Inhale, lengthening your spine up towards the sky. Exhale, softening your chest. Allow your arms to fall gently to your sides and visualise champagne bubbles flowing through your arms. Imagine the lightness. Think of something or someone that makes you smile – and smile.
What if there was a little more ease in your body right now? What would that feel like?
Last week was a tough one – perhaps for all of us. So much to take in and process.
Here is South Africa we continue to be in darkness – literally. It’s easy to get caught up in the “outside noise” and slip into separateness and a mood of fear, anxiety and frustration. In times like these how do we stay present to the moment and remain hopeful?
“Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement.” ~ Jane Goodall
As our Global Leadership Embodiment Community recently came together to celebrate the life of our teacher and friend, Wendy Palmer, I was once again reminded of how important it is to have a daily practice/ritual and to be in community. This in itself is taking action and engaging. This is cultivating hope.
“If we really want to be more effective in the world we need to spend less time fighting and struggling with ourselves and wanting others to be different.” ~ Wendy Palmer
So much more is possible in our world when we come together with open hearts and compassion.
I don’t have all the answers, I too am a learner – and I continue to make these offers and invite you to learn and practice with me. Join me in community on retreat, in a half-day Playshop or connect for a chat on Zoom.
A Year of Hope | #theselfcompassionbreak | Temenos, McGregor 17-20 March 2023 (21st is a Public Holiday)
“Recognise the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment and embrace them with courage, curiosity and hope.”
I invite you to come into stillness and go inward — breathe, meditate, move gently, declare yourself a learner and immerse yourself in a creative process that will help you centre, let go of anxiety and begin to cultivate a mood of radical hope.
4 March 2023 | #artforthesoul | The Self-compassion Mandala | Hermanus
“If your compassion does not include yourself then it is incomplete.” ~ Jack Kornfield
If you are experiencing anxiety or feeling stuck – and you are open to new possibilities and new learnings then this is for you.…
RECOMMENDED READING
Is there Hope For Hope?
An article by Alan Sieler, Director of The Ontological Coaching Institute
POEM OF THE WEEK
The Only Thing That Makes Sense
is to hold it all tenderly— as if it can break,
as if it won’t be here forever,
as if the moment that is this moment
will give you everything if you let it.
The only thing that makes sense
is to celebrate the exactness of you,
to take your own face in your own hands
and declare yourself worthy,
to wrap arms around the orphaned parts that didn’t fit,
didn’t follow, refused to march in straight little lines.
The only thing that makes sense
is to make art that is your art,
art that swings, sways, tangos its way through every midnight,
as if life, this very exact,
disappearing life, depends on it.
To scatter kindness-confetti
until walls become wings,
hard melts to soft,
not-enough becomes a feast of fabulous plenty
—a wild, belly-laughing celebration
where every tender, breakable thing is invited,
invited to the moment that is this
moment, the moment that will give you everything
if you let it.
©Julia Fehrenbacher
Go gently.
With love and many blessings,
Yours in inspiration,
Karen