This past weekend was full of special, beautiful moments, some mundane ones, and a few really annoying moments. Interestingly, I noticed that because I had some really special moments, the frustrating moments were MORE frustrating. It seems that when partnered right alongside something wonderful, it is even harder than normal to deal with the difficult moments. It sends us into a daily, tumultuous tailspin of emotion –

Today, we are talking about the PRACTICE of opening to an everyday, ordinary Grace, and a large part of this practice is how we relate to stress. For most of us, the natural assumption is that stress is a bad thing. That it is in the way of our joy, and that we need things to be different if we are to open to Grace.

I’m not a Zen meditation practitioner, but I’m intrigued by the practice of Zen Koans. A koan is a question or a story that upon reflecting on it, causes the student to awaken. Hearing the right question at the right moment. Seeing the sunrise on this particular day…. Any of thousands of mundane moments can be the catalyst for awakening to the grace and beauty of our everyday lives. This month’s meditation series is about exactly this – Ordinary Grace.

This series has been a walk on the path towards TRUST. We started out {part 1} acknowledging our Intention/s. The things/pieces/ideas that call us to search, to listen, and to practice. Then we moved to Attention {part 2}.

I have received so much feedback on this series so far, and I am so glad it’s resonate for so many of you! In this series, we are moving away from shame/doubt/questioning and into T R U S T.

I recently heard someone express that Trust is the antithesis of shame. Trust is asking us to believe that the moment is complete rather than believing we are flawed and unworthy of acceptance. Trust is asking us to set aside our negativity bias – the subconscious assumption that this moment is a problem and needs to be fixed – and instead to stay present.

Our August meditation series has been based on how we connect our meditation practice to our real life. Deeper Connection is about connecting the stillness and reflection of meditation into the on-the-go, action of our day-to-day lives. As we talked about the last few weeks, this connection begins with Deep Listening, followed by Deep Speaking, and today, in our final installment of this series, we look at Deep Questioning.

When is the last time you said, “I don’t know much about that issue. Tell me more about your thoughts on it?”