Nancy Lankston
Water flows through its day
Water meets whatever is in its path
And then it flows on
Water is never stoppable for long
Resistance is met with allowance
And water flows on.
Can I flow with liquid allowance?
As thoughts and emotions create inner ripples and waves
Can I meet and greet them kindly
And then just flow on
no matter where they take me?
Emotion is as natural for humans as breathing.
I don’t make my breathing right or wrong, so why do it with my emotions?
It’s been an interesting week; I have spent more time than I care to remember in my swamp. By swamp I mean a sticky, tangled, mess of uncomfortable emotions within myself. I don’t like my emotional swamp much – a lot of what I experience in the swamp sucks – it hurts. And then I add to my pain by judging myself for feeling this sticky, yucky crap in the first place. I would love to avoid my swamp.
Isn’t life supposed to turn into bliss and pure joy when I open up to more consciousness? Have I failed because I still get triggered after all these years of mindful awareness training? Am I doing this consciousness thing wrong if I still get pissed and sad and scared?
But, wait a minute! All humans emote about their experiences – even beings as aware as Gandhi and Jesus felt emotions. Our bodies are wired to flow with emotion. Emotion is as natural for humans as breathing. I don’t make my breathing right or wrong, so why do it with my emotions?
Every experience I have can trigger emotional reactions, not just the yummy experiences. Where did I get the idea that becoming conscious meant never being triggered, never feeling “yucky” emotions? Isn’t that just a really sneaky way to judge myself and find myself lacking? Just what I need – another way to beat myself up and make myself bad or wrong. NOT!
And what if being more aware in each moment elicits even more emotion within me? All those sensations about this moment that I used to block or ignore are now available to me in my new state of awareness. What if those sensations trigger MORE emotions as I respond to all the new information I am now aware of? Is that somehow wrong?
And isn’t it just another form of judgment to label emotions good or bad, acceptable or repulsive? How is it going to help me to label my emotions as OK and not OK? Can I let go of the idea that some human emotions are a sign of unconsciousness or inferiority?
We are emotional creatures. Trying to stop emotion is like trying to halt the flow of water. Can I allow my emotions to flow without stuffing them? And can I stop judging myself right or wrong for feeling the way I feel in each moment?
What happens if I embrace it all – my grief, my anger, my fear? Can I allow my emotions to be waves washing through me? What happens if I embrace ALL of me – even the parts I don’t like – in every moment?
“It’s not that you won’t be triggered anymore.
It’s that you won’t have a problem being triggered anymore.”
–Panache Desai
“Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment.
This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light,
every traffic jam, every obnoxious supervisor (or employee),
every illness, every loss, every moment of joy or depression,
every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath.
Every moment is the guru.
–Charlotte Joko Beck
My experience of awareness; I take Dog Goddess Brigit on a walk by the river. We walk the same path almost every morning. On many occasions, I have returned from our walk and realized that I didn’t really notice my surroundings at all that day. I have been completely lost in my thoughts, unaware of what was right in front of me. I have been wrapped up in planning my future or ruminating on my past and the river slipped by unnoticed by me.
But some days are different; some days I actually focus on the path and my steps and the sounds on the wind. I notice the feel of the leash in my hand, the smell of some bush or tree nearby. And those moments when I am actually present and aware are so potent! On my aware days, I notice many new things that I never noticed before – even though it is the exact same path Brigit and I walked yesterday. An aware walk is magical.
It is as though I am more alive in aware moments. Awareness amps up my sensations and makes everything richer and fuller. For me, even awareness about something heavy and hard like sorrow or pain beats feeling half alive. I’ve learned that numbing out and avoiding yucky emotions and sensations comes at a price – if I numb out, I will also lose the yummy sensations and emotions that make my life sing.
Meditation teacher, Jon Kabat-Zinn describes awareness as being mindful, being present with whatever is in this moment. He calls it the art of “falling awake”. Ram Das tells us to Be Here Now. Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of dwelling in the present moment. Not just living… dwelling in the moment. Seems like a very simple idea. And I find it very difficult to pull off most days!
Modern life seems to be about distraction rather than awareness; we distract ourselves by turning on TV shows we only half watch. We woof down food we don’t really even taste. We walk around dreaming of tomorrow or lamenting yesterday. We surf on the internet, popping from screen to screen without really taking any of it in. We pride ourselves on being able to do 3 things at once, even when we can’t actually remember much about doing any of them! Is that living?
I suspect that Dog Goddess Brigit is at least 100 times more aware than I am on any given day. My big, “superior” human brain gives me the ability to analyze and plan far beyond anything a dog can plan. And those same human abilities complicate the simple act of staying present and aware in this moment. My strength is also my weakness. Can I stop planning and analyzing long enough to notice what is here, right in front of me? Analysis is as useless as a dog chasing her own tail when it comes to being aware.
I wonder how much I miss when I am walking through my day half aware of what’s around me here and now? What would it take for me to double or triple how many moments of the day that I am actually present? What if I stop analyzing EVERYTHING and put my big, silly human brain to work sensing and perceiving what is here in front of me? What is the value of analyzing what happened yesterday if I miss today? How much richer can my day to day reality become if I make awareness my priority?
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Joy spontaneously flows in us, as us, from us
When we remember how AMAZING we truly are.
Can we allow ourselves to BE that space of flowing joy?
What will it take for each of us to relax into Being Joy?
What will it take for us to live from that place of flowing joy?
How much joy can we embody and share with the world?
If your answer is YES, please join me by phone from wherever you find yourself on September 13 and / or September 20th.
Let’s explore remembering who we truly are! Let’s explore being pure joy!
What: Being the Joy of You Tele Call Series
When: Thursday September 13th and September 20th, 2012. Attend one or both calls – your choice.
Where: Phone in from Any Town, Anywhere
Cost: $19, includes both Tele Calls on Sept. 13 and Sept. 20
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Contact me if you want to be part of this Joy thing: nancy@nancylankston.com
hours of forgetting
then a flash of sunlight
wind ruffles wet flesh
awash in sensation
heart stills, time stops
and I open myself
to this
falling awake
to sun and bone
wind on water
I am here
all here in
sacred space
☾☽
Ever have a day when you realize you don’t have a clue what the ‘right’ answer is? When did I decide I’m supposed to figure it all out?
When I let go and finally surrender to not knowing, a huge lightness opens up in me. Not knowing opens up a gorgeous new way to Be.
And it’s very scary to admit I don’t have the answer, don’t know what to do…
Big breath and let go of needing to figure everything out!
The only day that matters is today.Find someone or something to open your heart to.
We can change our world just by opening our hearts.
Pause, Take A Breath & Remember
How AMAZING It Is To Be Alive Now!
“Let go or be dragged.”
Zen Proverb
I am a very willful and opinionated person. And in many ways, my tendency to know and speak my own mind has been a strength for me. No one has ever accused me of being a lemming and just going along with the crowd. 🙂
But my willful, opinionated nature is also my Achilles’ heel, a weakness that has gotten me into hot water again and again. I tend to question EVERY authority and every point of view that is different from my own! I have difficulty letting go of my way of seeing the world and making room for other opinions. And I tend to push away people who don’t hold my view of the world. So, the idea of allowing for different opinions and points of view can be a bit of a challenge for me.
Figuring out how to relax and allow may be one of my core “life issues” – an issue that I will struggle with and learn about my entire life. What do I mean by “Relax and Allow?” Being in Allowance means I don’t try to embrace or fight against people or experiences anymore. I can relax and allow events to be however they are WITHOUT feeling the need to accept or reject them. Accepting or rejecting things takes a ton of time and energy. And acceptance vs. rejection is such a polarized black and white way of approaching the world. It’s the view that everyone and everything is either right or wrong, good or bad. It’s actually just flip sides of the same coin.
Allowance takes me beyond holding rigid black and white opinions. Allowance is the third choice. And being in a state of allowance is so different from the polarized, right / wrong energy of accepting vs. rejecting. Allowance is a calm, open space of no judgment; a space where nothing need be labeled right or wrong, good or bad. Everyone and everything is just “allowed” to be however they are today. No need to agree or disagree with that person, just allow space for them to be different. No need to accept or reject that newscast predicting doom and gloom; just breathe and allow for many different ways of seeing the same events.
Being in allowance is like a revelation for me! The idea of just allowing the world outside of me to be however it is today – the idea that I do NOT have to align with it or push against things is a HUGE shift. Allowance shifts me out of agreeing or disagreeing with people and events. Being in allowance means that when a person has a different opinion than mine; I don’t have to fight to change their mind or push them away! I can just “allow” that their way of seeing the world is very different from mine.
Allowance is at the heart of the middle path that Buddha spoke of. It’s also the space of non-judgment that Christ preached about in many different sermons. And it’s the place Rumi wrote so eloquently about:
“Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
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Here are a few mental tools to help you access and explore the open non-judgmental space of Allowance:
When your boss / mother / teen aged daughter / TV news anchor / neighbor shares their opinion with you and you feel yourself start to react and bristle, say to yourself,
“Interesting point of view that they have this point of view.”
Repeat it several times and feel yourself shift and calm down. You may even get to where you can smile about their interesting view!
Try this mental clearing:
What would it take for me to stop labeling everything in the world right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, loved vs. hated, wanted vs. not wanted? Every bit of heavy, yucky, sticky energy that brings up, unravel and destroy it now.
When you catch yourself arguing with someone and trying to change their mind, try the wonder question:
What else is possible here?
or, Interesting point of view that I have this point of view.