Your Cloak of Tenderness: A touch of comfort for challenging times

A dear friend and current student asked the question, "How can I remember who I am?". 

The question really hit home because it’s a question I have asked myself for years beyond counting. In fact, much of my personal work, both spiritually and psychologically, is focused on being able to remember who I am -- Most especially when I have strayed into old habits of heart and mind. 

That’s when our personal practices step in. For me, noticing that I am living an old script is a call to pause, pay attention and invoke the witness-self that mindfulness helps us develop. Any number of meditation teachers will offer the instruction, “when you notice that your mind has strayed very gently, bring yourself back [to the breath].” This instruction is deceptively simple because it is so hard to do. My mind screams out, “If I can’t remember who I am, how the *explicative, explicative* am I going to remember to bring myself back!”

 

And that is where daily practice comes in. Moan, groan…..

 

We all have little strategies throughout our days that bring us back. Perhaps for you, it’s taking that extra 3 minutes in the washroom. Or waking up 15 minutes early to sit with your cuppa. Or taking the dog for a walk in the fresh dawn air, or at dusk. Perhaps you remember to plant your feet on the ground and maybe even to take an extra breath or two, giving your mind the opportunity to anchor itself in present time. Perhaps its some technique you picked up at a class or training that appears in the landscape of your mind.

There are as many ways to bring yourself back as there are wanderers to gather in. Whatever your choice of anchor, the important part is that you use it. As soon as you recognize that you have wandered.

 

For many of us, there is a tendency to be hard on ourselves when we notice that we have wandered off chasing down some story lodged in the dim recesses of our minds. The challenge becomes not only returning to the Now, but doing it gently.

 

With this in mind, I offer to you the possibility of creating a Cloak of Tenderness. I am not sure where or when this piece of work entered my mind and my life. Perhaps someone led me through it long ago. Perhaps I made it up. I have been using it for so long I just don’t remember its origin. But here it is. 

Cloak of Tenderness Guided Meditation (YouTube) 

May it be helpful…..