When is it time to give up on your practice?

Hello,

This is David G.

This week on Life Tools,

We've been exploring a really interesting question.

When is it time for me to bail or give up on my spiritual practice?

Right now we're in the middle of one of my teacher trainings.

And of course I get reached out to by people who are saying,

I don't know if I can read this book.

Suddenly I have relatives coming over and staying with me,

And I thought I'd be able to dedicate that time to the lessons.

I just can't or work has gotten really,

Really filled up.

And I'm coming home later.

I barely have time to even eat dinner.

I don't have time to meditate.

And we see this more and more,

Where people,

Maybe they were going to yoga classes six days a week,

And now it's two.

Maybe they were meditating every single morning and afternoon,

Now it's only the morning.

Maybe they were meditating comfortably in the morning,

And now they skip that and meditate a few times a week.

A lot of time.

.

.

A lot of times there's trauma.

There's just straight trauma that's going on in your life.

This can really pull you off course.

The death.

A loved one the being let go from a job that you really had your heart in.

Something tangible,

Physical material.

Vanishing into the ether being taken.

Or you miscalculated.

These can be devastating.

These can knock you back for months.

Some people.

.

.

Feel that for years.

And this is typically when people give up on their practice.

And this is when they say,

You know what?

I'm going to sleep in today.

I'm not going to meditate.

And,

You know,

I always say whatever works because I'm not dogmatic about this tool,

This magnificent practice that we all get to show up for.

But the reality is,

When you're finding struggle,

Challenge.

When you're finding yourself at the edge of a defining moment.

When you find yourself at the crossroads.

When you find yourself at the fork in the road.

That's the last moment where you should stop meditating.

That's the last moment where you should say,

I'll spend two hours online,

But I don't have ten minutes for my practice.

If you've cultivated.

.

.

If you've managed to cultivate on a consistent basis.

Some ritual where you wake up.

Ask yourself a few sacred questions.

Get still in silence.

Invite an intention into your awareness.

Let go of that intention.

Go deep into the stillness and silence using a mantra or following your breath or using some other technique.

And then closing with some type of heart opening or gratitude exercise.

And for some reason,

You believe that giving that up.

.

.

Will give you more breathing room.

For your pain.

It's not the case.

It may be counterintuitive,

But leaning in and doubling down on your practice.

Is the key,

Is the pathway.

Is the answer.

And it may not seem like that.

It's like,

Ah,

I've got to give ten minutes to this.

I have to meditate twice a day.

I have to honor the bookends of my day.

I have to set the table and.

.

.

Wash the dishes,

Let go of everything.

But yes,

We know that this is so powerful,

So important.

So necessary.

For you maintaining your strength,

Your courage.

For you fortifying your resilience.

For you truly stepping out of where you were into this most magnificent,

Spectacular.

Space.

Which is calling you.

Which is inviting you.

And so if you're finding yourself right now at that challenging,

Difficult,

Upsetting,

Overwhelmed,

Crossroads,

Fork in the road moment.

And the thing that you're Choosing.

It's always a choice.

The thing that you're choosing to sacrifice.

Is your daily practice,

Whatever that means to you.

Your morning sadhana.

Whether that's reading the Bible,

Whether that's studying the Bhagavad Gita,

Whether that's sitting down in front of some altar and meditating,

Whether that's having a formal and beautiful prayer to start your day.

If you're letting that slip away,

That would be like saying,

Oh,

You know what?

The dentist just told me that they think I have a cavity,

So I'm going to stop brushing.

Doesn't make any sense.

Or brushing wildly for three hours the day before you go to the dentist.

No,

Just lean back into your practice.

Just come back to your practice.

Come back.

To the platform to the blueprint.

To the template to the foundation of where you start every moment.

And so I encourage you,

I invite you.

This week,

If there's some ripples coming into you,

Some turbulence,

Some swirl or overwhelm,

If there's.

.

.

Some kind of moment that's just stopping you in your tracks,

Don't give up the practice.

This is the last moment you would ever want to say,

I'll stop doing that and do anything else.

Show yourself some self-love,

Self-kindness,

Self-care.

And the core part of that is starting your day with a little bit of stillness and silence and ending your day with a little bit of letting go of all you've absorbed over the course of the day.

Let me know that you were at that moment where you were just about to sacrifice this.

And then you made a choice not to sacrifice yourself in the process.

And you dove back in.

From the sweet spot of the universe.

This is David G.

Keep meditating and I'll see you.

In the gap.

Namaste.