hi friends.
good morning :)
the back of my 3yo’s head knocked one of my front teeth loose this weekend. yes, LOOSE, as in my dentist said it was “mobile” loose.
also, FUCK, dude is the direct quote of what came out of my mouth following the back of head to front of face tooth knocking loose incident.
also, it is snowing. it was snowing yesterday too. and on Sunday.
which is to say: there is ice under that snow.
and i haven’t put on the winter tires, which are sitting in the back of my garage. and yes—i did, in fact, slide right down a hill (no hope of breaking) through a stop sign into a THANK GOD empty lane of oncoming traffic this morning.
which is to say: it is Tuesday. and it has already been a long week.
anyway, i am writing to you on this snowy morning because something i think about a lot—and one of the whole reasons behind even having this page in the first place—is that i really really really believe in helping make meditation and mindfulness practices useful and tangible to people in real life.
i believe in letting these practices break out of the confines of beautifully lit studios filled with lavender mist—which don’t get me wrong, I LOVE TOO (and i am actually currently actively trying to prioritize making time for these centering moments to baby myself etc etc)—BUT getting to the lavender room is a lot harder for a lot of us than we’d like.
at least i know as a full-time working and full-time single parenting a 3yo (who happens to have a very large very hard head) human just trying to make it through the day most days reserving special special protected time just for myself and my little mindfulness practices can feel like a pretty big lift.
and in the meantime i am stuck in my car in traffic just trying to get where i need to go.
so, this morning i wanted to share a very raw, very unedited, very uncut version of how i practice centering myself and finding balance in the middle of the mess.
listen, this is not going to be the most calming meditation tape you’ve ever listened to.
i recorded it live, in my car after dropping Z at daycare and making it onto the cleared but very traffic-y roads.
i was driving. you can hear the other cars. and my turn signal. you can hear my uneven breath. you can hear the real world and my real self.
i am sharing it with you anyway because i can say how we should let ourselves have an imperfect practice. how we should bring mindfulness into our real lives. how we should remember our breath even when we aren’t being guided and held in a warm glowey room with candles all i want, but that isn’t going to make it any easier for you to start doing it.
and i want you to do it! i want you to believe that these things can be for everyone, because they are and they should be.
i want to find more ways to show you how to do it.
or at least share how i do it.
so, here’s to the draft, the process. to sharing how i try—even in the mess—in hopes that maybe it’ll make it a little less scary for you to try too.
long story short: recording this 15-minute livestream meditation from my car made me breathe a little deeper and sit a little easier in my morning.
so maybe listening to it—with all its imperfections and glitches—will do the same for you.
Morning Commute Meditation
You can still multi-task after all that! Thanks for thinking of us and cultivating our serenity for the day.
I’m so sorry about your tooth — that sounds so painful! I loved the idea of taking our meditations out and about and not feeling like we can only do them in the lavender rooms…we need that ability to center ourselves the most when we’re in the thick of the chaos 🌿