Befriending Your Rock Tumbler Mind
It is has been quite a roller coaster ride as I journey alongside my son whose cancer has returned and metastasized to his lungs. It is such a fierce process and all sorts of stories and the emotions that come with them are arising as I walk this path with him. As I say in my book, What’s In the Way IS the Way, “Life is set up to bring up what has been bound up so it can open up to be freed up so you can show up for Life!”
Words cannot describe what it is like to be with your child who has a very serious, life-threatening illness. He is undergoing a really aggressive chemotherapy which requires extended stays in the hospital over 3 months and then he will have surgery. It is intense. The knowledge that this is the protocol that cured Lance Armstrong and many other people gives us hope. The first time my son was in the hospital, I felt like a rubber band. The difference between being caught in my mind and coming back to presence was like night and day. All day long, back and forth. I felt at times like I was inside a rock tumbler, the machine that is used to shape and polish rocks. I call it my rock tumbler mind. There are so many different rocks in my rock tumbler mind: rocks of fear, rocks of worry, rocks of despair. Most people are so caught in this rock tumbler of struggle that they are not aware of anything different.
I have been practicing “Soft Belly” whenever I discover that my mind is holding on tightly, and that is quite often these days. After years of living in my body, I am conscious enough to allow the tightening in my body to invite me to soften and open again. Most people aren’t in their bodies because we have been trained to guard against life, so we have become a head on top of a body. This exquisite field of light, love, wisdom, intelligence, and beauty that is our body is right here, but we don’t tap into it because we have been taught to hate, fear and be ashamed of our bodies.
The belly can help a lot in the journey back to being fully embodied. When it is tight, it will alert you to the fact that you are caught in struggle and when you soften it, it also softens your struggling mind. Many years ago, when my mentor, Stephen Levine, talked about softening the belly when we are in struggle, it did not register for me. It truly took years before I realized my belly was tight all the time! Now “Soft Belly” is my dear friend! Learning to soften the belly is a process. You are there, then you leave again, then you are there, then you leave again, only to come back once again.
When we are in struggle and in the space of trying to figure out how to survive in this rock tumbler mind, the heart is closed. When the mind gets really hooked with fear, sadness or despair, and it goes on high speed, the last thing it wants to do is soften into the belly. But this fear-based mind really and truly wants to be accepted and loved. I don’t ask my fear-based mind to be any different than it is. Rather, I become curious about it and I say, “Oh sweetheart. I see how scared you are. It’s okay. I am here for you.” Then the belly softens, things calm down, and my heart bursts wide open. This is where the healing is.
The rock tumbler mind is a scary place because we can so easily get sucked into its stories. But, when we start paying attention to the struggle and soften the belly, we can discover how to come back to the lightheartedness, peace, and joy that is always with us. “Soft Belly” allows the heart to say with such sweetness, “Come home, just come home.” Softening the belly and relaxing into life will ultimately turn the rough, broken rocks into beautifully-polished stones.
The next time you are caught in struggle, I invite you to become curious about your rock tumbler mind and the rocks. Check in and see what your belly is doing and then, if you can, soften and let it go. Now let it go even more. How does that make you feel?
Image – Pop Rocks by Artist Sharon Paster www.sharonpaster.com