While taking an on-line restorative yoga class with Cynthia Latimer, a dear friend and amazing teacher, I felt compelled to leave my mat and fetch a pen and piece of paper from my desk. Cynthia was on a roll, sharing her beautiful, heart-felt perspective, and I didn’t want to miss a thing. I needed to capture her wise words on paper, knowing the inspiration for this week’s blog would soon come from her thoughts.
“We begin healing by allowing what is in the present moment.”
Each one of us is suffering on our own way, and because of that, we are all in need of healing. My pain may not resemble yours, and yours may not look like your neighbor's. Yet, we are all hurting. COVID-19 has sent our world spinning. And in order for us to get through this, we must accept what is in order to help both those we love and ourselves heal. Most likely we will not return to who we were – no doubt all of us are meant to change in some way during this period. But I believe that we will emerge as stronger, wiser, and kinder human beings.
Cynthia continued to share that when we are in a pose on our yoga mat, we should ask, “Is there something more? What do I find in the stillness?”
I touched on this in last week’s blog - https://www.michellemdavis.net/post/_time. When we’re quiet and in the present moment, we become the observer and are able to see what is happening inside of us. While it might not be pretty, as was the case with me, I was still able to look within, realize an undesirable aspect of myself, and then feel the emotions attached. Digging deep isn’t exactly fun – I let go of a lot of junk last week – but it is rewarding because the knowledge we receive helps us to accept what is as we slowly evolve into our higher selves.
Here is the third part of Cynthia’s message that I felt compelled to jot down – “We may even have an opportunity to remember what we already know.”
This is remembering of our truths, our core values – trust, kindness, love, compassion, connection, health, honesty, etc. – that live within us. While we each have our own unique set of qualities that form our belief system, many of us share a combination of similar attributes, suggesting that these are actually universal, not individual, truths. This is exactly what we are meant to remember – we are all connected, there is enough, we are enough, and we just need to let go and trust, believe in something greater than our small selves. These are the beliefs that we so easily forget.
Going within is what allows us to remember. Yoga is one avenue to do this. So is meditation. Yet, maybe neither is your bag. I get it. Then garden, go for a walk, sit with a cup of tea, or play with your dog – whatever allows you to pause and reflect.
This is how we heal. We accept what is occurring in the present moment, then we ask ourselves if there is anything else that we need to see in order to understand. And when we do, well that is when the magic occurs – we remember. In that moment we realize that we possess the tools and are equipped to handle whatever comes our way. We’ve got this. Now is the time to remind ourselves and others of what we’ve forgotten so that we can become whole and once again see our inner truths.
