Fighting to arrive

This will take five minutes. If you can listen closely who knows what might happen? 

Slow down. Now stop everything else that you are doing. 

Turn off the distractions. Go on. We’ll wait. 

Are you here? With these words. 

Present? 

Don’t worry, in five minutes time, everything will still be where you left it.  

You can put it down just for a few minutes. 

Now breathe. 

Drop your shoulders. 

Rest your hands gently in your lap. 

Take a deep breath and relax your stomach as you exhale. 

Follow your next breath in. And follow it out. 

Relax your cheeks, your jaw, your feet. 

Be still. 

Breathe. 

Allow each breath to calm your body. To calm your mind. To draw you down, deeper into 

the creature of your heart. 

Now feel.

Sense the softening within you. 

Sense the wave of relief pushing at the edges, desperate to hold you. 

The friend you sense here is your tenderness. Your place of origin. Your being. 
Don’t be afraid of this part of you. Open yourself completely to this force living quietly within you. Your non-doing. Your essence.  

Surrender your resistance.  

You are safe here to fall into a deep state of rest found only within you, in this place. 

I too fight arriving here. I too resist quietening and becoming still.  

I too spend entire days and months avoiding my heart and the goodness that dwells purely within me. Why? Because I was convinced once, as each of us has been, that this here, this simple place we are sitting, was not enough. And that this place here will be hurt if exposed. That this place, this person here, must be preserved and protected for fear of being taken from us or harmed. 

In all of our preciousness, we have grown hard and distant so as to avoid facing the vulnerability of our being, of our experience. In all of our preciousness, we have left this place, this feeling heart, behind. 

We have forgotten to visit, to create space, to slow into body and natural rhythm for fear of being laid bare. Susceptible to being seen as we so naturally are. But I’m sure you can feel each fibre of you trembling. Each fibre of you coming into focus and feeling. 

Each softening you allow, breathing you more alive. 

This is the power of our tenderness. The power of our vulnerability. The power of our simplicity.  

It’s time to remember now. This place gives us breath. Opens cold and dark rooms. Brings light, brings heart, brings truth. Brings each human’s truth to the surface. 

If we could each remember to come down into the soft spot of this place more often, what a world there would be to behold. For in visiting this space we come into radical alignment with the divine. We quieten wars. We free each burden and pain. We become radiant in compassion and forgiveness. For here in this place, our natural well-spring of energy ignites our being into prolific function and force.  

You have fallen asleep and forgetful, with fearful illusions as the excuse. 

But this sensitive space of origin is where you come awake. From only hear can you sense and see clearly. Here you can meet the light reaching to guide you through your life. 

Be still and listen. 

Let the quiet truth swell within you. 

Let this tender place come out from hiding to breathe you and our world more alive. 

This place is in all of us. 

Thank you for those precious minutes…. 

—
Andrew.