Your Mindful Life

Hello and welcome everyone. Today on Episode 74 of Your Mindful Life podcast, our topic is the pause. We know that pausing is a good thing. It puts us firmly in the present. It is that moment of equanimity in which we can take in everything without reacting or judging. It allows us to get the big picture and to direct our energy thoughtfully and creatively to what is meaningful. Pausing our hearts...

How do ethics affect our daily lives? Do all virtues resonate equally with us? How has our conditioning as children in our families, communities, and cultures formed how ethics play out for us now as adults? Hello and welcome everyone. Today we’re exploring ethics and how our motivations and behavior reflect our personal ethics.  As children we are conditioned by the ethics of our family, communit...

Today we’re investigating how to practice mindfulness meditation  when we feel it is too hard or not possible. Or some other difficulty arises and gets in the way. Mindfulness is key to managing the difficulties and challenges of life. It is how we are in the world. It can be difficult to be mindful. We practice mindfulness meditation so that our mindfulness strengthens, deepens, and opens our hea...

Hello and welcome. This week we explore the fourth face of love—equanimity. Equanimity is the state of mental calmness and evenness of temper in which the mind is steady and balanced and judging is absent. It is a state that allows us to take in the whole picture of a situation without coloring it and reacting to it, and to be fully aware in the moment. With equanimity our minds are even and imper...

Hello and welcome. Today we're talking about the third face of love -- Appreciative Joy. Appreciative joy is the quality of love that recognizes the full worth of joy in our and others lives. It is about being happy with other people—delighting in the joy of others and creating joy in ourselves. Appreciative joy blossoms when we recognize our reciprocal and interconnected humanity.  We might...

Today we’re talking about compassion and what gets in the way of our acting compassionately. Compassion is the second face of love. Compassion is the recognition of suffering, the desire to relieve suffering, and the acting to relieve it without any expectations of anything in return.  Check out out Episode 8 that also talk about the four faces of love. Compassion comes naturally but is difficult...

Today we’re exploring the First Face of Love—Lovingkindness. The practice of lovingkindness cultivates our natural capacity for an open , alive, and loving heart. When we dedicate ourselves to a lovingkindness practice, we feel our heart opening and staying open even when troubles happen. It might be hard  to get our heads around the word lovingkindness. Maybe the thought — What other kind of kind...

Can you be with delays without getting upset? When trouble hits can you accept it without getting angry? When you become ill can you tolerate it, even accept it? Join me! Announcing a four-week meditation class, The Four Faces of Love , meeting once a week on Zoom beginning June 7, 2023. In this class we will explore lovingkindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. For more informatio...

Do you ever find yourself making excuses such as “I didn’t have time.” “I had to do errands.” “I got busy and forgot.” Hello everyone and welcome. Today we’re investigating the practice of diligence and how it can not only help us get things done—like for example, our daily meditation—but also how it is about opening to our natural joy and how cultivating a joyful attitude towards what needs to ge...

Do you have a favorite place or time of day to meditate? If the space around you is noisy, do you feel that you can’t meditate? Or maybe you feel that other conditions are necessary to be able to meditate? Do your preferences dictate your experience? Today we’re talking about how preferences can intrude on our ability to be with it all—to be mindful—in our practice and everywhere else. We are cont...

Do you ever wonder how you can step away from getting carried away by emotions? Or, how you can step away from reacting when something goes wrong or isn’t turning out as you expected it to? Or have you ever caught yourself reacting via automatic pilot and then wished you hadn’t? Hello and welcome everyone. This week we're investigating how pausing is a powerful ally helping us to stay balance...

Do you ever wonder why we are always talking about the body when we talk about mindfulness? Do you wonder what the body has to do with knowing the mind?  Hello and welcome everyone. This week we are talking about the body and why the body is essential to our practice of mindfulness. It's simple. We live our lives through the body. We practice mindfulness through the body. Remember our very fi...

Do you ever feel there is something getting in the way between you and presence—being fully aware and alive in the moment? This week we’re looking at obstacles—those mind states that get in the way of our being present—of being mindful. Learning to recognize them is the first step in alleviating them. Learning how to use mindfulness to alleviate them follows. Often it feels like we are in battle w...

When something happens and you don’t like it what then? Do you feel compelled to fix it? Are you always wanting the situation to be different than it is or to go away? Hello and welcome everyone. This week we are looking at how we get stuck when we don’t like the world as it is and feel compelled to fix it. We don’t like what is happening. It should be different. We hate it. We want it to go away....

 Have you ever thought about the importance of community and what it means in your life?  Today’s podcast is about The Man Who Wouldn’t Come In From the Cold and how he teaches us about community and the meaning of life.  I hope you are enjoying the show . To thank you and to support your practice each week on Thursday a new guided meditation will be available on the member site. To access the gui...

How can we be more mindful in our everyday lives? How does mindfulness open us us to see and alleviate our own suffering? Hello and welcome everyone. In this week’s podcast we’re looking at how mindfulness operates in our everyday lives by examining it through the lens of our experience. So much of the time we operate under automatic pilot even when we think we are being mindful of the present mom...

Today we’re exploring playfulness and how to be more playful.  I hope you are enjoying the show and that you will continue to welcome it into your lives.  Follow or subscribe to the podcast, download the episodes and share them with friends and on social media. And, don’t forget to review the podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.  Beginning next month, in April 2023, as a memb...

Do you ever project what is going on inside of you onto to someone else? Do you ever find yourself being unkind to someone and then afterwards asking, “What was that all about?”  Do you notice how different aspects of who you are show up in different relationships? Today we’re exploring how who we are in the moment shows up in our relationships—in our connections with those around us and how by be...

Today we’re exploring generosity and how it is so much more than we think it is, how it can free us and reshape the world in which we live.  I hope you are enjoying the show and that you will continue to welcome it into your lives. Please follow or subscribe to the podcast, download the episodes and share them with friends and on social media. And, don’t forget to review the podcast on Apple podca...

Have you ever wanted to experience life like a child with no point-of-view or opinion because everything is fresh and new? How often do you feel wonder in your everyday experience? Hello and welcome every one. This week we’re exploring Beginner’s Mind. When we are of Beginner’s Mind everything is fresh and new; there are no preconceived answers or attitudes. When we are with Beginner’s Mind, we ar...

Do you ever wonder, “Why can’t I change that nagging habit? Or why can’t I drop that unpleasant judgment I have about myself? Or, how do I stop that difficult emotion from erupting suddenly? I hope you are enjoying the show and that you will continue to welcome it into your lives. Please follow or subscribe to the podcast, download the episodes and share them with friends and on social media. And,...

Do you feel that awe is something that can only be experienced at extraordinary times in our lives? Are you open to feeling awe every day? Today our topic is awe. I hope you are enjoying the show and that you will continue to welcome it into your lives. Please follow or subscribe to the podcast, download the episodes and share them with friends and on social media. And, don’t forget to review the...

Today is a very special day! This episode, #52,  marks one year that “Your Mindful Life” podcast has been streaming across the globe. I hope you are enjoying the show and that you will continue to welcome it into your lives.  If the show moves you, show your support by following/subscribing to the podcast, download the episodes and share them with friends and on social media. And, let your voice b...

Hello everyone! I hope you find today’s show helpful and I hope that you’ll download the episode, share it with your friends, and review it on Apple podcasts. Today we are exploring longing. When we long for something we desire it with intensity. There is a lot of energy behind it. Going underneath our longing allows us to see exactly what our need is and how best to work with it skillfully. Longi...

Today’s topic is unworthiness. How we come to believe we are unworthy; how this brings us feelings of shame and inadequacy; and how by being present with this part of ourselves we can unwind the intricacies of our unworthiness so that we can awaken to our intrinsic worthiness and goodness through self-compassion and kindness.  I hope you’ll enjoy the show and I hope that you’ll download the episod...