What’s New?
3 Day Yoga & Mindfulness Retreat ~ Bahamas, November 2024
November 4 – November 6, 2024
~ Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
and Ancient Yoga ~
[Read more…] about 3 Day Yoga & Mindfulness Retreat ~ Bahamas, November 20245 Day Silent Retreat ~ Madison CT, November 2023
November 9, 2023 – November 14, 2023
~ Coming Home to the Heart:
Embodying Compassion and Wisdom ~
[Read more…] about 5 Day Silent Retreat ~ Madison CT, November 2023Summer Yoga Wednesday Mornings
Cultivating Loving Kindness
2 day online silent retreat
August 11-23 – Details coming soon
Settling into Silence
Two day online silent retreat
June 2-4 – Details soon…
Kindness Begins at Home
Note: For December 2022, Kate offered three Thirsty Thursdays, weekly half-hour Mindfulness sessions. In this post, Kate shares a copy of the whiteboards created during the third session and adds reminders/suggestions for continuing practice.
“What blocks kindness for you?”
“When is it easy for you to offer kindness?”
Kind friends,
Thank you for the special time we shared this month! Here are a few thoughts to carry with you:
Kindness begins at home, with ourselves, and then extends out.
It is difficult to be kind when we have not taken care of ourselves.
When kindness is absent, it is often due to the causes and conditions that are present. This is the time and place to practice. Begin with offering yourself care: maybe a hand on your heart, and acknowledging the suffering that is present.
It can be easier to be kind to strangers or clients than to our loved ones and ourselves. (Practice!)
A metta, or loving-kindness, practice is on my website. You can alter the phrases to make them your own.
Peace, joy and love to all in this season and beyond.
Love,
Kate
P.S. Here is one last gift, in case a laugh would help. 🙂
Questioning Our Perceptions
Note: For December 2022, Kate is offering three Thirsty Thursdays, weekly half-hour Mindfulness sessions. In this post, Kate shares what was discussed in Session 2 and includes reminders/suggestions for continuing practice.
Today, we worked with facing the unwanted in our lives and in our meditation practice.
It is easy to find a challenge—and possible to learn how to be at ease (with practice of course). See the slide (above) to notice that our first opportunity to interrupt the stress cycle when we are faced with difficulty is to question our perception.
We might ask: Is this unwanted experience really dangerous or threatening, or do we just wish it would go away? Remember, it is not personal, and of course things are not perfect, and no worries—it is not permanent.
Say we do not notice that first opportunity, and we go down the familiar autopilot path. Still we can interrupt this at any moment by bringing awareness, pausing, and taking a few breaths, thereby engaging the parasympathetic nervous system (the brakes). New options will likely appear (with practice:)).
We practiced with these phrases:
- May I accept things as they are
- May I accept others as they are
- May I accept myself as I am
- May I be at ease with ever-changing circumstances
And we closed with this poem:
THIS IS IT!
Always we hope
Someone else has the answer
Some other place will be better,
Some other time it will all turn out.
This is it.
No one else has the answer
No other place will be better,
And it has already turned out.
At the center of your being
You have the answer,
You know who you are
And you know what you want.
There is no need
To run outside
For better seeing.
Nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide at the center of your being;
For the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Search your heart
And see
The way to do
Is to be.
Love,
Kate