After 7 months of legal activities and 10 weeks of being locked down in transit, I have finally landed in my new house by the sea in Yorkshire.
I still haven’t been able to return to my previous house to collect my belongings and find myself here with one suitcase of Winter clothes, 2 pairs of boots, a pair of canvas trainers and a bag of toiletries.
During this time, I have been very busy with the Mindfulness Association, working on the website, outbound communications, data and social media as well as guiding courses and the daily practice as our online courses ramp up. It seems we got busier with lockdown.
As I finally land in this house, the chaos of actually moving is now subsiding. I will never forget the moment as I stepped through the door for the first time and could hardly believe this is my new home.
I have been here a week now and have found that I have been reflecting a lot. Bringing mindfulness into daily life, and not leaving it on the cushion when I finish my formal practice, has never been more important.
I notice that I feel like I am in a dream. This doesn’t yet seem real. As I drive past the house where I have spent 10 weeks of lockdown and visited regularly over the last 2 years, that seems dreamlike too. I have yet to visit my house, still on the market, where I lived for 22 years, and find myself wondering how it will feel to return after nearly 3 months.
There is a growing excitement that from next week I will be able to travel some 200 miles to see my daughters and grandson, now it seems it is ok to do so, as far as the government is concerned. Yet I can sense a reluctance to leave this place where I have landed.
For some reason I am incredibly aware of impermanence. My life today is nothing like I expected it to turn out. It is so beautiful where I now live that I find myself being grateful for every single day I spend here, recognising that this is impermanent too, just like all the other homes I have had.
Something else popped into my mind as I reflect. 6 years ago, at the beginning of the MSc Studies in Mindfulness, I recall my tutor Annicke talking about allowing herself to be happy. She realised a moment that everyone around her recognised as being one of great joy, and then she too noticed that she hadn’t yet given herself permission to be happy. It feels like an internal process which I cannot force.
Not only did this impulse of a thought provide a ‘Wow, where did that time go’ feeling, it facilitated the realisation that I hadn’t yet given myself permission to be totally happy. This then gained momentum as I recalled Lama Yeshe’s talk at the Members Weekend in May, where he repeatedly reminded us to be joyful.
So, in the usual style of my thoughts, cascading like a domino effect, where did this all lead? The insight came crashing down like a wave. It was the essence of our mindfulness training – ‘knowing what is happening, while it is happening, whatever it is’. In other words, being present in the moment with gratitude for there is nothing else to worry about in this moment and every individual moment.
I can still feel anxieties about certain things in the future, but they are not happening now in this moment, so maybe I can liberate myself of the suffering that goes with those thoughts.
Maybe I can give myself permission to be joyful and happy as each moment unfolds and then I can benefit others by infecting them with my own joy, just as my amazing teacher, Lama Yeshe does.
Weekly Challenge
I invite you to reflect how just being in the present moment feels for you. Have you given yourself permission to be happy with a gratitude for the good things, whilst acknowledging that life might not be totally as we wish it to be right now?
It might be time for self-compassion for whatever we are feeling. May we bring our mindfulness practice to each and every minute of each and every day.
I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts and comments. Please do leave a comment after this post or write to me personally at membership@mindfulnessassociation.net.
In the meantime, go easy and I wish you well.
Take care
Warmest wishes
Jacky
Jacky will be co-teaching on the Level 2 – Responding with Compassion with Heather Regan-Addis starting 31st July. And Mindfulness in Nature, later in the year.
We’d love to see you there.
You can also join her or other Mindfulness Association tutors on the free daily practice sessions at 10:30am and 7pm.
Jacky has contributed a chapter to the Mindful Heroes Book entitled “Turning Empathic Distress into Compassion – A Hero’s Journey for Family Carers”. You can hear an extract from the chapter where she talks about the results of her MSc Studies in Mindfulness on Compassion & Family Carers. You can download a free sample of Jacky’s chapter here.