Tag: enchanted

Lovable

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Deer IMG_6942

About a week ago I was up at my ashram for a yoga teacher reunion. It was little more than 24 hours, arriving at noon on Tuesday and leaving around the same time Wednesday, in which we reconnected with each other, did some yoga and made a couple new friends.

The treat in going to the ashram is being in the presence of Yogi Amrit Desai. Wednesday morning, after yoga, we had that opportunity. During trainings, and even between trainings, Gurudev – our term of endearment for him – leads philosophical, spiritual talks called darshan. He shares his thoughts about many things in the yoga world and reminds us of a few universal truths, but most of his talks circle back to consciousness. This morning was no different. This is the reason I am here.

Today he is talking about how we feel we need to do things, be something and act in certain ways to be lovable. He was giving examples and making us nod in agreement and laugh at ourselves. I would drift in and out of engagement as usual, doodling in the margins of my journal, writing the big ideas down, then I heard it.

When we hear the same word over and over again, especially in our own language, in our own accent, it sometimes loses power, or at the very least, impact. He was saying lovable repeatedly. Only in his Indian accent he was pronouncing it love-able.

This completely reframed things for me. Lovable – Love-uh-bull – sounds to me like I have to add things to me to make myself presentable to another to be loved. I have to primp and preen, be smart, make money, have nice things, not be myself. I have to behave. To be loved.

Love-able makes me feel as if I have to strip away pretense, wash my face, take off my nail polish and open my raw authentic self up in order to love another.

One sounds desperate and seeking, the other scary and exciting.

Maybe I’m the only one who sees it this way, but I don’t think so. It tracks with what we’ve been told: In order to love another you must first love yourself. In order to love yourself, you have to accept yourself AS YOU ARE and that is knowing who you are underneath it all.

Acceptance of self = Self love = Lovable. Able to love.

[Photo: Young orphaned buck that was cared for across the street from the ashram. He now comes over to visit and receive love.]

Future Self

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Dragonfly awesomeIMG_7743

It was sometime during the afternoon yesterday that I met my future self. Not the perfect, slim, wrinkle-free, jet-setting, rich one of my over-fertile imagination. I met the settled, comfortable in her own skin, deep smile lined, glowing with a secret, one. I much prefer her. She’s the type of person I’d like to have coffee with. She was in a word: Enchanting.

She told me a million magical things in the nanosecond she was before me. It was all familiar. I already knew it all, I had simply forgotten.

I had forgotten that the weight of the world does not depend on the tiny little decisions I make every day. That my path was strong, that I knew the way and it was okay to deviate and explore because all roads led back to that path. That I am beautiful beyond measure, not because my eyes are blue, not because I have expensive shoes but because in spite of those things there’s a radiance that, if I let it out, cannot be articulated or seen, only felt.

She reminded me that all people are made of energy so we are each the same. At times we take the energy of another; at times we give our energy to those in need and when we meet someone we resonate with on the same frequency we are shown our own magnificence and we are duty bound to recognize it. To deny one’s gifts depletes one’s energy. Embrace that which makes you shine.

Above all she reminded me to stop struggling. Allow the pendulum to rest. Bask in just being. Allow the world to enchant me. If I wait patiently a dragonfly will land on my dress, the wind will blow.

And finally she shared her deepest, fiercest, unconditional love for me, for where I am, for who I am and for who I would become. She reminded me that she is me. That without love for myself, unconditional love, it is impossible to love another unconditionally. It can be no other way.

To recall her, what she looked like, would be a struggle, but her light was undeniable. My light. She was probably somewhere in her mid to late seventies. I was. But it was not her age or any identifiable features she wanted to share with me. Her message clear.

All I have to do to get there, is be here.

21 Day Challenge – Day 16 – Catch of the Day

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trees 2 IMG_1991This 21 Day Challenge is revealing to me my non-negotiables. Those things that I will not only fit in, but make a priority.

At the beginning of these 21 days I was consumed with my task list, at the expense of almost everything else. It was a good lesson. All the other priorities that previously took precedence over me – work, cleaning, grocery shopping – still got done. I managed to fit them in around the new non-negotiables.

It had to happen that way. I could not have reorganized my priorities with pen and paper, I had to live them. I had to take this concept from my head into my body. There was no other way.

While at the gym today I recognized that this challenge, the yoga and the gym especially, is for my mind and my spirit way more than it is for my body. My body is both the problem and the solution.

I have come to see the body as something like a net. Little things that may be annoying or wonderful pass through the net every day. We may notice them, but we can easily let them go and allow them to flow right through us. The bigger things get caught. The argument with a loved one, an illness in the family, a lost job or a job with which we are completely misaligned. The heavy things stick. We have to acknowledge them and break them down into little pieces that can pass through.

But that doesn’t always happen.

These bigger things are stressors, they pull on the ropes, dragging us down. They web up the net making it more and more difficult for even the little things to pass through, so now a hangnail or burnt toast is a stressor.

Some ice cream or wine will put a nice coat on it, softening it so momentarily it takes on a different shape, tricking us into believing we have freed the stress from the net. But we haven’t.

It is clogged, we are heavy – sometimes literally, sometimes energetically – but it feels the same. We drag, we sit too long, wonder too much at how to fix it or change it. We ignore it, maybe it’s not that bad.

If we’re really lucky, or maybe secretly smart, we take a yoga class. Or we go for a walk. Or we have to run to catch up to someone. And something shifts. We feel it now, the weight of the stress, every single molecule glomming up the net, hanging like seaweed and noodles, stuck like wet bread coated with grease.

We know now we did this. Simultaneously we know we can undo it. There’s another class, another walk and pieces of stress begin to dry up and drop off. We leave a trail of energetic waste behind us on each step we consciously take.

For a moment we consider what exactly all this is. What events or people caused this? Then we know it does not matter. Because we are the common denominator. We caused this. We allowed this. This was all accumulated with our permission.

So now we have choices. We can be the net clear of debris for all situations to pass through without reaction, without holding on, or we can continue to collect stories to prove our point and hold us back.

Because it is the mind that got us into this trouble, it is best to leave the mind out of the solution. Get into the body. Move. As we move deliberately with intention there is a lightness of spirit that returns. The net begins to clear.

More tension falls away. Maybe we cry in our yoga class. We don’t know why, nothing is sad. Stored emotions are the detritus that clings to our energy field bogging it down and as we begin to move, we release. It may happen during a run or during a commercial for coffee. It’s all okay. It’s all necessary. We cannot think our way out of this.

Take it to the body. The body is the tool to relax the mind and energize the spirit. What an amazing combination. Relaxed energy.

It is from here we can begin to see clearly.

[Photo: Can’t see the forest for the trees.]

21 Day Challenge – Day 13 – Gut check

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After the rain IMG_1948

I have this internal gauge that lets me know when it’s time. It tells me when I’m done with something, usually kind of big and potentially life changing things: a job, a relationship, a town. Lately I can feel the valves beginning to close on an aspect of my life. Marriage is solid, community is strong, this has to do more with work.

I begin to feel it as an exasperation, there’s a lot of sighing involved. ‘I don’t wanna’ whiny vibes emanate from my gut. Then my head starts to tell me a bunch of stories about how good this job/person/place (we’ll call it ‘noun’) is. Trying to trip me up. Sometimes it works, it usually delays the ultimate act, but rarely changes the decision.

In response the gut speaks louder, it gets angry and starts to find fault in everything having to do with noun, down to a single unrelated incident that somehow is now noun’s fault. The mind reminds me of the good things noun has done for me and strongly recommends I maintain status quo. That’s its job.

The gut is pissed off. It’s time. The mind just wonders if this is really the best time to make such a big change.

The gut is done. The mind makes one last ditch effort; you know making this change now will affect everything you want to do, your whole life could change, is that what you really want?

YES!

And so it is. I have been playing this game for the past few months. I know what I need to do on an energetic level. It’s the financial level that scares me. A good chunk of my income is wrapped up in this decision. At the same time, my enchanted living is suffering.

I can see what is on the other side, I can feel it. I know what I am supposed to be doing, I get reminders and signs every single day. Every day.

I believe everything I have done that is perceived as negative; poor eating habits, lack of exercise, disorganization, financial debt are all ways to slow down my leap into this life that is waiting for me. It’s the mind protecting me from my bigness. It’s very scared of the unknown. Same is safe. New could be a mistake.

As I move through this challenge and begin to chip away at these bad habits and obstacles, the mind is fighting back. Rather than trying to convince me that I shouldn’t do what I feel called to do it’s guiding my hand toward the leftover Halloween candy. It pats my head and tells me to rest today, there’s no need to do yoga every day. It suggests I put the computer away for just one day so I can recharge so my writing will be fresher, bolder.

But I am onto it so I go to my mat, I open my computer and I continue. The key for me is to call up the vision, plant both feet firmly in it and dare the mind to knock me over. And if it does, the proof will be in getting back up. So far so good.

 [Photo: Bay tree after some much needed rain today.]

21 Day Challenge – Day 11 – Midway Tricks and Treats

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Halloween IMG_1876As I reach the halfway point of my challenge I am assessing my progress and looking forward to what I may want to add in.

Thus far my performance has been stellar. I have met all of my daily challenges except for one. Doing yoga ndira twice a day, every day, was perhaps a bit ambitious. I have forgiven myself. What I have learned is there is a best time of the day for me to do yoga nidra and so I am committing to that time each day. The yoga, gym, writing and photography have been a cinch and alcohol hasn’t even registered as a miss.

Once I complete this first 21 days I’m considering adding some new tools to my enchanted life toolbox. The yoga, yoga nidra and gym are keepers. Writing and photography are a passion and part of a much bigger plan so I don’t think I’ll give that up. The wine? We’ll see where that goes. I still have 10 days on my current plan so I won’t be adding anything quite yet, but I am considering what could enhance my magic making even more.

I have decided to look at food. I know, looking at my relationship to food on Halloween is like being at a romance film festival on Valentine’s Day alone. But all this sugar has me thinking – and hyper.

I have a love hate relationship with sugar. I love it. It hates me. Oh, it says it loves me, sweet talking me into believing it will treat me right but I can see right through its foil wrapper. Those are empty calories mister.

But every now and then it’s hard to resist. Sugar doesn’t act alone, he’s just the front man for a much bigger gang of carbohydrates.

I’ve been on this ride before. I got so serious about food that I became a Holistic Health Coach. I know a lot about food, dietary theories, exercise, physiology and the disease process. I studied the Blood Type Diet, Ayurveda, Veganism, Vegetarianism and Raw food. I know food.

I became obsessed and rigid with food, denying myself so much that I naturally swung the opposite direction in reaction – why can’t I have what I want when I want it? The answer to that question, unfortunately, is all over my hips.

So now I seek the middle ground. What will support my ultimate intention and goals?

As food has not been a direct part of this challenge I have not created any restrictions but I have paid attention. I’ve made good choices. But I can do more. And sometimes less.

If I am eating loads of veggies and fruits, very little grain, very little animal product, no dairy and next to no sugar aside from what lives naturally in fruit, I feel fantastic. If on the other hand I shovel candy, coffee with heavy cream, lunch meat and starchy foods in my face on a regular basis – not so fantastic. I believe this is probably true for most people. Why do we go back to the foods that do not serve our magical selves?

It doesn’t happen all at once, things just creep back in. The mind begins to convince us that we deserve a treat. That’s a trick. (See what I did there?) We don’t deserve sugar, potato chips, soda and deep dish pizza, we deserve to feel amazing.

Eating too much of anything, but especially too much sugar, is like putting a wet blanket over the inner fire. It dulls the brightness, causing that perky flame inside to sit on the couch and put its feet up for a while with one hand tucked in its waistband and the remote control in the other.

Food is a huge part of the healthy, enchanted lifestyle I seek. I’ll begin the investigation and self-inquiry into the foods that are the most supportive for my energy level and shininess. Again, not to be a size zero. Who really wants to be a zero anyway? But to stay clear, focused and feel alive and vibrant. To keep the creative juices flowing and the energy level high.

The bottom line, I want to treat my body like the gift it is, like a temple. Not a haunted house.

[Photo: Playing around with some indoor photography. A touch of Halloween.]

21 Day Challenge – Day 3 – Wrap Up

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Egret IMG_1426

Day 3. Is this really even a challenge? It’s amazing to me what a clear intention, a shift in perception and support from amazing strong women can do.

I have immersed myself in the Facebook group that sprang to life, because of that first blog, like it’s my job. It is so difficult to describe this group and what happens there without using words like enchanted and magical.

All I have to do is think about the openness and readiness with which people share their vulnerabilities and unconditional love and tears of gratitude well up.

This was not at all what I expected to be writing about day after day during this challenge. I thought I’d struggle for clever ways to say I took a yoga class and went to the gym. I had no idea I was going to fall in love.

I keep using the word support, but not one of us has asked another how their 21 day challenge is going. Many are sharing but I haven’t really noticed references back to their specific challenges. It’s bigger than that now. It’s a mini-movement. It’s a commitment to upliftment in others and in so doing we are made lighter and brighter. It is through sharing our light that our own grows stronger.

That’s the support. It is non-specific yet to the point. It is being there. It is holding space. And, dare I say it? It is magical.

For the record I have effortlessly met all my daily goals. It’s no longer an option. It is my responsibility.  Keep the lamp lit. Share it.

[Photo: As I was about to leave the house this morning, running late already, Larry, my husband called to let me know there were “tons of white birds” at the pond in front of the police station. So naturally I had to go. (Sorry Darlene 🙂 They were flying back and forth like they were playing red rover. Try as I might I couldn’t quite capture them in flight without a little blur. Maybe they’ll be there tomorrow…]