This month has me walking down memory lane, giving thanks for, and reflecting on my yoga journey which began 30 years ago with an African American yoga teacher from Detroit who taught the class on a cruise down the Nile that was a part of an African American culture and history tour to Kemet (Egypt) led by author and scholar Anthony Browder.
Twenty years ago, I started my yoga teacher training with Flow Yoga Center in Washington, D.C. and began learning about Traditional Chinese Medicine and the power of acupuncture. I also booked my first acupuncture appointment and began incorporating Traditional Chinese Medicine wisdom and rituals of each season into my life.
Did you know that in Chinese medicine, the autumn season is associated with the lungs and slowing down, reflecting, refueling, focusing on the mind and soul, and release thoughts, beliefs, behavior, emotions, expectations, experiences, stories, and relationships that no longer serve you?
As I’ve slowed down and reflected in my journal and conversations, I have noted what causes me to experience “The Big V” better known as VULNERABILITY and how my responses create stagnation, struggle, and suffering. I’ve also decided to seek and use healthier ways to respond to VULNERABILITY.
So far, my journey down the yellow brick road of VULNERABILITY has taught me that it can be messy, frustrating, uncomfortable AF, and painful. It shows up when I fall back into having to know and control everything; perfectionism caused by my inner critic’s need to pressure me to achieve based on unrealistic expectations (ESPECIALLY LEARNING NEW THINGS ON THE TENNIS COURTS THAT DON’T COME EASY — WATCH VIDEO BELOW); unworthiness born out of comparison, self-criticism, and self-judgment; and the fears of what will happen to the United States in the coming months and years, not having enough financially, and how aging will impact my body.
I am also learning that VULNERABILITY is an invitation to come home to myself and a CHOICE I get to make that can either create stagnation, struggle, and suffering OR softness, strength, and stability. I am choosing softness, strength, and stability!
Watch the video below to learn more about VULNERABILITY as an invitation to come home to yourself.
REFLECTIONS FOR YOU
I’d love to hear your responses to the questions below. Share in the comment section below.
What’s causing you to experience VULNERABILITY in your life, relationships, or career?
How are you responding to your VULNERABILITY?
RESOURCE #1: MUSIC
The energy of this week’s Super Full Moon in Aries is my heart-centered reminder to find and express courage in facing my vulnerabilities by slowing down and coming home to my REAL self with loving kindness, compassion, nonjudgment, patience, and forgiveness. I call that heart-centered awareness, THRIVING MINDFULLY!
Click on the video below to listen to my “Thriving Mindfully” theme song and learn more about heart-centered awareness (album release on November 20th). Garnet Jackson (Garnet Jay), music producer and founder of the London-based Footprint Productions, produced the album!
RESOURCE #2: WATCH VIDEO RECORDING OF THRIVE@WORK WEBINAR & LEARN HOW TO EMRBACE THRIVING MINDFULLY AS AN IMPERFECTIONIST.
NOVEMBER, DECEMBER, AND JANUARY EVENTS
Join me for Thriving Mindfully Sundays on November 30, December 14, and January 4 from 3 p.m. ET to 4 p.m. ET.
Thriving Mindfully Sundays is a series of three virtual community gatherings that will offer you safe space and coaching support to tap into your VULNERABILITY, a lifeline to heart-centered awareness. I call that heart-centered awareness Thriving Mindfully.
During Thriving Mindfully Sundays, you will have an opportunity to:
-Identify and explore what’s making you vulnerable (examples: perfectionism, comparison, unworthiness, self-criticism, self-judgment, unrealistic expectations, aging, grief, health or financial issues, societal or political events, fears, or life/career/relationship changes)
-Learn how to use the five Thriving Mindfully core commitments to embrace your vulnerability and face whatever has caused you to experience stagnation, struggle, and suffering.
-Develop your Thriving Mindfully strategy and plan to soften, strengthen, and stabilize yourself as you step into your next chapter of living.
Need one-on-one support navigating change in your life, relationships, and career?
I currently have space for YOU as a Thriving Mindfully coaching or human design client.
Click here to learn more about my 1:1 Thriving Mindfully as the REAL YOU coaching program and schedule a free 30-minute call to discuss how we can work together.
Go here to learn more about my human design session.
Does your organization or community need a keynote speaker, coach, and/or trainer?
Click here to learn about my mindful living, mindful technology, and mindful creativity services.
FINAL THOUGHTS
May you and your family be safe, peaceful, happy, and free from inner and outer harm.
Love, Ease, Grace, Wisdom, Joy, Health, Abundance, and Quantum Alignment,
2020 and 2021 were hard years for many of us due to the COVID-19 pandemic, personal and family health issues, the death of loved ones, racial injustice, remote work and learning, economic challenges, divisive politics, and more.
Perhaps you struggled with the basic decisions required to navigate daily life because each day was filled with new levels of uncertainty and the fear of the unknown.
The uncertainty and the fear of unknown may have created a revolving door of choices that changed how you handled your daily routines.
Keeping up with these choices and changes may have created or increased your stress, anxiety, depression, burnout, and/or physical and mental health issues.
What’s more, you may still face these issues in 2022.
How has it all impacted your life, relationships, and career?
How are you planning to navigate 2022?
Mindful self-care is one of the best ways you can nurture yourself as you navigate 2022.
So what does mindful self-care mean?
Let’s start with understanding mindfulness. Mindfulness is your birthright. That’s right. You were born with it.
Mindfulness is the ability to be aware of what’s happening inside and outside of yourself in the present moment.
Self-care is the act of nurturing your spirit, heart, mind, body, breath, and life in uplifting ways.
Like mindfulness, self-care is also your birthright that helps you outsmart stress when you experience pressure or a situation that exceeds your ability to cope.
Mindful self-care happens when you CHOOSE to pay attention to what’s happening inside and outside yourself in ways that nurture and uplift you.
CHOICE is the key word in your ability to practice mindful self-care.
Every year gives you a choice in how you show up in your life, relationships, and career. You get to exercise these choices monthly, weekly, and daily. Within each day, you get to choose how you show up.
Check out the amount of times you get to exercise your power of choice each year.
-12 months
-52 weeks
-365 days
-8,760 hours
-525,600 minutes
-31,536,000 seconds
That’s a lot of choices, right?
I invite you to use your power of choice to practice my signature mindful self-care exercise called H.U.G. today.
Before you get started, here are a few things you should know.
My self-hugging journey started during the first weeks of the pandemic in March 2020. When I realized I would not be able to see or hug my loved ones in person, I started to panic. Stress and anxiety from the fear of the unknown set in. My eating and sleeping patterns were disrupted. I spent way too much time online. My news consumption was at an all-time high. Every aspect of my well-being was suffering. In addition, my clients were also struggling in similar ways. When I checked in with them, I learned we all shared a common concern: unable to give and receive hugs.
In an effort to nurture myself and support them, I did some research on hugging. I learned that going without hugging for long periods can impact your emotional, mental, and physical well-being. I also learned hugging helps to boost serotonin, the happiness hormone that is produced and spread by neurons in the brain. Feeling more happiness strengthens your well-being.
All of this information inspired me to experiment with self-hugging. That experiment strengthened my well-being and led me to become a self-hug advocate.
Check out the benefits of self-hugging.
Hugging yourself is FREE and takes less than one minute. A self-hug is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year.
When you hug yourself, your body releases the hormone, oxytocin, the “love hormone.” Oxytocin helps reduce stress and tension by lowering cortisol (stress hormone) levels in the body. It also lowers blood pressure, slows the heart rate, and improves moods.
Hugging yourself for 20 seconds or more is a serotonin booster. Serotonin is known as the “feel good” hormone that is produced and spread by neurons in the brain. It helps you feel happy, calm, and confident.
What is H.U.G.and Are You Ready to Choose It?
Over the past two years, I have used my self-hugging journey to develop H.U.G., a one-minute mindful self-care practice that has helped my clients and Thriving Mindfully Academy members nurture themselves and navigate stress no matter what’s happening in the world.
H.U.G. is an acronym for
-Handle
-Uncertainty & the Unknown with
-Grace, Grounding & Gratitude
Now it’s time for you to H.U.G. yourself!
There are many ways to hug yourself. Feel free to use my Thriving Mindfully Academy’s self-hugging tips below.
1) Open your heart and claim your birthright of mindful self-care. Why? Because you have GRACE. That means you don’t have do anything to receive it. You get it just because you are you. When you claim your mindful self-care birthright and allow yourself space to experience GRACE, you are also giving yourself a dose of self-compassion and self-kindness.
2) Take a moment to slow down and breathe deeply. Try 1-3 deep breaths. As you breathe, notice how your breath and body feel. Guess what? You are practicing mindful self-care and living in the present moment. That’s GROUNDING.
3) Give yourself a hug for 20 seconds or more. Breathe deeply as you notice what’s happening in your body during your hug. Feel free to gently rock back and forth while hugging yourself.
4) After you hug yourself, reflect on what you are grateful for. It will lead you to GRATITUDE.
Need more help?
Click on the buttons below to sign up for my FREE webinar on January 19th and January 26th at 8-8:45 PM ET and January 23rd at 4-4:45 PM ET. The same information will be shared in each webinar.
Invite 5 family members and friends to join you. See you in the webinar!
On March 16th, my Thriving Mindfully Show launches on Eaton Radio with a discussion on Warrior Women Who Practice Mindfulness at 12 noon ET. The three amazing guests are Iris Rivera, Shamanic Practitioner, Life Coach, and Certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher, and founder of Intentional Healing; Satyani McPherson, Mindfulness Trainer and founder of Kozmique Light Meditations; and Emily Rasowsky, yoga teacher and founder of The Release. Watch the show from 12 noon to 1 p.m. ET on Eaton Workshop’s Facebook Live.
Thriving Mindfully Online Workshop: Be Mindful at Work (via Zoom) on Tuesday, November 13 from 8-9:30PM ET (Note the time zone; $25) – Register online.
Thriving Mindfully Online Workshop: Open Your Heart to Mindful Creativity (via Zoom) on Thursday, November 15 from 8-9:30PM ET (Note the time zone; $25) – Register online.
Thriving Mindfully Online Workshop: Transform Your Failures with Mindfulness (via Zoom) on Sunday, November 25 from 7-8:30PM ET (Note the time zone; $25) – Register online.
Stay tuned for news about a special online event I am co-hosting and my mindfulness workshops (online and in DC) in December!
Get ready for the autumn season with my meditation classes and mindful movement and creativity workshops in September. See the dates, descriptions, and links below.
And remember to share my offerings with your family, friends, colleagues, and online network. Invite them to come with you. I look forward to seeing you all soon!
The #MindfulMonday Meditation is offered every Monday (except Labor Day and the last two Mondays in December). During the class, you will practice mindfulness meditation and learn mindful at work practices on September 10th, 17th, and 24th from 6:15-7:30 p.m. Bring a family member, friend or colleague!
Click here for more information about the #ThrivingMindfully Meetup Group and classes. Don’t worry if you are not a member of the #ThrivingMindfully Meetup Group. You can still attend the class. Drop by and meditate with us! Register on Eventbrite for Wellness Wednesday Meditation on September 12th from 6:30-7:30 p.m. at Femme Fatale DC, 4620 Wisconsin Avenue, NW in Washington, DC. Bring a friend, family member or colleague!
I am super excited about leading the Mindful Movement Workshop in celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Unity World Day of Prayer at my church, Unity of Washington, DC on September 13th from 4-5 p.m. at 1225 R Street, NW in DC. Visit Unity’s website for more information.
When’s the last time you allowed yourself the space to dream, imagine, and create? Come explore how to open your heart to your own creativity through the power of mindfulness at the Open Your Heart to Mindful Creativity Workshop on September 16th from 1-3 p.m. at Femme Fatale DC, 4620 Wisconsin Avenue, NW in Washington, DC.
During the workshop, I will help you explore your inner archetypes (or personalities) and the role they play in your creativity through deep breathing exercises, meditation, journaling, and discussion. The takeaways include ways to tap into your intuition, imagination, and nurturing energy as growth opportunities during the autumn season.
Ananda Leeke 