Mindful

This is the fourteenth time I’ve had the pleasure of writing a letter to you all. The very first time was for the Winter 2020 issue, during the height of the pandemic when we weren’t sure what the future might hold. I remember writing these words: “There is always compassionate space available to you, in every moment. Space to pause. Space to breathe. Space to reclaim your attention. To communicate with wisdom and skill. To forgive yourself and others. And to remember that joy is your birthright.” Joy is your birthright! Yes! And…sometimes, especially when the world seems unfair or downright painful, the fact that joy is always an option makes me quite angry. What right does joy have to show up now?, my grumpiest self mutters. If I’m paying attention at…

Describe your relationship with your body. My relationship with my body has evolved over the years. I accept the changes such as wrinkles and gray hair more easily. I obsess less with the need to always "look" good and accept that I am fine at this moment. Varsha D. It makes me feel like I am home so I try to improve my conversations with my body every day. Tanaya C. I treat my body as my temple, careful to watch what I feed it, understanding that food is fuel. My body also signals using aches, pains, and sometimes inflammation when my mental health is struggling or when I am stressed. sageholisticwellness That shit is complicated. healthyself.coach What about your body do you find challenging? I’m epileptic. umbersperspective Migraines. msibrahim2020 Working on my self-esteem and letting go of fear. rebuildingtracy Weight. terinaparmenter What makes you feel strong? My problem-solving…

A GIFT OF HEALING Singer-songwriter Umi merged music and meditation in a December tour promoting her new album Forest in the City and donated $2 from every ticket to support WholeSchool Mindfulness, an organization that helps implement and fund the role of Mindfulness Directors in US schools. “Growing up and being able to go to a school where I was taught mindfulness has very much influenced the person I am now,” Umi says, “and I wish for more children to be gifted that healing.” PRIDE IN OUR STORIES The Hadhad family fled war-torn Syria and settled in Nova Scotia in 2016. Years earlier, their Damascus chocolate factory had been bombed. The family opened a new chocolate factory in Antigonish, and it succeeded so well that a movie, Peace By Chocolate, was made about…

CLEAN SCENE When Liam Wildish moved to Maidstone, England, he had to build a new customer base from scratch for his window-washing business Clean Scene. After six weeks of successful networking thanks to word-of-mouth recommendations and positive feedback from locals, he began washing the road signs to thank the community and make it safer for residents. ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER A deaf couple was happily surprised when they arrived for their reservation at Tatsu Dallas, a high-end sushi restaurant, to find that the head chef had learned ASL to accommodate them. A local food writer and sister to one of the guests explained on Twitter that the restaurant is known for its intimate tasting menu experience where much of the menu is explained vocally by the chef. OUTSIDE THE BOX To make her town more accessible…

ANXIETY TAMER Mindfulness meditation may reduce anxiety symptoms as effectively as a common medication, research out of Georgetown Medical Center finds. In the study, 276 adults diagnosed with an anxiety disorder but not yet treated were randomly assigned to either a mindfulness group or a medication group. Mindfulness group participants attended an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course that required 45 minutes of daily meditation and one 2.5-hour class per week. Those in the medication group received 10 to 20 mg of escitalopram, a generic form of Lexapro commonly used to treat anxiety and depression. 208 individuals (102 in the mindfulness group, 106 in the medication group) completed the study. After eight weeks, both groups reported a comparable decline in anxiety symptoms. While further studies are needed, researchers hope that this will…

Thanks to its updated Merriam-Webster dictionary, the classic language-lover’s game Scrabble just got kinder. The new edition adds many contemporary terms (like adulting, skeezy, and embiggen) while omitting hundreds of racial, ethnic, and otherwise offensive words from play. We don’t usually call nonhuman animals mindless, but we’re making an exception for the five wild turkeys that have become too habituated to humans in Woburn, MA. The top turkey, Kevin, likes to “amp up” the female turkeys so they chase people and try to pop their car tires, one resident told The Guardian. In a win for climate responsibility and protecting residents’ health, Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to ban new oil and gas wells in the city. The plan also commits to closing the over 700 active wells within 20 years…