How the Waters of Awareness and Being Can Get Us Unstuck

After cooking a nice meal, if you let the pots and pans sit in the air uncleaned for a while, the remaining food that sticks to the pots and pans gets hardened and stuck. So, in order to make cleaning easier, it is best to soak the pots and pans in some water. The water softens the hardened remains and then, once you bring out your sponge to scrub the pot, the scrubbing is much easier, right?

What I have learned in the past 15 years is that it is similar to cleaning out our hearts and minds. Many of us have situations that we experienced where there is a lot of hard crusty junk that still remains — we never took time to clean it out when it was fresh. So, it has sat there a long time getting hardened. I see now that the “Waters of silence and meditation” ….even the “waters of BEING…time to just sit and relax and be with yourself…” these things help to “soak us” so that the old sediment can be softened and prepared to be scrubbed out more easily.

But, how often do any of us sit in stillness? How often are we willing to go into the silence? How often do we take time just “BE”? We were never taught the essential nature of being because our society has esteemed “doing, results, accomplishments”–even when it affects our well-being and causes us to be unwell. We have all bought into the madness, the insane over-DOING and we wonder why we are depressed, upset inside, and barely surviving.

What if….there is an opportunity to gradually balance the doing with some being? What if you began for just 5 minutes a day to sit down and breathe deeply? What if you started with a simple, 5 minute-guided meditation each day and learned to calm your mind for a few minutes? What if you put into your calendar (yes, even at work) time for stepping back and being with yourself to grow aware and take stock?

There are so many beautiful possibilities available that we have lost sight of. I used to be a non-stop human being. If I sat I felt I was wasting time. But then, life stopped me in my tracks when my oldest daughter was born with a rare disease. I felt so much suffering–like I was breaking into a million pieces. That is when I knew I had to find a new approach. So, I started sitting in silence to breathe just 1 minute at a time. And, as I got used to 1 minute, I increased it to 2, then 3, then, 4, then 5 minutes.

Eventually, I got to 30 minutes. Now an hour of silence or guided meditation is so helpful to my spirit and mind that I can’t imagine life without it. Slowing down to BE has helped catalyze my ability to see what needed to be healed within myself. It also has ignited my creativity. Silence brings me insights that are beyond me. I am a better me…day by day…as I take time to BE with myself and honor how I feel and what desires are wanting to arise from my heart.

I know this journey from the inside out. And, I coach and teach others how to come back to themselves so they can feel better day in and day out–and create the life of their heart’s desires (not just the life of being successful in a way society dictates).

Reach out if you need some support. I love the journey of deep, personal transformation. It takes time and effort, but the results of the inner work put us on a totally different life trajectory of joy, wonder, and alignment with our true selves.