Let’s start here

Many of us can’t wait.

We need this now.

Since 2017, I’ve been leading workshops about mindfulness as a tool for dealing with anxiety, depression, and trauma. We have gone to North Carolina, California, Texas, Colorado, the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts — and more recently we haven’t left home at all, and have simply gathered in front of our Zoom screens with our mugs of tea, our overly-involved pets, and our deepest anxieties. Some of these groups meet just for a few hours. Some have been meeting every week since March of 2020.

I have now sat with hundreds of people and together, we talk about how it feels to be in our skin. We talk about the things that keep us awake at 3 AM. We talk about fear, anger, loneliness, clinging, jealousy, boundaries, relationships, hyper-vigilance, and the repercussions of being a sensitive and fragile human who is living a life in which so much is uncertain.

We always have a lot to work with.

So we work with it. We talk about how to manage the garbage that life sometimes throws at us. We discuss what tools might help us feel just a little bit better. We learn how we can get more grounded and continue taking one more breath in and out.

I want to write about these topics — and about these amazingly courageous people I work with — because I know we are not the only ones who are struggling. So I started writing a book because that’s generally what authors do. But a book takes a long time to go from my keyboard to your hands and I didn’t want to wait.

Many of us can’t wait. We need this now.

So I am going to write here, instead. I’m going to skip the gatekeepers of an agent and a publisher and a cover designer. (I’m also going to skip a proofreader, so you’ll just need to overlook my typos and misplaced commas.)

I hope you’ll consider joining our Blue Mala Community. It’s a pay-what-you-can monthly membership that gives you access to exclusive content like yoga classes, meditation classes, discounts on future workshops, and Office Hours video calls where I can answer your questions and you can meet other Blue Mala Community members.

Blue Mala is a way to connect to others who understand what you’re going through. It’s a way to wake up and investigate yourself and your world — and feel supported while doing it. Our Blue Mala team has all kinds of ideas how we are going to grow this place with a strong sense of compassion and belonging, and we will evolve in time, as we learn what is most beneficial to our community.

If you have a question about mental wellness or mindfulness, please submit it here. We love hearing from you.

Thank you reading.

~ Lisa Jakub

Founder of Blue Mala