Navigating Life Transitions
Life is always in transition. According to the teachings of Buddha life is comparable to a river. Continuously flowing and impermanent; the river of one moment is not the same as the river of the next moment. Just like life, one day is not the same as the next even if some days do feel a bit groundhog-esque and each moment is different to the last and different to the next. The belief is that this sense of impermanence encourages a lack of attachment, of letting go.
Naturally though we rarely live like that, we do become attached to people, places, experiences, feelings, emotions - the good and the bad. We are often faced with events that challenge attachment, the desire for permanence, the need to hold onto what we know and understand. This could be the current Covid situation, changes to our relationships, jobs, health, finances. These events can be fiercely challenging and it’s easy to get caught up in intrusive thoughts which are rarely based in reality, and unfounded worries about what this transition means and where it is transitioning us to.
As we might expect, when we feel overwhelmed we lack clarity of thought and we lose connection to the part of us that can reason and be objective. When this happens our environment can feel unreliable and we can lose that sense of safety that it previously offered which we don’t always appreciate until it gets turned upside down.
As Buddha once said, ‘take refuge in the island of self’. This is our true home where we can find stability, strength, clarity and peace. Turning inward and finding these qualities takes time. Consider planting a seed, we don’t expect to wake up the next morning and see it flower without any care or attention. If we don’t nourish it with water and love it doesn’t flourish, the soil becomes dry, the leaves turn brown and the flowers wilt. We need to cultivate it daily to keep it at its optimum and when required we prune it, we cut off any dead flowers and leaves to give it space to re-flower and grow even stronger.
Same with our mind, it needs to be cultivated and all it asks of us is an unshakable belief that all we need is right here, inside us. We simply need to be open to exploring it. And when times are hard we prune, we nip the unhelpful thoughts in the bud, we let go of what no longer serves us and sometimes that might be a person or a job we’ve been meaning to leave for a while, the list is endless. When we prune we encourage more positive ways of thinking and new ways of handling relationships, jobs, our health and finances.
Understandably we may avoid turning inward because it means taking responsibility for ourselves, it means challenging those unhelpful thought patterns and behaviours and reworking them. This in itself can be a challenge but also incredibly empowering. If we hold onto that unshakable belief in ourselves we will notice brighter and more constructive thoughts emerge.
When we notice our external world becoming unsteady that is the time to focus on our internal world and work on what we can influence and how we manage what arises. Our response to our thoughts and emotions is what is important, not the actual thoughts and emotions which is where we often get stuck. The thing is, nobody else can do that for us except us and although we may seek guidance, ultimately the buck stops here.
Thich Nhat Hanh once said that all our teachings boil down to one thing, ‘I have arrived, I am home’. When it’s rough outside close the windows, close the doors and get your house in order. When the outside is unstable, seek peace inside. It’s about taking care of the present, releasing the past and not attaching to the future. It's about arriving home and taking refuge in the island of self. All of this develops over time if we allow ourselves to be open to the experience and recognise that it is a daily practice.
The first time I heard ‘take refuge in the island of self’ was the other day during a live meditation and it really resonated with me. We often look elsewhere for answers and to ‘make things better’ and don’t get me wrong, friends, family and outside support is invaluable and can often guide us down the right path. For example my job as a yoga therapist (in 2022!) would be to help guide and provide tools to help discover this internal sense of peace and acceptance enabling transitions through tough times to be self-managed.
Looking for answers? Often they are already there, they just need some gentle coaxing to surface. Do you know once I had quite a big decision to make, I knew in my heart I was going down the wrong path but I kept pushing in the direction I was going. I picked up a booked book (self help!) and the first page I turned to and the first line I read said, ‘If something doesn’t feel right don’t do it’. I made my decision right then and there to stop and re-navigate. That line has proved very useful in the ensuing years.
One way to cultivate the mind/body connection is the breath, the wondrous breath! When we pay attention to our breathing we can calm the mind and the nervous system which gives us space to think more clearly. When our emotions are high and our system is in a state of high alert our heart beats faster, our breath is quicker and we tend to breathe higher up in the chest. When we notice this happening, by bringing the breath lower down with a focus on elongating the exhale is a much more effective way of breathing. This taps into our parasympathetic system which communicates to our mind and body that we are moving into a more restful state.
Pause here for a moment, focus on your breathing, close your eyes and as you breathe in say, ‘I have arrived’ and as you breathe out, ‘I am home’. Keep returning to your true home, keep welcoming yourself in. Remind yourself that you can’t control what is yet to come but you can manage the present and when you feel like you’re losing yourself in your environment, come back to self, come home.