The invitation this week is to lean in to whatever life offers, by extension to whatever inner experiences that arise for us whether we welcome them or not. A balanced way of opening toward them, which is somewhere between not dwelling (ie not adding more judgment and analysis) and not needing to avoid, resist or push away. The more we lean in, the more we learn to see thoughts as just thoughts, emotions as emotions, and body sensations as just that, impersonal, innocuous and impermanent. We don’t have to spend our energy resisting and judging them and wishing for them to be different. Instead we choose to befriend or sit with them, thereby choosing to live more openly and courageously.
Poem by Mary Oliver, taken from her book House of Light:
Still, what I want in my lifeis to be willing
to be dazzled—to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a littleabove this difficult world.
I want to believe I am lookinginto the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—
that the light is everything—
that it is more than the sumof each flawed blossom rising and falling.
And I do.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 24 mins
Image credit: Malkarium, Unsplash
Kindermind Center 