“Mindfulness is about love and loving life. When you cultivate this love, it gives you clarity and compassion for life, and your actions happen in accordance with that.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn

Before you even get out of bed in the morning do you ever find yourself getting ready to fight in the battlefield? When we’ve been offended, misunderstood, dismissed, unrecognized, we often wake up ready to go out to the battlefield, prepared to fight the enemy. You know them—Boss, coworker, spouse, friend. There’s a need to fight and make things right. There’s a need to be understood, to right the world that is spiraling out of control.

However, if we are disciplined enough to make it over to our meditation chair to sit in the stillness and quiet the mind, we can tap into peace. Then we can assess the situation and find our voice. I appreciate author Sam Horn’s A.N.G.E.R. Method of taking a step back to find a conscious, peaceful way to take action.

Imagine what would happen if we put aside the battlefield and instead went out to work in the garden? What if we allowed  the warrior weapons to morph into garden gloves and channeled the emotions of battle into energetic vitality? We could use this newfound clarity of the situation to nurture and till the soil, feeding the precious seedlings (thoughts) with love, peace, wholeness, harmony. Take time to smell the flowers and take in the beauty of nature’s bounty.

If we are willing to stop and assess the situation, we have clarity and can lay down our weapons. The challenges of the world can be transformed by the presence of peace. It takes mindful intention and a willingness to let go. Buddha reminds us that “Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.”

Practicing mindfulness can give us the resources to face the difficulty of the day. It can help us find words to heal, thoughts to soothe, acts of kindness to share.

Affirmation: I am willing to lay down thoughts of separation and practice the radiant oneness of love.