Balanced Mind with Julie Potiker

Breathe in goodness...for yourself...and others through this guided meditation led by Julie Potiker. She completes the meditation with the poem, "You Matter", by James Crews.You Matter, by James Crews

All we can do in times like theseis offer things to say to others:You matter to me. The Mason jarof chicken soup given to a neighbor,or the clay mug shaped by the handsof a friend, with a dog and goldfinchpainted on the side - how it arrivedin the mail unbroken. A phone call out of the blue, or message that says:Thinking of you. Let's wrap each otherin gestures so true, no one ever doubtshow much they belong, no one everquestions whether or not to stay.-You Matter, by James Crews.Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Find your center as you move into the New Year with this guided meditation led by Julie Potiker. She completes the meditation with the poem, "Life and Death", by Mary F. Lenox.

Life and Death, by Mary F. Lenox On the day of our birth, We begin our journey toward deathNeedless to say,Every living being on this planet today will not be here in 120 years.That’s twelve decades from now Most will be gone soonerI certainly willSo, what does that mean? Time matters!Each day is a gift from the divineThe cells of the body are in continuous cycles of hello and goodbyePeople come and go in our livesThe world we inhabit is changing before our very eyesIf I live 20 more years, I will be approaching my 100th birthdayI know not the day or hourWhen I will leave this earthly planeNor do othersThe answer is clear to meLoveNow!Celebrate life Now!Smile at trees, birds, and the seaNow!Love beautyNow!Love MusicNow!Let go of anything that does enhance my lifeNow!Speak the truth with an open heartNow!Honor, respect, and care for my body, mind, spirit, emotionsNow!Be gratefulNow!Respect all lifeNow!Love me, and youNow!Love GodNow!Life and Death by Mary F. Lenox(San Diego, CA)

 

Note from poet Mary Lenox.This poem is significant to me since my sister, Doris Washington, passed away on Sunday, December 29, 2024. She was 86 years. Doris and I talked on Saturday, and my other sister, Trueannie Oaddams, talked with Doris on Sunday morning as they did every day for 20 years. Soon thereafter, Doris left this world, sitting in her favorite chair. Please keep me and my beloved family in your prayers.Thank you!-Mary

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Join Julie Potiker as she guides you through this meditation focusing on what it is you need - for yourself. She completes the meditation with the poem, "Try Softer", by James Crews.

"Try Softer", by James CrewsHonor wherever you arewhether the door to your lifehas blown off its hinges,or you find the simplest joysitting in a patch of winter sunon that corner of the carpetwhere you love to stretch.Try softer, not harder—giving yourself a safe placeto land your attention, restingin this threshold momentthrough which wind, snowand light all enter alike.—James CrewsFind out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Breathe in and visualize a Hanukkah candle - lit with love, glowing. Julie Potiker completes the meditation with the poem, "The Back of Our Hands", by Annette Friend.

"The Back of Our Hands," by Annette Friend.My nephew's afternoon wedding in upgradedJersey City - a rose covered Chuppah overlooksthe sun-speckled Hudson River, the jagged NYC skyline.My granddaughter, six, sits on my lap,in a flowered pink dress, beige patent leathershoes with tiny bows, softly touches the backof my hand, traces brown liver spots, blue veins,red splotches of skin damaged by too much sun,baby oil slathered teenage skin at the Jersey Shore.Her pure, pink skin, unblemished, smoothas rose petals, in stark contrast to my time splatteredcovering. She maps the spots up and down my armas if trying to decipher clues about my life."What happened her?" she whispers,points to a thin white scar on my thumb."Cut myself with a knife making latkes.I'll be more careful when I come to visit,and we make latkes for Hanukkah."Her pearly fingertips mark up my saggy arm,"Your skin is squishy like Jello, Granny A."I laugh, she giggles snuggling against me.Does it matter if my skin tells tales of timepassing when she's here with me in the sunshinesmiling on this happy, sparkling day?We watch the bride and groom paradeback down the aisle to applause, the groomhas finally smashed the glass after five tries.All Jewish celebrations are tinged with ancientadversity, the broken glass, some say, a reminderof the Temple we lost thousands of years agoWhen I was young these customsmade me shrug my shoulders, annoyed, we Jewscan never just kick up our heels, relax and enjoy.Now my skin proclaims me an old relic as I watchfresh young lives around me begin to bloom, I realizestories of the past show us our strength, the beautyand pain all of our history contains, the pastentwined in all the moments that we are alive,part of a tradition that teaches us how to survive.In this moment, the past, the present, the youngand the old, the sun sets, yet rises, on a new marriage,and our two hands, my granddaughters and mine,side by side woven in gold."The Back of Our Hands," by Annette Friend.

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

In this guided meditation, led by Julie Potiker you will be focusing on your gifts and what it is you need right now. She completes the meditation with the poem, "At the Market", by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

"At The Market", by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Now when I walk through the marketI think of how someone else herebeside the stir-fry cart and the tie-dye tenthas just lost a belovedand is hiding tears behind sunglasses.Not knowing who they are,I try to treat everyone with kindness.Meanwhile the day is beautifulfor everyone, no matter how whole,how broken our hearts. It gathers us allin a grand blue embrace.I stroll through the gift of a Fridaymorning surrounded by arugulaand strawberries, muffins, lilies,and all these other fragile hearts,all of us saying Excuse me, Good morning,How are you, It's nice to see you today.

-At The Market, by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer(from "The Unfolding poems").

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

What would be most helpful for you to hear right now. Is it hope, healing, peace? Julie Potiker guides you through this meditation and finishes with her poem, "Considering Poetry".Considering Poetry, by Julie PotikerNo furrowing of browsNor squinting of earsI like the message to ripple on clear fresh waterPerhaps a river streamFlowing over stones smoothed by the agesPerhaps more rhythmicallyDynamicallyThe pull of the moonStacking up the seaAs it breathes in and outIn and outNever endingCreating the sandDrenching it with giftsEnduring through time 

-Julie Potiker

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Right now, in this moment, what is it you need to hear? Julie Potiker helps you focus on that question through this guided meditation. She completes the meditation with the poem, "Reciting Poems to Each Other in a Difficult Time", by Rosemerry Wahtola TrommerReciting Poems to Each Other in a Difficult Time, by Rosemerry Wahtola TrommerIt might have looked as if we stayedin our respective squares—nine separate rooms made of pixels—but for an hour the poems we shared leapedthrough the screen and into our bloodstreamuntil all our lines were gloriously blurredand our wounds were gently tendedby the medicine of Berry’s day-blind starsand Wellwood’s ferocious dance of no hope,Hopkins’s shining from shook foiland Roethke’s wondering Which I is I?In another time, there would have beena fire at the center. Someone would play a drum.But in this time, I felt it inside me, the fire,as poems blazed to meet the great cold.I felt it inside me, the human drum,that reminds me the heart beatsnot for itself, but the world.For an hour we spooned each otherthe honey of poetry. Alone now,I still taste it, unfiltered and raw,this astonishing sweetness on my lips,this salt of lyric communion,still feel the warmth of that blaze,the spark still dazzling in the dark.–Rosemerry Wahtola Trommerfrom A Hundred Falling Veils

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Enter the holiday season and finish the year with gratitude and thankfulness - for those who helped you throughout your life. Who has helped you become the person you are today? Breathe in acknowledgment of their contribution to your life's journey - breathe out thankfulness. Julie Potiker completes her meditation with the poem, "Thank You", by Ross Gay.

Thank You, by Ross Gay.If you find yourself half nakedand barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that saysyou are the air of the now and gone, that saysall you love will turn to dust,and will meet you there, do notraise your fist. Do not raiseyour small voice against it. And do nottake cover. Instead, curl your toesinto the grass, watch the cloudascending from your lips. Walkthrough the garden's dormant splendor.Say only, thank you.Thank you.-Thank You, by Ross Gay

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Open your heart to compassion through this guided meditation led by Julie Potiker. She completes the meditation with a reading of the poem, "So I Can't Save the World", by —Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer"So I Can't Save the World", by —Rosemerry Wahtola TrommerSo I can’t save the world—can’t save even myself,can’t wrap my arms aroundevery frightened child, can’tfoster peace among nations,can’t bring love to all whofeel unlovable.So I practice opening my heartright here in this room and being gentlewith my insufficiency. I practicewalking down the street heart first.And if it is insufficient to share love,I will practice loving anyway.I want to converse about truth,about trust. I want to invite compassioninto every interaction.One willing heart can’t stop a war.One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,I ask myself, What’s the use of trying?But today, the invitation is clear:to be ridiculously courageous in love.To open the heart like a lilac in May,knowing freeze is possibleand opening anyway.To take love seriously.To give love wildly.To race up to the worldas if I were a puppy,adoring and unjaded,stumbling on my own exuberance.To feel the shock of indifference,of anger, of cruelty, of fear,and stay open. To love as if it matters,as if the world depends on it.—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

This meditation led by Julie Potiker focuses on our connection to others. We are the light, we are connected, and we are the helpers. She completes the meditation with the poem, " Look for the Helpers", by James Crews.

"Look for the Helpers", by James CrewsToday, I will look for the helpers-the woman pouring sunflower seedsfrom an orange bag into the feeder,and a chickadee, having eaten its fill, lifting offso another can feast there.Someone holding open the fogged-over door of the coffee shopfor a stranger who smiles and says thank you in spite of the news.I will watch workers dressed in neon vests with shovels and buckets,filling potholes across the city, the asphalt steaming as they spread itover the street, then tamp it down, repairing what they can.-"Look for the Helpers", by James Crews

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.