How do you feel when there are no mirrors? When there is no portion of your mind judging or criticizing that reflection of you? How do you feel when you move out of the space of doing the ten thousand things we think we need to do and simply allow yourself to be in the world?
Today I took solace in the woods near my house. I woke early, as temperatures are rising quickly in the pacific northwest, and I wanted the cool quiet of morning. The park that I walked to is fairly small but heavily wooded with cedars, maples and shade-growing berries. I took my first lap around the park at a walk-run-skip-walk, training my body back into endurance slowly, in a fun way. The second lap, I walked quietly, watching and listening.
I felt so beautiful to be part of that forest.
For the first time in days, that part of my mind -- the one that I try so hard to quiet, so hard to turn off -- the one that criticizes me, tells me I'm gaining weight, that I need a hair cut, that I need new clothes or new something, simply shut up. The part of me that tells me that I'm not doing it right and need to do more finally just turned off and all the sudden I wasn't doing anything wrong anymore because I wasn't doing, I was being.
I recently read an article interviewing Eckhart Tolle, in which he discusses the idea of masculine and feminine energies. He says that masculine energy relates more with doing and feminine energy relates more to being. He really says it best:
"The world is out of balance because it is focused primarily on the doing, and there is a loss of the awareness of being. This is when stress and negativity arise: when people try to get things done and they no longer are centered within that aware space of being. You cannot feel your being anymore; you cannot feel the consciousness behind all the doing. So many women these days have internalized the imbalance and are also out of touch with being more focused on doing." **
He suggests we find a balance between the ability to do and the ability to be. Just like the embracing yin yang symbol, there is a piece of the other within each: within the dark yang is a white dot, and within the white yin is a black dot. This is the ability to have stillness at the center of doing, and a dynamic quality of doing while being still (so that we don't fall asleep!).
I have been feeling out of balance lately because I've been focusing on doing too much without leaving time to cultivate just being. And I've noticed how I've felt guilty for wanting time to just be, because our culture still doesn't value it as much as doing. But I was reminded today of just how important time to be is -- it is what brings me back to my center and reminds of who I am as a spirit in a body, and just how beautiful the human process is.
**Full article here: http://spiritualityhealth.com/articles/eckhart-tolle-easier-path
Today I took solace in the woods near my house. I woke early, as temperatures are rising quickly in the pacific northwest, and I wanted the cool quiet of morning. The park that I walked to is fairly small but heavily wooded with cedars, maples and shade-growing berries. I took my first lap around the park at a walk-run-skip-walk, training my body back into endurance slowly, in a fun way. The second lap, I walked quietly, watching and listening.
I felt so beautiful to be part of that forest.
For the first time in days, that part of my mind -- the one that I try so hard to quiet, so hard to turn off -- the one that criticizes me, tells me I'm gaining weight, that I need a hair cut, that I need new clothes or new something, simply shut up. The part of me that tells me that I'm not doing it right and need to do more finally just turned off and all the sudden I wasn't doing anything wrong anymore because I wasn't doing, I was being.
I recently read an article interviewing Eckhart Tolle, in which he discusses the idea of masculine and feminine energies. He says that masculine energy relates more with doing and feminine energy relates more to being. He really says it best:
"The world is out of balance because it is focused primarily on the doing, and there is a loss of the awareness of being. This is when stress and negativity arise: when people try to get things done and they no longer are centered within that aware space of being. You cannot feel your being anymore; you cannot feel the consciousness behind all the doing. So many women these days have internalized the imbalance and are also out of touch with being more focused on doing." **
He suggests we find a balance between the ability to do and the ability to be. Just like the embracing yin yang symbol, there is a piece of the other within each: within the dark yang is a white dot, and within the white yin is a black dot. This is the ability to have stillness at the center of doing, and a dynamic quality of doing while being still (so that we don't fall asleep!).
I have been feeling out of balance lately because I've been focusing on doing too much without leaving time to cultivate just being. And I've noticed how I've felt guilty for wanting time to just be, because our culture still doesn't value it as much as doing. But I was reminded today of just how important time to be is -- it is what brings me back to my center and reminds of who I am as a spirit in a body, and just how beautiful the human process is.
**Full article here: http://spiritualityhealth.com/articles/eckhart-tolle-easier-path
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