others around you.

[LISTENING] 

[QUOTE] 

Excerpt from Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone
“Active Hope is not wishful thinking.
Active Hope is not waiting to be rescued . . . by some savior.
Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life on whose behalf we can act.
We belong to this world.
The web of life is calling us forth at this time.
We’ve come a long way and are here to play our part.
With Active Hope we realize that there are adventures in store, strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with.
Active Hope is a readiness to discover the strengths in ourselves and in others; a readiness to discover the reasons for hope and the occasions for love.
A readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts, our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose, our own authority, our love for life, the liveliness of our curiosity, the unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence, the keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead.
None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk.”

[GUIDED MEDITATIONS]

 

Just before the dawn ⭐

 
Creating transformative change.jpg

Have things ever felt more uncertain? No-one knows how the coming week, month, and year will unfold. Amidst this uncertainty, I’ve been finding some solace and courage in a twelfth century Tibetan prophecy on the Shambhala Warrior as told by activist and scholar Joanna Macy (see video below).

The prophecy calls us to train in the tools of compassion and insight so we can dismantle the forces of division and destruction and bring about the more compassionate, equitable, and sustainable world we know is possible.

The darkest hour is right before the dawn.

I believe this moment calls for our moral imagination and sustained personal and collective action toward the kind of world we want to create – no matter what the coming week and months bring.

The first step of transformative change involves clearly seeing reality in this moment. If we resist the way things are, we cannot bring about positive change. Right now, we can let the grief, anger, anxiety move through and be aware of the thoughts and stories we hear and tell ourselves. What are you present to? What do you know to be true?

Second, grounded in reality, we can imagine a future of individual and collective wellbeing and the values we’d like to see in action. What do you stand for? How do you want to be? What kind of world do you want to pass on to future generations?

And third, we take micro-steps and collective action to move ourselves and others in the direction of that future. What's the next small step you can take? *Please vote if you can and haven’t already.*

It’s all a practice. We practice so we grow our capacity to meet whatever life brings with compassion and insight, with care and clarity. We practice so that we can imagine and create a more beautiful future, for all of life.

In this together for the long haul.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources

Guided Meditations

 

Hug the monkey 🐵

 
Hug the monkey.jpg

It feels like we’re in a collective pressure cooker. So many of us are stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed right now. It feels hard to stay on top of the basics, let alone make plans for the future or commit to new things. On top of everything else, the tension around the US election can be hard to be with. It’s easy to slip into fear-based thinking and rumination on worst-case scenarios. 
 
It doesn’t help that the brain has a negativity bias (very helpful back in the day when we were fleeing from predators) which constantly scans for bad news, laser focuses on it, overreacts to it, and then becomes sensitized to the negative over time. It leads to a lot of unnecessary suffering and stress and negatively impacts our relationships with others.


How can we intentionally balance out that negativity focus and open to what is good in our life right now?

I love psychologist Rick Hanson’s framework for thinking about our three major human needs – safety, satisfaction, and connection. He ties them to the three major stages of evolution of the brain – reptilian brain stem (focused on avoiding threat/harm), mammalian subcortex (focused on pursuing rewards), and the primate/human neocortex (bonding with others). In short, he says, it’s beneficial to “pet the lizard, feed the mouse, and hug the monkey.”

Below are a few simple practices for petting the lizard, feeding the mouse, and hugging the monkey in these hard times: 


🦎Pet the lizard

When we notice fear arising, we can pause and reestablish a sense of safety. Take a few deep breaths and let go of any tension and anxiety when you exhale. Adjust your posture to a more comfortable position. Maybe say to the fear: "Thank you for trying to protect me. Thank you for trying to take care of me. I am OK for now." Remind yourself as you go about the day that you are safe and ok in this moment.


🐭Feed the mouse

As we move through the day, we can open to experiences of feeling fed, fulfilled, or satisfied. When we feel more fulfilled in the moment, we experience less frustration, longing, disappointment, and craving.
 
Below are a few opportunities to practice:

  • Pay attention to the good things in your life daily. It could be hearing a bird sing, enjoying a good meal, listening to music you enjoy, … Be with the good you notice for at least three breaths to really let it sink in.

  • Open to a sense of being supported by the breath, your senses, your organs, the ground beneath you, sunlight, water, plants, …

  • Savor little wins such as making your bed, washing a dish, sending an email, remembering to drink water, …

  • Appreciate acts of kindness and support from others.

 
🐒Hug the monkey

We can open to a sense of being cared for and loved. Imagine being in the presence of someone you know cares about you and wishes you well. It could be a loved one, a pet, or a spiritual figure. Open up to what it feels like in your whole being to know that someone deeply cares about you. You can put your hands over your heart and feel the warmth and gentle touch on your chest. Allow yourself to fully take in the care and love. 

 
The more we can handle our own stress and tend to our needs, the more available we are to support others and take intentional action.

How are you tending to your needs in these times? 

May you feel safe.
May you feel fulfilled. 
May you feel deeply loved. 

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources

Guided Meditations 

 

Let's be human together 💗

 
Permission to be human

"'Free' is not free from feelings, but free to feel each one and let it move on, unafraid of the movement of life." - Jack Kornfield 

These are challenging and unsettling times in so many ways. You may feel like it’s all too much to be with at times. You may be done with 2020. You're not alone. 

And yet we’re alive in this moment right here. This moment is calling us to be with what is. Now is (still) worth showing up for.

The way out isn’t to run away or numb. What we resist persists.

Resistance is how we naturally protect ourselves against vulnerability. We cannot selectively numb though. When we block the grief, fear and anger, we also block the joy, love and our sense of aliveness. 

So give yourself permission to feel. Let the emotions move through you. They have a beginning, middle, and end. Exhaustion happens when we get stuck in them - when we don’t complete the cycle. 

May we let these times be a teacher of who we really are - of presence and love - and what matters most. Rumi wrote: “This turn toward what you deeply love saves you.”

What or who do you deeply love?

We’re all human. We’re all trying to figure it out. And we can’t do this alone. We all need spaces where we can be witnessed in our humanity. Where we can make room to be with the life that's here. 

What are these spaces for you? 

Below are a few resources that I hope might be supportive for you.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources 

[PRACTICES] 

Thanking Your Emotions 

When you notice a difficult emotion arising as you go about your day, you can stop, take a conscious breath, and say "Thank you for trying to protect me. Thank you for trying to take care of me. I am OK for now."
 

RAIN of Self-Compassion

Through the practice of RAIN, we can bring mindfulness and compassion to difficult emotions and experience. It invites us to be with our emotions and actual lived experience with self-compassion. The acronym RAIN stands for:

  • Recognize: Seeing clearly what's going on and how we are stuck inside an experience;

  • Allow: Creating space to be with the experience just as it is; 

  • Investigate: Moving from the story and beliefs to getting in touch with the actual lived experience, with kindness; and 

  • Nurture: Offering kindness inwardly. 

Here's a ~16 min guided RAIN practice.  
 

[POEM] 

Excerpt from "Go to the Limits of Your Longing" by Rainer Maria Rilke
 
"Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand."

Guided Meditations 

 

Beware inner fake news 💭

 
Beware inner fake news.jpg

We live in such polarizing times. There's a saying that goes: "The world is divided into those who think they're right." And that's the whole saying. 
 
As I explored in last week’s letter, we all have an inner critic that focuses on what’s wrong with us, others, and our circumstances. I think of it as inner fake news.  
 
Believing “something is wrong with me” divides us against ourselves. Believing “something is wrong with you” divides us against each other. When we feel inferior or superior, we lose touch with the intrinsic worthiness of everyone. We are not connected to a deep sense of belonging to ourselves, each other, and nature.
 
In these divisive and challenging times, it’s so easy to fall into judgment. I catch myself every day.
 
Gandhi said: “Our beliefs create our thoughts. And our thoughts create our feelings. And the thoughts and feelings create our behavior. And our behavior creates our destiny.”

Our limiting and fear-based beliefs stem from our childhoods, generations past, and our culture. I grew up with a deeply held belief that once I become “perfect,” everything would be alright. I’d finally be worthy of love and belonging. I behaved in ways consistent with that belief (being in perfectionist mode) and ended up getting responses that reaffirmed it. So we get caught in a cycle – our beliefs lead to behaviors that strengthen them in turn.
 
The first step in freeing ourselves from limiting and fear-based beliefs is to become aware of them. When we notice we are getting caught in emotional reactivity, we can ask: What am I believing right now? And we can pause and bring awareness to what's actually going on in our lived experience.
 
We can realize that our limiting beliefs are real but not true. And we can find out who we really are underneath them. We can trust the goodness, love, and presence that is our being. 

Whatever we practice grows stronger. We can actively replace our inner critic and limiting beliefs with a kinder and wiser response. 
 
What would your life be like if you didn’t believe anything was wrong with you (and others)?

Below are a few resources that I hope might be supportive for you.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources 

[PRACTICES] 

Self-Reflection: Investigating limiting beliefs  

The following questions, adapted from Byron Katie's work, can be helpful for investigating and loosening the grip of limiting beliefs: 

  1. What am I believing? 

  2. Is this really true? 

  3. What is it like to live with this belief? 

  4. What does the vulnerability (hurt/fear) under the belief need? 

  5. What stops me from letting go of this belief? 

  6. What would my life be like without this belief? 

  7. Who (or what) would I be if I no longer lived with this belief? 

Thanking Your Inner Critic

When you notice your inner critic as you go about your day, you can stop, take a conscious breath, and say "Thank you for trying to protect me. I've got this. I am OK for now." You can focus your attention on your breath, sound, or the sensations in your body to not get hijacked by the inner critic/judge and come back to the present moment.

Poem

Excerpt from “Peace is This Moment Without Judgment” by Dorothy Hunt 
“Peace is this moment without judgment.

That is all. This moment in the Heart-space

where everything that is is welcome.

Peace is this moment without thinking

that it should be some other way,

that you should feel some other thing,

that your life should unfold according to your plans. 
 
Peace is this moment without judgment,

this moment in the heart-space where

everything that is is welcome.”

Guided Meditations 

 

Free yourself from the critic within ✨

 
Befriend your inner critic

Yesterday I received an unexpected blast from the past. A former classmate of mine from Germany sent me our 7th grade class photo after rediscovering it while cleaning out the basement.
 
As I looked at the image of my 12-year-old self, I felt a wave of tenderness wash over me. I didn’t like myself very much and felt like a total misfit in my life. I was quiet, nerdy, and athletic with a mysterious vibe (I used to disappear to visit family in the US each summer which stirred up some rumors). I hid my insecurity behind my cool US clothes and a veil of silence. I had a deeply held belief that once I became “perfect,” everything would be fine. I’d finally be worthy of love and belonging.
 
That belief helped me survive my childhood and push myself to accomplish things. It was also deeply limiting to my unfolding and fulfillment as a human being. I wasted a lot of mental and emotional energy to fulfill the relentless standards of my inner critic; carried a lot of stress and tension in my body; limited possibilities to contribute and learn; and limited my authentic self-expression. I was terrified of failure and rejection.
 
We all have an inner critic regardless of our circumstances or upbringing. It had an original survival function to keep us safe physically and emotionally. It often replays old messages from childhood about what we need to do to be worthy of love and acceptance. It focuses on what’s “wrong” with us, others, and our circumstances. It gets us into inferior and superior comparisons. It causes much of our feelings of guilt, regret, shame, anxiety, anger, and disappointment. It limits our learning and taking risks to do something new or different.
 
How do we free ourselves from the inner critic?
 
The most effective way I’ve found to respond to self-judgment is to recognize it, have compassion for it, and replace it with a kinder response. We can turn to the inner critic knowing that it’s a worried part of us that wants to keep us safe. We can say: “Thank you for trying to protect me. I’m ok for now. I’ve got this.” When a part of us feels seen, it can relax. We can focus our attention on our breath, sound, or the sensations in our body to not get hijacked and come back to the present moment.
 
It’s been a long journey since 7th grade. My inner critic and drive for perfection still sometimes get the better of me. Now though, I deeply know that I’m worthy of love. Just like you are. I’ve learned to befriend and accept the inner critic and don’t believe everything they say anymore. I've realized that I can see the goodness below my conditioning and accept where I'm at while acknowledging all the ways I yet have to grow. I’ve learned to feel the fear of failure and rejection and do things anyway.
 
If you struggle with your inner critic, know that you’re not alone. Befriending and freeing ourselves from the inner critic is within our reach. 

The world needs you fully alive and free to make your contribution now more than ever.
 
Below are a few resources that I hope may be supportive for you.
 
With love,
Sarah-Marie

Resources 

[PRACTICES] 

Self-Observation: Patterns of Self-Judgment/Inner Critic

To deepen your awareness of your inner critic, I invite you to reflect and journal on the following:  

  1. What judgments did you make about yourself?

  2. What judgments did you make about others? 

  3. What circumstances, events or relationships were associated with these judgments? 

  4. In what ways was your judgment grounded? 

  5. What were the impacts of your judgments?

  6. What pattern(s) of judgment(s) are you beginning to notice?

  7. What action will you take from what you observed in this exercise?

Thanking Your Inner Critic

When you notice your inner critic as you go about your day, you can stop, take a conscious breath, and say "Thank you for trying to protect me. I've got this. I am OK for now." You can focus your attention on your breath, sound, or the sensations in your body to not get hijacked by the inner critic/judge and come back to the present moment.

Poem

Excerpt from “Awakening Now” by Danna Faulds

““I’m not worthy, I’m afraid, and my motives aren’t pure.

I’m not perfect, and surely I haven’t practiced nearly enough.

My meditation isn’t deep, and my prayers are sometimes insincere.

I still chew my fingernails, and the refrigerator isn’t clean.”

Do you value your reasons for staying small more than the light shining through the open door?

Forgive yourself.

Now is the only time you have to be whole.

Guided Meditations 

 

You are not your thoughts 💭

 
You are not your thoughts

What kinds of thoughts regularly fill your mind?
 
Do your thoughts inspire a sense of care, interest, or possibility? Or do they bring up a sense of fear, discontent, or separation?
 
In these crazy times, I’ve noticed that it’s very easy for me to slip into thought patterns that create a sense of fear, worry, and separation. It’s particularly pronounced when I look at the stream of bad news (which I try to limit).
 
Our thoughts are evolution’s way of trying to keep us safe and oriented. We all have an inherent negativity bias and dwell on the negative. As psychologist Rick Hanson likes to say: “The mind is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.”
 
As a short experiment, close your eyes and bring to mind the word “trouble.” Just notice what it’s like to have the word “trouble” floating around inside. Then let go of “trouble” and bring to mind the word “kindness.” Notice what that’s like. What did you notice about your emotional and physical experience?
 
We can come to believe that the constant inner dialogue of worries, judgments and rumination accurately represents how our lives and the world really are. That can trap us in negative mood states and create tension and stress in the body.
 
Mindfulness allows us to look deeply at our thoughts in a kind and nonjudgmental way. It does not mean stopping the thinking. The mind will think anything because that's what the mind does. We can learn that thoughts and stories are always present but not always true. We can use our thoughts wisely - without being trapped in them - to move forward and address the challenges we encounter. 

I've found the waterfall metaphor for working with thoughts very helpful: 

You don't have to stand underneath the waterfall of thoughts. You can take a few steps back and find refuge beneath an overhang where you can observe the powerful cascading stream of thoughts without being consumed by it. You can start naming your thoughts, observe their patterns, and hold them lightly to free yourself from their grip. 

What are the issues or themes that regularly take over your mind?

You are not your thoughts. 

Below are a few resources that I hope may be supportive for you.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

 

Resources 

[PRACTICES] 

Self-Reflection on Thought Patterns 

To deepen your awareness around your thought patterns, I invite you to reflect and journal on the following:  

  • What are your top 10 issues or themes that regularly take over your mind?

  • Choose several of the themes you've identified that are strong—perhaps ones that bring up anxiety or anger—and find a few words that you can use to name each of them. 

 

[POEM] 

Thanking a Monkey from An Invitation by Kaveri Patel 

There’s a monkey in my mind
swinging on a trapeze,
reaching back to the past
or leaning into the future,
never standing still.
 
Sometimes I want to kill
that monkey, shoot it square
between the eyes so I won’t
have to think anymore
or feel the pain of worry.
 
But today I thanked her
and she jumped down
straight into my lap,
trapeze still swinging
as we sat still. 

Guided Meditations 

 

What's on the other side of your comfort zone?

 
Befriend Your Discomfort

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” - Anaïs Nin

What stands between you and your most important contribution? 

As a wise mentor told me, "this is no time for playing small." Ruth Bader Ginsberg didn't play small. May we step up and carry forward the torch. In these challenging times, we need all of our gifts and contributions more than ever, whether in big or small ways.

Having a long history with "hiding until I'm ready," I made a commitment to take the exquisite risk of being seen in service of my purpose. The more I stand in the truth that it's not about me at all, the more I'm free to create a context of healing, belonging, and contribution for others.

I've kept this line by David Whyte as a daily reminder: "To be human is to become visible while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others." 

Leaning into purpose is not comfortable but even more so is not leaning in.  

We all can get in our own way. We avoid things that could move us closer to our contribution and learning goals because they are uncomfortable. For me, it's typically things that bring up the possibility of rejection, incompetence, conflict, or failure. And the emotions I'm feeling are fear, anxiety, and shame accompanied by tightness in the chest and throat area.

Depending on the thing we're avoiding, we may divert our attention through self-judgment (my #1 go-to), judging and blaming others, rumination, worrying, questioning everything about our life, addictive behaviors, victim mindset, projects that suddenly seem urgent, etc. 

The impacts are massive. We limit our contribution, learning, and growth. We carry stress and diminish our sense of presence and aliveness. We waste vast amounts of mental and emotional energy. We may carry a sense of shame and guilt for letting others and ourselves down. The list goes on.

How might we befriend our discomfort and overcome resistance? 

In the long run, avoiding things we know are important is always more painful than facing and working through the discomfort.

Rather than seeing discomfort and difficult emotions as problems, we can open to the experience and let them move through. As Jack Kornfield writes: "Free" is not free from feelings, but free to feel each one and let it move on, unafraid of the movement of life." And we can bring kindness and self-compassion to our experience and remind ourselves that it's part of being human to want to avoid discomfort. 

Then we can re-anchor ourselves in our goal or intention for how we want to contribute or what we want to learn. And do the work. 

How's life calling you to contribute? What's the work that needs doing? What's worth risking being seen for? 

The world needs you and your contribution. 

Below are a few resources that I hope may be supportive for you.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

 

Resources 

[PRACTICES] 

Self-Reflection

  1. What are the things that you routinely avoid that would move you closer to your goals? What are the things you know you need to do but are making you most uncomfortable or anxious?  

  2. What thoughts and fears come to mind when you think of those things?

  3. What emotions or sensations arise?  

  4. What's the impact on you or others of avoiding those things? 


Power Hour

Purpose: To make progress on something important you've been avoiding. 

  1. Block off a 1-2 hour time period and eliminate potential distractions as much as possible.

  2. Write down your inner critic's chatter and any fears related to the activity.

  3. Write down your intention or goal for the activity. Why does it matter? What could you learn? 

  4. Set a timer for how long you want to focus on the activity and start working. 

  5. As you work, write down any fears and mind chatter that comes up. Reground yourself in your purpose/goal as needed.

  6. At the end, reflect on the experience. How did it go? What did you learn? What do you want to focus on in your next power hour? 

Pro tip: To make this even more effective, do power hours with an accountability buddy. :)


RAIN

Purpose: Through the practice of RAIN, we can bring mindfulness and compassion to difficult emotions and experience. It invites us to be with our emotions and actual lived experience with self-compassion.

The acronym RAIN stands for:

  • Recognize: Seeing clearly what's going on and how we are stuck inside an experience;

  • Allow: Creating space to be with the experience just as it is; 

  • Investigate: Moving from the story and beliefs to getting in touch with the actual lived experience, with kindness; and 

  • Nurture: Offering kindness inwardly. 

Here's a ~16 min guided RAIN practice. 

 

[READING & LISTENING] 

Below are a few resources that I've found helpful in my own journey of befriending discomfort and overcoming resistance. I hope some of them may be supportive for you as well.  

 

[Quote] 

“Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.

Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance.”

- Steven Pressfield, The War of Art 


Guided Meditations 

 

 

You already always belong 💗

 
You already always belong.jpg

“You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all.” - Maya Angelou

So much feels separate and divided in these times. While our bodies may be physically distanced from each other, our hearts don't need to be. 

We already always belong to everyone and everything. Yet we experience ourselves as separate. It's a paradox we all navigate. 

Seeing ourselves as separate, our differences become distorted into othering and give rise to systems of domination and oppression. While we are not the same, we are not separate. The victim and the perpetrator are not separate. Liberals and conservatives are not separate. Our impacted ecosystems and we who contribute to our climate crisis are not separate. 

How do we step out of the fiction of separation? What if belonging is not a place outside of ourselves but a set of skills and practices we can cultivate? 

As someone who felt a conditional sense of belonging (following the "rules for fitting in") growing up and has lived in many places, much of my journey has been a quest to find true belonging. I realized it starts within and, as Maya Angelou said, is "no place at all."  

The practice of belonging starts with understanding our own history and where we come from. It involves working with our layers of conditioning, limiting beliefs, self-judgment, biases, etc. And it focuses on cultivating kindness and compassion for ourselves, each other, and all beings. 

An invitation that Toko-pa Turner makes in her beautiful book Belonging is to let our longing to belong guide us in actively creating belonging for ourselves and others. She writes:  

"Where you long for the friend who calls only to find out if you’re well, be that caller for another. ... Where you ache to be recognized, allow yourself to be seen. Where you long to be known, sit next to someone and listen for the apertures into what they love. Where you wish you felt necessary, give those gifts away."  

What does belonging mean to you? 

Who and/or what are you inviting into belonging with you? 

May you know that you already always belong and live from that place. 

Below are a few resources that I hope may be supportive for you.

In belonging,

Sarah-Marie

Resources 

[REFLECTION] 

On Belonging

  • What does belonging mean to me?

  • With whom or what have/haven't I felt belonging in my life?

  • How do I relate to the idea that we are not separate? 

  • How do I relate to the idea that we are not the same? 


[READING & LISTENING] 

Below are a few books and podcast episodes that I've found helpful in my own journey of practicing belonging. I hope some of them may be supportive for you as well.  

 

[Poem] 

From The House of Belonging by David Whyte  
This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging.


[GUIDED MEDITATIONS]