The Healing Power of Notice How

Yesterday

I noticed

I was sitting like a turtle

Hunched over

Protecting my tender body

Especially the front

The heart and the belly

The lungs that hold the grief

I told myself repeatedly

Don’t slouch

Don’t hunch over

But I kept defaulting to a turtle

Then I remembered

“Notice how…”

Instead of “don’t” in the Lojong slogans

From “don’t try to be the fastest“

To “notice how you try to be the fastest”

I said to myself

“Notice how you’re sitting like a turtle”

And something softened

I had to start by allowing the experience to come fully into my awareness

Not by pushing it away

Or denying it

Or trying to control

“Notice how you’re sitting like a turtle”

Becomes

A genuine and full connection with reality

With suffering

With compassion

With wisdom

And when I sit up

It’s because I’m ready

I’m connected to my own woundedness

And what is needed to heal such woundedness naturally arises

That is the healing power

Of “Notice how”