Hello, loves.
Welcome to A Few Moments of Mindfulness.
I’m here to guide you and remind you that practicing mindfulness for only 5 to 15 minutes a day, every day, can change your life.
Today, I want to share a story about sticking with discomfort.
As I sat on a red and yellow meditation cushion, in a large room with 20 other people, I noticed an itch on my foot.
Normally, when we have an itch, we scratch it. If we can’t scratch it immediately, we grow uncomfortable, almost instantaneously. Have you ever seen people run their backs up and down the corner of a wall, desperate to reach that itch they cannot reach with their hands? It doesn’t take long for an itch to drive us to anxiety or rage.
But in that moment, I decided to not scratch my itch.
I could have reached down with my left hand, pushed it into my sock, and relieved that annoying itch right away. No one says you have to sit ramrod straight and don’t move in meditation. That’s too much attention. That’s paying attention to a should. Move if you must. Just pause to make sure you must.
That morning, one of our Buddhist teachers had given a talk about discomfort. Why do we jump to make sure we’re not uncomfortable? Why do we seek comfort, constantly? Had we ever endured a hard time and come out the other side more clear? Had we ever learned something that was hard at first, but with practice we could feel good at something new?
Why do we rush to comfort and ease, immediately?
Every human does it. It’s truly human nature.
But what could happen if we overcame the need to feel comfortable, even numb, all the time?
We could become warriors of tenderness.
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