Patricia Barnes Therapeutic Yoga

01/19/2026

Do you like the idea that peace is a practice, a way of living? Please pass it on!❤️🙏🏻🕊

"Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal." –Martin Luther King, Jr.

📷: TJ Holowaychuk

Start each day right with an inspiring gratefulness quote in your inbox. Sign up here: https://grateful.org/practice/word-for-the-day/

01/14/2026

Divine feminine!

"A woman in
harmony with her spirit
is like a river flowing.
She goes where she will
without pretense, and
arrives at her destination
prepared to be herself,
and only herself."
- Maya Angelou 🌘💙

01/09/2026

Grateful Living has been very helpful to me over the past year. I hope you will find some inspiration here as well!

01/03/2026

Appreciate the energy of the wolf moon!

The Wolf Super-moon 🌕

We may not have much light in winter but this moon will charge you until spring, if you let it.

Donna x

12/31/2025

Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year, including self-acceptance and self-compassion!

On the stroke of midnight tonight, you can resolve to be better, if you like…
to be fitter,
to eat cleaner,
to work harder.

On the stroke of midnight tonight,
you can resolve to become a whole new you,
if you so choose.

Or, you can take a moment to acknowledge what you already are.
Because it’s a lot.
You are a lot.

And you deserve to be truly seen.

On the stroke of midnight tonight, perhaps you could congratulate yourself, for coping.
For breaking, again,
for rebuilding, again.

For catching the stones life has thrown at you,
and using them to build your castle that little bit more beautifully.

And if you have used those stones to block yourself in for the ‘heal’, perhaps you can realign them this year. Make a grander gate, not a higher wall.

You have endured, my friend.
Through times you thought unendurable. You did.

And I don’t see the need to resolve to become a whole new you,
when you are already so very much indeed.

Happy new year.

You made it.

Now let us face another 365 day-turn, arms wide…
accepting, embracing and ‘seeing’ one other,
for all we truly are…

breaks and all.

Donna Ashworth

12/30/2025

This journalist wrote for Outside Magazine for 10 years. If you're concerned about the future of our National Wildlife Refuges, read on and consider contacting your Congress people.

https://open.substack.com/pub/wessiler/p/theyre-coming-for-your-wildlife-refuges?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1r32j5

12/27/2025

Happy Kwanzaa to all who celebrate, and what a gift of learning for all of us!

12/23/2025

" You are the gift, and life is the gift!" Read on.

Day 23 of my advent and we are almost there…

But where are you? Rooting yourself in the present moment is the biggest gift you can give yourself and anyone else. You are the gift. This is the gift. Open it up, every minute.

Donna x

12/22/2025

The more I learn about the winter solstice, the more I appreciate its beauty and significance.

The winter solstice is not a celebration of light arriving early.
It is an honoring of the longest night.

Our people understood this deeply.

This is the moment when the world grows quiet enough to hear itself breathing. The trees stand still. The animals conserve their steps. The rivers slow under ice, not because they are dying—but because they are remembering how to endure.

The solstice teaches patience.

Nothing is being rushed back into bloom. There is no demand for growth yet. The earth is saying: rest with me. Sit in the dark without panic. Trust that the turning will come.

In our ways, darkness is not failure.
Darkness is the womb.

This is where prayers are formed before they have words. Where grief is allowed to sit beside the fire without explanation. Where ancestors feel closer, because the noise of the world has finally softened.

We do not conquer this night.
We keep watch through it.

A small flame. A steady breath. A promise made quietly to ourselves that we will remain present—no matter how long the cold lasts.

And then, almost imperceptibly, the light begins its return. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just enough to remind us that balance is always moving, even when it feels still.

Kîsikâw pîsim—
the day the sun turns back toward us.

Until then, we listen.
We rest.
We remember who we are when there is nothing left to perform.

Kisâkihitinawâw, relatives.

—Kanipawit Maskwa

12/20/2025

This type of gratitude practice is similar to The yogic practice of santosha or contentment.

Living gratefully offers a compass to navigate the norms, complacencies, and entrapments that every generation must confront. It is a response to life that affirms the gift we’ve been given.

Read the full essay: https://grateful.org/resource/grateful-life-begins-realize-gift/

12/17/2025

This article provides the most straightforward explanation of a very complex and imminent issue, in my opinion.

"I don't know how I'm going to pay for this," said one person with an Affordable Care Act plan that will cost her $1,100 a month starting in January.