As a lot of you know, I've not always been the happiest person. This blissed out person I am now is the result of LOTS of work. LOTS of long involved discussions with my Dharma teacher and my dad (who is a mental health counselor), LOTS of therapy, LOTS of yoga, LOTS of meditation, and a double TON of self evaluation. There was once a time when the smallest bump in the road would send me spiraling down to where I didn't want to get out of bed. But these days, even the most awful of days, I can keep going and find that inner joy and actually, truly (!!) access it. I've had major loss, career frustrations, relationship issues, etc., this past year and somehow I am still managing to stay within my bliss.
But...I'm not very grounded.
We were chanting in Bhakti class last night and sounds that should have resonated in my root were still floating up in my chest. I kind of chuckled that it was because I wasn't a very grounded person, but then I started thinking about that. Maybe I really am not.
Is being grounded an affirmation of accepting exactly who you are in exactly every moment? Because I don't. I appreciate the journey, and am learning day by day to not get frustrated with myself when things don't come easily to me, but at no point do I want to just stop and stay where I am. I am on a journey, people! And when you're on a car trip you don't just get in the car filled with snacks and stay in your driveway...no you move forward. You take in the sights...you stop at places you can't wait to leave and you stop at places you wish you could linger at forever. But you don't. You take some pictures, absorb the feelings of the place, and then you get back in the car and keep going. That's my life. Each step is a memory in the making...but it's not my life. I have a clear picture of the destination and the rest is just the road trip to get there.
Is being grounded accepting only what you can verify as real as the truth? Because that's a big negative in my world as well. I believe in SO much that I can't quantify or qualify. I believe in God (if you don't know that about me then you need to read this blog more thoroughly) and I believe I have seen spiritual actions in play. I believe in the gifts I am granted with in this life cycle. I believe in where my road trip is taking me, though I keep being told that it's not guaranteed...for me it's a given. I believe in the immense power of joy. It's that power that makes the most difficult things in the world bearable. It's the power that allows me to try new things because I know I will either love it or laugh at it, or often times both.
I am not afraid anymore.
So when someone looks at my light hearted self and sees someone frivolous...well that's their mistake. I have seen heavy...I have lived through it. I used to spend my life in heavy confusion, but now I spend my life in prayer to the Highest, and I grasp the gravity of the human experience. But my gift...my blessing in this life, is joy. So if forging through the experience of fear and still laughing, still being silly and cracking jokes, still finding humor in otherwise serious situations, is a sign that I am not grounded...then okay. I'll take my joy any day over that.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Finding My Balance
I've always been a believer in the physical manifestation of the metaphysical and spiritual issues we are facing in our lives. Think about it, haven't you seen someone fall heavy in love and also start to grow a little heavy in body? Or someone so stuck in their ways and mindsets also be plagued by joint pain or stiffness. Or when someone is overcome with stressors in their life, they tend to age years in the span of months. I call these God's little jokes. It's as if he is screaming at us, trying to tell us the issues he has sent us to work on in this lifetime. So when my doctor told me about a year ago that I had an inappropriate heart that was at risk of becoming too large, I couldn't help but chuckle at God's little joke for me.
I've always known my heart was too big...emotionally at least. One day I'll share with you the story of my spiritual revaltion, but I'm a little private with that piece still...it's intense even for me. But let's just say that I am often overcome with the enormity of my love...my love for my world, my life, my experiences, my friends, my God, and yes, even my love for my struggles. I have hurt in ways beyond description, and yet my redemptive spirit has brought me back both mentally and physically each time. And maybe it's because of this enormity of my beliefs that sometimes I lose patience with others (mainly those who don't believe in the positive or in the progress created through conscience effort) and most detrimentally, with myself when I try to skip steps in my journey.
A few months ago I had surgery to correct some things in my heart. It was needed to make sure I live a long and healthy life, but was I interfereing with God's signal for me? (Side Note Alert: Now don't start thinking I'm one of those people that don't believe in modern medicine. Nope, I believe in it, use it, and think that we should feel blessed to live in a world where even wildly complicated things can be fixed. My surgery was completed in part with robots and lasers...how cool is that??) But my heart had been telling me I needed to stop keeping all that love I was building up inside of it in. I'd been working on all these repairs to make me healthy and capable, but I hadn't tested it out...hadn't shared it with anyone. And when I got the go ahead to proceeed with my life, I full force jumped back into the gym, to running, to yoga, but I didn't jump back in to the life I'd been hiding from. I fixed the physical manifestation but I was still ignoring the lesson...LET PEOPLE IN.
In yoga tonight we did a double whammy of postures that made me re-evaluate things. First, heart openers. These always bring up intense emotions for me, but usually not until I'm driving home in my car. I usually get to the on ramp of the interstate when I start my inner monologue that often ends in tears of joy. It made me realize that I am so filled with joy that my tears are leaking it out of my eyes. (yes, God, I'm getting it) Damn opening heart!! LOL. But the real kick in the pants tonight was when we were trying to do balance poses. I've never been the most naturally graceful person. My dance teacher growing up used to joke that she needed to choreograph my life since only when the steps were outlined did I not fall down. Man, she was wiser than she knew. When I was going through my Yoga Teacher Training a few years ago, I did struggle with my balance. But as I sloughed off the layers of inbalance in my life, my balance on the mat improved. And as I strengthened myself, I also strengthened my body and guess what? Yep, my balance improved. When my doctors banned me from exercise for 6 full months, I was so wrapped up in other aspects of the matter that I didn't even begin to think about the whole balance thing. But as I fell out of pose after pose tonight I just tried to tune into the lesson. I am still off balance.
When life was empty, I learned how to be filled by my own spirit and there in was my balance. When I was frightened, I learned to retreat. When I was angry, I learned to be calm. But here I am now, full of happiness, joyfulness, love, and belief. So why am I off balance? Because...I am FULL. How can I begin to reign in my entire being to a place of balance and compactness when my entire being is pouring over the sides in rippling waves of want to reach out?? So just like my hyperactive mind needs stillness to function, my overlarge heart needs to purge a little so that I can once again balance. I need to learn to start to express all those things I've been holding inside. To release the joy I keep inside to spread and create new joy in the world. To show someone who maybe needs to feel loved just how capable of loving I am.
My old dance teacher was right. We can all balance better when we know the steps, but as I've chosen to live an unchoreographed life I better get used to recognizing God's little jokes and finding my own balance.
I've always known my heart was too big...emotionally at least. One day I'll share with you the story of my spiritual revaltion, but I'm a little private with that piece still...it's intense even for me. But let's just say that I am often overcome with the enormity of my love...my love for my world, my life, my experiences, my friends, my God, and yes, even my love for my struggles. I have hurt in ways beyond description, and yet my redemptive spirit has brought me back both mentally and physically each time. And maybe it's because of this enormity of my beliefs that sometimes I lose patience with others (mainly those who don't believe in the positive or in the progress created through conscience effort) and most detrimentally, with myself when I try to skip steps in my journey.
A few months ago I had surgery to correct some things in my heart. It was needed to make sure I live a long and healthy life, but was I interfereing with God's signal for me? (Side Note Alert: Now don't start thinking I'm one of those people that don't believe in modern medicine. Nope, I believe in it, use it, and think that we should feel blessed to live in a world where even wildly complicated things can be fixed. My surgery was completed in part with robots and lasers...how cool is that??) But my heart had been telling me I needed to stop keeping all that love I was building up inside of it in. I'd been working on all these repairs to make me healthy and capable, but I hadn't tested it out...hadn't shared it with anyone. And when I got the go ahead to proceeed with my life, I full force jumped back into the gym, to running, to yoga, but I didn't jump back in to the life I'd been hiding from. I fixed the physical manifestation but I was still ignoring the lesson...LET PEOPLE IN.
In yoga tonight we did a double whammy of postures that made me re-evaluate things. First, heart openers. These always bring up intense emotions for me, but usually not until I'm driving home in my car. I usually get to the on ramp of the interstate when I start my inner monologue that often ends in tears of joy. It made me realize that I am so filled with joy that my tears are leaking it out of my eyes. (yes, God, I'm getting it) Damn opening heart!! LOL. But the real kick in the pants tonight was when we were trying to do balance poses. I've never been the most naturally graceful person. My dance teacher growing up used to joke that she needed to choreograph my life since only when the steps were outlined did I not fall down. Man, she was wiser than she knew. When I was going through my Yoga Teacher Training a few years ago, I did struggle with my balance. But as I sloughed off the layers of inbalance in my life, my balance on the mat improved. And as I strengthened myself, I also strengthened my body and guess what? Yep, my balance improved. When my doctors banned me from exercise for 6 full months, I was so wrapped up in other aspects of the matter that I didn't even begin to think about the whole balance thing. But as I fell out of pose after pose tonight I just tried to tune into the lesson. I am still off balance.
When life was empty, I learned how to be filled by my own spirit and there in was my balance. When I was frightened, I learned to retreat. When I was angry, I learned to be calm. But here I am now, full of happiness, joyfulness, love, and belief. So why am I off balance? Because...I am FULL. How can I begin to reign in my entire being to a place of balance and compactness when my entire being is pouring over the sides in rippling waves of want to reach out?? So just like my hyperactive mind needs stillness to function, my overlarge heart needs to purge a little so that I can once again balance. I need to learn to start to express all those things I've been holding inside. To release the joy I keep inside to spread and create new joy in the world. To show someone who maybe needs to feel loved just how capable of loving I am.
My old dance teacher was right. We can all balance better when we know the steps, but as I've chosen to live an unchoreographed life I better get used to recognizing God's little jokes and finding my own balance.
Monday, January 24, 2011
What in the WAH!
I have a dozen other blogs, but none seemed the right place to start this conversation, because, something shifted. Without wanting to overload you, or to jump right in, I’m going to do both. My followers from other blogs, come along for the ride. My new followers, let me say this to you. I am on a mission to live a fulfilled, authentic, open and loving life filled with joy, service, and people of substance. Sometimes I stumble, and sometimes when I get up I decide to take a different path, but these are my journeys. Come along…
My weekend, like always, started with a little yoga. This time I was joined by my dear friend Jesi. She’s someone that I’ve thought of often as we aged and I am so overjoyed to have her back in my life so that I can see the amazing woman, mother, and wife she has become. It’s people like her that give me faith in the awesome power of the human spirit, but that’s her story to tell, not mine.
After flow on Friday, I went to see WAH!. For those of you unfamiliar, (www.wahmusic.com), she is an amazing singer who leads the most beautiful kirtan I have ever attended.
Side Note Alert! Before you start commenting that you thought I was Buddhist, let me explain. First, I am a firm believer that all paths are true and all lead to the same God, full of infinite wisdom, love and realities. We were created with both imagination and faith and what we imagine to be possible can be so if we just have faith in our path, our devotion, and our God. Second, I have an amazing Dharma teacher who reminds me of 2 things in regards to religion.
1 – If you don’t feel comfortable in your beliefs you won’t be devout within them. You don’t get to know your beliefs by keeping your head in a box. You get to know them by looking in every box and then finding the one, or the combinations, that speak to you.
2 – Just like Jesus was a Jew, Buddha was also a Hindu. In order to understand where my branches reach, I need to be grounded in where my roots grow.
Okay, back to the main note, haha. So, I went to see WAH! I’ve meditated my whole adult life. I’ve felt the presence of God and his avatars in ways that would make others question my sanity…in ways that once made me question it. But part of believing is letting go to the possibility that the things we pray to, the things we believe in are actually true. I have followed the path of Humanistic Buddhism for years, but I also believe all paths converge. Say what you will, but after chanting to Krishna, I don’t know, but I was opened up to something I’d forgotten for a while…
That I really love being in love. (for those of you that know me, you know what it takes for me to say that. For those that don't, let's just say that to say that is a BIG deal)
To heavy for a moment, so I decided to meditate on that for a night.
When I woke up on Saturday to a cold, yet beautiful day, I also had an overwhelming urge to take the dogs to the beach. I bundled up in yoga pants, sweat pants, bikini top, long sleeve shirt, baja, ear band and sunglasses and off we went. Cold! So cold even my snow dog wouldn’t go in the water. But they dug in the sand while I did a couple hours of yoga on the beach. Not super exciting to some, but it cleared out the excess and gave clarity to the thoughts that had been swirling around in my head since the night before.
I love being in love, yet I haven’t been in love in 4 ½ years.
I hadn’t really realized it had been that long until I started counting. I’m not saying I haven’t dated, though I really haven’t done much of that in the last 2 years either, just that I haven’t loved them (sorry if you were one of them…I know I wasn’t always kind). But it comes down to that is has been a LONG time since I’ve been in love. And even then, it wasn’t the kind of love I needed. There are layers upon layers of why the Ex and I didn’t work, but I can sum it up for me as I was trying to make myself responsible for someone else’s happiness and make someone else responsible for my happiness. It doesn’t work. I was single, I was unhappy. We were together, I was unhappy. We were apart, I was unhappy. I dated other people, I was unhappy. The recurring theme in all of this was that I was unhappy. So I decided to take some time, to cleanse my system so to speak.
I cut out the negative influences where I could. I repaired relationships with family and friends that needed it. I clung to those friends who truly brought out the best in me. I went from a job I felt soul sucked in to a job where I feel fulfilled and appreciated. I re-found my relationship with my spiritual self. I went to a LOT of therapy. I went to even more yoga. I forgave others for the hurt they’d inflicted on me. I forgave myself for not being stronger. I learned to create valid boundaries. I learned to be comfortable with solitude. I found peace in the knowledge that if I knew all the answers I’d be at the end of my journey and not at the beginning. Little by little, life kept getting better, and then without really being aware of when I made the transition, I became a happy person.
Then I had to go and chant to Krishna! Haha, but seriously. I’d been closing off the “Love” door until I found happiness within myself. When I decided to take a sabbatical from dating I’d told myself that it was unfair to anyone else to put my baggage on someone else, or to hold them responsible for filling something within me that I needed to fill for myself. But I did it. I made peace with past, have accepted the journey, and while there are still frustrations in life sometimes, for the bulk of my life I am happy and live in the moment.
So…as I chanted
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
I felt it. Like something woke up, and I swear I heard someone say, “Well, okay then. Go for it.” I was chanting to be open to love and life, and there it was.
You can’t take two unhappy people and expect love to transform them. And you can’t ask one happy person to drag the other along. But, if you find two happy people, souls that have done the work, found their path, and decide to allow love to further their happiness (not create it) then that is the kind of love we pray to Krishna for.
So this is me declaring that I’ve found my happy and saying that I am open to love and open to life.
My weekend, like always, started with a little yoga. This time I was joined by my dear friend Jesi. She’s someone that I’ve thought of often as we aged and I am so overjoyed to have her back in my life so that I can see the amazing woman, mother, and wife she has become. It’s people like her that give me faith in the awesome power of the human spirit, but that’s her story to tell, not mine.
After flow on Friday, I went to see WAH!. For those of you unfamiliar, (www.wahmusic.com), she is an amazing singer who leads the most beautiful kirtan I have ever attended.
Side Note Alert! Before you start commenting that you thought I was Buddhist, let me explain. First, I am a firm believer that all paths are true and all lead to the same God, full of infinite wisdom, love and realities. We were created with both imagination and faith and what we imagine to be possible can be so if we just have faith in our path, our devotion, and our God. Second, I have an amazing Dharma teacher who reminds me of 2 things in regards to religion.
1 – If you don’t feel comfortable in your beliefs you won’t be devout within them. You don’t get to know your beliefs by keeping your head in a box. You get to know them by looking in every box and then finding the one, or the combinations, that speak to you.
2 – Just like Jesus was a Jew, Buddha was also a Hindu. In order to understand where my branches reach, I need to be grounded in where my roots grow.
Okay, back to the main note, haha. So, I went to see WAH! I’ve meditated my whole adult life. I’ve felt the presence of God and his avatars in ways that would make others question my sanity…in ways that once made me question it. But part of believing is letting go to the possibility that the things we pray to, the things we believe in are actually true. I have followed the path of Humanistic Buddhism for years, but I also believe all paths converge. Say what you will, but after chanting to Krishna, I don’t know, but I was opened up to something I’d forgotten for a while…
That I really love being in love. (for those of you that know me, you know what it takes for me to say that. For those that don't, let's just say that to say that is a BIG deal)
To heavy for a moment, so I decided to meditate on that for a night.
When I woke up on Saturday to a cold, yet beautiful day, I also had an overwhelming urge to take the dogs to the beach. I bundled up in yoga pants, sweat pants, bikini top, long sleeve shirt, baja, ear band and sunglasses and off we went. Cold! So cold even my snow dog wouldn’t go in the water. But they dug in the sand while I did a couple hours of yoga on the beach. Not super exciting to some, but it cleared out the excess and gave clarity to the thoughts that had been swirling around in my head since the night before.
I love being in love, yet I haven’t been in love in 4 ½ years.
I hadn’t really realized it had been that long until I started counting. I’m not saying I haven’t dated, though I really haven’t done much of that in the last 2 years either, just that I haven’t loved them (sorry if you were one of them…I know I wasn’t always kind). But it comes down to that is has been a LONG time since I’ve been in love. And even then, it wasn’t the kind of love I needed. There are layers upon layers of why the Ex and I didn’t work, but I can sum it up for me as I was trying to make myself responsible for someone else’s happiness and make someone else responsible for my happiness. It doesn’t work. I was single, I was unhappy. We were together, I was unhappy. We were apart, I was unhappy. I dated other people, I was unhappy. The recurring theme in all of this was that I was unhappy. So I decided to take some time, to cleanse my system so to speak.
I cut out the negative influences where I could. I repaired relationships with family and friends that needed it. I clung to those friends who truly brought out the best in me. I went from a job I felt soul sucked in to a job where I feel fulfilled and appreciated. I re-found my relationship with my spiritual self. I went to a LOT of therapy. I went to even more yoga. I forgave others for the hurt they’d inflicted on me. I forgave myself for not being stronger. I learned to create valid boundaries. I learned to be comfortable with solitude. I found peace in the knowledge that if I knew all the answers I’d be at the end of my journey and not at the beginning. Little by little, life kept getting better, and then without really being aware of when I made the transition, I became a happy person.
Then I had to go and chant to Krishna! Haha, but seriously. I’d been closing off the “Love” door until I found happiness within myself. When I decided to take a sabbatical from dating I’d told myself that it was unfair to anyone else to put my baggage on someone else, or to hold them responsible for filling something within me that I needed to fill for myself. But I did it. I made peace with past, have accepted the journey, and while there are still frustrations in life sometimes, for the bulk of my life I am happy and live in the moment.
So…as I chanted
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
I felt it. Like something woke up, and I swear I heard someone say, “Well, okay then. Go for it.” I was chanting to be open to love and life, and there it was.
You can’t take two unhappy people and expect love to transform them. And you can’t ask one happy person to drag the other along. But, if you find two happy people, souls that have done the work, found their path, and decide to allow love to further their happiness (not create it) then that is the kind of love we pray to Krishna for.
So this is me declaring that I’ve found my happy and saying that I am open to love and open to life.
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