My name is Karen Bortvedt Estrada. I first encountered concepts of mindfulness around 25 years ago as a teenager. Not fully understanding hormonal changes of puberty, I turned to the same source most 13 year olds do. The self-help section of the library. Thich Nhat Hanh was one of the first books that caught my eye and the journey has continued from there. Throughout my adult-life, through trainings, counseling sessions, coaching, retreats, and personal study, I began collecting mindfulness techniques and practices. One of my greatest frustrations with most of the formal programs I engaged with was the rigid, ‘one-right-way’ commitment to their specific protocol - whether that meant ‘you must sit this way’ or ‘you must breathe this way’ or ‘you must do x number of minutes to really get a benefit.’ This just didn’t feel accessible to how my brain (or body) worked most of the time or to the variety of humans in my life. From working in a diversity of communities and obtaining a certificate in diversity, equity, and inclusion, these felt like two different realities.

So, at times unconsciously, I built my own mindfulness practice pulling wisdom from many sources - doing what mindfulness calls us to do: listening to my body in the moment. Sometimes sitting in silence is great, sometimes it isn’t safe, sometimes emotional release is what is needed, sometimes it is just breathing, sometimes breath practices spike anxiety, music centers me sometimes, and at others it overwhelms my nervous system. My personal adaptation came to include art practices, movement, journaling, and more. I discovered the more I spoke with other people, and began to engage deliberately with learning around trauma awareness, ableism, and other forms of inclusion and equity work, that my experience was not unique and much of the concern I felt often stemmed from an internal aversion to one-right-way thinking. I started to share more widely in professional and personal settings ways that I had transformed techniques based on this other body of wisdom around inclusion. Mindfulness has become a way of life, which I feel is the intent, not just a 30-minute activity to squeeze into the day. AND, it continues to be a constant journey and one of many tools in my life.

I am always looking for new resources and am currently taking four courses: Neurodiversity-Informed Mindfulness, Applying Mindfulness at Work, Power-Conscious Nonviolent Communication, and Level 1 Somatic Stress Release.

Realizing many shared my experience, I began intentionally creating spaces so that others who gave up on mindfulness like an outdated religion that wasn’t for them could hopefully find new ways to engage with and benefit from the practices - by engaging with it in a myriad of ways. Mindfulness Monday specifically exists to meet this purpose. How can we build our toolkit of practices so when grief or trauma makes one approach to mindfulness inaccessible, we have a back up? If our brain works differently than the developer of a protocol, how do we make it work for us? If we build our own confidence in listening to ourselves and adapting, then hopefully we can go into any mindfulness space (human or app) confident to modify for ourselves, even if the group leader/teacher isn’t offering accessible options.

Mindfulness Monday intentionally offers a variety of different mindfulness practices and techniques that rotate through every 6-12 weeks. If you have previously tried mindfulness and the technique or protocol didn’t work for you, this could be a great place to try a wide variety of techniques. If you are new to mindfulness, it will offer many micro-practices that you can incorporate into your daily life or try out at different moments. If you have experience in mindfulness, it can add a little spice to engage in different ways.

If you are seeking a community that engages the same way each week or simply desire guided meditations, this may not be your space.