In this series, Amy shares her thoughts on simple practices for the season of Advent. If you missed the first post, you can find it here.

Gentleness & Showing Up

This time of year can have us feeling like we’re constantly dropping the ball, are running to catch up, have too many pots on rolling boil, and are basically ill-equipped to meet the demands of the season. Can one person really create magic for the children, brighten up the office, buy, prep, and put together everyone’s outfits, take the photos, mail the cards, buy, prep, and serve those traditional holiday favorites, order, return, reorder, and wrap every gift, and make time for yoga practice and prayer? Expectations can set us up for disappointment because they are usually unrealistic. Life takes a dramatic amount of teamwork to do well. To lighten your burden, don’t lower your standards, adjust your expectations. Instead of trying to do literally every thing, choose one or two especially poignant traditions, make time for them, and truly enjoy them.

Remember, life is about living, about being awake to notice the sensations of joy, sorrow, contentment, boredom, excitement, anger, and ease — the whole spectrum. Remind yourself, life is a practice of being present. Prayer and yoga are practices, too, so be gentle with yourself, know that you don’t have to perform, just show up.

You might have a consistent time each day or week that you set aside to pray. Maybe you have a scheduled time that you book to practice yoga at home or in the studio or at the church.  You might pray and practice yoga simultaneously, and also, you might not. It’s quite possible that your practices are spontaneous, surprising, and serendipitous moments that you scoop up whenever they present themselves; or perhaps you find yourself with a machete, chopping out chunks of time in desperation. I find that settling myself near a window in the early morning is a comforting way to spend a few moments centering myself in God’s presence.

Either way, any time is a good time to be awake, and especially during Advent when we can be on the look-out for incarnation, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the sacredness of the ordinary, the divine spark within each of us.  Have fun practicing. Yes, have fun.  It is good and joyful to be awake and see what chocolate gold coins God has left us in the darkness, in the night, and in the shadows of our every day.