Author: valeriecameronmerritt

Slow down and take notice of every place in your life where a thank you could be just the recognition someone you know may need. Have you appreciated something someone has said or done but offered only a surface expression or nothing at all? Perhaps you let the thanks pass without verbalization. It’s not too late to say it now or to say your thanks at a much later date when it peeks out to be remembered. You can send thanks for something from years ago if it crosses your mind.

Say your thanks for things, for thoughtfulness, for listening, and for presence. Let yourself feel the resonance with anything large or small that reminds you to feel thankful and share that with others to let them know you appreciate them. Say your thanks with enthusiasm and love. Watch the people around you light up with being seen!

A poem from Mary Oliver:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Striving in the sense of making a great effort towards something is not a bad or good thing; we often associate it with desirable character traits and outcomes.

Striving in the sense of struggle with the body, mind, or emotions can be a point for release. When striving produces an internal or external conflict, when you become at war with parts of your experience, then non striving and acceptance can be the path to relief. Even if what you face is bodily pain, sitting with the pain and accepting it for what it is may bring you a result you didn’t know was possible. This works in the mind and the emotions as well.

Becoming intimate with instead of avoiding is a practice in non striving. Coming home to your body, shining a light on your mind and emotions without judgement is a way to practice non striving. Allowing information to flow in, sitting with acceptance of whatever that looks like, and holding the space required is practice in non striving.

What in your day can be met with a shift to receive, allow, and let be?

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
-Rabindranath Tagore

For even the best of us get the words wrong when we want them to express such intangible and almost unsayable things.  But all the same I believe that you need not remain without solution if you hold close to nature, to what is simple in it, to the small things people hardly see and which all of a sudden can become great and immeasurable; if you have this love for what is slight, and quite unassumingly, as a servant, seek to win the confidence of what seems poor— then everything will grow easier, more unified and somehow more conciliatory, not perhaps in the intellect, which , amazed, remains a step behind, but in your deepest consciousness, watchfulness and knowledge.        

— Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Sometimes we are turned off by the idea of meditation because maybe it’s something that is inaccessible, difficult to master, and time consuming.  Informal meditation doesn’t have to look that way at all.  You can begin with something that you already enjoy doing and aim to be absolutely aware for as much of the process as possible.  You may already find that concentration comes naturally to you in whatever that activity is anyhow.  Becoming and staying aware of your entire self for a piece of the day could be rewarding for you in other parts of your day.

How could you apply the idea of being absolutely present, even slowing down, for an activity sometime today?  Could it happen when you’re walking or how about when you’re checking in with a family member.  Maybe you could do this in a writing activity, painting, cleaning, sitting, or anything that comes your way.  How can you check in with yourself during this time?  The idea isn’t to turn any part of yourself off but to be aware of it all without judgement or reaction.  Be, do, breathe and notice.  If you find yourself straying, notice your breath and follow it back to the activity.

Whenever old patterns return, undesirable thoughts, and poor habits, it can be helpful to remember the loving kindness meditation. It’s helpful to remember it any time but especially so when a release is desired.  It’s been shared here before and is an excellent practice to use in deep let go alongside heart centered well wishing.

Bring into your mind someone whom you love dearly.  Give yourself time to picture this person clearly and think of the good feelings you have about them.  Let this feeling grow as you say in your head or quietly aloud:

May you be healthy.  May you be happy.  May you be safe and loved.

Say this several times before bringing another person you care about in your mind.  Do this with a few people or as many as you prefer.  Once you have said this for those people in your mind that bring you warm sensation, turn the focus to yourself and say:

May you be healthy.  May you be happy.  May you be safe and loved.

Next try focusing the meditation on someone you don’t know as well, someone who carries a neutral feeling for you.

May you be healthy.  May you be happy.  May you be safe and loved.

After that has been repeated several times allow yourself to focus on someone who is more difficult for you to be around or with whom you have challenging exchanges.

May you be healthy. May you be happy.  May you be safe and loved.

Say this until any tension is felt to release and good feeling can work through you.

The meditation can be closed by saying the same words italicized in bold font with a larger scale focus.  Perhaps you could think of your neighborhood, your community, your town, the country, and end with the entire world.