Mindful Living: Contentment

“Of course we can always imagine more perfect conditions, how it should be ideally, how everyone else should behave. But it’s not our task to create an ideal. It’s our task to see how it is, and to learn from the world as it is. For the awakening of the heart, conditions are always good enough.” ~Ajahn Sumedo

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming about some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses blooming under our window.” - Dale Carnegie

The Moment is Complete

There is no where to go and nothing get

The way isn’t difficult for those who are unattached to their preferences

Each of these quotes point towards a fundamental teaching - maybe the most taught about tenet in mindfulness and yet the hardest to grasp -  Contentment. 

I think of contentment as developing a profound ok-ness with my life, and yet in order to find and experience this sense of well-being, we must be willing to embrace profound paradoxes.

Contentment is not about ignoring or avoiding pain, it isn’t about glossing over or using the dread phrase, “it is what it is”... I would venture to say that contentment isn’t even about happiness. 

Recently, I learned that you can almost always find the antidote to a troublesome plant growing near said troublesome plant. For example, you can almost always find jewelweed growing near poison ivy. Poison ivy will make you itch, and jewelweed sap is anti-inflammatory and anti-itch.

Contentment doesn’t mean you will never be uncomfortable; contentment is knowing the antidote is right here, in this very moment. The moment is complete. 

Join me for today’s episode of The Mindful Minute as we tease apart the paradoxes within contentment and share in a 20-minute guided meditation.

Special thanks to today’s sponsor: Baronfig. Baronfig’s line of “Tools for Thinkers” includes guided journals, notebooks, writing instruments, bags, accessories, and so much more. As an avid journaler, I use and love their guided meditation journal, dream journal and their basic Confidant notebooks! Use code MindfulMinute through 4/27/23 to save 10% on your own order at baronfig.com. 

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