Being gentle with yourself.
The idea of being gentle with yourself was introduced to me rather recently.
And at first I really didn't understand the impact that it would have on my practice.
And the impact it would have on my daily life.
And then as I started to incorporate it,
Use it,
Actually understand the idea of what being gentle with myself was.
It became profoundly apparent how important it is to be gentle.
Especially with your meditation practice.
It's so easy to get caught up in the grooves of expectation and judgment that we deal with in our day to day lives.
And then of course we carry that over into our practice.
When we sit down to close our eyes and we have an expectation of what it should be like when we practice.
We set ourselves up to be disappointed,
To push back.
To ask the question,
Why am I not having a good meditation?
Why am I having these thoughts?
Why am I having so many thoughts?
This isn't how meditation should be.
And that is very typical.
It's what we have grown accustomed to.
Not just with our practice,
But with our lives as we move through the day.
Now when I practice and I notice that I have a lot of thoughts.
I don't ask myself why,
Or if I do,
I dismiss it pretty quickly because I understand that my practice is going to be different.
All the time.
And that that's okay.
That that's actually natural.
Because every day of my life is different than the last.
Every hour,
Every minute.
Each breath I take from one to the next is different from the last.
So why should I possibly expect my meditation to be a certain way from day to day?
It is after all a reflection of who we are from moment to moment and day to day.
I have a lot of stress that I'm dealing with today and I didn't yesterday,
Then my practice is certainly going to be different.
So that gentleness is something that can be applied with your eyes closed during your practice.
After you are done with your closed eye practice,
It can certainly be applied with your open-eyed practice.
If you're not familiar with open-eyed practice,
That's something I plan on discussing in another talk.
But it's just noticing that when we start to chase our thoughts,
When we start to go down the path of expectation,
When things are not going the way that we want them to go,
That we can shift back to that state that we enter when we do practice.
Whether it's the mantras that we use or following or breath,
Any type of breath practice,
As soon as we notice that things are not where they should be or that we are getting aggravated or things are not how we expect them to be,
We gently shift back over and over as many times as it takes until we're done with our closed eye practice or until the moment passes where we're upset or frustrated.
And that gentleness is always there.
It's always available to us.
It's part of who we are.
It's part of the presence that we have,
Each and every one of us that we're born with.
And it takes a little bit of time and effort to take our meditation practice to the point where we notice our presence,
Where we can be gentle with ourselves on a consistent basis.
It's just like anything else in life that's worthwhile,
Especially because we have practiced not being present,
Being unconscious for a good chunk of our life for most of us.
It's counterintuitive.
It's something that we have to develop.
It's something that we have to come back to.
And having the patience to come back and show up all the time,
Every day,
To develop that practice that allows us to notice when we do start chasing our thoughts,
When we are getting angry or when we're frustrated,
Noticing that that's what's happening and not getting more frustrated and not chasing a different thought,
But recognizing that what we can do is we can choose for our mantra or choose for our breath.
And by doing so,
We're being gentle with ourself and not expecting things to be a certain way.
So as you progress and you move forward with your practice,
Or if you already have a sustained practice and you find that you have difficulty not getting irritated with yourself or being impatient with the progress that you're making,
Know that it will come and the act of being gentle with yourself will take you there much more expeditiously.
So be gentle with yourself and stick with it.
And we'll talk again soon.
