Tag: mentalwellbeing

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This is the practice of being, to just be, and letting it be – simply meeting what’s present, and nothing needs to change. If the mind is feeling cluttered, let it be cluttered. If the heart feels pain, let it be painful. No gripping. No pushing away. You’re not trying to fix anything, improve anythintog, or get anywhere. You’re allowing the moment to be the moment, offering yourself a pause to just be. Each moment is enough as it is. You are enough as you are.

To Be, by Mary Walker

To be done with becoming
and simply be,
let go of who you are not
and never were;
let go the hand of the know n,
and of not-knowing.

Let go the hand that has held you.
See it palm up and open,
present and ever-loving,
inviting you now
to know what you know
to go where you’ll go
to be who you know you are.

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Sardar Faizan, Unsplash

So much of our moments are spent striving — to be better, to do more faster, to be somewhere else. Meditation offers the opportunity to simply allow what is here to be here.

To allow the breath to come and go.
To allow thoughts to rise and fall without chasing or fighting them.
To allow the heart to feel whatever it feels, be it sadness or happiness — without judgment or rush.

Allowing doesn’t mean giving up. It means softening our grip on how things should be, and meeting life as it is. We don’t have to force our thoughts, our feelings and sensations.

Allowing is about letting go what grips us, and letting go unhealthy wants.

Allow, Danna Faulds

There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado. Dam a
stream and it will create a new
channel. Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground. The only
safety lies in letting it all in –
the wild and the weak; fear,
fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of
the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice
becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes.

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Piotr Musiol, Unsplash

Meditation is not about strengthening our steadiness muscle – the calm strength that holds us together when life sways. It’s the quiet confidence that we can meet what arises, one breath at a time.

Each time you notice yourself pulled away and choose to return — you are cultivating steadiness. Each breath you meet with gentle awareness strengthens that experience. We learn to trust ourselves and instinct to act decisively.

Steadiness, by Robert J Tiess

Indulging in the moderate,
no oak or pine implores for more
than soil, water, wind, and light.

Trees do not crave outlandish things
or dash in daft and frantic quests
for wealth or fleeting oddities.

They’re quite content residing there,
enduring weeds and mingling roots
between the season’s leaves and sky.

Tree years?  They’re syrup, sticky, slow,
not thin or quick as human whims,
which drift distracted, wish to wish.

I’ve splintered instants, hurried weeks
of shifting dreams, new scenery,
instead of resting, tending growth.

Now oak and pine incline my mind
toward ordinary longer days
reveling in life’s steadiness.

I’ll wander still but love each step.
It’s patience earth is teaching me
to see where change needs constancy.

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Andrew Danilov, Unsplash

The most profound moments can be the smallest like remembering to breathe.

Each in-breath reminds us we are alive, and we are the masters of our moments. Each out-breath lets us release what we no longer need — the tension in the body, the tightness in the chest, the stories we replay in the head.

When you remember to breathe, you remember to return, to this moment, to this body, to this life. Each moment offers us the opportunity to begin again.

Walk Slowly, Danna Faults

It only takes a reminder to breathe,

a moment to be still, and just like that,

something in me settles, softens, makes

space for imperfection. The harsh voice

of judgment drops to a whisper and I

remember again that life isn’t a relay

race; that we will all cross the finish

line; that waking up to life is what we

were born for. As many times as I forget,

catch myself charging forward

without even knowing where I’m going,

that many times I can make the choice

to stop, to breathe, and be, and walk

slowly into the mystery

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Seongjin Park, Unsplash

The practice of watching thoughts allows us to become aware of beliefs and patterns such as adding more judgments that tend to direct us to act or behave in a certain way, or are further hurting us. Awareness henceforth is empowering, granting us the power to stop what we are doing, understand the root cause of suffering, and giving us the space to choose a helpful response. When watching thoughts, look out for mental events especially extreme thoughts like “nobody loves me”, judgmental opinions “I’m lousy”, and then noticing our bodily and emotional response when these thoughts arise.

In the poetry below, I interpret “walk out into the woods” as a metaphor of in meditation, and it’s then we become enlightened or “see the full moon”.

Zen poetry, by Ryokan

I sit in meditation.

The affairs of men never reach here:
Everything is quiet and empty,
All the incense has been swallowed up by the endless night.
My robe has become a garment of dew.
Unable to sleep, I walk out into the woods—
Suddenly, above the highest peak, the full moon appears.

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image: Heather M Edwards, Unsplash

As 2024 draws to a close, we take stock, embracing and allowing ourselves to feel. To feel life, to feel the journey we’ve embarked on thus far. Only then, can we live presently. And gratefully. Happiness is not about feeling joyful all the time. Happiness is being able to bounce back, responding humorously and allowing space for whatever that arises and finding grace. This poem seems apt to close the year with. Thank you all for your kind attention in the past five years of Wednesday Pause.

Sea Rock, by Elizabeth English

We sail a long time

Before reaching the rock,

Jagged and uninviting,

Grey sea and spume, which lashes

And sucks at granite edges,

Many thousands of years until smooth.

And here we are at last,

Against the odds,

Against currents and winds

And the pain of it all;

Straining against the elements,

Forced back for hours on end, way off course,

Many thousands of minutes

Until we feel what needs to be felt,

In the ocean of our lives.

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Christopher Rue, Unsplash

In mindfulness meditation, we’re cultivating the quality of non-grasping, non-driven-doing by staying with the breath or the body, and letting go the need to rise to the bait of our impulses to act. Often times, we could be reacting for no good reason.

In Blackwater Woods, by Mary Oliver (extract)

To live in this world

you must be able to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it against your bones

knowing your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Borna Bevanda, Unsplash