What do you surrender to... & what do you resist?

Here's this weeks video: Yoga For Surrender

Hello Beautiful Soul,
    
How are you? 
     Here we are again- meeting in this virtual world, co-creating this moment together - right now while the external world does its thing. 

    These past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about presence/ mindfulness/ the simple, powerful tool of embracing the present moment. 

   To the best of my (rather limited) ability I've been surrounding to this moment- no matter how different things may turn out then what I planned and no matter how hard things may seem out there in the world... or in here in my own mind. 

   I keep observing that resisting the way things are does not change them, but only brings stress to me.

 So why resist?! 

What happens if I just surrender and allow it all to be?-  All the beauty. All the pain. Just allowing everything to be as it is in this moment and then from this place I can choose (very carefully) what I wish to do and what I wish to focus on.  This has been soooooooo valuable throughout the past few weeks of the ups and downs that life is throwing us all right now.

"Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life."

-Eckhart Tolle

I've been making little practices of surrender throughout my day- things I have been surrendering are: needless stress, self-judgement, judgement of others, and clinging to how I think things should be. I've been doing my best to just let these things go when I've noticed them arise, just breathing them out and dropping them and moving on with my day feeling immediately lighter :)

And in their place there has been some room to surrender to the things that uplift me- I've been surrendering to hope, surrendering to love, surrendering to quietness and nature and surrendering to trust that everything is working out as part of a much bigger picture- and that it is all going to be ok.

I've been surrounding to the gaps in between my thoughts and observing that the thoughts are always driving me somewhere- but when I allow moments of mindfulness in my day I can get off the metaphorical bus for a moment, stretch my legs and let a little sunlight hit my skin!

So here is a short mindfulness meditation that you can play with right here and now.

1. Take three deep breaths with your eyes open

2. Notice any colours or shapes around you- what are your eyes most drawn to- allow yourself to focus on whatever this is for a few breaths

3. Notice any sounds around you- which sounds are you most drawn to- allow yourself to listen for a few breaths

4. Notice your physical body and then take this a stage further and notice how it feels inside your body- can you get a subtle sense of your own aliveness of the you-ness that is animating your physical form? The one who hears when you listen, the one who sees when you look.

5. Take as long as you like to simply feel this presence and aliveness and remember that you can come back to this place anytime you like.

Surrender to the now my friends, it is here that our true strength lies.

Here's this weeks video: Yoga For Surrender Its a short 7 min practice to relax and rejuvenate you.

Sending you much love as we head into another strange ol' week of life on planet Earth!

Namaste,

:) s