COMINGS AND GOINGS
Things are always changing. We know this. But even if we grasp this idea intellectually, we don’t always live our lives from this place of understanding. We still get bummed out when things don’t go how we want.
One of the things we do in our yoga and mindfulness practices is work on constantly re-aligning ourselves to this wisdom. We practice watching the breath rise and fall. We observe how sounds, thoughts and sensations rise up and fade away. We watch all the comings and goings within us and around us and see life for how it is; things are always changing.
Keeping this idea close helps us find steady ground whatever comes our way in life. We are more present for the good times, without grasping after them when they end, because we know they will. With the difficult stuff, we can remember it is also going to end, which makes it easier to be with whatever is happening.
We remember and we forget, over and over. So we must be gentle with ourselves. As Pema Chodron reminds us, in her incredible book When Things Fall Apart, acknowledging the impermanence of life is a twenty-four-hour-a-day practice.
One quote…
It’s like this. Minds don’t rest; they reel and wander and fixate and roll back and reconsider because it’s like this having a mind. Hearts don’t idle; they swell and constrict and break and forgive and behold because it’s like this having a heart. Lives don’t last; they thrill and confound and circle and overflow and disappear because it’s like this, having a life.
Kelly Corrigan
One question…
What is coming and what is going for you today?
Sent with love,
Melissa x