Mindful Living Archives - Dandelion Doorways

Slowing Down: Learning to Live Within My Limits

After five years of learning to slow down, I’m discovering that moving forward doesn’t have to mean pushing past my limits. Sometimes slowing down is how we make room for the life we’re already living.

Today is Different

I woke up this morning feeling achy and stiff, with joint pain and a lot of tightness through my low back and side. I’m currently experiencing a lupus flare, so my body was feeling particularly tense and uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure if I felt like attending the Lymphatic Flow Class on Insight Timer this morning.…

The Beauty of Broken Things

I almost stepped over it. It was just a piece of broken shell lying in the dirt, surrounded by pine needles, stones, and the debris that accumulates wherever nature is left to itself. But then I saw the color. That impossible blue against the earth. And I stopped. I wondered how many beautiful things we…

Every Doorway is an Invitation

Miniature Oil Pastel Paintings Doorways have always symbolized something meaningful to me. Every doorway is an invitation—a threshold between what has been and what is possible. Some doors close; others open, and each offers us an opportunity to begin. This mirrors the thresholds in our lives—endings, beginnings, transitions, uncertainty—the quiet, trembling moments when the familiar…

The Gift of Slowing Down

A Sunday Softening Practice As the years flow ever onward, I continue to seek quiet and calm—a softer pace, a slower life. The moments of stillness heal and refresh my spirit, allowing that sense of calm to flow into other areas of my life. I caution you, dear reader, though: do not believe for a…

Pain as a Doorway: Finding Agency in Chronic Illness

Pain may not be a choice. The way I meet the world often is. The last few weeks have been marked by migraines and the familiar ache of endometriosis. Some days simply getting through work requires more effort than anyone around me realizes. The pain is real. The fatigue is real. And yet, I’ve noticed…

Sunday Softening: The Quiet Art of Noticing

There is a quiet joy in spending time outdoors with nowhere in particular to be. When I slow down enough, I begin to notice the gentle things that are so easily overlooked—the way a breeze lifts the delicate tendrils rising from a cushion of moss, carrying tiny spores out into the world. A bee disappears…

What Endures: What Sam Neill Helped Me Remember

I thought I was mourning an actor. Instead, I found myself remembering the child who believed dinosaurs could inspire a lifetime of questions. The passing of Sam Neill hit me harder than I expected. I’ve mourned musicians before. There’s something uniquely heartbreaking about realizing you’ll never hear a new song in their voice again. But…

Sunday Softening: Unwinding The Day

As the weekend comes to a close, many of us begin carrying tomorrow before today has even ended. We replay conversations, make mental to-do lists, and hold onto the responsibility of the day long after they passed. This week’s Sunday Softening is an invitation to set those things down, even only for a little while,…

Why I Stopped Chasing Perfect Meditation

For years, I thought a good meditation meant a quiet mind, a perfectly straight posture, and leaving the cushion feeling peaceful. Some days all three happened. Most days they didn’t. My meditation practice began decades ago. I learned to meditate through reading books such as Thich Nhat Hanh’s “The Miracle of Mindfulness.” This wasn’t the…

Category: Mindful Living