Category: Monday Mindfulness

Your inner child

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My mother sent me this quote the other day. I told her I was going to borrow it for our blog. She said that’s the nice thing about quotes…everybody swaps the ones that inspire them! Quotespiration! I always thought that was a clever word! I wish I thought it up! This week I wanted to share this quote with you all! According to the Cambridge Dictionary, “Your inner child is the part of your personality that still reacts and feels like a child.” Today is the start of another fresh, new week! Let’s all nurture that inner child within us and fill ourselves with love and gratitude and exhale out our troubles. Start this week with a clean slate. Try letting go of your fears and thoughts that hold you back and fill your body with positivity and love and see if you have a good day. And then do that again tomorrow. And the next day. And if you have a set back, that’s ok. You start over the next morning. Each day fill yourself with love and gratitude…for yourself, for your loved ones, for the big things and the little things. That’s your goal today! And every day!

Move to your heart, Breathe.
Close your eyes and breathe deeply – slowly –
fill your lungs with love and gratitude –
exhale each and every trouble –
again and again – gratitude in, troubles out.

  • Jonathan Lockwood Huie
my youngest at 3 yrs

A little sunshine

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“Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder

Spring time is the… enjoy some sun on your face and feel the breeze type of season! I feel fortunate to live near a beautiful rose garden in town. It is called Boothe Memorial Park in Stratford and it has so many different roses in it’s award winning garden. If you are ever in this part of Connecticut it is worth it to stop by and walk around! Where is your favorite place to go outside and get some fresh air and feel the sunshine? No matter where you live take a moment to step outside, feel the sunshine, listen to the birds and enjoy some fresh air!

Do more of what you love

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“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.” -Mandy Hale

Recently, my family and I were playing the lottery. The jackpot was some crazy amount. I can’t remember the amount but it was enough money that if you won you could instantly quit your job and be set for life. Before the winning numbers were read aloud we all had a conversation about what our new life would be like. Where would we want to live, what type of house would we want, etc. It was my turn and after some thought about my house and where I would like to live…I thought about my job. Most people’s first thought is probably about quitting which seems fun to be able to spend each day doing whatever you want, whenever you want but…when I thought about it I didn’t want to quit my job. I have always been fortunate to work in places that I enjoyed going to everyday. If I won the lottery I would love the peace of mind it would bring but I wouldn’t want to quit my job. If you won the lottery would you quit your job? Do you enjoy going to work each day? When you think about the job you are doing right now…is it fulfilling and does it bring you joy? If not…what would you rather be doing? What type of atmosphere would you prefer to work in? Like Mandy Hale said above “nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong”. It might be hard to make a job change but if you don’t try looking you can never make a change at all. Look at the job postings. See what’s out there. Try interviewing. You don’t have to take the job if it’s not for you. But, trying is the first step. When you do something you enjoy every day it makes such a difference. It’s hard to make a change. It’s scary to make a change. But, it’s worse to stay where you aren’t happy. Where you aren’t respected. Where you aren’t fulfilled. Being mindful at work is being happy with what you are doing. If you are at work and you are thinking about other things that make you happy then you’re enjoying those things that you are thinking about more than your job. Mindfulness is essential if you want to enjoy your job. It’s easy to make an excuse and not try, but today is a fresh new week…so try taking a step forward for yourself. Take a moment and look at those job postings. See what’s out there! You never know what you might stumble upon…

Plant a mindful garden

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Happy Monday y’all! Thought we would start off today with a little inspiration! I love this quote from Jackie Trottmann…

Your mind is a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers. Or you can grow weeds.

I believe in karma. Karma roughly translates to action. Like causes produce like effects. I’ve had good karma days and bad karma days. What I throw out into the universe seems to always come back to me. Hence, why I believe in karma. Do you believe? Do you ever do something good for someone and something good comes back to you in return? Or are you ever aggravated and say something not so nice to someone and then a minute later stub your toe? Something along those lines? This kind of stuff always happens to me. I think it’s the universes way of keeping us in line hahaha

I love this quote and hope it helps you to be mindful of the thoughts and actions you send out today. Don’t plant any seeds of doubt or negativity in your mind. Plant some hopefulness and happiness and cultivate some positivity! Same with food…you can eat a bunch of junk food with ingredients you can’t pronounce and drink sodas with all kinds of chemicals or you can put some healthy food in your body and reap the benefits of healthy fats, protein and fiber to name a few. Feed your mind and body and soul today and grow some flowers of your own!

Some normal days

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I went up into my attic where I am temporarily storing my many scrapbooks from my mother to find a good quote for this week. She always finds the best ones and is much more poetic than I…than me? Hmmm… see what I mean!! In any event after pouring through my albums and losing track of time I found a good one! It’s hard to find just one quote that resonates with the mood of the week. Let alone pairing it with just the right photo takes some time. Add on top of that a lazy, rainy, Sunday afternoon and one can lose all track of time!! I got caught up in the beautiful artwork and arrangements that she came up with and it was fun looking back at when my girls were little. Most people store their photos on a phone or the cloud or a thumb drive and rarely have printed photos laying around so I feel pretty lucky to be able to open an album and look through them with my kids. Sorry! I’m getting off track! I wanted to say that I look forward to some normal days as I am sure most of you do too! When we can go about our day to day lives hanging out with friends and family, giving someone a hug, talking closer than six feet apart, eating in a restaurant, taking in a movie, walking down the street or through a park without a care or worry in the world and just be in the moment.

Please enjoy this quote from Mary Jean Iron…

NORMAL DAY, LET ME BE AWARE OF THE TREASURE YOU ARE. LET ME LEARN FROM YOU, LOVE YOU, BLESS YOU BEFORE YOU DEPART. LET ME NOT PASS YOU BY IN QUEST OF SOME RARE AND PERFECT TOMORROW.

**attached is a picture I took of my youngest at our local beach when she was 6.

Hey you, look up!

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“Sometimes a break from your routine is the very thing you need” Anonymous

I pulled this quote out of one of my mom’s scrapbooks. I thought it paired nicely with this photo I took. I totally understand how easy it is to get preoccupied with your day to day activities…getting the kids off to school, getting to work on time, picking the kids back up from school, shuffling them off to activities, making dinner, cleaning the house and on and on and on and it doesn’t end! I hate to complain because I know how fast these days fly by and one day they will be all grown up and on their own! But, today I went on a walk with my daughter and as we were walking and talking I decided to look up at the sky, I watched the birds flying around and I listened to the sounds around me. I feel like I am always looking down or forward but rarely do I just look up. Try it out! Listen to the birds chirping. Look at the clouds moving swiftly in the sky. Take a deep breath and slowly exhale. If you have a moment this week…take a break from your routine and look up!

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment, until it becomes a memory” Dr. Seuss

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Ever since I became engaged my mom took up scrap-booking as a hobby. It wasn’t intentional it just sort of happened that scrap-booking started to get popular and my mom who loves to be creative gravitated towards this new craze. Since I lived in a completely different state than my mom I started taking lots of photos and sending them to her. Once a year I would drive from the east coast to Ohio to visit my mom and extended family and she started surprising me with scrapbooks of that year in photos. Through the years her scrapbooks have evolved creatively…from the stickers, colorful paper, typography poetry, picture arrangements and themes…she has done it all and never ceases to amaze me. She is in her 70’s now and always says that this scrapbook will be her last and then she creates another one! It has always been fun to open the new album and see what she has created! Lately, she has been taking pictures of my family or my nature shots and adding in quotes that call out to her. The artistry in her writing really brings it to a new level. It has inspired me! From time to time I am going to share some of my photos and her quotes and pair them up for you on Mindfulness Mondays and maybe you too will be inspired to do the same! Isn’t that the best part about art? Sharing with others and inspiring each other!

**the picture shown here is of my girls about ten years ago…I feel like I blinked and now they are teenagers…I would love to go back in time and see them like this again!