One moment during a yoga workshop, my teacher said, “Buddha is laughing because there’s nowhere to go.” I don’t remember the context of this proclamation. Were we practicing asana? Was it a dharma talk? Was this in her answer to a student’s inquiry? I have no idea. But this quote is now handwritten, in cursive, on a piece of paper I have placed in the back of my bathroom cabinet. I see it multiple times a day.
Laughing feels like bubbles. And it’s one of the features of my Inner Sanctuary.
When I teach my preschool, kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high school students whole-being-resilience, I often begin by helping them create a happy place. There are lots of names for this whole-being-restorative mind-body practice: Safe Space, Inner Resource, Inner Sanctuary. Most students stick with the classic: Happy Place.
I explain why I’m spending our precious time on this practice. This explanation is essential: to create sensations of peace, safety, and security in their body no matter where in the world they happen to be, or where in the universe (or multiverse) they end up. This way, they will always have access to their prefrontal cortex and abide in thriving mode rather than survival mode. Because of this they will not be controlled by their thoughts, emotions, or fear-based reactions. They will be able to step into freedom, making wise choices about what to think, say, and do – as well as what not to think, say or do – in any given moment. It is also to create consistent and ongoing opportunities for their nervous system to rest, repair, and renew itself. Repetition will then create greater ease of access to this space in the future thanks to neuroplasticity, neurogenesis, and synaptic strengthening. The main reason they are willing to experiment, however, is because I also explain that it feels like sleep, and is often much better than sleep, to be honest.
There are many ways to practice creating and being in your inner sanctuary. One way I guide practice is by inviting students to rest back in their chair or forward onto the table, eyes open or closed, notice the places their body makes contact with what’s beneath it, and allow the breath to come and go. Then I lead them through their five senses and invite them to use their imagination to create the safest, coziest, most favorite place they can in as much detail as humanly possible. They choose all the locations, structures, landscapes, shapes, lines, colors, textures, sounds, scents, and flavors that make them feel safe, cozy, and happy. Anything and everything about their happy place can be real or imagined, true or fantasy, from the past, present, future, or all of the above. They can invite images of people they see everyday who make them feel safe, as well as spiritual beings, ancestors, or animals into their happy place. They can also choose to be sweetly, beautifully alone.
Before we begin, I explain that it’s okay if they can’t think of anything at first, if their mind is blank. It’s also okay if the images change during the practice. And they don’t even have to do the practice themselves; they can just listen and observe. Lastly, they can always come out of the practice at any time.
Happy Places change as we change. They never have to stay the same unless we want them to. To offer an example from my own life, I share that one of the fixtures of my inner resource is the sound of my children GIGGLING. When they were younger (and I was younger), it was
the sensation and scent
of their little bodies
sleeping against mine.
But now it is the giggling
rupture-ous kind of laughter,
the kind that spills
up and out
fountain-ous
upside down
sideways
waterfalls.
Buddha laughing because there’s nowhere to go is one of the most precious permission structures I’ve ever encountered. I love it: Do nothing. Go nowhere. Are you imagining this?
Stop striving.
Rest where you are.
Be at ease.
Be peace.
The Happy-Place-Inner-Sanctuary-Safe-Space-Inner-Resource practice is like this:
Here you are.
You have already arrived.
Abide in peacefulness.
Abide as Peace.
I also introduce my school-aged students to the concept of dignity, being worthy of love and respect simply because we are alive, alive in these bodies! There is sacredness to us. We are sacred. That’s it. There’s nothing to earn or prove. There is nowhere to go. We are the proof of our own worthiness. We are our own evidence of pricelessness. All of us can stop everything we’re doing and be breathed by the animating force within all things.
My meditation teachers sometimes invite us to sit with a tall spine, to extend through the back of the skull and crown of the head, dipping the chin just an inch. A posture of inherent dignity. This is one way of honoring our sacredness. My other meditation teachers invite us to lie down, reclined and bolstered by cushions, pillows, blankets, and weighted sand bags shaped like hearts. A posture of inherent royalty. This is another way of honoring our preciousness.
I invite my students into these spaces of dignity, self-love, safety, comfort, and security. I give them space to decline. I smile when they appear shocked that I am allowing them sleep during class. “If your body falls asleep, no worries, I’ll wake you up when it’s time.” I laugh when they open their eyes and say, “Yeah, I’d do that again.” I thrill when they tell me the next day they used their Happy Place Imagination Practice to fall asleep – and it worked.
Buddha’s laughter reminds me to keep practicing levity.
I used to be SUPER serious All The Time. (Some people don’t believe me when I share that fact.) So much so that I’ve been working on laughter as a spiritual practice for YEARS. One day a while back the universe gifted me with someone who is good at this laughing-in-the-face-of-difficulty-thing. Then the universe gave me ANOTHER someone who is also good at this laughter! I continue to learn from them daily.
One of the things that makes me laugh the most is my children’s laughter. When they belly-laugh and can’t breathe in and their faces turn red, or contort, or expand in utter surprise at the unbelievable ridiculousness of a situation, I just can’t get enough. And I love it when this happens to me. I love it when I think something is so funny that I can’t tell the story because I’m literally crying-laughing. Sometimes I can’t finish telling the story, and sometimes I can’t even start telling the story. The words won’t come out and every time I even think about it I burst out laughing. I love this so much. But I can’t create it, as much as I try, I cannot create this experience. It is a sheer gift. But I’m going to keep trying. I’m going to keep taking myself less seriously. I’m going to shift my perspectives. I’m going to turn myself upside down and create opportunities for laughter to bubble up from the depths of me – you know, where all the joy lives 😉
Laughing is the epitome of homecoming. When we are belly-laughing we are in the moment in our bodies and it feels good to be there.
I was going to say that when we’re laughing we are the least self-conscious we ever are, but that is definitely not true for a lot of us adult women. A ton of us end up covering our mouth or our face to hide the contortions, stifle the sound of our giggle, cross our legs and hobble to the bathroom to pee, or all of those. And some of us don’t. I’ve been letting myself laugh in whatever ways that laughter wants to come out, and that feels magical. There are many, many reasons laughter is considered the best medicine. There’s tons of research proving that now, but I don’t need any more proof than my own direct experience.
Try it out:
- Create Your Happy Place
- Fill it with Laughter
- Experience it
- Notice How Your Body Feels
- Repeat Daily
Being at home in your body doesn’t mean you have to love everything about it, or love everything it is or everything it isn’t. Being at home in your body simply means you feel safe there. You know how to care for it. You allow it to live and move and have its being. You feel like your body takes care of you and you take care of it to the best of your abilities. It means you forgive your body like you forgive the most dear, sweet little child. It means that you don’t even have to considering forgiving because your body has done nothing it needs forgiveness for. Being at home in your body means you listen to it like an elder, you sit at its feet and honor its ancestral wisdom. Being at home in your body means you are comfortable there, for the most part, not every second of every day, but you can find a way to drop into easiness. It’s worth the effort and it’s worth the practice and it’s worth the curiosity and it’s worth the love and it’s worth the work.
It doesn’t feel good to be uncomfortable in my own skin, to feel trapped in my own body. It doesn’t feel good to compare myself to others and wish I was them. It doesn’t feel good to be a puppy and wish I was a polar bear.
Realizing that there is nowhere to go means we understand that all we need is within us. Here. Abiding in our true nature. We wait. We allow ourselves to be moved. To be breathed. And then we open the portal to all the wisdom of the cosmos. She comes to us in the great silence, bubbles up from the never ending well of sweetness and is sooooooooo generous.
Being at home in your body is the most beautiful, precious, priceless gift you can give yourself. And really, no one can give you this gift but YOU.
XOXOX,
A.
Generous Wisdom | Spacious Heart 