This week in the United States was the celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday, traditionally a feast featuring turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. At least, that’s the tradition that my family had as we were growing up and it has evolved into a similar tradition with my husband’s side of the family over the past 20 years. Some of the dishes and faces have changed, but its essence of connecting, savoring, and slowing down has pretty much remained the same. And given the events of the past couple of weeks as I wrote about in last weeks blog (click here if you missed it), with a mass shooting and tragic wildfires in California, it feels as though this Thanksgiving may offer some much-needed space to become radically present and deeply grateful.
Each Thanksgiving holiday I’ve been inspired to write about gratitude, and this year, I’m taking a slightly different approach to practice gratitude in action– kindness. It feels like an infusion of global kindness could benefit so many people suffering worldwide and I know that any time I feel the tug of my own suffering, the first place I need to retreat is within my own heart.
As with many aspects of our yoga practice, kindness begins within. As we fill up our internal kindness well, we can then spill it out of ourselves and direct it towards others. As the saying goes, if we wish for peace in the world, we ourselves must be peaceful. So if we wish to see kindness in the world, we ourselves must be kind. It’s a challenge, as dwelling within everyone lives our loudest and most obnoxious critic. Our self-talk can ring deafening decibels, so much so, that we wouldn’t dare speak with a friend the way we speak to ourselves. Cleaning up our internal dialogue and offering loving-kindness is a necessary first step if we wish to expand it beyond our own hearts.
The meditation practice of loving-kindness has the process of offering affirming statements, beginning with “May I…”. As Sharon Salzberg teaches, this practice of “May I be safe, happy, healthy, and live with ease” are phrases we repeat for several weeks before moving the statements away from ourselves and toward others. Once again, we begin within.
Related to this is the first Yama of the eight-faceted path of yoga as written in the Sutras of Patanjali is “Ahimsa”, often translated as non-violence or compassion. As we study the sutra it relates to increasing our awareness of not only being non-violent to others, but also to ourselves. We examine what choices we make on a daily basis and see if they serve us in a positive way, supporting us in becoming the best version of who we are. The questions I’ve been asking people in class this week are: How do you treat your physical body with kindness? Are you nourishing, moving, and resting your body from a place of self-love? Is your self-talk coming from a place of compassion? Are you treating Mother Earth with kindness and what does that look like?
We know that awareness is key to making any changes that align us with how we wish to be living, and I hope this week, you are treating yourself and others from the place of your kind heart. I am grateful to be of service to all of you and wish you a holiday season overfilled with kindness and compassion.
