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February 17th, 2011 When I taught kindergarten, and I saw one child hit another I’d go over and ask why he/she hit the other child. Inevitably the answer was always “he/she hit me first”. I ask both children to apologize, but to the one who was hit first, an injustice is done and the child needs to learn to handle all the injustices that life is going to dish out. I explain that even though they were hit first, it was their reaction that makes them also responsible for all the rest of the hitting. I tell them to go tell an adult the next time someone does something to them. We try to teach our children to be kinder, gentler, individuals by taking responsibility for their reactions, as well as their actions, accepting the apology of another, and build tolerance for the mistakes to be made by themselves and others in the years to come.
Somehow, as we grow, due to basic human nature, this lesson is never really learned, and we repeat the same behavior. As adults, in an altercation, it doesn’t matter who said or did what. What matters is how you react. When someone hurts you, if you react inappropriately, and hurt back, you are ultimately to blame, no one else. It was your reaction. You had the power to change it, but you chose not to. You hurt back. You have to take responsibility for your reaction, and apologize.
If governments and countries acted accordingly, we could achieve world peace. If the formula is so simple kindergartners could pull it off, then why don’t we have world peace?
The answer: Apology not accepted.
So much for kinder, gentler, individuals.
And so, as another day goes by, it’s REALLY true that all you ever need to know you learn in kindergarten, and…I have written.
February 16th, 2011 Why do I go to yoga class? Answer: because I want to make significant changes in my life. I want to make my body healthy and strong. I want to make my mind strong and focused. I want to make my spirit quieter and gentler.
Nice goals. Tall order. One that can’t be accomplished overnight. For a person like me who has never had patience with time, it’s daunting.
In my life outside the studio I also have to make some big changes. After 8 months of “losing myself and finding myself again” I now have to make my way back into the person I was and enter fully back into a life I enjoyed. The first major step of moving forward is to fully “let go” of what was and embrace what is now. Again, nice goals, tall order for a person who wants to make time pass faster than it already does. Even as a child, my dad says I was “always running”. I was never content where I was. I was always looking for the next thing, even before completing the present one. These big changes I’m attempting are going to take time and have to take hold slowly. It’s going to take another 130 yoga classes to complete the metamorphosis.
The “great dilemma” is change. We want it, but we resist it. We want the benefits we know it brings, but we don’t want to do the work. My teacher said this awhile ago, but only now is the meaning becoming clear. I’m glad I’m in a class that will help me overcome the resistance and do the “work” and make the changes in my life that I know are necessary.
And so, as another day goes by, “the winds of change are blowing wild and free”, and….I have written.
February 15th, 2011 I always thought a “spiritual warrior” was like an evangelical Christian – someone who goes around trying to convert people. I was surprised to read that it was a person who spent time daily with their own soul. I think I might qualify.
Today in yoga, my teacher, (the one I love), was again encouraging us to look into our own eyes in the mirror. She said go to “a place where you’ve never been before”. She has said that before, but until today, I didn’t know what it meant to go to “that place”. I was in standing bow pose and determined to stay in it for the full 60 seconds. My strategy I have devised lately to do this was to “look into my own two eyes in the mirror”, focus, concentrate deeply, get into the pose and hang right there, not pushing any further, staying still, with the tiger determination not to let anything – even the teacher’s dialogue – cause me to fall out of the pose. Today I receded so far into the pose, foot visible in the mirror up behind my head, and sunk into my own eyes with everyone in the room totally blocked out. Then the teacher called my name and said, “That’s it, Linda! Go for it! Body down! Body down!” – I promptly fell out of the pose. She said when she called my name, I immediately realized I was in “a place I’d never gone before” and got scared and fell out of the pose. She said too many of us get comfortable in going only so far in the poses and hang out there until it’s over. It’s fear that keeps us from pushing into that unknown territory. I feel like I ventured into that territory today by staring further into my own eyes and seeing beyond, into my deeper self. I don’t know how else to describe this experience.
Then, when we were laying in savasana, she said many of us can’t look into our own eyes in the mirror, because some of us have things within ourselves we cannot face or are not ready to deal with. I never have trouble looking into my own eyes in the mirror. Its been said the eyes are a window to the soul, but I always thought of that in terms of looking into other people’s eyes, not my own. After all, did we ever think we could possibly “see” our own soul? Today I saw beyond where I usually see, as my body pushed into a place it had never gone before. I do think it was my first venture into my own soul.
And so, as another day goes by, I may be a candidate for “spiritual warriorship”, and I have written.
February 14th, 2011 Real human hearts are soft and squishy, constantly moving, pushing fresh blood and oxygen through the body. Valentines are made of paper and flat, and rather cold. Paper hearts can be torn up and discarded easily in the trash. Human hearts can’t even be touched without actual surgery. Why is it then that the human heart can be broken in less time than it takes takes to tear a paper heart to shreds, when you can’t even touch it?
The answer: You can choose whether or not to “break” or tear up a paper heart. You have no control over the breakage of a human heart. It happens. It’s part of the cycle of life that we all must accept, just as we accept eventual death. When the human heart gets broken, the first question is always, “Why?”. Today in my morning meditation this question was answered by a beautiful Tibetan myth:
“All spiritual warriors must have a broken heart because it is only through the break that the wonder and mysteries of life can enter us.” (I also learned that a spiritual warrior is someone who is willing to face their soul on a daily basis.)
I loved this myth. I find comfort in it both for myself and for others I know who have had their hearts broken. I have a friend, who, awhile ago, drew a broken heart in the steam on my bathroom mirror. She wrote next to it, “I’ll always have a broken heart, but I’m happy”. As I looked at the break in the heart, and read the message daily, it saddened me, and I couldn’t quite reconcile the message. “Broken heart” and “happy” were two words that didn’t belong in the same sentence in my line of thinking.
The old myth has helped me understand that a broken heart is also an open heart – open to new love, forgiveness, tolerance, empathy, new life directions, and a myriad of other things necessary for us to grow and change and move forward. I now understand my friend’s message and let it bring hope instead of sadness. The real fear and sadness lies in a closed heart. A closed heart can grow thin and cold and brittle much like the paper valentine. The “break” in the broken heart is the inlet for the new life that keeps the blood and fresh oxygen pumping.
Whatever shape your own heart is in on this Valentine’s Day, whether broken or intact, always keep an inlet available so that you,too, may experience “the wonder and mysteries” of life.
And so, as another day goes by, “break” does not always mean “broken”, and …I have written.
February 13th, 2011 “Letting go” is another one of those phrases I have trouble understanding, along with “losing and finding oneself”. How does one go about “letting go” of feelings anyway? I know my feelings are trapped in my gut, wound around my muscles, coursing through my veins and arteries and interwoven through my diaphragm. If I just I just slit open my stomach will they just fly out like a baby in a cesarean delivery? I really don’t think so. So then, how do you release something so trapped within you? You can say “I’m letting that go” until you’re blue in the face, but it’s just words. Empty words, void of action. After many years and situations that demanded “letting go”, I finally stumbled upon my answer rather accidentally in my recent journey of “finding myself”.
I came to two conclusions:
1. “Letting go” is not something you can do – it is the result of something else you have done.
2. Don’t try this without your yoga, because it requires a healthy, strong, spine with the imaginary tattoo of strength written on it vertically.
So, let’s look at number 1. What is it that you must do before “letting go” can take place and vacate your innards? Be honest. When someone dies, you go and kneel beside the casket and face the honest fact they are gone. Only then you can turn and walk away and “letting go” happens. When a relationship is in trouble, you must be brutally honest with the other person. Say what you have to say, honestly….with no hidden dialogue, or underlying meaning, because that is what’s keeping the “letting go” from taking place. You were so afraid of being honest because you didn’t want to lose the person, so those feelings stay trapped, eating your gut alive. (In other words, no pussy-footing around)
“Letting go” is like a big crap shoot where you wager everything in one shot. You put it all out there on the table. Say your piece and walk away. And if you were brutally honest, the feelings will evaporate because there is no more for you to say – but only if you were honest. If you’re crafting messages that have hidden meanings trying to shanghai the other person, those feelings will stay inside as you go through your days mired in tears and thoughts going round and round in circles. “Letting go” will only be empty words.
What does yoga have to do with it? Everyday we do the spine strengthening series. A healthy, strong, spine is where the essence of your life begins. The strength of your whole body resides in your spine, as well the strength of a disciplined mind, because your mind is not separate from your body. Whatever you do to your body, translates to your mind as well. Day after day of your mind telling your spine to “go up, more up” gradually builds a herculean strength in both. A strength so essential to do the hard stuff in life.
Also, everyday in yoga, after each posture in the floor series, my teacher (I truly love my yoga teacher) says, “Savsana, on your back and “let it go”. Each floor pose uses specific compressions that constrict the blood and use the tourniquet effect to release rushes of fresh blood and oxygen cleansing our bodies of contaminants and toxins that make us sick. Without the compression, there can be no “letting go”, and in turn, if you are not honest in doing each pose to the best of your ability, you cannot reap the medical benefits of “letting go”.
Doing and hearing this day after day, for almost 20 weeks now, has trained my mind, as well as my body, to be nothing but honest to enable me to “let go” of both physical and emotional toxins that cause stress, which in turn cause innumerable diseases, including cancer. So, as I said earlier, if you need to “let go” of something in your life that is literally eating you alive inside daily, be honest in your messages and be honest in your yoga practice, and then, and only then, is “letting go” possible.
And so, as another day goes by, I was honest and risked losing it all, the trapped feelings have been “let go”, and….I have written.
February 12th, 2011 This blog is for both February 11 &12 because it took a long car ride yesterday, a nice evening with my husband, and the dawn of a new day today to bring my experience to clarity.
“I lost myself” and “I’ve got to go find myself” are two phrases I’ve never quite understood. (Strange, for someone who grew up in the sixties when “finding oneself” was all the rage.) You walk around living, breathing, thinking, talking, working, etc.everyday. You see your face in the mirror every night. How the hell could you misplace yourself? I’d shake my head every time I’d hear about so and so going off to “find themselves”. But alas, once again, don’t judge that which you have never experienced.
Losing oneself happens so gradually, over time, that you don’t feel the micro-changes taking hold of you, changing who you are, how you act, how you speak, how you interact with friends and family, and, most importantly, how you think and view your life. Then one day, you begin to look around at your world crumbling in hands. You start asking yourself, “How did this happen?” as if you weren’t present for the whole thing and someone else did it for and/or to you. How do you get to this point of realization that your “self” got “lost”?
For me, it happened last Sunday. I made a joke about something and my husband and daughter laughed at it. It startled me. It felt like it had been a very long time since I joked about anything. At the same time, I was reading the book Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. In it, I saw myself in one of the characters. It was an awful weak, depressed, possessive, woman – you wouldn’t know it on the outside, but listening to her thoughts and those of her son, I felt like I was looking into a mirror.
Driving yesterday, I asked myself some hard questions as a result of these musings. I tried to remember when was the last time I felt like the “self” I was slowly remembering. It was last spring on my LA vacation. When I got back from LA, my mom had her accident, which eventually led to her unexpected passing. In the midst of a whole summer dealing with this, and a long fall dealing with the aftermath of my latent feelings, I gradually “lost” the wife, mother, and friend I was when I went to LA, and became this individual I met in the novel.
Upon going to bed last night with these realizations, I woke up to a new day this morning. Suddenly I feel free. I don’t feel shackled by the feeling of “I must take care of everyone and everything or I will lose more”. Extreme loss does things to a person that you don’t realize until much time passes and you have something to compare it to. I think depression quietly creeps up on a person in much the same way. Beware.
I have learned much on my journey of “losing and finding myself”. In 2011 I know I will be a much better parent, wife, and friend. It’s going to be a year of renewing and rebuilding the parts of me I remember. The things I will keep from the journey will be the tools I have acquired to deal with extreme loss. Loss is a part of life and I would be remiss in thinking it’s never going to happen again, and I now feel equipped with the strength to face it again, but keep myself intact. It really is all about the journey.
And so, as another day goes by, that “other woman” is gone and I am back, and …I have written.
February 10th, 2011 I learned an Irish phrase “tuning the five string harp” when I read “Listening Beneath the Noise”, by Anne LeClaire. It means “opening the five senses and bringing them into alignment so they work in consonance”. In the book the author remarks that tuning the senses is much like tuning any instrument. It takes time and can’t be hurried or forced.
Tuning our relationships can be likened to tuning the “five string harp”. There are times when all five strings harmonize and make beautiful music. These are the fun times with our loved ones that we remember in our Facebook photos. Every so often one string falls out of tune. We talk and put it back in alignment and once again the music flows. Once in a great while all the strings go haywire and it takes longer to perfectly tune the harp again. Sometimes it’s quite awhile before we can get the music to play again. To get the music back, we first must listen to a lot of screeching and bad notes. The important thing is we don’t give up and set the harp out on the trash pile. We keep plucking and listening and pretty soon one, then two, then maybe four, and, finally, after much listening and labor, all five strings swing into tune and the music flows once more. It takes time and patience to tune the five string harp, just as it takes time and patience to listen to and reconnect with our loved ones.
Now that the harp is tuned, do we expect it to stay that way forever? No. Such as it is with our relationships. They, too, will not stay tuned and flow perfectly forever, because the very essence if life is movement, change, and growth and we must be just as patient and tolerant with our parents, children, spouses, siblings, and friends as we would be with “the five string harp”.
My problem? I’m tone deaf.
And so, as another day goes by, I need a skilled musician in my life, and…I have written.
February 9th, 2011 A favorite “God teaching” of mine that has sustained me for close to 40 years is this one:
“If you want to know what God wants you to do, ask him and he will gladly tell you. But when you ask, be sure that you really expect him to tell you, for a doubtful mind will be as unsettled as a wave driven and tossed on the sea.” (James 1:5-6)
In wrangling with a particular situation, I’m trying to adhere to my resolution and let time work and patience prevail. Certain days this doesn’t go so well. Today my patience was waning, and so I asked: God, what should I do? Should I do anything? Within minutes, there was my answer in my morning meditation. The very title of it shocked me when I opened to today’s date:
The Thing In The Way
“We tend to make the thing in the way the way.”
It was a short story about the author driving 400 miles to see the Botanical Gardens in Montreal only to find the gate locked when they got there. He was immediately disgruntled for having made the long trip, only to be disappointed. His companion didn’t seem phased by the locked gate, and began walking around the wall that surrounded the garden. The author was frustrated with his companion and became very grumpy and impatient with every step they took. After walking quite a distance, the wall fell away and there was the garden in front of them to simply walk into.
He said, “How many thresholds that seem blocked or barred or locked only seem so from their initial viewing? How many opportunities for true living are barrier-free, if we can only remove ourselves and our minds from their traditional points of entry?”
He suggested today I do this:
1. Center yourself and consider a barrier or threshold you are facing.
2. Breathe slowly and relax your insistence. Stop beating the door down.
3. Breathe evenly and circle the barrier or threshold with your spirit.
4. Breathe patiently and see if there is another way in.
In my particular struggle, I know what I must do. I have always known what I must do, but there are days when I doubt my decision and question my strength. Days when I don’t want to be patient. Days when I want to rush in and fix it, when I know full well that doing NOTHING is the only answer. Again, nothing is the hardest of all things to do. Rushing in and fixing it would assuage my own wants and needs, which must be put aside right now. Today I needed a little extra shove to continue to “relax my insistence and stop beating the door down” and continue to do what it is I knew I must do all along : nothing.
I used to call these timely messages from God coincidences. Then I read “wHispers” by my author friend, Shirley Vogel and I learned there are no coincidences, only gentle whispers from God that guide and soothe us in time of struggle. Shirley’s book is about her struggles in life and how these whispers guided and soothed her out of the great difficulties she faced in a broken marriage and extreme health issues. The magnitude of her faith has helped me stay focused on that which I have depended on for forty years ~ my faith and daily relationship with God. It’s reassuring to know that even when I’m in doubt, he is still here, whispering to me, and will work this one out, too.
My “God” and your “God” might be viewed differently here on earth, but I believe that no matter how you express your spirituality, in the end, it’s all cut from the same cloth, and in time of strife, we should all cling to it. “Whispers”, as Shirley calls them, transcend all languages, cultures, and organized and unorganized religions alike and touch everyone who walks this earth at one time or another. Every time something floats through your mind, flutters in your stomach, or brushes your cheek and makes you stop just for a second, heed the moment. “Whispers” change lives and cause miracles.
And so, as another day goes by, today I heard a whisper, and….I have written.
February 8th, 2011 Today in yoga class our teacher said to try not to come out of the pose early, stay in the room, and during the last 10 seconds, go to your personal edge. Life will always have a struggle in it, both in and out of the studio. Pushing through your struggles inside the studio will train your mind to overcome them outside of the studio, too. There will be struggle even in the periods when all seems to be going well. The tremendous control of the mind over the body we learn in the studio, translates into tremendous control of our mind over thoughts detrimental to our overcoming struggle outside the studio. Not letting our mind go in a certain direction takes fortitude, but through the practice of yoga, it becomes almost second nature. One person was discussing having to leave the room because she couldn’t get air and one young man remarked, “But isn’t that what yoga is all about?”
When we are involved in a struggle the only thing we focus on is having it over. And when it’s over, what will there be? Another struggle. If life is never without a struggle and it’s impossible to reach that struggle-free utopia, then it seems to me we need a better approach to viewing our everyday problems, as well as our long term ones. I, myself, have been going down the road of “struggle is a journey, the solution is not necessarily the destination”. Lately instead of racing to find ways to resolve it, I just slow it down and put it on the back burner. Sort of like what we do with our thoughts when we go to sleep. It’s been said that our dreams are our subconscious mind working out our difficulties and problem solving while our mind is at rest. Going through my day without actually focusing on my major struggles of late, I feel my mind is on auto-pilot in finding those solutions and problem solving. Out of this, at odd times of the day, such as driving down the road, out if nowhere comes a new way to approach the struggles lingering in my world. Being present in my yoga practice, my reading, my writing, my cleaning, etc. and leaving my struggles in the peripheral, leads to that sort of “dream type” problem solving.
I believe this is another benefit gleaned from the floor of the yoga studio. Day after day I’m conditioned to drop my struggles in the puddle in the parking lot before entering, and for 90 minutes train my mind to focus on my own eyes in the mirror, overcoming anything my body might be yelling at me. Outside of class it’s easier to focus on the moment at hand, rather than get eaten up inside by life’s current strife. So many new insights come about that wouldn’t have if I had dwelt on my struggles 24/7, making the journey as satisfying as the destination. Just as in the dream state, the mind is allowed to go to places we could never force it to go.
Complete control over our thoughts is paramount to relaxing in the midst of conflict and strife, greatly reducing the stress that could easily overtake us.
And so, as another day goes by, mind control affords stress relief, and…I have written.
February 8th, 2011 Haven’t we all had a time when we’ve just plain messed up one of the biggest moments of our lives? I know I have and my heart goes out to Christina for messing up the national anthem at the Super Bowl last night. It’s been replayed today on every news and talk show and every tv host has offered up their opinion. It was said that Christina issued a short statement about messing up the biggest performance of her life and then went behind closed doors and wanted to be left alone.
I can imagine how badly she wishes she could have a “do over” right now. There is a tremendous feeling of powerlessness in this moment. No matter what she says, she can’t change it or erase it or make anyone understand. It’s a very lonely road. She tried to say she got overwhelmed by her super bowl moment and hopes her love for her country had shone through anyway. But will anyone listen? No. They’ll just keep replaying her horrible moment and it won’t be forgotten for a long time.
Silence is her best defense right now. In fact, much can be learned by listening to the silence. Trying to apologize, explain, make excuses, beg forgiveness – all just creates alot more noise. Retreating and sitting quiet, listening, without using the ears, allows time to first feel and process the mortification and then learn from it. (I doubt she’ll risk that ever happening again.) This would be what I call swallowing and digesting the explosion, a skill I hope to perfect myself in 2011.
Sometimes we learn from the silence that what we thought others were thinking and feeling is quite the contrary. We tend to make up that which we cannot hear with our ears, and then think and react to what was, in fact, made up in our own minds.
Being a “writer”, words are my primary tool for explaining myself, stating my opinion, and getting messages to people. It is very hard for me to communicate with someone in silence. In fact, when someone exiles me to the island of silence, my first reaction is to combat it with a torrence of words trying to explain my part. Very often people relent and we have a heart to heart and resolve our differences. Every once in awhile I’ll be faced with a silence that won’t entertain my words. This causes me to turn inward and banter away inside my head, still not getting anywhere positive inside the silence. Only recently I did hear unsaid words seeping into my mind when I began actually practicing one of my new resolutions – let time work and patience prevail. Christina will have to do the same.
And so, as another day goes by, mortification strikes again, and..I have written.
*~ blog for 2/7 – (forgot to hit publish last night)
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