As the leaves begin to loosen and eventually drop, I’m thinking about what I can drop in my own life. What can I renounce and relinquish in the service of this new season of change and growth? Renunciation can feel exhausting. Like, when will there be a time where I can take a break from constant examination about my habits, extra weights, and patterns? It can get so tiring; rewiring myself all the time. Cleaning out closets is a draining task, let alone cleaning out my life. However, there’s no way around doing the work. A clean, sensible closet feels good, useful, and streamlined. With less clutter we can more easily see what we are dealing with, which naturally leads to better choices. How proud and accomplished do we feel in organizing ourselves and eliminating excess? This holds true for every area of life, especially spiritual practice. It’s impossible to have an alive, breathing spiritual practice that doesn’t include constantly taking stock of how I’m getting in my own way. What is preventing me from fully merging with this moment, this relationship, this existence?Thoughts, conditions, and habits that have been deeply grooved over time take lots of work to clear out. Almost always these habits will weave their way back into our lives, simply because they are so used to being a part of us. We have parts within each of us, smaller selves that want to protect us, that have come to rely on the predictability of these habitual reactions, and the safety in knowing an outcome often trumps the practical knowledge that said outcome isn’t healthy or optimal. Which is why vigilance and determination is needed to honestly admit where/how/what we can truly release. If the changing leaves teach us anything, it’s that all things can be let go of in a way that’s not only natural but necessary to usher in a new season. Change is the most natural thing in the world, yet we fight it in so many ways, often using various distractions and strategies to numb ourselves to whatever the present moment contains (hi, Netflix and Instagram). Renunciation, the firm choice to release, brings freshness and clarity. It feels lighter and healthier to truly give certain things up, even if we have to do it a thousand times in the service of creating new and more desirable habits. When we are lighter we can move about the world with more freedom and joy, and the clutter starts to reveal what’s been hidden underneath; our true joyful nature, like the nature of a sweet baby. Holding onto unhealthy things feels like shit, at least I know that’s true in my case. My zen teacher is always asking us, “Do you really need that story?” It’s truly a phenomenon, what we can cling to and what we can put down, only the putting down is so much harder. It’s easy to pick up dislike or a grudge. It’s super easy to pick up mean ideas about ourselves! That can happen in 2 minutes and last a lifetime. Putting the grudge or self doubt down is way harder, seemingly impossible sometimes. Ideas, prejudices, anxieties, tales, all these fixed notions; we had none of these at birth. We collected them over time and often confuse them for our personality. It’s possible, however challenging, to put down these heavy boulders that do nothing but drag us down. Things are only heavy once we pick them up and keep carrying them. Our lens becomes distorted by the weight of all our various views. Nothing feels clear or bright. Use that heavy, clogged feeling as a gift. It’s an arrow pointing towards an area that needs attention and likely some form of release. The body is an excellent switchboard, lighting up in whatever place is holding something. Whichever place you usually hold tension, that’s an area that’s asking to be relieved of something. None of this ever means we spiritually bypass our angers, fears, or hurts. Those are valid and you are meant to feel those things, often very deeply. Your emotional experience matters. But at a certain point we owe it to ourselves, and those around us, to dig ourselves out from under the pain so we can better function in our lives. It’s a constant changing of the seasons within our own lives, bodies, and cycles. This is proof that we are nature in the purest form. Each of us is physically comprised of the elements: earth, water, fire, and air. All the elements are shape shifters, changing form to harness different powers as needed. This is us. We can shift and transform, and we are meant to do just that. One of the things I love so much about yoga is the idea that each shape we arrange ourselves into symbolizes change and flow. Each pose is different, each day is different. When we can relax the grip on our fixed ideas about ourselves, others, and life in general then we create space for surprise, possibility, and wonder. A life without wonder, to me, is death. It leaves no room for the delight of New, no room for true presence in each moment. It’s like a cancelling out of the magic of the moment before the moment even arrives. By magic I don’t mean hugely epic stuff, though I do like to invite that in as well. I mean the bliss of being quiet enough to hear the birds sing, share a meal, touch someone or something we love, really appreciate the smile of a stranger, or pay actual attention to a song. Simple things that feel genuinely wonderful (full of wonder) when we are clear enough to be present with what is, pleasant or unpleasant. This is the essence of zen. Just being deeply here for whatever arises, much of which we won’t like since that’s just how life often goes. I don’t practice Zen and meditation to “be happy” and erase the complications of life. Zen demands deep and careful inquiry into the eye of the storm. It’s a way to work with the mind and body, both feeling and physically bodies, so that I can locate an inner stillness that we all possess, underneath our stuff. Touching that pure place of stillness automatically leads to presence, which often naturally leads to joy. I can tell you that when I do touch that place, the hara in Zen found just behind the navel, it’s euphoric and extremely peaceful. Actual joyful chemicals are released and delivered throughout the body. Everything feels better, and knowing I can access it at any time is peaceful and empowering. It’s like there’s this treasure located deep within us, but we have to follow a complicated map of our own making in order to get there. Imagine that; our own painful, messy stuff is actually the key to finding the buried treasure. It’s like my teacher, Sensei Kōshin Paley Ellison, said recently, “when you fall on the ground use the ground to get back up”. When we are sad/angry/overwhelmed, we can use those very experiences to rise back up by being curious about what these experiences are trying to tell us. Btw, his weekly podcasts are amazing. I encourage anyone to listen to his practical, universal wisdom. Pain is always a teacher. Even impatience on a coffee line is winking at us to perhaps take a look at our need for control, our need to have the line move how WE feel it should move. Again, it’s usually always going back to the stories we spin. If we spun them we can also unravel them.
A couple of months ago I was really struggling in a couple of areas, spiritually and personally. I was at a precipice and I knew it. I knew what was being asked of me but I wasn’t ready to leap, since I was gripping on so tightly to certain stories. I was faced with certain choices, and at one point I decided it was enough of doing anything half assed. I don’t want half of anything; not in a relationship, not in my spiritual practice, not in my overall commitment to myself, not in how I treat my one precious life. I still have all the feels and thoughts that creep back in, and this weekend in particular I was knocked over with extreme agitation about something. It lasted awhile and it absolutely took me out of presence. And so I reminded myself of the choice I always have to practice renunciation. Once I relaxed the grip and need to hold onto this heavy topic, I was physically, mentally, and emotionally able to calm down and actually be in my body without fighting reality.
Renounce
Remind
Remember
Release
Relax
Refresh
Restart
Relearn
Renew
Return, Return, Return.
