Begin Again

How many times have I written this blog post in my head? How many times in the last five years have I thought about coming back to this site, this home for my passion? How many times have I gotten so close, only to get discouraged or distracted?

Countless.

Countless times I’ve dreamed of having the free time, the courage, the patience to come back to this.

And here I am now.

Writing a post entirely different from the myriad of posts I’d written and re-written in my head.

Hello again!

Nice to see you world. :)

A lot has happened in the past five years. We had a baby! (Heck, he’s practically a real kid these days!) I went through some seriously debilitating and painful postpartum depression. We moved away from our cabin in the woods. I stopped working on this site. I felt like I’d lost myself.

It’s really only been in the last year or so that I’ve felt able to come fully into my new identity - Mama.

Through all of these highs and lows there was one constant — each time life felt hopeless, each time I struggled to find my footing as a mother, each time our son wouldn’t sleep for more than two hours at a stretch — I always had the chance to begin again.

In mindfulness we’re asked to come back to the breath, over and over and over again. We begin each moment with a blank slate, letting go of what came before, letting be what is to come. We’re only asked to come back, begin again.

Even during the days (and months) when my formal meditation practice was non-existent, the seeds I’d planted and tended to for the decade before blossomed and held me — allowing me the grace to put one foot in front of the other, to come back to the breath, beginning again, and again, and again.

So. Here I am. Beginning again.

Among the many things I’ve learned in the past five years is that sharing mindfulness with others is truly my passion. While I haven’t been teaching as much as I’d previously been, it’s clear to me after each time I do that this is where I feel most alive, of value, happiest, and most importantly, it’s where I feel most at home. While my schedule as a full-time stay at home mom doesn’t really lend itself to one-on-one lessons as much, I still want to be teaching more regularly. So here is my offering to you. Each week I’ll aim to have a new, free, guided meditation for you.

Let’s try it out in January and see what happens.

If this doesn’t work, we can always just… begin again…