Virtual Community Meditation on May 11 at 12-12:30 PM ET
Click the button below to register.
Thriving Mindfully Academy’s Spring Reset on May 16 at 7:30-9 PM ET
Did you know May is Mental Health Awareness, Digital Wellness Month, and National Women’s Health Month?
These health observances offer you the opportunity to MOTHER yourself.
Mothering yourself is the act of nuturing yourself in positive and uplifting ways. It can happen when you take time to slow down, evaluate where you are in your life, and press your life’s reset button with a self-love and self-care check-in.
Do you struggle with practicing self-love and self-care on a daily or regular basis?
Need help?
Join me for the Spring Reset that will teach you how to MOTHER yourself with the Thriving Mindfully Academy’s 5 Self-Love Languages on May 16 at 7:30-9 PM ET.
During the webinar, you’ll have an opportunity to:
-Reflect on the lessons you learned and blessings your received during the past four pandemic years and the first three or four months of 2024
-Identify your main areas of stress (including pandemic stress) and struggles
-Discuss how you responded to stress and any struggles
-Learn about the Thriving Mindfully Academy’s 5 Self-Love Languages and how they can help you MOTHER yourself, manage stress, overcome struggles, and take action
-Identify your Self-Love Languages
-Set an intention on how you want to MOTHER yourself, manage stress, overcome struggles, and take action in the next 30, 60, and 90 days
Click the button below to sign up!
Grief + You 2-Day Monthly Retreats
Death, loss, and grief happen to each of us throughout our lifetime.
There’s no way to escape them. They CHANGE us and our lives without any notice. They are filled with MESSY, and HARD moments that leave us feeling overwhelmed, sad, afraid, angry, depressed, out of control, and so much more.
In the past 59 years of living on Mother Earth, I have learned that death, loss, and grief are a master class in SURRENDER.
They humble and teach us that we do not have any control over when they show up and show out in our lives. If we resist them, we create more suffering and struggles. If we surrender to them, we open ourselves up to receive their sacred medicine of healing, growth, and transformation.
Surrendering to death, loss, and grief begins when we choose to befriend ourselves.
Befriending ourselves starts with being S.O.F.T.
That means we SLOW down and OFFER ourselves FREEDOM TODAY.
The FREEDOM is grace, space, and time to get grounded, feel our emotions, practice self-care, and seek safe and trusted support.
The TODAY is the present moment — giving ourselves what we need to care for ourselves right where we are and with what we have.
Thriving Mindfully with death, loss, and grief is a heart-centered journey we choose to take when we are willing to be vulnerable with ourselves.
The Thriving Mindfully journey invites us to:
-Become aware of and define what death, loss, and grief currently mean to us,
-Explore our beliefs and previous experiences with death, loss, and grief,
-Set intentions on how we want to relate to them, and
–Create and use a self-nurturing toolkit that honors our unique needs.
A few days after my mother Theresa B. Gartin Leeke made her transition to ancestorhood on July 9, 2023, I made a decision to SURRENDER and embrace Thriving Mindfully with her death and my loss and grief.
I made the decision to SURRENDER and embrace Thriving Mindfully with my mother Theresa’s death and my loss and grief because of the experience I had witnessing her ascension to ancestorhood as her spiritual midwife. I was in the room, was able to hold her body, and offer prayers and reiki healing touch as she transitioned.
Serving as my mother Theresa’s spiritual midwife is one of my life’s greatest gifts and privileges. It also represents an answer to a prayer I prayed to navigate my fears of death and my parents dying without me being present during the global corona virus pandemic years of 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. During these years, I used the support of my therapist, life and ancestral healing coaches, conversations with my parents and friends, and spiritual, self-care, and creative practices and communities to understand and transform my fears of death and my parents dying. I also explored my beliefs, experiences, and relationship with death, loss, and grief.
As I continue to deal with my grief, cultivate the new relationship I have with my mother Theresa as a loving + wise + well ancestor, and navigate the losses I experienced during the pandemic years (2020-2023), I am being called to share the lessons I am currently learning.
One of the biggest lessons I learned is to make myself a PRIORITY because self-love, self-worth, and self-care are three of my most cherished birthrights. They become a reality when I choose to express them by making myself a PRIORITY. Making this choice and practicing it on a daily and weekly basis is a JOURNEY filled with lots of messy moments. The messy moments are where I am learning that if I don’t make myself a PRIORITY by accepting and expressing my self-love, self-care, and self-worth birthights, I am not able to show up as the REAL ME and support and serve others with my gifts.
Another lesson I learned is no one can tell you how to or how long to grieve. YOU DETERMINE BOTH.
YOUR INVITATION
This year, I am sharing the lessons I have learned in the monthly Grief + You Retreat that is designed to encourage and support you in learning how to embrace Thriving Mindfully with death + loss + grief.
The Grief + You Retreat is a two-day nurturing experience (90 minutes for the first day and two hours for the second day) that will be held on June 29-30, July 27-28, August 24-25, September 28-29, October 26-27, November 16-17, and December 14-15 via Zoom.
Participating in a retreat is a great way to make yourself a priority. A retreat helps you carve out time and space and take responsibility for yourself. When you take responsibility for yourself, you begin to see your full self. A retreat gives you an opportunity to take responsibility for identifying your vulnerabilities, challenges, wins, and losses. A retreat can also help you set intentions and create shifts in how you choose to show up in your life, relationships, career, and business.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT THE RETREAT
“The Retreat provided a safe container to be in community with others around my grief story, our grieving process. It allowed me to be vulnerable with myself and others. It reminded me of how to show up for myself and be in close company with my process all at the same time. I’ve been keeping grief at arms distance since November, and I signed up knowing that you would be a trusted guide. I really appreciated the inquiry-based approach to understanding my relationship with grief. I’ve been working my way through the answers over the past week. Some are easier than others to respond but the heightened awareness has been helpful. The gentle yoga and movement breaks, reminders to breathe, were very helpful during the retreat. Thank you for making space to allow so many emotions and feelings and experiences to show up, be witnessed without judgement. I really appreciated all the safeguards you implemented for personal choice to engage in the retreat space in a way that brought the most comfort and sense of security.” Karla T., a television professional
Ananda Leeke 