Begin by taking a deep breath in,
And as you exhale,
Feel everything ground and soften.
Breathe in,
Connecting to your breath,
Connecting your breath to your body,
Connecting your body to this now.
Inhale,
And exhale.
While I've been living in Tokyo,
I've been working on my kid's book,
And I'm once again revising it.
And I realized what I'm doing on this go-round,
Is I'm putting my main character,
The one I love so deeply,
I'm putting her in a rock tumbler.
Did any of you ever use those?
You find rocks somewhere in the world,
And you put them in this machine with water and grit,
And then you turn on the machine,
And it goes round and round,
Rubbing away to reveal the beautiful,
Shining center.
And as I realized that about the character in my book,
I realized the same thing is happening to me here in Japan,
And probably happening to you in your life.
Because life goes round and round,
It rubs at us,
It challenges us,
And sometimes we just want everything to stop.
And that's what we're doing right here,
Right now.
Finding a sense of stillness,
A sense of deep ease.
You are here.
You are okay.
Whatever is happening,
It will happen.
For the moment,
Can you sit?
Can you settle?
Can you trust yourself?
Trust that no matter what life brings,
You will meet it.
You will find a way through.
Breathe.
Center.
Life will bring grit.
Life will make you tumble.
And you can shine.
You can shine with your ferocity,
Your radiance,
Your willingness to get back up,
To live,
To live light and shine.
