Contentment is not about ignoring or avoiding pain, it isn’t about glossing over or using the dread phrase, “it is what it is”... I would venture to say that contentment isn’t even about happiness.

Contentment doesn’t mean you will never be uncomfortable; contentment is knowing the antidote is right here, in this very moment. The moment is complete.

Join me for today’s episode of The Mindful Minute as we tease apart the paradoxes within contentment and share in a 20-minute guided meditation.

These next five teachings, known in Sanskrit as Niyamas, are principles that we observe within ourselves to develop a mindful way of moving through the world. These are in essence the guidance to Mindful Living.

We start with one that feels very tricky to me… it is most often translated as purity.

However, when we dive into the teachings of this tenet, what we learn is that this teaching is about connecting to and enlivening our energy levels, and we do this by decluttering our minds, bodies, and physical spaces.

So, let’s tap into our inner Marie Kondo and explore joy, energy and the mindfulness of decluttering. Ready?

When someone says to me, “would you like to have a conversation about nature, culture and the sacred?” - the answer is always YES, which is how this interview came to be.

Today, I get to share a conversation with the dynamic author, leader and organizer, Nina Simons.

In this conversation, we talk about :

• Meditation as the subtlest form of self-love

• Archetypal feminine vs gendered feminine and why this is what is missing from our world

• The intertwining of the sacred and activism

• Generational trauma

• The overlapping crisis of our time - indigenous issues, racial equity, gender balance and the environmental crisis

The final teaching in our ethics series is the tenet of non-possessiveness - also referred to as non-attachment or non-clinging in many teachings. This tenet is all about uncovering our desires so that our desires don’t become obsessions and our obsessions don’t possess us.

Left unchecked, our desires keep us stuck. We can’t see other options, we can’t try something new, and we can’t enjoy life because we are too busy obsessing over what we can’t have or didn’t get. And these obsessions lead us to violate the previous ethical teachings of violence, truthfulness, non-stealing and non-excess.

Within our meditation practice, we can see our obsessive thoughts and desires, and we learn to cultivate the opposite thoughts. We name what we already have, what we love or enjoy. We say thank you. In short, the antidote to possessiveness is gratitude.

This is a big one, y’all. Non-excess is likely the ethical tenet that I teach most often {even if I don’t specifically say ‘non-excess’}...

Excess can show up in our food, our work, our entertainment, our possessions, even our spirituality.

We are a people of excess. For many of us, we can get almost anything, usually delivered to our door the next day. And in many countries, we can throw it in a trash can and pay to have it picked up and dumped somewhere we are likely never to see or acknowledge because if we did, we would be horrified.

The deeper we go, the more we begin to understand non-excess as the ultimate pleasure principle. Being alive is not a mistake. We are alive, and we are meant to be awake for it, to enjoy it, and celebrate it.

In this episode of The Mindful Minute, we delve into the myriad of ways we have absorbed the habit of stealing. We will reflect on how we steal from others, the earth, the future, and ourselves.

The primary invitation of non-stealing is to shift our focus from others to ourselves. I love this focus because it is so counterintuitive to what we are taught to believe at a young age.

When we remember to honor ourselves within these ethical teachings, we live full, rich lives with integrity and reciprocity.

In many ways, I find that meditation is an exercise in learning to tolerate the truth of ourselves.

This is why for many, meditation can be DEEPLY uncomfortable at first. We get still and quiet; we hear our actual thoughts; and we feel the truth of our feelings. Insights we might work quite hard to ignore most of the time are now loud and insistent.

The truth is not easy, and yet, it is wildly and vibrantly good for how you feel and engage with your day-to-day life.

Join me for today’s episode of The Mindful Minute as we embark on a discussion of truth and share in a guided, 20-minute meditation.

With this episode, we begin a new journey together. We will spend the next 5 weeks exploring the Ethics of Meditation.

The very first ethical foundation is non-violence.

I believe there is no more immediate crisis in our lives than the crisis of violence. It is one that requires our unwavering attention and intention.

The teachings of non-violence might seem easily understood on the surface but the subtle implications only continue to deepen as your meditation practice progresses.

Join me for today’s episode of The Mindful Minute as we explore the tenet of non-violence and share in a 20-minute guided meditation.