Mar 11, 2015
Vivian remembers the dark years. Between moving, changing jobs, her husband retiring and her sons leaving home, her life was turned upside down. She knew she needed to do something different so she decided to simply stop and pay more attention.
She started with daily journaling, asking questions and listening for the answers. She sat outside every morning at sunrise, watching the light come from the darkness so she could trust that the light would come back into her life, too.
While her practices were helping her, they came with a catch. She was treating them like other items on her to do list, and if she ever missed a practice, she beat herself up. She wanted to find a way to be consistent with her practices in a way that felt kind and loving.
Listen to Vivian’s story of how she approaches her daily practice now so it does feel loving and supportive (even when she misses a few days), and how her practice is an ever evolving part of her life.
her favorite, favorite practice
why she sleeps with the curtains open
the practice she does before she goes to sleep to receive answers to her questions
how daily practice is like water (and what to do about it)
how she’s being called to release her current practice that she loves
how she’s finding peace with the word “discipline”
how her relationship to daily practice is like walking her dog
her favorite meditation app
why falling asleep when you are meditating is good
how daily practice is still changing her life
Mary Oliver - “Attention is the beginning of devotion.” - from the poem “Upstream”
Rainer Maria Rilke - “Be attentive to what is arising within you and place that above everything else." - from Letters to a Young Poet
Steve Pressfield - “an appointment with the muse” - I couldn’t find a specific source for this quote, but he does discuss muses in his book The War of Art