Day 9: The Practice Brings Transformation

Live in the Orange Zone - Day 9

30 Days of Self Study, Meditation and Reflection

We're on Day Nine of Living in the Orange Zone. And I wanted to start our inspiration today, our time together, to encourage each other to continue on our path with a reading by Mark Nepo that I shared last week,
  
“To journey without being changed is the Nomad. To change without journey is a chameleon. To journey and be transformed by the journey is a pilgrim.”

I wanted to talk about this idea of being on a pilgrimage. And so was looking at maybe going to India on a pilgrimage. Some people go to a special cathedral. The Camino de Santiago is this very famous pilgrimage, it’s hiking trails. For years, thousands of people have traveled on this. They call it the Camino, lovingly, from all over the world. 

I looked up on Wikipedia, “what are they doing?” What are all these people traveling on the Camino for thousands of years. And the one line I want to share with all of you is this, “many follow its routes as a form of spiritual path or retreat for spiritual growth.”

And that is exactly why we are doing the 30 Day Live in the Orange Zone. 

Like doing a meditation practice alone or a yoga practice or going on retreats somewhere, walking the Camino. It's all this hope or intention that we are going to grow spiritually, that we're going to come become a better version of ourselves, a lighter or a more loving, a more kind, happier version of ourselves. 

And so I chose this when it felt like an important time, not just for me, but for our planet, for all of us to say we have been living this story of this virus that started in China and that is now a world pandemic. And many of us, if we're talking about the hero's journey, went through that initial Separation from our jobs, from our friends, from our normal way of being. And in the hero's journey, then the next part is called Initiation. And that's all of the the adventures and all of the challenges and all of the beautiful things that come out of that journey.

And then this last bit in the Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell is actually called The Return. And the return is where we come back.

And what do we bring back? Normally in any of the universal heroes journeys as we come back different, we are changed. In the Wizard of Oz  Dorothy came back to the same farm in Kansas, but she wasn't the same. And there's so many beautiful real life stories, Nelson Mandela, Viktor Frankl, that I love to use in our teachings, of how they came back and what they gave back to the community.

I wanted to say that it's important for me when I think about doing the 30 Day Living in the Orange Zone, a 30 day meditation practice and self-study, is it's not about the destination.It's not what's going to happen at the end of 30 days, like something magical happens. It's about the journey.

It's about us walking this path together and making decisions to grow along the way and to take the gifts on our journey with us and forward.

And in that, I would also like to share with you one word in Sanskrit. The word is Sadhana, and it means to practice. And so what I have committed to, what we have committed to together, is what I lovingly refer to as a practice.

And in practice for me, it is very different from saying I go to this yoga class or oh, I have this, you know, meditation thing that I do here or whenever. It can be those things. It's definitely a meditation. It's definitely a breathing or yoga, whatever that can be for us. But, the difference when I say sadhana, when I say it is my practice, is it's not a class outside there anymore that I do, but it's something that belongs to me. I own it. I'm responsible for it. 

And so for 30 days, we've committed to be responsible for something that is going to transform us. That we are going to be different and changed and carry that forward into our life by very simple things that I would like to have each of you begin to call your practices: 

• Your gratitude practice 
• Your silence practice
• Your blessing practice
• Your sacred reading practice

All of this to me feels like what actually creates change and transformation in our lives. 
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I welcome all of you to continue this. We're on day nine of 30 days of walking together on this pilgrimage, on the path, and doing a practice that will transform us.

Day 9 Inspiration
Today's inspiration comes from an ancient Indian text.

Silence brings us to our highest path

When the five sense and the mind are stilled, and reasoning intellect rest in silence, then begins the highest path.

Click the links below to find out more:

The Orange Zone - A 30 Day Practice - YouTube Playlist
​Daily Inspirational Quotes for 30 Day Meditation

Blog Post: What is the Orange Zone?