Child-Like Suppleness + Asp/Inspiration

Let's dive right in 🔥

Embodying Yoda’s teachings in movement

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

This is an 8 minute watch, and the teaching is going to supercharge the quality of whatever physical practice you’re involved in.

Musings on aspiration and inspiration

An aspiration is little more than something to point at, and yet, essential to the life-traveller at a certain time.

What we hope for in a goal is often already calling us forth… in a quieter way, which we aren’t quite ready to listen to. The moment of setting the goal is a moment of doubt, and so setting the compass is a kind gesture to our character, when life’s open-mindedness is overwhelming.

However, many a traveller has lost sight of himself in reference to his goal; aspirated himself of the life-nectar at the core of his being; trading his innate peacefulness for the experience of being fixated on something that he thinks must happen.

Give me a minute — my chai has arrived and I want to drink it while it’s hot.

…

Okay, I’m back and two days have passed. So much life has been lived. So much has been accomplished and learned and remembered.

But I forgot all about my aspirations…?

To be busy enjoying the flowing of life’s river is to really live — the fill each space between each tick of time, with substance undefineable… That’s something to aspire towards, and yet aspirations are unnecessary for this.

So, how soft can you aspirations become?

How gentle and how clarified, by the sobriety and lucidity of presence-in-now?

To aspire is a beautiful human right. A naturally endowed privilege. Let it remain your right, without making it your life-sentence.

Inspiration is as freely available as an in-breath, and the softer the mind, the richer and more inspired the human.

Just as a sponge soaks up water when dry, the being, when ready, will be inspired.

And occasionally, the being likes to be stirred, and the heart, pumped, so that creation can pulsate and undulate through its own mystery.

Deep breaths, a walk, a chai, a friend, a trouble, a mishap — all are golden to the one who remembers that inspiration blooms in the spaces between rigid conditions.

It’s only ever the personality that obscures the light.

So, allow yourself a rest from this personality character you’ve gripped for so long — whether it be for a few moments, or for a lifetime.

When you let it go, you’ll smell the air surrounding you in a way you never have before.

Inspiration does not need the be sought out. It’s doing its best to meet you all the time. Release your shoulders, melt into your hips and feel the vastness of the sky above and the earth below. To what will you attend, with your pointy focus? And what if the focus weren’t so pointy? What if it was more of a diffused glow?

To be inspired is the natural state of being filled after having been emptied, so empty your cup before asking for the new.

Make a life of emptying your cup and the new will find you in a form never ever before seen — and never-to-be-seen-again.

Your originality as a human being exists as the inspiring space between what seems to be and what might be if you were to allow it.

To be inspired, notice that you already express the life already within you, with each exhale.

There, now, your cup is empty.

What will the next breath bring?
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If you took on the Stance Practice challenge, it's time to send me your clips!

It’s wonderful (and not surprising) to see how transformative and illuminating it’s been for many of you already.

Just goes to show that the simplest tools, when wielded with quality of attention, become golden.

Send me your videos (edited/sped up if necessary) to WhatsApp on +61404959523 and I’ll pick someone to invite into the next Baseline cohort next week

…In other news, I recently recorded a podcast with Nina DeFrancisco @mindbodynina

We spent 90 minutes talking about her incredible journey thriving with thyroid cancer, amongst other things.

This is going to be an awesome listen for anyone who hasn’t already come across Nina’s funny, useful, animated, heart-lifting content on instagram. I suggest you suss her out before the pod is released this week.

I’ll share it on socials when it’s ready, and you can keep tabs on my podcast (which is mainly on Spotify) right here:

​https://open.spotify.com/show/2PSop1cvRwwZlzYSwI1EUA​

Alright, much love!

Jack