A Heart That Says Yes

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to talk about the importance of having a heart that says yes. So a spiritual teacher named Matt Kahn has this book entitled, Whatever Arises, Love That. And, you know, I haven't even read that book, but I never forgot reading that book title, Whatever Arises, Love That. When I read those words, it really struck a chord with me, because it seems to me that in four words, he summarized what it means to be totally open to life as it is, totally open to flowing with it and cooperating with it.

Aligning ourselves with the flow of life really is at the heart of what mindfulness is all about. Because like when you turn against the current in a flowing stream, when we move out of alignment with the flow of life, we start straight going against the current of what is. And we get tired and we get reactive. We lose our ability to be at one with our experience and move through it with grace. So part of our practice is to continuously see if we can stay aligned with what is.

Letting the flow of life unfold moment by moment and working with it rather than against it. So what are some of the ways that we pull ourselves out of alignment with life and go against the current? Well, the main way is through resistance, which is a kind of inner no to what is happening. We react to the things we don't like or didn't want with a sense of, you know, I don't like this. I don't want this. This shouldn't be happening.

A really simple example. I noticed this happening the other day when I was driving to my friend's house and the car in front of me was driving way slower than my preferred speed. You know? You may have experienced this yourself, right? I started to feel impatience and irritation arising. Tension came into my body, my jaw tightened and something in me felt like it just couldn't relax unless the situation changed to how I wanted it to be, faster. But then I caught myself and I took a deep breath and I realized that I was resisting what was happening in that moment.

So. In that moment, I was able to let go of my resistance, sit back in my seat, relax and enjoy the rest of my slow pace drive. Now this example is a fairly small thing, but this happens over and over again in our lives in small and big ways. We get caught in resistance to what is. Consequently, we cause ourselves a lot of irritation, frustration, stress, and suffering.

We often want things to be different because subconsciously we think that if we can just get what we want, we'll finally feel okay. But as long as we keep believing we need to control all the external events of our life in order to be at peace and be happy, we're always going to be struggling against the current and left waiting for it all to come together. So here's my invitation for today and ongoing. When you feel inner resistance arising, whether it's in the form of impatience, tension or irritation, negativity, or anger, see if you can just take a pause for a moment and ask yourself, what would it be like right now if I let my heart say yes to this? What if I moved with the flow of what's happening? What if I work with it? Aligning yourself to life, as it is allows you to then respond to the situation with wisdom, clarity, and kindness. So as always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us.

And now let's settle in for today's meditation.