"Moksha"

Maurice Maeterlinck states "It is far more important that one's life should be perceived than that it should be transformed; for no sooner has it been perceived, than it transforms itself of it's own accord."

Mindfulness is a valuable concept to use when beginning to identify what about your life you'd like to improve. Mindfulness is also the tool in which one can understand and transform difficult emotion. To be mindful simply means to bring full consciousness to whatever you are doing, be it sitting, standing, walking, thinking, feeling. I often encourage others to sit with their feelings and have tea, welcome the feeling they notice, watch it, observe the direction and intensity and be aware of how these feelings take shape within. This may sound fluffy but it is rather concrete and specific. It is also not a common practice with people.

My experience has been that most humans do the following with emotion:

• Ignore it
• Push it away
• Project it onto another person
• Judge and shame ourselves for feeling it
• Try to solve it or fix it immediately

Which one do you do? Unfortunately all of these strategies avoid real coping, genuine expression of feeling and rob the person from having the opportunity to learn and shift the emotion in a healthy way. What normally results from the above strategies are repetitive cycling emotion and ongoing patterns that never seem to move through us. We find that the feeling and thoughts associated with the feeling come up again and again and we do not understand why. We live lifetimes in this agony and suffering. The reason for this is because by moving around the feeling and resisting it, we give it no attention, we neglect it and deny proper care, so the feeling does not leave us. We really think that other people are to blame for OUR feelings and yet we do not learn that we cannot control people to make us feel the way we want. If we are playing odds, it would seem that counting on another to give us what we want is a poor way to bet. We are smart enough to know that an infection on our skin will not go away by ignoring it or blaming it on another, that only care, attention and awareness will bring change to the infection. Somehow, we see emotion as different. I think the reason for this is that society has decided that certain emotions should be managed in a particular way, that some emotions are unacceptable and that we should not express them. We learn this in our homes, schools, through television, peers and our especially our parents. However, this is dangerous. If we are to live authentically, to walk around with esteem and to claim love for ourselves then we should also accept and honor all the feelings that arise within us because they are part of our human experience and they are there for a purpose, teaching us... if only we allow. Neglecting, rejecting, judging and avoiding anything about ourselves is unhealthy. We need to accept that these are our feelings, others cannot fix them, and it is our responsibility to sit with them and learn what we can. 

So what do we do instead? All that is required is this:

• Mindful attention through nonjudgmental compassionate observation 

What does this really mean? To put it simply I think it means to simply observe your experience in a detached manner with an equal mind, which is to say feeling neither attraction nor repulsion against it. When we watch, we see the feeling like we see a documentary; providing us with information on what is going on. Too often we may have a hint as to what we're feeling, but because we deem it unacceptable in some way, we avoid the watching and therefore miss the rich opportunity to learn something. When we sit with anything we simultaneously change it. When we indulge laughter, we cannot laugh forever, it subsides after a while. When we explode in anger, we allow the release valve to     be open and thereby grant anger the outlet it needs so it moves through us quickly. All emotion works this way. If we allow, watch and express, the feeling will move and shift and change. The key is to be incredibly mindful in the watching so you can catch what is going on with you and learn. Being reckless in the expressing is not the point. Being focused in the watching is the point. Allow all things to inform you and change you. 

I watch the world around me and I see the emotion that people avoid on a day to day basis. Here are some common ones I notice we avoid:

• Anger
• Insecurity
• Inadequacy 
• Resentment 
• Shame
• Fear
• Vulnerability 

"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are." Marcus Aurelius

I am guilty of not being a very good watcher of my fear of sitting with vulnerability. I know the things I share in this blog because I have lived them and learned from them. Through the years, I watch my fear of vulnerability manifest within me and I can sense when and why it appears. Instead of questioning it, I sit with it, I cry, I share how I feel with someone I love. Sometimes I lament over it, want to change it immediately and do all the things I shouldn't do.  The good news is that I can regain my focus anytime I want, and so I do. If I am watching closely, I can even notice when I begin to deviate from the compassionate nonjudgmental observation and transform into the critical, judgmental Mrs. Fix it. Instead of judging myself for being a Mrs Fix it, I have learned that even that too, requires watching and being and listening and learning. Bringing myself back to loving ALL the parts of me, no matter what, is my life goal. The only person who really needs to approve of me, is me. When I do, my ears become closed to the judgment of others. 

Which brings me to the benefits of mindfulness. The value in this practice is that it helps you remove yourself from seeking external validation from others. It gives you the opportunity to learn how to love yourself truly and completely and it is a self-sustaining way to honor yourself. It is also a way to be a constant evolver in life. Know that you will be among the few on planet earth engaging in this process but know that it is an enlightened one. Pay no mind to the "sleeping" others who remain engaged in patterns of repetition, pointing fingers at you, standing still in a changing world, afraid of who they are and who they are to become. You just focus on you for that is all that you have the capacity to watch and observe intimately anyway. "Sleeping" people (unconscious people) will be very fearful of others who are masters at shifting because it reminds them of their resistance to doing so. Let them fall away from you and let them go compassionately. Let them have their own journey in this life. Extrapolate the richness in it for you by watching your reaction as they judge you, as they leave you and as they project onto you. Make the most of it and you shall be free. "Moksha" means freedom in Sanskrit and I truly believe that this process of living and feeling is an empowering freeing practice. I challenge myself daily to live this, I do not always succeed but I bring myself back, like a horse, on a lead, with gentleness and care, patting myself on the back and telling myself: "keep trying."

I am wishing you all Moksha and gentleness as you navigate your own feelings and experiences. Embrace yourself fully. 

"Those who really seek the path to enlightenment dictate the terms TO their mind. They then proceed with strong determination." --Buddha

Jai!