The woods was still dark, its trees bare, the previous night’s rain having washed to the ground the bits of what had remained. The revelry was over, the morning sun only now rising on the sleeping scene.
Except for her scarlet song rolling down the hillside through the night’s debris, I might have missed her altogether, there, at the crest of the hill, her leaves alone shining red in the morning light. She sang not to call attention to herself, but as one lost in a reverie, or uttering a last, personal benediction over all that she had witnessed here since spring, humbled, perhaps, at the realization that she got to be the final witness of it all. Imagine that. The last one.
Well, here we are, a third of the way into November, about to plunge headlong into the holiday season, with all of its stresses and joys.
Before it gets into full swing, I thought I’d share with you a quick and easy practice you can adapt to ensure that your time is rich and full and your stresses no more than tiny bumps in the road.
Ready? Okay, here goes.
Choose Your Theme
The first thing you want to do is decide on a theme for the upcoming weeks. What feelings or attitudes would you most like to have filling you as you travel to the year’s end?
Would you want to be flowing with gratitude? Ease? Kindness? Contentment?
Would you want to feel inspired most of the time? Creative? Appreciative? Energetic?
Pick two or three of your favorite feelings or attitudes and write them down as your theme. Then say to yourself, right out loud, “My intention is to be filled with ___________ and _________ .”
Install It In Your Mind
Next, take a couple minutes to remember a time when you felt each of your chosen feelings or attitudes and let yourself experience feeling them now as fully as you can.
Maybe you’ll remember where you were and what you were doing when you felt that feeling before.
Maybe you’ll notice a little smile on your face as you call the feelings or attitudes to mind.
Maybe you’ll simply feel the depth and strength of them
Once you’re experiencing a clear memory of each of your chosen feelings, name them out loud, one at a time, as you pat the heart region of your chest three times. “Thankful. Thankful. Thankful.” Then do it with the next feeling.
Take It to the Park
Super. Now you have installed your intention. And it only takes two small actions to activate and strengthen it daily.
1st As soon as you wake in the morning, remember your intention, repeating it to yourself, saying it out loud. “My intention is to be filled with __________ and _________ today.”
2nd As you go through your day, do this little PARK exercise to reinforce and nurture it. (PARK it any time you think of it, or on the hour, or before each meal.) Here’s how:
P – Pause in whatever you are doing, momentarily setting it aside.
A – Become Aware. Allow yourself to become aware of the present moment.
Do a quick body scan and let go of any accumulated tension. Notice the data your senses are bringing to you: What are you seeing? Hearing? Smelling? Tasting? What is your skin feeling? How’s your posture? Your breathing?
If you like, you can also do a quick review of how you spent the past hour and acknowledge yourself for it.
You can do all of this very effectively in a matter of a few seconds. Or stretch it out as long as you like, enjoying the way this break relaxes and refreshes you.
R– Remember. Remember that the purpose of this exercise is to energize your intentions. Briefly touch your heart center and let the beautiful feelings of your intention fill your awareness for a moment. Feel how alive they are within you, quietly guiding you. (If you’re in circumstances where you would be uncomfortable touching your heart center, simply focus your attention there.)
K – Keep on. Return your attention to whatever you were doing or would like to do next.
That’s it. Choose two or three feelings as your theme for the remainder of the year, install your intention to be immersed in them, do a morning reminder when you wake and practice PARK as you go through your day.
This practice has been one of the favorites of my coaching clients, by the way. I hope you’ll give it a try and experience the sense of well-being that it can bring you.
They don’t settle down right away. Like children tucked into bed after an exciting day, the trees take some time to sink into silence. First, they must whisper stories to each other, to giggle and tease. They must wiggle a bit and ease themselves into just the right position before the winter dreams will come, floating in like clouds on a snowy evening. But then, what silence! And beneath it, what stupendous dreams they dream
Look. Let your eyes find the poems. A line here, a phrase there, a surprise of gracefulness. Be alert for the pattern, for the flow. Leaves on a creek bed, reflections on still waters, a flight of swallows against a dappled sky. Love notes are everywhere. Find them.
On any given tree, there are those who, like race horses chomping at the bit to run, are filled with eagerness to soar the instant they are granted their colored flying suits. Others wait for just the right blue of sky, the perfect pitch of the wind, and they fly in great flocks, like starlings flying over fields of harvested corn. But a few hold on until the last, gathering in one more glimpse of the woods, of the earth, of sky as long as they can. I would be one of those, tucking every morsel of it into my heart, glad for each earth-moment that I got to live, destined for home now, twirling in joy.
Surrender any notions of your own. Instead, trust in the goodness of the Yes unerringly to lead you. When it whispers, be willing to follow its nudges, turning when it says to turn, continuing on when it says to keep on. Do not worry that you will lose your way. That which leads you to its treasures will lead you safely home.
Now is the time for wishes and dreams, for spinning your hopes and casting your seeds. Let them fly. Toss them to the sky, believing. Let them sail along the secret trails that destiny weaves through the seasons and times. Let them go. Then sleep your winter sleep my child, until wonder wakes you in a land of warmth and fragrant green, where birds float to music and all your best wishes come true.
If you keep faith and follow the whisperings of your heart, ‘though the day be dark and swept with rain, a moment will come when the skies will open and the Yes pour down its light.
I give you the world as a mirror of your heart. See in it what you will: The straight or the crooked, the mountain or the valley, fullness, or that which is barren, the sunlight or the clouds. I give it all to you, and beneath it, I sing my constant song. Be at peace, child. You are known, in all your moods and choosings, and all that you are is loved.
Given the way that tensions are ratcheting up for those of us who live in the US as we enter the last days before our Presidential election, I thought I’d share with you a little exercise you can do to help you recover your inner peace if it gets disturbed. I call it “R&R.”
In military lingo, ”R&R” stands for “rest and recuperation,” and that’s a fine way to deal with stress—to rest from it so your mind and body can normalize. But in this exercise, “R&R” stands for “Release and Receive.”
It’s a kind of first-aid or emergency exercise you can use whenever you notice that you’re feeling an upsetting negative response to a situation or remark.
Here’s how you do it:
Step I: Release
First, notice where the feeling is located in your body. Is it in your chest? Your throat? Your belly? Your shoulders?
Next, find a way to describe it to yourself. Is it hot or cold? Is it solid, or liquid or gaseous? What color is it? How dense is it?
Is it in motion? Is it, for example, throbbing? Or is it still, like a rock? Try to get a good, clear sense of what this negative sensation really feels like.
Once you have it described, see if you can name it. Is it anger? frustration? Sadness? Disgust? Hurt? Disappointment? Fear? Some combination of those?
If you can’t identify the emotion, give the feeling any name to remember it by, like “Sally” or “Fred,” (No offense to any Sallys or Freds out there!) in case you want to call it up for a conversation later.
Now imagine that you’re pulling it, the whole negative feeling, from your body and placing it the palm of your hand. Raise it up so you’re eye to eye with the feeling and can have a talk with it.
Tell it that you know it’s trying to serve you in some way but that you can’t give it the attention it deserves right now, so you’re going to send it to the Wait Space (a little space in a back corner of your mind). Then curl your fingers over it and squeeze it down into a tiny little speck. Now open your palm and gently blow it away.
This completes the “Release” part of the exercise. You can, by the way, do it very quickly. You can even do it completely in your imagination if you are in circumstances where you can’t easily hold the feeling in your hand. But do it as thoroughly as your situation permits.
Step II: Receive
Once you have blown your negative feeling away to the Wait Space, keep your palm open and face up.
Imagine a stream of refreshing comfort, understanding, forgiveness, and peace flowing into it, and from there, into your whole being.
Bonus: The Conversation
To get the maximum benefit from this little exercise, follow up when time permits by having a little conversation with the negative feeling you parked in the Wait Space.
First, open your palm and invite the feeling that you sent to the Wait Space to return. Feel it land on your palm and lift it to where you can comfortably talk with it.
Begin by thanking it for caring so much about you and your values that it made itself so big and loud. Ask it if it has anything that it wants to tell you about why the situation seemed so important and what it wanted for you.Then listen for whatever insights might present themselves.
Ask it if it has anything more that it wants you to know. And when it is finished showing or telling you all that it wants to share, ask if it’s okay for you to let it go now, thank it again, and watch it dissolve away.
This follow up lets you receive the lessons to be learned from the upsetting situation. It can provide you with truly meaningful insights about what happened, why you responded the way you did, and how you might respond in a more effective and helpful way in similar situations that come along.
You may find it worthwhile to do a little run-through with the process right now, recalling a past upset or an imaginary confrontation of some kind. That will make it more real for you and help you install it in your mind as a helpful tool to pull out when it’s needed.
Many of us have deeply held beliefs that we have attached to candidates, parties, or issues in the upcoming election. And it’s our tendency as humans to seek out evidence for our beliefs and to identify with them.
Remember that someone who has chosen to attach his or her beliefs to an opposing side may very well, at the core of things, want the same things you do: well-being for us all.
Each of us can see differing paths for achieving the same ends, and the fact is that if people truly knew how to attain the world of goodness, fairness, and peace for all – the world that we all want – we would have already built it. Right now, we’re all struggling toward it together in a big trial and error dance.
Share your ideas with each other. But bear in mind that vehement arguing does little to persuade. And by all means, please vote.
Then, knowing you have done all that you can do to influence the outcome, return your focus to living the values that lie at the heart of your choices.
Radiate loving kindness and remember, no matter how things may sometimes seem, each of us can be a source of light and comfort in our personal worlds.
Wishing you a week of calm and peace, regardless of the turmoil that surrounds us.
