Be the sunshine, cuppa anyone?

Hi Compassionates,

I hope you are having a good week.  I sent compassionate vibes your way, in case you didn’t notice 🙂  I hope you are showing yourself some compassion this week too. you deserve your compassion too, taking the time to tune into your inner world, to understand what you need to care for yourself a little bit better, so you can experience greater well-being and happiness, and extend that to others too. 

A nice little mindfulness exercise, to help us practice, is called ‘cup of sunshine.’  We could all do with a little extra sunshine every day couldn’t we? Especially in the Northern hemisphere at the moment. Sunshine makes us feel good.  It bathes us in warmth, brings out the colour in the world, and triggers serotonin in our brains which makes us smile more too. We are hardwired for sunshine, because we are part of the natural world, so take a few moments to think about how important sunshine is to you, and how it makes you feel.

Now take a cup or mug from your kitchen, and place it on your desk, or somewhere else visible, as a visual reminder. This is your cup of sunshine, a vessel that needs your attention. You see, the sun doesn’t shine every day right? Well, OK yes, in outer space is does, and at a certain level in Earth’s atmosphere, but in our reality, the sun is obscured by different types of weather. To give you a clue, the view from my window is currently less than optimal, with wind, rain, angry tree’s 🙂 Which means that we can’t rely on the sunshine to make us feel happy every day, and we to need find other ways to make the sunshine for us too.

We can do that by performing acts of self compassion, big or small, to help fill up our cup of sunshine. A good place to start is by journaling or listing all the things that make us feel happy, writing them down, to increase our awareness about them, before popping them into the cup. Then as you go through your day, you can take the time to notice the small or large things that are helping to shape our well-being. It could be something small, like having something nutritious to eat, or not:) I LOVE chocolate too! 🙂 Taking the time to exercise, or get fresh air, exchanging a smile with a stranger on the street, doing a job, or chore more mindfully, learning something new, performing a caring or kind act for a friend, colleague, or loved one. Whatever it is, once you start to become aware of what feels good in the mind, body, and heart, and you can make a note of it, and pop it into your cup. That way you can have inner sunshine, whatever the weather. Arm well and truly twisted? I hope so! Because now you are in a better position to send rays of sunshine to others too.

That requires some practice, some dedication, founded on the belief of the genuine merits of mindfulness, and compassion. A wish to see all sentient beings free from suffering, including yourself. 🙂 I’m definitely going to practice filling up my cup this coming week, I hope you will join me too.

Little Miss Compassion. xx