October Reflections
As you may already know, fall is the season of my soul. I always find myself more introspective, quiet, and leaning in during this time. I’ve been learning a lot about myself lately, mainly because I’ve been slowing down and listening more. I recently completed an 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction group and find myself acknowledging resistance, sitting with uncertainty, and leaning into greater acceptance. I’m remembering to allow life to be my teacher and experiences to be my practice. For me, slowing down has always been the best medicine; bringing me back to clarity, a quiet mind, and a steady knowing.
One of the things that has been resonating with me lately is the balance between effort and ease. I’m noticing to meet moments of tension with softening my body, moments of striving with letting go, and moments of resistance with a gentle acknowledgement of what is. For me, over-efforting can show up as rumination or worry in the mind, obsessing over getting something just right, or over-identifying with a thought after a personal shortcoming. It can show up as placing blame, irritability, and perfection. In my body, over-efforting feels like rigidity, shallow breaths, a clenched jaw and disconnected presence. When I’m over-efforting, I tend to be trying too hard, placing undue pressure on myself or others, and feel overly attached with an outcome. In these situations, I find that I’m adding more suffering simply by the way in which I’m meeting the situation. By cultivating the ability to hold my experiences in awareness and as an observer, I’ve found that hard situations don’t feel as big of an emergency and that I don’t engage with thoughts that cause myself more suffering. I let go of stories, mind-reading, and catastrophizing. I soften around black and white thinking and pull from helpful mantras like “real, but not true” and “try softer.”
And in the truest sense of learning to find balance, I’m also exploring how I might bring greater attention and intention to moments of ease. Of finding a stronger center, greater dedication and discipline to practice- adding in more energy into moments where it’s needed. I’m remembering how to transform moments of under-effort to the cultivation of self-discipline. I’m remembering that while ease has an important role to play in my life, adding in more effort when it comes to following through on a commitment or goal moves me in the direction of the life I’m intending to live. Because these things take intentional effort, I bring them into a restless moment, an excuse filled mind, a challenging relationship, a review of the day. So when it comes to ease, I find myself sitting taller, inviting in a sharper, more focused mind, and drawing up greater effort. Consistent practice and being mindful of my relationship to each moment has left me feeling grounded, settled, and less identified with the stories that tend to run rampant in my mind. When we become familiar with the thoughts that move through our mind that typically go unnoticed, we open ourselves to the greater possibility of not making decisions about our worth, relationships, or insignificant situations from a place of reactivity or habitual negative thought processes. With mindful awareness, we tend to be pulled less off track by our excuses, don't feel so reactive to other people’s behaviors and take their actions less personally. We recognize harsh criticism as a familiar and unhelpful story in our mind and allow ourselves to move forward with greater compassion and grace.
Oh October, always giving me metaphors to move through life. Like harvesting seeds of discipline, trust, and sacrifice with steady patience and a knowing that what grows will sustain us as we move forward into the next season of our life. And just as leaves return to the earth after they make their way down from the trees, nature reminds us how important it is to integrate our difficult experiences, to let things settle, and when the timing is right, to let things go. It’s a time for inward reflection, for hibernating, for tending to our hearts, for getting to know our minds.
Take notice of your life, dear friend.
Pay attention to what’s present right here right now.
And in the same way you meet the ever changing seasons and landscape of the world; learn to meet your heart with the same awe you experience after the first leaves change, the same quietness you experiences after the first snow settles, and with the same celebration you experience when we make our way back to sunshine.
Oh, how it all can be a practice.