Love More, Worry Less….I think as I leave the day long loving kindness workshop I attended at Cambridge Insight Meditation Center (CIMC) In Cambridge, MA this past Saturday.

I’m irritated on the T today and I remember to breathe and say the three statements from the workshop…

May I be safe and protected

May I be peaceful (oh god yes please)

May I live with ease and with kindness.

Sanity is restored…for the moment anyway.

To give some context, I will say that what brought me to said workshop on Saturday was a summer of being creatively blocked.  To be fair to myself, I believe this was more from worry burnout than anything else.  At one point last month I just realized that a) it was the summer and b) nothing really happens in the summer.  The summer is meant to be a time of relaxation and THAT is something I am always in need of.  So instead of continuing to spin in circles I started to pick up books to read and began to return to the fine art of reading for pleasure; an art I greatly missed.

Despite sunnin’ and reading, my creative block persisted.  The only thing that has ever worked for my blocks is meditation and so it was through needing some medicine that I returned to the CIMC, a place I flirt with when I want to become more enlightened.

I have been attending meditations at CIMC recently and when I saw the newsletter featuring this workshop I thought “oh I can totally sit quietly for six hours and ROCK it!” Not super Buddhist, I know but hey that’s what came up in my head and now out my mouth.

And so it began.  I can’t say that I was the most adherent participant…I did get corrected by the teacher for reading a book I had in my bag before the workshop began (I mean seriously it’s not like I was tweeting or Snapchatting while waiting!). Well…I have never been good at following the rules…stated or unstated!  She clearly didn’t know how BIG my gift of gab actually is and that I had already set myself up for the meditation challenge!

The retreat went like this for five hours interrupted by a one hour lunch…

May I be safe and protected

May I be peaceful

May I live with ease and with kindness.

We practiced mostly to ourselves and then sharing the energy with a benefactor (a person of purity with whom you have no ill feelings towards), then to a good friend, then to a neutral person (a person you neither feel good nor bad feelings towards) and then finally to a difficult person in your life.

After the workshop ended around 4pm and I was walking the streets of Cambridge I thought the take away could be summed up in these words

Love More, Worry Less.

The teacher stated that loving kindness is almost a prescription for anxiety and that if you practice just 20 minutes a day over time you will definitely notice a reduction in your stress and anxiety levels. Hmmmm I am all about that given the focus of my business is on stress reduction and wellness.

I must say that while I have still gotten frustrated with traffic or the annoying people on the T, I  have noticed a softening of my heart which seems to have lead to a well spring of creative energy today.

Love More, Worry Less.

I now have imprinted the practice inside my brain.  When I notice myself becoming irritable or unreasonable, I come back to my breath and say in my head….

May I be safe and protected

May I be peaceful

May I live with ease and with kindness.

My pulse slows and I can breathe more freely.

Love More, Worry Less.

This is something I can really get down with.  Worry is such a needless energy.  It’s a total waste of time.  We don’t realize just how much of a waste of time it actually is because we are so caught up in our heads and detached from the present moment.  When we are caught up in thought we are often shut down to our present moment experiences; the experiences that are more linked to the heart.

In our conversation Where Love Lies, Fear Has No Place we discussed that when we are caught up in fear, our hearts can not open up to love. I totally felt this after the workshop on Saturday.  Fear is common when you are starting up your own business.  It is a constant battle to not focus on the thoughts that this may not work out; that somehow you will be found out to be a failure.  I know this is true for me and in sharing my experience with other friends who are in business, they shake their heads yes in a way that only someone who can relate can do.

It is scary to live life no matter what your circumstances because it is incredibly uncertain even when you think differently.  Life, today especially, is always changing.  Jobs that were thought to be permanent no longer are.  Cost of living continues to rise and wages are often not rising at the same rate.

Life is full of scary situations.  So you may be asking “ok then why are you suggesting we don’t worry then?”  To which I would ask “has there ever been a time when worrying has prevent the inevitable.?”  Becuase I know for me…it definitely hasn’t.

Worry, fear, catastrophic thinking…it all keeps us shut down to the possibility of abundance, joy and love.

Love More, Worry Less.

It is truly the only way to live.

So I intend on continuing my summer reading while picking up the new found creative surge that has come about and when I feel like I am about to strangle someone for diagonally walking on the street, or playing their loud music or videos on their phone without ear phones (what is that all about?) or just being themselves pushing my buttons within I will come back to my breath and say to myself

May I be safe and protected.

May I be peaceful (oh god YES!)

May I live with ease and with kindness.

Cheers to loving more and worrying less!!

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