I recently got an email from Rick Hanson's "Just One Thing" which really resonated, as this is where I am currently bringing attention in my own practice. I find myself a bit cranky, judgmental and feeling constricted more than I'd like to admit. Juggling how I relate to COVID 19, staying safe, supporting and honoring public health guidance. Participating in skillful ways to heightened awareness and responsibility related to racial injustice and the horror of our history as a nation, implicit bias, and to humanity everywhere. Seeing the stress of the economic impact of COVID 19 in my social and cultural circles and beyond. Politics. Navigating connections with family, friends and colleagues whose loved ones have lost their lives in this time of pandemic and the deep grief and sadness of not being able to engage with the rituals to which we are accustomed, to share with one another, grieve and heal. The many stresses and strains of everyday living woven into the fabric of this disease and unrest, intensifying all the experiences. A palpable fear and sadness energy which is exchanged with and from each experience I meet with others.
As I touch in to these emotions which emerge, I meet this wish for freedom from fear and connect with the question “what doesn’t feel safe?” My teacher recently reminded me that the more we feel safe, the more we open. As I cultivate this practice I can really touch in to and know directly the constriction of fear, and recognize where the creep of tension and holding when it arrives, and which can then lead me to constriction in body, thoughts and emotions. Something opens and is released when I befriend what is here, simply because it is here. This opening happens when I can allow myself to really be with it all. In that moment I can see, feel and experience the good intentions in others and myself which lies beneath the fear or whatever strong emotion brings reactivity. Being forgiving and not clinging to the story around unskillful reactions from others and from myself. In that moment I see how I can choose to know, and look for, the good intentions which underlie the the difficult realities we are all facing. In that moment I am free and able to meet my own reactivity and the reactivity of others with compassion and a gesture of kindness, and it feels more skillful and patient. I find this practice of recognizing good intentions a very powerful practice. So the invitation is to consider the good intentions, just under the surface of the reactivity we may be meeting these days in ourselves and in others.
Here’s a link to the “Just One Thing” on Seeing Good Intentions.
Be well, be safe, and be looking for good intentions.