Come Back And Begin Again, And Again, And Again

As we are moving along this beautiful Path to Freedom, cultivating habitual practices that serve us is of paramount importance. And few practices are as powerful as coming back to the breath that we may begin again.

As we come back to the breath which takes us deep into the newness of this moment, we get to break ourselves free from being hijacked by the mental and emotional content of our minds so that we may witness and observe it, rather than be run by it.

I invite you to join me as we explore this powerful practice of coming back to the breath to begin again, and again.

Transcript

Blessings and welcome to the path to freedom,

This beautiful path where we get to set ourselves free from fear,

From worry,

From doubt,

From negativity,

From a sense of not being enough,

A sense of not having enough.

This beautiful path where we get to set ourselves free to shine,

To soar,

To glow,

To forever love for greater and grander expressions of who and what we are and to be in ever-expanding peace and love and joy and harmony and wholeness and beauty and abundance and creativity and bliss and expansion and all of these.

My name is Daniel Roqueo and as always I'm deeply grateful and honored that you are choosing to join me,

That you're actually making the conscious choice to tune into this space of freedom where the magic happens as we are being continuously reminded to take our minds back,

To set ourselves free,

To release and let go and that's where the magic happens when we become aware of where we are,

Of what is no longer serving us and then making choices that are in alignment with what we wish to experience as opposed to turning our attention to what we don't wish to experience.

So this beautiful path of freedom,

As I have called it,

It rests on two pillars.

There's the pillar of trust and surrender and there's the pillar of practicing the presence as I've come to rename it.

And today's topic is about the latter.

It is about practicing the presence and I believe the topic for today is come back to the breath and begin again and again and again and again.

And as so often is with these talks and these topics,

They are very relevant to me and where I am.

They are me reminding myself of what is needed in this now moment.

Me reminding my original spirit,

It's not me,

It's the spirit,

This loving presence that is all there is.

It is it reminding me of what I need to be reminded of and I'm moving through a space.

I'm always moving through spaces,

But I am moving through a space right now where it's the culmination or actually the intensity was peaked.

There was a very intense space that peaked a number of days ago,

A few days ago,

And now as I am finding myself on the other side of that peak,

The ramifications,

The effects of this intensity is washing over me and it expresses itself through tiredness and through reactivity where I'm finding myself over and over and over again reacting,

Being hijacked by the mind,

Being hijacked by the thought forms and by judgments and opinions.

So the practice for me right now is to find a way to come back to practicing the presence,

Which is where we,

Through coming back to the nowness of this moment,

Where we observe and witness the content that is flowing through our minds,

Releasing our being hijacked,

Our being held hostage by these thought forms and these emotions and all of that.

And for me,

The practice for me is to come back to the breath,

As the breath is such a beautiful anchor into the nowness of this moment.

Many of these thought forms,

They deal with time,

Past,

Present,

Future,

And as is predominantly the case for me and apparently where my mind ventures most of the time is into the future,

Some future moments.

So I'm experiencing a particular condition and there are some judgments and opinions around that condition,

Some thoughts as to what should and should not be,

Some thoughts as to what will be in some future moment.

So the practice for me is to come back to the breath and begin again as we,

If you join into one of the way of meditation tracks or if you've joined me live or if you've joined me in a class,

Whenever we move into or whenever I move into meditation and whenever I facilitate meditation,

We're constantly being reminded in the meditation to come back to the breath and begin again.

And what that simply means is that as we become aware that our attention has been pulled away from the nowness of this moment,

Pulled away from being non-attached to objects in our minds and elsewhere,

The invitation is for us to come back to the breath and begin again,

To reset,

To have a new start,

To begin,

To have a new beginning,

Free from judgments,

Free from opinions,

Free from fears and worries and doubts,

Not that they are completely dissolved because that's not always,

It's not even generally the case.

But us setting ourselves free is merely us releasing our attachments to them so that we can witness and observe them,

So that we are not run by them,

So that we can continue to make high choices and conscious choices regardless of what experiences,

Regardless of what thoughts and emotions we experience in the now moment.

And coming back to the breath is the portal to the ever-expanding peace and love and joy.

I know that I've shared it before,

How I was out on the deck watching,

Just looking out over the fields and looking across the field where there's this beautiful oak tree standing.

And it occurred to me as I was observing it,

As I was watching it,

It occurred to me that it's been standing there for most likely hundreds and hundreds of years.

I mean,

It's pretty darn big,

It's huge.

And it's been standing there and on the one side,

It's standing on the edge of this field,

So on the one side there's the field,

On one side there's,

Or actually on two sides there's their fields,

On one side there's a forest and on the other side,

The last side,

There's a lake.

And as there's quite a lot of open spaces,

It gets quite windy where this oak tree's standing.

So the wind blows across the lake and it blows across the fields.

And as I was just sitting there looking at this oak tree,

It occurred to me that it's been standing there for so long.

And then it occurred to me that the reason that it's been standing there for so long,

Through the windiness,

Through the storms,

Through drought and floods and all manner of weather,

The reason it's been standing there,

It's because its roots run so deep into the ground.

And out of that realization came the topic,

The Secret of the Trees,

Or the phrase,

The Secret of the Trees,

And how that is such a beautiful analogy to us.

Such a beautiful invitation to us,

To just as all of nature is rooted in the soil,

Which keeps nature,

The plant kingdom,

From being uprooted when there are floods,

When there are storms,

When there's snow,

When there's scorching sun,

And whatever.

The deeper the roots run,

The more resilient the trees are to weather,

Right?

And that's such a beautiful analogy and invitation for us,

To let our presence root,

Or to build our presence muscles so strong,

That no matter the level of intensity that we experience,

No matter what emotions we experience,

What thought forms we experience,

Our presence roots run so deep,

Our presence muscles are so strong,

That we can remain in peace.

We can remain untouched and unmoved by the content.

Many of us humans,

We're like mindless reactionary drones.

We're so hijacked by our minds,

We're so hijacked by the thoughts that flow through our minds,

By our emotions,

Our feelings,

That we completely let them run us,

More or less.

We experience this emotion and we just go with it.

If we're experiencing anger,

We just blow up,

Either outwardly or at least inwardly.

If we are experiencing something good,

In our external conditions and circumstances,

We are so happy,

We get so happy,

We get so overjoyed.

If we are experiencing something that the mind would call,

Or the ego would call bad or negative,

We get bummed out.

We get pulled into negativity and resentment and anger and all these kind of things.

But having our roots run so deep,

Having our roots run so deep into the nowness of this moment allows us to be,

To be in peace,

In harmony,

In wholeness,

To be sane.

Even when there's insanity in our minds,

We may still remain sane.

So the invitation is for us to come back to the breath,

Not only when intensity hits,

Not only when the mind is pulling our attention into some condition or circumstance,

Into some judgment,

Opinion.

Not only when we become aware of being held hostage by our emotions.

Not only when we become aware of being reactionaries.

That is a beautiful invitation for us to come back to the breath,

But our ability to come back to the breath,

Our ability to set ourselves free to a very,

Very large extent,

Depends on the practice that we have,

The habitual practice that we have.

So it is not,

As it's sometimes said about prayer,

The prayer is not only a 911 kind of thing.

Yes,

It works magic and wonders when calamity hits,

To move ourselves into prayer and to create our minds to know that all is well.

But if we are steeped in prayer,

If we are steeped in practicing the presence,

If we are steeped in the nowness of this moment,

Calamity will not hit to the same degree as when we're not.

Because even when the external conditions and circumstances are whatever they are,

If we are steeped in the nowness of this moment,

If we come back to the breath,

If we have made that our practice,

Our habitual practice,

A constant,

Regular,

Consistent,

Daily,

Moment to moment practice to be with the breath,

Always to the best of our ability.

Then even when the crap hits the fan,

Even when things are swirling,

Even when things are turbulent,

We still get to be in that peace.

Another analogy,

I absolutely love the secret of the trees.

Another analogy that I heard before is the secret of the ocean and how there can be a raging storm on the surface of the ocean,

But deep down there's still tranquility,

There's still harmony,

There's still stillness,

There's still peace.

And we can be that because we are the peace.

Peace is not something that we get from the world,

It's not given to us.

At least not if we want to have lasting peace and ever-expanding peace.

But we are that peace.

We are as unique,

Perfect,

Whole,

Complete expressions,

Emanations of the one,

Of this loving presence that is all there is,

And it is peace,

It is harmony,

It is wholeness,

It is love,

It is joy.

And as it is all there is,

And as we are one with it,

It means that we are all of these beautiful qualities.

So that is what we're setting ourselves free to reveal.

That is what we're setting ourselves free to experience,

To be ever-expanding,

To be in ever-expanding peace and love and joy.

Not get it,

Not get the ever-expanding peace,

But be in it.

Because we already are it,

So it is welling up from within.

The way for us to be in that,

In the peace,

Or whatever the good that we desire,

Whatever it is that we wish to experience may be,

The only way for us to be it is for us to release and let go of that which no longer serves.

And being hijacked by the mind,

Being pulled into reactivity and reaction.

And I'm not saying that we're never gonna be pulled into it,

I'm not saying that we're never gonna be held hostage,

I'm not saying that we're never gonna be hijacked.

Because we are.

This is our humanness.

But we learn moment by moment,

Incrementally,

Step by step,

Day by day,

To move ourselves more and more into being less and less reactionary.

Less and less hijacked.

And it all comes down to practice.

There is no peace,

Lasting peace,

Ever-expanding peace,

Without a practice that supports it,

That facilitates it.

Without a practice that is like an incubator for peace to emerge.

So we need to be it,

We need to choose it,

Which means that we need to release and let go of that which no longer serves,

Which means that we need to have a practice of becoming aware first of all.

And now we're moving into the three stages of healing,

Where the first stage is us becoming aware that we have been hijacked,

We're becoming aware of being identified or attached to certain thought forms or emotions.

The second stage is for us to simply be with it for a moment,

Not deny it,

Not run away from it,

Not try to cover it up,

But allow it to be for just a short few moments.

Embrace and allow it,

Witness and observe it,

And then from there we get to make a new choice.

We get to make a choice that is in alignment with what we wish to experience.

And all of this,

All of this requires that we have presence muscles that are so strong,

That we have roots that run so deep into the nowness of this moment,

That we may remain,

That we may remain awake so that we may sustain our being non-attached to the content.

So the invitation is for us to come back to the breath and begin again and again and again and again.

Whenever we become aware of having lost the breath,

Whenever we become aware of having been hijacked by the mind,

The invitation is for us to come back to stillness,

To being able to respond as opposed to react,

Making a conscious choice as to how we wish to show up and what we wish to put forth.

I don't think I've recorded that talk yet,

But it's one topic that has come to me these last few days is,

Now what?

So when we find ourselves having been hijacked,

Now what?

So that's the question.

That's the question.

So the invitation is for us to cultivate and build habitual presence practice,

Practicing the presence.

When we become aware of being hijacked,

Of being pulled into reactivity,

The question for us to ask is,

Now what?

I am aware,

But now what?

How will I choose to move from here?

What will I choose to move or to do in this now moment,

Now that I am aware?

So the invitation is clear,

The question is clear,

So we're all set.

Thank you so,

So much for tuning in,

For participating,

For listening,

And for doing this work,

For your willingness to do this work.

Until we meet again,

I bless,

Bless,

Bless our days,

I bless,

Bless,

Bless our ways,

Knowing that absolutely in every single moment that all is well,

That something wonderful is happening,

That everything is working for our highest good.

Much love,

Many blessings.