Gently close your eyes or soften your gaze and turn your attention inward. Relax your body, and follow the natural rhythm of your breath, as it guides you home, and connects you with the wisdom of your inner experience. Feel your tailbone connecting you to the earth and your crown connecting you to the sky. Soften, as you invite the energy of the universe to fill you and flow through you with effortless ease. Allow your body to unwind, to unfurl to release what it no longer needs to carry. Breathe Here, Be Here, Now. Bow your head to the wisdom of the teacher inside you and let's begin…
Over the last decade I have begun every class, group, and retreat I have facilitated with some version of those words. The words were never crafted by me, but rather, came through me with crystal clarity. I never questioned them. I simply allowed them to flow through my channel without resistance.
Over the last few months, I have taken a break from most of my teaching and have surrendered to the opportunity life gifted me, to go inside. This inward journey has given me a chance to pause, to come undone, to unwind, to let go, and to trust in something much bigger than my own self-will. I have come to a greater peace than I have ever known in my lifetime through the practice of surrendering what keeps me safe for what is true.
During this time, I have felt the resonance of the words I open group with, in every ounce of my being. I have been able to turn toward my discomfort and experience it as my ally, my teacher and my most loyal friend. I have learned how to hold the parts of me I once rejected and cast into the shadows with love and tenderness. I have come to truly experience the freedom and peace that is available to us always, no matter what our circumstance and it has humbled me and brought me to my knees.
We spend our lives looking for people outside of us, to free us from our inner turmoil. We seek the experts out there and the wisdom they have to share. We look for techniques, technologies, and medicines to free us from our pain. We get degrees and spend years studying the conclusions others have come to about why we are hurting. While we may find relief in some or even all of these places, the answers we seek can never be found outside of us, because they are reverberating at the center of the inner turmoil we will do anything to avoid.
Our emotional, mental, and physical pain is not a problem to fix, but rather like a loyal teacher that won’t give up on us, until we free ourselves. Our growth depends on our being curious, compassionate and willing to meet ourselves in our places of pain and vulnerability and not turn away. The child within us that has yet to be integrated is waiting for us to reclaim their innocence by coming alongside and being there with them as they feel their pain.
Turn inward, soften, and invite the universe to flow through you…the answer you have been seeking is within you, it always has been and you are not alone.
“The times when you haveseen only one set of footprints,is when I carried you.”
Mary Stevenson
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