I can’t suggest a meditation more apt than this right now, given the events in the United States over the past week. How can you help people? Can you donate to organizations once, a few times, or monthly? Can you volunteer for organizations? Can you commit to becoming an activist?
Category Archives: Meditations
Monday Meditation: Persevering
Grief isn’t just one experience that hangs out for a bit and then disappears. Grief is a very long road broken up into shorter segments that piggyback onto one another for the remainder of a griever’s life. Outsiders often mistake grief for a one-and-done experience: someone dies, you get sad, you deal with it, you’reContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Persevering”
Monday Meditation: Step On In
Grief is huge. It’s an ocean. If we stopped to contemplate what was living in every nook and cranny of the ocean and what could happen to us if we went to varying depths, we might become paralyzed.
Monday Meditation: Fall Now, Stand Later
One of the most significant misunderstandings concerning grief is the belief that grief is a one-and-done experience: loss happens, you get sad, you gradually become happier, and then, one day, grief is gone for good. The belief is helpful to grief supporters, who sometimes act as though our grief is a drag. The sooner weContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Fall Now, Stand Later”
Monday Mediation: Rest Slowly
Rest plus quiet does not equal stopping. It means going slowly. In the act of lying fallow, the ground continues to engage life as the soil replenishes its nutrients and prepares itself for planting again. The action is happening below the surface, out of sight. Just because it is hidden from view does not meanContinue reading “Monday Mediation: Rest Slowly”
Monday Meditation: Is Loved and Lost Better?
Is it? Ask a griever in the pain of missing a loved one any day of the year whether it truly is better to have loved and lost. Some may say that the pain they experience is too overwhelming that it makes them wish they never loved in the first place.
Monday Meditation: Quiet Reconnection
Learning to sit in quiet is a skill that takes time to develop. The noise outside is loud and often penetrates deep inside us, making it hard to shut off. The noise can obscure our true desires because it tells us that what we want cannot or should not be. No matter how long itContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Quiet Reconnection”
Monday Meditation: Quiet Matters
Quiet is more than just the absence of noise. Quiet is a state of being that helps suppress distracting intrusions so that the right sounds can become loud and clear.
Monday Meditation: To Rest, Surrender.
To rest, you have to stop expending energy in certain ways. Not only do you have to physically stop performing certain activities, but you also have to release depleting mental loads from your mind.
Monday Meditation: Lie Fallow
Fallowing is a farming practice whereby a field is left unsown for a period of time to let the soil recover its nutrients and restore its moisture content. This recovery time later allows that same soil to grow a larger and better crop when next planted. The “rest” time granted to grievers by friends, family,Continue reading “Monday Meditation: Lie Fallow”
Monday Meditation: A New Year Rest
December used to be an exciting month, a tiring one, but one filled with the energy of holiday electricity. The final week of the year used to be a time when I would organize myself and my professional and personal calendar. I would renew commitments to my goals and redraw the lines of my lifeContinue reading “Monday Meditation: A New Year Rest”
Monday Meditation: Rest.
A holiday shrouded in grief can range from tiring to exhausting.
Monday Meditation: Sacred Tears
This will be a difficult week for many. Supporters may encourage grievers to perk up because it is a holiday week, to be “merry and bright.” There is little merriment or brightness when we miss someone. Celebrations accentuate the absence of loved ones in the sharpest way.
Monday Medtation: Every Day, Grief
The holiday season from Thanksgiving through the new year is fraught with emotional turmoil–sometimes ripples, sometimes earthquakes. This season seems to be one of the times when grievers are constantly beaten up with reminders of what we are grieving. Ads and commercials reminding us to buy gifts for everyone on our lists and have aContinue reading “Monday Medtation: Every Day, Grief”
Monday Mediation: Start Simply.
A pitfall of life is getting caught up in the race to be more, be ahead of the game, be pushing for the next whatever, be comparing ourselves to the past…essentially occupying any moment other than the present.
A.N.Carroll 