Coping with Chronic Illness & Pain

Love & Laughing

I love laughing! More than that, I appreciate laughing. Thank the silly gods and funny fairies –  comedic friends and family for humor and laughing! This got me thinking, part of being able to Love, this life, and anyone in it, is being able to laugh at life and at love sometimes. Being able to laugh at ourselves is one of our best human powers. You know, I don’t even think we can love ourselves without being able to laugh at ourselves sometimes. And we certainly need to love ourselves, right; can’t love life or anyone in it to a healthy degree without being able to love ourselves. Relationships with anyone and anything, no matter how long and strong they might be, absolutely need humor to stay healthy. It’s amazing to me how smiles and laughter can naturally be so contagious! And I just have to say how grateful I am to have people and beings in my life that help me make it through this ish by reminding me to keep laughing and having fun with it. I want to share some of that laughing love here today. So this episode is about taking life less seriously and loving it by laughing! If you don’t feel like it, I get it. But, Let’s just try it and see what happens. If you are new to the podcast, welcome! This is Mindfully Spirited. Where we have spirited talks about wellness, mindfulness and meditation through stories, strategies and present moment practice. I am your host, Candice. Thank you for listening and laughing with me today!

The Critical Mind Needs a Break Sometimes

This episode is about reflection practices with presence and acceptance in order to rest the critical mind and the reactive body. As well as to give the truth of what is in our current experience more space to be seen with more clarity and possibly more wisdom and less snap judgments. We can also create more space to let our truest most present self just be, allowing it to feel and express what it wants to, without getting carried away with it, or surprised by it later when we've suppressed it, or worry that we aren’t doing it right, or that our expression isn’t good enough or needs to be changed or controlled in someway. We all need to give this critical mind a break sometimes. And through a regular reflection practice we create this same sort of space for the world around us to just be as it is without the burden of needing to change it or judge it. Let's see what happens when we try a mindfulness meditation type reflection practice while letting go of strings of judgment and learning to weave in strings of acceptance. And I have shared some other ideas for present moment reflection practices that you can create on your own including using art and yoga and even just strolling through the park.

Coping with Chronic Illness & Pain

It’s a two way road, chronic issues are related to stress and stress itself is related to the severity and progression of chronic pain, diseases & other chronic issues. Let’s explore some much needed coping techniques because if you are going through these types of things there might not be any cure or foreseeable ending. For these situations we need better coping. And today I will be sharing some personal but important vulnerability, what some of the research in health psychology is saying as well as introduce a coping technique you can practice in your daily world. And we can look forward to taking a few healing minutes at the end for a Body Scan Meditation to Stop, Take Time to connect with and Observe Ourselves from a place of consciously calm focus so that we can Proceed with more Presence, Possibility and Purpose. If you are new to the podcast, Welcome! This is Mindfully Spirited. Where we have spirited talks about Wellness, Mindfulness and Meditation through stories, strategies and present moment practice. I am your host, Candice. As always, Thank you for being here today. This opportunity for understanding and healing, even at a distance, means a lot to me and I hope it does something like that for you. Intro and Outro music by lemonmusicstudio at https://pixabay.com/music/solo-guitar-the-cradle-of-your-soul-15700/

Unity & Mindful Heart Opening

For this episode I have pulled together some lessons from thought leaders such as Dr. King, and the renowned author, speaker, researcher, and social worker, Brene Brown about leadership, power dynamics and different types of power beliefs and practices. And I have married the concept we find within their work, of power in Unity, with power in love, naturally. Bringing it all together, I want us to re-connect with our own power to give and notice how that makes us feel today with a meditation technique called Skillful Compassion. Peace to you and all that surround you. Make it a Mindfully Spirited week my friends!

Strong Hearts Need Love & Healing

Invite yourself to The Balancing Act, moment by moment. We are so resilient, we are. So much is happening in life that it can be hard to see how strong we are being and functioning gracefully can be quite challenging under so much imbalance from unchecked sadness, fear, stress and illness and other heavy things, especially if we think we should be able to be strong and control ourselves in the face of this without taking the time to also become calm and reset with a healthy balance. Just because we have strong hearts and battle scars does not mean that we need any less healing. So thank yourself for having the courage to relax your strength for a moment, joining me in a Healing Meditation, and then take the credit for stepping out into the world with more steady breathing to keep up the balancing, continuously healing. Have a mindfully spirited week my friends. Music from Pixabay