Nothing will work unless you do.
Maya Angelou, author, poet, performer, activist
Let’s face it, it’s a challenge to commit ourselves to practicing meditation every day. But if I told you your life depended on it, would you do it? Right now, tenth month of the year 2025, I think it’s really true. Our lives depend on the peace we can call up in ourselves first. When the pilot says to put your oxygen masks on, you put yours on first. I hear that voice calling.
If we’re going to build a new order, a new peace, it starts from within. We honor ourselves with kind, gentle self-compassion. Every time I write this newsletter, I feel like I am holding hands with you, sharing the path in order to help remind us of our mindfulness tools including meditation, STOP, walking in nature, or applying RAIN among others. I am here to share whatever wisdom I can to help us all heed the warning. Of course, we do what we can until we do better. And then we keep going to get even better than that.
Here’s another kind of practice. Try saying or writing any or all of these mantras, affirmations, gratitudes or whatever you want to call them, when you wake up, when you go to sleep and many times throughout your day. Positive psychology has shown that gratitude changes our bodies, minds, and spirits. The peace we seek begins inside us.
I allow myself to pause when agitated or doubtful.
I allow my mind to relax and be at peace.
I allow my body to be still and feel calm.
I am safe.
I love my life.
Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.
Maya Angelou, survivor, thriver