“All tours to Asia have been cancelled until January 2021” read the email. It was a stunning disappointment: our trip had been planned for months.
The vacations I schedule are intended to restore my energies, reinvigorate my enthusiasm for what I do and ensure that I am rested and one hundred percent present for each client session. So this is my Plan B now that Covid-19 has scuttled my vacation plans.
I prepare for the day by opening my heart to prepare for my journey inward, the process reminiscent of the book, “Travels,” by Michael Crichton, who recounts his adventures tracking animals in Malay jungles, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and scuba diving amid sharks in Tahiti. I think of his book because it wasn’t so much the outward adventures that intrigued him as much as what he learned about himself as the travels transformed into a fundamental search for the Truth as pursued by scientists and mystics.
In a comparable fashion, my daily meditations are providing that same opportunity to ‘travel’ and search for my Truth, with my breath as the guide. The daily journey has taken me to new places as well as revisiting old destinations, all in the service of clearing the veils of outdated beliefs and blocked feelings.
One such ‘trip’ happened the other day when I got in touch with a profound sense of loneliness. I literally felt the experience as a tightness in my chest. Rather than resist I stayed with the tension, following it back in time, feeling like a very young child.
Continuing the journey, I moved into other times from the past when the griping feeling pressing against my chest was present. Reenacted were the damaging behaviors I had adopted in an effort to quell that feeling. But in my meditative state, instead of berating myself, I had a deep compassion for those forgotten parts of me. The result was a lifting of the dense energy and a clearing to see a glimpse of my true nature: the witness who observes, not the victim of the circumstance.
Back from the meditative journey I conclude with my daily Metta prayer of good wishes and loving kindness, which includes my wish for all of you:
May you be at peace. May your heart remain open. MAY YOU AWAKEN TO THE LIGHT OF YOUR OWN TRUE NATURE. May you be healed. May you be a source of healing for all beings.
