Retreat - Withdraw: February 23 - March 1

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I want to run away, escape to someplace far away. I am afraid and uncertain about the future. Mindfulness tells me the first step is to recognize what I'm feeling, to make space in my body to feel it. Denying, ignoring, minimizing are rarely effective strategies. So I'm facing my fears and owning my feelings.

The second step is not to wallow, catastrophize, or ruminate. It is so easy to get stuck in the mire of uncertainty. Mindfulness tells me not to react or project but to take time to listen deeply to my body, heart and mind. This is the beginning of wisdom.

I'm giving myself permission to retreat, to withdraw, to take time out, not forever but at least long enough to catch my breath. Before I fall asleep at night, I practice metta. I used to say "May I be filled with loving kindness." I had the image of myself as a empty pitcher in need of being filled up so I had something to pour out the next day. Instead I now I say, "May I abide in the heart of loving kindness." It is a subtle shift in perspective. Loving kindness is not a commodity that get used up and then replenished. Rather it is a state of being. Loving kindness is always available as long as I live from the heart. These days, the me on the outside has to catch up with the me on the inside.

Practice

May I abide in the heart of loving kindness.

Be mindful of the place where you abide. Begin by arriving in the physical space you inhabit. Embody the body. Be fully present. Open up all of the senses one by one to the here and now. Dwell. Abide. Show up. Be.

May I abide in the heart of loving kindness.

Once home in the body, settle in even more deeply. Follow the breath as it leads you inward. Feel the expansion of the chest. Sense the heart as it pulses with life. Imagine each beat radiating love and peace and wholeness throughout your being. Be at one with the source of love. Be at one with all beings everywhere.

May I abide in the heart of loving kindness.

Loving kindness, well being, compassion, grace are all faces of the same reality.

Loving kindness is our natural state, our birth right.

Loving kindness sustains us like the air we breathe.

May I abide in the heart of loving kindness.

May I abide in the heart of loving kindness.

May I abide in the heart of loving kindness.