Dear Friends,
The theme of this week’s session is Allowing and Letting Be. – Relating more consciously to unpleasant and pleasant feelings and sensations and allowing things to be just as they are.

Allowing and Letting Be

Noting the correct interpretation of Allowing and Letting be ( as I understand it and have experienced it):
1. You acknowledge the difficulty by greeting the thoughts, video, pictures and voice(s) in your mind “Hello there, welcome” (Be the guesthouse)
2. Then you put them in a box on the kitchen table/workbench, “you stay over there for now, please”
3. Now you do the real work: turn your focus on to your body sensations. The racing heart, dry mouth, knot in your stomach, tightness in chest, clenched jaw/fists, frowning, tears, etc. move up close, as close as you can.
4. Focus with real kindness. Put your hand on where the sensations can be felt the most, rest your chin in the other hand, supporting your head, and offer your body warmth, love and forgiveness.
5. Breathe into the area of intensity, breathe with and release the tension. Open and soften. Truly feel the tension go.
6. Metaphorically put your arm around your shoulder and let yourself know that you are here for you, looking after you “I am here for me”
7. Release all the tightness, tension and brazing. Let go completely.
8. Now you are teaching the mind a new way of being with difficulty.
9. Stay like this until the intensity diminishes or for as long as you can. Anchor point when you need to steady yourself.
10. Repeat the process until you can face the difficulty head on and can say “ ok, show me what you got, let me have it, let me feel it” and there is very little intensity and brazing.
11. You will notice that it does not take many times for the sensations to diminish for each difficulty. Already on the second go, there is much less.
12. Over time and many practices, you will adopt this way of greeting adversity and now you are less affected by life’s difficult turns. Becoming less reactive, more open and forgiving. You are able to stay calm in the midst of difficulty and make better decisions. Acting rather than reacting.
13. You also use this process/technique/skill to make peace with events in the past (skeletons in the cupboard) and worries about the future.
14. Once you have the technique/skill you will find that you automatically do (some of) it when faced with difficulty in the moment.

Caveat:

Note that for some difficult events, trauma, bereavement, etc. going into the body may not be the best option/overwhelming and you will feel this straight away. For these difficulties there are other ways to diffuse and deal with the difficulty, not part of this course and mostly done with a trained therapist. Only you know your own limits for any particular difficulty and can decide what you need, to best look after yourself.
Noting that if you find that you do not feel much or find it difficult to bring to mind something difficult, broaden your memory to times in the past where you may have found things difficult. Something in your youth perhaps and think back on how it felt and notice if this brings back a body sensation to work with. At all times being mindful of taking care, only doing what feels right.

We learned that this is a powerful way of preventing the reactivity that often adds ‘optional’ (second arrow – lesson 4) suffering to the normal unavoidable difficulties and discomforts of life, and attachment to positive experiences that can lead to compulsive behaviour.

We disempower this reactivity by holding it in compassionate, mindful, awareness and intentionally practising “allowing” and “letting things be, by relaxing the muscles and smiling” the body sensations just as they are, without judging ourselves, or our experience, or using up our energy by trying impulsively to make things different.

The home practise for Week 5

introduces sitting with difficulty and random acts of kindness plus extra guidance for the 3-step breathing space, to cultivate these skills. So, for this week:
– Read the Manual
– Sitting Practice audio on days 1,3,5.
– Working with Difficulty audio on days 2,4,6.
– 3-Step Breathing Space Compassionate whenever you notice you are having difficulty staying present/ feeling stressed/ or thrown off balance and use the extra guidance we discussed in class
– 3-Step Breathing Space x 3 at Regular times throughout the day. Just make it part of what you do in a day
– Random acts of Kindness – read the guidance in your manual and try to include more acts of kindness and compassion each day, noticing the effects on your body sensations, thoughts and mood just after you do these. Note that you don’t actually have to feel kind in order to act in a kind way… and to get the benefits!
– Watch a short video with information about random acts of kindness from the BBC

– Watch a short video from an experiment showing the impact of giving.

Continuing practices – maintaining as part of everyday living

– Daily Walking practice / Experiences Calender / 50:50 / 10-finger Gratitude/Appreciation

Do remember that most of the practices are things that you do anyway. The ‘extra’ required is only that you bring awareness to them as you do them – becoming more mindful in everyday life.

As always, please remember that if, for any reason, you miss a practice, then it is perfectly fine to start again with the next practice. Every moment and every day is a new opportunity to notice and develop your mindfulness. Be kind to yourself and allow things to be just as they are right now. Treat yourself honourably and with compassion.

I am also providing a link to one of the early videos showing how Jon Kabat-Zinn started with his work on MBSR – a wonderful watch.

With warmth and care,
Per Norrgren