Morning Musings with Michelle: Recent Episodes
Michelle Andrade
When encouraged to BE, those of us who could be seen as “busy“ may be at a loss. What does that even mean?
How do we give all things permission to enter our world, receiving what is before us? Let us muse together this morning.
Being in the flow of life is likened to laying in a moving river. How does our fear play into remaining in the flow of life?
The manager: one who manages… All the things. How do we relinquish our need to manage and control all aspects of our lives?
Musings on suffering using Yoga Sutra 2.15: parinama tapa samskara duhkhaih guna vrittih virodhat cha duhkham eva sarvam vivekinah - “To one of discrimination, everything is painful indeed, due to its consequences: the anxiety and fear over losing what is gained; the resulting impressions left in the mind to create renewed cravings; and the constant conflict among the three Gunas, which control the mind.“
It is a precious opportunity to be able to connect to the world we encounter. Take time today to connect.
Our self-care needs to be a priority for us, but it also needs to be a priority for those around us.
In devotion, may we hold space and maybe even turn on the light for that which we desire and see in the world.
Everything worth your deepest longing takes time, courage, and commitment. Take the time today!
What lies trapped beneath our pain? Sometimes continuing to take small, gentle movements can help us uncover what lies beneath.
What do you do with that 3 AM wake up call from your fear, anxiety, or shame? Let’s Muse together this morning.
Sometimes we encounter changes in our life that we can never come back from. How can we embrace these changes, walking forward confidently in the unknown?
Employing our creative mind before we fully accept the reality of what is, is like putting the cart before the horse.
How do we clear our minds of the obsessive, incessant, spinning thoughts? A little yogic wisdom...
Can you keep showing up in your life, even if you don’t understand why you are in the place you are at this time?
May we grow still enough to listen to our body, mind, and spirit to meet our own needs today.
Taking care of ourselves in situations where there might be an imbalance of power is imperative. How can you care for yourself today? Maybe speaking up is the best place to start.
Inspired by the Serenity Prayer: how do we find the wisdom to know the difference between needing to accept the things we cannot change and having the courage to change the things we can?
Can we trust the flow of our lives to guide us more deeply into presence in the roles that we play in our life?
Can we live into the spaces where we dream and imagine and expand beyond our wildest capacities?
Let’s walk fully into this precious life that we have, fully human, unscripted, and present.
Maybe hiding from my darkness – my shadow self – was never the goal. Maybe the light is here to illuminate the spaces where we can grow.
Can you commit to three pages every morning, uninterrupted, first thing? See where a daily practice of writing can lead you.
Just for today, can we see crankiness as our friend and allow the awareness that we are right where we are supposed to be to sink in?
Community and relationship have proven to be the best way to make decisions, grow, and change in my life.
The Phoenix is said to rise from the ashes. Maybe your life is bringing you into a breakthrough as you travel through the fire.
Prayer is an intentional moment to internally pause, even in the midst of everything else going on around us.
Sometimes our prayers are, “please help!“ sometimes they are a long monologue of everything we’re afraid of and everything that is whirling around in our minds.
Adopt the practice of journaling daily and build a deep, meaningful relationship with yourself.
By slowing down, listening to our hearts, and finding grounding, we can have action from love.
“What moves us always comes from what is hidden...” - David Whyte - May we find stillness so that we have pure grounding as we move.
Can we find answers by connecting to the rhythm of our own breath and our own heartbeat?
How do we make decisions in our lives? How do we continue to be a YES when we doubt our intuition?
What can we learn from spring? Join me as we muse on the poem, “In Perpetual Spring,” BY AMY GERSTLER Gardens are also good places to sulk. You pass beds of spiky voodoo lilies and trip over the roots of a sweet gum tree, in search of medieval plants whose leaves, when they drop off turn into birds if they fall on land, and colored carp if they plop into water.
Suddenly the archetypal human desire for peace with every other species wells up in you. The lion and the lamb cuddling up. The snake and the snail, kissing. Even the prick of the thistle, queen of the weeds, revives your secret belief in perpetual spring, your faith that for every hurt there is a leaf to cure it.
“Second Sight” By David Whyte
Sometimes, you need the ocean light, and colors you’ve never seen before painted through an evening sky. Sometimes you need your God to be a simple invitation, not a telling word of wisdom. Sometimes you need only the first shyness that comes from being shown things far beyond your understanding, so that you can fly and become free by being still and by being still here. And then there are times you need to be brought to ground by touch and touch alone. To know those arms around you and to make your home in the world. just by being wanted. To see those eyes looking back at you, as eyes should see you at last, seeing you, as you always wanted to be seen, seeing you, as you yourself had always wanted to see the world.
“So you mustn’t be frightened, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.” - Rainer Maria Rilke
Upon reading Richard Rohr’s daily email and pondering the teachings of Julian of Norwich, musing on making mistakes.
Once we make our way to a grounded state, can we take the time to actually sit in the calm?
Join me for a walk while I muse about perspective and how we can gain perspective by zooming in and focusing on the things around us.