Ritual, Regime and the Space in Between

Balancing structure and freedom within meditative practice.

Routine and rigidity are extremely helpful in establishing and cultivating your practice. This is especially true in the development of your stillness as a welcoming, healing and accessible place. Implementing structure allows your practice to function as a tool of healing and grounding in times of stress, while also acting as a preventative measure to assist you in maintaining equilibrium in your everyday experience. Establishing some sort of regime, no matter how fervent or relaxed, allows you a familiar and intimate space in which you are able to deepen your conscious experience and develop the holistic unification of your being.

However, sometimes this rigidity may take away from the lightness or enjoyment of your practice, perhaps overshadowing the integral part that ease and freedom play in the meditative experience. In these instances it is crucial to utilize flexibility within your practice without giving in to feelings of guilt, or a need to adhere to an idea of what your practice “should” look like. You must allow yourself a quality of suppleness in order to keep your practice stimulating, interesting and effective. You must permit yourself to move freely with waves of inspiration as they come. You must give yourself the freedom to welcome in new energy, to dispel stagnancy and follow what feels right for you.

Balancing freedom, leniency and non-judgment with structure and rigidity is a capability that comes from building trust within yourself and making space to communicate freely with the more implicit parts of your being. It is wonderful to learn that although each day is different and will ask different things of you, your core and presence has and always will remain the same. Each day, although you may utilize slightly – or even drastically – different means of connecting with and resting in that space, the space prevails. What feels good today may not feel good tomorrow. Just as all things in nature are in constant flux, so too are our beings. No two practices will, or should ever be the same. Our minds and bodies are just as complex and ever-changing as our ecosystem and the flow of the seasons. Love and embrace this aspect of yourself, realize that it is evidence of your connection to the natural world and that within your consistent changes, the natural laws of the universe are reflected. Welcome yourself in whatever way you show up, knowing that in each moment you take exactly the form you are meant to. While some days it may feel easeful and beneficial to adhere to your established practice, other days may call for a sort of free flow in which to surrender yourself to movement or breath. In these cases we must not let judgements or expectations stand in the way of new energy and lessons. Welcome and experiment with uncharted ways to tap into your peace and awareness without letting your healing be clouded by an excess of conscious interference. Sometimes we must simply step out of our own way and surrender to what we feel.

Any chance we are given to balance and unify polarities within our experience should be embraced. Structure and freedom, dedication and rest, solitude and connection, assuredness and openness, action and reflection are all such polarities. Working to balance these aspects of our life in whatever situations they arise contributes greatly to the cultivation of harmony within us. We are able to utilize the benefits of each opposing energy without being weighed down by any less constructive qualities it may carry. We become comfortable identifying with and resting in the space between, thus inviting equilibrium into our inner experience as well as into our way of interpreting the world around us.