learning to hold all of me:
"it may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey."
this past weekend, i went to a beginners buddhism class.
i arrived curious and eager and left nostalgic and reflective.
as many dharma teachers usually share, there’s always a muddy pond in which their practice was formed and cultivated from. the mud being a metaphor for the inevitable suffering we’ll all experience in life - illness, injury, depression, anxiety, grief, loss etc. this particular teacher shared how she grew up fighting and ‘throwing hands’ and she realized how unsustainable it was to continue living life in that way. so she committed her life to the dharma, she turned inward and began to confront and embrace the anger that had been living inside of her since she was a child.
what stuck with me was that she didn’t try to get rid of this side of her. she embraced it. she transformed her reactivity into “a more evolved response to life and all of its injustices.”
“if you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses” - thich nhat hanh
so, as i drove home, i began reflecting on my own journey with meditation and living more mindfully. it’s been a long, but beautiful 14 years but the one theme that kept on arising was this ability i’ve cultivated to be with myself as i am, in each and every moment.
my sad self.
my grieving self.
my confused self.
my anxious self.
my joyful self.
my quirky self.
my playful self.
and learning to accept that all parts of me are necessary and serve a purpose in my life and evidently, the lives of others.
"the only person that you have the remotest possibility of being like is yourself. And that when it comes down to it, is the real challenge of mindfulness: the challenge to be yourself. the irony is, you already are." - jon kabat zinn
this is the practice of meditation and mindfulness. it’s not why we practice or why we should practice, but it is the practice itself. learning to hold those parts of us that we’d rather push away or avoid with just as much reverence as we do the parts of us that are sweet and kind. and also learning doing so without judgment and instead with compassion and care.
when we can learn to do this for ourselves, it becomes easier to extend this grace and compassion to others.
and as i write this now, i’m realizing that we’re all practitioners in a sense… we are what we practice repeatedly.
our entire life is a practice, not just when we’re on the cushion with our eyes closed, but every single moment.
it’s up to us what we choose to practice.
“a disciplined way of learning to pay attention to all that is arising within. this is called mindfulness. but mindfulness is not simply a technique. it is an act of love. our willingness to see, to hold ourselvs closely just as we are.” - saki santorelli
if you’re looking to explore your inner world, find ways to embrace all that you are and learn new ways to relate to stress, i’ll be teaching an 8-week mindfulness based stress reduction program beginning april 8th. you can find more information and register, here.