face our fears - Holly Foster

June 26, 2019

Season of the heart

Summer has arrived! If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, June 21st marked the first day of summer. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the season of summer is associated with the Heart and Small Intestine. It is a season of decidedly Yang energy when we are often more active and engaged, travelling and exploring, spending time outdoors. In spring, we make plans, we plant seeds and put down roots, and when summer comes we see our gardens grow and flourish. Summer is an opportunity to live from the heart, to play with our edges and explore outside our comfort zone.

For the last few weeks I have been absent from this space – my apologies! I have been busy making plans of my own, planting and tending to seeds that are very soon to blossom. The changing seasons are natural times of transition for us, and with the arrival of summer I am transitioning to a new home. I am not moving to a new city this time, only to the other side of my current one – though in a city like Toronto, moving to the other side of town can almost feel that way, as this is a city of diverse neighbourhoods, each with its own unique and wonderful qualities.

We are generally creatures of habit. We enjoy our routines, our familiar patterns, our favourite people and places and things. When we are presented with a transition – either by Mother Nature with our changing seasons, by our own choices and actions, or through unexpected developments in our life – we can choose to view it as an opportunity and embrace the possibilities it may bring. For many people, the arrival of spring is an opportunity to do some ‘spring cleaning’, clearing out the unwanted, unused, unnecessary things that we have collected. We might do this in our physical environment by deep cleaning our homes, giving old clothes and items we no longer need to charities so that others may benefit from them. We can also do some spring cleaning in our inner environment, releasing old judgments, beliefs, expectations, habits; we let go of what no longer serves us so that we can make space instead for things that nourish and inspire us.

If spring is a season of clearing out the old, summer is a season to welcome what is new. What new ideas, activities, and healthy habits can you invite into your daily life this summer? What new places can you explore, even in your own town or neighbourhood? Though sometimes it may feel like we are unable to change, like changing our familiar routines and patterns would be impossibly challenging, humans are strong and resilient beings and we are capable of much more than we think. The idea of stepping outside our comfort zone might be intimidating, but it is the way we grow and learn and flourish in this life. (I touched on the benefits of exploring outside our comfort zone in an earlier post and shared a wonderful little graphic and one of my favourite quotes from Mark Twain. Check it out here.)

So often we make our decisions based entirely on what our mind tells us is the right thing to do. What about our heart? It is within our heart that we connect to our intuition; it is within our heart that we find our wisest, truest self. This truest self is Atman, our essential being, our higher consciousness. Atman is timeless and ageless, the universal self that never changes and is unaffected by the material world. When we are guided by this deep inner wisdom instead of by the expectations and judgments of the external world, we cannot take a wrong step. When we listen to our heart, we can move freely, confidently, open and receptive to all that awaits us on our journey.

As we move into summer, let this be a time to nourish your heart and heed its advice. Let yourself be guided by the wisdom of your intuition. As Rumi said, “I have been a seeker and I still am but I stopped asking the books and the stars. I started listening to the teaching of my soul.” May we all be so wise and forge a deep, abiding connection to the wisdom that lies within.

February 11, 2019February 21, 2019

Explore. Dream. Discover.

In my last post I touched on the benefits of exploring new places and perspectives and, as if on cue, an article arrived in my inbox about novelty and the importance of getting out of our ruts. According to the University of California Berkeley Wellness Letter, studies have shown that novelty may enhance memory and learning, it is associated with happiness and well-being, it may enhance creativity, and it can help slow down our perception of time. What more could we need to convince us!

For most, our tendency is to gravitate toward the familiar – what is safe, comfortable, known to us. We surround ourselves with familiar people, places, and things to cultivate a sense of security and to create a system of support and reassurance for when the path ahead is unclear. Some of our routines give necessary structure to our life – without them we would neglect our jobs, our responsibilities at home, our commitments to friends and family and community. However, I think it is worthwhile to examine our routines periodically and decide which ones continue to serve us, and which do not – which ones support us and help us move forward on our path, and which might be limiting our potential to grow and change.

It can be daunting to step outside our comfort zone. Yet, if we do not muster the courage to explore beyond what we know, we cannot reap the potential rewards. In A Book That Takes Its Time – An Unhurried Adventure in Creative Mindfulness, there is a wonderful graphic illustrating what lies beyond our comfort zone:

From: A Book That Takes Its Time, by Irene Smit and Astrid van der Hulst

When we look at it this way, how can we not give in to wanderlust and allow ourselves to explore the possibilities of discovery, adventure, reflection, and wisdom?

On the yogic path, we practice svadhyaya, self-study. We reflect upon who we really are – our truest self beyond ego, beyond the expectations and constructs of society. In mindfulness meditation we seek to release attachment to our preconceptions and judgments and look with a beginner’s mind at what arises moment by moment. These practices can help us to open our hearts and minds and give us the courage to explore beyond what is comfortable and known. When we take a step away from the familiar and we observe with fresh eyes what lies before us, the possibilities are endless.

What opportunities await beyond your comfort zone? Take the first step and see where it leads. Follow a new route on your evening walk. Learn a new language or skill. Play with a new pose, or an old pose in a new way, in your yoga practice. Travel to a distant land and explore a new culture. In the sage words of Mark Twain: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.“

November 5, 2018

Relax into impermanence

“When the appearances of this life dissolve, may I with ease and great happiness, let go of all attachments to this life, like a child returning home.” ~ Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

When we pay attention to the world around us, we begin to notice that everything is always changing – the temperature of the air, the clouds in the sky, scents wafting by on the breeze, the sounds of people and traffic and birdsong. We walk outside our same front door each morning and yet what awaits us is different every time. We take our same route to work and yet we see different cars, different people. We pour coffee into our same mug and yet, if we are really paying attention, we notice that the coffee tastes and smells differently today. Why? Because we are different. Because this moment is different. Because all of life is impermanent and although we may encounter people and places and things that seem to be the same as those we have met or seen or experienced before, those experiences have ended and what we have before us is beginning anew.

Impermanence can be challenging to truly understand and accept. Realising that nothing remains the same and that all things must come to an end can give rise to fear and anxiety and a sense of groundlessness. As human beings we form attachments to the people and places and things in our life; they become part of how we identify ourselves and our place in this world. When an experience is over, when we lose a treasured object, when a beloved friendship ends, we often try to cling, to grasp, to bring it back into existence, even though deep down we know that it has reached its natural end and we must continue on.

Life is a continuous cycle of beginnings and endings, of births and deaths. Each breath has a natural beginning and ending, each moment begins and ends, and the end of one moment marks the beginning of the next. Through our mindfulness practice, we learn to observe this natural evolution of time and experience with a sense of equanimity; we learn to release our attachment to what has passed, without fear or anxiety. As we cultivate an attitude of acceptance and our resilience grows in the face of change, we are building the inner resources necessary to face our deepest fears, to face the ultimate example of impermanence: our own death.

On the eastern edge of the Himalayas lies the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan. When we hear about Bhutan in the West, it is often referred to as the happiest place on earth, a country whose King declared ‘Gross National Happiness’ to be its true measure of success. In such a place where happiness abounds, it might be a surprise to learn that they contemplate their own death five times a day. Five times every day the Bhutanese acknowledge that this life will end; they acknowledge the impermanent nature of everything around them, and then they return to living in that moment. I find this practice fascinating and have decided to try it myself – believe it or not, there is an app for that! At five random times a day this app sends me a reminder that I am going to die, and it shares a quote with me about some aspect of impermanence. At first blush this may sound morbid; however, I believe it is by confronting our fears that we relieve them of their power over us.

Fear can have profound effects upon us. We can feel paralysed by our fears, and they can rob us of our ability to live each day in a healthy and conscious way. When we acknowledge fear, when we observe it and name it and sit with it, we grow our awareness of its nature and its roots. We can look upon it with compassion and lovingkindness and then feel its power diminish. Change and the impermanent nature of all things gives rise to fear for many of us, but if we can find a way to acknowledge and accept impermanence, perhaps instead we can welcome change, relax and make peace with it. Perhaps by accepting impermanence, by realising that all we really have is this moment, we can live our lives more fully and allow the births and deaths along the way to teach us powerful lessons.

I leave you with the wonderful wisdom of Pema Chödrön, a Tibetan Buddhist nun who has the extraordinary ability to make challenging concepts like impermanence feel much more accessible.