A Compassionate World

September marks the start of Autumn here at home. We have students getting ready for back to school, the trees change colour to brilliant shades of red and orange as the cooler weather starts to come in and many of us prepare to work a little harder after perhaps taking some time off during the summer months. Here at Mindful Necessities we are preparing to participate in a fundraiser for a great cause and we would love for you to join us - The Centre for Mindfulness Studies' Mindfulness Challenge 2016 - A Compassionate World. Our whole team will be actively involved in a four hour meditate-athon to raise money for the Centre for Mindfulness Studies Social Program where they bring mindfulness to marginalized people who suffer from depression, anxiety, social isolation, addiction, and other mental health issues. Here is a short video to learn more about the beautiful work that they do and the some of the lives that they have helped change:

The Challenge will take place on October 30th, which also happens to be our founder and Chief-of-Inspiration, Gisele's birthday. What an amazing gift! Please click here to view our team page where you can learn more about joining us on the mat or donating to the cause. We are beyond grateful to be able to participate in such a wonderful fundraiser. We're all in this together and it's important not to ever lose sight of that.

As we gear up for the A Compassionate World challenge we have decided to put on weekly mini-challenges as a way for us all to connect and support one another in taking on some lifestyle choices that we have perhaps known for a while we should do but need a little push. We will be announcing a new challenge each week in a weekly newsletter and would love for you to join us. Our first challenge will be the Digital Detox. We challenge you to completely shut down digitally for a full 24 hours sometime over the course of this week. You can choose what the 24 hours will be and you can focus on being in your environment, enjoy being with yourself, possibly with loved ones, possibly with strangers... wherever you are we challenge you to be there. Can you do it? Can you disconnect for 24 hours with no phone, no email, no digital entertainment? Not easy? That's why it's a challenge! If 24 hours is too tough, how about two 12 hour segments? Also, just a reminder that it's a super good idea to have your phone off (or at least in airplane mode) while sleeping and you may want to consider shutting off your wifi at night too to give our bodies a break from the constant bombardment of signals coming through us. I was amazed at the difference in the quality of my sleep when I unplugged. It's not overrated. If you realize you feel better when unplugged from electro magnetic static, you might be more sensitive to these frequencies than you knew and may want to consider wearing Shungite or having it around your home. We do have a Shungite and lava rock wrist mala, for instance, that can help block some of the waves.

We hope you join us in the challenges. Please let us know what you think on our Facebook page or Twitter. We would love to hear about how the challenge is going for you. With love and gratitude, The Mindful Necessities Team