There comes a moment in life that tests you. A moment where your worst fears come true. A moment when all of your practice, all of your training, slaps you in the face at a moments notice and tests to see if you’re ready.
It’s often a moment we’re not ready for. A moment we weren’t expecting.
And such is life.
Meditation and mindfulness are easy when you’re in the safety of your home meditating to headspace. But none of that matters if you crumble under the pressures of the realities of life. None of that matters if you collapse when suffering comes unexpectedly, and takes a long time to pass.
How do we react when the the true hardships of life come unexpectedly? How do we react to injury, illness, disease, or at the worst, death of a loved one?
These are the moments when all of your practice, all of your training, matter most.
When everything goes to shit, can you remain non-reactive, can you accept the moment as it is, rather than as you want it to be?
Mindfulness, yoga, meditation are easy to intellectualize and practice, but how easy is it to remain mindful after your doctor diagnosed you with cancer? How easy is it to watch your breath after you find out that a loved one has died? How easy is it to remain ‘aware’ of your feelings when your worst fears have come true?
The practice matters most in the moments when life feeds you a shit sandwich. The moments that happen unexpectedly, unprovoked, without reason. Where life has no method to it’s madness.
I don’t have a solution here. I don’t have an answer. My only recommendation is to take your practice seriously and work hard. Do it as preparation so that when life bitch slaps you in the face with the inevitable hardships that WILL COME, you embody the teachings your practice has instilled within you.
In today’s world where meditation is now trendy, be weary of the trap of relaxation. Don’t look at your practice as another pleasure seeking activity. Train for hardship and suffering, so that when it inevitably arises, you are ready to handle whatever life throws your way.
It’s one thing to meditate. It’s another thing to train. Train for the worst, because it will arise, and when it does, you can beat that motherfucker down with a baseball bat of mindfulness and non-reactivity…in the most gentle way possible 😃
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