Dear Diary,
One of the things I enjoy about teaching is also being a student. I get to have wonderful conversations with people about my teachings, what they found immediately impactful, what resonated with them over time, as well as what they just didn’t agree with or didn’t understand. I’m not a person who gets offended if someone doesn’t like a particular piece as much as others; considering we have different backgrounds and experiences, it is natural that we will appreciate things differently. I am fortunate, however, the people who engage with me do so out of a position of positivity, even when letting me know a particular piece or thought wasn’t their favorite. Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do teaches us to ‘Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless,’ after all.
I recently received some feedback, and while the message in my recent piece (Dear Diary, Why So Many Get Meditation Backward) could have been constructed better – a valid criticism – it was the rest of the feedback that truly stuck with me. This individual took the principles of Body Scan Meditation and took it to another level. It was one of those moments I could do little but share in their joy and celebrate their progress with them. When they credited me for being a part of the reason for said progress, I successfully avoided minimizing my role, a bad habit with which I’m only occasionally successful. This time, my gratitude at seeing such a clear milestone outweighed my nature of avoiding spotlights.
What is Body Scan Meditation? At its core, Body Scan Meditation is a practice wherein we turn our focus inward and see how we are doing at that point in time. How is your head and neck? How are your chest and shoulders? How are your arms? We repeat this process down to our toes and back up again. This practice serves as a grounding tool to recenter ourselves, pulling us back from where we have cast ourselves, to the present. How are we doing *now?* This practice is also used to monitor injury recovery, and a host of other day-to-day concerns.
Body Scan Meditation absolutely does not need to be exclusively about the body. We can apply the same basic principles of refocusing our attention, not just on the present, but also on how we interact with it. Where are your thoughts? What are you feeling? In my core lessons about Environmental Harmony, having a solid grasp of one’s thoughts and feelings is essential. How can we stop lashing out if we don’t understand what anger is? How can we let go of the attachment if we don’t know what grief is? The list continues, but Body Scan Meditation is one of the tools in the toolbox that we can use to go “Oh! I am (insert status here). Knowing this, I am going to make (insert decision here.)” Which is precisely what the individual in question is beginning to excel at.
Without getting into their business too much, after all, it is not mine to do so, they’ve taken the principles of Body Scan Meditation and been able to place themselves at differing points in time without getting lost. They’ve been able to communicate with their younger selves, while still being aware of their thoughts and emotions here and now. They’ve opened up the opportunity to let go in a meaningful and lasting way, and I am so happy for them. One of the definitions of attachment I use frequently is being forced to change in relation to another change. In this case, attachment to the past doesn’t always fit this definition, as the past doesn’t change like the present does. We only have so much capacity for life each day, and attachment to the past can fill that capacity each day without adding value. Underworld, in their song Motorhome teaches us, “What don’t lift you, drags you down. Keep away from the dark side.”
Being a part of this person’s progress and helping them unlock this ability is gratifying; it is why I give this my best. Of course, they’re the one doing the work; I just showed them the way, but I understand I did work too, putting these concepts into words which can initially impact people. Sometimes, when I finally figure out a mantra or a definition, it feels so obvious I feel a bit silly I hadn’t done so before, but I’ve certainly come to realize simple does not always mean easy. Healing is not linear, and where we get stuck isn’t always where we expect it to be.
For me, writing (or saying) more than I need to feels counterproductive. I, often, think about the Tao Te Ching:
“The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.”
This is the first chapter. It lays out one of the most foundational principles up front and doesn’t need to say it 50 times to pad out a youtube video for length or the illusion of content. It tells you immediately our ability to put things into words will render something incomplete. What are words? Words are symbols for meaning and one needs not look very far to see how people interpret them differently, sometimes drastically so.
I will continue to do my best to make my symbols for meaning effective and impactful with the awareness I’ll never be perfect (and that’s ok). I’ll be grateful when I can see my successes and work to clarify or otherwise improve on the misses.
If you haven’t, give Body Scan Meditation a try, you might learn something 🙂
reBLUEvinate