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Posts Tagged ‘Mindfulness’

Be Present and Lean In

Thursday, July 25th, 2013

Meditation:
Be present. Lean into discomfort.
Bring the light to each experience.
Listen for the open mind – the free mind – the fun mind.
Let go of exaggerations and delusions of the mind.

Ask: What am I saying no to? What am I saying yes to?

Exhale stress. Inhale light.
Be present. Let go of the past. Release the anxiety of the future.
Be present with each experience and lean in.

As Pema Chödrön says, “The next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you’re feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in. Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves. This is priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering—yours, mine, and that of all living beings.”

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Where is Your Mind?

Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013

Where is the dwelling place of the mind?

Drop out of your head

Drop into your heart

Allow yourself to feel the expansion of your mind

Imagine no thought is a fixed thought

Be certain of uncertainty

Reside in the space in between

Notice the breath between the breaths

Live in an awakened state

Accept grace

Give love

Go to the empty space within

Perhaps your mind lives there, or not

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Compassion, Courage, and Breath

Thursday, June 20th, 2013

Sitting with compassion for others and myself led me to a beautiful meditation:

Fill yourself up with compassion with each breath. 

What do you look like when you are living with compassion? 

Show yourself some compassion right now. 

Allow your hand to move and breathe compassion into your body. 

Notice your body and breathe compassion. 

Let compassion move your hand. 

How are you transmitting compassion? 

What is your message of compassion today? 

Listen to compassion. 

Take a deeper breath in and out. 

Breathe compassion. 

When you see the world with compassion, what’s possible? 

And take a nice big breath. 

Be compassionate to you, always. 

Beam compassion with every interaction. 

And so it is.

As Pema Chödrön writes, “Just as nurturing our ability to love is a way of awakening bodhichitta, so also is nurturing our ability to feel compassion. Compassion, however, is more emotionally challenging than loving-kindness because it involves the willingness to feel pain. It definitely requires the training of a warrior. 

 

When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion, to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance.” 

Stay with your breath. Stay with yourself. Stay with compassion.

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At Home with My Emotions

Tuesday, June 4th, 2013

I’m hyper-sensitive. I have come to discover that means I am an empath.

I feel other peoples’ pain as if it were my own, even if I don’t know them. My face loses all color and I turn “sheet-white” if I watch something devastating or really sad. I cry easily at Hallmark shows, Maxwell House Coffee commercials, or even melancholy song lyrics.

I have known this for many years and have been made fun of for it. People would say, “You’re too sensitive” or “Lighten up.” For a long time, I thought that it was a bad thing until I realized my sensitivity made me a better listener and a better visionary.

It’s been a huge asset as an entrepreneur, writer, leader and artist. I relate to people in ways other people are not able to do so. I often understand what they seek and aspire to. I relate to their emotions. It lets me work with clients on more of an emotional level. I see past the facades and can speak to, create, and offer inspiration for what really matters.

Being an empath has allowed me to take a deeper dive inside my own heart as well as have in-depth conversations with those around me. I am able to question more, probe deeper, and create space for expansion.

It’s also been hugely beneficial in allowing me to connect when I teach, present, and facilitate. My empathetic ways allow me to feel my way through conversations on an intuitive level. It allows me to really “see” people for who they truly are.

Of course, it is not always easy. When someone else is in pain, it can be hard to distance myself from it. I tend to take on too much of what and who is around me. I want to help other people — at times to the detriment of myself.  

So, how do I navigate in the world as an empath? I know I don’t want to go down the rabbit hole when I am feeling overwhelmed and I don’t want to push people away in order to not feel. I need to be able to engage and be present and let go in order to best serve.

For me, I do my best to balance the gifts of feeling deeply with the grace of letting go. I live with vulnerability and also have very clear boundaries.

I wouldn’t change being an empath for the world. I have come to accept that to feel is to be alive.

It’s the raw emotions that allow real meaning and connection to flow into creation and inspiration.

The challenge is to understand when to let it in and when to let go. And the challenge is also when to let in just enough to allow for deep connections, compassionate experiences and extraordinary creativity.

I’ve danced with this process of letting in and letting go for as long as I can remember. It has been a driving force for some intense journal writings, channeling messages, and connections with many mentors and spiritual teachers.

A few years ago when I started Toning the OM™, for an entirely different reason, I found something else that’s helps me process life as an empath — meditation and mindfulness.

It doesn’t mean I still don’t cry easily or close my eyes when something profound is happening. It means I can allow my emotions to flow rather than consume me. What it also does is allow me to understand when I’m being drawn in and then make a more conscious effort about whether I’m going to open to empathy or detach with love. And it reminds me to breathe and not get stuck in the shallowness within my own body.

Honestly, it is not easy and it takes work. There are days I am lousy at it. And I’m still learning just how important it is to stop and take slow, deep breaths. Having awareness of my breath and being mindful has made me more awake and alive in the world.

Being of service is an honor and privilege. Recognizing what emotions bring compassion and what emotions bring exhaustion have been part of my life-long journey. Identifying the waves of emotion as they rise, acknowledging them, and pausing to breathe has empowered me to lead and serve more humbly.

I’d love to know what your experiences have been with this.

What has your journey of the heart revealed about you?

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What Does It Mean to Be Peace?

Tuesday, May 28th, 2013

How are you being peace in the world?

I recently launched a website, triZENbe (Zen Tribes). triZENbe is a global movement and community of people who want to bring (more) peace into their lives, into their homes, into their schools, into their communities, and into the World. 

As I began to listen for my inner voice of peace, I became curious about when people experience peace. I had conversations with folks about what peace means to them.  

What is your voice of peace? On the triZENbe website, there is a section called Zen Voices. I am looking to add ideas of what it means to be peace in the world. If you would be willing to add your voice to this page and share your thoughts about peace, please email me at maflanagan@toningtheom.com to listen for my inner voice of peace. I had conversations with folks about what peace means to them. I am curious about how and when people experience peace. 

My hope is that by creating more peace within ourselves, we extend that to our “tribes” – whether our tribe is our family, friends, co-workers, community, and/or the world. 

 What does peace mean to you? 

We are one thought away from peace. ~Mary Anne Flanagan

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Breathing Kindness

Tuesday, April 9th, 2013

You are invited to gently close your eyes and soften your body.

Allow your spine to be long and tall.

Allow your shoulders to drop away from your ears.

How does it feel to realign your body into deep comfort?

Notice your breathing.

With great mindfulness, breathe in through your nose and out
through your mouth.

Breathe in light and kindness. And breathe out more kindness…

Allow each breath to bring you deeper into kindness.

Attune to kindness and notice how you feel.

How does your body feel in kindness?

What thoughts arise in kindness?

How are you transmitting kindness?

What is your message of kindness? Just listen.

Take a deeper breath in and out – kindness.

Open your eyes and see the world with kind eyes.

See the world with kindness – what’s possible?

How kind of you to gift yourself more kindness.

Create kindness with every interaction.

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Effortless Zen Practices

Monday, March 8th, 2010

In the sutra it says, “There are no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body or mind…” This is Zen Mind, which includes everything.

It is not necessary to make an effort to think in a particular way. Your thinking should not be one-sided. We just think with our whole mind, and see things as they are without any effort. Just to see, and to be ready to see things with our whole mind, is zazen practice. If we are prepared for thinking, there is no need to make an effort to think. This is called mindfulness. Mindfulness is, at the same time, wisdom. By wisdom we do not mean some particular faculty or philosophy. It is the readiness of the mind that is wisdom. So wisdom could be various philosophies and teachings, and various kinds of research and studies. But we should not become attached to some particular wisdom, such as that which was taught by Buddha. Wisdom is not something to learn. Wisdom is something which will come out of your mindfulness. So the point is to be ready for observing things, and to be ready for thinking. This is called emptiness of your mind.

Excerpt from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

How do you become an observer of your thoughts? What practices allow you to see things as they are? As we open up to our whole self, mindfulness follows, and we can experience effortless Zen practices.

To the Zen of you,
Mary Anne

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