Cultivating friendliness.
Here in Guernsey, we are in our second lockdown. It is different this time, more is known and certain. We know more about the virus and how to manage it, despite the new variants, and more about how life is lived in lockdown. We are also more certain that lockdown will last longer than we might have initially envisaged but that we will be free of it in the end.
Yet despite all this, lockdown and Covid, on some level, continue to highlight that we live in an uncertain world where all is not known. And despite knowing this and orientating myself more into the unknown and uncertain through my yoga practice, I have still been thrown off balance a little by the recent lockdown.
It’s not lockdown itself per se, although I do find spending 22 hours effectively indoors a touch challenging (and huge respect to those of you currently self-isolating and stuck inside for the best part of 24 hours a day), but just the fact that once again everything has been thrown on its head and there’s no way of knowing where it is all going…{I’m pretty sure they write about that in the children’s book, “I need a new bum”, fab book).
I noticed my tendencies when life free falls as it has done, my need to cling on to something certain, establish a routine, make life a little more known. I never appreciated the need for routine, yet now I see how it gives us a sense of security, of making us feel as if everything is OK, that we know what we are doing from moment to moment. Every day Eben wakes and asks me what we’re doing today, he needs to know, to make him feel OK about the day ahead.
I have also noticed my tendency around self-criticism, in contrast to my focus on cultivating friendliness to self! The home learning really brings this up. I have an idea in my head of what this should look like and of course the reality is very different. As much as I might try, formal learning is a bind to my eldest, he’s not interested, and while I have all these ideas about learning from play, the children end up fighting and I end up raising my voice more than I’d like. They also end up spending more time on electronics than I’d like.
There’s a quote I came across a few years ago that really says it all, “what screws us up the most in life is the picture in our heads of how life is supposed to be” (The Daily Guru)
It’s easy to have this idea in our heads of how lockdown should be, but the reality is that life lived 24/7 with family is at times beautiful and wonderful and at other times extremely fractious and tricky. I’m realising that we need to give ourselves a break. If ever there was a time for cultivating friendliness to self then it is now. The home learning will be what it will be, the yoga classes on Zoom will be what they will be, the moments of getting at the home, albeit in the rain, will be what they will be too.
Life goes on. We laugh and smile, we rage and cry. It’s all thrown there into the mix. There is nowhere to hide during lockdown, we have to face ourselves as we are, the escape routes are blocked unless we choose to drown our sorrows. So we have little choice really but to be compassionate, to know that we are doing our best, to forgive ourselves and let go of our notion of what it shouid look like, and just live it, every single chaotic, highly charged and joyful moment of it.
I realise that what i need most is purpose, to be in service to others. whatever that might look like, wearing a mask that you can’t breathe through properly, smiling even though others’s can’t see your smile because of said face mask, turning up to teach a yoga class online even if very few students join you, helping doing the shopping for friends and family in need, a text message here and there, and above all trying to stay positive.
I’ve also realised how careful we need to be about retaining our vibration and our positivity. It’s the silly things that can cause us to lose this, to diminish our light and out us on edge. For me it was watching too much TV! I don’t usually watch TV but this last month and certainly since lockdown there has been far too much TV. We’ve been watching Hinterland, which is dark and at times, traumatic and it doesn’t make me feel good, so I have had to stop watching it. It’s the silly things!
Yoga is essential for me, getting on my mat, moving, breathing, resting, chanting, reading the Sutras, talking with my teachers, keeping the energy high that way. There is hope when the light burns brightly, and comfort to be gained through spiritual community, able online.
This is a time of deep growth if we allow it. 2021 is about growing up, stepping up, taking greater responsibility, and lockdown is definitely encouraging us really pay attention, notice the ways that we get in our own way by the thoughts we keep and the escape routes we take to try to get away from what is happening in this exact moment. What could be more perfect than this exact moment? Perhaps its our relationship with the moment that also requires our friendliness, our acceptance rather than rejection.
Let’s see how week 2 of home learning goes, and more feral children desperate for their friends and a good run around! Good luck everyone, see you on the other side! Friendliness, let’s remember that! Friendliness to self, friendliness to others, and friendliness to this exact moment!
Love Emma x
