High Anxiety: everything's all right....

Where's Mel Brooks when you need him? (Assuming I'm remembering the association correctly--I didn't look!)

It seems like it's getting crazier every day, and some days it's a challenge to find the nuggets of grace we want to build onto. Or maybe just cling to desperately, depending on whether you're riding the maelstrom or watching from the shore. Key practices these days: metta, tonglen, open heart meditations. But also simple awareness, stepping back from the edge and not buying the drama. Taking a moment to see where we REALLY are, and working with/from that. Love. Lots of love.

"Whatever we're doing could be done with one intention. That intention is that we want to wake up, we want to ripen our compassion and we want to ripen our ability to let go. We want to realize our connection with all beings." (Pema Chodron)

All that. And we want to be awake and aware and loving and healing in the world, not just on the cushion (so much easier there, isn't it?).

So here are a couple of practices for the weekend. 1st practice. With all the anxiety and struggle going on right now, we want to start moving that energy into another dimension or level. Let's call it "creating grace" or "creating space." Pick something--preferably something you have an emotional tie to, whether it's something that irritates you on the news or next door, or an issue you've been avoiding resolving in your own life. Get quiet, stilling the energy around you with some deep breathing. Allow yourself to imagine that whatever it is, JUST AS IT IS, it's exactly as you wanted it to be. This is not visualizing an outcome you like--this is, frankly, a non-attachment exercise. JUST AS IT IS, it's okay. Probably the best way is to simply hold the thought, emotion, image in your mind and breathe into it until you feel your body relax and loosen. Then continue breathing/relaxing into, while you see the beauty in the situation--the relationship, the person who's screaming about all the wrong things, whatever. Breathe into it, love and lean into until it's glowing.

2nd practice: raising grace (there's a book title in here, somewhere, isn't there?): Find something that brings you peace, no matter what. For me, Tibetan prayer flags. You just know when you see them, that good things are happening. For you, maybe it's a piece of music, or a sapce to be in (park, etc.). Whatever it is, spend some time there, letting yourself fill with peace and the way it expands your lungs and loosens your muscles.

Have a great weekend--and let me know your experiences with this practice!

PS Conscious Sanity fan page now up on Facebook. No page name yet, but just search for Conscious Sanity....