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Your HeartMatters Journey
An online video/blog series to support your intention of optimal health and well-being.
Gratitude Is the Attitude!
Expressing gratitude has benefits to you, personally, as well as to all of us, globally. When we live from the heart, grateful for the small blessings that each day brings, the whole world becomes a better place.
Gratitude is a practice. And, like other habits, the more often it is invited in, the more familiar it becomes, so that the gift of gratitude can be evoked more readily. Begin by reminding yourself, every day, to look around your personal world and name three reasons for your own gratitude at that very moment. After a few weeks of this daily practice, that attitude of gratitude will permeate the way you look at all the events in your life.
You will come to see that even challenging times have lessons for which you can feel grateful. That while you impatiently wait on line at the grocery store, the child in the cart before yours turns to you with a blissful smile that melts your heart — a reason to be grateful. That when you run from your office to your car in the rain and just happen to glance up at the sky, a rainbow has just popped — a reason for gratitude. That when you can’t find a book you’ve been wanting to read and search high and low in your house, you come upon some old photos of your child as a baby and spend an emotional hour savoring those precious moments — a real opportunity for gratitude…
Gratitude brings joy, acceptance, forgiveness, and tolerance. Can’t the world use a bit of that right about now?
Posted in Balance, Mindfulness, Your HeartMatters Journey | 
Tags: forgiveness, gratitude, joy | 
2 Comments »Small Steps Towards Movement
Mindful Fitness on Your HeartMatters Journey…
Mindful Eating on Your HeartMatters Journey
Slowing down to savor the flavor is a practice of mindfulness–a practice that leads to an enhanced connection with your level of satiation. When your brain is engaged in the pleasure of eating, you will create a connection between feeling satisfied and eating just the right amount of food. (read: you will eat less, with all the pleasure of eating more!)
Posted in Eat, Mindfulness, Video, Your HeartMatters Journey | Tags: mindful eating, Mindfulness, video series, Your HeartMatters Journey | No Comments »A guided relaxation…After the Rain
An inspired guided imagery relaxation, created in real time, after my morning walk. Enjoy!
I had/have a busy day ahead with some scheduled appointments and a To Do list. As soon as I was outdoors, that all went by the wayside…I was captivated by the crisp, clear morning after the cold winter rains, and I was blessed by giving myself permission to be mindful of the natural beauty around me. Upon my return to home, I could have blasted into my day, but chose instead to create the guided imagery–to share with others–and immediately dropped into my own place of deep quiet and calm in the sitting, creating, and visualization while recording the audio.
Perhaps I will end up working harder, smarter, and with more focus–later today or over the weekend–as my To Do list beckons, but for now, I am in a delicious state of peaceful, calm, and intentional quiet.
May you be blessed with the same…
And P.S. This audio is not “perfect”! There is my breathing, my long ssss sounds, my clicking tongue; not that you will notice! xoxo
Posted in Audio, Mindfulness, Your HeartMatters Journey | Tags: audio, guided imagery, mindful, Your HeartMatters Journey | No Comments »Mindful Mastery of Self-Talk
Let Your HeartMatters Journey take you to positive and affirming self-talk.
Posted in Mindfulness, Video, Your HeartMatters Journey | Tags: mindful, positive self-talk, video series, Your HeartMatters Journey | No Comments »Mindful Morning Musings…
With a busy day ahead, I went out early for my morning walk with Grace the dog, taking with me the intention of enjoying the morning sky. I started out in the dark, using a headlamp, marveling at the delicate scattering of stars, the brightest of which illuminated the thin clouds. The path I walk each morning opens up in one spot to a large Manzanita grove, affording me a big view of the expansive sky beyond the forest.
I gave myself permission to just be. I stood still–perhaps it was five or eight minutes–and savored the awakening of morning. I watched the clouds spread sensuously to cover the sky, shifting from feathery streaks to tissue paper wispiness. The stars began to fade, although that brightest light remained as the herald to the sunrise. Birds began to tweet and sing from the treetops in celebration of the new day. A gaggle of geese flew overhead. A most gorgeous blue crept into the sky, the color of which is unique to nature–surely that blue cannot be duplicated in a pencil or paint pot. The clouds turned from dawn-gray to soft white with just a hint of pink. The birds sang more robustly, serenading the sun…
In the several moments I spent in a state of mindful observation of the morning sky, my heart was open and receptive, slowly filling with joy and calm. My soon-to-be-busy day has begun with the gift of quieting through intentional attentiveness to the details.
As I share the journey to optimal health and well-being with you, I find that I have become so much more aware of the opportunities for mindfulness throughout the day. What about you–what mindful experiences are you savoring?
Posted in Mindfulness, Your HeartMatters Journey | Tags: Mindfulness, Your HeartMatters Journey | No Comments »Pay Attention!
This familiar phrase that we heard as kids from our teachers and parents, in retrospect now seems that they were on to something…and as adults, we can apply this wisdom to becoming Mindful.
When we live in mindfulness, we pay attention. We notice the details. We give ourselves permission to slow down, so that we can create an awareness of what is occurring in this very moment. The details are rich and colorful and delicious and…so incredibly varied from one minute to the next, that our brains become soothed in the attentiveness.
Being mindful brings depth to so many aspects of our lives. We listen more fully. We speak with clarity. We eat slowly. We walk in nature with reverence. We savor the flavor. We love completely. We see without judgment. We share with compassion. We express gratitude. We move our bodies with appreciation. We sleep deeply. We come to know ourselves.
As we move forward in Your HeartMatters Journey, mindfulness remains a central component of integrating new and healthful behaviors. In the state of being soothed, the brain literally grows new decision-making pathways that allow for a pleasant and subtle shift to daily choices that support optimal health and well-being.
Take a moment to look around you. Pay attention. What do you find when you slow down to look and listen?
Posted in Mindfulness, Your HeartMatters Journey | Tags: Mindfulness, Your HeartMatters Journey | No Comments »