Tonight, head over to Black Doctor’s Facebook Live at 6 p.m. ET for The Doctor Is In conversation on opting into self-care for 2021. I am talking with Dr. Monique Gary and Ricki Fairley of TOUCH The Black Breast Cancer Alliance. Go here to watch tonight’s Black Doctor’s Facebook Live.
Need more help opting into self-care? Sign up for the Thriving Mindfully Academy’s Come Home to Yourself Retreat on December 20th (option #1) or December 27th (option #2).
Birthdays are some of my favorite celebrations. I love mine so much that I celebrate it monthly. I use my monthly birthday to slow down, reflect on, and celebrate my small. medium, and big wins. This year, I used many of my monthly birthdays as a personal retreat due to my emotional struggles with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on my life, career, and business.
During my personal retreats, I looked at my full self in a mirror and came face-to-face with my vulnerabilities, challenges, wins, and losses. As a result, I gained new insights, brainstormed innovative solutions, participated in women’s healing circles, read inspirational books and magazines, and spent more time walking in nature. I also decided to change my pescatarian diet to a vegan diet, get more sleep, seek support from a therapist, join a virtual meditation community, deepen my study and practice of digital wellness, and move my body with more dance, Barre 3, yoga, walking, and bike riding. All of these efforts helped me set intentions and create shifts in how I choose to show up in my life, relationships, and career. They prepared me to walk into my fantabulous 56th year later this month and 2021 with a new mantra and intention: SOAR.
The best thing about a personal retreat is you get to choose how long it will last and what you will focus on. Over the past several years, I have used several formats for my personal retreats. Here are several examples.
A week: one to three hours per day starting on a Sunday and ending on a Saturday)
A three-day weekend: several hours per day beginning on Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday
A full-day: two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, and one hour in the evening
A half-day: two or three hours
What changes occurred in your life and career this year?
Have you embraced or resisted the changes?
Do you need a personal retreat before 2020 ends?
Do you need help getting started on your personal retreat?
Join me for the Thriving Mindfully Academy’s Come Home to Yourself Retreat on December 20th or December 27th from 2-4:30 p.m. ET via Zoom.
The Come Home to Yourself Retreat will be offered twice. You can choose to attend the virtual retreat on December 20th or December 27th.Consider giving the Come Home to Yourself Retreat as a holiday gift to your loved ones, friends, and colleagues. Register here for the December 20th retreat. Go here for the December 27th retreat.
During the virtual retreat, you will:
Practice mindful self-care with deep breathing, meditation, affirmations, and gentle chair yoga
Reflect on and journal about who you have been and the lessons you learned in 2020
Identify who or what’s been getting in your way in 2020
Release and practice forgiveness
Explore who you want to be and how you want to show up in 2021
Set intentions and identify the resources, action steps, and accountability support you need to manifest the person you want to be in 2021
Create a self-celebration plan to appreciate your small, medium, and big wins in 2021
A Zoom video link will be emailed to you once you register for the online retreat.
If you need more support with a personal retreat, join me for the Come Home to Yourself Retreat on December 20th or December 27th at 2-4:30 p.m. via Zoom. Use the links below to purchase tickets. Feel free to get holiday gift tickets for colleagues, family, and friends.
In times of great change, I have often engaged in an internal boxing match where I resist and struggle with accepting my normal life has been altered. That struggle is a boxing match I always lose. Why? Because change is inevitable. It’s always going to happen. In 2016, I gave a talk on how I used mindfulness to embrace change in the midst of career reinvention at the Nonprofit Technology Network’s annual conference in San Jose, California.
During my talk, I shared the four lessons I learned:
Lesson #1: Ask for help.
Lesson #2: Take great care of yourself.
Lesson #3: Be a lifelong learner.
Lesson #4: Be open to possibilities.
This year, I almost forgot these lessons as I struggled to deal with changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, social justice movements, economic instability, fake news, politics, and the national and local elections. I tried to ignore the changes by filling my time with serving others through the Thriving Mindfully Academy. That strategy lasted for about three months until I realized I was burning out in May. So I stepped back from many of my obligations, took a social media summer vacation, and changed the way I practiced self-care. I began giving myself more time and space for do-it yourself (DIY) personal retreats. My DIY personal retreats helped me recharge, reflect, and reconnect with my authentic self.
During my personal retreats, I looked at my full self in a mirror and came face-to-face with my vulnerabilities, challenges, wins, and losses. As a result, I gained new insights, brainstormed innovative solutions, participated in women’s healing circles, read inspirational books and magazines, and spent more time walking in nature. I also decided to change my pescatarian diet to a vegan diet, get more sleep, seek support from a therapist, join a virtual meditation community, deepen my study and practice of digital wellness, and move my body with more dance, Barre 3, yoga, walking, and bike riding. All of these efforts helped me set intentions and create shifts in how I choose to show up in my life, relationships, and career.
More on personal retreats …
The best thing about a personal retreat is you get to choose how long it will last and what you will focus on. Over the past several years, I have used several formats for my personal retreats. Here are several examples.
A week: one to three hours per day starting on a Sunday and ending on a Saturday)
A three-day weekend: several hours per day beginning on Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday
A full-day: two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, and one hour in the evening
A half-day: two or three hours
What changes occurred in your life and career this year?
Have you embraced or resisted the changes?
Do you need a personal retreat before 2020 ends?
Do you need help getting started on your personal retreat?
Join me for the Thriving Mindfully Academy’s Come Home to Yourself Retreat on December 20th or December 27th from 2-4:30 p.m. ET via Zoom.
The Come Home to Yourself Retreat will be offered twice. You can choose to attend the virtual retreat on December 20th or December 27th.Consider giving the Come Home to Yourself Retreat as a holiday gift to your loved ones, friends, and colleagues. Register here for the December 20th retreat. Go here for the December 27th retreat.
During the virtual retreat, you will:
Practice mindful self-care with deep breathing, meditation, affirmations, and gentle chair yoga
Reflect on and journal about who you have been and the lessons you learned in 2020
Identify who or what’s been getting in your way in 2020
Release and practice forgiveness
Explore who you want to be and how you want to show up in 2021
Set intentions and identify the resources, action steps, and accountability support you need to manifest the person you want to be in 2021
Create a self-celebration plan to appreciate your small, medium, and big wins in 2021
A Zoom video link will be emailed to you once you register for the online retreat.
I think we all need to slow down and celebrate World Kindness Day on November 13th given everything that has happened to us in 2020. World Kindness Day has become one of my favorite days to recommit to my loving kindness practices. It was launched in 1998 by the World Kindness Movement, a coalition of nations’ kindness nongovernmental organizations to highlight good deeds in the community that focus on the positive power of making kindness the norm and bringing people together to celebrate our common humanity.
I believe kindness starts in our hearts with an understanding and acceptance that we deserve it. When we claim and accept our own kindness and treat ourselves with gentleness, nonjudgment, patience, and tolerance FIRST, we strengthen our ability to be kind to our loved ones and others. That’s what I call taking a step in the direction of kindness!
May we all be inspired on World Kindness Day to take a step in the direction of kindness. May the Thriving Mindfully Academy’s Loving Kindness Month resources below help you in your kindness journey.
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.
Need tips and inspiration on how to de-stress this year?
Watch the video below and be inspired to open your heart and practice mindful self-care by embracing the first Thriving Mindfully Commitment: Slow Your Living with several deep breaths. My breathing exercise is called Make Your Breath Your BFF. It takes less than one minute to practice.
Also, check out what I had to say about my S-T-R-E-S-S tool in my client, Body Connect Health Wellness’ January newsletter here.
In case you want to know how I am practicing and teaching high achievers and mission-driven companies, organizations, and communities to embrace Thriving Mindfully, a heart-centered centered approach to being the REAL YOU, check out the 5 Thriving Mindfully Commitments.
Guess what’s coming in March 2020?
My Thriving Mindfully Academy and signature online course, Thriving Mindfully as the REAL YOU.
The online course will help you de-stress, practice mindful self-care with the 5 Thriving Mindfully Commitments, and learn how to avoid burnout in 90 days.
Sign up for my newsletter hereto learn more about the Thriving Mindfully Academy and Thriving Mindfully as the REAL YOU online course.
ONE-ON-ONE COACHING: I love coaching and supporting people just like you who are committed to exploring mindfulness, meditation, and mindful self-care in their lives. Contact me at ananda@anandaleeke.com if you need more support. I can set up a free 20-minute consultation call to discuss we can work together. I offer an hourly rate and three-month and six-month packages.
THRIVING MINDFULLY PODCAST: Listen to over 100 episodes of my Thriving Mindfully Podcast here. The podcast episodes cover mindfulness, mindful self-care, mindful communication, mindful at work, mindful creativity, mindful technology, mindful journaling, and more. Guided meditations are also included.
MINDFULNESS, SELF-CARE & YOGA-INSPIRED BOOKS: Check out my three mindfulness books here: Love’s Troubadours, a yoga-inspired novel; That Which Awakens Me, a mindful creativity memoir; and Digital Sisterhood, a mindful technology memoir. My books make great gifts for yourself and others.
Meditation is the practice of resting your mind and focusing your awareness on what’s happening inside of yourself – what’s happening in your spirit, heart, mind, and body. In meditation, you can use your breath to help focus your attention and cultivate stillness by observing and coming back to it when your mind is distracted by thoughts.
Meditation can help you become friends with your mind when you offer yourself compassion and nonjudgment. It can also help you increase your self-awareness, relax, improve concentration, reduce stress, strengthen your emotional and physical well-being, and encourage a healthy lifestyle.
Join me on May 17th at 7 p.m. ET on WHUR 96.3 FM for a conversation about meditation on The Daily Drum with Harold Fisher, my Morgan State University classmate, and Sherrell Moore-Tucker of Faith & Flow Yoga. You can listen online here.
Check out the #ThrivingMindfully 31-Day Challenge, events, and books below.
If you want to create more mindful moments in your life, join the #ThrivingMindfully 31-Day Challenge. It is a self-directed challenge. That means you do it at your own pace. Here’s how the #ThrivingMindfully 31-Day Challenge works. There at 31 #ThrivingMindfully podcast episodes that include guided meditations, breathing exercises, short talks, tips, and resources. They are divided into three sections: mindful living, creativity, and technology. Follow the steps below to access the podcasts. You can follow them in numerical order or pick and choose the ones that resonate the most with you. Use what works and leave the rest behind. Read my blog for more details and links to the challenge. Enjoy your #ThrivingMindfully 31-Day journey!
EVENTS
Join me for “Breathe & Meditate,” a free Facebook Live series, on May 20th and 27th from 7 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. EST: http://www.facebook.com/anandaleeke64. Each morning I will guide you through three short meditations and offer tips on how to create mindful living moments in your daily life.
If you live or visit the DC area in May, consider joining me for two #ThrivingMindfully Meetup Group meditation events on May 19 and May 21. Go here for more details.
BOOKS
Looking for mindfulness-inspired books to read? Click here to learn about and buy my three books on Amazon: yoga-inspired novel Love’s Troubadours, mindful creativity memoir That Which Awakens Me, and mindful technology memoir Digital Sisterhood.
There’s still time for you to join the #ThrivingMindfully 31-Day Challenge during National Meditation Month. Here’s how the #ThrivingMindfully 31-Day Challenge works. There are 31 #ThrivingMindfully podcast episodes that include guided meditations, breathing exercises, short talks, tips, and resources about mindful living, creativity, and technology.
Step 2: Select the podcast episode for Day #1, #2, #3 etc. and listen to it. You can also choose to listen to a podcast that resonates with you. Make the challenge your own. Take what you need and leave the rest behind.
Step 3: Practice the breathing, meditation, and reflections exercise(s) throughout your day and/or week.
Part 1 (Day #1-#15 podcasts) focuses on breathing in the present moment to experience mindful living. See the podcast topics and links below. Happy Listening!
My online offerings and events are offered as a gift. If they have blessed you, I invite you to show gratitude by supporting my work with a donation on PayPal or with the Cash app: http://www.paypal.me/anandaleeke or http://cash.me/$AnandaLeeke. Thank you for your generosity. It is deeply appreciated!
Check out my Technology for Mindfulness podcast interview (53.55 minutes) about my mindfulness journey for the past 25 years, mindful technology, and how the power of one’s breath and the practice of mindfulness can help outsmart stress with Robert Plotkin, founder of Technology for Mindfulness, engineer, and long-time mindfulness practitioner.
During the interview, I share tips on how to cope with stress in the workplace based on self-care lessons I learned from my early career in finance and best practices from my work with clients as a mindfulness yoga teacher and reiki practitioner. I also share how I used mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and journaling to overcome stress caused by failing the bar exam eight times as a young lawyer. You can also listen to the podcast interview on YouTube.
If you want to create more mindful moments in your life, join the #ThrivingMindfully 31-Day Challenge. It is a self-directed challenge. That means you do it at your own pace. Here’s how the #ThrivingMindfully 31-Day Challenge works. There at 31 #ThrivingMindfully podcast episodes that include guided meditations, breathing exercises, short talks, tips, and resources. They are divided into three sections: mindful living, creativity, and technology. Follow the steps below to access the podcasts. You can follow them in numerical order or pick and choose the ones that resonate the most with you. Use what works and leave the rest behind. 
Ananda Leeke 