Pain provides a valuable opportunity to stop, look and listen. Let's start with the grossest level of pain, physical pain: for example, a leg cramp. Notice any resistance you may feel to the pain: feelings of dread, sadness or dislike. Now stop: let go of the resistance, and just observe. Note the changes in the physical sensations. Observe the lingering sensations, if any, and describe them to yourself:
is pain deep or shallow?
where is it exactly?
is it stable or does it move?
sharp or dull?
does it radiate?
it is hot or cold?
does it have a color?
does it remind me of an object?
do I sense constriction in the area/areas?
Listen to the answers, attempt to understand. Now breathe into the areas of pain. Can you make space with the breath for the pain to move? Does the pain move? Do you give it permission to move? Can you accept it if it does not? Can separate your awareness from your body, so you can observe it without reacting (without attachment to any one outcome)?
This practice can also be applied to emotional pain. First is stop: can you stop wanting the pain to go away? Can you let go of your resistance? If so, then look: observe any changes in the quality or intensity of the emotion merely by letting go. Then ask yourself: what emotion am I feeling exactly? Does it fall under fear, anger, or sadness? What am I afraid is going to happen? What do I want to keep from happening? What couldn't I keep from happening? Is this something within my control? Listen to the answers, and just observe them. What are your emotions trying to tell you? Are you listening openly? Can you let go of the desire to like what the pain has to say? What is your relationship to the truth? Can you accept whatever you are thinking for the purpose of simply seeing? Then breathe deeply into the part of the body that you feel the emotion the strongest. Can you make space for it to move? Can you create space between your awareness and the emotion, so you can observe it without reacting?
What this all leads to is friendship with yourself - pain as a gateway to unconditional love and support.
I offer you this tool with great respect and love, so you may use it in your inner explorations and arrive at your own conclusions. Happy travels!
Monday, August 11, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
My inner teacher
Energy is the source of life.
Energy comes from a higher power than this "I".
When my mind disassociates from this higher power, my energy depletes, life dissipates, unsupported.
A higher power is my source, an endless well of wisdom and strength.
"I" am never alone.
Energy comes from a higher power than this "I".
When my mind disassociates from this higher power, my energy depletes, life dissipates, unsupported.
A higher power is my source, an endless well of wisdom and strength.
"I" am never alone.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Notes on the journey
"The way is long and difficult for everybody; and to change the physical nature is a big job - but it has to be done.
The only way to make it quicker is to keep an unshaken faith in the Divine and a great intensity in aspiration - the rest is done for you."
- The Mother [p-167, White Roses, Sixth Edition, 1999]
The only way to make it quicker is to keep an unshaken faith in the Divine and a great intensity in aspiration - the rest is done for you."
- The Mother [p-167, White Roses, Sixth Edition, 1999]
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
In love, there are no opposites
Opposites such as like/dislike, mine/yours, joy/sadness do not exist in love.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Stillness
"We can make our minds so like still water
that beings gather about us, that they may
see their own images, and so live for a
moment with a clearer, perhaps even with
a fiercer, life because of our quiet."
-William Butler Yeats
that beings gather about us, that they may
see their own images, and so live for a
moment with a clearer, perhaps even with
a fiercer, life because of our quiet."
-William Butler Yeats
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
To see
"Nobody sees a flower, really - it is so small - we haven't time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time."
-Georgia O'Keefe
-Georgia O'Keefe
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Simply seeing
"How much virtue there is in simply seeing" - H.D. Thoreau
At the Kalahari Desert in South Africa last year, I found myself the witness of a blanket-ceiling of blue crowning above a flat line of concrete with no obvious end, surrounded by hills of barren red sand.
It was all I could see at first. I glanced on occasion at my husband, looking for signs of disappointment in the elusive eyes that scanned the landscape outside the car window. After all, it was I who had insisted on the Kalahari over Capetown. It was I who was looking for a different experience. "A work in progress", Pieter, our guide, said - of me, I thought, or the landscape, but no - of the road, it turns out, which, sure enough, ended in a pit of gravel, but not before Pieter let some air out of the tires. Well before that though, when the road still seemed as infinite as worries and possibilities, Pieter abruptly stopped the car in the middle of the road. "I want to show you something," Pieter said. I put down my notebook as I opened the car door. Pieter glanced back at the notebook and remarked: "everyone does something: video, photography, speak on recorder. You write." I wondered what would happen if I didn't do anything.
The silence was screaming outside the car; the space around the car was slowly closing in. "Look up," he said. Up where? "There." Above us, power lines. On the power lines, a cotton candy-shaped bird condo at least 3 feet wide. And sure enough, a white blur quickly tucked its wings before gliding into a small round hole, one of dozens of black dots that if connected would form crooked and somewhat parallel lines. As we held up the gaze, Pieter directed it to notice other critters by their movement instead of their color, to detect which and how many birds were allowed inside the bird suites. The storyboard puzzle of the sociable weaver slowly became visible piece by piece. All that was required on our part was patience and, well, simply seeing.
Yoga teachings also provide tools for simply seeing. Because we live inside our heads so much, planning, rehearsing, conceptualizing, we can easily miss it - what we are looking for. Is it beauty? Is it laughter? Is it intrigue? Focus your vision, inner and outer, and see what happens.
At the Kalahari Desert in South Africa last year, I found myself the witness of a blanket-ceiling of blue crowning above a flat line of concrete with no obvious end, surrounded by hills of barren red sand.
It was all I could see at first. I glanced on occasion at my husband, looking for signs of disappointment in the elusive eyes that scanned the landscape outside the car window. After all, it was I who had insisted on the Kalahari over Capetown. It was I who was looking for a different experience. "A work in progress", Pieter, our guide, said - of me, I thought, or the landscape, but no - of the road, it turns out, which, sure enough, ended in a pit of gravel, but not before Pieter let some air out of the tires. Well before that though, when the road still seemed as infinite as worries and possibilities, Pieter abruptly stopped the car in the middle of the road. "I want to show you something," Pieter said. I put down my notebook as I opened the car door. Pieter glanced back at the notebook and remarked: "everyone does something: video, photography, speak on recorder. You write." I wondered what would happen if I didn't do anything.
The silence was screaming outside the car; the space around the car was slowly closing in. "Look up," he said. Up where? "There." Above us, power lines. On the power lines, a cotton candy-shaped bird condo at least 3 feet wide. And sure enough, a white blur quickly tucked its wings before gliding into a small round hole, one of dozens of black dots that if connected would form crooked and somewhat parallel lines. As we held up the gaze, Pieter directed it to notice other critters by their movement instead of their color, to detect which and how many birds were allowed inside the bird suites. The storyboard puzzle of the sociable weaver slowly became visible piece by piece. All that was required on our part was patience and, well, simply seeing.
Yoga teachings also provide tools for simply seeing. Because we live inside our heads so much, planning, rehearsing, conceptualizing, we can easily miss it - what we are looking for. Is it beauty? Is it laughter? Is it intrigue? Focus your vision, inner and outer, and see what happens.
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