I have had two weeks off writing these Letters to you, first a flu, then chest and then sinus infection, a cascade of things that brought me to my knees! The major win is the feeling of getting better, the clarity and gratitude that comes with that re-birthing feeling. I am often plagued by thoughts of ‘should be’ when I am sick. I should be writing, I should be so many things. Yet my commitment to you is that I write from the heart, and authentically. And when I don’t have the capacity, which happens a few times a year, I just pause.
It wasn’t always my strategy to be so gentle with myself. But I strongly feel the expectations for us in the modern world to ‘keep up’ are too extreme. I mean even as a meditation teacher you could burn yourself into the ground with communications alone – apps to load your teachings onto, programs to write, marketing to be done, social media content to be created and accounts to be managed. Let alone the actual teaching and sharing component. It’s become a sort of insanity.
So today on this beautiful Sunday, I ask of you – where can you be more kind and tender with yourself? What is being driven by expectation and want over actual need? How might you pull apart the intricate web of your conditioning and your biases and instead walk a slower, more gentle path with yourself. It’s not a race to the grave.
With love,
Jac x
I was listening the other day to a longer form lecture from Ram Dass, who has always been one of my favourite teachers for his wit, his ability to take everyone on his journey, course correct, admit fault, poke fun at himself and continue bravely.
(It’s available on Spotify under Audiobooks, and is about 90 minutes in length. It’s spoken in perfect Ram Dass style. I wish I could figure the link to put here but I’m just not that technologically savvy on my desktop computer! You will find a lot of other amazing gems there in Spotify too).
One of my favourite quotes of his that aligns deeply to an understanding of consciousness but also psychology and neuroscience is “As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can’t see how it is.”
And I thought for this Soul Care Sunday we might take a dive into this.
Essentially, the left hemisphere of the brain fills in the gaps and automates. Taking little pieces of information and layering in what it knows from the past. Prejudices, biases, conditioning, all plug their way into our thinking and experience of the world. The first step is to realise this. We literally can only see the world around us AS WE PERCEIVE IT, not as it is. It’s our brains algorithms. In the same way my husband and I open up Instagram to entirely different content, literally we could both open the same post at the same time stamp and the comments would be stacked in a completely different order based on our interaction with that app, we both see and experience the world completely differently.
This for example is why I find our fascination with ‘what is that persons morning routine’ or ‘how do they exactly live their life and i will try duplicate’ very funny. Once we can truly realise that we are a modulated version of consciousness expressing itself through a very specific set of factors – we can relax into that our ideas, our concepts, our ideas of right and wrong, and our entire experience of what we would call ‘reality’ is simply just ‘our reality’. One of billions of realities.
To quote Nisargadatta Maharaj, “Suffering is exclusively the result of attachment or resistance, it is a sign of lacking readiness to go on, to flow with life. In my world, nothing ever goes wrong. It is your restlessness that causes chaos”.
So how can we be less restless, more in flow, and eradicate our suffering? Begin to really analyse if what we know to be true, is in fact true. We can loosen the choke hold of our minds beliefs and narrative, and instead move into a Don’t Know Mindset (read the teachings of Seung Sahn and Kosho Uchiyama Roshi if this interests you!). We can on the daily challenge and watch and observe our minds obsession with being right, correct, justified. We can also move into the flow of our life with ‘and this moment, and this moment’ without moving too far into predictive thought cycles. Just the awareness that this is constantly taking place can be enough to shudder it from its tightly held position and invite in more expansion.
JULY 1st – 10th SILENT RETREAT – one space remaining
We have a very special opportunity for you to join us on a 10-day 9-night residential meditation retreat at The Pocket, Northern Rivers from 1st-10th July. This is a rare opportunity to gather as a collective, deepen meditation, self-inquiry and be nourished, and allow your nervous system to recalibrate and find the truth within each of us. We hosted this exact Retreat in December for 6 nights and 7 days and the testimonials are from the students that attended;
“The Still Point Retreat offers a real opportunity to watch and tune in to who you are without trimmings or distractions. If the depth of you really matters to you, take this on. The least you should do is turn up then Trust yourself, and don’t give up… It’s so worth it” Sheetal
“Still Point Retreat was “all the things”! Insightful, supportive, difficult, nourishing, intense, empty and full. I left with a new and lasting experience of the joy in my life, exactly as it unfolds, right now in each moment” Bella
“It was my first silent retreat and I could say I was able to embrace many hidden parts of myself I didn’t consciously realized they were playing out in my daily life.” Nico
We are hosting this retreat at the organic farm of Wybalena with a palm tree surrounded pool, infrared sauna, enormous gardens, kilometres of new walking tracks, and renovated rooms. This Retreat will be organised by us here at The Broad Place, and hosted by Mutribo. Please note that once the Retreat starts, any organisational roles of The Broad Place and Jac will be handed over to Mutribo, and this is not a traditional Broad Place Retreat.
Each full 8 days there will be three delicious vegetarian meals served, 5 meditation sittings spanning 60-90 minutes, as well as free time to walk, swim, and sauna each day. Mutribo will also be doing two talks daily to steady the meditators and inspire a deepening into oneself. The first and last day will be our book ends both with a meal, sharing of experiences, Q+A and further guidance.
“This silent retreat is a balm for the soul. ..A place to finally come to rest, to “be still and know that I am God” Alima
“In the noise and businesses of our modern lives it is a immense privilege to have the opportunity to Stop and spend some time with what is always there Present underneath it all witnessing silently. There I find the freedom and the love and peace that I seek. There I am at Home” Mitta
| SIGNPOSTS BACK HOME CONVERSATION SERIES So Mutribo and I have been steadily recording these talks. We were both concerned the format of my trying to channel the questions of students might get stale, so for the next two, as we then launch into our 10 Day Silent Retreat we are going to get more personal and I am going to sound out some personal experiences. A few of these talks are a gifted offering and then we fold them into our Portal Membership and then these Conversations will be available to all our Portal Members as a weekly offering as a part of your membership! The Portal Membership is a teaching resource where you can come and learn at your own pace including our Mindfit Meditation program, a multitude of courses and programs on self development and spirituality, that also includes our Live Monthly Talks that you can join me with each month where we explore themes and practices. It is truly an incredible resource and we have made it as financially accessible as we can – an investment the equivalent of a take out cup of coffee a week. You can join annually with a huge discount, or pay monthly, and the membership spans a year. |