Mindful Mondays| Week 1: And

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Welcome, my name is Sara from Full Circle Wellspring. And today is your Mindful Monday. Let’s get started. Today I want to talk about the word: And. A small little three letter word. 

So get comfortable. You can lay down or sit in a cross-legged position on the floor or in a chair. Somewhere you can be comfortable for just a few short minutes. To still your mind, take a few deep breaths to help you arrive here right now. 

….

Let’s return our breathing to natural rhythm. 

Let’s focus on this New Year together. What a great time and place; an opportunity we have for a fresh start. This year I’d like to challenge you consider the word “and”. 

Right now you’re sitting here focusing on your breath or a bodily sensation — feeling the warmth of your hands or feeling your belly rise and fall with the breath. While you are breathing, your body is also breathing you. Breathing is an action of Being AND Doing. Same thing with our thoughts. We can be watching our thoughts, creating our thoughts, AND our thoughts are always happening. 

In our trauma recovery journey together, we are whole. We are a complete person worthy of love and worthy of respect, AND we can also love ourselves enough on want to continue on improving our mind, body, spirit. On improving in our trauma recovery path. We can be happy right where we are, AND we can be looking forward to even more improvement. You can be feeling very healthy and happy in a career AND also challenge yourself. You could be feeling really happy at this moment AND also grieving the year that passed. Maybe a lot of things happened that you haven’t quite processed yet. AND all that is okay. 

Let’s continue to feel our breath a few more minutes. Don’t force the breath. Just watch it. Observe it while it does its thing. Let’s pay attention to where we feel the breath the strongest— maybe the nostrils, right above the upper lip, or maybe you want to focus on your seat in the chair or on the floor. Let’s just take a few minutes and remember the duality that we have in this life. We can breathe, AND we can also be breathed. Let yourself be breathed right now. 

…. 

This year maybe we challenge ourselves especially in the complexity of our trauma recovery journey to remind ourselves that things don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You can do hard things, and you can also give yourself space to rest and recover. You can feel multiple emotions at one time, and that’s okay. Try this week to see how it feels to eliminate one of those other three letter words “but” with the word “and”. See if that doesn’t change some of the perspective in your heart. I know for me personally when I catch myself saying “but”, and I can change it to an “and” that I’m reminded of the flexibility that life has offered me by giving me multiple options and opportunities. I’m not limited, and I’m not a victim. And we can do hard things. We can do challenging things. We can grow, and we can also take time to rest and reflect. We can find that balance. It’s not an easy journey. Trauma recovery never is, and I’ll never promise you that — AND you can find support and encouragement here through it. 

This has been your Mindful Monday. I am your certified trauma recovery coach, Sara, for Full Circle Wellspring, and I look forward to our next time together. 

When you are ready, re-acclimate your body to the room and open your eyes slowly and enjoy the rest of your day.