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| Photo courtesy of Amazon The Pocket Thich Nhat Hanh |
For several weeks I had been holding words from inner voice as to how I was to respond in a particular situation when it occurred. The time arrived, and while I handled my response according to directions, I drove home with wet eyes. As I sat in a comfortable chair looking up at a large photo of Meher Baba, tears fell. I knew that I had answered well. But now my emotional body had assumed the lead. Finally I said aloud, “I probably have a 90% misinterpretation of the true meaning of what has just happened.” I could now see that this was just another test. With my face dried, helped by a few wipes of tissue, I felt an aftermath of relief.
“In your daily life your body and mind often go in two different directions. … As soon as you go home to your breath and you breathe with awareness, your body and mind come together very quickly.”* These words of Thich Nhat Hanh have become invaluable to me. In my years of healing studies in America, I knew of breath work and had attended a workshop, but I wasn’t ready to accept the importance of the breath.
As my tears were falling, I had at one point thought, “in breath, out breath, in breath …” and that had helped me quiet and come to a more accurate view. Later, I was able to confirm that my interpretation had been wrong.
My realization is, “Kindness to oneself allows failure to simply be an experience. We may, or may not repeat our failure, but it offers an opportunity for learning, and in time—it is to be hoped—change.”
* Thich Nhat Hanh, The Pocket Thich Nhat Hanh