Courtney Sunday - Mindfulness for PMS, Hangovers, and Other Real-World Situations: More Than 75 Meditations to Help You Find Peace in Daily Life

Copyright 2018 by Courtney Sunday

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Jenny Zemanek

Cover photograph by iStockphoto

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-5107-3065-6

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-3066-3

Printed in China

For my mom, who made me believe that writing was a noble act.

For my father, who believed that I could be the CEO of anything (including myself).

For my sister, who reminds me to stay connected to who I was as much as who I am.

For Mike, who owns my heart and encourages my biggest, brightest dreams.

For Theo, who has already proven to be my spiritual teacher.

Contents

Foreword

W e live in a time of I know best. Even though this may seem like a book that is following that thread, I promise you, it is not. Life is filled with enough should, and I have no interest in adding to your pile, or looking at your life from my high horse. I am, however, increasingly interested in mindfulness and how it has helped me move through my life with more grace. (I say this as someone who just fell on her butt yesterday in an attempt to figure skate.)

We do the best we can, and sometimes, we become too busy. We say yes when we should say no. We are exhausted at the end of the day but we cant sleep. We add more to our plates. We ignore our hunger, our voices, our bodies. We plough through. I have done this, and I will continue to do this when I need to learn the same lesson. However, as I have gotten older I have become adept at the habit of subtracting. I dont need one more Facebook friend or party or assignment to prove my worth. Meditation is what has given me this confidence. It is something that sits with me when my partner has been working a lot and I am lonely. It is a companion when I am worried that I am the least successful person of anyone I know. It is a deep relationship through thick and thin as I transform each day. Mindfulness has seen me with stringy hair and weepy eyes, and it has seen me when I cant stop biting my nails or checking my social media channels. When I feel anxiety settling in, trying to get comfortable, I politely show it the door by meditating more.

If I feel exhausted by the shoulds, I figured I must not be the only one. This book of mindfulness is for those of you in the world who dont have time to add one more thing to your to-do list. Mindfulness can be taken on the road, when you are drinking coffee, hanging out with your dog, sitting on a plane, or waiting in line. There are countless moments of waiting in our day-to-day lives. Normally, we use that time to pull out our phones and scroll through pages that we forget immediately after. If I quizzed you on what you saw in those moments, it is likely you wouldnt remember. Those are mindless moments, and although that may be nice occasionally, it doesnt fill us with the same benefits as moments of mindfulness. Think of the emotions you would like to be fuller of: Calm? Hope? Love? Mindfulness is a way of getting closer and closer to the person you know you can be, which may be very different from the person who lost their cool on their commute this morning. I started writing these meditations when I worked for Canadian wellness magazine tuja wellness . I found that as I wrote, it became more and more natural for me to be present, which prevented stress from escalating.

My hope is that occasionally you put the phone away to get more connected to your spirit and to your divine self. Moments that arise spontaneously can help you say hello to the part of yourself that fiercely protects your own boundariesand knows when to take a nap and eat chocolate. I believe that the math equation (nap + chocolate = wisdom) is an elegant theory (and I studied math in University, so you should listen to me).

There is no should, there is no rhyme or reason, there is just you. You may simply want to read this book for entertainment or you may decide to incorporate it into your life. I am not here to preach, I am here to connect with you, as a humbly mindful and constantly curious woman.

I hope that you enjoy this journey of self.

Everyday Moments of Mindfulness

Mindfulness

FOR WHEN YOU DONT EVEN FIT INTO YOUR FAT PANTS

I want a perfect body I want a perfect soul, sang Radiohead in their hit song, Creep, circa 1993. Generations of grungy, angsty teenagers sporting rainbow hair and plaid shirts sang alongI may or may not have been one of them. The grunge era may have passed, but the words still ring pretty true. We want perfect bodies (and this was written before Instagram!). We are always trying to improve, and lets be honest, we often focus on the negative. We wish that our bodies were stronger, smaller, larger, smoother, or sexier. We swear we will do better. We will exercise more and reduce our diet until barely anything constitutes as clean.

When was the last time you saw your body as perfect?

There has to be an enough from time to time. The author William Paul Young wrote, The opposite of more is enough. We must turn off the media that says our worth is directly proportional to the flatness of our stomachs.

Try to center yourself on the thought that your body is indeed perfect in every moment. It has wisdom and intuition to guide you toward health and balance. Your cells know the right thing to do, just as your mind knows the right thing to do, even if it doesnt always follow itto eat well and do well, offering you deep acceptance and gratitude for the body you live in today.

This meditation is simple. Its a mantra: So, hum. I am.

Hear the gentle sound of your inhalation and exhalation. Inhale on so and exhale on hum.

Inhale so.

Exhale hum.

Thoughts will pop up, as they often do. Just come back to your mantra, come back to your breath. This meditation will anchor you in the realization that your body will change, your environment will alter, and yet there is a constant in life. I am is the present tensethe part of your body and mind that is grounded and connected.

After five to ten minutes, release the mantra, come back into your body, and gently open your eyes. Enjoy the perfection of your body and if negative thoughts arise during the day, send yourself acceptance and love.

So, hum.

Mindfulness

FOR WHEN YOU ARE PREGNANT (AND FEELING FAT)

I t is a pretty remarkable thing to grow a human being. Even so, it doesnt matter how many times someone declares that you are glowing. When you have a cocktail of new hormones and are gaining new chins with every week, you may find yourself looking at your pre-prenatal clothing in your closet thinking, I will never be able to fit into that again.