Day 6 Practice: What Helps
“To begin to meditate is to look into our lives with interest in kindness and discover how to be wakeful and free.”
What helps? What is the appropriate response? From my 52 years, the only thing I know that helps for sure is the heart. It’s when we act and response with benevolent heart qualities like kindness, compassion, forgiveness, humility and of course love.
So, when things aren’t going our way, when times are tough, may we pause and 1) recognize the moment for what it is (difficult and challenging) rather than buying into the story of it (personalizing, dramatizing, and making things worse through the proliferations of the mind); 2) bringing a level of acceptance or allowance to what happening so our bodies can release the energy associated with the difficulty, while 3) making room for the heart to respond. Our inner awareness will only take us so far, we must remember to bring heart into our moments; the appropriate response… a heart centered life.
As my teacher often states, there is no real change in the world without love and since we are always telling ourselves a story, why not make it a good one? Make it a story of the heart. And if we want to believe in something, let us believe in our goodness; let us believe in joy and laughter, let us believe in peace and contentment from within. All this will certainly help.
And what might be more helpful above everything else? Being kind to ourselves, being compassionate, caring and understanding towards our own sweet selves. We don’t always have to be so critical. We can connect to our goodness, worth and beauty instead of obsessing about our shortcomings. We can forgive ourselves for being learners in this lifetime. And of course, I realize treating ourselves this way might feel foreign to many of us, it might even be uncomfortable, but this is truly our work. There is not greater practice than self-compassion. As Yung Pueblo wisely wrote, “The biggest sign of self-growth is self-compassion.”
What helps? Leading a heart centered life and it starts with us. So, today I invite you to lead with your heart, lead with benevolent qualities: practicing a touch more kindness towards yourself, a little more patience and understanding, and feeling into your own goodness, your own worth and beauty. You are enough. ♥️
“It is compassion that will help heal this world.”
“Having appreciation for yourself, for the world, and for your life is really important. Why? Because we all have basic innate goodness.”
“A little drop of love in an ocean of pain can sustain countless beings.”
“No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.”
“Our attitude in the face of life’s challenges determines our suffering or our freedom.”
“Without joy there is no enlightenment. Joy is the fuel, the nourishment, which helps our practice grow strong and stable. ”
“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”