Meditation: Flowing With Grace

The best strategy for coping with change is to cultivate an attitude of willingness. Our normal pattern is to do everything we can to resist change, especially when we perceive the change as somehow threatening to our well-being. But even though we can’t change change, we can transform the way we respond to it.

Interestingly enough, any kind of change—a new baby, death of a loved one, marriage, divorce, moving, illness, vacation, menopause—has been shown to cause stress, even when we see the change as positive. Every change requires adjustment and adaptation, qualities that also determine the health of our physical bodies.

As David Simon, MD, notes in his best-selling book The Wisdom of Healing, a healthy immune system is one that is continually evolving. Evolution occurs, he writes, when a wide repertoire of experience is embraced and integrated into meaningful responses. In the midst of chaotic influences and events, the immune system responds flexibly but maintains a sense of stability.

Our meditation practice can help us find this integrity in the face of major transitions. Often all it takes to embrace change is to perceive it as a challenge and an opportunity rather than a catastrophe.

According to Buddhism, reacting to life through aversion or its polar opposite, clinging, causes suffering. Aversion is marked by negativity, when everything inside you resists and says “no.” Saying “yes,” on the other hand, is expansive—it includes everything, even the dark swamp of no that can infiltrate our awareness.

Bringing alive your inner yes does not mean that you stop setting boundaries or begin acting with harmful abandon. It means yes as a form of radical acceptance, a deep allowing of experiences to be as they are and move through us. We say “yes” to our turbulent and tangled life. In that generosity, joy rushes in, unafraid of judgment.

Opening to Change
Sit quietly with your eyes closed and take several deep breaths. Let the meditation start by focusing on a situation that is changing in ways that make you uncomfortable. It could be anything from financial woes to a friend who is growing distant. Notice the feelings that accompany the story and the sensations they provoke in your body.

Often, when negative emotions like fear, anger, or loss come up, our body automatically tries to resist the pain. We stiffen, we clench, we grip—anything that lets us avoid meeting what it is we fear most. See what happens when you try to push that raw part of yourself away.

As you go deeper into the meditation, imagine that instead of fighting your feelings, you relax into them. Take some more deep breaths, soften your jaw, and let go of any tension. Invite the pain in, saying “yes” to the experience. Even if there is fear or shame, let the emotions arise in a state of acceptance. Face that from which you would like to hide. Notice how your body responds as you make room for your shadow and allow it a voice.

This sense of letting things be as they are, without having to change or fix them, marks the shift into an expansive awareness. Through surrendering into the moment exactly as it is, you can tap into a boundless source of love and freedom.

Release the residue of thoughts and settle into the feeling of simple awareness. Feel the spaciousness of your mind as sensations roll in and out. Make it your intention to say “yes” to whatever life brings, letting each experience bring you closer to truth.