Most of my journal is about feelings, sensations or ideas that come to me while meditating, but in this excerpt I wanted to share a moment in which I was integrating the practice into my daily life.
This morning, I was on my way to a freelance job. One I usually like a lot, but not today. Although until now I had been pretty good at getting the right tone for the copy they wanted, in the last project I had failed miserably.
As I exited the subway and started walking towards the office, I felt very anxious. My heart was beating like crazy and my brain was going at like 2000 cps.
So I decided to sit down in a tiny little park between two giant buildings.
I put my headphones on, closed my eyes and started meditating on the precepts, specifically “Do not worry,” breathing deeply into my hara.
After a couple of minutes I could already feel the difference. My brain had slowed down. I could feel the fear moving though my whole body but with some distance. I kept breathing. And it came to me that fear was not allowing me to see beyond what I wanted. That I was defending my position instead of trying to understand the situation calmly. That I was taking a directions on writing as an attack to my person. I started breathing with a lot more ease. And suddenly I understood what was going wrong with the writing and how I could have a productive dialogue with my client from a more caring place.
So I went to the office, sat in the meeting room calmly, despite the uneasiness that was reigning and explained what I believed was the misunderstanding and how we could approach it. We all relaxed and after a couple of hours, we had the headlines and scripts right on point.
It wasn’t until today, really, that I “got” at all levels, that the precepts are a tool. I think in part my Judeo-Christian background made me view them as “commandments,” which made me resistant to practice with them. I would get angrier because I got angry and I was not supposed to. Or feel guilty about being worried. Shifting this POV to work with the precepts, observe anger and worry, and use these feeling as a teachers is helping me integrating my practice into every day life instead of leaving it behind on my tiny meditation corner.
Comments 4
Thanks for sharing Nathalie, your post really resonated with me. Jan x
This very informative and applicable to my life. Thank you.
Thank you Natalie for sharing
Beautiful drawing Nathalie. I love working with the precepts. Sitting in contemplation with the feeling and asking a question. “What is worry showing me”. I usually experience an answer and also receive more answers afterwards as well. Great you found a positive out come. Aroha 🙏🏼