This Mindful
Moment

There is a voice inside many of us—a quiet murmur or a relentless echo—telling us we are not enough. This inner critic often speaks in the language of shame, doubt, or old stories we have carried for far too long. It can grow loud in moments of vulnerability: when we feel anxious, when body image wavers, when we stumble in our healing.

Shame can feel like a heavy cloak—an old story that wraps itself around the body, whispering of unworthiness and not enough. It can sink into the skin, settle in the breath, and make it hard to stand tall in our own presence. Yet even in its weight, there is room for softness, for a gentle turning toward the places within us that ache for kindness.

There is a quiet language within the body—whispers of hunger and sighs of fullness that often go unheard in the clamor of the world. Many of us have been taught to override these signals, to doubt them or bury them beneath rules and shoulds. Yet, in the soft spaces between meals and in the tender hush of mindful moments, the body is always speaking.

There is a moment—just before the school doors swing shut, before the sprinklers pulse in the park, before the nights stretch themselves long and warm—when the world teeters on the edge of summer. It’s the inhale before the jump, the stillness before the song. Transition lives here.

Sometimes, life gets so full we forget to come up for air. We get good at pushing through, doing what needs to be done. We learn to carry the weight, to keep going even when we’re tired. And without realizing it, we start calling that survival “normal.”

In the hush of winter, the world can seem almost still. The tall trees — the ones that have stood through years of storms and seasons —...