Monday’s Random Thought: Mindfulness

I decided to repost a blog I wrote this time of year, five years ago. With life being cyclical, patterns repeat. This Lent I chose my word to be MINDFULNESS. A similar word to the one I chose five years ago. With it being Easter week, my mind is reflective, questioning, grateful and curious. This year I chose mindfulness as my word to focus on because I find myself in so many places at once, not really being present to what I am doing and what is before me.

I don’t know if I’ve become more present but I do notice more awareness in the trying, which brings us to the post I wrote five years ago…Happy Reading. Happy Holy Week.

https://heartwriter.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/eyes-wide-open/

Eyes Wide Open

I love Lent.  Forty days before Easter, a chance to create reflection time in my life.  An opportunity to look at my heart.  To observe, listen, watch.

I have chosen one word to represent my Lenten journey this season…AWARENESS.  And oh, the doors that are opening and revealing such bright light.

A friend gave me a book with that very title, Awareness, and I’m only in the beginning but the word struck such a cord with me, I wanted to sit with it.

Ever since I chose that word as my focus, my reminder, my prayer I’ve had conflict arise in my life.  Inside and out.  Conflict that has opened my eyes in a way I didn’t know I could see.  There have been harsh words spoken, misunderstandings, hurt feelings and the surprise in it all was who I had to forgive.  Myself.  It is life giving to look at yourself in a new light and say – I’m not perfect, I’m not always right, I have the power to hurt others, I matter.  So instead of hanging my head low, I raise it up high.  Learning from it all.

I don’t want to walk blindly through my days, instead I wish to be aware, alive, even if that brings pain and sadness.  Because out of that pain and sadness new life is born.  Seeds blossom.

by J.G. McGlothern

Monday’s Random Thought: Back on Track

When I find myself lost in the thoughts spinning in my brain, confused, overwhelmed, sad or a bit lost, two things help me set my feet back on the ground: gratitude and showing up.

So easy to let my thoughts bring me down, manipulating my mind into a state of frenzy. If I stop in my tracks and step into gratitude a shift happens. When I think of what I have to be grateful for and feel thankful in my heart, it’s like someone has opened a window and let the light in.

Instead of asking, What can I get out of this? And asking, What can I offer?,  has a crazy big effect of getting me out of my head and into my heart. Our heads have a place, we need them, but they can also spin us out of the present. Going within with an attitude of thankfulness and open hands offering to help or be of service has a way of getting me back on track.

What helps you to get back on track when your mind as taken over and you find yourself spinning in circles? Share. I’d love to know. We’d all love to know.

How can being in gratitude and asking what you have to offer or are able to give to another make a shift in your life?

 

Jenny Gwinn McGlothern is a Certified Transformational Master Life Coach, Retreat Leader and Writer. As founder of Mama Needs A Refill, LLC, she is passionate about all people, not just mamas, receiving an authentic physical, mental, emotional, spiritual refill. She says, “One cannot pour from an empty cup,” and offers her clients the possibility and power of pouring for themselves, first. She is also co-facilitator at Seattle Life Coach Training (www.seattlelifecoachtraining.com), where the school “trains to transform lives.” You can find her on FaceBook, www.FaceBook.com/MamaNeedsARefill or visit her website: www.mamaneedsarefill.com)

Monday’s Random Thought: Notice

Most days on my morning walk I move too fast to notice the pink blossoms, the bent branch or the color of the bird singing on that bent branch, under that pink blossom. Is it that I am moving too fast or that my mind is totally elsewhere? Is that the same thing? Mind fast forward in the future to a non-existent place. Too fast. Elsewhere. Regardless, missing what is in front of me. With practice, lots of practice I see something new every day even when I take the same route. A new blossom, a wider branch, a different bird.

Are you moving too quickly to see the little bits of beauty sprinkled throughout your day like raindrops on the green grass?

The beauty is there for both of us, we only have to notice.

Jenny Gwinn McGlothern is a Certified Transformational Master Life Coach, Retreat Leader and Writer. As founder of Mama Needs A Refill, LLC, she is passionate about all people, not just mamas, receiving an authentic physical, mental, emotional, spiritual refill. She says, “One cannot pour from an empty cup,” and offers her clients the possibility and power of pouring for themselves, first. She is also co-facilitator at Seattle Life Coach Training (www.seattlelifecoachtraining.com), where the school “trains to transform lives.” You can find her on FaceBook, www.FaceBook.com/MamaNeedsARefill or visit her website: www.mamaneedsarefill.com)

Monday’s Random Thought: Blossoming

Here in the Northwest Spring has sprung. This has us Seattleites both worried and elated. Crocus and camellia buds have opened and are already withered and fallen on the grass. Cherry blossoms in February. Daffodils in March. It has come fast these heralds of Spring leaving us all perplexed. Will we never see snow again? What will this say of summer?

With the concern comes joy. What a delight to be greeted by the bright sunny face of a morning daffodil or playful pink tulip. I had no idea I lived near so many Apple and Cherry Blossoms trees. Flowers line the streets reminding us of possibility. Blossoming trees encouraging us to remember the power of hope.

We are like flowers and budding trees. We have our seasons where we are under ground and then our time when we are called out by the light to come out and play. Sometimes that time is unexpected and unplanned. Just like the Spring flowers are not questioning their early presence we should not question when we are called out to shine.

If you are feeling the nudge to come out and shine, there is never a wrong season. The nudge is invitation enough. Like the flowers are meant to blossom, so are we, in our own way, with our own gifts. Shine on, I say. Come out and play. Share your natural gifts with the world. Blossom forth. Chances are when we blossom forth, others will follow. And what a colorful bouquet that is, indeed.

Jenny Gwinn McGlothern is a Certified Transformational Master Life Coach, Retreat Leader and Writer. As founder of Mama Needs A Refill, LLC, she is passionate about all people, not just mamas, receiving an authentic physical, mental, emotional, spiritual refill. She says, “One cannot pour from an empty cup,” and offers her clients the possibility and power of pouring for themselves, first. She is also co-facilitator at Seattle Life Coach Training (www.seattlelifecoachtraining.com), where the school “trains to transform lives.” You can find her on FaceBook, http://www.FaceBook.com/MamaNeedsARefill or visit her website: http://www.mamaneedsarefill.com)

Monday’s Random Thought: First Friend

Do you remember your first friend? I was too young to remember the very first time I met mine, but our mothers’ told us we met in the crib. Jill’s family moved in across the street from us and we were only two weeks apart in age. One of our moms had to run an errand one day so the two of us met before we could speak.

 

Most of my childhood memories involve Jill. We invented “2 People Sports”, rode our bikes in our cul de sac for hours, played in the woods behind her house, I learned to swim at her great grandmother’s lake house and even had my first kiss, on a dare in her back yard. I forget the boy’s name, but I know the spot in her yard and remember her sitting next to me while all the neighbor kids watched. We were the founders and only members of the ‘76 club with regular meetings held underneath our stairs in the basement. Every birthday party. Every season. We walked to school or rode the bus from kindergarten through ninth grade together.

 

It was her house I spent the night at when my mom asked my dad for a divorce. And when her parents split, she stayed at mine.

 

When we moved away the end of my ninth grade year, I probably only saw her a couple of times. But when it was time for college and we discovered we were going to the same place, she was my first roommate. We shared an apartment long after we had already shared so many secrets.

 

Jill lives in another state and we only see eachother every few years, but it only takes seconds for us to pick up where we last left off. Like today, when I called her to wish her a Happy Birthday.

 

Fourty seven years ago today Jill was born. We met just months after her birth. Our conversation today brought back memories that only she and I share. No one else, not even my sisters share these memories. Just us. Me and my first friend.

 

Even if you have lost track of your first friend, no one can take away your memory of them or all the gifts they left you along the years. Jill has left me with a lifetime of memories that root me to who I am, remind me to laugh and hold such a tender place in my heart.

 

Happy Birthday First Friend. Here’s to 47 more years of remembering and creating memories that matter.

 

Jenny Gwinn McGlothern is a Certified Transformational Master Life Coach, Retreat Leader and Writer. As founder of Mama Needs A Refill, LLC, she is passionate about all people, not just mamas, receiving an authentic physical, mental, emotional, spiritual refill. She says, “One cannot pour from an empty cup,” and offers her clients the possibility and power of pouring for themselves, first. She is also co-facilitator at Seattle Life Coach Training (www.seattlelifecoachtraining.com), where the school “trains to transform lives.” You can find her on FaceBook, www.FaceBook.com/MamaNeedsARefill or visit her website: www.mamaneedsarefill.com)