May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be whole. These are the words that we used in a meditation exercise led by Sage Rountree at Wanderlust yesterday. Wanderlust offers a variety of events around the country. This event was a "mindful triathlon" comprised of a 5K run, a yoga class led by Dharma Mittra and a meditation led by Sage Rountree. I can not exclude MC Yogi, I kind of want to be his groupie. DJ Drez and him led us in a light hearted and fun yoga practice before Dharma Mittra. Every single person on stage brought forward humor and wisdom, which is a very challenging pairing. It made them so relatable and the information that they shared easily seeped in. Prospect Park, Brooklyn provided the perfect back drop to this colorful and invigorating event. I am working on a short video to share of this event :)
One of the things that stuck with me the most was the exercise that Sage led us through. She broke it down into segments but in a nutshell we had to picture people who are easy to love, ones we are more neutral about, people who are less easy to love and lastly ourselves. In each segment, we pictured their faces and worked on sending them metta, loving kindness and goodwill. With each face that populated our minds, we said to them "may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be whole". It was interesting to see how easy it was to do this for those who are easy to love, even the neutral ones were a piece of cake. When it came to those who challenge us, that definitely challenged me. I found however; once I said the words and truly only sent them metta my whole attitude shifted and softened. Admittedly, the hardest person for me to send love to was myself. Self esteem and self love are not equivalent. I have learned that I have a lot of work to do with better loving myself. I am really good (too good) at loving and forgiving others but I tend to be hard myself and sometimes unforgiving. Yesterday I pledged that would all change moving forward. At this point in my life, I no longer want to hold on to grudges nor do I want to live in conflict with the person I interact with most: ME. The only way I can unlock all of this self love is by living in the present moment and speaking kindly to myself regardless of what my journey brings. Unlocking this self love will improve my relationship with myself, others and yield my exponential potential to shine. I am pledging to follow this mantra not just this week but moving forward. I hope you take it easy on yourself and start by saying "may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be whole". Speak kindly to YOU as you are listening and every word you utter does make an impact.
Wishing you lots of love and light.
Kelly xo
