LEARNING THE WISDOM OF REGRET

NOTE: Tonight's live #MENSWORK conversation is about men, women, sex, love, and specifically about caring for ourselves, not giving ourselves away carelessly... Please join me at 6:55pm Pacific time on Zoom at https://bit.ly/MENSWORKLIVE7PM

• Today's suggested practice: Day 18 of seven minutes to ... (see below)

• My playlist while writing today's meditation: Bau, Raquel https://is.gd/UrPacB

• My morning practice: 105 minutes with warm-up, Linking with the Infinite mantra and pranayama, followed by Solving Communication Problems kriya

• My vulnerability practice: Missing her... grateful for this test.

—Hans Peter Meyer

TODAY'S MEDITATION I do not regret the pains I've created for myself. They teach me to be more attentive, more full of care for myself than I once was.

I do regret the pains I've created for others. I ask their forgiveness. I bow to them, and am grateful for what they've given me, at cost to themselves, especially their offerings of vulnerability. My deepest regret and my deepest bow goes to my beloved. I am a witness to her suffering at my impatience, my carelessness. I am awed by her willingness to trust me again. She follows a deep yearning to be seen, heard, held. In a man it would be heroic, this readiness to trust. In this most feminine of women, it is simply the river, the flow, the ocean of who she cannot help but be. Realizing this, I weep for the sorrows my less careful self has caused.

One of the follies of my younger self was to imagine I need not be careful with my body. At 62 I understand the consequences of this belief. It was not so many years ago that I believed my heart could pursue intimacies as pleasure, with only happy consequences.

Today I am not so naive. And, at the same time, I am not so naive to think that the blossoming and beauty of life is anything but the fruit of risk and regret and sacrifice. I will care for myself —and I will care for those I touch, knowing that every touch risks breakage, but also risks blossoming open into love.

Today I am aware. Aware, I hold my beloved gently, hold myself gently, and allow this thing of love to blossom into its strange and endless, ever-changing beauty. I allow myself to be moved by her river.

TODAY'S INSPIRATIONS🌀Love is something totally new every day, but pleasure is not, pleasure has continuity. Love is always new, and therefore it is its own eternity. (Jiddu Krishnamurti)

🌀It is a poor spiritual practice to give everyone access to you. (Unknown)

🌀When a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure. (Viktor Frankl)

🌀I never thought I’d come to you like this. (My beloved, my Oracle)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE Day 18 of this month's practice, seven minutes to feel regret, and hold it carefully in your body...

Please read through first, then ...

• If you don't have the Mera Man Loche on iTunes https://is.gd/uqOxd8 you'll find it here on YouTube:

Listen to these words that you likely don't know. Be foolish enough to know these words speaking of longing and sacrifice and devotion and awareness... let them reveal a clarity about who you are, where you are, what your life is telling you...

• Align yourself while sitting. Let your body settle into its weight. Feel the earth below holding you. Feel your spine drawn upward out of your pelvis, the crown of your head drawn into the stars above. Breathe slowly through your nostrils, deeply into your belly, letting it soften, become round. As you exhale, gently pulling up from your perineum, sex organs, navel and drawing this receding breath up through your body and out through your nose. And again, becoming very clear about this simply breath and body pattern that is the basis for your clarity, your presence in this moment...

• Turn the music on and close your eyes. Your breath will slow, but your attention today is on listening. Bring your awareness to any regrets you may feel. A loved one you've disappointed. A friend you've neglected. Someone who's passing has left you with things unsaid, undone... For just seven minutes let yourself feel the sorrow and ache of this regret, not as something to hurt yourself with, but as a tenderness that you are able to hold in your arms, your heart, your throat, your belly.... Just hold that regret and let it teach its wisdom. We do not learn or grow without some part of ourselves becoming unnecessary. Our regrets show us what is no longer of use to ourselves. Like a snake slipping painfully out of its skin...

• As the song ends, relax your eyes and bring your awareness back to your breath. Take three gentle, relaxed breath cycles, without effort, and let this feeling of regret be exhaled... Now, open your eyes and step into your day. The lessons of your regret may take time to become known. Trust this. There is no hurry. In the meantime, know you are moving on your path to righteousness. Be grateful for your courage, and enjoy what this day brings to you!