When We Remember

“Sometimes the weight makes me feel tired,” I shared today after class. “Thank you for guiding me to remember.”  “Yes,” my teacher responded, “often that is how it is.”

Often that is how it is. Oh, how easily we forget. Oh, how easy it is for me to get swooped up in the chaos, the story of the mind, the events that surround me. Oh, how easy it is for me to forget.

Forget that I can access stillness.

Forget that I can access silence.

Forget that I can still the mind.

Forget that I can silence the mind.

Forget that I can turn inward.

Forget that I can turn toward my breath.

There is so much that I forget. That I ask myself, What is worth remembering? What is worth holding on to?

This forgetting and remembering is arising for me after spending two weeks in the place which I once called home. The place I called home for twelve years of my life. While I knew I wanted to visit, I had no idea what would be waiting for me there, what lessons would be offered, what insights would be available.

With forgetting, there is a knowing. You have to know something to then forget it. Sometimes, this forgetting feels like an unknowing, something that isn’t known. Then when we remember, we know again. We acknowledge that we have forgotten when we remember.

As things work out for me, this forgetting, this unknowing is often presented to me in comical ways.

Take for example, a walk on a trail with a dear friend Carol. I had prepared my pack with a water bladder the night before. Once it was on my back, I used the long tube that draped over my shoulder to suck water except no water came through. I sucked harder thinking something was stuck, nothing. Maybe I had a kink in the tube, I thought. So, I removed my pack to discover, with a good chuckle, that I had placed the bladder in the pack tube and spout facing the top. Yes. I placed the top of the bladder face down in the bottom and the bottom of the bladder face up towards the top. There was no way for the water to leave the bladder and flow up through the tube, no way.  Oh silly me, I had forgotten. While I placed a bladder in my pack for walks weekly over the course of the years, it was something I had not done recently and in my not doing, I forgot.

This is what I am talking about. There are things that you remember. Things that are a part of you. Aspects of you that are there, present. They may be beneath the surface, they may be hidden, covered and yet they are there. Unseen to the eyes, now, yet a part of you, here. Here in this moment, I was able to see that something I had known, something that was so familiar, so much a part of my life, had been forgotten until it was remembered again.

Here it was arising for me again this morning. I had forgotten the power of my own breath. The power of my practice. The power I access within myself when I sit, be and breathe. Aspects of myself that have become known to me, aspects that I have cultivated and developed a deeper knowing since leaving the place I called home had become known to me, have become familiar to me. When I stepped in to the place I once called home, there were pieces of me that I forgot while simultaneously pieces of me that I remembered.

Maybe you have experienced this as you move from one space to another, one environment to another. There are certain routines or ways or rituals that become accustom to your way of being and those ways become known, they are familiar. When you move to a new space you have the opportunity to carry them with you or let them go.

What is it that you would like to lay down? What would you like to release? What is it you would like to embrace? What would you like to cultivate?

These were the words that flowed from my teachers mouth this morning. She was meeting me exactly where I was at. Not only through the questions, she was also inviting me to have love and compassion, gratitude and grace for all that is arising, acknowledgement and acceptance. Yes, acknowledgement and acceptance for all that is arising.

Before I went to live in India, I had a habit, a ritual, I had fallen into a routine of drinking alcohol to forget, to numb, to ignore, to divert. This action, this choice was a way of being for me. When I was in India there were a few contributing factors that lead me to face myself fully rather than distract and divert myself with alcohol. One of them was access, I did not have access to alcohol, it was not easily accessible. The other was my practice. I found that I did not desire, want, seek or look for alcohol, rather I turned to my daily practice and there, I was able to access a deeper aspect of me a deeper piece of me. I was able to access the silence, the stillness, the quiet of the outside world, the world that surrounded me. I was able to access the very things I was seeking by drinking alcohol through my practice. Rather than numbing, I was enlivening. Rather than diverting I was clearing. Rather than ignoring I was facing.

So I was surprised when I felt myself wanting a glass of wine with dinner when I was in the place I used to call home. Surprised, because I had not had this feeling, this desire, this seeking, this wanting has not been present. It is as if I forgot the desire was there. There it was. There. Here. Now in the present. Since I had not had the desire, I decided to go with it. To honor the desire, to move forward with the seeking. Why not? I thought.

I can make up stories to justify. To explain. To defend. In fact, I have. I know that aspect of myself. I know that desire, the desire to make it all okay, to reason with myself. I also know the shame and guilt. The hatred. The violent thoughts that I say, have said to myself. I can even hear the voices of others who have spoken to me in hurtful, painful, violent ways.

When you are truly present in a moment, one can often forget what it is like to remember. So when I woke up the morning after having not one, but four glasses of wine and not feeling my best self, I was pleasantly surprised that the thoughts in my mind were thoughts of gratitude, thoughts of acceptance.

Ah, this is arising for me to see what is still here. What still lingers beneath the surface. The desire is still here. Among the clearing, the cleansing, the removing, the releasing, this desire is being uncovered for me to see. For me to see. FOR ME TO SEE.

While I did not laugh and chuckle as I had when I discovered I had forgotten about placing the bladder in my pack a certain way, I was able to look at myself in the mirror and tell myself I love you, this is okay, you cannot get this wrong, you are not bad, all is arising for you to see and now you see that which is still here.  There was and still is a deep sense of acknowledgement. Acceptance. A sense of acknowledgement and acceptance, a sense of responsibility.

You know what? I made that choice. I made the choice to follow desire to have wine. I forgot how it made me feel. I had to experience that feeling again to remember. Yes. I made the choice. Yes, I remembered. There is no one out there that is a worse critic than the critic I live with in my mind. No one out there to shame me, to blame me, to criticize me. (Let’s be real here, there are. So many people are full of judgements and opinions. I know this. You know what else I know, no one else’s opinion of me matters. Only mine. I am the only person’s whose voice matters). Only me. Others can tell stories and have their opinions. You know what I realized through this? I am the one that matters, my own view of myself.

And I was surprised to hear the words of gratitude and love, of acknowledgement and acceptance, of compassion and grace flowed in my mind. Pleasantly surprised. For I have known that I have grown, I know I have taken steps forward to heal, to remove, to cleanse, to clear.

Here, in this moment, in this event in life, I was, I am able to see how far I have come, how much I have grown.

What I was witnessing was transformation. Pieces of me have transformed. Shifted. Changed.

I can forgive myself. I FORGIVE MYSELF.

I can accept my actions. I ACCEPT MY ACTIONS.

I can hold myself in a loving embrace. I HOLD MYSELF IN A LOVING EMBRACE.

I can trust that all is happening for me. I TRUST THAT ALL IS HAPPENING FOR ME.

Why you may ask do I rewrite the sentence in bold removing the word ‘can’? Because it is all happening NOW.  All if this is happening NOW. There is no one else out there that is going to do this work for you. It is not going to happen when, if, then… No. That is not how it works. I see this so clearly now.

It is up to you.

It is up to you.

Others can forgive you.

Others can accept you.

Others can see you.

Others can include you.

Others can hold you.

This is wonderful. All of this.

And…

The person whose voice that matters is yours.  

Are you willing to forgive yourself?

Are you willing to accept yourself?

Are you willing to access the grace and love that you are?

Are you willing to hold yourself in the grace and love that you are?

That is what is means to remember. To remember that you are love. YOU ARE LOVE.

It is so easy to forget. It is so easy to get swept away in the day to day, the stories of the mind.

So when you find yourself there, in the story of the mind, what story are you telling yourself? Is it a story of love and grace? A story of acceptance and compassion?

Drop the story that you have been holding of yourself that does not fit with who you are. Put down the burden you have been carrying, the images, the perceptions, the view that others have of you.

Lay them all down and remember the truth.

We can choose.

We choose.

We have the choice.

It is up to no one else outside of us.  It is not about anyone else except ourselves.

Choose love.

Choose grace.

Choose acceptance.

Choose trust.

Choose forgiveness.

I meet you here in this space, with a warm embrace.

Welcome Home,

Sara