Mindful In May

 I was lucky enough to be offered a ticket to the Mindful In May Launch last Wednesday night.  That's what happens when you count someone as awesome as Kate James among your closest friends.



Kate James is an absolute inspiration to me and has been for a long time.  She is someone who tries her very best every single day to live authentically, to be true to her truest self and to go after what is really important to her - not just what will make her momentarily happy.

I have had the privilege of watching Kate's career as a Business Coach for creative people and Meditation Instructor grow and flourish over the last decade or so.  And along with her amazing business she has also grown as a human being.  Yeah.  She is pretty much one awesome chick and one of my favourite people on the planet.

So if she'd asked me to a Yak blood tasting I would probably have said yes.  That she asked me to the Mindful In May Launch was lucky for me (and for the Yak).

Mindful In May is about slowing down our racing monkey minds by making a commitment to ten minutes of mindful meditation each day.  You can then get friends, colleagues and anyone you can rope in to sponsor you so that your mindfulness can have a positive, tangible impact on the world, in this case clean water in developing countries.  Since 2011 the Mindful In May meditation challenge has raised $100,000.00 and given 750 people access to clean water.  The launch included talks by MIM Ambassador Magda Szubanski and therapist, coach and author Russ Harris.

Magda Szubanski was a delight. Earthy and honest and warm she and MIM founder and host Elise Bialylew had a really engaging converstation about mindfulness and mediation that spanned from Melbourne to Warsaw and White Flour.

Russ Harris was engaging and entertaining and made some really salient points about self esteem and mindfulness.  He smashed the commonly held view that high self esteem is linked to success and well being.  Rather than self esteem we should be focusing on compassion and acceptance.  With high self acceptance and high self compassion comes humility, he said.

The night was warm and cosy.  Just the antidote to a chilly Melbourne evening.

But the night is just the beginning and so I have registered to be Mindful In May, hopefully contributing to a clear mind for me and clean water for others.  I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into this challenge, and helping other people along the way.

More than just committing to ten minutes of mindful meditation each day of May, I am making a personal commitment to live more mindfully in May.  For me this means eating more mindfully, shopping more mindfully and having more mindful interactions with those around me.  I'm also going to be more mindful of my technology use, to avoid the automatic checking of emails and Facebook and limit my computer use to times when I actually want to sit down and get something done.

So that sort of sounds like a lot of hard work!  But in fact I'm really looking forward to it.

By the way this is not a sponsored post, but I did get free entry to the event via my good friend Kate James who is taking part and raising money for MIM.  If you feel so inclined you can sponsor Kate on her journey here and you can sponsor me here.  

Just $30 provides water for one person - for LIFE! Wow.

Mindful in May - who's with me?

Listen to Nina Simone Feeling Good

Image sourced at Mindful In May