We invite you to join us for online every first Thursday of the month morning Mindful Caregiving sangha.
Mindful Caregiving
These mindful caregiving sessions are open to all who identify as caregivers. The topics and discussions of this group will be rooted in mindfulness practice and will aim to support those in a parental role, caretaking for an elder, or experiencing another type of caregiving situation by creating a compassionate, reflective space to come together.
No prior experience with mindfulness is necessary—all are welcome. There are no restrictions to join. While there is no fee, we invite participants to offer dana (a practice of generosity) to help sustain the gathering.
Format: 7:00 am-7:25 am meditation period and 7:25-8:00 am dharma sharing.
For questions about the Mindful Caregivers group, please contact facilitator Jenny Medvene-Collins.
No previous mindfulness or meditation experience is necessary. No fees, donations are always welcome.
Monthly Topic:
Generating Moments of Joy
Video: How to Generate Joy | Teachings by Thich Nhat Hanh
Jenny Shares:
As caregivers, we often think about what is going awry or stray from a plan we had in our minds or on our calendars. Many of us are trying to move through our days with some sense of normalcy while also carrying the magnitude of our caregiver identities. It makes sense that we are thinking and feeling so much and that sometimes getting stuck on what is not unfolding as we’d hoped. Despite the tendency our minds often have to drift toward what feels uncomfortable, we have available to us the power to harness the energy of mindfulness and generate moments and experiences of joy.
Thay reminds us that we have this power in every single moment we are alive on this earth, even though it can often feel difficult to cultivate feelings of joyfulness in challenging times. He reminds us that through everyday actions such as mindful breathing and mindful walking, we can create joy for ourselves. We can aim to pause wherever we are and focus all our attention on our in-breath, then our out-breath. We can celebrate the in-breath, feeling appreciation for the experience of being alive in this moment. We can celebrate our out-breath, feeling the awareness of our body and mind right now. Thay suggests writing down all the conditions for happiness that we already have on a piece of paper, as an exercise to help realize our potential sources of joy. I recently did this exercise when having a glum-feeling day and was pleasantly surprised at what appeared on the page. There were more conditions for happiness than I had expected to see there, especially when my mind had been focused more on what was straying from my hopes and plans.
Sometimes we will try this exercise and won’t be able to think of conditions for happiness quickly, which is also OK. We know that mindfulness is a practice and that generating joy is a practice. We can keep practicing and gradually learn to infuse more moments of joy into our days in spite of our suffering and challenging circumstances. We are not trying to change our experiences or circumstances, but we can learn to bring ourselves more moments of ease.
I would love to hear if there have been moments of joy in your lives lately or if it feels hard to know how to generate joy as a caregiver. I am curious to know:
-If you have felt joy recently, what have those moments or experiences felt like? Did they occur spontaneously or with the intention of generating them?
-How can we try to recognize and nurture more conditions for our own happiness?