Day 31

I’ll pick up today where I left off in yesterday’s group live (recording at the bottom of this post, if you missed it!).

My own personal tendency has always been — I’m either all IN or all OUT. 

Which is why for so many years, I had such an on-again, off-again relationship with daily practice.

If I didn’t get a 60-minute, perfectly orchestrated vinyasa practice in first thing each day before work, the whole day was a wash and I gave up completely. 

Or if I planned to practice at night and something came up — whether it was eating something heavy and greasy at lunch or getting unbearably angry or stressed — I thought, “oh well, I’ll try again tomorrow.” 

Once I got pulled off course, it felt insurmountable to make my way back. 

The secret to consistency in my own practice, which has now become the basic premise for 40 Early Mornings, is this : it’s what you do most of the time that matters. 

(Or as writer Annie Dillard says beautifully and simply: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”)

Which means, committing to a few minutes of practice each day will, in the long run, have a much more profound effect than, say, going to an hour long yoga class once in a blue moon or even a meditation retreat once every few years.

And that's why I anchor my own daily practice with the short-form bread and butter practice. Which is also what you’ve been doing this whole time whether you realized it or not — from the 5 minutes it takes to read the daily post. Or the extra 10 or 15 or 20 minutes for meditation.

Longer form practices, like those in our archive, come, perhaps, at less frequent but even more meaningful intervals. Our weekly group, live check in is another example of a long-form practice. (In fact, this whole 40 days is an example too!).

And today, I’d like to also throw into our practice soup, the concept of the “moment-to-moment practice.”

The moment-to-moment practice is your way back throughout the day. 

I’ve heard from many of you and I’ve felt it myself about a million times (or so it seems) — “Ok, so, I feel connect, alive, calm, [fill-in-your-own-blank] during my practice. But then throughout my day, I get pulled away in so many directions. I’m in a rush. I get disappointed, frustrated, exhausted. I overreact. I get ‘hooked’ in some way and I can’t find my way back.”

The point of a practice isn’t to turn us into some fantasy version of something we’re not and never will be. (Calm, saint-like, unflappable, able to put our leg behind our head — whatever yoga or meditation myth seems applicable). 

Even better — we practice so we might bring ourselves back, everyday, again and again to the truest version of ourselves. Who we actually ARE, before, below, and beyond our reactions, our habits, and our hooks. 

Which is where SALT comes in. 

SALT is a 4-Step, moment-to-moment practice that provides a path back to yourself at any point you need it throughout your day. 

It requires no equipment or special set up. You can even practice SALT in the middle of whatever situation you’re in and the people around you won’t even know. 

Similar steps are found in many meditation traditions, but I came up with this acronym from some unlikely inspiration. 

Stay with me here for a moment :) 

A few months ago, I was watching the delightfully talented Samin Nosrat’s documentary on Netflix, based on her book of the same name: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

As Samin waxed positively poetic about the characteristics and qualities of salt — I couldn’t help but see the parallels back to yoga and meditation. 

On the one hand, salt can certainly make food taste “salty” (especially when something is excessively seasoned), just as yoga and meditation can make people seem “yoga-y” or “new age-y” or something else along those lines. 

But that’s not actually the point of either salt or daily practice. 

Salt’s primary function is to make things taste more like themselves. 

You salt a carrot to make it taste more like a carrot. 

You salt a piece of meat to bring out the essence of that particular cut. 

And in a similar way, we practice so we can feel more like ourselves. 

Today, the very next time you feel carried away, pulled off course, feel a burn, start to shut down or feel like you’re closing off or tightening up, try practicing these 4 steps to see if you might create enough space to take yourself off the hook, choose a different response, aside from your normal, habitual reaction.

THIS can be your practice for today!

S - Stop. When you feel yourself getting hooked in a particular situation, see if there’s some way you can pause - to stop yourself from going down your usual path on auto pilot. A deep breath in and a deep breath out. Leave the room. Close your eyes. Relax your jaw. Whatever you can do to create a boundary between what’s happening and your habitual reaction.

A - Allow yourself to be with whatever discomfort or “not-so-good” feeling, so you can begin recognize and remember that you have a choice about what you do next. 

L - Listen to what those feelings or sensations are telling you. This is how we can begin to recognize patterns, which is the first step to choosing another way back to yourself. 

T - Touch. The physical sensation of touch is an essential tool for maintaining health and well-being and connection on many levels. And it doesn’t have to come from anyone else. A simple, yet profound way to integrate any experience is a simple touch, like a hand to your heart. Or slipping off your shoes and feeling your bare feet on the earth. Or sliding a hand to a tender spot  on your neck or shoulders and giving yourself some love. Touch is the last step to coming back to yourself, to resolving the situation at hand. 

SALT is a tool in moment-to-moment toolkit you can use at any time. You can practice SALT in most any scenario, wherever you need it, as often as necessary. To bring you back to your most YOU-feeling you.

Perhaps your practice today is an in-the-moment (or many!) try at the SALT technique.

If you want more of an “official” short form practice today, come back to your choice of the Kirtan Kriya or Alternate Nostril or any of the other practices you’ve loved from the last 30 days.

LEAVE A COMMENT: salt — does it resonate?

till tomorrow,

Cath

p.s. More about SALT, in the growing archive of practices for “Sustain.”

p.s.s. Yesterday’s recording of the group live below!