Connecting to My Gratitude

I hope you are all enjoying your Memorial Day Weekend! Today was such a beautiful day and I am grateful for it. I find myself connecting to my gratitude (and lots of other emotions) as my family moves through significant milestones and poignant “lasts”.

This is our last Memorial Day Weekend in the home we have lived in for the last 12 years. As we start to organize and purge; memories, and with them emotions, continue to flow through me. 

Last week I opened Cyndi Lee’s bi-weekly newsletter. I don’t often open it but for some reason I did and clearly I was supposed to read it.

She articulated some of the same emotions I am experiencing as she is also preparing for a move. What struck me is the way she talked about being with her “attachment, aversion & ignorance”.  How do we “be” with those qualities in us that are challenging? We can access contemplative meditation. And once we do, we begin to notice how the feelings themselves change. When we resist, they persist. time and again this is true. 

This is what we worked on on our mats this week (and off of them too). Noticing the emotions that come when we move mindfully on the mat and through life. Anything can be a contemplative meditation– a chance to “be with what is” no matter how difficult. With the events of this week, that practice is even more important. First we have to “be” with it, and then we can make mindful change happen. Working from reactivity just creates a cycle the often does not find us in a place of peace. 

I have included the excerpt from Cyndi’s newsletter at the bottom here if you are interested in reading it. Whether you are in a physical place of transition or an emotional one, you may find it insightful as I did.