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October 27th, 2011 Usually my daily Bikram yoga class is a wonderful 90 minute, undisturbed, get away for my mind. My body gets lost in the rhythm of moving through the poses automatically through the instructor's dialogue, which gives the cues to begin and end each pose. My mind is free to relax and let thoughts come as they may. Many times, it during yoga class that a lot of ideas and concepts either take shape for me, or become a sudden revelation.
Today was my fourth day with gentle voiced, ADD, no dialogue boy. I had decided last week that I can't shy away from his classes and go only when my favorite teacher is scheduled. I realized that when I get upset with an instructor in yoga, it's usually pointing out something that needs work within myself, and their classes are the ones I need to attend. I got through classes two and three with him, by focusing on the fact that my getting angry at him is not going to change him, and I'm just going to have crappy classes if I stay on that road. I now focus on the fact that the only one I can change is me and my reaction to him. That is the only way I can have positive classes with him. I'm not the only one who feels this way, and we all started talking and adopted this philosophy – we decided to also chalk him up to being a character and laughing about his quirky way of teaching. We all relaxed and had great classes on Tuesday.
Today, though, this listening thing came in. No matter how hard I tried to move my mind out of that room, I kept getting snapped back until all I could do is pay attention to all the talking he was doing. I had to be completely present. No mind vacation today. At first that was extremely frustrating, but since when is being forced to change one's ways not frustrating? By the fifty second pose (26 x 2), I was pretty good at just getting into it, stopping the frustration of not knowing when he was going to get us out of it, (straight dialogue trains you to know exactly when you'll be coming out it), focusing on myself, listening, and staying present.
Changing our ways is hard. Not being able to beg God is hard. Trusting that the answers will be in what I hear – what comes to me, is hard. Having ideas and thoughts and not being able to act on them is hard. Listening is just plain hard. Listening is humbling. Clarity in all I didn't know because I was too busy "doing" is hard to face. Yes, change is incredibly hard, but as a speaker at our Writers Night Out last night said:
"If there were no change, there'd be no butterflies." ~ unknown
And so, as another day goes by, I sit here mad, arms folded, face scowling, hard-headed, and still getting the same message when I open my mouth or lift a finger – LISTEN, and ….I have written.
October 26th, 2011 Yesterday I had a few wavering moments, falling back into old issues I had dealt with last winter and spring. Luckily I had a good friend, with a listening ear. I was telling her that it was another October gauntlet flung in my path and once again I had to draw on my values, pick from them, and apply. I also said I was glad October is almost over – I can’t wait to see what God has in store for November.
Well, November’s challenge was revealed to me in less than 24 hours of that conversation. October was all about recognizing each gauntlet and doing something about it – handling it within the realm of all I have learned this year. November is going to be just the opposite. After my conversation with my friend last night one word kept cropping up in a lot of places: LISTEN. This morning I read a story about red hook fish, very skittish creatures, that retreat to the corner of the tank with every passing shadow. One fish in particular would get so spooked that it would actually jump out of the tank and land on the carpet, only to have to be rescued by its owner time after time. The fish never learns to retreat with the rest of the school when fear strikes.
I, too, always end up on the carpet when fear and panic strike. I always have to DO something. I have to think, talk, write, call, text, pray frantically, cry, ..and the list goes on. The one thing I never tried was to just listen. I was so busy DOING something that I missed what God and others were saying to me. If I had spent more time listening and less time doing, this past year might have been a a lot easier.
While driving down 6A this morning clarity just struck – much in the same way the windshield wipers cleared the vision of the road in front of me. Finally, with the blinders off, I reviewed some instances in the past where, had I stayed close to God where used to live, I would never have reacted such as I did in those circumstances. Now, to move forward into 2012, in addition to carrying on with my new values, I must learn to stop, look, and just LISTEN.
Every conversation with God this morning went something like this:
Me: Hey God, what should I do about …
God: Listen
Me: But God, how will I know what to…
God: Listen.
Me: Hey wait..you mean no doing, thinking, talking, or writing?
God: Listen
Me: But what about praying?
God: Listen.
What??? How am I supposed to get through my day without praying? Doesn’t God realize that’s my time to tell Him what He should do? Precisely. That is exactly what He knows. He made it pretty clear that in November there will be no more “please God this and please God that”. I have done enough damage by not doing enough listening. This month I must learn to just sit with God and people. I must learn to hear what needs to be heard with both my ears and my heart.
I started this morning at my women’s bible study group. At prayer time, I just listened and didn’t pray. Amazing the things I heard that I never heard before. At discussion time, I refrained from talking. I just focused and listened to what others said. Again, amazed at what I actually heard. Driving home, I kept saying Hey God, about ….and immediately all I got back was: Listen.
The challenge for November couldn’t be more clear. And I’m not happy about it. But then again there hasn’t been much about this journey over the last ten months that I’ve been happy about. I just know it was necessary, and oddly, as a result, I am a happier person. A profoundly changed person. So, if the next piece of me to be changed is learning to listen, let’s get on with it. It’s time for my daily walk. I think it will be a vastly different walk down a very same road.
And so, as another day goes by, somehow I think November is going to require more of me than the gauntlets of October ever did, and….I have written.
October 25th, 2011 Those words, “just as they are”, cropped up in two different places today, and in another place last week. I figured there was a message in that. The first time I saw them, it said, “We don’t see things just as they are, we see them as we are.” Then, within fifteen minutes, in a completely different place, I read, “Give gratitude for things just as they are.”
I thought seeing things “as we are” as opposed to “just as they are”, was so true for me. Last winter, in the first three months of this journey, I saw everything through my feelings of hurt and pain. It took months to begin to see them “just as they are”. For me, this meant gaining greater clarity by realizing its not about me and my pain. When I put the pain aside, the other 75% of the pie graph became visible. I learned that when I look at situations through how I am feeling, I only see 25% of “how they are”. If I feel crummy, the circumstances appear crummy, and most of what it really is gets obscured by that.
Yesterday and today, when old feelings of hurt and pain from last spring were flung across my path, (more October gauntlets – thank goodness this month is almost over) my reaction was so much different. Instead of sinking into those feelings I was able to look at the whole graph, recognize them for what they are, and put them aside.
Today I took the second piece of advice these words brought me – “Give gratitude for things just as they are”. Even if I had to practice deliberate gratitude and fake it, when I turned around to look back, things looked different. When a shadow crossed my path, I just said the words “just as they are”, thank you God.
And so, as another day goes by, after ten long months the train is pulling into the station, and I am arriving at “acceptance”, and ….I have written.
October 24th, 2011 It’s here. No, really here. I know the first day of fall occurred weeks ago, but the weather has been so warm and forgiving, I’ve been denying summer really just turned and walked away. Then this morning the weatherman said it : snow. It’s a bit of a flurry that has a mere chance of occurring on Friday, but nevertheless he said it: snow.
Everyone I meet says, “Enjoy this now, ’cause you know what’s coming!”. I do enjoy it now, but I don’t look at the snow and cold weather that’s knocking on my door as an unwelcome guest like most people do. I usher in the cold, start a fire, grab a blanket, and delve into reading and watching things that the lovely fall days spent in the garden or on the beach kept me from.
Late fall and Halloween point me inward. It’s part of what I love about living in the northeast. Much of who and how I am is driven by the change of seasons. Fall is spent building the cocoon, winter is spent resting and renewing the spirit, spring is emerging strong and new, and summer is a time to run and play hard, using up what was learned, only to arrive tired and ready to slow down for another autumn.
And so, as another day goes by, in the words of Mark Twain; “Shut the door. Not that it lets the cold in, but that it lets the coziness out”, and…I have written.
October 23rd, 2011 Get out of the boat.
Out here?
Yes. Get out of the boat.
Now?
Yes. Now. Get out of the boat.
It’s time. Just don’t look down. Get out of the boat and walk to the shore. You have great things waiting right at your fingertips that you can only embrace after you get out of the boat.
Get out of the boat.
Those words reverberated loudly in my head on my morning walk. Over and over. In reference to what, I don’t have a clue. Even as I sit here now and write this, “Get out of the boat” just hollers from the background.
Sometimes we have a thing we know we must do. We’ve known it for weeks, even months. We even knew we could go slow and take our time, but eventually the time is up and we know we must do it now. We also know we’re stuck – and can’t go further until we do it. The blessings are on the shore and we must trust and walk on the water to get to them. Get out of the boat.
And so, as another day goes by, it always comes down to trust, and …I have written.
And….as I came up over the dune, here is what I saw….
October 22nd, 2011 As horrible and painful the first six months of this journey were, it definitely happened for a reason. We all move through the decades of our lives between the twenties and the sixties by going through cycles, much as the seasons do. Usually at the end of each decade something happens in our lives to break us down and build us back up anew, ready for the next one. I cried and kicked and screamed my way through each one, only to realize how necessary it was to be able to handle the next ten years.
The one at the end of my twenties taught me to put the school girl away, realize love wasn’t a game, and make some definitive decisions to prepare for motherhood. The one at the end of my thirties shredded my heart and drilled into me the stamina needed to bring up these two kids. The one at the end of my forties was the most gentle, and, at times, even fun. This one pointed to colonoscopies, bone scans, eating right, exercise and all the things I would need to like myself as I began to show signs of aging and to teach me the “how to” of aging gracefully that I would need to carry me through my fifties.
The one now, this journey, at the end of my fifties, was the hardest of them all. The mortar and pestle pummeled me back to mere dust. There was literally nothing left of me. At times, I thought it was over – that I couldn’t be rebuilt from mere dust. I now understand why it was so hard. It was the breakdown that prepared me for death and loss. In my next decade I will have father, spousal, sibling, and child issues to face. I will have to be a centered woman, anchored in God, to face my sixties. My dad will probably leave me and grandchildren may appear on the horizon and I have to be able to meet these challenges in order to enjoy the blessings of this era of my life. This breakdown has taught me not to place my fate or faith in things and people, but stay focused on my maker, for only He knows the unknown the next decade will bring.
I do hope God will tread gently at the end of my sixties, but somehow I get the feeling that as the body weakens, the soul strengthens – and that is never an easy process.
And so, as another day goes by, Ecclesiastes 3:1 says “There is a right time for everything”, even this journey of mine, and…I have written.
October 21st, 2011 Last January, those are the last two words I thought I’d ever write about, and today, ten months later, they are dominating my thoughts. For the longest time I used those two words interchangeably. Many times over this ten month journey they have shown up separately. Just what is the difference?
Every morning at approximately 7:20 my husband texts me “Good morning”. When I answer him, I’ll know he’ll be calling me, so I get settled with my tea and turn down the tv. We have a nice 30 minute chat as he drives to work. (He uses a hands free blue tooth device, and we have one of those Cape Cod commuter marriages, where one spouse works off cape for four days and comes home on weekends).
This morning, when his text plinked my phone, the word “joy” just sprung up. It dawned on me his call brings joy to my day. I also get joy from going to my yoga class. I get joy from coming home to my simple lunch and newspaper. I get joy from spending this hour in my chair, reading or writing, while the soap operas play in the background. I get joy that the soap operas are like spending a bit of time remembering my mom. Her and I sat day after day, right up to her last day in the hospital, watching them together. I learned joy can spring from loss. I learned joy springs from the tiniest mundane things I do and see each day. I learned that joy is not fleeting. Joy is sustained, day after day, as the thread that knits my life together.
Happiness is fleeting. I get a bit of good news, or a nice email, and a happy feeling spikes for a moment or a day. Happiness is a feeling that cannot be sustained. Happy moments are surprises and blessings God sprinkles my days with. But joy….ah, joy….joy is sustenance for the spirit. Joy is there in everything God manifests in my life. It is not a feeling. Even when I feel sad or upset, joy is present underneath. Joy is not a high or a low. It just is.
Learning the difference between the two has be one of the most valuable things to come out of this journey. To be at this point, finally, where I can find joy in remembering loss, is perhaps the most freedom I have experienced in a long, long, time. Don’t seek happiness. Happy things are the pop-ups in life – and then they fade. Seek joy. Look to your higher power and ask to be taken on a journey seeking joy. But be ready – because if you ask, you shall receive and the road to experiencing true joy, the sustainable kind, isn’t always the yellow brick one. As wonderful as joy is, sometimes it can only be achieved through struggle, but it is always worth it.
And so, as another day goes by, I must go outside and start up my tractor and experiencing the joy found in vacuuming leaves, and ….I have written.
October 20th, 2011 Everybody knows yoga is about flexibility and now, going into my second straight year of practicing 4 to 5 times a week, I can turn my body into a few good pretzels. Yoga challenges my flexibility everyday. And everyday I rise to the challenge and give it my best shot. Until today.
Mr. Sleek body, easy going, gentle voice, slow moving instructor that almost made me leave in the middle of class on Tuesday, was back today. Now I had two choices. Get in the car and go back home. Or get in there, change my thinking, perceive this as a challenge, and get on with it. Anyone who knows me, knows I’d never back down from a personal challenge. Grabbing my gear, in I went. This time I did talk about him before class with my friend. She had the same experience as I did. He messed with her head, too. We both decided to take it as a challenge, instead of a gripe session. (I found it okay to discuss it, if I can keep it positive.)
Class started and proceeded much the same way I described it on Tuesday. The only yoga instructor I ever met with ADD. This time I decided he did know the dialogue, but chooses not to use it until he said whatever he wanted to, then he mumbles it quickly and still forgets to release us from the pose because he begins talking on an entirely different subject. All this in a quiet, super gentle, barely audible voice. Meanwhile everyone is in a different aspect of the pose and I’m staring out the window again. (The toilet bowl now has a huge skeleton head in the bowl and pumpkins on top – I left my phone home or I’d have a photo – maybe tomorrow).
So, if he was the same, how was I going to be? Therein is the rub – I am the only one that can change this for me because the only thing I can control is my response to his teaching. I once again have two choices – I can be miserable, mad, and leave with a bad feeling again….or….. I can be more FLEXIBLE – hear that? Flexible. Flexible in my head. Flexible in my thinking. Flexible in my responding. Nothing to do with twisting my body into a better pretzel.
I just told myself this was the way the class was going to be and I’d have to keep my mind within my own mat, within my own body, and instead of the meditative rhythmic movement state I so love each day, I will just have to stay alert, listen carefully, and wait quietly to get the medical benefits I came there for. Mmmm…turns out the medical benefits are not just for my body, as is so often true in this class.
God, grant me the serenity to change the things I can, change MY responses and reactions to the things I can’t, and the wisdom to realize the only person I can control is me. Yes, there is tremendous serenity in being flexible. Tremendous freedom, too, in knowing I am only bound by my own handcuffs, and I can release them whenever I so choose.
Lawrence Brown, professor of Humanities at Cape Cod Academy wrote something that stuck with me on the editorial page of last Friday’s Cape Cod times. I tore it out and kept it. And, here, today, I needed it. Now tell me if this isn’t yoga-minded – but nevertheless true:
“At the 1999 Parliament, I heard a scholar in Aramaic – the language Jesus spoke – offer us the Beatitudes in Aramaic, line by line. I was struck by one word: “I’makikhe,” to soften what is rigid within. If we try to do so, especially if we try with friends of different faiths, we tunnel under the dogma and learn to love each other.”
We all know that rigid things crack. And when a rigid thing cracks, sharp edges are exposed. We cut ourselves on these sharp edges. I am learning “I’makikhe”. I’m softening things within. Flexibility may be hard, but it hurts way less than the blood from the sharp edges. Tunneling under the dogma. Tunneling under who did what to whom – or how the class is taught – and finding the love, and/or peace, that hides underneath is an easier, more fulfilling way to live.
Today I was able to put aside what wasn’t important and focus on what was in the yoga studio. Doing that 5 days a week, for the rest of my life, creates deep changes in the way I respond and react to life outside the studio, too.
And so, as another day goes by, in the words of French author Anais Nin, many times “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are”, and ….I have written.
October 19th, 2011 This week was so beautiful that I took an extra long beach walk. I read in my Sea Glass Hunter’s Handbook about all the quips and quirks people have for hunting beach glass. It said each person has their own “way” to find these treasures. I wondered what my own particular “way” was, so I decided to go hunting.
Within the first few minutes of my walk, and remembering my past walks, I knew I was not an avid hunter of beach glass. As I ambled further down the shoreline, I noticed my feet. They moved slowly and carefully over the rocky shore. One foot in front of the other. A little wobbly on the slant toward the sea.
Walking along the waterline, every now and then I’d turn my eyes up the beach and notice the scraggly seaweed line crawling across the sand, marking the last high tide. The water was receding once again on this walk. In it’s wake, many things were deposited across that tide line. I found two extra unique snail shells. One white, bleached out skeleton of a sand dollar. That was a unique find on my beach. Every other time I’d found the beach littered with sand dollars, they were always still alive and dark brown. I didn’t expect to find any beach glass, but then again I didn’t expect to find a white sand dollar either, but surprisingly I found two pieces of glass that day. A large number for one day, considering I’ve only found about twenty pieces on this beach over the last two years.
These two pieces were a bit different than those I’ve found in the past. These two pieces were both not fully pock marked by the sea yet. They both had a few shiny edges left. According to the lexicon in my handbook it says:
Cooked, Not: sharp edges, shiny areas; need to be cast back into the ocean for further cooking
My white one even has deep ridges that could suggest what it once was a part of. Even though both of my pieces were “not cooked”, I kept them anyway because they were a vital part of the story my walk told about me today.
I learned I am not a hunter of beach glass, or of anything on the shore. I am a slow ambler, preferring to walk along and be surprised by each find. I am also “not cooked” and have some shiny parts and sharp edges. A line from a song that rings in my head says “It takes years for a rock to be made smooth” perfectly describes my journey this year.
In addition to being a vehicle for the spirit, I am now finding peace in “being like the beach”. Lying there like the sand, without expectation, letting the tide wash in and out over me each day, and finding God’s blessings littering my shoreline, such as these gifts from the sea did on my walk that day. The sand doesn’t beg. The sand doesn’t force. It simply awaits the tide cycle each day and humbly accepts what the sea brings forth. The sandy shoreline teaches me patience and faith to do the same.
These concepts were brought forth as the result of my readings earlier this week, but this is the week of putting values into action and my beach walk did just that.
And so, as another day goes by, I place my treasures in plain sight, and….I have written.
October 18th, 2011 This week of putting values into action didn’t waste any time getting going.
On Sunday, no sooner did I publish a blog telling God I wasn’t up for a game of catch with the “bombs”, when wham, out of the blue one struck. I immediately caught the bomb and tossed it back to God. He tossed it back to me. I tossed it back to Him. And so it went, all afternoon, as I drove the tractor around the yard, until all was good again.
Today I went to yoga in a wonderful mood. A new teacher – was behind the desk. A sleek, tan young man with a soft voice and a sense of humor was charming all the ladies as we signed in. I went inside the yoga room and sat talking with my friends, anticipating a lovely class. Pranayama breathing – okay, so he dragged it out forever, talking not only in between the sets, but in between the breaths – as we stood there holding it. Half moon was much the same, except he’d mumble something – I think it was dialogue, and then talk about other things instead of the pose. So it went on. He either didn’t know the dialogue or just chose not to use it and said whatever he wanted.. Mumble, maybe some dialogue, more babbling…and I had no idea when to start and stop the poses. (He kind of talked like Ozzie Osborne)
I was at my wits end before the end of the standing series. I had to look around the room to figure out where we were, and when I did, I saw everyone else in various stages of the poses. Clearly he had lost control of the class, there was no rhythm to the group, and the mediation of that rhythm that helps engage my mind, was completely obliterated. By tree pose, I was so angry I wanted to just pack up and leave. He was going on and on so long about something instead of starting the pose, I found myself not even looking in the mirror, but turning and staring out the window at the yard below – where there was a toilet bowl used as a planter between two adirondack chairs. Never, in a year, have I even noticed the widow, let alone the yard below, once class started.
Next, down onto the floor we went for the spine series. When he sat down on the podium and began discussing the last play of the Partriot game as if we were hanging at Starbucks instead of in the middle of a bikram class, it was just about more than I could take. I was ready to sit up against the wall and drink water and just hang out the rest of the class.
I was really hating the anger and frustration I was feeling. Usually gauntlets in yoga that have resurfaced from last winter are in the form too hot, too humid, too long in poses, fear, and difficulty breathing. Those I am now adept at fielding, toss to God and move on. Today all of that was perfect – the room, my breath, my energy, – it was him that was annoying me so bad with his gentle voice and mumbling and excessive talking as he took inordinate amounts of time to stop and demonstrate each pose.
It was during the spine series the light went on. This was another gauntlet. This was just like another instructor from last winter that drove everyone nuts, revisited. When he was annoying everyone, I jumped in on the locker room complaining a little, and remember feeling bad about it. Now, recognizing this as another gauntlet for October, I had to resort to my values and lessons I learned this year and pull myself out of this one.
I immediately started catching the bombs of emotion rolling over me, and spent the rest of the floor series pitching them back and forth with God. Between dealing with my anger, and this teacher’s total confusion with the dialogue, I was getting into the wrong pose and my friend next to me had to actually touch me and say “no, not that one yet.” Camel absolutely took the cake. At the end of the pose he said “Put your hands..” (indicates the end of the pose) then quickly switched to…”push one more time.” I almost really hurt myself ending, then quickly not ending, the pose. If it’s one thing you do not do in yoga is make sudden, jerky movements and it’s certainly not supposed to be done as a result of the dialogue.
Somehow I finished the class quietly, but was still upset. Laying in the final savasana, I was thinking about all the things I wanted to say in the changing room to complain about this guy, but as I lay there it dawned on me how wrong that would be. I reached for another value – practice deference – keep some things to myself. I quickly scrambled to pick up my mat and get in and out of the changing room, and be on my way home before anyone else, so I wouldn’t be tempted to say anything.
It’s working. I really learned it all. I felt it, thought it, wrote it, and now, use it. God has been a careful and patient coach and teacher. The pitch n catch works well. I actually picture the bomb, catching it, and lobbing it back and forth to God until He feels I totally gave it to Him to deal with – then He stops throwing it back to me.
And so, as another day goes by, mid October finds me a truly changed person, and …I have written.
(Oh..and about the toilet bowl, you just couldn’t make that up!)
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