Meditation is inside of us all

I hope you are all well. We had a great family vacation and I was genuinely happy to be back teaching students this week. 

A couple of weeks ago my 4 1/2 year old god daughter Leah and her parents came to visit. It was very special time and I loved seeing the world through her eyes for a few days.

One of the days we spent at the beach. Her mom and I sat in chairs by the waters edge and we had a small table between us as Leah built a sand castle in the wet sand and then searched for shells to decorate her castle. After a while Leah decided to remove the shells from her sand castle and she placed the sandy shells on the small table between us. She then began to take one shell at a time down to the water to rinse it and afterwards she gently placed it back on the table. Each time she placed a clean shell on the table there was a look of joy on her face.

We kept watching her in her process– pick a shell, walk, wash, return, place down and smile with satisfaction. Over and over she performed what became clear to me was a meditation. She was completely present in the moment and her brain was giving her a little dopamine hit as a reward each time she placed a shiny, wet, clean shell on the table. We could see it in her face. That is what our brain does. It rewards us with a little dopamine hit each time we complete a task from start to finish. That is one of the powers of meditation. When it was time to leave my heart hurt a bit to have to show her how to efficiently wash the rest of the shells using the bucket. We had to cheat her out of all that joy. 

Watching her meditation reminded me that we are born with the understanding of the power of meditation to cultivate joy. Focusing on one thing at time trains our minds in the art of being present and being present helps us connect to more joy.

Our bodies can help us with this practice through moving meditation and as we flowed through our moving meditation this week I asked my students to recognize the value of repetitive action in creating space in the body and the mind. It is a gift we are born with that we often forget as we get older and the power of practice both on the mat and off helps us to remember.