1. Truth: Ease isn’t just for special occasions. It isn’t just for when I am resting or celebrating, when all the work is done or I am on vacation. There doesn’t have to be a desperate need or national holiday. I don’t need special permission or free time. I don’t need to earn it. Ease can be how I move through the day, through my entire life if I choose–content, satisfied, free, calm, spacious, sane and awake.

2. Truth: Keeping an open heart is difficult, which is why I train to steady my mind. Having an open and porous heart, I am extra sensitive to noises, light, movement, smells, energy and emotions, and the general chaos of an environment which includes other beings and all their stuff and nonsense. I am vulnerable. I can easily get overwhelmed, which can lead to panic, depression, and other states of dis-ease.

Keeping my heart open is brave and dangerous work. As Ram Deev said in a recent blog post, “Your heart wants you to grow, to be challenged, to face difficulties that seem insurmountable. It wants to nudge you closer and closer to the edge of oblivion.” And yet, instead of hiding, running away, resisting, or denying reality, I have made the conscious choice to keep my heart open, to let it all in, to allow it to touch me, to break me even.

I hold myself steady with the help of various practices, primarily yoga, meditation, writing, self-care, walking my dogs, and loving-kindness. I do all this because an open heart allows for a life of kindness, curiosity, freedom, and joy, along with what it knows best: love, deep and enduring, unshakable.

3. Truth: I am like the sky. I am not the clouds or the weather. I am not the birds or a plane or balloons. I am not the moon or the sun. I am the clear blue spacious openness, underneath and above all other phenomenon. My basic goodness, my innate sanity is unchanged by thoughts or emotions, unaltered by the weather.

We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves—the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds—never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake. ~Pema Chödrön

One Wish: That as each of us walk our path, face our own obstacles and struggles, we can so so with ease and maintain an open heart, and trust that we are basically good and sane, as spacious and clear as the vast blue sky.