Jeff Foster
Stop. Whatever is happening in the circumstances of your life, stop. Just for a moment.
Gently begin to acknowledge what is HERE, in this moment.
Come out of your conclusions about life, your ideas about the past and future, and begin to notice the sensations, feelings, thoughts that are present, right here and right now. Notice what is ALIVE here. Let your present experience - sights and sounds and smells - become totally fascinating, the most curious dance in all the universe. You are seeing, tasting, touching, hearing the world as if for the first time. This is your Garden of Eden.
Notice how thought is always giving names and labels to things. A car, a tree, a foot. It even labels what you are feeling - "sadness", "anger", "fear", "disappointment", "expectation" and so on. And then judges it as good or bad, right or wrong. Is the feeling the word? Is the judgement the feeling? Try the following today as an experiment:
Instead of calling it 'sadness', drop that label for a moment, and sink deeply into the raw sensation in the body. Feel deeply the sensation in the stomach, the chest, the back of the head. Assume that you don't even know that it's sadness yet. Allow that unnamed life energy to dance and move freely in the sacred space that you are.
Instead of calling it 'anger', drop that heavy and loaded word, and directly contact the intense raw sensation in the belly, chest, throat. Feel directly the intensity of it. Feel the sheer aliveness of it. You are alive! You are alive! Allow life to move without blockage. Notice that these waves of energy are already allowed, without you having to allow them. They are allowed because they are LIFE, and all life is sacred.
Instead of calling it 'fear' - or 'boredom' or 'frustration' or 'powerlessness' - drop that second-hand conclusion, and directly contact the raw, first-hand sensation in the body. Is this energy really against you? Allow it to burn, fizzle, prickle, dance, move, as if for the first time. You have never met this energy before. It is fresh in this moment. It is really a threat to life? Is it really blocking anything, except an IDEA of how this moment should be? Is it really the enemy?
What is sadness, when it is not named? What is anger, when we no longer call it 'anger'? What is fear, prior to the word 'fear'?
What happens when we profoundly contact these life energies without the protection of words and history?
What happens when we stand naked in front of life, and stop pretending to know?
What happens in just a moment of unconditional acceptance, no matter what is going on in the story our lives?
Every moment is an invitation to stop, acknowledge, and deeply allow all of life to move.
Jeff Foster, March 2013
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