2020 has been a year like no other. So many things have happened to us as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic instability, divisive politics, fake news, and the constant acts of injustice, oppression, and violence against indigenous and people of color, women, children, the elderly, the disabled, and LGBTQ communities. In an effort to provide support to everyone, I am using the Thriving Mindfully Academy’s platform to launch Loving Kindness Month this month to remind us all of the power we have to slow down and take better care of ourselves with gentleness and nonjudgment.
Hi Friends! I am taking a summer self-care social media break. I’ll return on Sept 8th. In the meantime, sign up for my email updates (will send several this summer).
Technology has become our BFF and made life and work easier. It has also caused many of us to be glued to digital devices for the majority of our day. As a result, we are missing out on being present for moments that matter. We’re so plugged in that we are suffering from digital overload and distraction. We don’t even realize we need tech-life balance.
Does that sound like you or someone you know?
What Is Tech-Life Balance?
Tech-life balance is the use of technology in mindful, intentional, and healthy ways that have a positive impact on our personal and professional life and relationships.
How Do We Maintain Our Relationship with Technology & Create Tech-Life Balance?
Digital Wellness is the answer.
Digital Wellness is the use of technology in mindful, intentional, and healthy ways. Watch the video and go here to listen to Thriving Mindfully Podcast about digital wellness.
What Gets in the Way of Practicing Digital Wellness?
Digital overload and distraction are two of the most common challenges to digital wellness. Digital overload happens when our brain is bombarded with constant electronic stimuli.
Digital overload pushes our brain to work overtime. It divides our attention and causes our stress levels to soar. When we experience digital overload and unplug from our digital devices, our brains remain in a hyper-alert and distracted state.
Digital distraction occurs when we spend too much time with digital devices that it is detrimental and even dangerous to our relationships.
It’s Time to Get Real About Your Tech Use!
Get your favorite pen, journal, or a piece of paper. Take a few minutes to answer each of the questions below. They will help you become aware of how you currently use technology. Your responses will help you identify what needs to be included in your Digital Wellness Intention.
Questions
How much time do you currently spend online Monday through Friday and on the weekends?
Do you take breaks from using technology?
What stresses you out when you are online?
Does your body experience tension, tightness, or discomfort while you are online?
How do you take care of your body while you are online (the way you sit or stand, screens that protect your eyes, etc.)?
Do you sleep with your digital devices on or near your bed?
How You Can Use Digital Wellness to Be Intentional About Your Tech Use
You create digital wellness in your life, career, and business with an intention and a plan. In my work at the Thriving Mindfully Academy, I offer people just like you and mission-driven companies, organizations, and communities three steps to create digital wellness. The three steps include:
Prepare a digital wellness intention. A digital wellness intention is a statement about the way you want to use technology and how you want to feel when you use technology.
Conduct a tech assessment. Explore how you are you currently using technology and the barriers you may have to your tech-life balance.
Establish a weekly schedule with a revised digital wellness intention. Based on what you learned from your tech assessment, revise your digital wellness intention. Identify one to three steps you can take to create tech-life balance on a weekly basis over the next 30, 60 or 90 days. Remember to start small!
Resources
If you or your organization, company, and community need more self-care, mindfulness, and wellness resources, visit the Thriving Mindfully Academy here.
If you are new to mindfulness, self-care, and wellness or simply want to learn more about these areas, visit the Thriving Mindfully Academy’s resource pages below.
I help people just like you and mission-driven companies, organizations, and communities outsmart stress and burnout, reclaim and practice their birthrights of mindfulness and self-care, and create wellness in their life, career, business, and community service. My personal goal is to empower as many people as I can in my local and global communities with the education, training, and practices they can use to create their own health insurance plan with mindfulness, self-care, and wellness.
My services are offered virtually (via Zoom, Facebook Live, Google Meet, Skype, and FreeConferenceCall.com) and in-person. I offer trainings and one-on-one coaching sessions. I am available to speak at your next conference and event, and for digital, print, radio, and television interviews.
Interested in exploring how you might work with me this year?
Fill out my client intake survey here and then I’ll set up a free 20-minute consultation call with you. Once you complete the survey, I will follow up with an email.
For more information, contact me at ananda@anandaleeke.com.
About Me
My name is Ananda Leeke. I am an award-winning wellness professional, author, and artist. I discovered mindfulness, self-care, and wellness when my career as a lawyer, an investment banker, and a digital communications professional stressed me out, caused burnout, and did not produce the level of success I expected. During my healing journey, I studied and practiced meditation, yoga, reiki, journaling, art-making, and creative writing. They helped me develop self-care practices and become resilient. As a result, I became a certified yoga and mindfulness teacher, a reiki master practitioner, a sound healer, and an artist-in-residence for the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts. Today, I share my gifts and expertise as the founder and Chief Mindfulness Officer of Ananda Leeke Consulting, a wellness company, and the Thriving Mindfully Academy, an online learning platform. Visit AnandaLeeke.com for more information. Follow @anandaleeke on social media.
About My Mindfulness Books
Check out my three mindfulness books here (available on Amazon). My books make great gifts for yourself and others.
Most of us human beings are creatures of habit. We live our lives on autopilot. Autopilot happens when we repeat behaviors day in and day out. Our brains hardwire these behaviors so we can do them again and again without thinking. When we’re on autopilot, we disconnect from the present moment and reality. We exist either in the past or some place in the future.
When we’re on autopilot, we repeat the same habits, patterns, and routines without any awareness of whether some or all no longer serve our highest good. When we’re on autopilot, we can get caught up in our thoughts and emotions where our brain reacts automatically without thinking. As a result, we may overreact and say or do something that we later regret.
Autopilot takes us away from our lives and work. Mindfulness brings us back to our lives and work. Practicing mindfulness interrupts autopilot.
What Is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is your birthright. You are born with the ability to be aware of what’s happening inside and outside of ourselves in the present moment.
Mindfulness becomes a practice when you choose to pay attention to what’s happening inside and outside of yourself with the “Big 5” mindful self-care vitamins: loving kindness, compassion, nonjudgment, patience, and forgiveness.
Mindfulness helps you:
Act with awareness.
Change the hardwiring of your brain.
Create new healthy habits.
Make better choices.
As you practice mindfulness, remember the following:
You will lose your focus. You’re human. It’s normal and natural to lose your focus.
When you lose your focus, smile when you become aware of the loss of focus, and use your breath as an anchor to return to the present moment. You smile because you are giving yourself an opportunity to practice your birthright. You breathe deeply because breathing gives you an opportunity to reset and return to the present moment.
Release the need to criticize, judge or shame yourself when you loose your focus even if you lose it 10 times in 10 seconds. Use the Big 5 mindful self-care vitamins of loving kindness, compassion, nonjudgment, patience, and forgiveness to ground yourself as you remember mindfulness is a practice and a process.
Meditation: A Mindfulness Practice That Can Help You to Stop Living on Autopilot
Meditation is a mindfulness practice that invites you to befriend your mind by choosing to focus your awareness on what’s happening inside and outside of yourself. It’s the act of observing thoughts in the mind, physical sensations, and sounds.
In meditation, you can use your breath to help focus your attention and cultivate stillness by observing it and coming back to it when your mind focuses on thoughts, physical sensations, and sounds.
Meditation can help you increase self-awareness, relax, improve concentration, reduce stress, strengthen emotional and physical well-being, and encourage a healthy lifestyle.
Below are several suggestions you can use in your meditation practice.
Breathing: In and out through the nose OR in through the nose and out through the mouth
Posture: Seated, standing, or laying down
Eyes: Closed or opened with a slightly lowered gaze
Focus: Observe the sensations in the body. Notice the thoughts in the mind. Pay attention to the breath. Observe the sounds around you. You can also use a mantra (word or phrase), music, and movement to help you focus your attention in meditation.
Resources
If you or your organization, company, and community need more self-care, mindfulness, and wellness resources, visit the Thriving Mindfully Academy here.
If you are new to mindfulness, self-care, and wellness or simply want to learn more about these areas, visit the Thriving Mindfully Academy’s resource pages below.
I help people just like you and mission-driven companies, organizations, and communities outsmart stress and burnout, reclaim and practice their birthrights of mindfulness and self-care, and create wellness in their life, career, business, and community service. My personal goal is to empower as many people as I can in my local and global communities with the education, training, and practices they can use to create their own health insurance plan with mindfulness, self-care, and wellness.
My services are offered virtually (via Zoom, Facebook Live, Google Meet, Skype, and FreeConferenceCall.com) and in-person. I offer trainings and one-on-one coaching sessions. I am available to speak at your next conference and event, and for digital, print, radio, and television interviews.
Interested in exploring how you might work with me this year?
Fill out my client intake survey here and then I’ll set up a free 20-minute consultation call with you. Once you complete the survey, I will follow up with an email.
For more information, contact me at ananda@anandaleeke.com.
About Me
My name is Ananda Leeke. I am an award-winning wellness professional, author, and artist. I discovered mindfulness, self-care, and wellness when my career as a lawyer, an investment banker, and a digital communications professional stressed me out, caused burnout, and did not produce the level of success I expected. During my healing journey, I studied and practiced meditation, yoga, reiki, journaling, art-making, and creative writing. They helped me develop self-care practices and become resilient. As a result, I became a certified yoga and mindfulness teacher, a reiki master practitioner, a sound healer, and an artist-in-residence for the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts. Today, I share my gifts and expertise as the founder and Chief Mindfulness Officer of Ananda Leeke Consulting, a wellness company, and the Thriving Mindfully Academy, an online learning platform. Visit AnandaLeeke.com for more information. Follow @anandaleeke on social media.
About My Mindfulness Books
Check out my three mindfulness books here (available on Amazon). My books make great gifts for yourself and others.
That’s right you were born with the ability to be aware of what’s happening inside and outside of yourself in the present moment.
Mindfulness becomes a practice when you choose to pay attention to what’s happening inside and outside of yourself in the present moment with the Big 5: loving kindness, compassion, nonjudgment, patience, and loving kindness. The Big 5 are also mindful self-care vitamins you can take daily to strengthen your practice.
Benefits of Mindfulness
Mindfulness can help you improve your well-being, physical health, and mental health. That’s why mindfulness is essential to creating your own healthcare insurance plan!
Well-Being: When we choose to focus our attention on the present moment, we may discover it is easier to enjoy life as it occurs, find greater acceptance of what’s happening, and notice we are more present in our activities which can help us cope with the ebbs and flow of daily living.
Physical Health: Scientists have discovered mindfulness techniques can help relieve stress, treat heart disease, lower blood pressure, reduce chronic pain, improve sleep, and more.
Mental Health: Psychotherapists have included mindfulness meditation in their treatment of patients who experience depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, relationship conflicts, anxiety, and other mental health issues.
The Connection Between Mindfulness, Wellness, and Self-Care
Wellness is becoming aware of and making healthy choices that support and strengthen your spiritual, emotional, mental, physical, and creative energy and well-being.
The “becoming aware of” refers to mindfulness and reminds you that mindfulness is your birthright and a practice you can choose to be present to what’s happening inside and outside of ourselves. When you practice mindfulness, you are choosing to notice healthy choices that can create wellness in your life, career, and business.
The “making healthy choices” refers to self-care. Self-care is the act of nurturing your spirit, heart, mind, body, breath, and life in ways that uplift you. Self-care practices make wellness come alive in your life, career, and business. They help strengthen and support energy and well-being.
When you marry mindfulness with wellness and self-care, you have everything you need to create a health insurance plan you can rely on.
You can bring mindfulness into your life when you use self-care practices and daily activities including meditation, yoga, journaling, walking, tai chi, mantra chanting, eating, bathing, speaking, listening, cleaning your home, and more. The key to making these practices and activities mindful is in your intention, choice, and awareness.
As you practice mindfulness, remember the following:
You will lose your focus. You’re human. It’s normal and natural to lose your focus.
When you lose your focus, smile when you become aware of the loss of focus, and use your breath as an anchor to return to the present moment. You smile because you are giving yourself an opportunity to practice your birthright. You breathe deeply because breathing gives you an opportunity to reset and return to the present moment.
Release the need to criticize, judge or shame yourself when you loose your focus even if you lose it 10 times in 10 seconds. Use the Big 5 mindful self-care vitamins of loving kindness, compassion, nonjudgment, patience, and forgiveness to ground yourself as you remember mindfulness is a practice and a process.
If you or your organization, company, and community need more self-care, mindfulness, and wellness resources, visit the Thriving Mindfully Academy here.
If you are new to mindfulness, self-care, and wellness or simply want to learn more about these areas, visit the Thriving Mindfully Academy’s resource pages below.
I help people just like you and mission-driven companies, organizations, and communities outsmart stress and burnout, reclaim and practice their birthrights of mindfulness and self-care, and create wellness in their life, career, business, and community service. My personal goal is to empower as many people as I can in my local and global communities with the education, training, and practices they can use to create their own health insurance plan with mindfulness, self-care, and wellness.
My services are offered virtually (via Zoom, Facebook Live, Google Meet, Skype, and FreeConferenceCall.com) and in-person. I offer trainings and one-on-one coaching sessions. I am available to speak at your next conference and event, and for digital, print, radio, and television interviews.
Interested in exploring how you might work with me this year?
Fill out my client intake survey here and then I’ll set up a free 20-minute consultation call with you. Once you complete the survey, I will follow up with an email.
For more information, contact me at ananda@anandaleeke.com.
About Me
My name is Ananda Leeke. I am an award-winning wellness professional, author, and artist. I discovered mindfulness, self-care, and wellness when my career as a lawyer, an investment banker, and a digital communications professional stressed me out, caused burnout, and did not produce the level of success I expected. During my healing journey, I studied and practiced meditation, yoga, reiki, journaling, art-making, and creative writing. They helped me develop self-care practices and become resilient. As a result, I became a certified yoga and mindfulness teacher, a reiki master practitioner, a sound healer, and an artist-in-residence for the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts. Today, I share my gifts and expertise as the founder and Chief Mindfulness Officer of Ananda Leeke Consulting, a wellness company, and the Thriving Mindfully Academy, an online learning platform. Visit AnandaLeeke.com for more information. Follow @anandaleeke on social media.
About My Mindfulness Books
Check out my three mindfulness books here (available on Amazon). My books make great gifts for yourself and others.
Many people misunderstand self-care. They think they don’t deserve or need it. Some think they have to earn it. Others think it is optional, requires a lot of time and money, and will cause them to be labeled selfish because they have chosen to care for themselves instead of caring for others.
Self-care is the act of nurturing your spirit, heart, mind, body, breath, and life in ways that uplift you. Self-care allows you to tap into your inner mother for nurturing. Self-care makes you strong not weak. Self-care is absolutely free and accessible to you 24 hours a day because it begins with your breath.
Stop right now where you are and breathe deeply. Make your breath your BFF with one to seven deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. Notice how your breath and body feel. Guess what? You just experienced a moment of self-care that did not cost you any money and took very little time.
Self-care looks different in each person’s life, career, and business. Check out the self-care examples below. Try one or several. Leave a comment about how the practice felt and impacted your life.
Self-care is breathing deeply 1–3 times before you start and end your day.
Self-care is closing your eyes and being still right where you are for a few minutes.
Self-care is listening to your spirit, heart, mind, and body.
Self-care is resting.
Self-care is taking a short or long nap.
Self-care is choosing to sleep in when the body needs it.
Self-care is unplugging from digital devices.
Self-care is having a chill out day, week, weekend, month, or year to slow down and go with the flow.
Self-care is being quiet.
Self-care is listening to soothing music.
Self-care is reading anything that inspires, comforts, encourages, motivates, informs, and makes you feel good or laugh.
Self-care is laughing.
Self-care is being honest with yourself about what you can and cannot be and do given your current state of spiritual, emotional, mental, physical, creative, and financial well-being.
Self-care is telling yourself it is okay not to know what to say or do next.
Self-care is tapping into, trusting, and following your intuition.
Self-care is acknowledging how you really feel no matter what emotion it is.
Self-care is screaming into a pillow or yelling in your room to release whatever you need to release.
Self-care is calling someone you trust and venting, cussing, and expressing your raw emotions.
Self-care is giving yourself permission and space to not have it all together every day.
Self-care is asking for and receiving HELP.
Self-care is seeking support from a therapist, a mental health professional, a life coach or an accountability partner.
Self-care is setting an intention on how you want to show up in your life, career, business, and community each day.
Self-care is creating boundaries around how you use your time each day.
Self-care is saying NO to things and experiences you really don’t have the energy to do.
Self-care is releasing thoughts, beliefs, habits, behaviors, and relationships that no longer serve your highest good.
Self-care is welcoming new thoughts, beliefs, practices, and relationships that uplift and support your growth.
Self-care is giving yourself loving kindness and compassion.
Self-care is releasing the need to criticize and judge yourself.
Self-care is being patient with yourself.
Self-care is forgiving yourself.
Self-care is recognizing you are doing the best you can where you are.
Self-care is spending time in prayer.
Self-care is meditating.
Self-care is saying affirmations.
Self-care is practicing yoga, reiki, tapping, tai chi, mindful walking, and other mindfulness practices.
Self-care is moving your body mindfully with exercise.
Self-care is chanting mantras.
Self-care is singing.
Self-care is journaling.
Self-care is making art.
Self-care is coloring.
Self-care is wearing your favorite colors.
Self-care is sipping your favorite tea, coffee, or healthy beverage.
Self-care is eating healthy.
Self-care is spending time with family, friends, and neighbors who uplift and love you.
Self-care is having meaningful conversations with people you like and love.
Self-care is being grateful for all you are and have.
Self-care is celebrating your personal and professional growth by acknowledging your small, medium, and big wins each day, week, month, and year.
Self-care is taking one small step each day to nurture your spirit, heart, mind, body, breath, and life.
Self-care is also one of your superpowers for serving and supporting others in your life, career, and business, especially during intense times. When you take care of yourself first, you strengthen your capacity to show up in your life as a whole, healthy, and resilient person who is in a better position to serve and support loved ones, colleagues, clients, and members of your community.
At the Thriving Mindfully Academy (TMA), I help people just like you and mission-driven companies, organizations, and communities understand, accept, and claim self-care as a birthright. TMA uses the 4Bs of Self-Care as the foundation for virtual and in-person trainings, coaching, and resources.
The 4Bs of Self-Care include:
Self-care is a BIRTHRIGHT.
Self-care is a BELIEF that you are worthy of it.
Self-care is a way of BEING that takes practice, patience, and time because it is a process you can with small steps to make it come alive in your life.
Self-care begins with the BREATH (which is FREE and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year).
RESOURCES: If you or your organization, company, and community need more self-care, mindfulness, and wellness resources, visit the Thriving Mindfully Academy here.
If you are new to mindfulness, self-care, and wellness or simply want to learn more about these areas, visit the Thriving Mindfully Academy’s resource pages below.
TRAINING, SPEAKING & COACHING: I help people just like you and mission-driven companies, organizations, and communities outsmart stress and burnout, reclaim and practice their birthrights of mindfulness and self-care, and create wellness in their life, career, business, and community service. My personal goal is to empower as many people as I can in my local and global communities with the education, training, and practices they can use to create their own health insurance plan with mindfulness, self-care, and wellness.
My services are offered virtually (via Zoom, Facebook Live, Google Meet, Skype, and FreeConferenceCall.com) and in-person. I offer trainings and one-on-one coaching sessions. I am available to speak at your next conference and event, and for digital, print, radio, and television interviews.
Interested in exploring how you might work with me this year?
Fill out my client intake survey here and then I’ll set up a free 20-minute consultation call with you. Once you complete the survey, I will follow up with an email.
For more information, contact me at ananda@anandaleeke.com.
ABOUT ME: My name is Ananda Leeke. I am an award-winning wellness professional, author, and artist. I discovered mindfulness, self-care, and wellness when my career as a lawyer, an investment banker, and a digital communications professional stressed me out, caused burnout, and did not produce the level of success I expected. During my healing journey, I studied and practiced meditation, yoga, reiki, journaling, art-making, and creative writing. They helped me develop self-care practices and become resilient. As a result, I became a certified yoga and mindfulness teacher, a reiki master practitioner, a sound healer, and an artist-in-residence for the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts. Today, I share my gifts and expertise as the founder and Chief Mindfulness Officer of Ananda Leeke Consulting, a wellness company, and the Thriving Mindfully Academy, an online learning platform. Visit AnandaLeeke.com for more information. Follow @anandaleeke on social media.
ABOUT MY MINDFULNESS BOOKS: Check out my three mindfulness books here (available on Amazon). My books make great gifts for yourself and others.
Digital Wellness Month is a new initiative that was created in response to the time most of us are currently spending on technology to communicate in our lives, careers, and businesses during COVID-19 (known to some of us as the new normal, #QuarantineLife, lockdown, or my personal favorite – Q-Life).
The purpose of Digital Wellness Month is to encourage and help people to practice tech life balance with small steps.
During each week in May, tips and resources will be shared to help you create tech life balance in your life, career, and business on my blog and social media. Follow Ananda Leeke on Facebook and LinkedIn. Check out @anandaleeke on Instagram and Twitter.
Go here to listen to the Thriving Mindfully Podcast to learn more about Digital Wellness Month and my digital wellness journey that included my struggles with spending way too much time online and burnout.
What Is Digital Wellness?
Digital Wellness is the use of technology in mindful, intentional, and healthy ways.
Go here to listen to Thriving Mindfully Podcast about digital wellness.
Becoming Mindful About Your Tech Use
Get your favorite pen, journal, or a piece of paper. Take a few minutes to answer each of the questions below. They will help you become aware of how you currently use technology. Your responses will help you identify what needs to be included in your Digital Wellness Intention.
Questions
How much time do you currently spend online Monday through Friday and on the weekends?
Do you take breaks from using technology?
What stresses you out when you are online?
Does your body experience tension, tightness, or discomfort while you are online?
How do you take care of your body while you are online (the way you sit or stand, screens that protect your eyes, etc.)?
Do you sleep with your digital devices on or near your bed?
Being Intentional About Your Tech Use
Digital Wellness becomes a reality in your life, career, and business when you take time to slow down and to create a Digital Wellness Intention, a statement about the way you want to use technology. Use my Digital Wellness Intention as a sample (see below).
Sample Digital Wellness Intention
I am mindful and intentional about the ways I use technology. I honor my spirit, heart, mind, and body with mindful self-care practices including breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, and mindful movement while I am online and offline. I take breaks, use time boundaries. and unplug to manage my tech consumption. I place my digital devices in my living room or kitchen at the end of the day. The end result is a healthier me.
Digital Wellness Plan
A digital wellness plan is a gift you give yourself to help manage your time online with mindful self-care practices. Mindful self-care practices encourage you to slow down, become aware of how you spend your time online, and identify and take small steps towards having a healthier digital life. Examples include breathing exercises, journaling, massage, meditation, physical movement (walking, running, yoga, and aerobic classes), rest (naps and a good night’s sleep), setting time boundaries, unplugging, and more.
Tech Life Balance Tips
Make Your Breath Your BFF: Before you get out of bed, incorporate breathing exercises into your morning routine by taking 7 deep breaths. Place your hand on your heart as you inhale and exhale through your nose. Do the same thing before you go to bed.
Mindful Moment: Take 1 deep breath before turning on your digital devices, answering your phone or responding to an email or text.
Mindful Movement Break: While you’re working during the day, step away from your digital devices and take a 3-5 minute break to breathe deeply move your body.
A Few More Things!
Remember to be patient with yourself as you make changes in your life, career, and business.
Take small steps. Make them baby steps.
Celebrate your victories no matter how small, medium or big they are.
Go here to get the Thriving Mindfully Academy’s resources on mindfulness, self-care, and wellness.
Enjoy your digital wellness journey!
Need More Support?
Join me on May 27th from 7-8:30 p.m. ET for the Digital Wellness 101 Webinar via Zoom. During the webinar, you will:
Learn about and understand wellness and digital wellness
Identify barriers to your tech life balance
Practice mindful self-care exercises (deep breathing, mindful moments, and eye, keyboard, and gentle office yoga while seated in a chair) to relieve stress
Receive tech life balance tips and resources
Set a digital wellness intention
Begin the process of creating a digital wellness plan that includes small action steps, accountability support, and self-celebration
Happy Second Year Anniversary Thriving Mindfully Meetup Group!
I am deeply grateful for everyone who has attended the Mindful Monday Meditation classes since April 16, 2018, at Qi Kratom CBD Tea. It’s been a blessing to share meditation, mindfulness, self-care practices, gentle yoga, silence, hugs, and delicious tea with you. Building community with you is powerful!
In case you didn’t know, our powerful community was launched as a Meetup Group during Stress Awareness Month and on Stress Awareness Day to support folx who wanted to practice meditation and mindfulness in community, felt stressed, overwhelmed, and anxious about issues in their life, career, and business.
I have learned so much from everyone. Your presence has been a gift that continues to bless me even now that we are living in a new normal with new opportunities to embrace loving kindness for ourselves and others virtually. My prayer and intention for our third year is to continue to open my heart and serve our diverse community with your support.
REFLECTION AND SHARING
Check out the photo slideshows below and leave a comment that expresses how the community has helped you. Feel free to share your favorite moments like my poetry and favorite meditation cues, Martin’s poetry and amazing baked treats, Sincere’s sound baths, the guest teachers Angel and Corey, my favorite sayings, or the fabulous tea blends that Qi Kratom CBD Tea served.
PHOTO SLIDESHOW #1
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PHOTO SLIDESHOW #2
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WHAT’S NEXT
We will continue to meet on the first Monday of each month via our new virtual platform on Zoom. Check the Meetup Group page here for the dates in May and June.
Right now, I am leading Mindful Monday Meditation and Sound Bath, a donation-based series, on Zoom from 7-8 p.m. ET in April and May. Sign up here. Invite your family, friends, and colleagues to join you. The first May session will serve as our monthly Meetup Group.
SPECIAL THANKS
Special thanks to ee, Kai Kai, Gigi, Sincere, Naima, and Vince of Qi Kratom CBD Tea for hosting our group, providing tea, and being a vital part of our community. You have been an amazing community partner.
Many thanks to Angel Dungee, Corey Castle, ee, and Sincere for leading the classes when I was away.
Deep bow of gratitude to Martin Parker for your support, poetry sharing, and tasty baked goods.
Together, we have successfully laid the foundation for an awesome and diverse mindfulness community that supports folx in and who visit the DC area. I look forward to serving our community together in our coming year!
FINAL WORDS WITH NEW RESOURCES
Have you heard about the Thriving Mindfully Academy, an online learning platform that provides personal and professional development education, coaching, training, and resources in the areas below.
Mindfulness 101
Mindful Self-Care
Mindful Creativity
Mindful at Work
Mindful Communication
Mindful Relationships
Mindful Leadership
Mindful Technology
In March, I decided to to offer a soft launch of the Thriving Mindfully Academy to support and help people just like YOU and mission-driven companies, organizations, and communities navigate the COVID-19 emergency. Go here to learn more about it. Feel free to share it with your family, friends, and colleagues.
May we all continue to take great care of ourselves with loving kindness and embrace Thriving Mindfully in everything we think, feel, say, and do!
Here’s a much needed reminder I received recently.
WE ARE RESILIENT!
That’s right I used the big “R” word and claimed it for all of us!
What is resilience?
It’s a human quality and a choice that allows us to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of any adversity, crisis, difficulty, disappointment or failure in our lives, careers, and businesses. It takes choosing to tap into the quality of resilience that lives within us. It takes making a commitment and then doing the work needed to navigate the rough spots and tough times that I like to call our greatest growth opportunities.
So how can we tap into our resiliency?
Here’s what I know to be true from my own life and work as a wellness professional, an artist, an author, and a recovering high achiever, a lawyer, and an investment banker.
When we tap into our human birthright of mindfulness and choose to practice it along with self-care, we are nurturing and strengthening ourselves.
These two efforts begin with the Thriving Mindfully framework I have used in my mindfulness, self-care, and wellness work with individuals, companies, organizations, and communities for the past 20+ years.
The Thriving Mindfully framework consists of:
AWARENESS: We become aware of our birthrights of mindfulness and self-care: 1) Mindfulness is the ability to be aware of what’s happening inside and outside of ourselves in the present moment; and 2) Self-care is the act of nurturing ourselves in ways that uplift our spirit, heart, mind, body, life, career, and business.
ACCEPTANCE: We accept and claim our birthrights to mindfulness and self-care.
AFFIRMATION: We set an intention and affirm our birthrights to mindfulness and self-care with what I call the Big 5 on a daily basis: loving kindness, compassion, nonjudgment, patience, and forgiveness.
ACTION: We commit to and practice mindfulness and self-care by taking action steps.
ACCOUNTABILITY: We seek and secure accountability partners to support our efforts to practice mindful self-care.
APPRECIATION: We appreciate ourselves and mindful self-care efforts by celebrating our small, medium, and big wins on a daily, weekly and/or monthly basis.
BONUS TREAT: Listen to the Thriving Mindfully Podcast episode on resiliency.
RESOURCES
If you need mindfulness, self-care, and wellness resources, I am here for you! Check out the links to my Thriving Mindfully Academy, blogs, podcasts, and more below.
Thriving Mindfully Academy, an online learning platform that provides personal and professional development education, coaching, training, and resources on mindfulness, meditation, self-care, and wellness.
Don’t miss out on my Stress Awareness Month (April) and National Meditation Month (May) updates, resources, tips. online classes, and trainings.Sign up for my updates here.
During this week’s Wellness Wednesday Meditation Class on Facebook Live, I shared a quote from the “phenomenal woman,” Dr. Maya Angelou, one of my favorite sheroes, about home.
“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”
I used Dr. Angelou’s quote to introduce a mindful reflection on how we are nourishing our physical home and the homes we inhabit in our body, mind with our thoughts, emotions with our heart, and soul with our spirit.
I also shared an excerpt from my poem, “Home” that is published in my book, That Which Awakens Me (available on Amazon).
Guess what I have for you? A mindful reflection and/or journaling exercise that will help you explore your relationship with your home.
Check out the questions below. You may want to share the questions with your loved ones to spark a discussion.
When you hear the word ‘home’ what comes to mind?
How does your current home nurture and support you?
Do you feel at home in your body, mind, heart, and/or spirit? Why or why not?
What can you do in the next 30-90 days to support yourself in feeling at home in your body, mind, heart and/or spirit?
BONUS QUESTIONS: If you want go deeper, spend time exploring these questions.
Who will serve as your accountability partner and support you in taking the actions steps in the next 30-90 days?
How will you celebrate your small, medium, and big wins from the action steps in the next 30-90 days?
Meditation and Mindfulness 101 Session Videos
This week, Meico Whitlock, Founder/CEO of Mindful Techie, and I have led a series of Meditation and Mindfulness 101 sessions during the Plugged In Nonprofit Tech and Transformation, a free digital conference hosted by Keela. see the videos below. Feel free to watch them with your loved ones at home. We hope they will support your mindful self-care practice.
Wanna join me for the March 26th class? Sign up here.
March 24th class led by Meico
March 25th class led by your truly
Do You Need Help?
Does your company or organization need help in navigating the new normal of working from home?
Do you and your colleagues and clients need training and coaching support to learn how to mindfully work from home, manage stress with mindful self-care practices, use mindful creativity and communication practices to be more effective, and use technology mindfully to be more productive?
If you answered YES or MAYBE to one or both of these questions, contact me to see how we can work together: ananda@anandaleeke.com.
I look forward to hearing from you in the coming days and weeks.
PS: I am happy to support you and your team with online coaching and trainings. It’s something I’ve been doing for years!
Thriving Mindfully Academy
I decided to offer a soft launch of the Thriving Mindfully Academy to support and help people just like YOU and mission-driven companies, organizations, and communities navigate the COVID-19 emergency.
The Thriving Mindfully Academy is an online learning platform that provides professional development education, coaching, training, and resources in the following areas:
Mindfulness 101
Mindful Self-Care
Mindful Creativity
Mindful at Work
Mindful Communication
Mindful Relationships
Mindful Leadership
Mindful Technology
April is Stress Awareness Month. Outsmart stress in your life, career, and business during my Wellness Wednesday Meditation classes on April 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, and April 29th from 7-7:15 AM ET via: Facebook.com/AnandaLeeke64.
If you miss the class, I will post the replay on my social media channels.
Mindful Self-Care Weekly Themes
Watch my video to learn how you can bring more mindful self-care into your life, career, and business with the Thriving Mindfully Weekly Recipe of Themes (for each day of the week; includes tips).
Ananda Leeke 