Let It Be Free

 

I'm on vacation at the moment in my favorite summer place, Maine. Do you have the experience of going on vacation and falling in love with the place so much so that you start imagining buying a place there? As you drive, you find yourself looking at the homes with for sale signs and wondering how it just might be possible to live there? You want to hold onto that place because being there feels so good. At the same time when your basement floods for the umpteenth time or one more thing goes wrong with your house, you imagine selling it, getting it off your hands. Good riddance! Holding on to what's pleasant and pushing away what's unpleasant. It is the natural response to being human. But what if we could let what our experiences around what feels good and what feels not so good be equally free?

In our groups, we recently spent time looking at the practice of equanimity as a liberating tool and I want to share it with all of you in the hope that it will bring you more ease. When we see things with greater equanimity, we remove judgement and evaluation. We remove notions of right/wrong, good/bad, and ideas around what should/shouldn't be. Instead we just meet the experience as it is.  What I like to say is "it's like this right now." Multiple people have said they want that expression tattooed on them to remind them that they can just be with the experience and remove the reactivity to it. It's the reactivity that causes suffering. We step off the roller coaster when we do. We still experience highs and lows, but we aren't stuck on the ride, or at the very least if we are on it, it doesn't make us so queazy. We can recognize it and in doing so we begin to slow it down so we can get off.

The invitation this week is in two parts:  

Choose something that is going on that feels pleasant. Something that is going well and feels good and what if you let yourself experience it fully -- the feelings and sensations that go with it, but don't hold onto this pleasant thing. You don't have to figure out how to get more of the good thing. You don't have to worry about it ending. Simply experience it fully as a pleasant experience, breathe with it there, fully present to enjoy, and let it be free -- like letting a bird go.

And now, choose something that feels hard, something not so pleasant, and what if you do the same? Feel what this unpleasantness is like -- the feelings and sensations that go with it, and let them be there without adding on to them, without pushing them away, without making them your story. Instead, let it, too, be free -- like letting a bird go.

How does life feel different if you can bring some more balance to what arises in life? It is certainly less dramatic and causes less reactivity around us. Equanimity needs to be practiced along with it's accompanying practices of loving-kindness, compassion, and joy. We can practice it more easily when we also can bring in care and compassion and we don't forget to appreciate what is here. The practices of living mindfully all work together.

This is something we can keep strengthening. We won't become dull or impassioned. We won't be detached or inactive. It will keep us from causing more harm and this world needs more people striving to do that.

May your experiences be balanced. May you be free. 

🕊
Jean

What's The Right Choice?

 

Lately, I have been witnessing people making choices that are hard. They are faced with making a move that is not so clear in its benefit. Even though there is a choice, it doesn't feel like freedom because it holds too much weight. We all face these times in life. I've been facing them lately, too. They are often uncomfortable and feel long, as if we will never arrive at a peaceful resolution. And yet, we do at some point. It is part of the process to go through this necessary phase when it really matters.

How do we make decisions when we feel torn about which is the "right" choice? Those times when something is calling upon us to pick a way to go and we feel conflicted because we would be giving something up in either direction? How do we know which path to take when they both entail letting go? This can lead us to feel stuck, as if  we can't find freedom in either choice. It is a hard place to be and often because it requires letting someone down (or maybe some part of ourselves that we are attached to).

Think back on all the major choices you made throughout your life. Didn't you disappoint people often? When I think back on my 49 years, I am struck at how most major moves entailed disappointing others and I REALLY don't like disappointing others. When I left one university for another, when I stopped dancing, when I left jobs where I knew I was valued, when I chose who I wanted to be with, when I moved to NJ ("New Jersey!" said all the New Yorkers with disgust), when I closed my NYC office, when I stopped massaging altogether, when I got divorced, when I stopped or started something -- you name it, pretty much everything involved doing something that someone else didn't want me to do. Sigh. It was painful every time, some more than others, but all involved discomfort. 

And yet, I cannot say that in all those major instances that I wished I made the other choice. I may have wished I went about it with more grace or care, but the choice itself would still have been disappointing to someone no matter how I did it and the overall benefit was far greater, not just for me, but for the world because it was a choice, ultimately, driven by love. There lies the clue! Love is where we find the answer. 

We'll get lots of opinions from people around us if we ask. It's good to get food for thought, but ultimately, only we know the right answer for us. And whatever that answer is, it is the right answer at that moment in time. At a later point in our life, we may have chosen differently, but that's based on the experiences we had after that moment. We can only make decisions from where we are now, based on the experiences and knowledge we have had up until now. There are no wrong answers, just experiences we need to have. The one thing we can rely on to direct us is love.

When we act with love, true love, at the forefront of our being, we can't be "wrong."  True love is not driven solely by desire, passion, pleasure, but by a sense of deep listening to what brings wholeness, connection, kindness, and care. By what sparks inspiration, creation, movement, and a deep appreciation for life. If something is going to kill my spirit, it isn't coming from love. If something is going to cause irreparable harm, it isn't coming from love. If something serves only me, it isn't coming from love. 

When we are deep in the woods and need to choose a path, we can remember to pause and breathe, to slow down and ask, "if we come from love, which path lights up more?" We can go that way. And it's okay to disappoint, with love, along the way.
☀️
Jean

P.S. The renovated studio is done! Keep a lookout in the coming weeks for some big changes in opportunities to come together to practice. 

These Arms

 

The signs are obvious that something is not quite right. I changed the thick handmade coffee cup I use every morning to one that is lighter, at first thinking it was because the new one had the colors of the sea which always appeal to me. At night, I would pick up the floral, glass water bottle on my nightstand and wince at lifting it. I know it is not something serious, but it has been going on for months and I have been too preoccupied with some big life events to take the time and ask what my body, what these arms, specifically, want me to know. We are often being sent messages from this amazing vehicle that moves us through life and we turn a blind eye to what it is saying because it is not convenient.

My arms have been fatigued in a way I have never experienced, even in the 20 years I was a massage therapist. They have always been strong and reliable. Finally, at the end of a meditation last week, sitting in my favorite big chair, I did ask and the reply was clear and simple. “I am tired of doing the heavy lifting.” I knew it was true the moment it was said. Hearing it so explicitly didn’t relieve it, but it gave me somewhere to start. 

These arms want me to let go of a lifetime of carrying the weight of trying to keep the peace, of doing the right thing so that those around me can feel at ease, of trying to get the orchestra to work together, of navigating minefields. They want me to stop being on guard when I see those around me, without awareness, about to set off explosions. “But, why didn’t they know,” I would ask myself in frustration after the world was already aflame. They want me to let the flames go. Let the fires burn! Being 49 years in the making, I don’t know yet how exactly to let go in the way they want me to, but I am paying attention. 

The body was the subject of conversation in a group just this past week – the body is one of the reasons people struggle with meditation. We stop and get still and suddenly our body starts talking. We sense pain, tightness, tension, rumblings that have been waiting for a quiet moment to be heard. Meditation is an opportunity and not for the faint of heart. We hear it again and again – it takes courage to meditate because it is easier to just ignore what wants our attention until, inevitably, our body won’t let us ignore it and something more catastrophic happens. I know, practically speaking, that this discomfort of mine will need physical tending to – specific concrete actions. But the emotional under layer is equally as important. At the very least, I have gently started by listening to what it so obviously knew all along.

I share this simple story because the lesson is obvious. We can check in with ourselves, get curious about ourselves and yet, we so often don't. My invitation this week is to listen to your body. Does it have a message it is trying to send you? It might come in the form of pain, an ache, or tightness. It might come as a diminished sense (hearing, taste, sound, smell, touch). It might come as fatigue, or the inability to sleep. It might come out in behaviors around eating, drinking, consuming – in all the ways we consume. Our body has good information. We don’t have to be afraid of it. It is on our side. 

You might close your eyes and ask your body the question, “what do you want me to know right now?” And wait to see what comes. Always ask, “is there anything more” before you move on.  And don’t answer it with advice or action, but acknowledge it with deep listening – “I am hearing you.” If you find yourself defending, denying, downplaying, coming up with solutions, trying to see the bright side, STOP, and be on its side instead. Confirm that you heard what it is saying and that you are paying attention, even if you don’t know what to do about it. You probably don’t know yet, that’s why you’re experiencing this. There‘s a great deal that can come from listening alone.

This body is amazing. It was made for us. It allows us to experience this life in all the ways we can experience it. If we aren’t listening to it, we are missing out on so much natural insight.

Wishing you all week of lightness and ease as we turn the corner into the fullness of summer. 
☀️
Jean