Love love love

Last weekend I attended the funeral of a friend's father. What struck me most about the remembrances that his family and friends offered was how much everyone spoke of his love. He loved his family, he loved life, he loved his friends, he loved his neighbors, he loved his patients. And they all knew it. Because he had told them and shown them so each day.

I want to live a life with that much love.

Let's keep the Val in Valentine's Day... or something like that. Let's not forget what this is all about. Let's make sure that today is a day that we are open and generous with all our love. One thing I've learned about love is that the more I give out to the world--to my family, my friends, strangers, enemies--the more fantastic I feel. 

In addition to the normal ways we think of expressing love, my mindfulness practice has shown me how fostering gratitude and kind wishes for others and myself has increased my capacity to love.  Today I'll be boosting my gratitude and kind wishes quota and I invite you to join me!

Gratitude: Try this simple gratitude activity today. Quick, come up with 5 things you are grateful for! They can be small, simple things like the smell of your coffee or a hug from a friend. Or they can be BIG, complex things like the Internet or your family. 

Especially when I'm down, stealth gratitude like this helps me gain some perspective, and often reminds me that we're all connected in one way or another.

Here's what I came up with this morning: 1) I'm grateful for all of the support and love I've felt as I launch this teaching program; 2) I'm grateful for my husband Greg's design sense and unwillingness to quit while updating my website; 3) I'm grateful for a ride to San Francisco this morning so I can go to the Wisdom 2.0 Conference; 4) I'm grateful that there's a conference all about mindfulness and technology happening only 45 minutes away from my house! ; 5) I'm grateful for the chance to share with you . 

Kind wishes: This one may take a little practice because it can sometimes feel forced at first. But I've learned it's the kind of thing that you can fake it 'till you make it. Try sending yourself three or four kind wishes for the day.

Here's what I'm feeling for myself today: May I be calm, may I be happy, may I welcome new surprises with ease and joy, may I be open to all possibilities. 

If sending them to yourself is too difficult, try sending them to someone you see almost every day who makes you really happy. You can send personalized and specific ones like the last two of mine, or you can do broader wishes like my first two.

Try doing these for a couple of days and notice how you feel.

Ok, that's a lot of 'self-love.' I found that I've got to build that up before I can genuinely go forth and spread my love around to others. 

My favorite way to share my love is through attention. Giving someone my complete attention when I am with them seems like the biggest gift I can offer.

How do you show your love? However you do, make sure you do!

Love love love.

From Fantasy to Reality

I wrote this post back in July but have been hesitant to post it until I could commit to blogging regularly. Ok, I suppose this means I've committed now! :-)

Fantasy = Reality!

Smiling students after a mindfulness lesson. :-)

Shortly after my husband, Greg, and I first got engaged, it seemed that everyone wanted to know all the details about our future wedding. Without having really made any decisions or doing much research, we kept responding the same way to those who asked. “In the Shenandoah Mountains, in the fall of next year.”

The fall of next year seemed far enough away and the Shenandoah Mountains sounded like a nice place to get married. We kept repeating these details, and whenever I imagined our wedding that’s what I saw. I guess it’s no surprise that we got married along the Shenandoah River the next fall. 

But had I asked ‘engaged Leslie and Greg’ how wedded to this plan they were, I think they’d both would have said, “Let’s wait and see how the planning goes.”

I found myself in a similar situation last spring as Greg and I prepared to move across the country from Washington, DC to San Francisco. Everyone wanted to know what I planned to do out there. Without having made any decisions or doing much research, I'd respond, “I’m going to teach kids how to meditate.”

I’d say it over and over without any idea how I’d go about making this happen. It wasn't like this was out of the blue; I had been meditating on it a lot myself, and kept getting a rather vague, yet oddly explicit, directive from within, guiding me to this response.

Just like our adventures in wedding planning meant countless hours of research, decision making, and preparation before we wound up at the Shenandoah River in the fall; this latest journey has required similar efforts to wind up where I am today, ready to launch a kid-friendly online mindfulness meditation program.

Switching careers is hard. Starting a business is challenging. But I’ve kept with it because each time I take steps toward making this dream happen doors seem to open and the universe seems to affirm my decision.

After a curriculum training I started out teaching my nieces via Skype. Even though I’d be drenched with nervous sweat at the conclusion of each 15-minute session with them, I’d also be exhilarated. This felt right.

Last fall Greg and I left DC for a three-month trip to Asia, our return tickets booked for San Francisco.

While we traveled, we also dreamed and plotted about our future in California. Where we’d live in SF, what we’d do on the weekends, who our friends would be, what I’d do for work. On one day of dreaming, Greg suggested I start my own online program to teach kids mindfulness. He reminded me of how much I enjoyed working with my nieces and how it had worked well online. We talked more specifics that day, and have been talking around this idea since then.

On the eve of my online launch, I felt surprisingly similar to how I did in the days leading up to our wedding, in the Shenandoah in the fall. There is a current of terror mixed with joyful excitement as I see far-off fantasy becoming reality.

I teach kids how to meditate.

Hello! Welcome!

Welcome to the Mindfulness Online Blog!

Here you will find tips and ideas for bringing mindfulness and compassion into your family, some of the latest mindfulness headlines and research, as well as some stories from my personal experience with mindfulness.

My mindfulness practice has been instrumental in making me who I am today. I am grateful that it has been a part of my life for so long, and that more and more people are beginning to experience the benefits for themselves.

I hope that this blog and my website may help to encourage you to try mindfulness for the first time or to deepen your practice. I would love to hear how mindfulness has impacted your life.