Insight Meditation Collective, Arizona

01/06/2023

Nature is one of my favorite places to practice mindfulness. The smells, sights, air, feeling of the earth, the colors…it’s all there to tune into along with the breath. It’s definitely my happy place ☺️

02/05/2020

These cards came in the mail from this week and it was good timing...a reminder of the benefit to practice Metta, also called Lovingkindness meditation. Mindfulness is a powerful and important practice but it can get rough at times to sit with the truth of uncertainty and the impermanent nature of reality. And so the metta practice brings in the ease and loving qualities of the heart to help be with things, exactly as they are and then send out peace and love🙏🏼

May we all be safe, strong, healthy, well, and at ease as much as possible 💗

22/03/2020

I haven’t been consuming as much media or social media, just enough to get a sense of what’s happening. Over the past week I participated in a virtual silent meditation retreat at home. I was supposed to do this retreat in person, but things went cray so at home it is! It was a really interesting way to expand my practice and get much needed support and self care at home with all the covid-19 stuff. The support offered to me is available to all, freely. I decided that’s worth sharing. Here’s what I wrote on my blog and I hope it’s helpful to you in anyway possible
🙏🏼💎💗
Link for blog post in bio ♥️ or here https://mancinitheyogini.com/how-are-you-feeling-self-care-and-mental-health-support/

(I imagine we all can use some calming behaviors & peace of mind to varying degrees) **Included are some of the most helpful resources I look to in my life (pre and post COVID-19) and daily practices to keep your mind & heart safe, healthy, happy, at ease and SANE…

12/09/2019

What a beautiful studio to practice yoga 💕 I needed that this morning after not practicing for about a week.
The Eastlake community is lucky to have such a great space & group of yogis 💕✨✌🏼 @ Namaste Fitness

04/09/2019

Such a magical 5 days on retreat recently, at one of my favorite places on earth. This time around I volunteered/served as a retreat manager and not just an attendee. It was such an amazing experience to be mindful of focusing on my own meditation practice while also caring for a group of 40+ students; and holding the space in a supportive, caring, and organized way. Everything went really smooth and the group of yogis were great with their dedication, energy, and willingness to practice the dharma. Loads of gratitude to my teachers, the practice, and our sangha 🙏🏼☸️💕✨ @ Insight Retreat Center

14/08/2019

Where discipline and surrender meet, there is a magical force called ✨flow✨. If I didn’t have my own personal experience of it, I wouldn’t believe it’s a true phenomena. And that’s because I had spent the majority of my life efforting, striving, pushing, forcing, and manipulating to get my needs met. It wasn’t easy for me.
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Currently, I’m on 10 days in a row of yoga practice and 124 days in a row of meditation practice 🌀This is the discipline part.
Focusing on letting go or holding lightly my expectations and striving for things to be EXACTLY as I’d like them to be (in mind my neurotic mind “perfect”) 🌀
This is the surrender part.
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Out of this union blooms FLOW and it feels so good 😊

**I want to be clear and make a distinction that being in flow does not mean that I just let whatever happen and put in no effort. I am still responsible for making wise choices and decisions. I still have to take action and not be stuck in the muck... but I can do it in a way that brings peace, ease, and joy for myself & others. And I can do it in a way that is based on the present moment of WHAT IS, not the memories of the past or anxieties/fears of the future. THE NOW is the best place to investigate for making smart choices. Present moment awareness truly is a gift 🎁

🐫 @ ONE TRIBE Yoga & Wellness

21/07/2019

100 consecutive days of mediation 🙏🏼. This is pretty amazing IMO. In past years I would often say “the only thing I am consistent with is being inconsistent”. This practice has shown me that’s not the case.

The other day I meditated with a friend for a one hour sit. That too is quite amazing that my mind has become settled and collected enough to JUST SIT STILL for that amount of time. I could not have done that a couple years ago. Thankfully now I feel less scattered & mentally all over the place, for the most part. I still experience racing mind and distracted thoughts (monkey mind) sometimes but much less often and usually when I’m emotionally triggered 🤯 One of the cool things about mindfulness is that I can notice when I have that state of “monkey mind” present and take some care/ be gentle with myself versus adding to it by berating myself for getting upset or not having it all together (this was common in previous years since I was often experiencing tough states of mind...it was exhausting!).

It’s so wonderful that I can slow down and breathe at any given moment. There’s no equipment or gear to buy, no workshop, book, or session to attend. There’s nowhere I have to be to meditate. Mindfulness can be done anytime, anywhere. Without people even knowing. This skill truly is helpful!

Meditation and Buddhism has not “changed me”, I am still very much myself- good & bad. What it has done is given me access to parts of my mind I didn’t know were always there...calm, clarity, focus, confidence, and a deep knowing that things will be okay (even when I don’t feel like they are). And those qualities have helped change how I think overall and what I choose to do in daily life. Powerful stuff 💥

I suppose it’s time to write something more about meditation on my blog. There’s plenty of info out there about it already, but I’ll add my two cents. Aight y’all, happy Sunday!

24/06/2019

“THE RADICAL ACT OF RECLAIMING ATTENTION. In an attention economy, reclaiming your attention is a radical act of self-empowerment..” Full article- https://www.orenjaysofer.com/blog/attention

I felt like there was something about this topic for me to write about and it’s on my mind, but until then I’m fairly certain is writing about it in a very eloquent way. He’s an awesome human and such a skilled communicator.

On recent meditation retreat in May, a seed was planted to start contemplating and considering my use (and our collective use) of tech. I started to pay attention to my habits around using the internet, my phone, laptop, iPad, TV, etc. I was already cognizant of this to some extent, but I’ve been going deeper with it. Previously I already had “limits” on how much time I spend on social media and watch Netflix. I know from personal experiences that when I’m not doing well mentally, I tend to overuse these things. When I’m depressed I watch A LOT of TV to escape and check out. It’s a really old habit from childhood. But it’s been a while (over a year) since I’ve felt entangled with grief and depression so I look NOW (from what I’d say is the most stable mind I’ve ever cultivated) at my habits.
I’m reading- The Craving Mind: From Ci******es to Smartphones to Love—Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits by Judson Brewer. It’s been an interesting read. I recommend it.

I remember very clearly my teacher saying on retreat “you train your mind for 30 minutes to an hour every time you sit to meditate, what is training your mind the other 23 hours?” That is a powerful question to think about. At this point meditation if a form of rebellion and sanity from the forces of culture (advertising, social media, consuming & buying stuff, tech/internet) that are so pervasive and intentionally addictive.

As I’m writing this my internet is having an outage and I went online to find more info and people are losing their s**t. There are such angry & anxious comments and I get it, it’s annoying, but it’s not the end of the world, not yet. And I also get the irony of writing about use of social media while using SM 🤪
📸 Jens Johnsson

30/05/2019

Been away for a few weeks on silent meditation retreat...it was a nice tech/FB break :) New post is up on the blog, check it out if you fancy. Have a beautiful day peeps!

07/05/2019

Sit very, very still 💚 Repost from

27/04/2019

Happy Friday indeed! I spent some time with and her beautiful kiddos, had massage & cupping, am enjoying the most fresh ginger & lemon slushie, and did some reading. It’s over 100° today and although I don’t love that heat, that’s simply a preference that I’m noticing. I’m grateful for my awesome day. Super relaxed 😌 🌵 @ 24 Carrots!