Use Your Wings to Fly

I hope you all had a nice weekend. Last week I shared with students that there are two Wings of Mindfulness and we need them both working together in order to FLY. The first wing is AWARENESS. When we notice our thoughts we have the power to shift them. The second wing is to be able to meet those thoughts with COMPASSION and acceptance… a SOFTENING. What inspired me to share this message was my own struggle with my mindfulness “bird” over the last few weeks.

We all have thoughts and from the initial thought comes all kinds of “thoughts about the thoughts”. These secondary thoughts often include fear, judgment and sadness and cause extra suffering. We have the chance to shift them but only if we meet those thoughts with compassion.

Another way to think about this is as a “Waterfall of Thoughts”. It starts with a trickle.. a simple thought… and then a flow of other thoughts follow. As humans, our brain is programmed with a negativity bias.. to focus on what may or could go wrong, to assess risk. However, when we deploy the other “wing” of mindfulness we can quiet that bias. The fight/flight part of our brain can be eased when we connect to the pre frontal cortex. We do that by pausing, softening and connecting to compassion which leads to more rational thought. It is a powerful phenomenon that we can practice and develop.

The body is actually a perfect way to practice this. As we move through poses we have thoughts- we notice a tightness, we notice weakness, we notice discomfort. Then we can notice where those thoughts take us- do we go down the “waterfall” of thoughts like “what does this sensation mean?”, “Is it ever going to go away?”, “Why is this happening to me?”, “Here we go again”. When we fight the resistance we are experiencing in the body or the mind, that reisistance fights back. When we soften, are inquisitive without judgment, remind ourselves everything is temporary and that its ok regardless.. then the resistance softens and we can truly “FLY”.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to share my journey with all of you. We are all on this path learning and practicing together. These past few weeks my waterfall was flowing so strongly and I wasn’t practicing the other wing of compassion. Now that I am again, I am so much lighter. Just like a bird, we all need both wings to fly. I am grateful with practice to have found my “wings” once again and I wish for each of you through your mindfulness practice to find your wings and FLY.