Oh, surrender, what a complex equation you are.

Within today’s class, we will

• Tease apart the difference between letting go and giving up

• Look at examples of the action of surrender

• Engage with the “trustful” aspect of surrender

• Discuss how the weaving together of discipline, self-study and surrender elevate the practice of meditation from a simple concentration exercise to an opportunity for spiritual awakening.

This week’s mindful living tenet is Self-Study, and this teaching also asks us “who are you?”

Who are you without a job?

Without a plan?

Without a diagnosis?

Without a gender?

Without any of your conditioning?

We talk through the practice of self-study and engaging our curiosity muscle. We explore both how this tenet was taught originally and several ways we can incorporate it into our daily lives. And, most importantly, we talk about why this is not ‘fixing’ yourself.

Today’s Mindful Living tenet is self-discipline, or more literally, the fire of transformation. This teaching reminds us that meditation and mindful living is not meant to be synonymous with sunshine and rainbows or with joy 100% of the time.

Mindfulness grows from burning away non-supportive habits in order to actualize who we really are.

Self-discipline is the teaching that focuses attention so that attention becomes intention.

It is in this way that we practice.

So let’s burn; let’s do the work.

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.