Elements of Ecstatic Experience
Dear Friends,
This morning, while doing yoga on the balcony, with ocean and sky stretching out beside me, the sunlight and I were breathing each other in. Music was playing, and as my habitually tight places were softening and opening, waves of bliss moved through me. And for that, I felt so grateful and so lucky!
For all the elements to be there to facilitate an ecstatic experience is truly a blessing. And yet, maybe the elements are always there. Whatever is needed to calm the constant commentator, to open the energy pathways in the body, to drop into the heart and take in the beauty around us—maybe it’s never not here.
But even if that’s true, it doesn’t mean those elements are easy to access. Still, I deeply believe that finding our blocks and learning ways to get around them or (even better) dissolve them is possible . . . and definitely worth the committed effort that it takes.
So, if it interests you, here are some ways to try!
Calming the Mind
Yes, soothing fearful thoughts and quieting angry inner talk can be really hard. But it becomes easier as we learn to listen with patience and compassion to the feelings behind what those voices are trying to tell us. Often, once really heard, that part can finally let go. And then, we can listen for the silence behind all the noise (inner and outer) and rest there.
Opening the Body
Conscious breathing and embodied movement open the pathways in us that release tensions and enhance the flow of life-force. Breath and movement also release good-feeling chemicals in the brain and body. The effective ingredients in an antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication are fashioned after a chemicals that are made by our own nervous system. So we really can, as Wim Hof says, “Get high on our own supply!”
Drop into the Heart
Step 1) Find the heart center (heart chakra) deep in the chest and “sit down” inside it and breathe right there. Then take several long, deep inhales through the nose with long, relaxed exhales out the mouth. Inhale to go deep, exhale to empty.
Step 2) Think of something you’re thankful for, something or someone who is easy to love. Find that feeling in your chest—it may be big or very small, doesn’t matter—and stay gently present with it. Where attention goes, prana flows . . . and the love grows.
Finding Beauty
I delight in art museums, forests, cathedrals and newborn babies. But those aren’t always at hand! I’ve found that if I look around me with soft eyes, with a wide gaze, there’s beauty to be seen. Maybe it’s a painting my mom did or the way light is resting on the round wooden coffee table that came from my grandparents’ house. Or my sweetheart’s saxophone and the sheet music on its stand. Sometimes for me and maybe for you the gift of beauty is received more easily through our ears. Or through skin. Or from the scents that travel from the kitchen or the garden or from the sweaty, summery heads of children at play in the sun.
Beauty is that in the presence of which we feel more alive.
~ John O’Donohue
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With the world being as it is these days, I want to acknowledge the many places where it can feel impossible to find beauty. The landscapes devastated by war, poverty, hurricanes, fires, floods. The mindscapes darkened by loss and trauma. There is beauty even here but we have to look more deeply and with more intention. “Find the helpers,” as Mr. Roger’s mom told him. See the inner strength and resilience of survivors. Acknowledge that, even in grief, there’s the impossible beauty, the immeasurable beauty, of having loved . . . and in knowing you have been loved in return.