May you feel safe and protected
May you feel contended and pleased
May your body support you with strength
May your life unfold smoothly and with ease.
No one loves a little human drama more than I do. I have to admit, I've spent a life time being "quick to flip" (off other drivers that is); I've spent countless hours having "fights" in my head in which I finally, and spectacularly tell-off someone who's wronged me with some brilliant and well timed insult. I've told my (really awesome) husband that I'm filing for divorce no less than 3000 times. I've dropped the f-bomb in front of my kids . . . I've done, what we as humans, are programmed to do: react to and engage in the human drama which involves quite a bit of ill-serving self righteousness and the belief that we've somehow been transgressed.
For at least two thirds of my life, I had no awareness that this was in anyway wrong or harmful to me. But with a daily Yoga practice, I started to be able to physically feel the energetic harm that this causes. When I lash out in anger towards my children, my chest constricts and my pulse races. When I believe I've been "transgressed" and I engage in the inner negative dialogue, my chest tightens and I feel flutters of ill-ease in my gut. If I ever even noticed these physical and energetic reactions before, I blamed them on others: I believed that it was my children's negative behavior or the transgression of the other that caused me harm. What I now know for sure is that no one else's behavior creates the physiological reactions or the stres; it is ONLY my reaction to their behaviors, my engagement in the human drama, that causes me harm.
I really learned this lesson last year when involved in some legal drama. I was all the way "in:" self-righteous, indignant, and attached. As a result I was stressed, physically, mentally and financially (my amazing lawyer bills at $475/hr!?!?!?!). I could physiologically feel the stress, but again, I blamed this on the other.
In was in the midst of this drama that I read Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope (one of the best, accessible and comprehensive Yoga texts I've ever read). It was in this book, that I learned about the power of forgiveness and the powerful tool that metta mantra is for achieving forgiveness. Essentially it's as simple as bringing your adversary into your consciousness, picturing this person and connecting to him or her then repeating the metta mantra over and over again, directing it to that person. May you feel safe and protected, May you feel contended and pleased, May your body support you with strength, May your life unfold smoothly and with ease. The first time I did this, I found the practice difficult and painful to initiate. As soon as I drew my "adversary" into consciousness, the heart palpitations started, the anger arose. But within minutes of repeating the mantra, the negative energy literally dissipated all of the way. It felt like a miracle. A sense of calm washed over me, and all of the negativity was gone. I could actually see the good in my "adversary" and he no longer felt like an adversary at all. The situation simply became a business problem to be dealt with and managed as such without giving it any undue energy. Anytime anger or stress came back into my consciousness, I repeated the mantra, and it always worked to dissipate the negativity.
I realized the power of the mantra, and I thought, if this works for an adversarial situation, how will it work in the rest of my life? Magically!!!! " You didn't invite me to your party? " may you feel safe and protected . . . . . "You drew all over the white couch with a ball point pen?!?!" may you feel contented and pleased . . . . "You're going to another Husky fundraiser? You played golf yesterday and you work 24/7!" may your body support you with strength . . . "What do you mean you oversold the flight?!?!?!" may your life unfold smoothly and with ease.
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