Hey love ❤️

To pause. It seems so simple doesn't it. But responding instead of reacting is a practice, and an advanced one. To compassionately hold the tension, the discomfort, the reactivity.

It's a practice we have to keep coming back to so we become more adept at responding from our presence, rather than our wounds or our conditioning. To see it, notice it and then slip beneath it so there is more space and tenderness. Because we cannot feel and see each other when we are in our stories and our righteousness. The heart gets hidden beneath the thicket of separation.

Emily dropped me the sweetest voicenote today and, as is her tendency, it is full of wisdom, she reminds us of the importance “To feel into your tenderness before reacting or responding. Because I think sometimes reacting or responding gives this illusion of control of a situation and really, with these things, you can only do as much as what you can do. Offer what you can from what you have.”

Wise words. Thank you, Emily R.

But how? How do we become more skilful at pausing? At feeling into our tenderness first? For me, it is all about learning to sit in the space between thoughts, breaths, actions. In Body-Mind Centering this is called 'sitting in the synapse'. To simply receive the information without a motor response. In the Sufi's, this stillness is love. For the yogis, the space between is the Madhya. For mystics, non-dualists and Allen Ginsberg that space is nothing less than God. It's the space that can hold it all.

I offered from the synapse today. There was a lot of space in the 'class' and a lady - who had never been to class before - started to weep. I could see the pain on her face. It washed through her for a good ten minutes. At the end of the class she shared that a family member had recently passed and she hadn't had time to grieve. To be in a space where there was really nothing to do. No instructions, distractions or directions. Just permission to allow her experience to emerge - that created the conditions for her grief to be met. It is the space that she needed. It is the space that is the medicine. It is the space that allows us to soften. It is the space that can hold it all.

I am a devotee of space. It teaches me so much. And it is always there. Always. That sweet Beloved, Shiva space.

You'll find a version of today's practice in the Meditation Enclosure. It's a recording from the online Soma course and it will give you a taste of what we will be doing in Granada, if you are still hoping to come.

With love,

Collette

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