By I recently attended a course on Metta (Loving Kindness ) meditation by Jillian Pransky. It was a style of meditation that I was not very familiar and comfortable with. However the restorative and the meditative practices I learnt just opened my mind. I then listened to the podcast of her interview on the “One you feed” website by Eric Zimmer. The interview is about her book “Deep Listening”. I loved what I heard and related to it so much that I wanted to share it. In almost all meditation programs I have attended, “Letting go” was the constant theme. Let go emotions, let go anger, let go sorrow, let go your need to receive attention and so on. Deep down I always wondered if one could truly let go emotions, sorrows, or whatever it was that we are supposed to get rid of. At the same time most meditative practices also ask you to accept yourself – in my mind a contradiction of sorts. I am also guilty of propagating the concept of letting go in my classes. I also understand that Letting go can be accepting yourself.”
“Letting be ” resonates with me. I should accept who I am and not try to be someone I am not. That helps me work on what I need to sort out in myself. There is no need to transform oneself completely to find happiness. The key is in understanding what about you causes discomfort to self and others and gently moving things around in our mind so that it no longer causes as much distress. Basically being aware of the “Bad wolf ” in ourselves and learning to live with it.
Listen to the podcast for a more enlightening discussion and ideas on how to make peace with the part of our inner selves that causes dissonance. Happiness is not about being a perfect person but about finding our way back every time we stray away.
The embedded link will take you to the podcast. Here are some key points of the interview off the “One you feed” website(https://www.oneyoufeed.net/jillian-pransky/).
Some key takeaways –
- A summary of Jillian’s book, Deep Listening: A Healing Practice to Calm Your Body, Clear Your Mind and Open Your Heart
- Anxiety and depression is not a choice
- Learning to be with the bad wolf and befriending th bad wolf in you
- Not everything can be fixed
- Paying attention to our body and mind so that we’re aware of how we shut down and open up
- The tension in our body signifying the stress response
- Paying attention to the tension we find in our bodies
- “Doing Less”
- Allowing yourself to be supported even when you’re active
- A practice is more effective when you are regular even if you can devote only a little time – this can rewire us
- It is exhausting to be somewhere else mentally while being physically present elsewhere
- “The practice isn’t about learning how to stay here but learning how to come back”
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