In my own life, and when I work with clients, I am reminded of how helpful it can be to keep it simple.
Here is the simple recipe that seems to work best for me:
Simplicity. Keep it simple.
Ongoing. Make it part of daily life.
Comfortable. Find a way to do it so you’d want to do it forever.
And another principle that keeps it simple:
Reality. Use practices and guidelines that are aligned with reality, and helps you align more consciously with reality, with what already is.
When it’s simple, it’s…..
Easier to remember and do.
More attractive to actually do.
Easier to do when things feel more overwhelming and challenging.
Something I’d want to make part of my daily life.
Here are some practices that fits these guidelines for me:
Heart practices. Loving kindness. Ho’oponopono. Doing this towards me, others, parts of me and my experience, the world, life. (Other practices: Tonglen, holding satsang with parts of my experience.)
Head practices. Inquiry. Asking simple questions in everyday life. (Is it true this is too much? Is that image of the future the actual future? Does that sensation mean something terrible is going to happen?) Sometimes doing it in a more structured way, for instance using The Work or the Living Inquiries.
Belly practices. Feeling sensations, especially the apparently uncomfortable ones and contractions. Resting with them. Doing simple body-inclusive practices. Walk in nature.
General practices. Resting with what’s here, with my experience as it is. Notice. Allow. Notice they are already allowed. Notice all as awareness.
Most of these are quite simple. And how are they aligned with reality, or how do they help me more consciously align with reality? Other posts have addressed that question so I’ll only mention a few things briefly here.
Love and kindness feels good. It’s a relief. And it’s what we are, when we find ourselves as that which any experience happens within and as.
Inquiry helps us see what’s already here. It helps us see what’s more true than our initial beliefs. It helps us see images as images, words as words, and feel sensations as sensation. (Not jumbled together as they initially often are, creating the appearance that these images and words are solid and true.)
Feeling sensations, along with inquiry, helps us feel sensations as sensations. Initially, they may seem to mean something, perhaps even something scary. (Because images and words seem “stuck” on them.) Through feeling them, and perhaps asking some simple questions about them and the associated images and words, we can feel sensations as sensations. We recognize that they don’t inherently mean anything. We can rest with them, more as they are.
Resting with what’s here helps me shift from thinking to noticing. It helps me find myself as that which I already am. As that which any experience already happens within and as.