We find wholeness through it’s opposite: fractured

November 26, 2023

“I can already taste the moment when I cease to hear the metaphorical refrigerator humming…and it is delicious.”

When I heard Joseph Goldstein, renowned insight meditation teacher, share a metaphor for Nirvana as the “the moment you noticed the refrigerator stopped humming”, I got it.

At this point, in regard to meditation and Buddhist practice, I personally am not in search of anything particular except a nervous system reset. My goal is usually to drop back into the rest and digest parasympathetic nervous system. Enlightenment or reaching Nirvana is no longer a goal of mine.

However hearing Mr. Goldstein describe the kind of inner peace where the din of stress or anxiety or overstimulation that we are accustomed to suddenly falls away and there is utter, irrefutable peace sounds attainable, if not desirable.

I think we all know those moments when we are so clearly content/engaged with something/surrendered to the task at hand, that we are no longer separate from the present moment and completely present to what is.

I don’t know about you, but the lead up to Thanksgiving inspired a breakneck pace to my usual nesting impulses. I love to host the family holiday each year and prepare a welcoming space. This year involved a little home renovation project in the kitchen and other purchases and adjustments around the house that had a time sensitive aspect. In other words, stress.

I am pleased to say that I’ve been using my tools to literally change the channel and drop into the rest and digest parasympathetic nervous system repeatedly throughout the day in recent weeks as this momentum began to build.

Nothing could have prepared me for some unexpected events that serve as a wrecking ball to my “fractured” momentum. I will spare you the gory details about the chemical exposure that landed me in bed the day after Thanksgiving, but needless to say, a day in bed was exactly what I needed.

Today begins the start of Advent, a sacred time of the year for cultivating the inner light and preparing for a rebirth. A lovely invitation in the Christian calendar for that divine nervous system reset. I’m excited to once again focus on unity and wholeness amid the season of overstimulation.

And while the world hurls at breakneck pace to get a jumpstart on the holiday shopping season this weekend, I am reconciling and reckoning with the one important gift to myself this Christmas. Come back to center and stay there throughout the season.

Despite all the possible productive ways I could spend an entire Saturday, I’m taking a spa day/pajama day/day of rest at home and making it up as I go along. The work projects are on hold and it’s movies and making soup, a little yoga and napping.

I can already taste the moment when I cease to hear the refrigerator humming…and it is delicious.

🌀