Experience the Experience
Posted on 2nd May 2024 at 11:46
This year so far has been a tricky one, no straight path forward but do you know what? I’ve learnt many things from the bumps. I’ve gained so much from the unexpected corners turned, and discovered even more in what’s around them, who’s around them.
This week we reached Beltane, the midway point between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, a real sign of growth, a feeling of change, fresh energy and new life. Amongst the blooming flowers and fresh leaves showing a vibrant green there is a wealth of positivity for this time of year. I love feeling the sun but this past month I find myself slipping in to grasping at what I feel should be forward, yet it feels heavy. Today I decide to release the outcome… stand still and wait.
As I do, I’m reminded once more of the beautiful words of a song. ‘The way knows the way.’ Trusting this when I again don’t know which way to turn, I see as I look outside the window some of the trees haven’t yet got the green vibrancy of their neighbouring trees yet they still stand tall.
Do we ever really know which way we’re headed. Is the road ever continually straight? I think not. Aren’t we all on a vaguely unplanned route of sorts, nothing guaranteed, things change and that’s where the magic lies! The freedom found in the awareness as it gives you choice. Yes choice, not answers!
We all have a choice and endless experiences each day but we can miss many of them, unaware of what’s simply right here, not making choices at all just keeping up.
I’ve been asking myself many questions recently and bringing awareness to my own choices, my experiences and see now that some of the time when life feels a little harder, I miss moments down to my own choice to stay in what I once knew as a ‘safe’ template. These templates are now outdated. A new strength is present and I see now that there is always a different path if we step outside the comfort zone.
I had a wonderful week being involved once more in delivering Mindfulness training in the beautiful setting of St John’s College, Oxford. I was able to sink in to the present and experience the experience! While teaching also learning. During the week these templates were discussed, we all develop different templates to get through life but this template may not fit forever.
How do we breakdown these out dated templates?! We become still, we listen, trust and let go, the way knows the way.
I went skiing this week, hadn’t been on the slopes in over 20 years! My default template took hold, I had convinced myself I didn’t know how to ski, the voice in my head telling me something may go wrong, it went on for a while! I listened and observed to what was happening and then stepped back. I arrived and instead felt my body moving towards the door, in the building and over to collect my kit. Once ready I clicked my boots into the skis and I felt excited, the nerves now labelled something else. That familiar feeling in my feet and then the cold hit me. I was present. As I arrived at the top of the slope it came back, the freedom, the flow. The instructor told me to lean in to the boots, to trust myself. I felt the resistance once more; I simply noticed that, made a choice and then let go. As I moved down the slope, left to right I was fully in the experience. The freedom. Slowing down when I needed to. Those turns and slower routes bring so much along the way.
It’s all about the experience and how it makes you feel. If you go into your head once more it’s gone.
I now sit in Birmingham in a hotel by myself, this experience uncomfortable for many reasons and I just sit with this too. Why, because the only way out is through. Things take time, I am still, even the plants are blooming late this year, dead leaves still on the hedges, flowers waiting to bloom. But amidst it all growth happens, experiences present - feel it all. Let go of the outcome and fall in to that place inside where you are in the experience.
It’s not always pleasant, it’s not always easy but the wonderful experiences rise too and in each and every event something is gained if you’re aware of it, whatever that may be.
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