Remember

I’ve been longing to come back to this place for some time now. There have been glimpses, moments, days, weeks even when I felt like I’d returned. Truth is, I’d never left.

The beauty of mindfulness for me is the remembering that this presence, this stillness, this awareness is ALWAYS here to offer us refuge, peace, and spaciousness. It’s up to us to remember, but with practice moments of remembering turn into hours, hours turn into days, and eventually all of our time on the cushion accumulates into a deep knowing. We can trust in this, in our capacity to return home even in the worst of times.

This remembering saved me countless times during my dark days of sleepless, early motherhood. Was it the solution to all of my problems - no - but it did offer me the gasp of air that kept me going until I could reach a bit more self-love, sleep, and perspective.

So much of my early struggles and suffering as a new mother were based in the misguided belief that I’d somehow lost my chances of ever coming back to this home. As if I’d traded my years of silent contemplation for a squawking baby who never slept. But in reality, I’d never left it. I’d merely forgotten my own address in the haze of dirty diapers and sleep deprivation.

The refuge that mindfulness practice offers us cannot disappear, cannot be tarnished by our pain or anxiety, cannot be damaged by our negligence. Each breath we take can serve as a reminder, as a way home to our true nature.

We are merely asked to remember.

Remember that it is here, offering us peace, refuge and comfort. Remember that it is here without judging us for our thoughts or worries. Remember that it is here, free for the taking.

Ultimately, it is up to us to remember to come home. But to my great relief, and maybe to your’s as well, home is always here, waiting patiently for us to remember to take that first breath, that first step across the threshold.

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…