I wake up at 5AM every day and start the morning with my Buddhist practice of 108 bows and meditation. This hour is for me, so I can connect to myself and develop myself with intention.
But every once in a while my wife needs to wake up at the same time because she has some morning shifts. Since I'm the cook of the house I need to prepare breakfast for her, and I have two options I can choose from: wake up earlier to finish my practice then prepare her breakfast, or prepare her breakfast first then do my practice.
Today morning I opted to prepare her breakfast first. So I experienced the same TIME of 5:00AM, 5:01AM, 5:02AM, 5:03Am... But I used that time for someone else. That was my first impression as I started melting the butter and smashing the parboiled potatoes down to my cast iron pan.
After serving her eggs and potato with her favorite ketchup, I went to my room to start bowing with my dog sleeping on the bowing cushion next to mine. As I lower my heart over and over, a thought starts floating up in my mind: did I really spend my time for HER, or did I spend it for ME?
I did it for ME. I want to prepare food for my wife. I want to make sure she has a belly full of warm, filling food so she can have a great morning of teaching pilates. I want to avoid the possibility of her being upset at food being unprepared (or sometimes worse, food that tastes bad!). Everything I do, I am doing for me.
Then I had an unexpected surge of emotions: what about my mom? What about my wife's mom? My mother in law had visited recently, and because I wake up at the same time every day and prepare the morning for my two person family my MIL had no reason to get up early to prepare anything for others but she still woke up early with an amazing bed hair to see if there was anything she could do for us.
How much time in my day do I spend being thankful for those who selflessly do things for me, especially when they have all the freedom to do everything for themselves and themselves only? How much of other people's love and effort have I taken for granted? Ah!
Yesterday in jiujitsu training our professor told us a story of how he paid a great amount of money for a private lesson with a grandmaster, and the grandmaster had him just do ab curls for an hour. He said he thought "what the fuck?!" at the time, but it ended up being the best thing he could have done for himself at that time.
When we encounter challenges in life, when we encounter difficulties, resistance, or anything that wears us out, there's ALWAYS something that we can do FOR OURSELVES at that moment. That's how you take the power back from life being thrown at you to you taking ownership of your life.
But what if today is so overwhelmingly difficult already? We have to understand that today is difficult because of what has accumulated in the past UNTIL today. The best thing you can do is to re-experience and re-learn from your past, using this optic. How has this been for me?
How has my...
- Getting fired been for me?
- Divorce been for me?
- Caretaking of family members been for me?
- Rejection been for me?
- Grief been for me?
Getting deeper into touch with this inner experience is the best thing you can do today, and it's the best thing you can start doing today. This is what I had in mind when I designed the Practice Kit. It starts off with the heart-opening exercise so that you can start fully re-digesting your past for an immediate shift TODAY.
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You set up specific exercises and actions to complete that walked me from a beginner to someone who feels comfortable and it feels like I am making a difference.
— T. R.
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→ See what's inside the Practice Kit ($37)
- Billy
