Filed under: Uncategorized
Did y’all see Walt’s comment? What a beautiful description of accepting/feeling/being the Rot. Inspiring. Go read it right now if you haven’t already……
I love Walt’s repetition of the word YES. I often use the word OPEN – just to remind myself to relax my body and heart into whatever is going on with me. I would say relax my mind, but it doesn’t feel that way to me. My mind merrily romps along, cranking out it’s own contradictory thoughts, but I (attempt) to move my attention away from being swallowed by my thoughts, into more attention on welcoming what my body and heart are experiencing.
Walt’s story parallels a practice called Welcoming Prayer that I learned from Cynthia Borgeault’s books. The idea is the same – put attention on the feeling in the body – tightness in the chest, churning belly, tense neck and shoulders, clenched jaw, lightheadedness, frozen toes and fingers – whatever – and then welcome it. She suggests silently saying “Welcome fear” or “welcome anxiety” or “welcome sadness”, and just letting it be and feeling the feeling.
Of course this can be done with more enjoyable emotions too. “Welcome excitement”, “welcome happiness”, “welcome calm”.
So, you probably don’t need or want a new practice – especially if you’re in the Rot and sick and tired of all practices and the possibility of any practice ever getting you anywhere you wanna be. But maybe a gentle WELCOME or OPEN or YES will ease the way down the path.
1 Comment so far
Leave a comment
A Welcoming Prayer is a nice idea. Small enough to not quite be a practice and powerful enough to be life-giving. Someone — maybe Rumi, maybe Rilke — proposed inviting in the troubling emotions and then honoring them (perhaps with a cup of tea) while they visited. After a spell they can be politely shown to the door.
Comment by Dave February 5, 2010 @ 12:20 pm