It’s Sunday morning and I’m writing this in bed.
Snuggled under a blanket (ok three blankets), tea in hand, and a house that is still miraculously quiet. Maybe my favorite part about the early mornings.
It’s been getting light earlier, the birds are back to singing their songs, and as much as I love the sun, even I have to admit there’s something about a crisp morning that just feels really good. But maybe that’s only because of all the blankets.
I hope you are reading this from someplace cozy as well.
The weather has been wild lately.
Yesterday, almost every time I looked out the window it had changed again. . . sun, rain, hail, back to sun, high winds, more hail, snow flurries, like I said, wild.
So today I’m feeling extra grateful for a little sun.
I’ve been trying to get back into the practice of morning meditation. Because even when it’s only for a few minutes, I know that my days flow more easily when they start this way.
Yet I’m always falling in and out of this practice. And if I’m being very honest I do sometimes wonder why my mind still tends to behave like an excessively caffeinated squirrel so much of the time (not my words but an excellent description).
Despite knowing that there’s no such thing as being ‘good at meditation,’ it’s still hard not to question if I’m doing it wrong sometimes.
Mind like the weather.
So the other day when I heard one of my favorite meditation teachers make the analogy that our minds are like the weather, it just made so much sense.
Always changing, but not something that we need to (or even get to) control. It just does what it does! Which I found equal parts annoying and liberating.
Annoying because I would love to have a little more control over the weather! And liberating because it made my squirrel mind feel a little less lonely.
It’s not wrong for it to rain. Or to be hot one day, and windy the next. And it’s not wrong for our thoughts to continue to show up during meditation, our minds are just doing what they’re doing.
So the goal isn’t to quiet our minds completely, or to try and stop our thoughts from coming, but just to create a little space around them to avoid getting pulled into our own brain drama.
It’s not necessarily about sitting still on a cushion, but more about allowing giving our minds a little space on a regular basis. Which can be really hard sometimes (raises hand).
I tend to fill empty moments with books and podcasts and trying to cram more information into my brain. I listened to a book recently titled, How to Do Nothing, on double speed (the irony is not lost on me).
So I’m trying to give my mind a little more space on a regular basis.
And on days when it feels like there’s just not enough time in the day, or the week to care for myself in this way, I try to remember these words from Nanea Hoffman:
“None of us are getting out of here alive, please stop treating yourself like an after-thought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There’s no time for anything else.”
No time for anything else.
Stay kind and stay weird my friend.
xx
Ashley
Just what I needed this morning, Ashley. Thank you❤️🙏