For me of late, humility is like breathing -- an opportunity to pause, reflect, feel, let go, relax, heal, regenerate, and connect with yourself and others in ways that might not be otherwise if I wasn't mindful of my embodied strivings and the effects that they may be having on others (and their strivings).

Every night my five-year-old son, Marcel, and I have a ritual of storytime and a few songs. Since late January, Marcel asks me to perform the "cure" for him and his older brother, that he describes as a preventative for possible "bad" dreams they may experience during sleep.

This "cure" is an incredibly humbling practice of metta meditation and mindfulness, that I just learned as a part of the "Four Brahmaviharas" Pod in January. Soon after I learned it, I did a guided session with Marcel and his brother one night (after sensing that he was afraid of falling asleep because of a bad dream he experienced the night before). And now it has turned into a nightly ritual for us.

It's been a very humbling experience to watch unfold over time, in that, a large reason that I participated in the pod was to slow down, rest, heal, and develop creative ways to engage with myself and family in deeper and healthier and curative ways.

So, now, to be asked by my son every night to do a metta meditation and body scan reminds me that I don't have to go searching for some external solution -- that all I've needed to do is simply breathe. Breathe with myself and my family. Breathe until creative mindful, metta-filled moments reestablish their residence in the here and now.

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Originally posted in Laddership Pod, Feb 2021.