Wisdom — Elizabeth Hayes

Nevermindfulness

Mindfulness has recently emerged as a trendy modality. It’s almost impossible to go through the day without an article, a celebrity, a meditation studio or an Elephant Journal quote touting its effectiveness in bringing about personal peace and awareness while allowing for complete presence in this world. As a therapeutic concept that’s been around for several decades, mindfulness has provided a way to approach our very imperfect world and enabled people to make sense of their often tumultuous human experiences. However, as with many things born decades ago that were a good idea at the time (think moon shoes, crimping irons and creepy crawlers), it’s time for our own understanding to surpass the concept.

Elizabeth HayesAugust 16, 2019spirituality, meditation, mindfulness, spiritual growth, life lessons

The “Complete” Truth: Realizing Your Own Power

Not a single being is greater than we are because we are all the SAME. Our differences on the outside do not erase the fact that underneath it all, under that thin layer of skin, we are truly the same human beings. At our very core, we are perfect, complete, whole and infinite.

The Gratitude Myth

I struggle with Gratitude. When I see the viral videos and hear the conversations, I cringe, because while I am cognizant of the benefits of Gratitude, I am extremely wary of how it’s being sold to the public. Not because it doesn’t work (although more often than not it kinda doesn’t since it requires a certain wiring that many don’t have), but because for most, it ends up masking their deepest issues and pain, denying the opportunity for real healing because they’re too busy focusing their minds on their gratitude lists.

Life Doesn’t Just Happen: Taking Responsibility for Who We Are

Our spiritual maturity requires that we first acknowledge and own our individual responsibility for our decisions and actions.This is not easy. It requires us to see ourselves not as victims but as the architects of our reality.

Weeding Out the Root of All Fears: Realizing Our Self-Worth

The notion of not being enough constantly surrounds us, underpinning so many of our social and economic constructs. Buried beneath these are the many narratives we’ve been fed and internalized, negatively impacting our sense of self-worth.

The Misguided Pursuit of Happiness: Why We Need to Embrace All of Our Emotions

As a society, we’re continuously fed the idea that happiness is the end goal, some permanent state of being to be actively pursued and capable of being achieved and maintained. It’s this very notion, however, that leads people down the rabbit hole of the unending pursuit of happiness, which, in many cases, leads to its very converse. Is it any wonder that, as I look around, the people I know who place the pursuit of happiness above all else are the most unhappy, unsatisfied and self-destructive people I know.