And this morning I woke up with an incredible sense of heaviness that it seemed to come out of nowhere,
But it's definitely rooted in the troubled situations that I'm currently facing.
And even though this sense of heaviness wasn't,
Didn't have a lot of thoughts,
It just was just this sense of cloud or thickness,
Tightness.
And it definitely causes you to just want to go back to bed and put your head under the covers.
And so I partially did that,
But I recognize that this is just a temporary state that if I allow it to consume me,
It can really interfere with my ability to serve and to be a light to others in the world.
And so rather than just put my head under the covers,
I turned to some inspirational words that I haven't written.
And lots of times it comes from spiritual texts and you certainly don't want to turn on the news or definitely don't want to go on social media.
Instead,
You turn to those words that you know will uplift you and you drink those in and you let that kind of break up those hard places that interfere with the light that shines deep within you.
So let's see if we can break some of that up.
And if you're not already sitting or lying on the bed and lying on the floor,
Just take a deep breath and just notice where that breath is housed.
Is it in your upper chest or mid chest?
Maybe it's in your lower ribs.
Just take a breath and then just kind of let it fall,
Let it go.
And just repeat,
Just recognize this breath pattern.
Don't try to force it,
Just pay attention to it.
Now see if you can take a deeper breath and feel it really expand deep into the belly.
But also,
Especially if you're sitting up,
See if you can expand,
Open up your collarbones,
Shoulders,
To see if you can just break up some of that stuck energy in your sternum,
Around your sternum,
Because that sometimes can affect your state of mind.
That inability to breathe can really affect your mental state and vice versa.
And this can happen particularly in the morning when we might have slept on our sides and feeling that compression,
That constriction.
Let's see if we can open that up.
So with each breath,
We are opening ourselves to a different state of being.
We're considering that there is a different way to start our day.
Keep expanding,
Keep opening,
And even the breath,
Allow it to extend your spine,
Because that can get compressed too.
Let's pay attention to some different words.
And Thomas Merton is always one of my go-tos when I'm feeling particularly muddy.
So he writes,
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness,
Which is untouched by sin and by illusion,
A point of pure truth,
A point or spark which belongs entirely to God,
Which is never at our disposal from which God disposes of our lives,
Which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will.
So the center of our being is never something that we try to manifest.
It is something that's always there.
But we let that center be clouded by the illusions of our desires to control everything out there.
It is something that is always shining deep within us.
As Merton says,
It's untouched by those desires and our insisting that things should be different.
But it's also a source of our strength if we allow ourselves to part the waters of these illusions,
Of our fantasies,
And sometimes of our crumbling thoughts and mindsets that keep us feeling stuck,
Helpless.
So see if you can imagine that center of your being.
Where is that place?
Is it deep in your pelvic area?
Is it just under your belly?
Is it just below your ribs?
Or is it in the center of your ribs?
Just imagine that center of being,
That point of nothingness,
That point of pure truth,
That divine spark.
See if your breath can get a little bit more energized by breaking up everything that is getting in that way.
Imagine as if there is a glass that is containing that point of nothingness.
And the difficulties of life might have put forth the mud and that glass of your ego can really get in the way of that light shining.
And being the driver of your life.
See if you can use that breath to purify that glass,
To clean the glass so that light shines pure.
So with every breath,
It is sweeping that glass clean.
And with every exhale,
Just feel that light,
That spark infuse in every part of your being.
Keep breathing.
Just feel that light getting brighter as each breath is sweeping away.
All that gets in the way of this beautiful center.
As we continue to breathe,
Let's hear from Merton again.
He writes,
It is like a pure diamond blazing with the invisible light of heaven.
It is in everybody.
And if we could see it,
We would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.
The gate of heaven is everywhere.
So take one more breath and notice if your state of mind has changed,
Shifted or maybe just feels a little lighter.
Or deeper,
More grounded.
Maybe filled with a spark of hope that you didn't have when you woke up.
And as you go about your day,
See if you can acknowledge this point of light in others.
Rather than seeing the mud and the paint and everything that gets in the way of that light,
See if you can imagine that diamond of pure light in every person.
And know that it's okay to not always get it right.
But then you take a deep breath,
Sweep away that little bit of dust that got in the way of this light and begin again.
Take care.
