Allowing You To Be You

With this season comes an opportunity to rest and play and take a long-overdue break, and this week's invitation is to take a break from any inclination toward self-improvement. "The problem is that the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself." -- Pema Chodron

As someone who loves to read about and reflect upon my own personal development, I take to heart this important reminder and invite you to do the same.

[original pub date 05/2020]

Transcript

Hey there everybody, This is Kristen from Teaching Balance and I am here with you with this week's mindfulness meditation practice. And we are in the month of May, Which is the month of allowing. We've talked about allowing things to be as they are, Even if they're not how you would like them to be, Allowing challenging emotions and also allowing things to unfold at their natural pace or at their own pace. And so for the final allowing for this month, I thought it would be interesting to extend an invitation that I guess you could say is just a little bit more personal. And what I mean by that is consider perhaps this week, Allowing yourself to just be who you are. And what I mean by that even more specifically is just be willing to be okay with who you are in all of your complexity and all of the subtleties of what might be admirable and desirable and what might be perhaps less appealing and you know, Challenging and whatever all of those things are. And to just this week, Give yourself that much more, Much more permission to just be okay with yourself as you are. Now, If you've been following these videos and watching these videos for any amount of time, You have probably gleaned the fact that I am someone who loves to read books about personal development and I love to reflect on how I can evolve and all of those things. It's quite exhausting really. And, And I, That is just a part of who I am, Honestly, Like that's just a part of my personality and that sort of thing. And I've accepted that, Right? That's the trick. And even with my interest and my quest for personal development and wanting to grow and evolve as a person, Coupled with that, I really do feel that I have to, And find it valuable to take time just to be deeply accepting of who I am with all, You know, All things. Like I referenced earlier. And so there's something to be said for that. It's not always easy because we are all perfectly imperfect and sometimes there are qualities in ourselves that we don't like. We don't want the world to know about, We don't want the world to see, But those are still a part of us and they're part of our story. And I think it's good for us from time to time to take a break from trying to fix things and make them better and improve and all of that. So as one seeker to perhaps another, Maybe this is the week they take off from the whole self inquiry and self development and all of that sort of thing. So just something to put out there if it's interesting to you. So let's do our final meditation for May. I'm going to get my timer. Last week I started with a new timer and I liked it. So there's going to be a little one chime to start us off that will start the 10 minutes and then we'll hear the three chimes at the end. Let's go ahead and do it. So just allowing yourself to settle in, Sitting in that upright, Not rigid posture, Sitting in a way that represents your inherent dignity. If you care to, You can roll your shoulders back. One interesting phrasing that I share, I don't know if I've mentioned it recently, Is this idea of a strong back and a soft front. So not feeling like you have to keep your abdomen tight. If anything, For these 10 minutes, You're going to expand it, Loosen it, Let your lungs fill with air and yet you still have that strong back holding you upright. It's a beautiful quality of balance, I think. If you haven't already, Allowing yourself to take a few deep breaths. Again, This is not the time to try to hold in your stomach. You're allowing it to expand. As you bring in more oxygen, Take a few of those calming, Relaxing breaths that also help you to just drop into your body a little bit more. Drop into your body, In particular, Below the chin and knowing you can always go back to that deep breathing too, If you care to. And as we settle in, Knowing that the anchors that you can rest your awareness on are the breath or the body or sounds. And also, You may have heard me talk about this in the past, You can also rest your attention on open awareness, Meaning not trying to keep it tethered to one thing, But instead from moment to moment noticing any sensory input, Sensations, Sounds, Smells, Whatever might arise from moment to moment. In a sense, You're just sitting, As they say. So let's just slip in for a moment, See what works for you today for this sit, And I'll check in with some additional thoughts. Noticing where the mind is now, And if it's wandered into thought around memory or an idea or a plan or a list, Just noticing and not pushing it away, Not sort of trying to block it out or deny it, But instead, Before you pivot back to your anchor, To your breath or your body or sounds, Take a good look at it. What were those images playing on the movie screen of your mind? Is it a familiar reel that you play quite a bit? Or was it new? What did you notice about the images? Did any emotions arise as a result? Those thoughts themselves can be another object of your awareness. When you look at them very mindfully, You see them for what they are, Images, Memories or plans, But you don't get hooked by them. You don't slip into the movie like you can slip into a great TV show or movie at the theater, Where the real world slips away and you're completely sucked in. That happens to us all day long when we are lost in thought. Over these few minutes, We're going to choose to just see the thoughts for what they are, Just thoughts, And then we're going to choose to bring our attention back to our anchor because for this amount of time, We've chosen to give ourselves a rest from getting sucked into the movie of our thoughts. We've chosen to give ourselves a rest from constantly following our thoughts. Even though it requires some effort to hold our attention here or to bring it back repeatedly, I really want you to savor that quality of rest in not following your thoughts. Let's play with that for a little bit. Resting, And the mind will wander. You notice that, You come back, And once again, You rest. Let's try that for a bit. And that is our 10 minutes. Before I sign off, Just because of course so many of you on this list are educators, And for so many of you, At least depending on where you are in the United States or in the world, You are probably wrapping up your very strangely ending 2019-2020 school year. And so I just want to say congratulations. I know that for many people, It was so hard. I mean, For everyone, For many people. For everyone, It was so hard and so strange and a lot, A lot. And so as I'm reflecting on what the theme for May should be, I think I'm feeling rest is coming up quite a bit for me in terms of what that might look like. But congratulations for getting to this point and for doing your best, Because, Of course, There's no question in my mind that that's exactly what you were doing. And really just allow yourself to celebrate the fact that you got through what was unbelievably challenging professionally. Forget about even personally. That's just some more next level kinds of stuff. So my absolute deepest gratitude to you for everything that you've done for students. And, Of course, My also deepest congratulations for making it this far. And if you're not quite there yet, Congratulations for the soon to be end of the school year. So, As always, Thank you so much for allowing me to accompany on this journey. And thank you so much for taking this time for yourself. And I will see you next week. Bye.