Well Entrepreneur: Wishing You Well & a Meditation for Compassion

As the year draws to a close, we want to express our gratitude to each of you for your support with the new Well Entrepreneur  initiative at the Lubar Entrepreneurship Center! We are especially grateful for our amazing guests (talks listed and linked below) and community partners who have helped make this possible! 

Together, we’ve had the opportunity to gather and explore personal and collective well-being as a foundational and integral part of entrepreneurship, and why this matters in envisioning and creating healthier communities. You’ve reminded us that whether we are entrepreneurs working in wellness or entrepreneurs interested in wellness, that our communities and connections to one another are part of the core of our collective wellbeing, the work we do together as entrepreneurs and the way we do it.

We recognize and honor that this has been such a challenging year for all, and wanted to end the year by sharing a short version of the Lovingkindness Meditation as an offering for continued well being for all as we continue to move forward. Lovingkindness is the practice of cultivating mindful, compassionate awareness — of ourselves, others and the world around us. Simply, it opens our attention and makes it more inclusive, deepening our ability for connection and understanding. Sharon Salzberg, renowned meditation teacher says that the science and practice of lovingkindness, “transforms the way we treat ourselves and everyone around us. Paying careful attention to our thoughts, feelings, and actions, and understanding them opens our hearts to loving ourselves genuinely for who we are, with all our imperfections. And that’s the gateway to connection with others.”

Practice: If you’d like to practice this meditation, sit or lie comfortably with eyes open or closed.  Allow the breath to be natural. You can use any variation of the phrases, starting with yourself as the first recipient: may I be safe, may I be happy, etc. Repeat the phrases replacing “I” with “you”, extending to someone else in your life. And finally, replace “you” with “we”, extending to each living being.

We look forward to continuing to explore well-being and entrepreneurship with you in 2021! Wishing you a safe and healthy holiday!

Warmly,
Amelia, Nicole, and the LEC team

Well Entrepreneur Community Conversations 2020
Melanie Manuel, Celesta MKE
Venice Williams, Alice’s Garden
Hope Glassel, Photographer

Special thanks to our partners: Women’s Entrepreneurship Week, Marquette 707 Hub, Crissi Bates, Oluwapelumi Oguntade,  and The Campus Activities Board at UWM.

This initiative is a project in partnership with Amelia Coffaro, a licensed yoga therapist and entrepreneur with a mission to make integrative health and healing accessible to everyone. Amelia was a part of the I-Corps cohort in 2019 and more recently completed the Student Start Up Challenge at the LEC. You can learn more about her here.