Opening To Your Jewel Of Natural Joy & Ease

Here, Suryacitta explains how your true nature of joy and wonder gets obscured by rigidly held beliefs and habits with the use of a beautiful metaphor which he calls the jewel in the ice. He shows that what we need to do is to "melt the ice" to gain access to this wonderful and innate jewel of joy, that resides in all beings. We don't need to try to create the jewel in our lives but we need to pay attention to what obscures the already ever-present joy. He then guides you through a series of contemplations where questions are dropped into your subconscious mind, which often reveal responses that surprise even ourselves.

We all have intuition, but we don’t always listen to it. The intuition knows things and sees things that the rational mind doesn’t know and see. Intuition can help guide you through your life. During this session, you will be introduced to your own intuition and will be shown how to access intuition to apply to your daily life.

Beliefs are unexamined assumptions and views about ourselves, others, and life in general. Limiting beliefs hold us back and we often don’t realize it. Just by believing them, we stop behaving, feeling, and speaking in ways that are natural to us. These beliefs may be that you are unworthy, or that you don’t deserve to be happy, and are often hidden from your conscious mind. Through exploring and unearthing these beliefs we can free ourselves from their paralysis and feel once more the joy of life. There will be a short meditation and an exercise called, writing with the other hand.

One of the ways we form the ice, which separates us from our natural joy is that of holding onto resentments. These resentments may be things that people have said or done to you in the past or what we have said and done to ourselves. Somebody has to have the courage to begin the forgiveness process. During this session, there will be a short meditation where you will explore how to forgive through simple direct questions for you to reflect upon and melt more of the ice of unhappiness.

In my experience of teaching mindfulness, I have realized how vitally important personal boundaries are to my own and others' well-being. Many of us struggle with this area in our lives, assuming that saying “no” will seem unkind, or being assertive will come across as aggressive. But healthy personal boundaries are an essential ingredient to a balanced and happy life. During this session, there will be a short meditation and you will explore how to develop healthy boundaries through an exercise and reflection.

As most of us know, we spend far too much time in our heads - thinking. Much of this thinking creates problems that don’t happen, have never happened, and will never happen. This is the cause of much distress and is one of the ways we create the ice of unhappiness. There will be an exercise that shows you how to move from a life of overthinking to a life of sensing, and of living in the body. Through sensing, we can listen to the intuitive voice. There will be a short sensing meditation along with an exercise on over-thinking.

Many of us are uncomfortable with certain emotions: we don’t quite know what to do with them. However, it’s not really the emotions we experience which are problematic, it’s the ones we don’t experience. They can remain “stuck” year after year. What you will learn during this session is how to turn towards and gently experience whatever emotion is present. This will be done via a short talk and guided meditation.

We all wear masks, and we all hide behind them. The very word ‘person’ derives from the Latin persona which means an actor’s mask. We wear different masks in different situations. One of our deepest desires is to show our authentic self, but it is also something we resist. During this session, you will be guided through a meditation on taking off the masks and revealing your true self - the one that sits behind and beyond. The one that is waiting to shine.

For over 25 years, the single biggest theme people bring to courses and retreat is their own struggle and the unhappiness this creates. What I observe is that they have lost touch with their “wildness.” Your wild energy is your life energy, it connects you to nature, to people and it is always joyful. During this session, there will be guided meditation and you will be asked to engage in a short writing exercise about getting in touch with your wildness.

In this session, we revisit the intuitive self, the wiser self, and we get to ask the most important question in our life at the moment. Often, after the initial visit and the work we do here, there is a deeper opening and trust in listening to the intuitive self. Here, we are going to ask a new question and to see what this unique part of us has to say about our life.