SURVIVAL!

- sometimes I feel like the man in Stevie Smith's poem - "not waving but drowning".  Too many small things in my life seem to be pushing me under, and the tide is too  strong for me to keep my head above water.  But somehow. something happens to buoy me up, and I survive to live another day.

Another writer, Sarah Ban Breathnach, in her book, "Romancing the Ordinary", suggests we should "jump into the deep end of each day".  I think, as a non-swimmer, I have always sat on the edge and cautiously dipped my toes in, trying it out, seeing what it is like, before I risk my all.

Well, for the last two months, I seem to have been doing just that - sitting on the edge of life and wondering how much I dare risk.  After all, I don't want to end up "not waving, but drowning".


Today, I am resuming my blog for you - and I hope you are still out there somewhere.  This week, I have been exploring "Mindfulness".  It is an ancient Buddhist practice, which we seem to have "borrowed" as part of our Meditation.  If I feel I am having difficulty in keeping my head above water in my daily life, what do I do?  I put aside things that are troubling me and I meditate.  I sit down with a straight back, and preferably not leaning against anything.  Then I give my attention to my breathing.  I say to myself the Sanscrit words "So Ham".  "So" as I breathe in and "Ham" as I breathe out.  As far as I am able to translate these words, they mean "I am that" - which expresses the linking together of my individual consciousness with the universal consciousness.

Doing that, steadily and with my full concentration, puts my personal worries out there and makes them universal.  That way I know I am not alone in finding solutions or remedies.  Why don't you try it?

I hope to be with you again next month, when I will take you a step further into "Mindfulness".

So that's all for now!

Om Shanti,

Brenda (Brain)    Contact details on the right hand side of this page.  Do get in touch.