Materials Needed: Caribbean Inspired Poster Beach Sign Cutouts Natural Fishnet Party Decor Umbrella’s for drinks Pineapple straws Coconut and Pineapple ( from the grocery store)

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. To learn more about ’em, click here. These Declaration of Love Cards are hands down the cutest “official” forms I have ever seen! A huge thanks to Joanna at Cutify Creative for designing the adorable printables in this post. Valentine’s Day is right around the corner so, of course, we have a specific Valentine’s inspired Declaration of Romantic Intent form. But since we are all about showing love every day of the year, we have a Declaration of Romantic Intent form that can be used anytime!...

Just as different populations (meditators vs non-meditators; clinical vs community populations) use facets of mindfulness in different ways (Woodhead et al 2013), age and gender also influence how individuals respond to meditation and mindfulness. Studies investigating effects of mindfulness often use the Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), which looks at how subjects score on five different facets of mindfulness. Five Facets of Mindfulness Used in This Study Past studies show that men tend to score higher on the “non-reactivity” facet of the FFMQ, while women score higher on the “observing” facet....

While so much has been made of mindfulness recently, this program made explicit the crucial connection between mindfulness and compassion. This connects perfectly to the way you’ve heard us talk about being mindful, here and in print in Mindful magazine, as including mindfulness, awareness, kindness, and compassion. The program included wonderful presentations of experiential practices that bring out this connection, and we learned from field reports highlighting the benefits of these practices in areas such as childbirth, education, the law, and healthcare....

As with all emotion, the practice of meditation can stabilize us enough in the midst of fear to help us see more clearly—to distinguish a false threat from a real threat that needs to be acted upon. The type of fear meditation can have the most effect on is the fear (and fears) that we continually generate in our own minds, the product of our rich imagination and our desire to control everything, rather than be tossed around in the risky and stormy world....