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Mindfulness Works Australia

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24.01.2022 When the last petal falls I recently had the honor of being with a woman who had requested that I be with her in the last few hours of life. She was the mother ...of a very dear friend of mine, who we both lost about twenty years ago. I hadn’t seen her in several years, but we emailed a few times a year, and we always exchanged birthday and holiday cards. We had a phone conversation every few months that usually lasted a few hours. I had kept her up to date on my life as a hospice nurse and my current dream to become an end of life doula. And she was my friend. She always had so many questions about the work I do, and very interested in the dying process and what it might feel like to die. In a million years I would have never known those questions were being asked because of her own personal decline, that she kept secret from me and those she loves. It was not because she was stoic and strong, it was because she wanted to live her life fully without the worry that others were tiptoeing around her. I remember one conversation very well, and it was before I knew she was given a terminal diagnosis; we were talking about those last few days someone has just before they die, and what that must feel like and what they might think about. She and I both agreed there was thought, even when there were no more words. She very eloquently compared it to a flower whose petals dropped slowly to the ground when it was dying. This conversation was colorful and lovely and imaginative and beautiful, and I will carry it with me for the rest of my life. A flower, when in its fullest bloom, stands so strong and confident, sometimes even in the fiercest windstorm. And then, as it nears the end of its life, the petals start to fall sometimes two or three at a time, sometimes only one at a time, and when that last petal falls, it represents the end. A few weeks ago, I received a text message from her, it simply said, my last petal will fall soon, can you come stay with me. She kept the secret of her illness from everyone, yet I knew exactly what she was saying, and I went immediately to her side, no questions asked. She sent me the text message after several of her petals had already fallen, she only had a few left and she chose me to be with her at her bedside. I walked in the door, her forever friend Anna greeted me, tears in her eyes. She said, she’s going to die soon Gabby, I responded, I know and we both walked in silence to her room. She looked up at me and smiled, she raised her hand for me to take, and in a very soft whisper she said, My last petal is about to fall, sit with me. I held her hand until she took her last breath. Life is unpredictable, and we just never know when either ourselves, or someone we love is suddenly given the notice that the garden they have been tending for so many years is about to go bare. The honor was all mine to be called to sit at her bedside in those last hours, and while a part of me wished she had shared with me earlier, so I could do more for her, I realize that my place was at her bedside when the last petal fell and that is good enough for me. A blog I wrote for the Conscious Dying Institute Newsletter, which is where I received my doula training. https://www.consciousdyinginstitute.com/

23.01.2022 Running today - The AMAZING Dr Heidi Douglass' MINDFUL EATING BASICS ZOOM WORKSHOP - Only $65. Book your place now here: https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/mindful-eating-ba/

22.01.2022 ONLY 7 PLACES LEFT! The next DARWIN intro to mindfulness and meditation course starts Wed 7 Oct. Book your place now here: https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/introduction-to-m/

22.01.2022 LET YOURSELF REST If you’re exhausted, rest. If you don’t feel like starting a new project, don’t.... If you don’t feel the urge to make something new, just rest in the beauty of the old, the familiar, the known. If you don’t feel like talking, stay silent. If you’re fed up with the news, turn it off. If you want to postpone something until tomorrow, do it. If you want to do nothing, let yourself do nothing today. Feel the fullness of the emptiness, the vastness of the silence, the sheer life in your unproductive moments. Time does not always need to be filled. You are enough, simply in your being. - Jeff Foster

21.01.2022 R.A.I.N is a mindfulness practice that fosters self-acceptance, and is a fantastic way to work with difficult thoughts and emotions RECOGNISE that you are thinking a thought or feeling a feeling. See if you can name the thought or feeling (e.g. worrying, panicking, anger, loneliness, sadness). This allows you to observe your thoughts or feel your feelings, rather than being held prisoner by them. ALLOW your experience to be as it is. You are allowed to think and feel y...our thoughts and feelings, including being scared, being angry, being jealous, being shamed out, being lonely, being embarrassed, being sad.Nothing is taboo or excluded. INVESTIGATE what is going on in your body when you think these thoughts and feel these feelings. What do you notice? How does it feel? This investigation allows us to develop an intimacy with our present moment experience just as it is - without needing to change it. Developing an intimacy with our experience is developing an intimacy with ourselves just as we are without needing to change. NURTURE ourselves with care and compassion. We are not alone. All human beings think thoughts and feel feelings. All human beings can be scared and lonely, stressed, anxious or depressed and these feelings will be there from time to time for all our life, it is natural. These are not indications we are broken or need fixing. By practicing self-forgiveness, self-kindness we discover self-love. A self-love that has always been there and always will be there, that has just been obscured by the stories we have told ourselves (or been told) and previously believed. #Mindfulness #mindfulnessWorks #selfcare

21.01.2022 The next PARRAMATTA Introduction to Mindfulness and Meditation course runs tomorrow (Tues 6 Oct) . Some places still available. Book your spot now here: https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/mindfulness-sydney/

21.01.2022 PARRAMATTA - Last Intro to Mindfulness and Meditation course for 2020. Only 8 places left. See all details and book your place now here: https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/mindfulness-sydney/

20.01.2022 "A day of intense feelings, a day of great rending thoughts that twist one back to face sudden realities hitherto avoided and there you are, facing them, like... looking into the sun, blinking, admitting the truth." Jack Kerouac, Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954 Kerouac Society: https://bit.ly/39ytOiL Instagram: instagram.com/kerouacestate Twitter: twitter.com/kerouacestate YouTube: youtube.com/kerouacestate photo credit: Il Tempo Newspaper - Milan, Italy - 1966

20.01.2022 Why are we so frightened about an uncertain future we’ve never known what’s coming. We know as much as those ancient Greek soothsayers reading pig entrails. L...et’s just throw our hats in the ring and admit we know nothing and never will that’s the human condition - like it or lump it. The future hasn’t happened and when it does there'll just be another future to be uncertain about. The next pandemic might just be the result of our panic, which can also seriously damage our health. The difference is it comes from inside us - we’re sabotaging ourselves with our own thinking. Mental and physical is the same thing our body and brain are a onesie. The fear we manufacture eventually breaks down our immune system, which is our only defence for this bacterial war. Maybe we should stop and think why we’re so insistent on looking for problems, far more than solving them. https://www.today.com//how-stop-doomscrolling-its-affect-y

18.01.2022 People say, "it will get better with time." I wonder if they mean easier? Either way I do not agree, in fact I think in many ways it becomes more difficult... t...he "missing" part seems to last forever. Perhaps it is the ache and the pain that softens over time, I can agree to that. I am only speaking for myself and the way I process my own loss, and my own grief. I am thankful to have my memories to take me back whenever I need access to them. I had a dream last night, that my friend John walked through my door at a party I was hosting... he looked at me, laughed, and said, "did my invitation get lost?". I laughed... I told him, the door was always open for him. Boy how I wish he could walk through my door now...

17.01.2022 DON'T MISS OUT! Last Mt Gravatt Brisbane Intro to Mindfulness and Meditation course for 2020 starts tomorrow (30 Sept). Book your place now here :) https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/an-introduction-t/

16.01.2022 "You find how to do the things to yourself which allow you to find truth where you are at that moment. I’d say we never find out anything new; we just remember it." -Ram Dass, 1970 https://www.ramdass.org/truth-each-moment/ #truth #ramdass #moment

15.01.2022 Thank You for Listening By: Gabrielle Jimenez One of the lessons I have learned while working in end-of-life care is the importance of listening. People in gene...ral want to be heard, but the daughter of a mother who is dying needs to know that when she is talking to you about someone she loves, you hear her. This goes for anyone who is about to say goodbye to someone they love. Learning to listen, at least in my opinion, takes time. It requires us to be patient, non-judgmental, open to what someone has to say and to never assume you know more or better than they do. To listen, means to hear their words, and understand the feelings behind them, to respect how they might feel and allow them whatever time it might take to say what they need to say. To be able to truly listen to someone else, means to remove the distractions that get in the way, and to understand what it means to be fully present for someone else. I had to learn what that meant first. Being present means showing up. It means not projecting your opinions or personal agenda relative to what someone else is trying to say. I am a continuous work in progress, and this is something I am always working on. Each patient, each family member and every person I am blessed to work with, are my teachers. I recently called the daughter of a patient, to set up a time for a visit. This was a routine visit, she was not actively dying, and there was no distress that I was aware of. But when I called, I could hear in her voice that she was nearing a breaking point. Initially she started to take her anger and frustrations out on me, screaming at me for calling on the wrong phone line. This switched to an emotional outburst about her mother throwing the water bottle at her, and then she tearfully said, I can’t take this anymore, which to me, meant she was referring to the care of her mother. She switched gears on me during the conversation, which allowed me to hear that what she was really struggling with was caregiver burnout, a very real thing. I took pause and gave her the safe space to talk. I didn’t respond with all the ways I could fix her situation, I just listened to her. And when there was a moment in the conversation that I felt appropriate to comment, I said, how about I come now, and we can continue this conversation in person? I showed up about twenty minutes later. I sat and listened to her talk about how hard this has been for her. I comforted her as she cried, and I held her hand until she stopped. When she was done, we both went in and visited with her mother. At first glance I knew she was dying, and that it was probably going to be soon; I also knew that her daughter was very unaware of this. We walked back out to the living room, and I sat down with her on the couch. I reminded her what beautiful work she had done caring for her mother, and that while it hasn’t been easy, it was exactly what her mom needed to be able to get to that peaceful place in her end-of-life journey. I looked at her in the eyes and I was honest and gentle as I shared what I thought, which was that her mother was going to die soon and still needed her daughter to take her through to those last breaths. I honored her words of struggle and frustration and gave her the room to get to the place where she could be there for her mom in those last hours. I told her I couldn’t be sure if today was the day but if I didn’t share my thoughts, I would never forgive myself for not giving her a last best moment with her mother. Her mother died the next morning. I called her that day to check in to see how she was doing. The first thing she said was, thank you for listening to me yesterday. I want to believe that because I took the time to listen to her and allow her to let some of the weight she was carrying go, she was able to be more present for her mother at the time she needed her most. Listening means being there for others, and being fully aware of the moment you are in. And what I have also learned, which I think is significant, is that not everyone wants an answer sometimes they just want to be heard. Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words. Roy T. Bennet

15.01.2022 Mindful Eating Basics Zoom workshop with the fantastic Dr Heidi Douglass this Sunday 4th October. Bookings essential! https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/mindful-eating-ba/

15.01.2022 So many of us feel shame about our trauma and wounding, as if it is evidence that we’ve failed, it’s our fault, and that we should be able to get over it and ...heal on our own. Even if we know that these conclusions are not accurate, these schemas live implicitly in our sensitive bodies and nervous systems, where they remain open for neural revisioning when (relational) conditions are ripe. These heartbreaking lenses of perception are reflected back to us by an increasingly disembodied and left-brain dominant culture, giving rise to the contemporary fantasy that I should be able to do it all on my own. The tribe has broken down, replaced by the device and the slow cortisol drip of a sympathetically aroused collective. And we wonder why it’s all falling apart. The emotional pain is tragic in and of itself, but underneath it is the underlying shame and deep sense of being alone, which is really at the root of trauma. At times, it can be overwhelming to hold and metabolize fear and anxiety on our own. But with another nervous system, our windows of tolerance expand as they come together. This alchemical blending allows us to integrate experience that outside the relational field would otherwise send us into unworkable states of fight, flight, or collapse. As relational mammals, we are wired to co-regulate. We are not meant to do it all on our own and it is not an indication that something is wrong with us if we cannot always contain our own wounding. Rather, it is evidence we are alive, with an open, sensitive, majestic, and sometimes achy human nervous system. We can do so much for one another, to help hold and transmute both transgenerational, biographical, and collective trauma. To slow down, with our presence and miracle mirror neurons, listen deeply, and be with another in a way that they feel felt and understood. Our world so desperately this needs right now. If you want to help someone in your life, help them to feel safe. Instead of I am alone with this fear, pain, and grief, We are here together, and healing is possible. And then transmit this embodied realization into the neural circuitry of the world. Photo by Annie Spratt

15.01.2022 Inner Peace | Forget About Healing | Mindful Eating - https://mailchi.mp//mindfulness_tips_free_apps_online_cour

14.01.2022 The WONDERFUL Claire Guild is facilitating the next PERTH Mindfulness 2.0 course starting Thurs 19th Nov. This course is for those who have completed the Introduction to Mindfulness and Meditation course or with mindfulness experience. Book your spot now here: https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/mindfulness-2-0-4/

13.01.2022 LAST CHANCE TO BOOK for the MCLAREN VALE Introduction to Mindfulness and Meditation course starting 12 November. Book your spot now here: https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/an-introduction-t/

12.01.2022 https://medium.com//what-to-say-to-your-parent-when-theyre

12.01.2022 OR you could choose a Mindfulness Works Experience Gift Card - get one now here https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/gift-card/

12.01.2022 Falling apart, holding it all together. Then falling apart, then coming back together. As in the natural world, so in the interior majesty of the soul. As the leaves yellow and the old dreams and images decay, a doorway appears into a holy reassembling. In transitional space, we are asked to grieve the passing of the forms of love, as they ask for mercy to continue their journey to the next place. The deep knowing that it was never going to turn out the way we thought opens t...hat embodied tenderness, which aches with life. If we remain too identified with falling apart, we lose contact with that which was never unhealed, untransformed, and was never together to begin with. That innate radiance, the outrageousness of the heart, and the miracle of having an open sensitive nervous system. We disconnect with the magic of embodied presence, the wisdom of the mud and the earth, and the unshakable confidence in our true nature, which is that of the stars. But if we remain too identified with holding it all together, we split off from our organic spontaneity, imaginative vulnerability, and the truth that love will take whatever form it must to reveal its qualities within us. Raw, achy, illuminating heartbreak may approach at any time, requesting safe passage inside. But it is through this broken aliveness that the poetry of our lives will flow. Right in the middle of falling apart and holding it together is the secret place. Go there. It is here where light and dark are at play. Where sun and moon, Sol and Luna, are dancing out the phenomenal world.

11.01.2022 PARRAMATTA Intro to Mindfulness & Meditation 4 Week Course starts tonight (6 Oct). Still some places left if you are keen. See details and book now here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/introduction-to-mindfulness

11.01.2022 LAST DARWIN Intro to Mindfulness and Meditation course for 2020 starts 7October. Don't miss out! Book your place now here :) <3 https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/introduction-to-m/

10.01.2022 Mindfulness and Money Tip #1. Follow up courses and workshops. - https://mailchi.mp//mindfulness_tips_free_apps_online_cour

06.01.2022 Uncertainty is hard when you’re young and inexperienced at life. Uncertain times naturally bring about uncomfortable emotions. Children and teenagers need a sa...fe and warm space to feel and express their emotions. A calm and paced response from adults that acknowledges feelings and supports psychological flexibility, without fixing feelings, ‘over-empathising’ or pushing feelings away, can help turn uncertainty and challenge into long term psychological growth and increased resilience. Xx Madhavi Nawana Parker Image @gottmaninstitute #relationships #parenting #connection #resilience #wellbeing #confidence https://positivemindsaustralia.com.au/books/

06.01.2022 Keeping fit during the time of Covid?

06.01.2022 ONLY 2 PLACES LEFT! Last Mudgeeraba Introduction to Mindfulness and Meditation course for 2020 starts tonight. Book your place now here: https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/an-introduction-t/

05.01.2022 MINDFULNESS AND MONEY ZOOM WORKSHOP with chartered accountant and Mindfulness teacher Gavin Gavin Eichholz. Happening tomorrow (Tues 24 Nov). Book your place now here: https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/mindfulness-and-m/

05.01.2022 DON'T MISS OUT! HOBART Intro to Mindfulness and Meditation 4 week course. Starts Tues 24th Only 5 places left. Book your spot now here: https://mindfulnessworksaustralia.com.au/introduction-mind/

05.01.2022 Mindfulness with coffee/tea: Try to experience the sensations of pouring, stirring, smelling and finally focusing on the taste, the heat, the feeling in your mo...uth. Notice how thoughts take a back seat when you take your attention to sensing something rather than thinking about something. Hopefully you won’t burn your lips off but if you do try sensing that too. [More hot drink based mindfulness in my book Frazzled) See more

04.01.2022 Mindfulness 2.0 in-person course in Perth. Last course for 2020! - https://mailchi.mp//mindfulness-20-course-live-and-online-