#vipassana

I’m not enough - uncomfortable though, stiffness in your body - and it starts again, you run, searching for a medicine, only not to feel that not-enoughness. Maybe it’s worth to try new meditation, do new asanas or energy work, maybe new clothes or just spending the evening on your phone can ease the tension. Only not to hear the voice inside telling that you’re not good enough as a parent, not that good in your work or that all your labor isn’t bringing the result you actually desire. To go for a search outside - supposing that outer things can save you, other people’s approval or additional cup of coffee, new retreat, new life. But that’s a myth.

You might try to find someone\something to blame in your feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with you. Programs instilled by society, upbringing, ancestor wounds. But finding something to put a blame on isn’t a way.

The only medicine is inside of you, nothing outside can fix your not-enoughness. Staying inside, seeing where that feeling is coming from, you start raising your awareness of it. Possibly, it’s a wound that needs your attention. Or it’s a signal that you should return to your center where you can realize that the feeling of not-enoughness is your resistance to being yourself, to tell your unique story where there will be self-validation, self-care, acceptance and understanding of your own way.

Here, on the line with the feeling of not-enoughness there are questions - who lives your life if you run from yourself? Who learns the lessons your soul is here to master, if you prefer to learn other’s lessons and bring into your life what doesn’t really resonate with you? Where are you if today you are not enough?

Art by Alexandra Levasseur

Practicing Isa, practicing ice

In the area of Altay, Siberia, where I live nowadays, in the wilderness of mountains, on the banks of frozen river Katun, all has stopped for now. The frosts have come, long nights and silence woven from cracking sounds of wood burning in pechka, dog’s breath, wind blowing outside. Slowed down, stopped, quiet. But it’s not a blockage or challenge to overcome - like rune Isa, drawn as a simple vertical line, if you turn it horizontally becomes a way, a bridge between two sides, the space between two dogs sitting at night on your porch.

I descend in winter, I’ve no obligations to be creative, to prove myself or be ready for the next step. The winter teaches me to be fully present, listening, seeing, feeling to develop clarity, exploring the fullness of meaning. It’s an inner creativity, nature moving through me.

I put rune Isa in the foundation of my daily practice. Isa - translated as «ice» which is the most musical, powerfully rezonant structure you can find in nature - bears presence, stability and clearity.

Every moment, every day we become stronger and able to surrender so we open a way for a spring, new birth, metamorphosis hidden during winter in slow purification of elements.

Isa.

That learning starts when time stops,

it’s not going to be about past or future, but about you,

your true nature.

With clothes and knowledge you can always try something new,

but for the deepest teachings of your inner teacher

you should leave behind your preferences

and wait, posing, slowly coming back into your body,

letting feelings flow and thoughts follow.

In the moment of no fear, doubt and guilt,

when you accept everything,

you’ll learn.