vipassana Meditation and the bright path ahead
Halls Falls, Tasmania - On Country of Plangermaireener people, part of the Oyster Bay Nation
‘And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.’
Kurt Vonnegut Jr
How is the new year unfolding for you? I’ve been waterfall swimming and breathing some of the world’s cleanest air in Tassie (the Southern Ocean’s powerful Westerly purifies the air). Lots of time and space for deep immersion into Trauma Release Exercise (TRE) and the yogic practices I love. Walking paths both new, and familiar, with fresh perspective.
On Sunday I completed a 10 day silent Vipassana meditation retreat. This practice has been central to my life for 25 years but I haven’t sat a full course since I was pregnant with my first child. My youngest finishing year 12 seemed like a good time to do a course. Driving to the centre I felt trepidation in the pit of my stomach. In Vipassana, as in parenting, the unresolved aspects of our past rise to the surface. I did not relish the prospect.
The discipline is rigorous. You live as a monk for 10 days: eating two meals a day and meditating from 4:30am to 9:00pm with some breaks in between for chores and rest. When I was younger I would sit through it with grim determination and gritted teeth. Parenting, and TRE practice, have shown me the enormous power of relaxing into the reality of myself exactly as I am - restless, stubborn and lots of other things! So…that’s me and on this course, I treated myself gently. Kept it friendly inside.
Traumatic experiences and questionable decisions from the past did come up and I was able to sit with those experiences. Able to sit with myself. These tough things have already happened, there’s no changing it. But there is the opportunity in Vipassana, TRE, parenting and anything else we undertake with great awareness, to allow the past to finish. What happened then, happened then. Life is happening now. Attending to the present won’t prevent unwanted things from happening in the future but it will mean I’m less likely to be sitting with regret about what I missed or didn’t notice about this moment of life.
In undertaking any kind of awareness practices we begin to build trust in ourselves. We can restore the inner safety that is fractured when we suffer the difficulties and grief that come into every life. How we sit with ourselves, our experiences and our choices shape how we sit with others. Do we turn away from ourselves, say toughen up and call that being strong? Do we teach our children that? How open do we want to be to the life that is ours to live right now? Do we make a full commitment and treat ourselves with the medicine of self understanding?
I’m in Coolum sharing a morning of profound self care at Nervous System Reset on 1st March before heading to India. Let’s gather and hone some tools for the bright path ahead, Pru x
Path to the platypus. Derby, Tas. Country of the Palawa people
