Posts in Mindfulness
Offering daily care for our bodies
Offering daily care for our bodies

Dear 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…

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Self-Care, MindfulnessRachel Switalamindfulness practice, healingComment
Who is responsible for our suffering?
Who is responsible for our suffering?

Dear 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.’”

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Self-Care, MindfulnessRachel Switalamindfulness practice, healingComment
What are our energy vampires?
What are our energy vampires?

Dear friends,

I recently had our solar panels serviced, and Marquis, the man who serviced them, told me to check my house for "energy vampires."

I didn't know exactly what an energy vampire was, so he explained that an energy vampire is a piece of equipment that is secretly draining power, even when it's turned off.

This reminded me of a line from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings (the 14th) that says, "we are determined to ... learn ways to preserve and channel our vital energies(sexual, breath, spirit) for the realization of our bodhisattva ideal.

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Mindfulness, Self-CareRachel Switala Comments
What Are Your Mantras?
What Are Your Mantras?

Dear Friends,

When I was about seven years old, I spontaneously developed a mantra that allowed me to make it through any emotionally painful conversation with my parents. I would repeat to myself, “She’s not going to kill me” whenever I was being reprimanded by her. This mantra allowed me to stuff my feelings and avoid collapsing in tears or running to my room - either of which simply made her madder.

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Self-Care, MindfulnessAnnie Mahonmindfulness practice Comments
Mindful Parenting - A talk by Annie at Blue Cliff Monastery
Mindful Parenting - A talk by Annie at Blue Cliff Monastery

Last month, while attending a family retreat at Blue Cliff Monastery, I gave a talk on mindful parenting. In the talk, I share lots of stories of our parenting struggles and how the practice of mindfulness helped me/us get through it and find love and joy in the process. Parenting is hard. And my personal practice, looking clearly at what is really happening, and connecting to other parents are the things that consistently helped us.

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Mindfulness, RelationshipsRachel Switalamindful parenting, mindfulness practice, blue cliff monasteryComment
There's a Crack in Everything
There's a Crack in Everything

Dear Friends,

Some days I think I will never get anything right.

No matter how many yoga classes I go to or how many hours I sit on my meditation cushion (OK, some of those moments are spent checking my Facebook page), I still manage to piss people off by forgetting to invite them to something or giving them advice when they don’t want it. I hate that I can’t stop rolling my eyes and being sarcastic, and I’m still mad at myself for telling a good friend all the reasons I dislike someone she adores. What is wrong with me?

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MindfulnessAnnie Mahonmindfulness, do i have to be perfect, let go of being perfect, being imperfect, the practice of accepting, acceptance Comments
The Art of Going into the Wilderness
The Art of Going into the Wilderness

In my college sorority room, back in the “olden” days, the telephone was attached to the wall. This meant that while I was on the phone getting berated by my parents about being placed on academic probation and my continuing lack of a major, my roommate Janet, a computer science student, was on her side of the room drawing with fine tip markers on computer paper. And smirking.

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MindfulnessAnnie Mahon Comments
You have Enough, You are Enough
You have Enough, You are Enough

I have been living in a small house in the Blue Ridge mountains, up a long winding driveway for most of 2019. When it snows, I can’t get out of the driveway until my neighbor has time to bring his tractor plow up and help me out. And since he is busy plowing for the county, it usually doesn’t get plowed for several days.

My home has been in the city of Washington, D.C. for thirty-four years, which is hard to believe, but true. When I’m staying in the city, the part of me that wants to run after people, activities, and restaurants gets really going. As a result, my ability to be satisfied with what I already have gets weaker….

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MindfulnessAnnie Mahon Comments
Our Inner Toddlers
Our Inner Toddlers

I recently got angry about an email I received in which someone explained something they did which annoyed me. My first reaction was anger and judgment: “Why would they do this? What were they thinking?!” Then, my Perfect-Mindfulness-Person part chimed in with a falsely sweet voice…

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MindfulnessAnnie Mahon Comments
The Girl Who Made Milkweed Soup
The Girl Who Made Milkweed Soup

Mountain walk in early spring. It looks like a Safeway the night before a blizzard. All the shelves are empty – barren trees, grey and brown. A few half-eaten berries on a branch. Nothing remains. As a very young girl, growing up in Michigan, winters were long. As soon as the snow began to melt…

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Blog, MindfulnessAnnie MahonComment