Taking A Break

Last Friday evening we had our blackberry festival here in our little town. Three blocks of the main street, the business section were closed to traffic and hundreds of people were frolicking; there were blackberry goodies in abundance to eat and drink and music and dancing. For a toddler it could be overwhelming. I watched a little girl waiting, while her parents chatted with friends. I could just imagine her saying, “OK, that’s it. I have to take a break!” She flopped down, arms outstretched, belly down in dead man’s pose right there on the road.  Soon after she lay down, a big, big, beautiful dog came up and gave her a sniff. Up she popped, all energized again in no time.

Sometimes on the spiritual healing journey, I am like that toddler on the road; got to take a break! There is a line from a Bob Marley song, “you running and you running away, but you can’t run away from yourself.” On the spiritual healing journey, there is no resolution to painful situations; no one to blame, nothing to hold on to, no place to hide. You just have to stay with it; the only way out is through. Our programmed reaction is to distract ourselves: eat something, buy something, watch TV etc. Blaming the stars, the government, your parents, is another way out. It is convenient to distract ourselves and find something or someone to blame, then we don’t have to look at our part in creating the situation and how we need to make change. Sometimes the situation is one that is not within our control and there is nothing we can do to fix things, no one to blame. We can’t move in any direction to make things right again. We’re stuck. It feels crappy, but staying right here is what we need to do. Anything else is running away, even going into the wilderness or an ashram. Staying with our situation, opening into our pain is what opens the heart. We experience our true nature. To experience the opening of the heart, we have to embrace the good times and the bad times, or what we label as good and bad.

photo credit: alicepopkorn

The spiritual healing journey can be exhausting and it is those times that we need to give ourselves a break. With the awareness of what it is you are doing, making healthy, nurturing choices to give yourself a rest is OK. Going to a noisy bar and watching people with empty looks in their eyes isn’t nurturing for me. Going out in nature, gardening, listening to classical music, taking an aroma-therapy bath, having a cup of tea with a friend, are ways I give myself a break. And like that little toddler on the road, it doesn’t take much nurturing to get energized and be on the road again.