Communal

The inward movement might not be the easiest but it’s where clarity lives. It’s where we arrive time and time again. It’s where alchemy happens.

Some days are hard. Our minds are foggy, we lose our clarity and energy. Everything is difficult. On these days, notice how we so quickly mistake those sensations and cues for low worth, for self criticism, blame and guilt. How quickly we go from point a to b. In the days we feel this way, it helps to use words like today is hard today I feel foggy and try to restrain from the self talk that can escalate to i can’t do anything, i’m a mess, etc. Allow yourself to create some space around it and start to recognize what is and what it isn’t. | Hula-hooping in South Melbourne (1957).

Often the advice or suggestion of let it go is served around a bit out of context and sometimes can be either confusing or seemly impossible. In the Buddhism practice, what it really means is let it be. Detachment is not forcing oneself to release something or to replace it with a fake positive thought or attitude. It’s simply to let it be, just as it is. No add ons, less stories around it. To make space, to broaden the perspective. An invitation for us to become more interested in our internal relationship to the thing we think we need to let go of. Do we cling to it? Do we push away from it? Do we feel confused by it? | art Ellie Wills

What I’m reading now: Consolations, David Whyte Human beings are always, and always will be, a frontier between what is known and what is not known. The acting of turning any part of the unknown into the known is simply an invitation for an equal measure of the unknown to flow in and reestablish that frontier: to reassert the far horizon of an individual life; to make us what we are - that is- a moving edge between what we know about ourselves and what we about to become. What we are actually about to become or are afraid of becoming always trumps and rules over what we think we are already.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this inner conflict we sustain throughout our lives of what should have been or what was and what will be. It seems that we get tangled by these two projections in an attempt to escape from what is here - an opening which, in fact, carries our whole experience, fully. We get distracted (or we strategically distract ourselves) because it might hurt to be here right now, because this here might not look like the here I want to be, because here isn’t finished yet and I just need to do one more thing for it to be/feel completed. Whatever it is that makes you leave this here, look at it and bring it closer to you. Let it open you up and ask questions so you can slowly relax into it.

Hand on heart is a tool for self soothing and self regulating, now known by research. For me it goes even beyond this, it’s a tool for self discovery and resilience. It’s an inner voice saying hey, I’m here. It’s okay. - This is Pina Bausch on one of her most memorable pieces Cáfe Müller.

What I’m reading: Rilke’s Book of Hours (Actually this one never leave my bedside) God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.... These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand.

How does it feel to be you? To live within your strengths and your shortcomings? To live between your fears and your certainties? To know what you know and what you don’t know? How does it feel to embody yourself? To let yourself be loose and be found?

Hi there. It's been a minute. Last year asked me presence and permission to what was the hardest transition of my life. To take care of a sick parent is definitely an invitation to stretch and hopefully to find some compassion, some presence, some understanding on the way so I had to make the space and time to be with it all. I'm slowly coming out of this period, as I said goodbye to my dad last October. I'll be forever grateful to have walked next to him all the way til the ...end of this chapter. I'm slowly finding my way back to this virtual space. I've updated the website and next month I'm launching a new class, on giving ourselves permission as I continue to see clients on a limited basis for private sessions as well as working internally with companies. I opened the option of mentoring for meditation teachers that are looking for more guidance. And now I have a whole resource page with free meditation, book recommendations, articles, playlists... I hope you enjoy it! May 2020 be a field of exploration and integration for all of us. x, mariana See more

Really honored to be part of @goop today, talking about shifting into fall and what I like to do when we get into a season of more introspection. Link in bio!