大象传媒

A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Ennette C Lainchbury

Good morning everyone,

So I鈥檝e been thinking a lot about mental resilience and self-discipline. One of the best quotes I read about self-discipline earlier this year has really sort of transformed the way that I think about it. It was simply the statement that 鈥榮elf-discipline is the greatest form of self-love'. Because self-discipline is the ability to look after and love your future self more than the current comfort you might feel in this moment.

All this got me thinking about yoga, where these seemingly simple movements or poses the instructor gets me to hold can be so incredibly hard. If you鈥檝e ever done yoga, you know the struggle! Even as a yoga teacher myself, every time I stand there in Warrior II my muscles are straining under the effort of trying to maintain this pose. And in these moments, I have to chose to remind myself that this experience on my mat translates to a more profound truth in my life off the mat.
The fact that we all get up, brush our teeth, have a shower, get to where we need to be on time amidst juggling all the other myriad of things going on, it just requires like a huge effort and is in fact an incredibly challenging thing to maintain.

So in the yoga class, a moment where I want to compare and feel weak and frustrated that I鈥檓 not better, is actually a moment to bring a bit more radical self compassion. And yeah this isn鈥檛 self care for the sake of the trend but rather the more awareness and empathy we can have for ourselves, the more it will spill out to those around us. This is how we can slowly begin to shift the culture around us at work at home.

So Lord, where it鈥檚 so easy in this life to be our own harshest critics, where we so often feel alone in carrying the weight of our lives to wishing we were better or different, where we accidentally find ourselves perpetuating exacting standards on ourselves and those around us, may your grace come and soothe those harsh places within us, may we drink deep of our loving kindness and mercy. Resting in the truth that today, as I am, is enough.

Amen.