The beauty of meditation is that it can help us find a little pause in the midst of the frenzy. Which is why, this May, I’m taking part in Mindful in May. To explain more about why I’m doing this, and why I’d love you to join me, here are some questions I answered for the founder of Mindful in May, Elise Bialylew.

What led you to meditation?

I was living and working in Afghanistan and suffering from stress, anxiety and depression. I didn’t want to give up the work I loved, so I decided to give meditation a try. After my first 21 days of a daily meditation practice, I knew I was onto something big. Meditation was changing my relationship with my own thoughts, and helping me find ways to remain open-hearted without being overwhelmed by the suffering around me.

What value has practicing meditation brought to your life?

It has helped me see that my true nature is compassionate, grounded, courageous and curious – and has given me the ability to return to that ‘home base’ when I find myself drifting away from it.

Maybe the most powerful insight my meditation has given me is that I don’t have to ‘make myself’ more compassionate, or calmer. I don’t have to fix myself.

Instead I can find my way back to the compassionate, grounded centre that already exists at the core of me. Somehow, seeing it that way transformed things for me – life was no longer about ‘improving’ myself, but rather about accepting myself and coming back to who I already was.

How has meditation supported you in your professional life?

I finished my last post with the observation that you’ve got to take even better care of yourself while you are in this place. And I promised to write more about that soon.

Now seems like soon enough. Right?

Here’s what I realised, as I walked around the Wellington south coast with my friend Tink last week: When life feels unclear, when new things are emerging; you need more energy, more rest and more clarity than usual. Which means -

You need to take even better care of yourself than usual.

It seems obvious, now that I’ve written it out like that. But in practice, I had been feeling like the way to get through the discomfort of the transition was by working – by mapping things out, researching, creating, connecting the dots and finding the way forward.

This is a lesson I seem to need to learn over and over and over again. The dance between allowing things to emerge and making things happen. It’s in my nature to want to make things happen. But life keeps teaching me that there are many things beyond my control.

I’m not saying I have no role to play. Because I do.

I’m not saying ‘leave it all in the hands of the Universe/God/the Goddess’ because that’s not how I think it works either.

What I see when I watch the lives of people all over the world – in Afghanistan, Timor-Leste and Gaza as well as in New Zealand, Australia and the USA – is that we each do have a role to play in creating a kinder, more just, safer world where everyone can flourish.

There is work for each of us to do.

And yet there will be times when there is little we can do right now. There will be times when we need to wait. Times when we need to let things ripen. Times when we need to rest ourselves.

There will be times when our role is shifting. When our children leave home and we find ourselves standing on the brink of a whole new phase in our lives, a new way to serve in the world. Times when one door closes behind us and we don’t yet know which door to go through, or perhaps we don’t even see any doors at all. Yet.

And in those times we need to take even better care of ourselves.

Why?

Because we need clarity. And we need courage. And we need compassion.

It takes all those things to hang out in the itchy-scratchy place of transition, and it takes conscious self-care to cultivate them. Self-care is going to look a little bit different for all of us, but here are some of the ways I’ve been taking better care of myself lately:

1. Getting more sleep
2. Closing ‘open loops’ on my to-do list
3. Clearing out my physical space
4. Walking
5. Yoga
6. Connecting
7. Less sugar, more quinoa

Your list is likely to look a bit different, but in case you are interested – here’s the ‘why’ for a few of those items.

Closing loops – leaving jobs undone, or avoiding difficult decisions or conversations makes me uncomfortable and right now I don’t need any more discomfort. So one at a time, little by little, I’m closing those open loops and claiming back the clarity and energy they have been leaching.

Clearing space – I’m sure I’m not the only person who finds a messy room or closet depressing, even overwhelming on a bad day. Clearing out my closet, storage space, drawers and book shelves clears space not only in my home but also in my mind. I’ve broken this job down into bite-sized chunks and I’m tackling one or two a week. Let me tell you, clearing out = an instant energy and clarity boost.

Connecting – when I spend time with my closest friends I get broadband-highspeed-downloads of clarity, compassion and courage. So this week I chose dinner with a friend over a night of work at the restaurant. I chose walks with a wise one over an extra couple of hours of work. And it made all the difference to my work when I came back to it. Connection may very well be the secret ingredient in this mix. Give it a try.

The rest are all pretty self-explanatory. Sleep. Walking. Yoga. Less sugar. More quinoa. This is how we cultivate clarity, connection, courage and compassion.

It doesn’t take a degree in self-care to know what we need, right? It just takes permission – from ourself first and foremost.

And in my case, it took a reminder that there are times in my life when my most important work is to care for myself, so that I am ready – well-oiled, well-rested, well-connected and well-equipped with clarity, compassion and courage – to do my work as it emerges.

“In your last email you talked about struggling to believe that you are enough without saving the world and ending suffering. I am really struggling with the same thing, but probably for different reasons. I used to “know” what the purpose of my life was and what made me worthwhile and loved, and it all had to do with my religion.

Having lost certainty, and perhaps faith, I feel like I have lost my foundation for believing I am loved. The loss has opened me up to more authentically loving people who believe differently from how I used to, but I feel like a certainty of being loved and worthy has nothing to rest on now.

I look at the suffering around me and in our world, and it overwhelms me-I feel like human purpose must have to do with lessening suffering of others, but I sense that when I move that direction now, it’s from fear and emptiness rather than from love.

So that’s a long way to ask you, as you are learning to believe that you are enough, and to let your advocacy come out of that place of worthiness, what’s your foundation? What does the knowledge that you are enough as you are come from? What helps you relax when you need to slow down and back off? I’d really love to hear more about this from you. “

I wrote back to her and said that I was certain, absolutely certain, that she was not the only person who wrestled with these issues (I’m certain because I wrestle with them too so there are at least the two of us) and asked how she would feel if I shared her message and my response here on the site. She thought that was a great idea. So here I am.

My short answer is: my foundations are love and grace.

The long answer is a very personal story I’ve never really shared in this space. These days I see my story very differently and I’m grateful for every aspect of it, but there was a time when it held so much shame for me I couldn’t have imagined writing about it in a public forum.

Like my friend, I was raised Christian. Although there were aspects of the church’s teachings I struggled with, I never had a problem with the teaching that God loved us all unconditionally. That it was by God’s grace, and not by our good works, that we were saved.

Grace is an extraordinary quality, it transcends worthiness, desserts, sufficiency. This was a teaching so profound and so beautiful that I’m not sure I ever truly grasped it as a child or young adult. But I intuitively grasped at it’s beauty and even as a small child, I often took refuge in it.

Yet, even as I sought refuge in the teaching that I didn’t need to earn God’s love, as I got older I often had difficulty believing it or truly experiencing it. Without wanting to point the finger at any of the spiritual teachers who had a hand in my early life, I have to say I was getting a mixed message.

On the one hand we were taught that God is love and that we need do nothing at all to earn God’s love: God will meet us exactly where we, are in love. God loves the sinner and the saint equally, we were taught. Which ought to have been a deeply reassuring teaching.

And it would have been. Were it not for the fact that at the same time – in less direct ways – we were also being taught that we needed to be better people to merit God’s love. Perhaps not to get God’s love, but to truly deserve it. I suspect this second lot of teachings were unintentional, quite possibly even unconscious. But I learned them well, all the same.

So by the time I got to my mid-twenties I was very busy trying to be a ‘good’ person. I studied really hard at law school and spent my Friday nights baby-sitting for a young widow at my church. When I fell for the son of the preacher, we did what ‘good’ kids did and got married (although not before torturing our youthful selves with great burdens of guilt over our clumsy explorations of our perfectly natural sexual desire).

When, just a few years later, our fledging marriage fell apart and we lacked the skills or the appropriate support to repair it, we fell into yet another pit of guilt. And this time we didn’t even have each other for company.

This was my first major life crisis. In one fell swoop I lost my lover, my best friend, my marriage, my faith, my sense of belonging in my church or my family, and my confidence that I was a good person (though that had always been a little shaky). The rug had very suddenly been pulled out from under my feet.

At the time it felt like the end of my world. I was lonely, confused and wracked with guilt and shame. And yet, even in the midst of the worst of that time there was a part of me that already recognised I had been liberated.

I hadn’t been liberated from the church, or from my religion (neither of which are inherently restrictive) but I had been liberated from my own believe that I could control the outcome of my life by being ‘good’.

Because I had been as good as I knew how to be. And still my marriage had failed. Still my life had fallen apart.

And so I started again.

I left my home country and set off on a solo adventure across Africa. Almost a year later I ended up in Jerusalem, where I found a new religion.

Jerusalem seems an appropriate place to find a new faith, though I found mine not in the churches, mosques or synagogues of the Holy City but at a military checkpoint.

I had met a Palestinian family and was staying with them in the Arab quarter of the Old City, a magical place filled with old stone houses, secret courtyards and the scents of fresh baked bread and spicy meat. One day the family invited me to accompany the patriarch, an elderly man who walked with the aid of a stick and spent most of his days sitting in the middle of the courtyard enjoying the loving attention of his many grandchildren, on a trip to Lake Galilee where the family had some land.

I agreed willingly.

As we passed from West into East Jerusalem we had to stop at a military checkpoint at which young soldiers ordered the grandfather out of the van, spoke to him harshly and forced him to squat on the side of the road while they searched the vehicle.

As I watched, and as I later observed many other moments in that city, I found my new religion. I became an evangelical human rights advocate. I might not ever be able to be a good enough girl for God, I reasoned, but I could surely earn my place on the planet by working for the rights of others.

And so began a decade of work in human rights which culminated in my work as a human rights officer with the United Nations Mission to Afghanistan. The full story of the second major crisis of my life is told in my book, but the very short version is that I learned that even when I gave everything I could to the cause of human rights I might fail to help anyone. Sometimes I might even do more harm than good.

It was a devastating realisation, in it’s own way just as devastating as the first time I lost faith. But again it liberated me.

Many years before I had learned that I couldn’t control the outcome of my life by being ‘good’. Now I learned that I couldn’t save the world, and often couldn’t even help the people I wanted most to help. I was being set free, yet again, from a view of the world that placed me in the role of ‘fixer’, a world in which I needed to earn my place by righting wrongs and redressing injustices.

Instead I found a strange and uncomfortable new place to sit – in the company of my own frailty, and the flawed beauty of all beings. I learned to breath, and sit and let my animal body soften and simply love what it loved and serve what it loved to serve. I learned to lean back, rather than push forward. And although I forget this as often as I remember it, what matters is that eventually I always remember.

And then I lean back again, into grace. The Amazing Grace that sounds so sweet and really can save a wretch like me. I lean back into the space of grace, in which I need save no-one to earn my place on this planet and in which I really, truly am enough.

And so I’ve come full circle, to the teaching of my childhood: to love and to grace.

These days I worry less about whether or not ‘God’ is the source of this unconditional love or whether it is simply our original nature, the default to which we return as we reconnect with our essential and original self.

What matters to me now is the lived experience of this amazing grace. Even when I forget it is there, it catches me. When my fingers tire of hanging on to the ledge of ‘what-makes-me-worthy’, when I finally let myself fall. It catches me.

More recently I discovered the writings of Susan Piver, meditation teacher and best-selling author of five books including The Wisdom of a Broken Heart. When I read Susan’s own words to describe herself and her work, I knew I had found a teacher and companion for my own journey towards a kinder life:

I believe in supreme gentleness, agenda-less curiosity, outrageous self-expression, and, most of all, that walking the path of kindness is the ultimate expression of intelligence. I believe in an open heart.

The power of kindness can give us the world we dream of living in. Much more than being “nice,” kindness is a skillful means of the highest order. To be truly kind, we have to be truly aware. We have to be able to see clearly. Then we can change the world.

Today, as so many people here in New Zealand are experiencing a sense of deep loss, confusion, sadness and despair, I’m grateful to have been able to talk with Susan about the wisdom of a broken heart, and the practices that can help us find openness, softness and stability in times of pain, uncertainty and confusion.

To listen to our conversation, click on this link: Interview with Susan Piver

To download the file, either right click or control click that link and select “Download Link Target” or the equivalent option in your browser. You will be able to save the file to your computer and, if like me you like to listen to podcasts while to walk, even put it on your iPod or mp3 player.

Near the end of our interview, Susan mentions that she will soon be offering meditation instruction online. I wish I had found something like that when I was in Afghanistan and highly recommend that you check it out. To learn more about Susan, her writings or her upcoming online meditation course, visit her website. I also highly recommend her blog, and you can also find her on Twitter (where she adds a little wisdom and kindness to many of my days) and Facebook.

I’ve been experimenting with saying yes more often and allowing my life to fill to the brim again.

I say ‘again’ because there was a time, before Afghanistan, when my life was full to the brim all the time. By ‘full’ I mean packed rather than abundant, although sometimes they are the same thing.

In the old days, before Afghanistan, I woke up at 6.00 am every day. I met my friend Wendie at 6.30 am and we went for a 10 kilometre run. Before breakfast. Every day.

It seemed quite normal at the time. So did 12 hour work days, every day, social engagements most nights and a weekend schedule that had me out of bed by 7.00 am even on Sundays.

I lost a boyfriend because of this. Sweet guy. Tall, dark, handsome. An architect. Totally ready to get married and have babies. But my schedule drove him CRAZY. All the poor guy wanted was a sleep-in. Instead we broke up.

Anyway, the lovely Bindu Wiles didn’t need to talk to me for more than ten minutes on our first Skype call before she said to me:

“You’re one of those Type-A people aren’t you?”

I had to laugh. Because I am. Obviously.

And yet.

Afghanistan taught me that there is no rush. Afghanistan taught me the profoundly transformative power of sitting still and doing nothing. Afghanistan taught me that I’m not in control of nearly as much as I think I am.

Afghanistan taught me to slow down, sit still and listen.

When I first got back to New Zealand I kept living at my new pace. I was a full-time student but I made time to walk up Mt Victoria every morning to see the sun rise. I made time for long afternoon strolls with my childhood friend Bronwyn who had just got back from Southern Lebanon and who understood, like no-one else in New Zealand, the grief and trauma I had carried home with me.

I made time for coffees with friends, for daily yoga classes and afternoon naps. I made time to write in my journal and to meditate. I made time to write my book.

Then I took a job with Oxfam. I was still studying and still writing my book. I had also started teaching yoga.

Suddenly my life was very full again. Very, very full in a way that people who have worked for humanitarian organisations will understand.

Initially I loved it. But eventually I realised that what was being squeezed out of my life were the things that mattered most to me. I was kicking ass at Oxfam but my book wasn’t getting written and my yoga classes were suffering.

So I left. It wasn’t an easy decision. I loved the job and the people I was working with. I cared deeply about the work we were doing. Oh yeah, and we were in the middle of a HUGE recession.

But here is what I realised: there were other people who could do my job at Oxfam, but only I could write my book.

So I left Oxfam and for six months I taught yoga and wrote my book.

Along the way the 30 days of yoga course was born. I had no plan for it. I didn’t even realise what I was creating, or what was being created, when I asked my students and readers if they wanted to join me in a 30 day yoga sadhana. But I guess it was one of those things that was ready to be born.

Along the way I also finished my manuscript and found an agent. Fulfilling the first step of a life-long dream.

Along the way I taught yoga to my neighbours and became best friends with a little girl who would play me piano and dance for me when I visited. I made time to walk on the beach in the morning. I made time to bake casseroles for friends with new babies. I made time to meet friends for coffee or meditation.

Then I ran out of money.

I panicked a little bit. Having no money is a fear of mine. So I sent emails to everyone I’d ever worked with saying that I was available for contracts.

They all wrote back saying “Yes please!”

I said yes to them all. Three different contracts. Human rights and international development contracts. This was my dream! To be able to work as an independent human rights consultant and still have time to teach yoga and write books.

I also announced another round of 30 days of yoga.

I launched a new Off the Mat course here in Wellington.

I took on some private coaching clients.

I agreed to help a struggling not-for-profit come up with a new strategic plan.

I agreed to create a Yoga for Writers practice for Bindu’s amazing 21.5.800 project

I promised my sweetheart that I would help him bring his new business to life.

All while still teaching my regular yoga classes. And re-writing my book for the third time.

It’s not as though I didn’t realise what I was doing. I could see that I was filling my life up right to the very edge of what I knew I was capable of doing, and then nudging it just a little past that edge.

I saw it as an experiment. Could I fill my life back up to the brim without getting caught up in my old rigidity? Could I bring my new sense of ease and trust into this swirling fullness? Is there different way to be ‘busy’?

Last night I discovered that one way to be busy is to melt into tears. One way to be busy is to let it all overwhelm you for a while, float around in the deep water for a bit. One way is to cope is to not cope for a while.

After I’d had a bit of a cry I went out to teach my regular Thursday night yoga class. It was a lovely, lovely class. We did the Yoga for Writers practice that I put together for the 21.5.800 project. My sweetheart came and picked me up so that I didn’t have to walk or take the bus home. I treated myself to Indian takeaways. I had a bath. I went to bed early. I slept like a log.

This morning I decided that making this ‘fullness’ into an experiment is brilliant. It means that I don’t feel bad if I fall over. If I get overwhelmed, I can just raise one eyebrow and say:

“Hmmm. Interesting, so if I try to all of this and I don’t do that for a few days, I fall over. But if I have a bath and a good sleep I find myself quite restored. Hmmm. Very Interesting Indeed.”

As Havi would say, I can make a note in the ‘Book of Me’. *Licks her finger and makes a note to ensure the bath, takeaways and ride home happen a few days before the melting into a pool of tears next time*

Or maybe not.

Because the part when I dissolved into tears really didn’t hurt anyone. It gave one of my dearest friends the chance to remind me that she accepts me as I am, even when I’m messy and sniffly and not-quite-on-top-of-things. It gave my sweetheart the chance to show me how much he loves me (enough to overcome his strong aversion to burning fossil fuels in order to pick me up). It gave my yoga students the chance to remind me of the healing power of practicing in community.

And in the Book of Me, that’s not a bad thing at all.

PS: For the coming 30 days I’ll be pouring lots of my energy into the 30 days of yoga course. So there will be less posts here, but I’m sure I’ll have as much as usual to say over at Twitter. See you there, if that’s your thing.

If you missed out on the 30 days course and want to be sure to get plenty of notice about the next one, join my mailing list. People on my mailing list are my ‘Business Class’ passengers. You’ll be ushered to the front of the queue when registrations for the next 30 days of yoga open.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love
the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now
written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which
cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the
point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will
then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into
the answer.”

            Rainer Maria Rilke ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ (1934)

I've read this quote so many times. In the past I've read it and aspired to love the questions, even while my heart and mind seemed determined to yearn after the answers. We live in a society that believes in solutions and that sees the questions not as a place to reside but as a barrier to get through as quickly as possible. Recently I rushed headlong towards a resolution to uncertainty. I leapt to embrace a solution despite the fact that it didn't fit.

I woke up the morning after this moment of decisiveness and felt out of sorts and out of place. I was not ready to live this answer. Instead I decided to keep company with the questions for a little longer. It was a wonderful relief.

At first I wondered whether this was the relief of avoidance. I wondered whether I had simply turned away from the hard questions and chosen to live in blissful, willful ignorance. I wondered how I would know the difference.

But as I sat in meditation one morning I realised that I already knew the difference between avoiding the question and keeping its company. As long as the questions were with me, as long as I was willing to sit with them and observe the feelings, thoughts and sensations that came up for me in their company, I was living the questions. 

Three weeks later I don't know if I am any closer to an answer. But in the meantime living with the questions has turned out to be a refreshing change. Now that I don't feel the terrible pressure of making a choice, I can relax and really pay attention.

Then I take a breath. Let it out. Take another. Let it out. I remember that working in war zones or in the wake of natural disasters is only one way to change the world. Writing a book is one way to change the world. Teaching yoga is one way to change the world. Uncovering my own voice, telling my own story, telling my own truth is one way to change the world. I also remember that I don’t have to change the world. I don’t even have to change me. So, I shed another layer. I let go of another set of the beliefs that have served me well in the past. I’m ready to release them and rest in the space they leave behind.

This week, following the full moon, the moon is waning and it is a good time for letting go. As part of this cleanse I’m not only letting go, at least for the month, of foods and drinks that don’t really nourish my body. I’m also taking a little time to notice what thoughts and beliefs I’m still carrying that don’t really nourish my soul.

So as you sit in silence for a few moments every day and as you take the time to prepare and consume nourishing food for your body, notice what else you might be ready to let go of this month.

For the rest of this week let yourself settle gently into the changes you have made to your eating and drinking practices. Notice if you are feeling differently. You may experience some symptoms of detoxification this week, especially if you were consuming caffeine, sugar and/or alcohol regularly before the cleanse. Some people experience headaches, in the past I’ve experienced some confusion/dizziness and also some weepiness. It all passes. Just notice it as it arises and see if you can be present and aware without attaching yourself to the sensation. Use your breath and the awareness of sensations in your body to ground yourself and simply notice what is going on, without judgement.

As you notice the sensations in your body, begin to think about how you want to move your body. This first week of the cleanse, depending what level of cleanse you are doing, you might feel some sensations of fatigue or even nausea. This might be a sign to ease back on any really vigorous exercise regime and focus on gentler, restorative practices like walking or gentle yoga. If you are feeling energetic then by all means, move it! If you don’t usually exercise then this week is a good time to start. Gentle, regular exercise will help manage any side-affects of the cleanse and will help increase the benefits of the cleanse as the weeks go on. 

Here are some great resources:

Kristen’s Raw

If you are aiming for either total or partial raw food for the cleanse then check out this great site, which I found when Kristen herself left a lovely comment here yesterday. She has fabulous recipes and general information and advice about the raw food lifestyle.

101 Cookbooks

A great site if you are planning to mix some healthy vegetarian/vegan cooked options into your cleanse. Today’s featured recipe is ‘Green Soup with Ginger’, yum!

Yoga Today

A great site where you can get free daily yoga practices on video, including this one which is the best place to start if you haven’t practiced yoga before and can’t make it along to a class.