We Are All Made Of This

 

As we move closer to Thanksgiving, a holiday I truly enjoy, rather than ask us to reflect on the individual gifts we are grateful for, I invite us instead to touch the feeling of gratefulness that comes when we connect to all of life around us, to remember our interconnected nature with everything. We are in a time when separation and division, feelings of belonging or not belonging, ideas of us vs. them are heightened and palpable. Connection and separation wax and wane in life -- in our personal lives, in our relationship with ourself, in our community, country, world. Sometimes we feel more connected and at other times, less. Those tend to be the more painful times. This Thanksgiving, placing the emphasis on the larger picture of our interconnectedness can help nurture us out of our more self centered ideas of what we personally have to be grateful for and into our collective gratitude that recognizes that we are part of a whole, all connected, and appreciative of this larger web of life which we could not exist apart from.

Why does that matter? Because we can forget. We, by no fault of our own, can get wrapped up in our tasks, in our needs and wants, in our pleasure, pain, fear and confusion, and forget to see that there is much more to what is going on. What feels so personal is not. Everything comes to be because of causes and conditions, many of which we can't see and we don't know. Many of which were set in action way before we came around. When we step back a bit, we realize that we are part of it all -- what happens that is favorable, what happens that is not so favorable, and everything in between. When we can do that, we end up feeling much more connected and full of gratefulness because we don't see things as "my fortune" or "not my fortune," we see things as related and that our gifts (and struggles) are everyone's. 

When we are aware of our connection, we know that what we do (our thoughts, words, actions) matters. Then, we make choices that benefit the world, not just us. We won't do this 100% of the time. I can speak for myself and say, I am far from that. But when we start to feel separate; when we get caught up in worry, wants, fears, mired in binaries of right/wrong, good/bad, enough/not enough, we can return. It's a relief to step back and remember, very simply, I am made of water, minerals, the sun, the air, of all people past and present. All of us are made of these things. We can pause and get our perspective back. We can be thankful to this life that was made possible by so many other lives; that is made possible by this earth, sun, air, and water. To support you in this practice, I welcome you to listen to my meditation on Remembering Our Connection. You can find it on the Insight Timer or here on my website (scroll down to the title). Remembering our connection naturally brings gratefulness.

May your days leading up to Thanksgiving be full of the insight of interconnection and the love, compassion and openness it brings.

Jean

Effort & Touch

 

In my last A Mindful Pause, the reflection was on how we tend to fill the spaces and silences of our daily lives and how it effects us. Building on this way of bringing mindfulness into our everyday actions, this week's Pause adds an embodied element...how do we move through our days. I won't be giving you physical exercises, but inviting you to have greater awareness of how you use your body and the recognition that you can choose to move in a way that feels nicer. I am finding this one so rewarding. It's tactile, specific, practical, and it changes how I feel when I do it. I hope it has that effect on you if you are willing to try it!

Mindfulness practice is not just mindful of our thoughts and words, but also mindful of our body, of being here, moving in this physical form. Often, we focus on working with our mind to be able to relax, bring more calm, ease, but we can also go the other way. We can adjust our physical body to help our mind and emotions. To truly live mindfully, we need to do both -– to integrate awareness of our body and mind. One without the other is not complete.

How do we become mindful of our physical actions? Just as not filling all of our spaces and silences, it takes intention and deliberate action. There are two areas I identified that we can bring our attention to in order to help.
 

Mindful of Effort

We can notice our physical effort when we do something and how much more we often use than is necessary to do any task. There are times and places where using effort and force are good and necessary, but often, it's as though we have only one gear. We can become more aware of how much effort we use to do simple things like sitting, opening a door, holding a steering wheel, picking up a mug, washing your body, closing a cabinet. How much do we contract our muscles throughout our body? In our hands, face, shoulders, abdomen? Checking in with ourselves like this and letting go of what isn't necessary is something we can do throughout the day. We can enjoy, moment by moment, experiencing greater effortlessness. We can ease up on our energy output.
 

Mindful of Touch

Mindful of touch, we can choose to be softer, more gentle, have a lighter touch, which also allows more ease in our body and mind. This one has been so powerful for me. To have a lighter touch takes being more deliberate in caring for things -- all living things and objects. When we live with greater awareness, we naturally gain a greater reverence for all of life. We see all that goes into something existing and we can touch everything with appreciation and care. It is more obvious in the life of people, animals, plants, and insects. But in all our objects, things we handle throughout the day, we can hold them, touch them, move them with care, too. So many people, resources, and elements went into making it. Most things won't even disintegrate and will be here long after we are gone. This understanding can help us want to make things last, to take care of what is in our possession. We live with such a disposable, replaceable mindset that we stop treating things with care. But we can do this differently and it feels so much better.

We know that being careless often happens when we are rushing, not present, overextended, angry, scared, tired, which is why our meditation practice is so valuable. We stop and refocus on what matters. We recognize when we are going too fast, doing too much, not taking care of ourselves. When we bring more care in our touch and movement, when we use appropriate effort, we treat our body and mind better, and other people and things better. Life is nicer this way.

How do we practice this? It might seem overwhelming, but it's quite simple as long as we remove self-judgment and the need to get it right. It is a moment by moment practice. I can handle something roughly, realize I am, and then change my touch, my force. I don't have to wait until tomorrow to start again.

Think about how you go through your day; imagine yourself as you get ready, as you move through your home, as you work at a computer, cook, drive, clean, do errands. Where do you know you tend to be heavy handed, use more force, grip something too hard, feel tight/contracted? Where are the obvious moments? And then try on what it would be like if you lightened up, got softer, more caring in your touch. How might your experience of living be different? Give it a try throughout the day. Begin again as many times as you need. Enjoy the gentle, tenderness of touching, moving, being, bringing care to this life that's here.

🍁
Jean

The Spaces & Silences

 

Before I share this week's Mindful Pause, I first want to acknowledge the fear, pain, and suffering of the people of Israel, their loved ones here and around the world, and the many innocent civilians caught in the crossfire over the past 10 days. My heart is saddened by the terrorism and suffering we are witnessing from afar and the fear and trauma it stirs up for people everywhere. 

While I often feel helpless in these times, what I take refuge in and what we, as a mindful community, can all take refuge in is our contribution to peace. We do this by our daily commitment to becoming more aware of ourselves and being mindful of how we effect others, by strengthening our capacity for staying present and grounded, by touching compassion, seeing our common humanity, allowing for complexity in order to not become rigid in our perceptions, by learning how to communicate with the intent to understand and connect, by returning again and again to loving and kind intention. It is not easy work and yet this is what generates peace, stability, harmony around the world. One person at a time willing to do the hard work of looking deeply. Thank you for being in this community doing that. Though it may not seem like a contribution in times like these and, yes, there may be more we can do to take action, our becoming more awake is no small part to play. It has a ripple effect that is significant. I spoke to this in Sunday's talk if you want to hear more.

The theme we have been working with, both on the recent retreat and in my groups back here at home, has everything to do with being self-aware. I welcome you to join us in investigating just how much we tend to fill the spaces and silences of our daily lives and how it effects us. It speaks to our discomfort in being alone with ourselves; it speaks to the anxious energy so prevalent that begs for distraction. It speaks to the disconnection between our wish to be happy and free and what we actually do to keep us from it. It comes out in behaviors like compulsively checking our phones and screens for emails, texts, news, social media, entertainment. It comes out in habitually turning on the radio, TV, or playing a podcast without clear intention to listen or watch, or not knowing if it even nourishes us. It comes out in ways we consume -- food, shopping, gossip, recreational drugs and alcohol. It comes out in excessively exercising, dieting, cleaning. You name it. If we do it just to fill the space and the silence without clear intention, then we are making ourselves busy out of fear. Fear of disconnection, loneliness, fear of not being, having, doing enough, fear of wasting time (ironically), fear of feeling what we are feeling.

This is not a judgment or a criticism. There is nothing inherently "wrong" with us. But, when we notice what we do, we see that we get to make a choice to not fill all of the spaces and silences, rather we can take a break from so much input, so much busy-ness, and give our nervous systems a rest, feel calmer and more grounded because we can. We get to create new habits because we realize that happiness does not lie in filling every second, but being present to this one second right now.  

My invitation this week is to notice when you fill those silences and spaces in your everyday life. It may be when you eat, when you turn on a device, listen to the news multiple times a day, when you multi-task, when you drive, when you are waiting for someone, when you start to clean though it was not in your plan for the day. When you can, try on not doing the habitual thing and see what happens. What do you do when you stop or when you only do one thing? What does it feel like to remove so much filler.

I say it often, "there is a lot more time and space available to us, we just need to give it to ourselves." And why does this matter? When we stop bombarding our nervous systems and give ourselves breathing room, we meet ourselves, others, life differently. We bring more calm, grounding, presence and peace to a world that very much needs it. 

What can we do to help us in those moments of spaciousness and quiet? Breathe. Just feel yourself breathing.

🍁
Jean

Solid and Free

 

Happy October to all of you.

Myself, along with 21 members of A Mindful Life, just returned from a weekend retreat that I gave at The Dharmakaya Center For Wellbeing in upstate New York. It was my first time leading a full weekend retreat and for many it was their first experience on a retreat. I couldn't have asked for a better weekend. I feel so full from the community and the time in quiet, at a beautiful place, where we all put living mindfully into practice. There is so much I could say about it, but having just returned, I need to let the experience digest. Maybe I can share more in the next A Mindful Pause! I am looking forward to facilitating more at the center. See some pictures below.

In the meantime, I spoke so much at the retreat that my offering today won't be in the form of words, rather it is a freshly recorded meditation. This one is 18 minutes and can be found on my website. It is the first recording at the top of the guided meditations list or you can listen to it on Soundcloud. I have submitted it to the Insight Timer, where it will likely be up and running in a few days.

This meditation is inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh's meditations, whose teachings and phrases feel like part of me now. It is intended to help you slow down, find ease, and feel centered and grounded. Enjoy.

🌻
Jean