Life is repeatedly asking us to grow. Over our lives, we volunteer to learn exciting habits and adversity forces us to get better in areas we want to avoid. Driving, gardening, doing our taxes, listening deeply, playing the piano, cooking, putting a diaper on a baby, rehanging a door, changing a tire, applying winged eyeliner in a way that matches on both eyes (I’ve never mastered that last one, but I’ll never stop trying). 

 

And then there are fundamental practices that everyone needs to support their inner worlds. I’ve started calling these the Always Practices. Your Always Practices are probably different from my Always Practices, but I bet you have some. My Always Practices include meditation, pulling tarot cards, talking to trees, writing, and asking “why?” 

 

This week I’m co-facilitating a meditation retreat at Mount Carmel Spiritual Centre in Niagara Falls, a place I’ve been coming on retreat for 9 years. When I arrived here this week, my senses filled with the nostalgia of this spiritual home, and how it has supported my practice over the years: the creaky wood floors, the maple cookies, the tea, my teachers, and all my spiritual friends. People often wonder: why do you meditate in a group if you're just sitting in silence? Well, togetherness, support to keep going when you want to quit, the energetics of the room, and curiosity.

 

Meditating helps me contact the mystery, and it helps me fully experience myself. It helps me stay good-crazy, rather than bad-crazy. The Perfect World, the one I was always trying to escape into, is just an idealized version of life where there’s no pain or problems, no one disappoints me, and I am always put together. Meditation’s helped me realize: there IS no other world. This is it, this is the Perfect World. Right here, with all its messiness and imperfections and doubts and concerns. My practice helps me settle into the world, without needing to escape it. If I stop trying to escape, avoid, or mute my feelings, I can have a really full experience, and so I’ve realized that meditation is an Always Practice for me.

 

How about you? What's your Always Practice? 🖤

 

Check out my video about how connecting the dots of your personality helps you embrace your gifts and struggles.

 

This collection has been with me since the late 1990s. The struggle has always been: which of the four discs is my favourite? And which song is my best loved song? I think it's Disc 1 and Soul Shake Down Party, but possibly Caution, or maybe Soul Rebel. I've had this little conversation with myself a hundred times in the last 20 years. If you have this box set and have an opinion on these questions, hit me back. 🔥

 

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