Remembering Wellness
As children, we have brains that haven’t been “trained” yet: in each moment we are creating neural pathways through the brain, acquiring knowledge, as well as mental “habits”. As the years pass, we keep adding layers of shortcuts to our processing, making those pathways easier to travel. Sometimes this is really helpful - like learning to walk, read or speak. Other times, this is not helpful, like creating habits around looking for happiness outside of ourselves, creating beliefs about ourselves (I’m no good at xxxx, I’m an impatient person), creating habits of comparison, searching for distraction, or feeling the need to be doing something at all times (even if the “doing” is watching TV).
Meditation helps us become aware of and then shed those unhelpful habits, in a kind, gentle way. When we pause to practice, we can imagine our “being” energy as a kind of light at our core, wrapped up in layers of “doing” energy. We can visualize these layers of “doing” habits and beliefs falling away, one by one with each cycle of breath. Little by little, as we settle in to our practice, our true nature of “being” and “being enough” begins to shine through unencumbered. Little by little, it becomes possible to rest in this space. We can’t force this, as forcing it is, by nature, “doing” something. Rather, we can create the conditions for it by being very kind to ourselves in our practice, gently returning our attention to our present moment awareness when it wanders, and noticing what is there for us each time we return to just being. We may just touch into “being” for a nano-second before we are off on a “doing” journey again, but the nano-seconds add up over time. There is a beautiful expression - “remembered wellness” - that captures what this can feel like.
Hoping that you will join us this week in person, by conference call or by Zoom, or virtually via the many recorded meditations on the website. Click here to see our full schedule.
May all beings, without exception, trust in their ability to move with the flow of life,
Your CMP Family
