Would you like your ‘Daily Grind’ to feel more like a ‘Sacred Grind’? And are you feeling drained and overwhelmed by the pandemic?
Join us for an exclusive 3-part webinar with Emmy Award Winning News Anchor Kara Sundlun and Holistic Nurse Doreen Fishman on how to manage stress, daily demands and emotions to create meaningful change in your hectic life without quitting your day job!
Learn how to transform overwhelm to joy and ease without quitting your day job!
Kara Sundlun mainstreams the metaphysical with Spiritual Life Coach and Board-Certified Holistic Nurse Doreen Fishman to teach simple yet powerful meditation and manifestation techniques to ease overwhelm and soar in 2021.
Master a morning routine to create more joy all day by learning how to connect to your heart center
Access the most powerful part of your being to create the real change you want this year
Time management to meet your soul goals: How to plug your energy drains to manifest your desires
LIVE Q&A for personalized coaching
Part 2: February 18
Master the Art of Communication
Kara reveals the secrets broadcasters use to communicate with confidence so you can ace your next zoom! Plus learn how to use Denise D’Ascenzo’ s principles for success to align with your purpose: Be Open. Be Brave. Be Kind
Doreen will show us how to use the wisdom of metaphysics to heal relationships and ease family conflict during the quarantine.
Part 3: February 25
Supercharge Your Body
Join Kara and Naturopath Dr. Artemis Morris for cutting-edge nutritional solutions to increase energy, lose weight, improve moods and superpower your immune system during the pandemic.
Kara will guide you on a fun and inspirational journey of personal growth!
Clear way the energy drains of 2020 to release what no longer serves us while integrating the gifts of these challenging times.
A 3-Part Zoom Webinar Series
February 11, 18 & 25 from 6:30 – 8 pm EST
THE GRADUATE INSTITUTE
3-PART WEBINAR FOR A NEW YEAR RESET
Registration for the entire series: just $75:
Each session will be recorded for your convenience in case you have to miss any or all of one of the sessions, and a link will be sent to you after each presentation.
In the 1963 ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. takes a passionate stand for equality, freedom, and democracy. He was able to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time. While acknowledging the cruelty and injustice of racial inequality, he was also able to invite a sane and loving road back to wholeness.
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. … we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”
So, what is ‘soul force’, and how do you get it?
As we mark this historic day, it may be helpful to see the connection between King’s wise words spoken 57 years ago, words that electrified the country and the emerging holistic worldview.
“For many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom…We cannot walk alone…We cannot turn back.”
I think the power of his speech lies in its ability to resonate a deeper vulnerable truth of love and belonging. The nature of reality appears to be interconnected, not separate. We need each other and we belong together because we are one household, nobody is less or more important than another.
Martin Luther King Jr. was able to reach beyond anger and egoic mind structures to offer a vision of what was possible. Like concentration camp survivor, psychiatrist, and author of “Man’s Search for Meaning,” – Viktor Frankl wrote that he gave up the notion of being rescued from the horrors of daily life but he knew that giving in to his fear and rage would eat him alive and the Nazi’s truly would’ve taken over his soul. Instead, he chose to see what was possible and spent his days offering comfort to other camp members. He took agency of his reality. Maybe that is ‘soul force’.
On 60 Minutes last night, there was a segment about the political unrest in the country and the question was asked. ‘Who are we?’ It may be worth starting with the question,’ Who do we think we are?’
King’s ‘soul force’ was felt that day in 1963 and still resonates. People’s hearts lifted with a sense of possibility, connection, and love. That was his dream and it feels like the collective couldn’t be further from that right now.
Mindfulness practice helps us look within and see our ‘soul force’ and the fragmentation that blocks it.
Having the courage to mindfully see the way we show up in our own lives and lovingly heal our own wounds begins to melt the illusion of separation so we can learn to meet our intolerance and resistance with something more helpful, loving, and creative.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves.” –Viktor Frankl
This week, we celebrate the birth of Martin Luther King. In reflecting on his writings and speeches, do you have one that speaks to you at this time? What is your perspective on the ‘soul force’ and how can it show up in your life? Let us know in the comments below.
Blog is written by Kimberly Ruggiero.
Kimberly Ruggiero is a long time meditator. She works as a transformational coach and artist. She has a BS in Chemistry, MA in Consciousness Studies and studied at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Art. Kim has training in MBSR and is certified through the Engaged Mindfulness Institute. She works as a Program Coordinator in Integrative Health and Healing and facilitates a Mindfulness Meditation Group at TGI – every Tuesday evening online – https://learn.edu/events/
Caption reads, “[Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. [Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mathew Ahmann in a crowd.], 8/28/1963” Original black and white negative by Rowland Scherman. Taken August 28th, 1963, Washington D.C, United States (The National Archives and Records Administration). Colorized by Jordan J. Lloyd. U.S. Information Agency. Press and Publications Service. ca. 1953-ca. 1978. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/542015
Of all the 2021 New Year’s resolutions, being more mindful is probably high on many people’s lists. We all want the world to stop spinning and find peace in our own skin. As Michael Franti said, “It’s never too late to start the day over.”
We tend to think mind wandering is due to the onslaught of technology and the stresses of external events. However, neuroscience has shown that the tendency to distraction is not due to something out there, but is an integral part of our wiring. Over the next few blog posts, we will explore the unhelpful tendencies of the mind or what the Buddha called the ‘monkey mind’.
Just this morning, I was on a quiet walk near the water and found myself zoning out to thoughts about an email I forgot to send and how forgetful I have been lately, as well as other signs of aging that I’m experiencing. By the time I realized I had exited the moment I was almost home.
Rather than a New Year’s resolution to be mindful, I suggest setting an intention to deliberately upgrade the brain’s software system. By simply bringing more curiosity and heart-centered kindness to all rigidity and resistance, a softening and rewiring happens in the hardware of the brain. The prefrontal cortex grows new connections, where equanimity can begin to calm the duality of the limbic/default brain.
Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert conducted a study of ‘stimulus-independent thought” (mind wandering) and found that we are distracted almost 50 percent of our waking hours and we don’t notice it because it happens in the default network of the brain.
In their research conclusion, published 2010, Science 330, 923, they write:
“A human mind is a wandering mind
and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.
The ability to think about what is not happening
is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”
Mindfulness apps and classes are flooding the internet and after the challenges of 2020, it makes sense that we want to fix the problem of distraction but it can be confusing to know how to actually do that. John Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Center at UMass Medical Center says “an attitude of non-striving is essential for mindfulness”. I recently read someone promoting another mindfulness class with the slogan, ‘Join Us as We Strive for Mindfulness’.
Mindfulness is not a fad or a trend.
Taking a class or downloading an app to learn techniques can be helpful, but if there’s a goal or expectation that ‘doing’ mindfulness will fix something, then it may end up like all the resolutions that are forgotten by Valentine’s Day.
There is no place to get to or goal to be achieved. It is the simple yet profound realization that we are not our thoughts but the one who is aware of the thinking.With practice, we can learn to place attention wherever we like.
For example, mind wandering can sometimes be very helpful. When I write a story or create a new painting, letting my mind make fresh connections is often an important part of the creative process. You may have the experience of trying hard to solve a problem and then having the Aha! moment in the shower…as soon as you stop directly thinking about it. With a little mindfulness, ‘stimulus-independent thought’ can be intentional and beneficial. But when unconscious, thinking can crowd out life experiences and result in rumination and unhealthy behaviors.
The problem isn’t the thinking. Thoughts are important ways we create, invent, express, and learn. The challenge is asking the mind to willingly notice the distraction and tolerate the discomfort of not following every thought.
Conditioned to strive and push forward, it takes practice to tolerate the discomfort of not striving and to give the space between thought and opportunity to arise so we can discover what is actually happening instead of listening to thoughts about what is happening.
Mindfulness doesn’t deal with the content of experience (what happens), it works more with the velocity and depth (how deeply and authentically, we experience what happens).
Space for processing opens possibilities for different approaches to problems and a sense of life being lived through you instead of to you. Breaking the shell of the protective ego softens our rigidity to let real life in. Wholeness and authenticity begin to replace the false self.
In, The Book of Awakening, philosopher and poet, Mark Nepo writes, “This is the ongoing purpose of full attention: to find a thousand ways to be pierced into wholeness.”
If your New Year Resolution includes living life more mindful, may we recommend the following tips for a Reset?
Tips for A Mindfulness Reset:
-Invite stillness and notice what is happening inside and out. If there is resistance, meet it with self-compassion.
-If you find your mind wandering, bring attention to breathing in and out through the heart.
-When stressed, try surrendering to the living moment. Meet the situation with a ‘don’t know’ mind. (Like the Taoist farmer, ask yourself, “Is this good or bad? Who knows?”)
-Remind yourself that there is no past or future. Life only happens in this moment, and you can start the day (or your life) right now.
Feel free to offer any comments or share ways you reset yourself when feeling contracted. I also invite you to attend my virtual Mindfulness Meditation class every Tuesday evening, you can find more information here: https://learn.edu/events/
“Be crumbled.
So wild flowers will come up where you are.
You have been stony for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender.”-Rumi
Blog is written by Kimberly Ruggiero.
Kimberly Ruggiero is a long time meditator. She works as a transformational coach and artist. She has a BS in Chemistry, MA in Consciousness Studies and studied at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Art. Kim has training in MBSR and is certified through the Engaged Mindfulness Institute. She works as a Program Coordinator in Integrative Health and Healing and facilitates a Mindfulness Meditation Group at TGI – every Tuesday evening online – https://learn.edu/events/
