Find YOUR center in confusion (here's how!)

Mindful Mondays.

The following post is part of a Seed Pod collaboration about libraries. Seed Pods are a SmallStack community project designed to help smaller publications lift each other up by publishing and cross-promoting around a common theme. We’re helping each other plant the seeds for growth!

Today’s post is the antithesis of mindful …

… in a way. I mean, I am writing with presence. But at this very moment, I am present to SO MANY THINGS. For example:

• The cacophony of conversations that surround my child & me in this trendy, coffee spot café between various clusters of friends who chatter away contentedly in their corners

• Said child interrupting me about every half-minute to read details of news blurbs he is finding utterly fascinating in a “vintage” 1995 National Geographic Magazine that he discovered on the shelves here (that is meant to be entertaining him while I write)

• The amAAAAAAAzing soundtrack that’s just below blaring level on the café’s speakers & mostly includes indie punk rock songs (it’s all I can do not to head-bang & make my son cringe)

• The brackets of ideas that litter this post template, at least at the outset, roughly forming thoughts-seeds that came to me for this post’s content in my meditation yesterday

• Memories born both from the brackets, as well as from the old news stories, that keep interrupting my thoughts … ironically far more than the music & background noise which have been mostly staples of my freelance writing life

• The freight train that just blasted through town, blowing its horn at full blast, right on time to be added to this list

How is a writer to complete a cohesive thought in such surroundings? And how does she write even one thought about mindfulness???

The answer is easy: Just be. And just do it. Because every moment is a mindful moment when we focus on what is.

If you are practicing mindfulness in your life, but aren’t ready to pay subscription fees for this newsletter, consider helping us both out & visiting one of my affiliate sites to find tools to help you learn about & regulate your own emotions; share tools that you know work with the ones you support; gift items to your kiddos or their families. Check out journals (& much more!) at Big Life Journal*. Create your own Calm Down Corner (& so much more!) at Generation Mindful. Get custom weighted blankets & plushies through SensaCalm.

The altar in progress with placeholders for family photos, religious images & space for other physical totems. These ranged from small statues, fresh flowers, candles, crosses, beads & even a very small & ornate urn of beloved ashes.

Typically, I like to write in pure flow for these Mindful Monday posts. Their purpose is to share what’s on my mind, embody some true mindfulness in writing (& Substack is the perfect place to do that), plus share some deeper insight about the tools I personally use——versus the quick-link shares I normally provide in the WBBH newsletters. I often write these pieces on Sundays, since that’s usually the day of the week where I find I am most centered. (And it gives me a chance to get the post out to you first thing Monday mornings, whenever that works out.)

But Sunday of this week was too busy to make it work: Not only did I have a day full of meetings & solo parenting, simultaneously, but I had some emotional housekeeping that really took precedent. Allow me to explain …

There’s an image above that captures an eclectic spirit-in-progress of soul saturation.

It’s one of a series of shots I grabbed yesterday, Sunday, from my own spiritual service where our community came together to share a multitude of messages about what centers us each individually. Pan-religious, in a sense, the service honored World Day of Prayer, & drew from Muslim, Christian, Hebrew, Animist & other religious rites & rituals. We sang & prayed & meditated together. And then we created a shared altar of special symbols, totems, pictures & messages that serve to connect us to the holy without & within. You can read the caption under the image to learn more about what people shared.

I placed a small, see-through statuette in the shape of a pyramid that my family made together as part of a spiritual project-come-homeschool-lesson. We made it on World Day of Prayer 2019. I can recall feeling so much peace in the process, even along with my excitement at our creation.

But this year, I had a lot more to leave on the altar, invisibly. See-through … in all ways.

These included:

My tears. My old patterns. My permeable boundaries that are ready to harden & gel, just like that pyramid once did to take the strong & sturdy shape of me.

It is September. A month when many in the education realm plonk themselves down amid the chaos of others’ conversations, plans & schemes, & try to bridge their own goals & curiosity & creative endeavors to make something beautiful of it all. … A time when eager commitments breed anxious over-commitments & personal boundaries bleed over into the resentful yeses of not-quite-no’s.

These old patterns have been a stone in my shoe my entire life. And I am leaving them at last. They are also universal. And that’s why I write about a spiritual subject in an education newsletter.

I wept & released yesterday. I left these old wounds on the altar & did not pick them back up to take them with me when I left. (Unlike the pyramid.)

Are you ready to grow stronger & more centered along with me? If yes, then you’ll really want to know about the special tool I’m sharing today.

I’ve found an amazing tool that is NOT religious, but contains the holy sanctity of choice, even as it teaches about the religions of the world. But more than that, it teaches about the most important part of any community or culture: the SOUL of us, together. It teaches respect, resilience, peace & of course, emotions——what they feel like & why we have them. It can be used in classrooms, community groups, Sunday schools & family home living rooms. In fact, it IS being used in all of those places around the world right now——including with refugee groups in Uganda, SEL lobbyists in India, librarians & therapists & parents in the U.S. It’s called Spiritual Playdate, & it bills itself quite accurately as “Social Emotional & Spiritual Learning.”

On an international call for Spiritual Playdate users last week, I felt the excitement from around the globe by organizers & activists who are both new to the material & seasoned in using & teaching it. I’m still pretty novice, myself, but have truly adored what I’ve both learned & taught using their materials——in my home & with other groups of families. It’s not resource-heavy, but rather ready-to-use. (They even have a special customizable discount for groups in emerging nations.) Unlike some of the other tools I share here in long-form Mondays, Spiritual Playdate is not one of my affiliate tools. But I am a self-ordained ambassador, because I believe in the cause SO MUCH.

It’s synchronicity. (And what isn’t, really?) Call it synergy, but I just snapped this pic by the checkout at the coffee shop:

Everyday altars are collections of the things we love. What do you hold sacred?

hand holding out a stone POV of camera with cairn in background

*Today only, there’s a special at BLJ for 15% off Dream Affirmation Cards + the Sharing JOY Conversation Cards. Check them out! (The cards are worth the price even when the sale ends, IMO.)