Practicing Lightness
[ theme music rises ]
(Lose the Net by Rasmus Faber Courtesy of Epidemic Music)
Isn’t it amazing how good questions lead us naturally to good answers, and how beautiful questions lead to even better answers! When we open ourselves to the things we don’t know, we’ve opened the doors to discovery and wonder and greater understanding.
I’m Scott Lennox and you’re listening to The Beautiful Question, a consideration of things that matter every day.
[ brief pause ]
I doubt you’d go swimming with rocks in your pocket, it wouldn’t make any sense, yet many of us go through similar ways of living by carrying things that weigh us down and hold back from getting where we want to go.
Join me this week as we consider ways of shedding what isn’t really ours. Stay with me. I think you’ll be glad you did.
[ brief pause ]
As I prepare for a one-man exhibition of new drawings and large paintings of feathers next spring or summer, I’m naturally thinking more and more about different forms of lightness. When I hold them in my hand, I’m always amazed by how something as weightless as a feather can make flight possible.
(white pencil and graphite by Scott Lennox)
As an example of that weightlessness, I offer this week’s illustration. It’s a study I created in white pencil and graphite of a snow-white duck feather I found by a nearby lake. When I finished drawing it, I sat back and marveled that my rendering feels as weightless as the feather itself. Some of the reasons for that can be found in how I went about drawing it. Keeping my pencil sharp and using as few strokes as possible, I was intentional about adding nothing that wasn’t absolutely necessary.
In that way, I stayed true to the feather itself.
[ brief pause ]
It occurred to me that evening that my light-handed approach to drawing feathers might offer a window into what’s possible for each of us. Each time we free ourselves of things that are unnecessary—things that aren’t resonant or in harmony with who we really are—we become more liberated and less encumbered. We become free to be the weightless being we were born to be.
In a recent newsletter/podcast, I joined you in considering the freedoms that come when we remove some of the unnecessary things from our physical environments including toxic habits and toxic people. This week, we’ll consider decluttering our inner environment to see what liberation that brings.
[ brief pause ]
It’s not my place to speak for you, yet I’m willing to bet that most of the clutter in what I’ll call your “inner landscape” is mind clutter—the mental activity that is completely unnecessary and usually carried out so habitually, so quietly, that we’re scarcely aware we’re doing it and even less aware of what that mind clutter is producing.
Recently, I was counseling with someone who had a life-changing realization as we were talking. In a burst of insight, she became aware of the ways she judges and sets restricting limits for herself. In the same moment, she recognized that she acquired those suffocating habits from her parents, each of whom lived in constant states of fear. From as far back as she could remember, her parents modeled their own fears of lack and mistrust and limitation and not being good enough. Is it any wonder she spent decades unconsciously following their example and keeping herself from being fully and vibrantly alive?
Is it any wonder she was so unhappy for so long?
After her insight, we talked about ways of shedding the ideas that don’t belong to her and the negative habits that go with those ideas. No sooner had she shed the inner clutter of her parent’s thinking from her awareness than she began to live in ways that are healthy and fulfilling.
“I feel like ten thousand pounds have been lifted from me,” she told me. Talk about feeling lighter! I’m excited to hear what she’ll tell me next.
[ brief pause ]
As a way of intentionally practicing lightness, it might be an interesting exercise to empty your mental pockets and see what you’ve been carrying around that never really belonged to you. And if a different metaphor is better one for you, check the corners of your mental closets or attics or basements, or wherever you’ve been piling things to keep from looking at them. It will be interesting to see what you find there.
In the spirit of helping you lighten your load, this week’s Beautiful Questions are designed to help you do just that. After you’ve pondered them, write and tell me what you discover. I’m eager to hear about it and celebrate your weightlessness with you. Here are my questions.
[ brief pause ]
Question One: Is there a particular thought or idea that you’ve been repeating to yourself that has been weighing you down or holding you back?
Question Two: To the degree that you know it, where did you first acquire it and in what ways has that idea been keeping you from being fully alive?
Question Three: What new and self-liberating thoughts are you willing to put into place, and when will you begin as a way committing yourself to being lighter overall?
[ brief pause ]
Given the self-liberating importance of this week’s consideration, I really look forward to hearing about the things you’ll be doing to bring intentional lightness into your life. You deserve that. You’ve always deserved it.
As I say each week,
My Light with Your Light!
[ theme music & sign-off ]
I’m happy we can engage this way as we consider things that matter and what to do about them. If nothing else, I hope you feel inspired to look more deeply at ways of caring for yourself.
You can be further inspired by visiting my friends at Kosmos Journal. That’s K O S M O S Journal. Their mission is to inform, inspire, and engage global transformation in harmony with all life. You can easily find them online at Kosmos Journal dot O R G.
And at thebeautifulquestion.com, you can read the illustrated transcript of each podcast as you listen. We’ve also included an archive of all previous podcasts, including guided relaxation audios that can help you practice letting go on a daily basis.
If you find these podcasts useful, I encourage you to share them and tell others about them. That’s a great way of helping me get a voice of calm and collaboration and balance and encouragement out into the world. It’s a great way of spreading peace.
[ brief pause ]
I’m Scott Lennox, and this has been The Beautiful Question.
[ brief pause ]
The Beautiful Question is a One Light production, written, produced, and engineered by Scott Lennox at HeartRock Studios in Fort Worth, Texas, as a way of paying forward to life, being fully present, becoming better engaged with things that truly matter in a complex world, and committing to a healthier future for all of us.