What Do Mindfulness and Pride Have in Common?

Unless you’ve been in outer space the last couple of weeks, it surely hasn’t escaped your notice that June is Pride Month.  Whilst we aren’t here to rainbow wash, it would be remiss of us as a queer female-run business not to acknowledge Pride both as it relates to our own individuality and how we think about it as it relates to wellbeing, because both have something to teach us. 

If you’ve ever taken a meditation class, you’ll know that you are encouraged to come to a place of awareness, notice thoughts, feelings and sensations without judgement.  It is through this practice of noticing, not judging and constantly coming back to ourselves that we glimpse what it is like to be in the moment.  Arriving fully in a moment opens us up to the full spectrum of what it is to be human - wonder, heartbreak, beauty and imperfections. This full aliveness without judgement is what we celebrate as our uniqueness. If you’ve ever been on a dance floor, completely swept up in the music, eyes closed, dancing your heart out, without worrying about what happened before or will happen after, this is what we are talking about. Speaking for ourselves, we want to savor as many moments as we can because we are so in love with being alive, and meditation helps bring us to this place.  Pride is a celebration of being unapologetically unique and authentically ourselves, without giving thought to how others see us, or time traveling into the past or future to feel shame or worry.  

Quite simply: Pride and mindfulness are both an invitation to more fully experience what it is to be alive.  Wherever you are on this journey of aliveness, happy Pride!