Here’s my Valentine’s Day gift for you: a #ThrivingMindfully podcast with a guided meditation that will help you open your heart and cultivate loving kindness and compassion. Enjoy!
Tag: compassion
#ThrivingMindfully Self-Care Challenge, Week 2 – Compassion
Today marks the beginning of the second week of the #ThrivingMindfully Self-Care Challenge, a four-week experience that invites you to practice and reflect on loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Did you miss the first week? Go here to learn about it. Feel free to start the challenge at any time!
Each week during the Self-Care Challenge, you are invited to watch a video and participate in an exercise that includes breathing exercises, reflection questions, and journaling. See the schedule below.
Week 1, December 4-10: Loving Kindness
Week 2, December 11-17: Compassion
Week 3, December 18-24: Joy
Week 4, December 25-31: Equanimity
Week 2 of #ThrivingMindfully Self-Care Challenge: December 11-17
Theme/Video: Compassion
Compassion or karuna is the act of never giving up on yourself as you recognize and accept that anger, jealousy, arrogance, judgment, and other emotions you prefer to keep hidden exist within you. When you are able to do this for yourself, two things happen. You are able to see the connection you share with others. You are also able to put yourself in their shoes which strengthens your capacity to have compassion for them. Compassion helps you never give up on yourself and others.
Invitation: Slow down and take three deep breaths. Touch your heart with one or both of your hands as you enter into a moment of stillness.
Take three more deep breaths. Right where you are repeat the first prayer out loud or silently three times: May I embody and express compassion for myself.
Take three more deep breaths and repeat the second prayer. May I have compassion for others.
Inhale deeply and as you exhale thank yourself for showing up in the stillness.
Reflection Questions and Journaling Exercise: Take some time this week to reflect on and journal about one or more of the questions below.
- What does compassion mean?
- What does self-compassion look like in your life?
- What prevents you from embodying and expressing self-compassion? and compassion for others?
- What do you want your self-compassion and compassion for others to look like in 2018?
- How can you add more compassionate moments into your daily, weekly, and monthly routines?
Join Ananda’s Yoga Day USA Service Project that Supports Haitian Disaster Relief Efforts on January 20 and 23
Greetings! Happy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service!
In honor of Dr. King’s Day of Service, I am sharing information about two free online yoga classes I am teaching to celebrate Yoga Day USA (www.yogadayusa.org), an annual campaign created by the Yoga Alliance (www.yogaalliance.org) that strives to make yoga more accessible. My class schedule is below.
- January 20, 8-8:30pm EST – kg yoga life practices (every 3rd Wednesday of each month) on MomTV – http://www.momtv.com/kgyogalife.html
- January 23, 9-9:15am EST – http://stickam.com/anandaleeke
The classes will focus on the practice of karuna (Sanskrit word that means compassion). They will also honor the people of Haiti and everyone affected by the January 12th earthquake.
If you like the classes and learn something that helps you, please consider adopting the Charter for Compassion (http://charterforcompassion.org) in your daily life and making a donation to Doctors Without Borders, an international humanitarian organization that is working to make the lives of Haitians better. Visit www.doctorswithoutborders.org to learn more and make a donation.
Are you participating in a Dr. King Service Day event or Haitian Disaster Relief fundraising effort?
Enjoy your week!
Peace, Creativity, Compassion, and Healing Love and Light to the people of Haiti,
Ananda
Ananda’s Reflection on Nia (purpose), the 5th Day of Kwanzaa
Greetings All,
Today is the fifth day of Kwanzaa. We celebrate Nia, the Swahili word for purpose. Listen to my reflection on Nia below.
What is your definition of purpose?
What was your purpose for 2009?
What is your purpose for 2010?
In 2009, my purpose was centered in my intention to take better care of myself. My practice of self-care elegantly unfolded into a commitment to be kind and gentle with myself. Compassion was the elixir that fueled my kind and gentle self-care practice. As a result, I was able to incorporate more kindness, gentleness, and compassion into my creative/yoga/Reiki healing touch/social media work, service efforts, and interactions with others.
In 2010, my purpose is to deepen my commitment to practice and promote compassion in my creative/yoga/Reiki healing touch/social media work, service efforts, and interactions with others. I have adopted the Charter for Compassion, a global campaign created by British author Karen Armstrong (launched on November 12, 2009), as a guide for healthy, mindful, and balanced living. In the coming months, I will mindfully weave the Charter for Compassion’s goals into my creative/yoga/Reiki healing touch/social media work, service efforts, and interactions with others. To learn more about the Charter for Compassion, watch the video below.
Enjoy your day and week!
Peace, Creativity, Purpose, and Compassion,
Ananda
On November 18 at 8pm EST, Ananda launches kg yoga life practices show on MomTV show. Join her!
Greetings All: Join me tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. for the launch of kg yoga life practices new show on MomTV www.momtv.com/kgyogalife.html. The show will provide kind and gentle yoga exercises and tips for people who use computers. Compassion (karuna in Sanskrit) will be a major theme in the classes. It will also include a chat with questions and answers. I will share yoga-inspired excerpts from my new book, That Which Awakens Me: A Creative Womans Poetic Memoir of Self-Discovery (available on Amazon.com in December). Visit http://www.momtv.com/kgyogalife.html to watch the show (30 minutes). It airs on the third Wednesday of each month. Watch my promo video for the show! Hope you can join me for the class! Enjoy your day and week! OM Karuna OM! Namaste, Ananda
Ananda Leeke 
