Mary O’Malley – I want to explore with you a truth that most human beings don’t want to look at, but something that if you do, will bring untold joy into your life.

Everything changes.

There is nothing to hold onto.  Everything that begins ends.  Every breath has a beginning, a middle and an end.  Every sunny day, every thought, every feeling, every great lovemaking, every bite of delicious food will end, and even our planet will one day dissolve back into mystery.  Our experience of life is the experience of constant change, and infinite insecurity if we try to hold on.

And yet we all hold on.  We resist, we grasp, we manipulate.  We are always longing for the ‘good stuff’ to stay and the difficult and uncomfortable to leave.  Thus, we live on the surface of life, cut off from our natural essence that is buried underneath the density of our trying to make life be different than what it is. We live tight and small, trying to grasp the illusion of control and safety.

It is in trying to hold onto and resist life that suffering happens.

The truth is that life is a river, a constant flow of changing events. Nothing ever holds still for you nor should it.  How wonderful is the spaciousness, the joy you discover as you step out of your addiction to control and back into the living moment, back into the creative flow of life.

Yes, this is often scary.  The last time you were this connected to life, this open to life, was when you were very young.  And you, like all of us, got scared out of that deep and intimate connection yourself and with life. But you’re not a child anymore.

What would happen in your life if you realized that the safest thing you will ever discover is how to relax back into life?  Yes, there will be loss, discomfort and pain, but when you see that you only create suffering for yourself when you try to keep these at bay, you begin to see that relaxing into life is coming home.

So, in this moment, allow a couple of long out-breaths.  Invite the chronic holding in your body and in your mind to relax…for just this moment.  It may not seem like it makes much of a difference but moments such as these count.

What does softening into this moment bring?

You recognize that this moment is precious, and life will never be exactly like this again.

You see that even if this moment feels familiar, it is unlike any moment you have ever experienced and there is nothing about it that needs to be different.

You understand that life is pleasure/pain, loss/gain, fame/shame.  These experiences are a part of the river of life and even the most painful will move through you.

You begin to take nothing for granted, whether it is a breath or the presence of a loved one.

You rediscover the joy of opening to life as it is, not how you want it to be.

But most importantly, you come home to your heart, knowing that the only sane way to be with life is with love as your guide.

I invite you to be with this day as if it is your last.  Unhook from your fear-based mind and stay open to the great river of life that is giving you the exact experiences you need to wake up from the dream of separation.  Be willing to open to things as they are.  And at the end of the day, be kind with how little you were able to do this.  But remember, moments of being fully here matter.

SF Source Mary O’Malley Jan 2018