Dear ones,
During the holidays and as we return from our COVID separation, we may want to also return to the practice of hugging our loved ones.
Below is an excerpt from my book, Things I did When I Was Hangry: Navigating a Peaceful Relationship with Food, about one of my favorite Plum Village practices – Hugging Meditation.
I also have a 1-minute video demonstrating this practice.
Dear Friends,
The holiday season exhorts us to be generous and give. What does it mean to practice generosity from a mindfulness perspective? There are so many opportunities to give material and spiritual aid; how do we determine when to give and when not to give? And how do we know when we are being generous?
Read MoreDear Friends,
I have been thoroughly enjoying the fall colors here in Washington DC. It’s amazing to me how the seasons remind us of the impermanence and continual composting of life. Didn’t new leaves just appear after a barren and lonely COVID winter? Was that really six months ago? And even as we savor the orange, red, burgundy, and yellow, the leaves don’t stop changing– getting browner and beginning to pile up on the streets and sidewalks.
It seems that only this one breath, this one moment, is where we can briefly find rest and stability, and where we have the capacity to notice beauty and joy.
Read MoreDear Friends,
I’ve been a fan of gratitude lists and the practice of gratitude for a while. There are so many benefits of gratitude which you can read about from Web MD here or Plum Village here .
I recently realized that one of the places I am challenged is in feeling and expressing gratitude for other humans. I can easily feel gratitude for my safe warm home, my two cuddly dogs, or the beautiful zinnias blooming in my yard. And I can even find gratitude for folks who are distant from me or passed away, like my grandma or Thich Nhat Hanh.
More challenging is to feel gratitude for the people who I see or talk to on a regular basis. The people I take for granted. In fact, I can feel annoyed by people because they aren’t living up to my expectations, often noticing what they don’t do instead of what they do.
Read MoreDear friends,
These last couple of years have been hard on most of our bodies. In addition to COVID, like me you may have faced health challenges or feel disconnected from your body because of all the physical distancing, working from home, or lack of access to health care.
I have been trying to offer my body a guided deep relaxation at least once a day. What I find is that a short (15-30 minute) deep relaxation can reset my nervous system and my mind and help me drop into the present moment more fully. While I often fall asleep for part of the meditation, that doesn’t seem to keep me from feeling the benefits. Sometimes I don’t realize how much tension I have been holding in my body until I am able to let it go through the relaxation practice…
Read MoreDear Friends,
Last month, my friend Mitchell recommended that we both read Edith Eger’s book, The Choice. I found her description of her life before, during, and after the Holocaust to be quite amazing and inspiring. Eger became a psychotherapist, so in addition to telling her story, she analyzes her experiences through a psychological and spiritual lens.
Eger survived Auschwitz, moved to the United States, married and had children. She carried her childhood trauma with her, and she found herself looking around to find a source for what was making her so miserable. She concluded that her husband was the problem, and so decided to divorce him.
Once she was alone with herself and her feelings, she noticed that she was still unhappy and realized that quite a bit of her suffering was coming from inside. She writes, “I have become my own jailer, telling myself, ‘No matter what you do, you will never be good enough.’”
Read More
