It may not always seem as though this is true; it may seem as if life is too much, too confusing, challenging, painful, and difficult. And yet, still something is present that can be worked with, can be strengthened and nourished.
It is difficult to grow vegetables in clay soil; it is too hard and stiff and the water runs right off of it. It is equally challenging to cultivate plants in sandy soil where the moisture runs right through it. But even if our own soil is mostly clay or sand, or has been being trodden on, cemented over, neglected—still, underneath is dirt and life and we can work with it. We can add compost and love and over time something new will begin to grow there.
We begin by adding kindness and strength to our own soil. We are the earth. We won’t heal the earth by beating her up or chastising her and nor will we heal ourselves this way. The earth is not wrong or bad and nor are we.
But to heal the earth, and ourselves as part of the earth, will take attention and determination. It will require perseverance and being willing to face and understand what isn’t necessarily comfortable, easy, or popular. It will mean shifting our gaze from seeing the earth or ourselves as something apart, that can be manipulated and controlled and used to fulfill our small ideas of what we want and who we are, to the horizon of depth where we are willing to, with great loving kindness, be present with ourselves and this earth as it is.
This takes not force, but strength. It asks you to trust with all your heart that you will be able to handle what you see and feel and hear and you will know when you have experienced enough and need to stop and rest.
Exploration
Sit and notice your environment. Allow your thoughts to be as they are. Notice what you are thinking. When thoughts arise that are judging, condemning, hurting you, when you find yourself telling yourself you are wrong or bad or less than or pathetic or weak or incapable, with warm attention listen and notice how your body feels when these thoughts arise.
Now firmly and gently tell these thoughts, “enough.” Tell them, “stop”. Put your foot down. If a bully on the playground was beating up your child you would tell the bully to stop and if this didn’t work you’d remove your child from the situation. Do the same for yourself. This is kindness and this is strength.
Often telling our thoughts to stop won’t make them stop. This is okay, no need to get into a bigger fight with ourselves, but we can say “enough” to giving them our attention and power. We can note that they are only thoughts and they are not real. We can in these moments shift from watching the abusive thought movie in our head to listening to everything else arising in this moment. What are the sounds in the room, the sensations in the body?
These thoughts may never go away, but as we widen our view, open our inner ears, extend our hearts to include loving this ground that we are, the thoughts won’t grip us or control us any longer. They will no longer be our center. They never were our center. Our center is here right now. It is soft and tender, kind and courageous, deep and wide. It is beyond our knowing.
