Hi, Everyone. Last month I took a break from writing the newsletter and I’m glad to be back. I want to reiterate how meaningful it is to know you are on the other side, reading and offering me some of your time. I really appreciate it!
“Embarking on the spiritual journey is like getting into a very small boat and setting out on the ocean to search for unknown lands. With wholehearted practice comes inspiration, but sooner or later we will also encounter fear. For all we know, when we get to the horizon, we are going to drop off the edge of the world. Like all explorers, we are drawn to discover what’s waiting out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it.”
This is the beginning of the book that’s been most gifted to me throughout my life: When Things Fall Apart by the beloved Buddhist Teacher Pema Chödrön. This book has been a balm, a reminder, a friend for myself and for so many people during times of difficulties, challenges and transitions. Chödrön wrote this book 26 years ago. Even though 1997 feels somewhat close, it also feels like many centuries ago. The amount of change we went through during this period is unprecedented. Considering things are falling apart a LOT of the time nowadays and we are living in a world where this seems to be a steady fact more than a distant thought, one question keeps coming to my mind: What happens after things fall apart?
The quick answer is: I don’t know. However, the more I keep thinking about it the more I realize that in order to find out about what happens after, first, WE HAVE TO LET EVERYTHING FALL APART. What I mean by this is: we are working really hard to keep things up in the air, we are working incredibly hard to numb the pain, we are working hard to repress, we are working hard to protect ourselves. We are working very hard to have it altogether. We are working very hard to hide from our desires and needs. All with the intention to not allow things to fall apart and with all the reasons because on the other side of the falling is an unknown territory, a completely new place to stand, the release of what we think we know about ourselves. However, without generalizing, we are walking around gripped by our defenses and not being able to see that the pain in remaining holding on is much greater than to cross this bridge to the other side.
“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth”
As always, when I talk more directly about the Dharma, I don’t want to imply that development trauma, social, cultural, political contexts should just be regarded as a side note. It’s the opposite, in fact, these should always be front and center in the conversation. Whenever I lean on spiritual teachings, I also want to make room for the undercurrent of where pain comes from and the defenses I needed to create to deal with it. It’s as if I’m holding both things at once. Inviting the dialogue of these practices, in my experience, helps us broaden the perspective, helps us explore from an embodied standpoint and not so much only a cognitive mind. It gives me an internal sense of spaciousness and connection.
Both in Psychotherapy and Buddhist Contemplative Practices, when we encounter something big - either an emotion, a trauma, a defense. The idea is to slow down. We slow everything down so we can get closer to what is alive, wanting to be expressed. By slowing it down, I like to think we’re actually putting it down. Put down what you’ve been carrying, balancing, or grasping. Let it fall. Then, let’s take a look at what is here, what is present, why you need to work so hard around it. I guess this is where my question begins: What happens when we put down something we have been carrying with the intention to help us but it’s too heavy to continue to do so?
“Usually we feel that there’s a large problem and we have to fix it. The instruction is to stop. Do something unfamiliar. Do anything besides rushing off in the same old direction, up to the same old tricks.”
Another dimension this question raises is also an attempt to know what would happen if we decide to open up, to get closer to where it is hurting or to what is difficult or, even still, to what we want to change or to what we really desire. It seems that in order for us to let things fall apart we are looking for guarantees, some acknowledgment that we know we will be okay. Control can show up in this way as well, when we are monitoring, hypothesizing, predicting what can happen after it all falls, and this is when we feel paralyzed, scared and hesitant. Pema Chödrön ends the book inviting us to think that the path is the goal.
“The path is uncharted. It comes into existence moment by moment and at the same time drops away behind us. It’s like riding a train sitting backwards. We can’t see where we’re headed, only where we’ve been.”
What happens after things fall apart is going to be different for each of us. Perhaps this question is nothing more than a compass. We spend a lot of our lives running away from ourselves and a good portion trying to come back to who we truly are. To me what happens after everything falls is the return. And then, we start again but this time a little wider, taller, tender and a bit more whole.
“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
With love,
Mariana
1- Join me in my obsession with Fred Again and his music. A new playlist!
2- Dissolve your fixation on yourself
3- This conversation between Ocean Vuong and Mike Mills it was life affirming
3- Belonging in the body by Sebene Selassie
4- Getting what we think we want can reveal just how complex desire is
5- The Church of minding our own business
7- Why we are never satisfied? A conversation with Adrienne Maree Brown
8- Saying yes. Tara Brach and Jane Hirshfield together
9- I don’t need to Be a “Good Person”. Neither Do You.
10- Lives, Livelihood, and the High Cost of Heat
FREE MONTHLY GATHERING:
GUIDED MEDITATION + BREATHING PRACTICE
This is a virtual circle and as always everyone is invited, meditation experience and talking/sharing is NOT required.
NEXT GATHERING
October, 27
9 am (pst) / 12 pm (est)/ 5 pm (London Time)
On Zoom
-
Offerings
Mentorship for New Teachers : One-on-One Mentoring Sessions to Beginner or New Teachers or people who wants additional training
Corporate Programs : Contemplative Program for Companies
Private Sessions: One-on-One Contemplative Psychotherapy Program
A little about the private sessions
My work is dynamic, present and unique to individual needs. Together, we will create the conditions for a safe and connected space that makes expansive self-exploration possible. Together we’ll find stillness and awareness to help meet yourself where you are and with inquiry and acceptance begin a process of self-compassion and integration, through a combination of the following:
Meditation instructions and coaching for both beginner and more experienced meditators
Body awareness practices and visualizations for a more embodied and somatic experience
Support in becoming more aware of and breaking free from negative patterns
Guidance to integrate techniques of both formal and informal practices into daily life
Practical tools to process difficult emotions, self-criticism, negativity and grief
Moments of dialogues, inquiries and processing
Santiago
The road seen, then not seen, the hillside hiding
then revealing the way you should take,
the road dropping away from you as if leaving you
to walk on thin air, then catching you, holding you up,
when you thought you would fall, and the way forward
always in the end the way that you came, the way
that you followed, the way that carried you into your future,
that brought you to this place, no matter that it sometimes
took your promise from you, no matter that it always
had to break your heart along the way, the sense
of having walked from far inside yourself out into the revelation,
to have risked yourself for something that seemed
to stand both inside you and far beyond you,
that called you back in the end to the only road
you could follow, walking as you did, in your
rags of love and speaking in the voice
that by night, became a prayer for safe arrival…
-David Whyte