Happy 2024 friends!
We’ve made it to the new year and I’m so very thankful to you all for subscribing to my corner of the writers world 🙏🏻. Nine months ago I started this Substack journey and I can’t believe it’s already got almost 100 followers! I’m not a famous writer, but I am consistent and my hope is that you will find nuggets of inspiration each week.
The theme of this year for me is Mindfulness.
I spent much of the latter half of 2022 and most of 2023 looking forward to what I’d be doing next, what new project would take over my world, and where I would be “in the future”. What I’d forgotten about during that time was living each moment in the present.
My latest book idea came to me out of that realization. My first two books came to me out of my own growth journey, so it’s no surprise that this one is no different 😉. The journey towards my own mindfulness practice is becoming a guided journal that I will share throughout the coming weeks and ultimately publish later this year.
I look forward to sharing this journey with you and invite you to follow along in the comments, sharing your thoughts and experiences with mindfulness as we discover together what mindfulness means for each of us.
As always, I hope you will share this newsletter with your friends or on your social media and help me grow the community. And now for this week’s article…
On Mindfulness
It’s the start of a new year and time to get those new To-Do lists ready! You know the ones:
Go to the gym
Cook healthy meals
Be kind more often
Schedule more date nights
Meditate more
Start a new hobby
Work smarter, not harder
While these are all well and good, and they may bring you a sense of satisfaction, my suggestion for most of my clients is to “Stop Doing”.
Ok, so I don’t mean to just sit and do nothing (though that has its place at times). What I mean is stop trying to do everything all at once. Stop doing one activity while thinking about another. Stop trying to do more for the sake of doing more (and at the expense of doing any task to the best of your ability).
What I’m talking about is mindfulness.
We hear that all the time. Be mindful. Be present. But what does that actually mean?
Mindfulness is not just one thing. It’s being still in meditation. It’s also being focused on a complex task. It’s allowing your mind to be clear while running on the treadmill. And it’s contemplating the colors for your next painting or feeling the dirt in your hands as you garden.
It’s BEING where you are and ENGAGED in what you’re doing, in the moment.
There’s no single way of being mindful.
An excerpt from Book 3 in the Life Management 101 series coming in 2024: “Mindfulness isn’t something we achieve. It’s something we live. When we begin living in the moment, we can begin learning more about who we are and where we fit into the world.
When living in the now, we don’t need to forget the past or ignore the future. The past made us who we are, now. And the future is who we will be, based on how we live now.”
Coming soon! Book 3 in the Life Management 101 series. Stay tuned for details and check out the first two books on Amazon while you’re waiting.
I used to love using various mindfulness practices that I have learned over the years.
Now the word annoys me, and I’m not sure why.
I resonate with the word presence...it feels more grounded than mindfulness.
It evokes memories of when I have been fully present....compared to a vortex of mind fog when I wonder when was the last time I was fully mindful.
When you wrote “It’s allowing your mind to be clear while running on the treadmill”
I was reminded of my conversation with Richard Mason, the developer of “Cosmic Human Design” when he described my chart, he said one of my gifts was helping others to achieve clarity.
He was going over the “Channel of Structuring” which is activated by gate 23 & 43.
Gate 23:
Siddhi QUINTESSENCE
Gift SIMPLICITY
Shadow COMPLEXITY
Living in the shadow side of gate 23 has always resulted in very unpleasant experiences...for others and myself.
I pray I am at least somewhere in the middle with this comment. 😇
Here is a quote from “The Gene Keys” where Richard Rudd describes gate 23:
“However, when someone speaks or writes from their heart, you will understand the gist of what they are saying, regardless of how they say it.”
Was that clear? 🧐