Breathe and No Effort . . .

there is room, yes.
 
stop living in your smallest self.
that's not who you are, always tight, pushing against
the limits of your poor little shell.
it takes no effort to see, really see, from here.
and you - salt and spark,
you step easily into greater heights
when you remember
there is room.    

​– Rebecca Cecchini, Wisconsin poet and project poet for The Red Thread book (every project should have a poet) 


“You know how robins run about eight inches, then stop, cock their heads, and look and listen? If nourishment is there, they find it. My soul offers continual guidance and sustenance, if only I will stop and listen, often.  Parker J. Palmer.
 
Try This: 15 Golden Minutes
We can start small. In fact it is best to start small. Many writing clients worry about not having any time to be creative, to write, to play their instrument, let alone be quiet and listen to themselves. Yet they are aware of this need to tend to self, to engage in things that truly feed them, that replenish themselves. Here is what I do and what I recommend any one who has lost this in their life. Identify 15 golden minutes where you will rest and listen, where you will write on your novel, or attend to that one creative, nurturing act that is for you. Fifteen golden minutes to journal. Fifteen golden minutes to be outside in the elements. 15 golden minutes to play on your instrument. Don’t commit to any more time than this – but do commit to this. Identify the time during the day you will give yourself these 15 golden minutes, whether it be something you commit to every morning or is part of your monthly calendar. You can though, choose a time that could segue into 30 minutes or more. When you pick your 15 golden minutes see if you can choose a time that could become more golden time for such nourishment.  


And try this:  Breathing and No Effort
“I get so angry every time you say that to us!” a client said to me during a session. She was also in my Red Thread circle at the time, where I offered this basic suggestion: to breathe and no effort. She was actually working on not feeling so responsible to everyone and everything. She was overwhelmed and tired.

“What do you mean,” I asked.

“Breathe into no effort, really pisses me off.”

“It’s breathe and no effort”, I said.
 
We both got a good laugh from that! For the whole intention of breathe and no effort is to let go of pushing and shoving our way through our life and instead, let go, breathe, let your natural way of being emerge. This allows for a gap in our doing and thinking, for small gaps of solitude through breath and effortlessness. Like the Robin, just breathing and noticing. This state of “just being” gives us a way to accomplish all we want. Every lesson we want to learn, every line we want to write, every idea we are studying, every spiritual practice and encounter can be approached with just breathe! and no effort (no force), just presence and engagement.

Breathe, let go. . .  listen.

Find that worm.

Breathing and No Effort, Stewart Lake, 2020