Midweek Pause: An Experiment

© 2015 Margaret Adie

“We can begin anything we do—start our day, eat a meal, or walk into a meeting—with the intention to be open, flexible, and kind. Then we can proceed with an inquisitive attitude. As my teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche used to say, “Live your life as an experiment.” 

At the end of the activity, whether we feel we have succeeded or failed in our intention, we seal the act by thinking of others, of those who are succeeding and failing all over the world. We wish that anything we learned in our experiment could also benefit them.”

—Pema Chödrön

CONSIDER: the importance of being open, flexible and kind to yourself. What a novel idea! Sounds fairly simple in theory right? It certainly is more difficult on some days than others especially when everything is coming at us too quickly or feels like too much. Just taking a pause, giving ourselves a well deserved timeout provides the opportunity to open up some space and be ok with not meeting that deadline, bumping a car in the parking lot or forgetting what your really needed for the “perfect” meal at the store.

DO: take time today, step out of whatever activity is causing you to judge yourself, take some cleansing breaths and allow a glimmer of flexibility and kindness to flow. Along with that, acknowledge all who surround you who are having successes and failures throughout their day, just like you, and send them your blessing.