Take a moment to create in your mind the image of a majestic mountain towering over the landscape around it. See it standing resolute against the ever-changing elements. This mountain, battered yet unyielding, represents an essential truth about ourselves: we possess an eternal constant within, capable of holding all of life’s experiences without becoming a victim to them.
How do we become better at embodying this essence, this immovable presence that is available to all of us? Today’s message draws from leading figures in the world of psychology and mental health, Bessel van der Kolk, Stephen Batchelor and Victor Frankl.
“Body awareness puts us in touch with our inner world, the landscape of our organism. Simply noticing our annoyance, nervousness, or anxiety immediately helps us shift our perspective and opens up new options other than our automatic, habitual reactions. Mindfulness puts us in touch with the transitory nature of our feelings and perceptions. When we pay focused attention to our bodily sensations, we can recognize the ebb and flow of our emotions and, with that, increase our control over them.” – Bessel van der Kolk
There’s a part of us that is an eternal constant, and then there are parts that we experience almost like the weather, an ebb and flow of emotions, thoughts and narratives that come and go on rotation.
Bessel van der Kolk speaks about how bringing our awareness to what our body is experiencing can open us up to the realization that we have the freedom to choose a different response to what we experience, rather than the old habitual reactions we’ve had in the past.
Being able to take a step back and look at what my body is experiencing, and even being able to describe to myself, “how does this feel in my body?”, means I am not being consumed by the annoyance, nervousness or anxiety. And if I am not being the anger but observing the anger, then what I am being is the eternal constant that can hold this all without being victim to it.
“Meditation is about embracing what is happening to this organism as it touches its environment in this moment.” – Stephen Batchelor
When you practice being the observer of what your body is experiencing, you find that you are not your thoughts, that you are the being beneath the thoughts. And the more you practice, the more you find access to that space that Victor Frankl speaks about – the freedom to choose a different response:
“In between stimulus and response there is a space. In this space lies our choice, and in this space lies our freedom.” – Victor Frankl
When we develop the ability to take a step back from constantly reacting to everything, then we discover that we have many more options available to us. This is freedom! No longer being a victim to our own past programming.
Mantras for uncovering your inner mountain:
- I am not my emotions; I am the observer of them.
- I observe my thoughts and emotions without judgment.
- In every moment, I have the space to choose my response.
- I am the immovable mountain, weathering life’s storms with unwavering presence.
Join us for today’s meditation journey and practice finding this immovable mountain in you!
– pierre –
Today’s LIVE meditation is: I am the mountain.