Welcoming the Storm: Practicing Presence in Challenging Times

In this episode of the Infinitely Precious podcast, James Henry reflects on what it means to face challenging times—not with brute strength or willpower, but with presence, gentleness, and spiritual practice. Drawing from recent personal hardships, including family transitions and grief, James shares how returning to contemplative practices—like mindful dishwashing and sitting in stillness—helps him navigate life’s storms. He reminds listeners that spiritual practice isn’t about perfection or achievement but about making space to feel, breathe, and grow. In our moments of overwhelm, we are invited not to escape the pain but to name it, befriend it, and welcome it to the inner table of our lives—because even in struggle, we are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved.

Episode Transcript

Intro (00:00):
Welcome to the infinitely precious podcast produced by

(00:03):
infinitely precious LLC. Yourhost is James Henry. Remember,
you are infinitely precious andunconditionally loved for the
gift you already are.

James (00:12):
Hello, beloved. It's me, James. And recently there's been
a lot of things going on in myworld and maybe the same for
you. When things getchallenging, I still remember
the old adage whichunfortunately I don't think
holds true which is when thegoing gets tough, the tough get

(00:35):
going. It implies thatchallenging times are smooth
sailing and easygoing and beingtough is what will get you
through those moments.
And, toughness, my biggestconcern about the use of the

(00:58):
word toughness is toughness hasbeen idealized or perhaps
personified in the tough,strong, physically fit,
determined, willful approach tothe difficult and challenging

(01:21):
times in life. And I want tosuggest to you that perhaps
there is another way to look atthe tough and challenging times.
Now, I'd like to say that it'sthe first approach that comes to
my mind when I'm facing thechallenging times. It is not. It
has been challenging in my lifefrom various personal in the

(01:45):
process of moving, in theprocess of changing jobs, the
death of my father, time tryingto help mom get back on her feet
after dad's death, mymother-in-law is facing some
challenging times.
And all of that coming togetherposes a challenge and actually

(02:11):
feels kind of stressful if we'rereally honest with each other.
Moments like that when there isa convergence of many
challenging things in life, oneor two, okay, but you add a
number of them and it feels likeyou're slowly sinking
underwater. So, what I want tosuggest is what occurred to me

(02:36):
this morning while I was washingdishes. Of all things, I usually
make breakfast in the morningand then, depending upon how
busy any of us are, sometimesI'm the one who washes dishes
after breakfast and so I waswashing dishes and I realized as
I was standing there looking outthe back window into the

(02:59):
backyard, the sunshine and thetrees and I realized that
challenging times are aninvitation to once again take
seriously our personal spiritualpractices. I talk a little bit
about spiritual practices onthis podcast occasionally but

(03:25):
it's worth revisiting.
Now I'm not talking aboutspiritual practice that will
measure you as to how good youare, how bad you are. It's just
not a morality game where you'retrying to measure up to some
divine measure of you. What I dothink it is, is the opportunity
to step back and say, alrightthese times are tough. How have

(03:49):
I made it through the toughtimes before? And I'll be very
honest, in the tough times wherethere was really only one or
maybe two major challenges in mylife, what I did is I returned
to my meditation chair.
Now, by returning I don't meanthat I wasn't doing it already,

(04:12):
but I turned to the lessons ofmy meditation life, my
meditative life, mycontemplative life to help me
journey through the challengingthe challenging moments. So this
morning as I was looking out thewindow, I slowed the washing of

(04:36):
the dishes, turned off the waterand just stood there for a
moment looking at the backyard.Several sparrows landed in the
backyard looking for food. I sawa robin, a pair of robins in the
backyard. I noticed the redbright red male cardinal on one

(05:02):
of the branches of a tree in thebackyard and I just took a
moment to catch my breath.
And in that moment, some of thestress that seemed to be
manifesting itself in my tightshoulders and in my own mind,

(05:23):
those manifestations slippedaway. Well, not completely away,
but they lessened. I smiled. Ifound myself smiling to myself
because here I am a spiritualteacher, an encourager, and a

(05:46):
practicer, and the idea ofspiritual practice seemed alien
to me in my time of greatestneed. It's because sometimes
when we practice anything for along period of time, we start to

(06:07):
take it for granted, we start todo it out of a sense of rote.
This is what we do every day.This is how we do it, and it
almost becomes a sense ofachievement of checking off a
box. I've sat in my meditationchair for twenty five minutes
this morning. Check, and I moveon to the next thing. But the

(06:30):
actual practice itself is notabout achieving some kind of
spiritual enlightenmentnecessarily.
It's not about breaking through.It's about calming. It's about
perhaps suddenly being ambushedby what is real in life. All of

(06:54):
these other kinds of challengesthat are part of my life that
are spinning me up, sometimesquite regularly, are once again
invitations to just take a stepback. When I feel those things

(07:15):
rising much as when I'm sittingin my meditation chair, when I
feel them rising, I canrecognize them, see them and
breathe through them.
It doesn't make them go away.It's not about ignoring it. It's
not about trying to spirituallybypass the pain of grief and the
challenge of new endeavors, thechallenge of letting go of old

(07:41):
endeavors, it's not that at all.It's not trying to get past it.
It's recognizing the pain forwhere it comes from naming it
and recognizing it has a place.
It has a place at the innertable of my life. I don't have
to ignore it, just let it buildup inside of me, let the tension

(08:04):
overwhelm me. There will bemoments when the grief or the
tension do overwhelm me despitepractice, but that's an
invitation to simply continuepractice. Not to practice
better, not to practice smarter,not to practice more necessarily
although any of those might Isuppose work. It's an invitation

(08:27):
simply to recognize in mylimited personhood, in my
finitude, in your finitude, inyour limits that sometimes we
have to ask for help, sometimesthere's nothing that can be
done, We can't just pullourselves up.

(08:50):
We can't just easily fix thingseven if our propensity is to
want to do that. Sometimes wejust have to ride out the storms
and part of it is learning toname what the storm is, to see
it for what it is and as we feelthe adrenaline perhaps start to
rush or the overwhelm ofemotions, let those emotions

(09:14):
come while breathing into theemotions. Not to feel ashamed of
or guilty about feelingemotional, about feeling sad or
overwhelmed or grief orfrustration not to feel, not to,

(09:35):
you know, not to name those asbad, but to name them, to
recognize they have a place atthe table, that they're coming
from somewhere and that sittingwith them for a moment might
give you some clues about whoyou are. Occasionally in this

(09:57):
life of ours we come to believewe have arrived. We don't ever
quite get there, I don't think.
We're good and we're good enoughin this moment, but arriving at
whatever that point is for aslong as we're breathing, we have
the opportunity to grow, tolearn, to see the world more

(10:19):
clearly, to see reality asopposed and juxtaposed to the
many lenses through which we seereality which distorts reality
for us, all of the learned waysof seeing the world that assumes
I'm seeing it exactly the waythat it is as opposed to letting

(10:41):
those lenses fall away. It's anopportunity to say, I haven't
arrived yet. As much as I mightthought have thought I have
arrived, it's an opportunity tostep back. So, I'm thankful this
morning that as I was washingsome dishes, I was reminded that
the best thing I've got is topractice and practice may not

(11:03):
feel like it's working. In fact,it may feel like it's failing
and you still feel overwhelmedon the far side.
Your heart's still beating fast,the adrenaline is still pumping,
You've slowed your breath butyou still feel a bit of the

(11:25):
overwhelm. Sometimes that's anindication you need to ask for
help outside of yourself.Sometimes that's an invitation
to just keep practicing.Sometimes it's an invitation to
do both or perhaps some otherthird way that I have yet to
mention that doesn't come to mymind in this moment. But no

(11:47):
matter what, in the midst of thechallenging parts of our lives
when they arise in us, it can bean invitation to us to step back
to recognize this is achallenging time and that I can
learn what this challenge isteaching me.

(12:10):
I can try to stretch myself intoit. I can just feel the pain as
it's rising. I can just feel thefrustration as it's rising.
Don't have to act on it. Canfeel it, sit with it, recognize
it, learn from it and perhaps inso doing, let it become a part

(12:32):
of me and welcome at the tablein a way that it loses some of
its power.
Those are my thoughts aboutfacing challenging times. I'd be
interested in hearing any ofyours. You are certainly welcome
to respond to this podcast andlet me know what you're
thinking. But until the nexttime, and these podcasts are

(12:55):
going to be a tad bit moresporadic in the month of June as
I'm in the process of packingand transitioning and moving and
all that kind of thing so theymight be a tad bit more sporadic
but in the midst of thesereflections remember you are
infinitely precious andunconditionally loved for the
gift you already are. Until thenext time I speak to you.

(13:21):
Wish you all the best.