Lightly, my darling

Whenever things feels heavy in my life, like when I start to feel the walls caving in, I remember the words of Aldous Huxley:

It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling.

Whether this quicksand be the argument that keeps playing over and over in the mind, the pain of watching a friend bury their child, the chaos in the news or the loneliness of an empty nest, we can march all over our broken hearts with trying to control things that we can’t control. The question then becomes how do we hold all the pain lightly so that we can still notice all the things that are not so painful: like the snowdrops peering their delicate heads through the spring soil, despite the howling wind and driving rain.

Lightly my darling….

It’s not that we look away or forget about the pain, rather we make space for everything, or what Jon Kabat Zinn calls the full catastrophe.  Sometimes I am able to do this and other times it is trickier. Especially if things feel emotionally charged. However, recalling these words always help to remind me that we actually learn how to do this in meditation. Kabat Zinn speaks about choiceless awareness, which is taken from Krishnamurti who explains that “intelligence is sensitive awareness of the totality of life – with its problems, contradictions, miseries and joys”. And in order to do this, we need to, as Aldous Huxley says, learn to do everything lightly. Even read these words lightly.

Lightly my darling….

But how?  I hear you ask. Well, when I start to feel my mind narrowing into a congested standstill, I look up. I look to the tops of roofs, trees, clouds and I broaden my visual perspective. Some call this horizon gazing. It actually helps the parasympathetic nervous system kick in and loosen the tightness in my body and fixations that have settled into my mind.

Lightly my darling….

I also allow the pain to simply be part of my experience while at the same time, ‘getting on with things’. What does this mean? I choose one small manageable task to do while I feel heavy and dark. This might simply be brushing my teeth or going for a walk. I make a mental note that even though the pain is present, so are my teeth, so is my need for fresh air. There is nothing like physically moving to shift myself out of fight/flight/freeze mode. This became particularly apparent this past week as I doomed scrolled, which is not and never will be as effective as moving. 😉

Once I feel able to, I will sit in practice and truly ‘practice’ being with whatever is arising within my awareness. Even this is done lightly. With a light touch of attention on the breath and the felt sense of my body resting, I practice simply being with sensations, thoughts, emotions, sounds, smells, tastes… whatever is happening around and within me. When I start to feel my mind narrowing and focusing on any one thing, I internally ‘look up’ and broaden my awareness out to what else is happening. And yes, there is ALWAYS something else happening. I may have to do this countless times but it helps to remind me:

Lightly, my darling….

So if things are feeling a bit dark for you, try looking up, shift the body and if you feel up to it, why not join me on Tuesday morning at 10am Irish time for the Sanctuary’s online community meditation sit. I will be guiding a Resting in the Midst practice that is taught as part of the Mindfulness Association’s curriculum. We can practice doing everything lightly together.

-Jane

Click here to join me at the Sanctuary’s online community meditation on Tuesday mornings at 10am Irish time.

Click below to listen to and download a resting lightly in the midst of it all: