Week 4: Winter 2021 40-Day Sadhana

We continue with Week 4, where we review the practices we’ve established over the past 3 weeks and turn our attention to service and connection with those around us.

Here’s how our meeting went and then invitations for the week.

Session Outline

1. Metta meditation. We began the session with metta meditation. This practice directs our attention towards the wellness of ourselves and those around us. While we were all silent and seated, I read aloud this metta prayer. (Thank you to Ericka Jones for sharing this simple version of the prayer many months ago).
2. Journal: Next we wrote for a few minutes to identify how we were feeling right in this moment. A way to practice identifying what is present in this exact moment- emotions, thoughts, words, ideas that arise. And then shared with the group.
3. 3 words. how are they showing up?
4. Asana reflection. Benefits, challenges/ resistance.
5. Service. What are some causes or people who we feel passionately called to serve?
6. Loving What Is. By practicing meditation and asana we bring more awareness to our habits, movements, thoughts, energy, etc. This helps us to identify how we are feeling in each moment, how we interact with others, to connect more and disconnect less. This exercise does just that- brings more awareness to the realm of relationships and interactions with the human world around us.

Description of Loving What Is exercise

This is an exercise that I have adapted from Byron Katie’s book: “Loving What Is”. The benefit for me is that it invites me to re-frame the way I am looking at a negative situation. I find that the exercise brings in gratitude and/ or a new perspective that lightens the situation, and in turn transforms my actions and interactions with others. (Often it takes days, weeks or months to see how the transformation or shift happens).

I highly recommend doing the following exercise after having read or listened to her book, or engaging in this exercise in a facilitated setting. However, here are the basics if you’d like to give it a shot!

To begin, make sure you have spent at least a few moments in meditation to ground and center.

Write a list or a few sentences to answer the question: “What is negatively impacting you the most in this moment?”

Then clarify those thoughts into one statement about a particular person or an organization or group of people. It should be phrased in the following manner: “______ (e.g. Simon) is doing _______ (e.g lying) to me.”

Then ask the following questions of your statement:

1. Is it true? (yes/ no)
2. Can you absolutely know that it is true? (yes/ no)
3. How do you react, what happens when you believe that thought? (emotions, images of past/ present/ future, how do you treat others when you are feeling this way)
4. Who or what would you be without this thought?

Finally, turn the thought around in the following ways (using the above example as a guide):

Original statement: “Simon is lying to me.”

Turn-arounds: “I am lying to me”; “I am lying to Simon”; “Simon is telling the truth”; “Simon is honest and is helping me”

Can you see how any of the above “turn-arounds” are true? Sit with this exercise and see if any other turn-arounds arise as you explore this process.

What are you discovering in doing this exercise?

Invitations for the week

Revisit your 3 Words daily. Keep them posted in a visible location.

Meditation. Do the practice that resonates and is doable for you. What is a way that you can continue to link this practice to something that you already do everyday so that it is more likely you can repeat this habit.

Asana- what would serve the physical body? Keep giving yourself time every day to explore and listen to the physical body.

Consider the the exercise “Loving What Is”. How can the re-phrased statements be true in your own life? Look out for how they might be true and notice any other statements that arise that you can apply the exercise to. What do you notice as you start to re-frame your statements about others.

What does service look like this week? Towards those directly around you and the wider community you might feel called to serve. Reflect on these questions and take small actions of service, as well as begin to articulate the wider mission or population you feel called towards.