Boo! Who’s Behind the Mask? 🎃
I love Halloween!
There’s something about this time of year that brings out the child in me, with a little extra sparkle in my eyes!
I love walking through our neighborhood with a warm, creamy coffee, kicking through the fallen leaves beneath the big trees. Children are excited in their costumes, parents stroll along, and the houses glow with pumpkins, lights, and Halloween decorations. There’s spooky music playing and almost a feeling of ghosts floating through the air.
It’s a little spooky, a little magical, and just plain fun.
Thinking about that more…
What about the costumes we wear every day?
Not the witches and ghosts, but the stories we have about ourselves. Who we think we are, who we think others are, what we’ve experienced, what we believe, what we like and don’t like.
Over time, experiences and storylines accumulate and repeat. We begin to identify with them, often without even noticing. It’s simply how we’ve learned to experience and interpret ourselves, others, and the world.
What happens when we begin to recognize these stories for what they are?
Do we have to take off the masks to discover who and what is there?
Or can we recognize ourselves even while wearing them?
A few days ago, I was sitting in an airport with a friend. I told her about my recent volunteer work with hospice and my interest in the afterlife, sleep, and dreams.
She asked me how I saw the connection between sleep, dreams, and death.
“Perhaps they’re all the same,” I said.
She paused.
“Do you mean inseparable?”
“Yeah.”
She paused again, deeply thoughtful.
That opened up a wonderful, openhearted conversation.
Later, I found myself thinking about the delight of Halloween, the preciousness of being alive, and the mystery of sleep, dreams, and death.
Have you ever considered that we’re not really separate from one another, or from life itself?
Even as everything around us changes, there’s a connection that never goes away. A love that isn’t dependent on circumstances.
For many years, yoga and meditation have helped me become more familiar with this continuum of awareness. That understanding continues to deepen through practice and everyday life.
When we dream, we enter another world. We fly, find ourselves in strange places, or experience scenarios that seem wild, bizarre, or somehow connected to our waking lives.
While we’re dreaming, it all seems so real. Until we wake up.
What if waking life isn’t so different?
During the day, we move through our stories, beliefs, fears, and expectations, sometimes becoming so caught up in them that we forget there’s more to our experience than the story we’re telling.
In deep sleep, the familiar world of waking experience falls away. In Tibetan Buddhist traditions, sleep can even become a practice for meeting death with greater awareness.
Waking, dreaming, sleeping, and dying are understood as opportunities to recognize the nature of awareness.
This is what I find so fascinating about dream yoga.
We practice recognizing that we’re dreaming while we’re still in the dream. And during the day, we can practice too. Simply pause, take a breath, relax, and rest as awareness.
Years ago, I experienced frightening images and appearances during dreams and sleep. My root meditation teacher gave me a simple instruction: I am safe within all appearances in dreams and sleep. They are points of view of awareness only.
This was such a relief. Rather than trying to push away what frightened me, I began practicing relaxing and resting as awareness, right within the energy and appearance itself. And I practiced. And practiced.
Through yoga, movement, breath, meditation, and becoming familiar with whatever was arising.
The energy in the body. Thoughts. Emotions. Fear. Joy. All of it. The more familiar we become with our experience, the more effortless it becomes to rest within it all.
We don’t need to remove every mask, change every thought, or make every experience comfortable.
We can begin to recognize ourselves right in the middle of it all, within it all.
That’s a little of what awakening is about.
A Little Practice for Tonight 🌙
Before bed, take a few minutes to settle.
Begin with some gentle yoga movement or stretching. Feel your body. Notice the sensations and energy moving through you.
Bring your attention to the warmth of your heart.
Breathe into that space.
At the top of your inhale, pause comfortably for a moment, resting in the spaciousness.
Slowly exhale, allowing the exhale to become a little longer than the inhale.
Empty out. Empty out.
At the bottom, pause for another comfortable moment before breathing in again.
Repeat five times, gently, without forcing or straining. If pausing the breath is uncomfortable, simply breathe naturally.
Then rest.
Notice the sensations in your body, the sounds around you, the silence.
Savor the silence, like the taste of chocolate.
You don’t have to make anything happen.
As you drift toward sleep, you might gently remind yourself:
Tonight, I may recognize that I’m dreaming.
And tomorrow, in the middle of your ordinary day, notice when you’re caught up in a story about yourself or others.
Perhaps you can recognize it, smile, and relax for a moment.
So enjoy the ghosts, the costumes, the laughter, the leaves, and maybe a little chocolate.
And if you find yourself being chased by a monster in your dreams tonight, perhaps you’ll remember you don’t have to run.
You might even invite it for tea.
BE-FRIEND it. BE-YOU. BOO!
Enjoy the dream. Recognize the light.
And shine, shine, shine!
Happy Halloween! 🎃
With love,
Chey
A little Yoga update:
I’ve now shared 16 days of my 30-day beginner yoga series on YouTube! I’m also continuing to work on the companion book with dedication and care. It’s a project close to my heart, bringing together simple yoga movement, breath, meditation, and everyday life.
If you’d like to practice along, you can find the videos here:
P.S. I’ve put together a little Halloween playlist for you. Enjoy a little seasonal magic!
A little note about my writing
Sometimes I use AI as a creative partner to help organize and explore my ideas. I go back and forth, revising and refining until the words feel like my own. The experiences, reflections, and final choices are mine.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for being you!
Image of Luna:
“Who needs a costume when you're already this mysterious?”
