Week Eleven: Learning to Soften

There is a Buddhist concept of -softening-that shows up in the writings of many present-day teachers.  To think about softening, imagine that you hold a butterfly in your hand.  That is softening - holding something gently.  This week, I'm going to ask you to explore what it's like to hold yourself gently - to hold attitudes, expectations, and awareness about yourself softly.  Learning to soften offers an on-the-spot opportunity to relax into experience rather than fight with it.  This has been the greatest impact for me - learning to relax into what is rather than attempting to control or change it. 

Softening is a whole-body/being experience.  It involves a way of thinking, feeling, and physically relaxing that are quite profound and it asks us to relinquish the demand that we always know what is going to happen or why things unfold as they do.

The next time you find yourself in a situation or state of mind that creates tension or a wish/need to control what's happening to you, explore what happens if you simply soften into it.  If you relax your body/mind being into your experience, what changes?  Does your thinking shift, along with your body?  When you soften your thinking, what thoughts go away and what come?  How does your mood change when you soften into what is?  Giving up the fight doesn't mean giving up your intentions to achieve certain outcomes.  It just means that you allow yourself to move through what shows up on your way to the next steps in fulfilling your underlying intentions.

Are you angry or resentful toward someone close to you?  Notice what happens if you soften into those feelings and simply allow them to be there, without building on them or pushing them away.  Softening doesn't mean you have to agree with the other person or the situation you don't like.  It simply means that your internal experience shifts.  That's the gift to yourself.  Softening eases stress and distress.

Remember, as in all these experiments, there's no -right answer-, no need for you to succeed in any particular way.  There is just this moment, this opportunity to discover something about yourself and your way of being in the world.  Awareness is our great friend.  It offers us an ongoing opportunity to choose, to change, to discover and when we can do this without judgment - when we can do this softly - we give ourselves a way to enhance the quality of our inner life.

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