☁️🌸 some closeups of coco’s new interior 🌸☁️
Aimee Nezhukumatathil, from “Baked Goods”, Lucky Fish (published in 2011)
One of the most helpful lessons I learned from my meditation praxis and listening to lectures is that emotions exist in the body, yet what we often get taught is to fix them in the mind. We get told to change our thought patterns, use affirmations or "just think positive" - which are all ideas with good intentions, but you can rarely think your way out of sadness. You can't use logic alone to transform your anger into something different.
You have to get your body on board. When you are scared, it's not enough to do the work inside of your head. You have to feel the fear where it is - in your body -, see where it sits and what it wants to tell you. You have to make room for it. Breathe deeply and calmly. Be still and listen. Watch it with loving awareness. When fear is sitting in my chest and tightening it, I lay a hand on my chest and allow it to soften, to become wide. I come to the safe present by following my breath - and with time and practice, the fear dissolves. It doesn't take a single thought, it doesn't take logic (because emotions know no logic). It takes being present in the here and now, in the physical body where life takes place. It takes being a non-judgmental watcher who allows feelings to come and go as waves come and go or the clouds. As everything passes - some things quicker than others. When we try to think our way out of emotions, we're getting ourselves stuck in concepts that aren't tangible. That's not where life takes place, that's not where emotions sit.
do not underestimate therapeutic powers of pride and prejudice 2005 dir. joe wright
stop glamorizing “the Grind” and start glamorizing whatever this is
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen was first published on the 28th of January 1813.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2005) movie adaptation directed by Joe Wright