Calling all delight-filled, compassionate people

I need your help!  I have 48 hours to get 250 votes for the Barefoot Barn to be eligible for a small business grant of up to $250,000!

If you  have gotten any little gem from this blog or from the work of the Barefoot Barn, would you please to go to www.missionsmallbusiness.com,  search for “the barefoot barn” and cast your vote???

It is really simple, no gimmicks, and won’t take more than 30 seconds.

http://www.barefootbarn.com

My mission is to continue to offer mindfulness-based and body-based psychotherapy, mindfulness coaching, and retreats and workshops that inspire delight, compassion, and connection.  AND to add more! 

Compassionate parenting “e-courses” so parents can learn mindfulness practices on their own time and in their own home but still be connected to a community online. 

Compassionate communication courses for couples. 

Community events that can inspire our neighbors to live with more delight, to offer kindness to others in everyday ways, and to deepen a sense of connection with each other! 

More retreats and workshops with yoga, mindfulness, and compassion practices! 

Hiring practitioners to TEACH mindfulness courses — to parenting groups, to any group, to school administrators, and in the schools.  

And…here’s the BIG dream…BUILD THE BARN!  For many years now, it has been a dream of ours to build an ACTUAL barn where folks can come for retreat and renewal, for gathering and connecting, and for inspiration to go back to their daily lives and share what delights their hearts.

This is the vision, prayer, hope, and plan of the Barefoot Barn.  Would you vote for us????

And if you are inspired and your heart is moved to do so, share this link with your dear ones and ask them to vote.

Thank you, dear ones!  I’ll keep everyone posted!

Making miracles of everyday life

Here is the first video by the Barefoot Barn!  It’s about finding a sacred pause in your everyday life…and making miracles out of the ordinary.  Enjoy!  Hope it inspires you!

Thank you to these awesome women who contributed to this first video.  They are all moms, professionals, and incredible women who bring beauty and kindness into this world.

Megan Jones
Meredith Mullins
Samantha Schroeder
Molly Spence
Tracy Sullivan

For everyday wisdom,
visit Meg @
www.istopforsuffering.wordpress.com

For family photography,
visit Tracy @
www.dragonflydreamphotography.com

Tips for Mindful Relationships #7: Regard

Recall the last conversation you had with your partner.

Did you look at them?

Did  your eyes communicate “I see you?”

Did your heart communicate “I’m listening?”

Did you look at them — really look at them and hold them with regard?

We can so often get caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily living that we forget to MAKE EYE CONTACT with our partner.  We can get so caught up in our interpretations, sulking in our hurts, mired in the story we’ve created, as our anger grows and we feel even more justified and RIGHT.  We can get so caught up in our habitual ways of interpreting and reacting.

Soon these fleeting moments turn into “the norm.”  We can spend years this way.  Decades.  Even a lifetime.

How lonely.  What a waste. There is much more happiness available to us than this!

Folks can often come to therapy with a laundry list of complaints about their partner (or children).  They want to know how to “get” their partner to do, say, or feel something.  I save them several long, expensive, fruitless sessions:  you can’t.

We can’t GET anyone to do anything.  The only thing we have “control” of is OURselves.  OUR reactions.  OUR actions, words, and emotions.

We live in a “me, me, me” culture.  And we live in the extremes — either totally negating “me” or totally wrapped up in “me” mode.

This does not work for being in a healthy and flourishing relationship.

Try “regard.”

Have regard for your Self.  Acknowledge what is happening within you at any given moment.  BE with arises.  Truly, some need will arise.  A deep need from the heart.  Share that need with your partner.

Have regard for your partner.  LIIIIIIISTEN.  Listen with the eyes and ears of your heart for the underlying need that is being expressed.  Let your whole BODY communicate, “I SEE YOU.”

This week, vow to yourself, if you feel moved to, that you will practice treating yourself and your partner with REGARD.  And when you don’t, just wake up, acknowledge that, and begin again.  There is ALWAYS time to begin again, this time, with your heart postured for listening and acting with kindness.

Want some great info on compassionate communication?  Check out the Center for Nonviolent Communication .  This is an international organization for communicating with compassion – with our partners, children, co-workers, etc.

The courage to heal

A few times a year, our church weaves into the mass a time of “anointing the sick.” Anyone who is hurting, in any way, is invited to come forward. The priest and deacon take their time. They lay their hands on the person’s head and they anoint the person’s forehead with oil. They speak a prayer privately as the congregation sings and “holds the space.”

It’s a time of bodies being blessed. It’s a time of remembering – the fragility of the body, the tenacity of hope, and the need for community. It’s a time of having the courage to step forward, announcing with their silent but visual presence that one wants to be healed…and surrendering.

This past Sunday, we had the anointing of the sick.

I sat there watching as folks from the pews got up and stepped forward. I wanted to go up. I wanted, wanted, wanted to. But I didn’t.

I never do. I never stand up and walk to the front of the church.  And I’m sad about that.

No, I don’t have cancer or a tumor; I don’t struggle with addiction; I don’t have a mental illness.  But I do desire what so many of us do — to be held and healed, to have our brokenness acknowledged and seen. Whatever that brokenness is that we all have.

You don’t have to believe that there is healing (which is different from “cure”) going on with the “laying on of hands.” Healing happens in having the courage to acknowledge and say, “I feel broken”  and we welcome that brokenness with the tenderness of a mother comforting a hurting child.

Healing happens when we have the courage to be vulnerable and share our brokenness with another person.

Healing happens when we finally proclaim and ask for what we have longed for – maybe for decades.  Healing happens when we finally say “YES” to that longing – yes to its presence (and residence) within us, yes to the Divine forces that have so desired to hold that longing with us and soothe it.

Healing happens when we ask for what we need and fold into the arms that can and want to hold us.

Maybe me not getting up in front of the congregation this past Sunday was then a prompt to now go before my husband and my mom, two of the most beautiful, loving people in my life and say, “Hold me, please.  Just because.”  I’ve been too strong lately.  Too “independent.”  Too “do it on my own.”  I need to acknowledge that I feel broken at times and be ok with being vulnerable and broken before another.  And allow them to hold me.

Like so many of us, I often do a lot of the “holding.”  I’ve been great at that my whole life.  I do it for a profession.  But I can easily get caught up in being the one “listening” and “about the other person.”  I, too, need to have the courage to ask for someone to do the holding.  And I am blessed to have a mom and a husband that are awesome at that.  And long to do just that – hold me.

Sacred Softening

Sacred Softening

My body knows
has always known
my way back to God.

I dance
moving in slow sensual swirls
under the vastness of a moon-lit night

swaying until stillness fills every cell
and there are no hard edges
striving, panting, thinking

only breath
and heart.

Empty now,
I open into spaciousness

becoming the brilliant Night Jewel
boldly, gently shimmering her soft light.

And I discover that
I have always been
resting

shining

in God’s lap.

© 2011 Lisa A. McCrohan

 

It is in movement, sensual swirls, barefoot, under the moon that I soften and “return Home.”

Softening and surrendering. In movement. In writing a poem. This is how I return to the Divine and discover that I didn’t “go” anywhere. I’ve always been right here on God’s lap.

How do you “return” to the Divine within you and around you?

Soulful Quotes for Inspiration #12

These quotes recently appeared on the Barefoot Barn’s facebook page. Join us on Facebook!

“Everything you do right now ripples outward and affects everyone. Your posture can shine your heart or transmit anxiety. Your breath can radiate love or muddy the room in depression. Your glance can awaken joy. Your words can inspire freedom. Your every act can open hears and minds.”
- David Dieda

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“In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you love? How deeply did you learn to let go?”
- Buddha

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“If you are waiting for anything in order to live and love without holding back, then you suffer.”
- David Deida

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“May I be at peace, May my heart remain open,
May I awaken to the light of my own true nature,
May I be healed and may I be a source of healing for others.”
Pocketful of Miracles by Joan Borysenko

Blessings of Delight,

Lisa