A Day at a Time – A Daily Blog of Life in Lockdown
This morning I was sitting working in the kitchen, attempting to quickly get something sent off before going upstairs, showering and settling myself into some work. My son came in music blaring and chatting away. I turned to him and said, “just let me have 2 minutes to finish this and then you will have all my attention”. This is a challenging concept for my beautiful boy, and he continued to merrily interrupt me. However, I finished, and we turned to me making pancakes and him emptying out and putting away food that had been delivered. I don’t quite know what I misjudged in making the mixture, but it turned out very thick – still perfectly tasty though, just more like American style pancakes. I said to him – you got me all discombobulated! He retorted as quick as a flash with – “no mum, you did that yourself”. He was quite right. I’d let something annoy me and despite a full Qi Gong practice, I hadn’t let it go and it was still influencing my mood.
It is still all too easy for me to resist opening to how I feel and instead stay caught up with the irritation. It is this ‘hurry up mind’ that often leads the way and yet it is so paradoxical because if I paused to actually feel what was going on for me, most of the time it passes quickly. Everything changes including our emotions and mental states, but here’s the big thing – if we let them. And what does that involve – a turning towards rather than a pushing away in all the numerous ways we can do that. To name a few – getting busy, ruminating over it in our mind, comfort eating, getting irritable, internet surfing. And while we are caught up in emotional reaction about something that’s happened or an imagined future, we pay little attention to what we actually experience, which maybe learning something new about ourselves or missing pleasant moments.
Resting in awareness, or just sitting and watching the whole of our experience is an enlightening practice for seeing the transitory nature of all things. It is a practice of letting go of control and not editing our experience in any way – a true acceptance of ourselves! First, it takes developing concentration by practicing focussing the attention on the breath but then we can let go of focus on an object and watch what arises – sensations of the breath, a sound, a stream of thought, an itch, a tension, sensations of cold or warmth somewhere in the body, a memory, an anticipation a fear. Observing like this we see the whole flow of mental events, of experience arising moment by moment. Nothing solid.
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken. I want to free what waits within me so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God, forgive me, but this is what I need to say. May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.
Then in these swelling and ebbing currents, these deepening tides moving out, returning, I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels into the open sea.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Book of Hours, Love Poems to God
