Offer ourselves some sweetness.
In Canada we have maple trees that provide sweetness in our taste buds.
I always enjoy being able to have some locally sourced maple syrup,
Fresh blueberries,
Enjoying those every day and the sweetness of those.
And also the sweetness of what we can enjoy in our life and how lovely it is when we can really tune in and savour sweetness.
With all the difficulty we have with friendships there can be some sweetness there.
Come into your experience in this moment,
What came up for you.
So we have all these associations and we might look around and notice what's here in our environment.
Notice the sweetness of the air that we breathe in.
It doesn't always smell sweet.
I live at the ocean and occasionally we'll have a seaweedy aroma in the air.
But most often there's a smell here that's very sweet.
It's the salt and the pine trees.
Whether you have a sweetness in your air in the moment or you have a memory of that,
Let's use our senses to come into sweetness for a moment.
And as with everything,
Whatever we have habitually happening in our body can also flavour this moment.
So if you have a lot of tension right now,
Or worry,
Or sadness,
Or any kind of stress,
We could allow that to be here.
And we're also taking a little break in a way.
I was just noticing someone picking up their dog.
There's a sweetness to that too of caring for another being.
Every morning when I wake up,
I celebrate with Shanti.
Yay,
We get to wake up again today together.
Just to feel that sweetness of our friendships,
Of our connections.
Let your body release any tension.
Take maybe a few deeper in-breaths and some long exhales.
One thing that our nervous system is very reliable around is bringing up anything we might need to be alert about.
So we can very safely turn our attention away from that for a few minutes.
And then we'll come back in a little bit.
Just let our body settle into the support that we have.
Let our body be nourished by our breath.
I was talking about maple syrup and blueberries,
Sweet tastes,
And the sweet aromas of the air.
And maybe it's a specific aroma of good meal cooking as you walk into the house.
Or a certain person's scent as you get near to them or hug them or they hold you.
Let yourself recall sweet scent,
Aromas that you enjoy.
Last week I was in a place where there's a lot of wild roses,
And the smell and the air was amazing.
And then as you got closer to the roses,
It was even more.
So what's your memory of sweet smells?
Let yourself remember that in your whole body.
Let yourself kind of flash back into that sweet experience.
Maybe it's a smell of a smudge or incense or some familiar smell.
Cinnamon buns cooking in the house as you come home after school.
It's one of the ones that sometimes comes up for me.
Let yourself be immersed in the sweetness of your memories.
And they don't have to be perfect.
You could just enjoy what there is here.
Sometimes the mind goes into kind of a rebuttal.
Well,
Yeah,
You've breathed in some beautiful aromas in the forest,
But what about the pollution in the city?
And I need to do something?
And then we get kind of caught in that.
So we could bring ourselves back.
Just enjoy what there is right here,
Right now.
Maybe a few big in-breaths,
Long,
Slow exhales.
Maybe a few big in-breaths,
Long,
Slow exhales or cyclic sighing.
Notice your whole body head to toes.
Bring your attention into your heart center.
Notice the energy,
Sensations.
Our body has a very different feel to it when we're focusing in on something like sweetness.
And if your mind is going in another direction,
You could just keep bringing it back.
What are some sweet emotional experiences that come to mind?
Maybe it's a person that you know and care about or an experience that you're having.
An experience of feeling really at one,
Maybe after a good yoga practice,
Swimming in a lake.
We all know that upswell of gratitude,
Of feeling blessed.
So let's focus in on that for a moment.
Let yourself rest in your heart center.
Put your hand on your heart if you want or just let your energy,
Your focus rest in your heart.
Let yourself be completely absorbed and bathing in these memories,
These experiences that are in your heart center.
Let yourself feel that connection.
Last week when I was on holiday,
I felt happy.
And I just recognized,
It's not that I feel unhappy most of the time,
But I just really tuned in towards the end of the holiday.
We're coming to the last day and we were out at the beach and I just noticed that my whole body was infused with feeling happy.
Notice something like that.
Let yourself bring in experiences where you just really feel at peace,
Feel happiness,
Gratitude,
Savoring that moment.
And there are always or often there's a bittersweetness.
We want something to be here that's not anymore.
We want something to be better or different.
And as much as we can,
Just coming back into this uncomplicated sitting with,
This is okay.
I could just really settle into the sweetness for another moment.
The sweetness of experience,
The sweetness of connection,
Of love.
Let your body continue to soften.
And let yourself be sweet to yourself as well.
You don't have to be harsh or critical or irritated that we didn't have perfect sweetness in the last 10 minutes.
You could just be sweet and kind.
Our lives are complex.
There's a lot of factors and elements that go into our experience moment to moment.
We don't need to have a lot of things.
Moment to moment.
We don't need to have everything be completely perfect,
Even though truthfully,
That's what we would like.
Sit with that for another moment.
Notice your body.
Notice your heart.
Offer yourself some sweetness.
