Tag: mindfulness

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Choosing the direction we will take

Lunar New Year celebration

Happy Lunar New Year! February 1st marks the beginning of the Year of the Tiger. I have such fond memories of the extraordinary New Year celebrations when I lived in Shanghai: spectacular fireworks rang out at midnight around the city as far as the eye could see; on New Year’s Day there were lion dances and parades, delicious smells wafting from every kitchen I passed. Lunar New Year celebrations last for 15 days, culminating in the Lantern Festival on the first full moon of the New Year. Thinking back to those days makes me smile and brings a lightness to my heart that I’ve not felt in a while.

If there’s one thing I know to be true about myself, it’s that I love to travel and explore. I long to immerse myself in new places and cultures. Exploring somewhere new makes my spirit soar, it makes my soul sing.

Last year presented me with a number of challenges. The last time I shared my musings with you, I wrote about some unexpected health problems, and these remain my constant companion. In the past, I could always rely on travel to boost my spirits, to lift whatever weight I’d been carrying physically, mentally, and emotionally. While I gratefully received rejuvenation from some camping and a cottage sojourn, there remained a heaviness I simply couldn’t shake. I know I’m far from alone in this feeling: throughout the pandemic, a mental health crisis has been growing, and it’s shown us how vitally important it is to take care of ourselves, to prioritise our health and wellbeing if we hope to be of any use to our loved ones, and to the world around us.

Sometimes the way forward is to expand and grow, and sometimes what we really need is to retreat inside our shells to rest and regroup.  My heart told me to choose the latter path. For much of the last year, I’ve focused my attention on my small community of dedicated students, offering nourishing practices and weekly writings that resonated with my own journey and experience. As we welcome this New Year, I thought I’d share some of these musings from the last few months.

On gratitude:

“Taking time throughout the day to pause and reflect on the blessings in your life serves as a powerful reminder that, no matter what trouble might be brewing, we are indeed blessed.  Even on those days when challenges are many and blessings seem few, we can give thanks simply for waking up when so many others around the world did not. That’s not to say that gratitude asks us to forget about our pain and suffering; however, it can help us temper that suffering with goodness, with joy, with kindness and love.”

On the importance of self-care:

“Rest should be a topic of great importance at any time, but I think the stress and uncertainty of the last 2 years has brought it screaming to the forefront as part of the larger discussion of mental health and self-care.  For too long we’ve written off our self-care needs as indulgence and luxury.  We couldn’t be further from the truth. I see the effects of stress and strain in those I love; I see their burnout clear as day. I feel it in myself too and I know that the only way I can provide the support my loved ones need is if I take care of my own health and wellbeing.  It’s as simple as that – simple, yes, but not always easy… just like our journey with yoga and mindfulness.”

On our need to be ‘productive’:

“Productivity is something that’s often on our minds, whether consciously or unconsciously. As human beings, we’ve been conditioned to believe that we must always be doing something, and that our doing must be leading us towards a goal or achievement. For me, an example that comes to mind is the internal chatter that occurs when I’m feeling under the weather: I have to convince myself to rest, I have to talk myself into slowing down and setting aside the to-do list, and I try to catch myself each time that negative little voice inside says, ‘don’t stop now, push through, it’s not that bad, you should get more done.’

Why is rest not seen as productive? Why is sitting on my back step watching the sunrise not productive? Why is answering an email tomorrow so I can go for a walk in the sunshine today not productive? Much as we try to fight it, we are mortal beings who live a finite amount of time. We have no idea when the end will come, but when it does, I suspect most of us will still have a few things left on our to-do lists. So how can we learn to accept that fact and enjoy the time we have while we have it?”

On finding contentment:

“…a teaching I recently enjoyed from Frank Ostaseski [is to] welcome everything, push away nothing.  Welcome everything, push away nothing.  Like many mindfulness teachings, it sounds so simple, yet I think we can all agree that it’s anything but easy. It’s human nature to gravitate towards what feels good and recoil from what doesn’t. We seek out pleasure and avoid pain and suffering at all costs. In asana practice, we can easily settle into a pose that feels good and familiar, but what about the poses that challenge us, that feel uncomfortable, that bring us to our edge physically, mentally, or emotionally? How do we find the same sense of ease and contentment in those poses? Welcome everything, push away nothing.” 

On World Kindness Day:

“When someone shows us kindness, we feel our spirits lift, and we’re much more inclined to share that feeling with others we encounter. Someone returns an item that fell out of your pocket and you’re surprised, grateful, happy; in that moment you become fully present and aware of the kindness another has shown you. That warm feeling inside comes from a little shot of serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins – the body’s natural mood boosters – and it stays with you as you continue on your way, perhaps opening a door for someone or helping them carry a heavy package to their car. As you pass the kindness on, the warm feeling in you continues because sharing kindness is as good for us as receiving it.  Start today with a little act of kindness towards yourself and see how it makes you feel. Then as you move through the day and encounter others, share a smile, offer a compliment, hold open a door, buy someone a coffee. As Aesop wrote: ‘No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted’.”

On how we choose to move through the world:

“We learn myriad lessons on the mat. New insights appear each time we arrive, each time we pay attention, each time we open our awareness and allow the lessons to penetrate the layers of bias and expectation and resistance we’ve built up over time. As human beings it is our nature to form opinions, to make judgments, to set goals. Yet our practice teaches us over and over again that everything changes, nothing remains as it is, no two breaths or sensations or moments in time are the same. Each time we exhale, we expect that an inhale will follow – but are we guaranteed that next inhale? Are we guaranteed the next moment in time…or only this one?

…a favourite quote, one I’ve shared with you many times over the years: ‘Happiness is not given to us, nor is misery imposed. At every moment we are at a crossroads and must choose the direction we will take.’ ~Matthieu Ricard

While so much in life is beyond our control, we can choose how we respond to what arises. We can choose to be open-minded and curious; we can choose to be angry and sullen; we can choose to accept and learn from challenges; we can choose to resist and shout at the rain. It’s all a matter of perspective and how we choose to navigate the changing world around us.”

~~~

Maybe a few of my words resonate with you, reflecting some of your own experiences of the past year. How are you choosing to move through the world? Is this a time when it feels good to expand and grow, or is your heart asking you to slow down, to rest, to stop some of the doing and allow yourself to simply be?

Last week the world lost one of its shining lights, the wise and beautiful soul of Thich Nhat Hanh. Often called the father of mindfulness, his book Peace is Every Step was my first introduction to this practice, my first step on a lifelong journey exploring his teachings of compassion and love for all beings. With a new year upon us, I leave you with these wise words from Thich Nhat Hanh:

“Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully each moment, and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”

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The best way out is always through

Resilient tree growing through a fence
A resilient tree shows us the way through

Resilience. That’s what comes to mind each day as I pass this tree on my walks around the neighbourhood. Resilience in the face of suffering. Perseverance in the midst of pain. 

You might have seen this unusual tree in the photos I shared on Instagram last week as we saw yet another stay-at-home order announced. I offered it as a reminder that we have within us the strength to overcome whatever challenges stand in our way, to make it through to the other side – we need only find a way to connect to it.

Sometimes the challenges we encounter are of our own making, and sometimes they’re beyond our control, arriving seemingly out of nowhere – like this fence. We could be going about our business, this tree was simply growing in the forest, and suddenly something stops us in our tracks. To be honest, I’ve found myself in that very situation in recent months: stopped in my tracks by unexpected health problems. In the face of challenge, in the face of pain and suffering, how do we connect with our inner strength and resilience and harness its power to guide us safely through?

For me, this connection comes through mindfulness, which of course, can take many shapes and forms. Asana and pranayama, the postures and breathwork of yoga, help me release tension and create space in body and mind so that I can open my awareness to signals arising within. Meditation deepens my practice of svadhyaya (self-study) and santosha (contentment) as I observe, notice, embrace my experience without judgment or attachment, with lovingkindness and compassion. I invite mindfulness into my favourite everyday activities – gardening, baking, walking in nature. I give thanks for the many blessings in my life, without glossing over the fact that I’ve lost my job, that I’m struggling with health issues, that I’m tired of being stuck at home in lockdown. I remind myself of the vital importance of self-love, self-care, self-compassion, and self-acceptance. Connecting to the present moment through these practices fosters in me a deeper connection to myself, a greater awareness of who I am beneath all the mental busyness, beneath the self-doubt, the pain, the expectations and uncertainties.

In his poem A Servant to Servants, Robert Frost wrote that “the best way out is always through” and I believe that’s just what mindfulness teaches us. We learn to welcome the present moment exactly as it is – its joy and its pain, its triumph and its sorrow. We learn to practice acceptance of what is rather than fear of what might be or regret for what was. We take it day by day, moment by moment, breath by breath. We make our way through the challenges, fueled by strength and resilience we’ve cultivated within, and like this extraordinary tree, we keep reaching our branches to the sky.

Tree branches reaching to the sky
Branches reaching to the sky
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Make Lemonade

Crocuses making the most of spring sunshine

As we all practice physical distancing and stay at home as much as possible, doing our part to stem the COVID-19 tide, we are presented with a unique opportunity – a chance to shift our usual way of being and thinking and doing, a chance to explore new ideas and new ways to move through our days.

Spending time at home can mean more time on our meditation cushion or yoga mat, more time in the kitchen cooking our favourite recipes and trying new ones, more time relaxing with a good book or movie. We can take up a new hobby or revisit an old one. We can sit outside in the yard and make some vitamin D on a sunny day. We can dig in our gardens, organise our closets, deep clean neglected areas of the house, do some home repairs or projects we’ve been putting on hold until we had more time. 

In case you are looking for a few ways to explore and connect virtually with the world outside, here are just a few of the many ideas available – in addition to surfing through YouTube, Netflix, TED Talks, etc., which have some great finds as well, of course.

Explore culture and history around the world

Check out Google Arts and Culture to peruse the collections of 2500 museums around the world, as well as cultural sites, landmarks, historical events and more: https://artsandculture.google.com/

Other virtual museum tours direct from the source:

Take in a musical performance

Take a course to learn a new language or skill 

You can find a vast array of classes available online, including free and low-cost options. Check local (and not so local) colleges and universities – some are offering free online courses right now.  Other options with a wide variety of classes include:

Connect virtually with the natural world

Studies have shown that just looking at images of nature can invite the same sense of peace and calm into our mind and body that a walk in the forest can.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has live cams that connect you to the wonder of the ocean from the comfort of your own home. From sea otters to sharks, jellies to penguins, there are 10 different cams to enjoy throughout the day. In addition, they offer guided meditations (‘Medit-Oceans’) every day on Instagram, which are then added to the huge library of videos on their YouTube channel. https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/live-cams

For more live cam entertainment, there are a number of zoos around the world that invite you behind the scenes to connect with their inhabitants, including the San Diego Zoo, the Melbourne Zoo & Werribee Open Range Zoo, and the Dublin Zoo.

World Wildlife Fund’s Natural Habitat Adventures is offering a Daily Dose of Nature. At 1pm Mountain Time every Monday through Friday you can enjoy webinars presented by guides from around the world. https://www.nathab.com/traveler-resources/webinars/

Manage stress & build resilience through mindfulness

Mindfulness teacher Tara Brach has put together a wonderful collection of short talks and guided meditations to support us in this uncertain time, as well as a guided half-day retreat: https://www.tarabrach.com/pandemic/

Tricycle is offering a series of free live-stream meditations with beloved teachers like Jack Kornfield, Pema Chödrön, Sharon Salzberg and more: https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/online-meditation/

Mindful magazine has created a collection of online resources to help us find calm and cultivate resilience: https://www.mindful.org/free-mindfulness-resources-for-calm-during-covid-outbreak/

This is just a handful of ideas that will hopefully provide some inspiration and support. As you navigate the days ahead, take the time to be attentive to the needs of your mind and body. Invite some mindful movement into every day, connect with your breath and the sensations in your body, notice your thoughts and emotions and welcome them in with kindness and compassion. While we naturally want to stay informed of developments at home and around the world, balance your news consumption with things that are positive, uplifting, creative, and inspiring – both online and off. 

I leave you with an offering of Metta, lovingkindness:

May you be healthy
May you be safe
May you be peaceful
May you live with ease. 

May all beings be healthy
May all beings be safe
May all beings be peaceful
May all beings live with ease.
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Reflecting back to guide us forward

Autumn sky reflections

A new year and a new decade is upon us. The end of the calendar year is a natural time to reflect back on what was and to look forward with hope and anticipation to what might lie ahead. In the Northern Hemisphere, the end of the year coincides with the beginning of winter, a season that encourages us to draw our focus inward, to observe and connect with our inner landscape and reflect upon what we find.

Amid the celebration and festivity, take some time to consider not only the year that has come to a close, but the last ten years as well. What events stand out for you? What are you most proud of? What did you learn that has changed the way you think, feel, live your daily life? What were the triumphs in those ten years, and what were the challenges? What beliefs, teachings, and practices served you well, and which ones might be limiting your ability to move forward on your path?

The only constant in life is change. At a glance it might seem like we are the same person we were a decade ago, but when we look closer the differences are clear. It would be easy to allow our inner monologue to deafen us with criticism over our perceived failures, our losses, the summits we did not climb, the goals we did not achieve. However, what we must do instead is listen to our deepest self – that wise little voice within us, so often shouted down by the external world and our busy thinking mind. That voice will remind us that we are extraordinary because after ten years we are still alive. We are older and wiser and more beautiful each day. Every triumph and tragedy has taught us something about ourselves and made us more whole, more human. We can look back at the changes we have experienced and welcome them with an open heart, offering forgiveness and compassion for the suffering we might have caused ourselves or others.

On December 22nd, spiritual leader Ram Dass left his broken body to go home. His dear friend Jack Kornfield said, “Home is not somewhere else. It is here, in life and death, in the eternal dance of consciousness, weaving together form and the formless mystery from which it all comes. Ram Dass is the vastness reminding us that in the end, there is only love.” In 1997 Ram Dass suffered a stroke and, rather than being discouraged by its debilitating effects, he used that monumental change to embody his teachings, to continue to share his love and compassion and wisdom with the world. If change is the one constant in life, death is the one inevitability. Ram Dass saw death simply as a change to prepare for, to make peace with, to welcome and accept like any other. May his teachings live on and flourish in the millions of hearts he touched.

Ram Dass – Be Here Now
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Look with new eyes

Unsettled sky

I have a new student who has come to yoga seeking help in managing chronic pain and stress.  We often talk before and after class, and I try to provide a welcoming space where she can share her thoughts and fears, where she can develop and explore a practice that will nourish and support her.  In my years of teaching so far, I have encountered wide ranging stories of what first drew students to the practice of yoga, and I have found that pain and stress management are quite commonly cited.  For those of you who are long-time practitioners, I am certain you can remember a time when your practice was a friend and ally that supported you through challenges with your health, whether it was an injury, an illness, or emotional turbulence that required yoga’s sage and patient guidance.  No matter the reason we first step onto the yogic path, we quickly discover its myriad benefits if we are paying attention, and we learn to weave its lessons into the way we live our lives, and the way we treat ourselves and others.

All of our life experiences inform the way we perceive the world around us.  When we allow ourselves to be open and receptive, when we approach each moment with curiosity, these perceptions can be fluid and flexible; rather than being bound by a rigid set of assumptions and expectations, we are free to experience whatever new possibilities arise, allowing them to enrich and expand our perspectives on the world.  That being said, if you have ever experienced a debilitating chronic condition – depression, anxiety, auto-immune disease, neurological disorder, chronic pain from any number of sources – there might be times when it feels like those assumptions and expectations are what’s keeping you afloat.  With the student I mentioned above, she has become accustomed to describing her condition and symptoms in a particular way, evaluating and rating her pain in a particular way, viewing all aspects of her life through the specific lens of her condition.  She has been practicing mindfulness for many years, since long before her diagnosis, and it has provided a great measure of comfort and ease amidst the pain and uncertainty.  However, like any ritual or routine that we embrace, I believe that even practices that are intended to be mindful can become rote, done on auto-pilot, without truly and fully connecting to the present moment – particularly when that moment includes pain and suffering.

One of the qualities we cultivate through our practice is resilience. We learn to find equanimity and calm amidst a storm of sensation or emotion. We learn to sit with unease and discomfort and accept it as part of our experience. In a recent class I was talking about resilience and how our practice teaches us to distinguish between pain and discomfort – in terms of our asana practice, determining what we can sit with and what might need a modification to ensure we are not heading towards injury. After class, this student asked how we make that determination – she is experiencing some level of pain all the time so how does she differentiate between one pain and another? I suggested that she try changing her vocabulary around pain. She is so used to characterizing pain for her doctors and attaching a numerical value to express its intensity that those labels and judgments could become shackles that prevent her from moving beyond the pain. By releasing the labels, by accepting that all of it is simply sensation, she can then approach whatever she might be feeling with a greater sense of openness and curiosity, observing sensations without judging them, and without tying them to past stories and expectations. The idea of not labelling the pain was a revelation – a new idea that could help release an old pattern no longer serving a useful purpose.

When we meditate, spending time with the natural rise and fall of our breath and body sensations, we can open ourselves to the endless possibilities that exist in each moment. If we keep returning to assumptions and labels we have used in the past, they will limit how and what we perceive, they will limit our ability to grow and flourish, to become resilient and strong. Our practice is one of continuously letting go, placing our full attention on the moment as it arises and then releasing it completely so we have space to invite the next moment into our awareness.

I invite you to observe your own practice and notice what you find. Do you see well-worn patterns, labels and reactions and expectations that arise automatically? What changes could you make, what new ideas could you explore to invite a fresh perspective? As Marcel Proust advised, “The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Look upon yourself and the world around you with new eyes, and see what discoveries await.

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Dolce far niente

Laurentian sunset

I love listening to the Italian language. It has a lyrical quality that makes even the most mundane phrase sound beautiful. It’s always spoken with such passion, I cannot help but be riveted.  I was first introduced to the phrase dolce far niente in a book – Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, which then became a film where I could hear the words spoken aloud in that scintillating, sultry way.  As beautiful as it sounds, its meaning is even more enticing: the sweetness of doing nothing.  Dolce far niente is more than a simple turn of phrase for Italians; it is a way of being, a way of living, a way of connecting to the joy and brightness of each moment.  To me, dolce far niente is the epitome of mindfulness, as it embodies one of the pillars of our practice: non-doing.

So much of our time is spent ‘doing’. We make plans, we complete tasks, we check things off our to-do lists – that’s DONE, I’ve been productive, good for me!  While, of course, we need to do things – our very survival depends upon it – I have come to believe that it is equally vital for us to incorporate some healthy doses of non-doing and undoing into our daily life.  To live mindfully, we invite awareness into the tasks we complete each day, and this helps us stay connected to the present moment rather than becoming mired in past regrets and future worries.  That same mindful awareness can also ground and connect us when we are doing nothing in particular at all.  For example, your lunch break arrives and you head outside to sit on a park bench and enjoy some fresh air while you eat. You eat your food mindfully, noticing its taste and texture in your mouth, the feel of it in your hands, the transition from a sensation of hunger to one of fullness. As you savour the last bite, you might be inclined to reach for your phone to clear out a few emails, or you might have brought a book to read or a podcast to listen to.  These things can certainly all be done with the same mindful awareness you practiced while eating your lunch – but what if you decided instead to spend some time doing nothing at all? What if you simply sat on that park bench and allowed each moment to unfurl before you, in its own time and its own way, without judgment or attachment or expectations, without self-talk telling you to ‘do’ something with your time?

In a previous post, I touched on the healing benefits of finding stillness, of allowing ourselves the opportunity to simply do nothing (check it out here, along with the video of a wonderful TED Talk by Pico Iyer on the art of stillness).  When we let go of the need to always be ‘doing’, we open ourselves to the limitless possibilities that each moment brings. We luxuriate in the moment, we experience it fully without any ideas or expectations about what it must be.  Releasing ourselves, even briefly, from our incessant need to do and accomplish and produce, enables us to be truly and profoundly present. We can bask in the glow of each moment as it unfolds, we can feel its warmth and its joy, we can savour the sweetness of doing nothing at all.

Wishing you a day filled with simple joys and quiet moments for dolce far niente.

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Where no shadow can touch

I recently went for a long walk in the woods as daylight was fading, and as I gazed into the sky I felt light enough to fly and at the same time deeply rooted.  I was fully present, welcoming each sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell that my senses encountered, and yet releasing them as easily as they arrived, remaining open and receptive to whatever the next moment held.  When the walk ended and my focus returned to conversations and tasks, echoes of that feeling of lightness remained for some time.  This is the healing beauty of mindfulness, of truly inhabiting the here and now.

Boiled down to its essence, mindfulness is about being present.  When we live in this moment now, we are not plagued with regret about past events, and we do not feel a crush of worry about the future.  Being in the here and now means that we have released our attachment to past and future and we have opened ourselves to whatever the present moment might bring.  Unfortunately, for most of us, being here now is a fleeting experience, as the distractions of daily life dangle before us like juicy carrots, stealing our attention away.  We chase after the carrots and they lead us down one rabbit hole after another, through a maze of tunnels constructed from our past conversations, relationships and traumas, our future plans and worries and what-ifs. We could spend all of our time in this maze, our attention tumbling from one thought to the next, one regret, one worry to the next. Or instead, we could harness the power of mindfulness to bring us back to the surface, breathing in fresh air, opening our eyes to the clouds and the trees and letting them return us to this moment.

When my thoughts are racing and I get lost in the maze of past and future, gazing skyward is a simple way for me to pause and reconnect with the present.  There is something about the sky that calms me, quiets the busyness within, anchors my attention in the here and now.  Perhaps it is the ever-changing nature of the sky – clouds of all shapes and sizes, endless shades of blue, birds floating in and out of view as they navigate the breeze – an apt metaphor for the impermanence of life itself.  And then there is the miraculous experience of sunrise and sunset, every single day the sky ablaze with new colours, a reminder that even in our darkest times, there is still beauty to be found.  When our path seems unclear, when challenges abound, we need something to remind us of that beauty, the beauty of possibility and change and growth that lies in each moment. 

What makes you feel fully present? What anchors your attention in the here and now and allows you to open to its possibilities? Is there something simple you can reach for when your heart feels heavy, when your mind feels scattered and your attention is scurrying through a maze of what-ifs and worries?  Mindfulness is not a cure for all that ails us, but it is a powerful tool, a wise and supportive friend that can take our hand and lead us to a place of light when we feel mired in darkness.  Though we may share a common desire to live fully in each moment, the ways in which we connect to that moment are unique.  Maybe it is the sound and rhythm of your nourishing breath that grounds you. Maybe bringing your hand to rest on your heart reconnects you to the experience of this moment. Maybe you open your ears to the sounds around you and are returned to the here and now.  Or maybe, like me, you gaze skyward: “Look, up at the sky. There is a light, a beauty up there, that no shadow can touch.” J.R.R. Tolkien

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Conscious intention

Intention is the core of all conscious life. It is our intentions that create Karma, our intentions that help others, our intentions that lead us away from the delusions of individuality towards the immutable verities of enlightened awareness. Conscious intention colours and moves everything.

~Master Hsing Yun

A new year is upon us and we naturally look forward with eager eyes, filled with anticipation and curiosity about what might lie ahead. It has become common practice to make resolutions for the coming year, promises for what we will do, how we will be, changes we will make. What resolutions have you made in past years? How many of those promises were successfully fulfilled?

I have never really been one for New Year’s resolutions. Since mindfulness practice became part of my daily life, I find that what resonates with me instead is trying to live with intention – not just at the dawn of a new year, but every day. As Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Waking up this morning I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully each moment, and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.” We need not wait for a new calendar year to set intentions for how we will go about our day, how we will treat ourselves, how we will interact with the world around us.

Through mindfulness we learn to pay conscious attention to the present moment, and we come to realise that this moment is all that we are truly guaranteed. When we understand the impermanent nature of things, it is not that we must abandon all planning for the future, but we can invite a sense of perspective into our plans. When we plan a holiday, it can bring such joy and excitement to investigate all the sights we want to see, the food we want to eat, the adventures we want to take. However, with all of that planning, it can be deeply disappointing when the trip we imagined in our dreams turns out quite differently in reality. The same holds true for promises we make to ourselves or to others that in the end simply cannot be kept. We cannot truly know what lies ahead for us – change, challenge, the unexpected arises on our path and as a result plans may go awry and promises may go unfulfilled. While we are unable to anticipate exactly what the future holds, we can choose to open our hearts and minds and be willing to entertain all possibilities with a sense of acceptance and equanimity.

Practicing mindfulness teaches us how to live with intention. We can intentionally invite compassion and lovingkindness into our hearts so that we may nourish ourselves and share it with those around us. We can intentionally respond to challenge and duress with a sense of equanimity. We can intentionally accept the changing nature of life, releasing our attachment to outcomes we cannot control. As Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön advises, “Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have so we might as well work with it rather than struggle against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy.”

As you look to the year ahead, what intentions do you wish to invite into your heart? Perhaps ask yourself this question as you sit in meditation and notice what arises. We need not wait for a clock to strike or a calendar page to turn – we can infuse each day with conscious intention, welcoming each moment as a friend, a teacher, an opportunity to experience something new.


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A balance of light & dark

When we assign labels or judgments to our feelings and experiences, we run the risk of diminishing what they have to teach us. Our natural inclination is to crave what feels ‘good’ and is deemed ‘positive’ by those around us, and we avoid what feels ‘bad’ and might be viewed as ‘negative’.  However, by only courting what is good and striving to ignore what is bad, could we not be depriving ourselves of fully half our life experiences? If we shun the dark, can we ever truly appreciate the light?

Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön reminds us that “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” We can try to hide from our fear, bury our anxiety, ignore our distress, but until we have acknowledged their lessons and allowed them to penetrate deep within, we will never be free of them. We will encounter them again and again on our path, sometimes in different shapes, with different faces, yet still they stem from the same roots. To shine a light on them, we must use our mindful awareness to look within, to reach into the darkness of our despair or uncertainty, our anger or fear, and allow ourselves to experience them fully. We open ourselves to the darkness or discomfort without judgment, without attachment, with a deep sense of self-compassion, and we listen to what these experiences are trying to teach us.

There is a reason we begin our meditation studies with awareness of the breath: it is the gateway between our external experience of the world around us and the inner landscape where our true and wisest self lies.  The breath lets us connect to our physical self in a simple, non-threatening way; it connects us to the familiar external world and the way it tastes, smells and feels, moment by moment.  We then begin to follow the breath as it moves within the body and we attune to the physical sensations we encounter there – the lungs, ribs and belly expanding and softening, the way the air feels as it moves through the nostrils and the throat.  Sitting in silent contemplation of the breath, the subtle beauty of the body rising and falling, enables us to connect to the present moment in a tangible way, and it provides an anchor that grounds us in the present and brings us back again and again as our attention drifts.  From this grounded place, we can then choose to open our awareness to the less tangible, to the ever-changing stream of thoughts and emotions that arise in each moment.  It is here that we are often most inclined to judge and label: welcoming happiness and pushing away sorrow, embracing the light as we run from the dark.

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung sagely observed that, “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.” What if instead of labeling happiness as good and sadness as bad, we simply accept them for what they are: feelings and experiences, in a lifelong journey of feelings and experiences? Perhaps if we can notice when we label and judge, we can begin to acknowledge that it serves no useful purpose. Perhaps if we let go of labels and judgments when they arise, we can instead choose to sit with experiences exactly as they are, opening up to their lessons as a guiding light from within.

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Why are we thankful?

I recently read about something that resonated with me: the idea of conscious gratitude (thank you author Danielle LaPorte).  I often speak of the benefit and power of practicing gratitude, especially in times of challenge and duress.  However, simply giving thanks for everything in a general sense runs the risk of glossing over why (and whether) we are thankful, as well as what lessons we learned and/or benefits we reaped from it.

The term ‘spiritual bypass’ was coined in the 1980s by Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist John Welwood.  Spiritual bypassing occurs when we use spiritual practices to avoid facing unresolved issues, emotions, or situations.  An example of this would be to say that because you like who you are today and where you are on your path, you must be thankful for all that has come before.  At first glance this sounds perfectly okay, and it is in line with what any number of self-help books and articles might recommend, but what happens when we dig below the surface?  What happens when we sit with our experience in mindful meditation and physical or emotional pain from a past event returns?

In our mindfulness practice we seek to rest our awareness in the present moment and experience all that arises with a sense of equanimity.  We cultivate the ability to become comfortable with the uncomfortable; we build our inner strength and resilience to weather storms that arise within, be they physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual.  However, is weathering a storm the same as being grateful for it?  Do we really need to give thanks for the lightning strike that cripples us, or do we instead use the tools of our practice to simply accept the strike and its effects? We learn many lessons from the challenges in our life, and we can certainly be grateful for those lessons, but we must also acknowledge and accept where they came from – glossing over a painful experience with a blanket ‘thank-you’ does not necessarily address the havoc it may have wrought upon us physically or emotionally, and that havoc might resurface again and again in different ways if we do not acknowledge the root cause.

The example of spiritual bypass I offered above – if I am content with where my path has taken me thus far, I must give thanks for all that brought me here – is one I have used myself, and it may be a familiar refrain for you as well.  However, my practice has taught me that I do not need to be grateful for something to accept it as part of my experience.  I do not believe that a loyal employee must give thanks to the employer who lays them off, just as I would never suggest that a shooting victim must give thanks for being shot.  To me, this kind of giving thanks indiscriminately is practicing gratitude on auto-pilot, without any mindful awareness, disconnected from our intuition.  That being said, even in the midst of challenge and suffering, there will always remain things in our life for which we can give thanks, including the teachings we uncovered through our suffering.  This is conscious gratitude.  We pay attention to our experience and use the tools of our practice to discern what we have lost, what we have gained, what we have learned; we acknowledge and accept all of it, the full catastrophe, as part of our experience, and then we decide what we are truly grateful for and we give thanks.