Open up.

Life changes so rapidly. We are in one place and time seems to be dragging on and then we are somewhere else all of the sudden. Hang on and enjoy the ride. Keep your eyes open so you don't miss anything. Learn from the "great times" and the "trying times." Open your heart to receive the lessons of life- easy and tough. This will all be over before you know it.

when is enough?

We sit around and daydream about more, enough, or something else. We are all we ever really need. We hear opinions and allow them mold us or destroy us, why do we give them so much power? We seek money, love, peace and attention when we already are the most important thing in our own world. We are the wealth, we are the abundant source of love and infinite fountain of peace. It is these opinions in conjunction with our ego that fogs the lens of our mind's eye, clouding our judgement and sending us to external comfort. It is here that we get lost, hiking deeper into book after book, shopping spree after shopping spree, class after class or from comfort food to comfort food. When it gets so cloudy life is jaded and dull. There is no attention outward that is of any positive notion because there is no attention inward. We waste days, weeks, and months sprinting around in avoidance of what is really going on. We turn off our ability to hear. To speak. And at the unfortunate expense of ourselves and others our innate ability to love is ceased and guarded. We are just too lazy and scared to look inside to truly see what is going on. We speak to ourselves in the harsh tones of lectures and criticisms; screaming that we are never enough and can't do anything right. When is enough enough when we have the mindset that there could always be more?? Soften. Speak kindly to yourself. You are everything that you have been seeking for so long.

Backflips

Here I am teetering on the edge of effort and surrender. I am being tested quite a bit as of recently. I know it is good for me but there is that little, ok rather LOUD voice in my head screaming at me to resist. Welcome to the ego. I stretch my hips and they get tight again. I rinse my shoulders and they get sore again. I meditate, but my mind once again entertains itself with thought after tension enhancing thought. When did my ego get so big?! I don't remember the incessant chatter being so loud. Now I am questioning if I am taking on too much or just taking everything way too seriously. But if I don't take it seriously, will it ever get accomplished? Am I complaining right now?

So- here I sit wondering what to do next. Practice, meditate, or work more.....

wow! it's been awhile!

Life gains momentum and we are tossed into the depth of action like ships in an angry sea. Dizzy and tired I write because I love to and I have missed the escape that words present... more later today. xo

A playlist on compassion

Love is the observation and acceptance of what is right now.
Hey Ya- Obadiah Parker
Therapy - India.Arie
Say Hey (I love you) - Michael Franti and Spearhead
One Life - Kalai
Calling All Cars- Sean Hayes
More Than A Melody - Anna Nalick
Falling is Like This- Ani DiFranco
Divide Me- Kalai
Hey Love- Chris O'Brien
The Chain- Ingrid Michaelson
You Had Time- Ani DiFranco

Our Most Complicated Practice

"The pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection of an inner psychic pollution: millions of the unconscious individuals not taking responsibility for their inner space... How do you drop a piece of hot coal that you are holding in your hand? How do you drop some heavy and useless baggage that you are carrying? By recognizing that you don't want to suffer the pain or carry the burden any more and then letting go of it. " -- Eckhart Tolle "The Power of Now"


I would have to say that Forgiveness is our most complicated practice. We could spend an entire year focusing on it and never master it. We form our identification around our past and what we have been through, what we like and don't like, who we resonate with and who we don't. We label ourselves based upon when we have forgiven ourselves and others and when we have been unable to. Participating all along in the tale of "My past made me who I am today..." No, you woke up as who you are today perhaps still clinging tightly to all of your issues of yesterday or possibly practicing forgiveness. I must frequently remind myself of forgiveness. Whether it is because I forgot to breathe in an asana or because I forgot to walk the dog. Who can you forgive? Today I read this in class it is from "Words of Wisdom for Women" but really it can apply to anyone.


FORGIVE
Experience the power of forgiveness.
Say I forgive you, and mean it. Forgive
everyone who wronged you. Forgive
him for breaking your heart. Forgive
her for telling everyone your deepest secret. Forgive them both.
Forgive yourself for being human, for
not knowing all the answers all the
time. Once and for all, for the sake of
your own sanity, forgive. Let the
sweet and simple rain of forgiveness wash over you.
Ask for forgiveness, offer forgiveness
Somewhere find the inner depth to
forgive the man who raped, to
forgive the woman who killed, to
forgive the friend who betrayed a loving trust.
For life, for love, for peace forever;
for you, for them, forgive.
-- Rachel Snyder

Forgiveness: A Practice and A Playlist

A lot of our fear arises out of our obstinacy surrounding forgiveness. Carrying guilt, shame and grudges weigh heavier on our spirits than it punishes the individual that we are intending to hurt. This is where the practice of ahimsa or nonviolence comes into play. Even the aggression of our thoughts and egos can create dis-ease in our bodies and brains. Like most humans, I find it most difficult to forgive myself; whether it be something small like leaving the almond milk out on the counter or something larger like hurting a friend or loved one. I carry guilt and shame which then creeps out of my thoughts and into my physical body. When I am feeling most violent in my thoughts, I get dark circles under my eyes, an upset stomach and I become excessively tired. I make up stories of how I should be punished and someone should find me and make me pay in some form or another. I have also held long standing grudges against people I have claimed to love judging them for a way that they made me feel, the time they abandoned me or took something from me making me feel like a small person and so on and so forth. 

I began to write letters. This is an ongoing process- you will never write one letter or one list and expect that everything will be fixed. I write letters to myself asking for forgiveness because of... and I am very detailed and descriptive about my emotions and the way that I physically feel when I hold grudges. I also write letters to people forgiving them, even if it is the old man who flipped me off in traffic or the friend who ditched me on my birthday. I write a detailed description of how they made me feel and how the violence has invaded my thoughts and hurts me more than them. 95% of the time I don't even deliver my letters. I write them in my common-place-book and read them over and over again until I experience a full range of emotions around the words and then that is all they are. A simple clutter of words, on a page, in a book that I will have forever and hold very dear to my heart. I still get angry sometimes, upset, frustrated and judgemental; I am human. Some situations take more work than others. We are forever learning about ourselves this is a lifelong process to clean our spirits and start over with healthier, more loving thoughts. 

I made this playlist with just that in mind. I hope that you have enjoyed it and that you will find enlightenment through your forgiveness!

The Heart of the Matter- India.Arie

Amazing- Josh Kelley

Come On Get Higher- Matt Nathanson

One Step Closer- Michael Franti and Spearhead

On My Mind - Kalai

Gotta Have You- The Weepies

You Found Me (Acoustic Version) - The Fray

One Of Those Days - Joshua Radin

Winter Song - Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson

Cannonball- Damien Rice

The Well (Demo)- A Fine Frenzy 

I Can't Help Falling In Love- Ingrid Michaelson

Just thinking about fear...

"Fear is that sensation that makes you grab tightly to your seat. It's the feeling that makes your stomach turn and your hands shake and your heart race. It's the feeling of having no idea what's next... It is also an attachment to the material world, to your physical being, to a reality that is illusory and temporary. This is because nothing in the material world, not even our bodies, is around forever."-- Evan Cooper (Um, Like...OM)

Who needs a mug?

"Let's go down to the east river and throw something in, something we can't live with out, in other words let's start again."-- Ani DiFranco

My first thought of the morning: I think we should drink espresso out of wine glasses and wine out of mugs. Isn't it amazing the rules that we live by. All of the things that collectively we have decided should go together and should not. Where do all of these boundaries come from and who exactly has the authority to dictate which glass we drink what out of? So this morning I had a glass of espresso and this evening I will probably have a mug of wine. Maybe you are thinking that your yoga teacher friend should not drink espresso or wine... 

It reminds me of a joke, " A chicken and an egg are having sex. All of the sudden the egg lights up a cigarette and says, "Guess that solves that."

I hope you break at least one boundary today!

A Rainbow

There are times when my spirit feels zapped. I try to hide from the things that serve me the most. I run to other people to make my decisions and solve my problems. I run to my bed to dream that my situation is an altered reality. I run to a movie or a book to change my point of view or pretend I am someone else. I scramble around and shift and fidget and the only place I can find comfort is on my yoga mat. Still that is negotiable since my hips are so darn tight with the storage of unexpressed emotions. I gain some sense of clarity on my mat then run again to some hidden haven banishing the me that I have grown to love and ignore so well. I have been practicing yoga for 9 years this year. Still it is the same cycle every time that it happens. I have expectations, guilt, sadness and loneliness. I pass judgement and cry then laugh at myself and cry again. I learn so much every single time and somewhere in that muscle of my brain my ego says, "Don't worry, you are all fixed. It will never happen again." Ha! Right.

I have learned that in order to truly experience the process of being blissful and melancholy one must mindfully neglect placing a positive or negative label on the words and the emotions that attach themselves with the state of being. To witness: when I feel melancholy, my throat feels like it is in my stomach, my pulse seems like it has no agenda and I cry a lot- sometimes for no reason, sometimes for every reason. I feel lonely- more specifically- I feel like I want to be held then left alone, then held again. To witness: when I feel blissful my throat feels like it is in between my eyeballs, my heart beats wildly to the tops of my ears all the way down to the tips of my toes and I am happy. I smile a lot sometimes for no reason sometimes for every reason. I feel like I am held - more specifically that I am so safe I want to hold everyone else. 

Obviously as humans we crave satisfaction and security. We want and ache until we are taken care of or until we can take care of someone else. Isn't all this the human condition? What happens if we are able to observe ourselves without any attachment or without taking everything personally, as if we are simply characters in a story that we already know has a happy ending? 

I was riding in my car and thought about my connection with God. I smiled, took a left at the light and above my street was the most illuminated, perfectly arched rainbow I have ever witnessed. I gasped, or maybe I squealed. I turned away to grab my camera, and once I'd turned back it had vanished. Grateful that I'd witnessed such an amazing rarity once more I realized that this is all so temporary.

Walking Backwards

The whole crowd is walking backwards, while I walk forward peering into their eyes. The only thing I can say is that I give thanks every day for my perspective even if it is different, at least it feels authentic to me. However I keep tripping over their shoe laces...