June is PRIDE month

Pride Month celebrates LGBTQ+ individuals everywhere and the importance of their unique contributions and diverse perspectives. It's an opportunity to acknowledge how all voices advance us together.

This year feels different - Threats & violence.

I will post about this a few times this month, but I want to start with this.

This is the content I delivered as a mindfulness speaker during Nike’s 2022 PRIDE event.

Five Minute Mindfulness

Thank you for that introduction and for including me in today’s presentation. As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community myself, let me express my appreciation for everyone’s work in bringing together today’s event.

In the next five minutes, I will guide you through a Mindfulness session. We will be focusing on recovery and well-being through physical and mental self-care. I’ll show you how we can intertwine those now. I hope you benefit now and return to this content again.

There’s a direct link, a feedback cycle, between your physical and emotional states. We can all imagine the posture & mood of a defeated individual; contrasted against a victorious athlete with arms raised.

The relationship goes back & forth. Your mental emotional state affects your postures, and your postures affect your emotions.

So right now, straighten up, and get breathing. As you listen to the rest of my presentation, try to adopt & maintain this breathing pattern.

1. Posture & support. Eyes closed. Muscles relaxed

2. Exhale everything, Pause, Inhale matching duration, Pause

3. Low to the belly

4. Increase range and slow down the pace.

Breath is energy/fuel - so you can keep going. Doing the work of advocacy, or the work on yourself. Right now and always, you can tap into this fuel.

Now, continue your focus on your breathing while contemplating this short story.

Once upon a time, there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. He had a strong horse to pull the plow. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck”, they said sympathetically, “you must be so sad.”

“We will see”, the farmer replied.

A few days later, the horse returned, bringing with it two other wild horses. Now the farmer had three horses! “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed!  “What great luck you have!”

“We will see”, the farmer replied.

A few weeks later, the farmer’s son was thrown trying to train the horse and broke his leg. The neighbors came to offer their sympathy for his misfortune.  “Now your son cannot help you with your farming,” they said.  “What bad luck you have!”

“We will see”, the farmer replied.

A few weeks later, military officials came to the village to conscript young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they left him. The neighbors congratulated the farmer. “Such great luck! You must be so happy!”

The man smiled to himself and said once again, “We will see.”

I share this story to remind everyone that there are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us, and we suffer more often in our imagination than in reality.

We are in the habit of exaggerating, imagining, or anticipating sorrow.

While truth has definite boundaries, that which arises from uncertainty is delivered over to guesswork and the irresponsible license of a frightened mind, a cloud of dust on the horizon could be a stampede, a massing army, or simply a windstorm.

While it is likely that some troubles will befall us; it is not a present fact. How often has the unexpected happened!? How often has the expected fallen through??

Accordingly, weigh carefully your hopes and fears, and whenever all the elements are in doubt, decide in your favor and cease to harass your soul.

Use these thoughts, and this breathing pattern, for your self-care, and share it with others.

Thank you.