Welcome to Day 13 of Insight Timer's Intention Setting Challenge.
Setting an intention is making a decision about who you want to be and how you choose to show up.
Over time,
Those choices become change.
Let's begin.
Hello and welcome to Insight Timer's Intention Setting Challenge.
My name is Mark Epstein and today we're exploring patience,
Not as passive waiting,
But as the willingness to stay with ourselves,
With our own minds,
While life takes the time it needs.
Often suffering comes from the tension between our desire for change and the pace at which change naturally happens.
Especially at the start of a new year,
We can feel pressure to change everything at once.
But transformation rarely happens on a deadline.
It happens in its own time.
We rush,
Push,
And try to force outcomes because the uncertainty feels uncomfortable.
But when we soften around that discomfort,
When we let things breathe,
We discover a different kind of ease,
A trust that life unfolds whether we strain against it or not.
To help us integrate this,
The intention I'm encouraging you to carry through your day today is,
Today,
I'll let things unfold in their own time.
Let's practice together.
Find a comfortable position,
Sitting,
Standing,
Or lying down,
And allow your attention to come into your body,
Just feeling whatever your body is feeling right now,
As it's supported by the cushion,
By the chair,
By the floor,
However it's being held.
Let your body feel held.
Let your breath come and go on its own,
Not straining,
Not pushing,
Not trying to make the breath something more or less than it is.
Feeling the body,
Feeling the breath,
And then feeling the mind.
Allow your mind to rest in the body the way the body is resting in the chair,
On the cushions,
On the floor.
And then,
In practicing patience,
What we're really practicing is kindness to our own minds.
Notice how the body does what it does.
Notice how the breath comes and goes in its own way.
Notice how your mind does what it does outside of your control.
Thoughts arise,
Feelings arise,
The same way the sounds or disturbances from the outside arise,
None of which we really have direct control over.
All we can control is how we relate to whatever it is that is happening in our experience.
So let's pay attention to how we're relating to whatever it is that we are experiencing right now.
Are we chafing at what's happening just a little bit?
Are we judging what's happening just a little bit?
Is there irritation?
Is there uncertainty?
Or are we relaxed,
Open,
Impartial,
Accepting,
Unchallenging,
For the moment,
Of whatever it is that's arising and passing away?
Just pay attention to the quality of your mind.
Not judging it,
You know,
But what is the quality of your mind right now?
There's a famous Japanese haiku,
The old pond,
A frog jumps in,
Plop.
The old pond is like your mind.
What is it like?
The frog jumping in is like a thought,
A feeling,
A sound,
A disturbance.
Plop the ripples that it makes in your mind.
Can we allow the ripples just to dissipate?
As we sit with open,
Relaxed,
Kind-hearted awareness.
And before you move into the rest of your day,
Take another breath and feel the space within and around you.
Notice that nothing more needs to happen right now than this.
A simple moment of being here.
Remember,
Today and for the year ahead,
Today I'll let things unfold in their own time.
On the next few screens,
You'll be invited to set this intention,
Or your own version of it,
On your Insight Timer home screen.
The simple act of seeing your intention reflected back throughout the day is enough to create change.
Thanks for being here with me today,
And good luck with the rest of the challenge.
