dear friends,
It’s been nearly four years since I literally fell on my face — chin on floor, legs flailing — and I felt ridiculously triumphant (and also triumphantly ridiculous). It was in that moment that I realized there was something powerful behind the idea of approaching life with gentleness. (If you’re interested, the face plant story can be found on my main Substack page and also on my website: https://alisonvonr.com/the-art-of-living-gently/)
Since that face plant, life has sent me what life sends all of us: blessings and rough patches, moments of joy and of sadness, new life and death, lots of laughter and also some tears. There have been times when I’ve met it all with grace and times when I’ve been anything but graceful. And through the good, the bad, and the ugly, every time I can be gentle with myself and with those around me, I find the space to once again sense kindness and inner wisdom. I naturally find my way back to being grounded. I can be present without grasping or pushing away. It’s a good place to be.
In an effort to spend more time in that place of openhearted presence, I’ve discovered eight principles that help me return when I’m distracted or constricted or both: (1) We’re All Vulnerable, Fallible, and Mortal, (2) Embrace Gratitude; (3) Nothing Is Permanent, Perfect, or Personal, (4) Choose Consistency over Intensity, (5) Don’t Get Stuck in Your Head, (6) Align Goals with Habits and Habits with Goals, (7) Ask for Help When You Need It, and (8) The Practice Is the Destination and the Journey.
I’m sharing the first four here and the rest will come next week (otherwise this newsletter would be way too long for a relaxed Sunday morning perusal). I hope you’ll find these reminders as helpful as I do.
Here they are:
1. We’re All Vulnerable, Fallible, and Mortal…and that’s okay. We all know this truth intellectually, but we need to sense it somatically. We all get injured and sick, we all make mistakes, and we all will die. And yet there are voices in our world that would have us feel ashamed about the basics tenets of life. In fact, it’s a radical act to embrace our soft underbellies, our mistakes, our inevitable aging and death. If you’re struggling with this one, you’re not alone. Most of us don’t like to be reminded of the reality of life, but when we can accept all of life, we can relax into it and live with more presence. I’ve found that the quickest way to get there is to remind yourself that you already love someone who is vulnerable, fallible and mortal. Think of a beloved person who is approaching the end of their life or who has already passed on. I think of my grandma, who was one of my favorite humans on earth. Let your heart feel warm and open. Spend a few moments in the warmth, then let your attention broaden to take in this person’s deeply-etched wrinkles and weakening physical presence. Acknowledge the missteps they surely made over the course of their life (even wonderful people like my grandma make mistakes), while also holding space for the warmth of your love for them. Then, let that warmth include you because your chosen beloved person would want you to feel that same love. This sensory practice can be challenging at first, but after a few iterations, I find it immensely comforting because it reminds me that none of us needs to be perfect to be loved or lovable.
2. Embrace Gratitude. No brainer here. Being grateful makes everything better, whether the wind is at your back or a storm is raging. If you’re in a state where feeling grateful is a challenge, get granular. Did the train come right when you got to the platform? Hey, that’s a reason to be thankful. Did your toddler eat breakfast without making a mess? Reason for gratitude! Did your normally rude co-worker walk by your desk without making a snarky comment? Thank you! It doesn’t matter how tiny or silly the thing is that returns you to a grateful mindset, whatever nudges you back is skillful (and something to be thankful for).
3. Nothing Is Permanent, Perfect, or Personal. This is another truth we all know, and another truth that is so easy to lose sight of when life shifts into triage mode (the term I use whenever there are too many issues all at once to handle the way I’d like to so I pick the most important ones and ignore the rest until I have the bandwidth to deal with them). The trick I use when I’m in the middle of a stretch like this is to remind myself of something really tough that I overcame a decade ago (If you’re too young to be able to think in decades, think about something last year). The critical aspect is to think of something that is no longer charged for you. When I took the bar exam, I was working full time as a lawyer, my daughter was three, and I was still nursing my son during the day. I remember feeling utterly overwhelmed, both by the prospect of making it through the testing segments without needing to pump breast milk and also of actually passing the bar. You know what? I passed the bar and my son is now a six-foot-tall college junior. I didn’t get through that challenge perfectly, but I did get through it. You may not get through this rough patch perfectly either, but you will get through and whatever you’re going through now will become a story of strength for later.
4. Choose Consistency over Intensity. This was a difficult realization for me, but every time I doubt, I am reminded why it made the list. This isn’t to say that there aren’t times in life when it is skillful to be intense. There absolutely are. This reminder is more about those times when we have a choice about a behavior, practice, or habit. The best example of this for me is when I went from being a person who sometimes meditated to becoming a meditator. For years, meditation was on my to-do list. I had decided on a specific length of time and whenever it was difficult to sit for that long, I got anxious and debated whether it would be “worth it” to do at all. Then, after my face plant epiphany, I chose consistency over intensity. If I could only sit for five minutes a day, that was good enough. And you know what? It was, and it still is, when five minutes is all I have. If you can take even one tiny step to do the thing you’re aiming toward, do it, and celebrate your disciplined consistency.
Well, that’s it for now. Next week, I’ll finish up the list. In the meantime, I hope you find at least one of these reminders helpful in your own life. Have a great week!
warmly,
alison
