As I reflected on the week and wondering what my Friday thoughts would be I realized that this week was a bit hard for me to hold a Koan, that bigger deeper question, as I got busier throughout the week. My practical get it done mind might have took over a bit too much and perhaps I didn’t take enough time to sit with my Koan.
I like it when I notice this I don’t judge or get mad at myself that’s useless energy but I like it because it is a nice reminder of how our minds work…..that when given choice without resistance it is easy to get caught up into our normal habit loops of business of the day.
This week was about Koan, resilience and openness……here are some thoughts on what showed up for me.
- Sitting with my own personal Koan and resisting the desire to over educate or intellectualize what discomfort I am having with the Koan is easy to say and hard to do….I noticed several times this week when I found myself taking in a bigger question I still found myself taking in lots of information around the question…. I didn’t ask myself the other questions….like why does this matter, why do I need more information is it because I don’t understand or is it because I am avoiding or rationalizing what I am taking in? I don’t always need to answer these questions it is in the awareness of it that can give us our next move forward.
- Bring some friction to build resilience-I realized this week that the examples I shared on Monday were very tactical in our daily routines but one other I didn’t mention was engaging with or taking the side of an idea that I might not agree with. Noticing if I am only engaging with those that agree with me or are easy to conversate with is important to me.
Now if I am just sitting with something in order to reflect on my own behavior and how I want to show up in the world that’s great but if I want to make a change (which right now is pretty critical if an real lasting change will be made) I have to open myself up to other points of view not in a confrontational “your wrong” mindset but with a compassionate what don’t I understand mindset.
Sometimes when this is hard and I cannot agree with that mindset I remind myself this is a great time to pull in the body scan meditation and notice where that discomfort sits with me and so I can allow myself to get connected and grounded in with my body. Why this matters-our minds hate friction…friction means protect…..settling in with my body allows the mind to settle and hold greater space for what is being taken in.
- Much being said around the pandemic right now and lots of questioning and judgements of ourselves and others that’s to be expected when we are still dealing with a very real pandemic. I have been reminding myself to give a little grace and space right now when uncertainty settles in.
Key here is non-judgmental openness to the question for ourselves-guilt or rationalizing past actions isn’t the power move….the power move is to pause and settle in and re-ask the questions and align ourselves with the response that works for our longer term goals.
- This weekend I am going back to some of things I did in the first month of the pandemic and being home….doing more open awareness of my senses particularly sound. I was reminded this week as more city sounds were showing up how much during the early weeks of the pandemic I was noticing the sounds of birds and how quickly when something else shows up I can lose taking those sounds in. See if you can reflect back on what you took in during those early weeks when the environment was more still and the messaging was more universal how our openness to more might have been greater but as more of the daily pre-covid world is showing up and the message is less universal how quickly we might lose a bit of our openness.