Author: Danah Blanco

  Photo of me by Hinton Faram

Sometimes the only thing we can do is sit down and stay with whatever feelings arrive. Stay. Breathe. Stay. Let go. • Last night we had one of those moments, where nothing could be done for a situation we created ourselves, and there we were, sitting looking at each other and acknowledging one by one that nothing could be done in this moment, only to be and let go! • We breathe, we pass the uncomfort, the anger, the stress, the ‘what ifs’ and we wait patiently for our next move. • We like to call it our Zen moments of surrender amidst chaos. • Learning each day where my patterns take me. Sometimes it is really annoying to fall and fall again in the same ones, even if I am observing them! I feel a great magnetic attraction to falling back into past patterns. This is my constant practice. Not to fall back into the old, but to welcome something new, something that makes me grow and learn more. Every. Single. Day. • Letting go. •••

 Photo of me by Hinton Faram

•There is no better moment than Now, even if right now your situation isn’t idyllic, there is only Now, and if you weren’t here and now with your “good” or “bad” moment, you aren’t anywhere at all. •We are where our consciousness is. Energy flows where attention goes. This doesn’t mean that all the myriad of infinite possibilities don’t exist at the same time, it’s just that your “energy” is here, not somewhere else. • If we truly grasp this simple and complex reality, why then do we look for happiness somewhere other than Here and Now? Yes, those other “happy moments” might exist somewhere else, just like the infinite possibilities, but always, and forever, happiness will only be revealed in This Instant. This Moment. Here and Now. • I love love love master Dogen’s way of saying it, and I have to remind myself of it every single day: “If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?” ••••

 Photo by me in Vietnam

🏮Sometimes, stopping is the only way to move forward. 🏮We need to revise and learn from the past, but not get stuck in it. 🏮As always, balance is key. 🏮If we don’t slow down when we know we should, life will surely find a way to slow us down; be it a physical injury or pain, illness, emotional stagnation, etc. 🏮To live a plentiful and fulfilling life we always need to accept and cherish the moments we are moving forward, and the moments we are resting and nurturing our bodies, minds, projects, lives…. 🏮I only aspire to that, balance. •••

 Photo by me in Vietnam

Travelling is a lot of fun, really, but it is also stressful sometimes, especially when there are more people and we are all different. The thing is, yesterday I discovered something. It is going to sound very simple, and you might have heard it before, but I only grasped it a bit more than usual yesterday. Just let go. In every sense. Let go. Let go of your fleeting emotions when you need to, the way you need to. Let go of your expectations, plans… Let go of what you think things or people are. Once you let go, even if it means getting angry and having a meltdown, once you really really let it go, things just naturally fall into place. Then, you realise clearly how we are always meant to be where we are, when we are. It does make perfect sense to me!

 Photo by me in Vietnam

🌬I am beginning to recognise some repeating patterns in myself and in my life. 🌬The more I meditate the clearer they are. 🌬That doesn’t mean I don’t continue to fall again and again in the same traps. 🌬It becomes really funny actually, to feel divided in two, the witness and the unfolding of everything. 🌬I see myself falling again and again, I see it, I recognise it, I accept it… but I still fall… 🌬That’s where my practice has taken me for now; to observe and let myself do whatever I do. 🌬With my background in Art History, I have this tendency of wanting to know everything, all the details, the symbols, the meaning… the past… 🌬I am using that knowledge on myself. 🌬Observing the past from the present. 🌬Changing past and future from the present. 🌬As always, on a journey to the self… •••