Mindful Mornings Miami

15/07/2024

Might you seek some peace & quiet?
Have you ever experienced a daylong retreat?
Join us this Sunday, July 21st for Awaken In Nature Summer Silent Retreat at Patch of Heaven Sanctuary!
We offer this retreat just four times per year and invite you to:
🌳 Reconnect To Nature
🙏🏼 Pause & P.A.W.S. (Pay Attention to Your Senses)
🥗 Eat organic, healthy lite bite breakfast & lunch
💕 Practice heart-centered insight meditation
Our past retreat guests have shared that:
"Its like going to Bali without getting on a plane"
We encourage you to take the time to put down your digital devices.
Why not join us with a friend to learn new ways to calm your mind, soothe your soul and reconnect to the "One Who Knows" inside your heart.
Yoga, sound healing, guided meditation, ecocdharma talk and more will be part of this peace-filled experience that can reset your nervous system by "coming back down to Earth" in this full-day of grounding as you walk, sit, move, and lie down in this 20 acre sacred sanctuary.
Register at the link here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/928585824197?aff=oddtdtcreator

23/06/2024

Our goal with the inner critic is not to silence or knock them out of our heads—that’s not the most realistic or skillful approach. Instead, we’re looking to cultivate a more spacious relationship to this voice in our lives. Perhaps neither believing it unquestioningly, nor repeating a cycle of endlessly punishing ourselves for it.

The first step is recognizing the voice of the inner critic as you move throughout your day. The critic lives in a world of absolutes, with little room for nuance or gray areas. Their favorite words are should, always and never, and blame is their operating system. "You’ve blown it, you always do.” “You should just give up." “You’re so different, no one will ever love you.” “You’re so flawed, you'll never be able to help yourself, let alone anybody else.” For some the inner critic is a specific voice from the past, a family member, a teacher, the boss who fired you.
Experiment with giving your inner critic a persona: a name or a wardrobe. This will create a little space between you and help you focus on your relationship to your inner critic, which is the arena of transformation.

The more you notice that relationship, the more you can choose how you’d like to engage and not be on autopilot. Instead of utterly believing them or frantically pushing them away, you can recognize ‘Oh, look who is visiting. It’s battling Belinda,” or Judge Arthur” or “whomever” You might weight their comments, to see if they have some validity, or are just replays of old tunes. It doesn’t work to try to fight them, or insist they go away. But it doesn’t make sense to just give in to that repetitive, habituated negative voice.

You can experiment with different ways of managing them compassionately.

I named my own inner critic Lucy, after a Peanuts cartoon I saw years ago. Lucy was telling Charlie Brown, “The problem with you is that you’re you.” With mindfulness, I’ve learned to respond to her with “Hi, Lucy” or “Chill out, Lucy.” This way, I avoid overreacting “You’re right Lucy, I’m worthless,” or “I cant believe I’ve been meditating this long and horrible Lucy still comes.”

23/06/2024

15/06/2024

Tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/910660539187?aff=oddtdtcreator

13/06/2024

Come chant, move, meditate, sing and celebrate! Get your tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/910660539187?aff=oddtdtcreator

19/05/2024

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/grief-circle-ceremony-for-healing-tickets-900232689207?utm_experiment=test_share_listing&aff=ebdsshios

Join us for a profound journey of healing at the Grief Circle for Moms, a special 2-hour event for mothers enduring the loss of a child.

28/03/2024

Metta (lovingkindness) is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves. We can open to everything with the healing force of love. When we feel love, our mind is expansive and open enough to include the entirety of life in full awareness, both its pleasures and its pains. We feel neither betrayed by pain nor overcome by it, and thus we can contact that which is undamaged within us regardless of the situation. Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be. We do not need to fear anything. We are whole: our deepest happiness is intrinsic to the nature of our minds, and it is not damaged through uncertainty and change.

Excerpt from "Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness"

22/02/2024

So happy you provided your magic Blue Butterfly Pea Tea, Lilly Be Organic!!! Everyone even squeezed their lemons TOGETHER in a magic interactive moment of blue tea beauty. SO grateful for your always kind-hearted support of our magical ways of celebrating our love of Nature at Patch of Heaven Sanctuary!!! Here’s to the Forest! 💜💜💜🌳🌳🌳💚💚💚

06/01/2024

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly - what is essential is invisible to the eye." Antoine de Saint Exupery

“I cannot do all the
good the world needs.
But the world needs all
the good that I can do.”
~Jana

When we digitally disconnect from the world and heartfully reconnect to the very beat of Life that lies beneath the busyness of the world, we start the ancient practice of “coming back down to Earth”. Most of us fly daily on autopilot with nary a thought to the webs we weave within which feed our anxiety and fuel our fears.

Research is revealing that even “micro-moments” of pausing can help. What’s most important is practicing them regularly and often, so that the nervous system “can relate” to what it feels like to “turn off” and “tune in”.

Rest and renewal may seem like a luxurious choice as a way to begin the year. Yet I’ve found that when I create “mini-retreat pockets” in my life which help me remember how to relax and deepen into rest, my mind, body and spirit thank me.

🙏 So start your year in a way that’s less about doing, more about being.

🪷 Lie on the Earth in shivasana position and learn the deep healing embrace of Yoga Nidra.

🕊️Allow peace to somatically seep into your tissues, then let your muscles fall away from your bones.

While many others are creating vision boards to manifest desires, you’ll be dropping below the grasping nature of attachment to inquire within what’s your heart’s purpose. This investigation invites an aspiration or intention (sankalpa) of the highest and best of your journey on Earth to find fertile soil inside your still mind, body and heart space.

This is where deep subconscious shifts begin to take root; in the space of choiceless and open awareness beyond thought.

So spend a few hours resting your body and replenishing your heart.

Join us Sunday, our events tend to sell out, so don’t wait, register at the LINK IN BIO.

14/12/2023

Happy Thursday beloveds! While the storms rage outdoors this weekend, why not learn how to surf?

The beauty of the Buddhist wisdom that guides me is the clear awareness that we can see things how they are. In seeing clearly, we can meet whatever arises from a seat of grounded awareness.

Storms come and storms go.

Yet it’s our ability to be the raft in our own storm that helps us find our way in the waves.

How?

By having an anchor.

Anchors help us hold steady even while the boat rocks. An anchor is a homecoming beacon, like a lighthouse in the night. And we return to it, through practice, over and over and over again.

Mine is often a simple practice taught by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Breathing in, in know that I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know that I am breathing out. In, out. Breathing, breathing. Inhale, exhale. I breathe in the breath of God, I release the stale air. Breathing in, breathing out.

Maybe breath is challenging to locate for you. There are other anchors that work, like placing your hand on your heart and noticing the up/down movement of the breath. Or noting and naming the sounds in the environment around you, gently starting from the sound that farthest away and circling inward to reach you more closely, until your arrive at the sounds of you.

These times of inner and outer storms are not all weather related. They are how we view and relate to what’s unfolding. And when we do so with a space that’s calm, we can be the eye of the storm.

14/12/2023

25/11/2023

Dedicating this to a beloved friend and and for the stunning acts of healing & helping their work does for souls and bodies and hearts and minds that are shattered by whatever fresh hell arises. Thank you.✌️🙏🫶🕊️👍👏

May your hearts be filled with clean intention.

May the faces you reach feel your love.

May the hunger you assuage bring solace.

May your energies be multiplied.

11/10/2023

Happy Continuation Day dear Thay, what an auspicious day when you incarnated on Earth many years ago. What a walk of true dedication to the dharma, embodying what it means to awaken the heart (Boddhichitta). Founder of the tradition, you experienced the heartache of war, yet still stood for peace. Choosing to activate the deep wisdom offered by the Buddha, that “Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed. This is the ancient and eternal law. (Dhmapadda). What a time on Earth for us to understand the destructive Natur of the 3 poisons of greed, hatred and delusion. We are turning the wheel of samsara (suffering and sorrow) each time we seed and water these destructive emotions. We have planted fields throughout the Earth with our Kleshas (Sanskrit: क्लेश, romanized: kleśa; Pali: किलेस kilesa; Standard Tibetan: ཉོན་མོངས། nyon mongs), in Buddhism, are mental states that cloud the mind and manifest in unwholesome actions. Kleshas include states of mind such as anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire, depression, etc.No one of us is exempt. Your teachings of “touching peace” and learning how to cultivate the inner garden of the heart are such an important pathway out of this seemingly never-ending cycle of suffering. My heart hopes for the peace that passeth understanding as I work on peace within me and create the Peace Tree . There is no way to Peace. Peace is the way.

25/09/2023

Taking care today. Of myself. Taught a retreat Friday, led a Peace ceremony Sunday. Today, I am resting. It’s something I’m not inclined to do. I’m a doer. Yet my body and the rare disease dance I navigate (Ehlers Danlo syndrome, Fibromuscular Dysplasia and Charcot Marie Tooth Disease) necessitate it. As a recovering perfectionist and mindfulness meditation teacher, my invitation to myself for a Day Of Rest is to let and to allow. Let the casual day unfold with ease. Move and/or rest my body as needed. Offering myself nourishment of both eye-delighting nibbles and, maybe getting back to a book I’ve been enjoying. Sipping tea is also something I enjoy. Green tea with Moroccan mint; my kind of goodness. May I allow my body, mind and spirit the space and I’m whatever place, that arises for my rest today. May you also. Namaste. 🙏

23/08/2023

“There is nothing more precious to every creature than its own life” (Buddha). Yesterday as I worked from home enjoying the tiny forest that surrounds my new home, I heard a thump on the window. Sadly, my heart knew what it was. A bird had hit one of the nine floor-to-ceiling glass panels. As I ran outside I found this sweet little one struggling. Scooping it gently into my palms, I spoke softly, praying that it would not suffer long, for it was struggling, likely with a broken neck. My tears rolled onto its tiny wings, the body soft and pliable as it let go it’s last breath and left it’s two-legged, feathered, flying body. In silence I spoke soft wishes of strong wings for the long journey ahead. Recalling the wind of the North, which is the direction of the tree where I placed her in this image. The North is the wind of Hummingbird; we learn like this tiny bird, to fly the long path of our soul from the present to eternity, then ever onward toward infinity. When I lay her down to go find some flowers with which to surround her for burial, I recalled I had sunflowers just picked. They’d make a soft place to lay. I had also recently read of a Native American practice to place the dead in trees, for the nature to hold the body until it was no more. This in my walk to honor the dead, I placed her in the crook of this tree, sunflowers her pillow, and curiously…her little body had the shape of alertness and life, as you see here. At least she didn’t die alone. And I was able to pray over her as she crossed from here to there. Fly little one…onward. Rest the body from this life. Upward toward the Heaven of eternity. 🌻🕊️🌳

19/08/2023

This hits hard. Such a majestic creature on the verge of her freedom and it seems that she just had to go. As though her spirit ached so deeply to be let out of that small pool so badly that she had to leave her body to do so. How do we say goodbye to a sentient being, a living creature, that has been held in captivity since age 4? She was stolen from her family, ripped from the waters of her birth and made to entertain humans. All for the sake of profit. For a corporations’s bottom line. This orca will likely teach us more in her death than in her life, unfortunately. What is arising for me is anger and frustration, sorrow and such an immense broken heart at how asleep most of us are about the real role we have been given to walk on Earth. In my tradition, being given a human life is rare and precious. We therefore vow to care for all sentient creatures, while doing no harm, for the web of life weaves us all together and we reap what we sew. What lessons might we reap from Tokitae’s story of enslavement? That it’s morally and ethically not okay to take animals from their natural habitat and make them perform for human entertainment. When I moved to Miami nearly three decades ago, I went once to see this iconic Miami venue. Didn’t go again. Yet we as wacommunity should really pause, investigate how we interact with the wildlife and beings that are our neighbors and choose new ways to be in relationship with the swimming and finned ones. Lo**ta doesn’t open her eyes today. Yesterday she did. We are out of “ayni” or right relationship with most living beings; and the repair begins within. I am@sorry Tokitae. Please forgive we humans and our dim awareness that caused us to capture you and hold you in a small tank your entire life. Forgive our greed for profit and our need to be constantly stimulated. Teach us something worthwhile in your passing; that there is another way besides what we’ve been doing. Help us not to repeat the pattern or spin the story. Collectively we treated you like an object for our enjoyment and not the majestic, stunning, inimitable and powerful being that your embodied. I am sorry. May your fins and wings be strong 🐋💦💙🐳🙏🕊️

12/08/2023

To say this teacher of mine has been inspirational is only one aspect of learning I’m grateful to receive from his presence. Always keep my heart turned upward, toward my highest and best self, then seeing how I can place my feet on the Earth toward that mountain path is also what his wisdom evokes inside my heart. The world seems so full of harm, short-sightedness, judgement and missed perception at these times. Friends unfriend one another and ghost, countries plot to blow one another up and neighbors dish dirt on one another yet don’t sit down to break bread and talk. So how to keep walking the high road? By staying centered in realizing we are all doing the best right now that we can with what we have at hand. And then doing my best and letting God/dess do the rest. Sitting daily. Walking the land. Touching the Earth. And the waters of Earth. Giving thanks for the watermelon season. Making new friends. Finding a way. Not letting sour be the flavor of the day by tasting the heartnotes of a revived friendship. By continuing to trust that the moral arc of the Universe is long as it does bend toward Justice. By getting up when I fall. And unpacking one more box. May my moment of now be filled with great compassion. May my and others pain and suffering be eased. May our hearts be at peace. May we all be free.

03/08/2023

I want to age like sea glass.
Smoothed by tides,
but not broken.
I want my hard edges to soften.
I want to ride the waves
and go with the flow.
I want to catch a wave
and let it carry me
to where I belong.
I want to be picked up
and held gently by
those who delight in my
well earned patina and
appreciate the changes I went
through to achieve that beauty.
I want to enjoy the journey
and always remember that if
you give the ocean something
breakable it will turn it into
something beautiful.
I want to age like sea glass.

~Bernadette Noll~

18/06/2023

Sweet Ole Bob, aka, S.O.B. Is what my Dad’s nickname was, along with Bulldog Bob. Today marks six (6) Father’s Days that have come@and gone since he departed. Tears roll down my cheeks as I see his “Irish eyes are smiling so must be up to something” way of showing up. At his Celebration of Life, I stood in the very church looking out over his casket where he had taught me to ride a Honda 50cc mini bike. At 9 years old. How we then got a place near the Manistee National Forest, which meant a bigger bike and trails we could ride for hours. One day I asked, “Dad, what happens if we come to a stream?”, he shared that we would try to cross it, or go around it. I asked this same about the sand dunes, with the same answer. When I asked breathlessly, “what about when we come across a bear, Dad?” He immediately said, “turn around and leave”. But the biggest question of all on my heart was, “why do we ride the trails, Dad?” His answer said it all. “Suzy, we have to go see what there is to see”. All these years later, and that day of saying goodbye helped me realize something powerful about this gift my Dad gave me. It was not yo be afraid to “go into the woods”. Both the literal woods and the metaphysical ones. The world as the woods and the inner life of my journey as a curious meditation practitioner. He wrapped all that exploring in the wisdom of discovery and fueled by the light of curiosity. Go see what there is to see. When I first heard the Buddha’s invitation about inquiry and meditative practices, the words struck like gold bells inside my heart. “Come See For Yourself”, he encouraged. And today, I sit thankful for the encouragement of my Dad, all those who play the role of encourager and support…with bowed head for this gift from Sweet Ole Bob. I will always love you, Pop. Trust that your Irish eyes are smiling. Trust you sense my hug from here. Miss your thumbs up and impish grin with perky eyes. I also wonder what you see now that you have journeyed onward. Love, Suz. ❤️

04/04/2023

Spring has sprung!
How are you planting fresh ways of being now that spring is here?
Saturday, April 15th from 8am-5pm, why not join our Awaken In Nature Spring Daylong Retreat right here immersed in the healing balm of Nature?
Hosted by our certified mindfulness meditation teacher and Chief Experience Officer, Suzanne Jewell of Mindful Mornings Miami, you'll experience our brand new Mindful Pocket Park and the P.A.W.S. practice, which means to Pay Attention With Your Senses. Each sensory station of Sight, Sound, Scent, Touch and Taste help you gather, collect and focus your attention on an element of Nature as the cortisol in your body reduces. Based on the University of Michigan School of Environmental Sustainability research that 20 minutes in nature reduces the stress hormone that's bathing so much of our nervous systems and impacting our bodies and brains, the 5-4-3-2-1 practice will ground you and help you set down the noise of the news and the whack world we seem to be experiencing right now.
Guest teachers Fred Tan, Sirena Andra and Jill Rapperport will offer their deep gifts of guided meditation, mindful movement and sound healing; all throughout our 20-acre campus of regenerated forest and nature preserve.
Start the day with a lite bite breakfast, sip some warm cacao tea, have a healthy organic lunch and disconnect from the distractions that seem endless.
This daylong practice is based on the insight meditation teachings Suzanne learned over two years studying with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach in the MMTCP Sounds True/UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center training. She also took refuge for 18 months at the Open Awareness Buddhist Center, with vows to set her path on the innovative intersection of nature-based mindfulness. Like a homecoming for Suzanne, who spent her 6th grade schooling in Grand Rapids, Michigan on the grounds of 83-acre Blandford Nature Center, she's found a mission and purpose helping humans reconnect to Nature one mindful walk at a time.
The best value tickets are the pair and Triple Pak; retreats can be great with a friend, so why not come practice and refresh yourself. Start the Spring right.
Perfect for seasoned or beginners. We provide the mat & cushion. Dress comfy for movement, sitting, walking and resting. Bring a refillable water bottle. SPF and Bug Spray if required.
Register at the link in comments below SOON, as our retreats tend to sell out and we wouldn't want you to be disappointed!
Why not love the Earth with a commitment to honor it for Spring?