On the recent retreat we ran, a guest, presenter, friend and mentor Cole Clayton took us through some work with the breath.
In one of the early sessions, he invited us to observe the breath over a period, we were going to be lying down.
Thoughts would inevitably come, he said, but when they did, not to get frustrated.
Instead, he invited us to notice the difficulty there, but ask the question:
“Ah, OK, I see… What if I keep going? What is past this? What is over the “horizon? Where will this take me?”
I found this to be very on point.
When we grew up, we did a lot of open ocean sailing. The horizon was significant. It was everywhere. I remember realising that we were always “arriving” at what once was the horizon just a few hours previously.
Perhaps this is why Cole’s words stuck.
We know the transient nature of our difficulties and problems. Yet, we still get frustrated at the time.
What if we reframe the difficulty as a just a situation. A moment.
“This is interesting! I wonder what is beyond this? What is over the horizon?”
