I am two days off a week-long silent mediation retreat. As I type, my fingers feel like wobbling baby giraffe legs learning to walk for the first time. The theme of this Insight meditation retreat was kindness and care. My heart feels full of love, which is delicious and vulnerable.
This was a magical retreat for so many reasons, and I’ll be sharing more details in an upcoming Centered in the City podcast. However, I do want to offer one powerful mindfulness practice that you can play with this month – a practice I played with daily that helped me create some inner calm and clarity.
I never used to believe in retreats. I thought they were a privileged way to escape everyday life, but I have come to deeply value the intentional space and perspective shifts. When we go on a silent retreat, we are fully untangling from our daily habits, simplifying life and creating space for deep practice. Every time I go on retreat, I feel like I get a crash course in understanding myself. The silence used to scare me, but now it is one of my favorite aspects of the adventure. I get to put down the social pressure of small talk. I let go of technology distractions and the desire to over-fill my schedule. I give myself full permission to “let my beingness lead” (words from Jozen Tamori Gibson) versus the Western culture-based ‘doing’ that tends to be a big part of how we measure our self-worth.
I walked into this retreat feeling a lot of heavy and painful emotions. Revisiting some of my past traumas and pain is never “fun”. However, I know it is the only way to grow. As my teacher, Tuere Sala says: “Suffering wakes us up. When we respond to suffering with care, we end up not becoming a victim to it, but instead, we get to learn from it.”
What do I mean by suffering, you may be wondering? Suffering can take many forms. It can come in daily doses of failed expectations. It can show its face as deep grief or heartbreak or can refer to general overwhelm or feeling lost. When we take the time and space to slow down life and mindfully pay attention, we can learn from our suffering in an empowering way. We don’t have to feel trapped by it.
A huge myth in meditation is that you want your mind to go “blank,” that you want to empty your mind of all thoughts. That’s not the case! We actually do want to know our thoughts and want to gain that awareness. However, we want to do it skillfully in order to avoid getting absorbed in the story of our thoughts.
Below, I offer you a practice to try this month that will help you get to know your thoughts more intimately. This can be in a formal meditation practice or informally, like sipping your morning cup of coffee or going for a walk.
Can you see your thoughts like images on a movie screen? They are occurring, but not staying. They are happening, but they aren’t you. Does this resonate?
As you witness your thoughts, practice labeling them. For instance, thoughts float by: “Oh shoot, I forgot to send that email last week.” Or “What should I make for dinner tonight?” Or even more loaded thoughts, such as: “I can’t believe I said that in my meeting yesterday. I feel so embarrassed and am scared what my team thinks of me now. Maybe I should send a Slack message to explain what happened.” Or, “Jessica sounds so professional and confident when she gives presentations. I want to sound that way too.”
Label these thoughts: “Ruminating.” “Planning.” “Fixing.” “Comparing.” When we can practice labeling our thoughts, we create space from the fabricated stories. We come closer to living in the present moment with more equanimity and clarity.
Try this practice for a few days in a row, and, you will start to notice your mind’s patterns. For me, I notice how much my mind plans! Having the chance this week to note, label, note and label again and again allowed me to distinguish when this mental patterning is skillful and when it is unskillful. I got to understand the suffering more intimately. This intimacy offers me freedom. Freedom to choose differently. Freedom to build new neural networks in the mind. Freedom to show up more authentically.
Sending care and compassion to my “planning mind” is more skillful than drowning myself in shame or trying to ignore the patterning. I am walking away from this retreat with a refreshing reminder that when we meet our minds with care, anything is possible.
Let me know what resonates with you and this practice by replying back to this email. I am here to support if you have any questions.