Resilience Training
Photo by Ed Stone
My life would look and feel very different without a daily practice.
In the beginning, years ago as I learned, I fought the need to sit still. I needed to move my body. I needed to burn through the restlessness. I (an aspect of me) resisted (feared) going deeper into the energetic and psychic spaces I knew were within.
But there was also a real question for me around what meditation and spiritual cultivation was. Until I found a way that truly worked for me I just wouldn’t do it. Instead of trusting what was right here within I searched outwardly for an answer. I procrastinated. I self-sabotaged. I distracted myself with studying new teachings and techniques. I obsessed with work and relationship problems.
While in India I had heard stories about Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi who sat in his caves on the foothills of Arunachala in complete Samadhi - a state of total absorption. His body in total surrender even rats could crawl all over him without disturbing his peace. This story always gave me pause.
What kind of inner capacity and level of trust does that concentrated focus require?
What do we have power over enough to surrender like that?
I had the pleasure of visiting those caves. I sat in one of them and transcended time. I touched a depth words could hardly explain. From there my meditation practice meant something entirely different and my devotional practices were utterly changed.
I was changed.
Thinking about it now fortifies me. It gives me strength to feel into the traditions I’ve learned and how my daily practice supports me. I now know I can choose my focus even amidst great sorrow, loss, challenge, and distress that come with the very real changes life is inviting me into.
When people come to me in their darkest hour with feelings of despair I can honestly say I’ve been there too. Those caves hold us.
Meditation is a practice you build. It is resilience training. Through it you become a vessel for healing.
Meditation is not just sitting still to quiet the mind. Meditation is a training ground for life. A vehicle for how you meet yourself, in light and in shadow, in depth and complexity.
How we connect to our core, charge our energy, direct our attention, and access new, different, and at best, better perspectives on what’s stretching us is what’s on offer.
The guidance is plentiful.
There is no lack of sustenance.
You are whole.
There are great strengths to be gleaned from peering into the dark and learning how to see yourself.
Meditation asks:
🤍 What is your capacity to be with what is happening right now?
🤍 What is your capacity to hold yourself in depth and life’s current complexity?
🤍 What are you sitting with today?
What would it be like to give yourself the time to sit within these questions?
What new awareness might surface?
May you find your way through life’s current challenges.
May you feel ever more held, supported, and guided by grace.
May you continue to mine the dark and receive the shimmering light of your own awareness.
With forever love,
Andrea
P.S. Real change is possible. Breakthroughs happen. You are the fertile ground upon which all of it happens.