DESIGNING A MINDFUL LIFE...
- a writer
- a meditation teacher
- a life longer meditator (I learned to meditate in college at the tender age of 21.)
- a self-awareness advocate
- a pause button pusher
- a mindful technologist
- a single mother of two teenage sons
WHY I LEARNED TO MEDITATE...
One of the best words to describe me is curious. From a young age, I was inquisitive, a question asker, a sponge for information and knowledge (perhaps reading 100 books one summer during elementary school was evidence of this). When someone describes a life-long learner, it describes me. I’m not sure where or when I developed this quest for knowledge, perhaps my brain came into the world wired this way.
Being such an information sponge has been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that every day I am surprised or in awe of some new discovery, the curse…a brain that never seems to stop. Never a moment of silence. I discovered this downside in college, and in a quest to have a moment’s peace, I learned to meditate.
I remember the first time I meditated, there was something quiet, present and grounding in that session. I felt like I had come home. Meditation was the yin to my curious brain’s fast-paced yang. That was thirty years ago, and I have been meditating ever since. I shudder to think of the person I would be without the constant, calming thread of meditation in my life.
WHY I TEACH MEDITATION...
What does it mean to pause and inhabit the present moment, this moment, the only moment in which your life can be fully felt and experienced?
After years of being asked by friends to teach them to meditate, I attended the McLean Meditation Institute to become a certified meditation teacher. I did it for more than being able to teach my friends. Today’s world has reached epidemic levels of distraction and busyness. It keeps people from being present to the beauty that can be found in daily life.
How many of us race through our days, only to arrive at the end of it with little awareness of all that happened? There is a lack of presence, of experiencing our lives. The present moment is seen as fleeting, or only real if captured in a photo, video or talked about in a tweet. Many of us live for the future or the past and miss the beauty of the present moment.
I want to change this. I feel compelled to change this. We are currently living at the pace of technology, not the pace of humanity, and it’s not sustainable. A life lived without presence, awareness, being fully awake and aware, is not a life fully lived. It’s a manufactured life, less full, less real, and surely less memorable.
What would your life look like to be present, bathe yourself in a moment and live it? Bring your attention to one thing, and only one thing. Get lost in something you love. Leave your phone at home when you go on a hike. Not have to document and capture each and every experience of your day. Be present with the people standing in front of you, rather than the people online. I promise you, a life lived with presence, with awareness, is deeper, more meaningful and richer than a life lived online or at a pace that leaves your day a blur.
I believe that meditation and mindfulness is a superpower hidden in plain sight. It’s the diamond hidden in the stone. To have a life, you must inhabit your life. You must live your life and be aware and present in your life. Mindfulness gives you the ability to slow down and see things you may have missed racing by so quickly, or being lost in distraction. Mindfulness gives you the chance to make choices from the deepest, truest part of yourself, tuning out the drum of the world whose values may not match your own. Mindfulness gives you the ability to:
- live your life rather than someone else’s
- define your own success, not based on others or what the world says
- a focus and depth that reveals the paths meant for you
- live and enjoy your life more fully
Come on this journey of being present, of awakening to yourself and your life fully.
Please explore my space, join in the conversation, book a discovery call or meditation session with me. Give yourself the gift of fully inhabiting your life. There’s a reason gifts are also called presents.
FUN FACTS:
- My nickname is Bee.
- I skipped 5th Grade.
- I have my Irish citizenship.
- Robert Redford was the commencement speaker at two of my three college graduations (at different universities).
- I am a huge Chicago Cubs fan. The Cubs winning the World Series in 2016 was one of the highlights of my life (I was at Game 5).
- I’ve had a subscription to Sports Illustrated since I was 16. I love baseball, basketball, football and hockey. I can’t seem to fall in love with soccer.
- Sometimes, I would rather spend a day with books than people.
- My sons call me Mum, in homage to my mother who was born and raised in England. Sadly, they never met this beautiful soul, who is still the best person I have ever known.
- I love my dog (Addison Rose) and horse (Cocoa), and sometimes I would rather be with them than people too.
- The ocean calms me like nothing else, perhaps I was a mermaid in another life.