Practices that support our inner life cultivate a refuge we can rely upon day in and day out. Without consistent training in what feeds our inner life we have nothing to rely on especially in times of crisis.

The Greek poet Archilochos said “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” We could substitute the word “training” here with the words practices or rituals–the bottom line non negotiables that feed us regularly.

A Curious Question: Is it a habit or a choice?

Choice is when we can discern between a preference and a compulsion.

Somatic movement pioneer, engineer and scientist Moshe Feldenkrais made some keen observations about human behavior based on how we organize our bodymind for movement. And to be clear, how we organize for movement is how we organize for life. The same thought patterns, perceptions, and beliefs color everything we do.

Compassion and empathy: there’s confusion about these two qualities and with good reason, they are often used interchangeably. Given the amount of challenges and fatigue we face in our world today, it’s helpful to make distinctions between them. The third quality I’ll speak to here is self compassion.

“Patience allows us to remain attentive and consider life beyond our personal moment in history. Patience is fierce focus informed by openness, intention, and “fallen light” that draws the eye of our heart toward clear seeing and skillful actions.“

We tend to confuse patience with doing nothing. There’s nothing passive about patience: it offers us discernment between what wants to “emerge” and an “emergency”. Most events are not emergencies but our nervous systems these days are dialed to “hyper vigilance”. There are thousands of good reasons to be awake but hyper vigilance is exhausting.

One early May morning while on solitary retreat this year, I woke up with the word “Faithwalk”. It was loud, clear and provocative: “FAITHWALK”! I laid in bed for a bit to take it in: it was clearly a command and both a noun and a verb.