Illumined Life Leadership

“…We have an infinite number of moments between now and the time we are going to die. That is a lot of time for living. So there is no hurry!” —John Kabat-Zinn

If you’ve been following my recent blogs, and/or you subscribed to our Summer of Wellbeing, you know I’ve been blogging about John Kabat-Zinn’s book, Mindfulness for Beginners. Let’s keep it going for a bit longer.
Although I’ve already discussed a few of these in my previous posts, let’s re-cap what Kabat-Zinn tells us are the 7 Attitudes that are foundational to a mindfulness practice. He describes them as:

• Non-Judging – Lead with your heart, here, not your mind. There’s nothing to do or be, just sit in awareness and understand what’s happening.
• Patience – Lack of patience prevents us from being where we are already, the whole point of mindfulness. 
• Beginner’s Mind – Even Monks and Lamas with decades of experience may say, “I don’t really know anything,” and they mean it! One Zen Master is famous for having described his forty years of teaching as “selling water by the river.”
• Trust – Trust in the nothingness. Trust in what you discover (or you don’t!). Trust in your senses. Trust your feelings. 
• Non-Striving – Set aside “human doing.” Boredom can be unbelievably interesting. As you watch it, you might find that it dissolves into something much more interesting, another mind-state. 
• Acceptance – Has nothing to do with passive resignation – far from it. Ultimately, it means realizing how things are and finding ways to be in wise relationship with them. And then to act, as appropriate, out of that clarity of vision.
• Letting go – It means letting be. It doesn’t mean pushing things away or forcing ourselves to release what we are clinging to, what we are most strongly attached to. It is non-attachment to outcome. We can let go of both our cravings and our fears, we can let things be as they are. 

I don’t know about you, but when blogging about mindfulness and reading/writing about these 7 attitudes, I catch myself breathing deeply, smiling, and ultimately “being”. I feel that non-judgment, trust and acceptance within me, and it truly does become easier to let go. And then it makes me ponder, these attitudes are not just about being mindful, they are truly about LIVING. How we choose to go through all of our moments. Pondering further, I can’t help but to get excited about contemplating our Beginner’s Mind in particular. In the book, Kabat-Zinn compares beginner’s mind to the beauty and joyfulness of young children, and the WONDER they see and feel in all of their doings and beings. 

This idea took me right back to my childhood and the freedom and freshness I experienced. In fact, while walking our dog this week, my husband led me down his normal walking path. Under a bridge that leads to the other side of the street. In that second I went back in time to my life as an 8 year old. This exact spot (under the bridge) was what I called “Paradise”. It was my paradise, because I would ride my bike there and climb under the bridge to think and dream by myself! Now, I had a huge laugh, because under the bridge was a lot of trash, not-to-enticing smells, and I’m sure some gators lurking under the water. Yet, as a child I didn’t judge the bridge or anything around it. I didn’t see all those “bad” things, because I chose to see a “paradise.” I craved WONDER and created it for myself. 

Why does the WONDER need to stop when we “grow up”? Why does the judgement get stronger, the trust lessen, the lack of patience increase, and our fears falsely lead us to believe that we have to DO to BE? 

NOPE. I won’t buy into it any longer. Are you with me? How did you WONDER as a child. Were you full of WONDER? 

My request for you this week is to step back into the past briefly to remind yourself of that WONDER and give yourself permission to bring that energy into your life today. Then, thank your past and LET IT GO and come into the NOW, where you can create a life full of WONDER through this magnificent practice of mindfulness. 

“Challenge for us as adults is to see whether we can meet each moment an recognize it as fresh and therefore interesting – after all, we’ve never seen this one (moment) before. 

“If you take a ‘you’ve seen one moment, you’ve seen them all’ attitude, you’re going to get very bored cultivating mindfulness.” — John Kabat-Zinn

It’s your life, lead it well!
Namaste,

Monique