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Revisit the Sacred

October 28, 2022

Revisit the Sacred

After observing yourself for almost a year, what have you noticed that you consistently prioritize?  (Haven’t been observant?  That’s okay; look back over 2022 for a few minutes and draw conclusions from your memories.)

Those priorities are what’s sacred to you.

Is that a big Scooby Doo/Astro Ruh Roh because it doesn’t match up with what you believe about yourself?

Are there lots of opportunities to act on your sacred beliefs, or does it seem like all the forces of the Universe are aligned against you?

Are there leadership or individual opportunities you can make or take to be more of who you believe you are?

Can you accept the beauty of who you are as you appear in your behaviour?

How is Jack so wise in setting priorities at age 7?!
(I’m suspecting wise teachers)

This can be a sobering point where we realize we haven’t made the progress we wanted.  Or worse, we discover we’re not really who we thought we were.  You’ve done the reassessing; now you’re in a position to begin again, this time with conscious awareness.

It’s a powerful point that you don’t want to underestimate.  You can reach deeper levels and clear ground for more life with integrity.

ps You still don’t have my permission to beat yourself up for anything

Community

September 27, 2022

Community

One of my teachers told me once that responsibility isn’t about burdens, it’s about hugs.  It’s about who we want to gather into our space with big, warm arms.

That seems a terrific guideline for defining community of choice.  We may still have to figure out cooperation and sharing, but we’re doing it because we want to be there, not because we have to.  It’s a relationship that makes reasonable demands and is based on inclusivity.  It’s more like the star-struck group projects where there are no ride-alongs or bulldozers. 

If only community were always by choice.  Mostly, we’re in communities that came from other choices – employment, location, activities. 

So how can we keep boundaries and balance in communities that may ask for unreasonable sacrifice or where we can hardly stand the idea of being within arm’s length?  That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?  Particularly with intractable neighbours or when our livelihood is at stake.

Clearly, there’s no one answer for all situations.  But there are perspective shifts that help us find our own personal solution.  What is the big picture in your life that community is part of?  How can your community serve that big picture?  Where is your line for being a doormat?  Or your line for welcoming hugs?  And where is the ring-touch-not that means you’re leaving the community completely?  (And is that even possible?)

Hopefully, you have a community where you can experience that sense of group hug – a tribe.  If not, can you keep your big vision for your life and the idea of welcoming community in mind as you make your decisions, large and small?  After all, part of what needs to be included in community is your own dreams for your life – the real you.

Are We There Yet?

August 17, 2022

Many of you who’ve met me think I’m remarkably patient and chill.  But that’s who I’ve learnt to be when I’m working.

The real story is different.  Any of you have cats who have taken “feed me neow!” to an elevated art form?  Or kids in the back seat whose timing on “are we there yet?” is impeccable.  Yeah, that’s the inside me.

Those of us who like to move fast and operate on impulse find things that take time to be frustrating.  Which, honestly, means most of life.

Even those of you who are naturally patient and cooperative must have times when you find yourself drumming fingers or tapping toes or cutting into traffic.  Please, tell us you do!

When things are in transition – and if you haven’t yet noticed that they are these days, welcome back from your cave – we’d really like them to settle back into a normal rhythm quickly. 

Part of what we’re all dealing with is that pervasive element of community and relationship within community.  Cooperation takes time.  We often do a bogus version called compromise, where nobody really wins.  Competition gives us winners and losers.  Cooperation brings us win/win situations.  And that kind of sustainable solution takes time.  And patience.  And learning to take in others’ points of view.

Getting to that stable level of solution isn’t going to happen in a month’s time – or even a year, or a decade.  Sometimes we have to find a compromise just to keep peace.  But sustainable peace requires that we continue to learn to cooperate with each other.  (As always, I am not talking about condoning abuse in any of its forms.)

The more we can keep in mind that we are all truly very different just as much as we are all, at some level, the same, the more realistic we can be in our expectations.  If we can treat these differences as adventures, we can move in and out of each other’s viewpoints to return to homebase for processing and integration. 

So, if you’re feeling unsettled, perhaps you need more homebase processing time.  If you’re feeling frustrated, perhaps you can let go of expectations and let yourself ask more questions.  These are not stable times, but a temporary level up in comfort and stability can come out of cooperation.  Meanwhile, I’ll send you back to a couple of calming strategy videos for when you need self-care.

Relaxation to integrate

January 30, 2021

We’re not all that good at stopping to integrate life experiences.

Even when it’s not holiday season, we tend toward the future. What’s next?

Our relaxation strategies are usually escapism. Involvement in fantasy. Or someone else’s life. Or sensual indulgence.

Or hamster wheel-ism. Endlessly caught in thought loops, as if enough time there will lead us to . . . what? Comfort? Understanding? A way to be what we were before?

The more we deal with changes, the more we need time to integrate. And you’d be hard pressed to convince anyone that this year hasn’t been one for change.

A simple 15 minutes of intentional relaxation can help the nervous system move toward restoration and healing. Allowing ourselves to just be can foster integration at unconscious levels. Letting go of doing becomes a delicious indulgence.

The conscious relaxation video (savasana in yoga) is available for viewing through December at no charge. After that, it’s available on the website.

Enjoy your holiday season!

Staying Present

January 30, 2021

It’s amazing how much of life we miss because we’re busy time travelling.

We freak out over ‘what ifs’ in the future.

We berate ourselves to the point of abuse over the unchangeable past.

Staying present.  Being here now.  Ram Dassing it.

To a lot of us, it’s a foreign reality.  The good news is that it’s attainable, and it can become habit with practice.

When we’re time travelling, we’re not connected to our body.  Most of the time, our body is safe.  Reconnecting with it ‘grounds’ us into a safe space that minimizes the ill effects of anxiety, self-recrimination, blame, worry . . . the hamster wheel of circular thoughts and their emotional impact crater.  We’re brought out of the fight, flight, freeze part of our system into the relax and heal part.

A ten minute body scan meditation can help you in your journey to habitual presence.  Through November, you can use this one.  After that, it’s available for purchase on the Yoga Video page.

Keeping the Faith

January 30, 2021

It was a little tough believing in spring this year.  It’s been way below normal for a month and an half and it snowed on 17th April, long past the usual end of snow season here.

It can be even tougher to keep the faith when it comes to our personal lives.  Things go awry in ways or areas we’ve never had to deal with before and we don’t have a sense of natural progression to help us expect better days.

In reality, we’re always keeping the faith.

If we continually expect the worst, our faith is in that end of the spectrum.  If we always hope for the best, that’s where our faith is placed.  Most of us move around on the spectrum, depending on the issues and our experience in that area.

Can we choose where we place our faith?

Yes, although it sometimes takes some work.   That’s where understanding the basis for our faith helps.

Start with recognizing whether you’re an externalizer or an internalizer.  Is your faith in something outside yourself or do you have faith in your own abilities?

Externalizers believe in “the system” or in a higher power or in other people (yay, for family and friends).  Some externalizers believe that money will solve everything.

Internalizers look to their own abilities and strengths as the stuff they most rely on.

Again, most of us are a combination.

Once you understand where you’re placing your faith, you can ask yourself whether you’re limiting your toolbox (yes, Virginia, you need more than a hammer).   That’s related to doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.

And, if you are, you can then decide where you can expand your faith options.  Are there people who would love to come through for you?  Are you leaving a part of yourself out of the solutions to life issues?  Have you been deluding yourself about what money or the system can do for you?

Once you understand what’s going on with your faith, you can make choices to keep the broader positive faith.

Keeping the Meaning Alive

January 30, 2021

Have you ever done something for someone that you were so excited about?  You thought of something you could spend your time or money or other resources on that would delight them, and you were delighted?  And then they didn’t even acknowledge what you’d done?

It’s a letdown, isn’t it?  It was much better in your imagination than in the real world.

Sometimes you’re just doing something altruistic, something that will make the world a better place, and it turns a little sour.  Maybe you’ve updated all the expired or about-to-expire meters on the block and the next guy who gets in his car is behaving like an a-hole, treating people like something to be wiped off his shoe.  He didn’t notice that he still has time on his meter that he didn’t pay for.

Kind of pulls the wind out of your sails, doesn’t it?  You don’t want thanks, you just want people to be happy that something good just happened to them.

We’ve all had the mismatch between what we imagined and how our imaginings played out in the bigger world.  And we all have to choose whether we’re going to live internally or in the big kids’ playground.

We have zero chance of having an impact if we never take our imaginings public, even anonymously.  But we can protect and tend our internal world, even when our external imaginings get stomped on by the bully in the playground.

Stay in touch with the enthusiasm you felt when generating your imaginings.  We can be innocent and vulnerable internally.  Our inner world doesn’t have to be impacted by the failings of the outer world.  Yes, we grow from our experiences, but, no, we don’t have to grow bitter or cynical or inactive as a result of our experiences.

Cultivate your inner bad-ass brilliant creative self, regardless of the outer world’s response.  And when you find the outer tribe that recognizes you for who you are, celebrate the connection.

Bridging the Differences

January 30, 2021

Our posture and carriage say so much about who we are.

We tend to think of that as something that’s completely up to us.  All those folks who told us to stop slouching and stand up/sit up straight sure seemed to think so.

But we don’t live in a vacuum (yay, because, breathing!).  We’re surrounded by other people and their posture and carriage.

And furniture.  Don’t even get me started on the furniture (one size fits all?).

We influence each other’s posture, even when we’re not being excessively complimentary or emotionally abusive.

Just ask someone tall, especially a tall person surrounded by child-sized people.  What are their choices to get closer to eye level?

There’s hunching or stooping.  Lovely for interfering with full breathing or for circulation to that stuff up in the head like, oh, your eyes and ears and BRAIN!

There’s splaying legs wide.  Great for pulling the support right out from underneath you, so you’re propped up, with hips and knees that are going to let you down a whole lot sooner than normal.

Or ask someone surrounded by taller people.  How’s the neck feeling from constant craning?  Circulation issues again, stress on the spine, and a nervous system status of high alert.  Lots of fun.

Then there’s some version of ignoring real connection with others around us (which doesn’t necessarily require a height difference).  Head in the clouds, lost in thought.  Self-involved, only attending to objects or circumstances within “reach”.  Controlling everything so it’s convenient to our needs.

There’s no real answer to coping with the differences we each encounter daily.  Sure, if you’ve got platforms around to talk to your taller friends, rock and roll.  Likewise, good on ya, if you can get down on a knee to chat with the children (actually, good for you in lots of ways).  And, absolutely, find places and ways to meet each other eye to eye, where we are.

My real message is that our posture is going to take some attention, no matter who we are, if we want to continue relating to all the different people in our world.  And one of the simplest ways to do that is to spend 15 minutes a day lying on a firm surface, on your back with your knees bent and feet flat (those of you who are pregnant or who have back issues, check with your health care professional first).  It quickly and easily (with consistency – it’s not quite a magic bullet) realigns your spine and helps your nervous system recognize home base.  That’s why they call it “constructive rest”.

Of course, there’s more possible (and, yes, I can help with that), but don’t you deserve at least 15 minutes of healthy time out daily?  And, tell the truth, don’t you miss kindergarten nap-time, just a little?

Engaging with Quality

January 30, 2021

‘Tis the season for gift-giving frenzy.

Or something like that.

How did our highest aspirations for the bright evolution of the human soul get translated into a desire for more stuff?

I’m going to say that a good deal of it has to do with the way we experience our world.

Rassouli Divine Grace

If we have a sensual experience — one where we’re aware of the spirit that lives in all of what we taste, smell, touch, hear and see – we have quality in our material lives.  We have a relationship with living spirit in all its abundant forms.

Sunrise.  Birds overhead.  The sound of our child crying or, better yet, laughing.  The feel of a balmy breeze or icy wind.  Cookies baking, fresh horse manure or the dog’s breath in our nose.  Those cookies fresh out of the oven, the slippery slice of watermelon, the first morning sip of coffee on our tongue.

If we’re paying attention, there’s meaning and an internal response from us – an interaction with our world.  We allow ourselves to be moved.

If we’re not interacting, if we’re just sensing without awareness of the spirit of what we’re sensing, then we’re lacking the quality that makes us feel any lasting impact.  We’re still feeling hungry.  It’s the Chinese food of experience.  Or the endless dance recital, where only the first sparkle of a new costume or soundtrack wakes us up from our stupor.  We’re still in the same seat we were in at the beginning of the recital.

As the light grows, as the immanent Divine is manifested, as community ties deepen – whatever the central focus of your holidays, may you have a truly sensual experience this season.

Gratitude from the heart, not the habit

January 30, 2021

‘Tis the season again – that time when giving thanks comes up for reevaluation.  (Thanksgiving again in the United States, my non-US subscribers.  For those of you who don’t know, the traditional meal for the holiday is turkey.  That’ll be important later on.)

I was going to talk about a specific aspect of gratitude but once my pen got moving, I discovered I had something else to say.  So now I’ve got two years of newsletter posts in the bag.  Thank you, whatever muse feeds my writing.

So . . .  what wants to come out is directed toward those of us who say ‘thank you’ way too often, as well as to those of us who dismiss others’ difficulties with a call to find something to be grateful for.

Some of us don’t say ‘good bye’ or ‘see you’ when we finish a call or visit.  We say ‘thank you.’

If we’ve told a friend at least 70 times that we hate framed fluffy kitty pictures (yes, there’s at least one of you out there), we don’t say ‘you forgot that I hate framed fluffy kitty pictures, didn’t you?’ when that friend gives us a framed fluffy kitty picture (okay, I just like saying and picturing framed fluffy kitty pictures).  Instead, we say ‘thank you’.

It’s our go-to phrase.  You’d think it was our ticket to continued existence, the way we use it.

Others of us never met a moment that didn’t include gratitude, and only gratitude.

Your dog died?  So sorry, but aren’t these flowers from the vet lovely? And isn’t it great that your friends are all here?  And isn’t it wonderful that you still have two dogs, 4 cats and a pony in your fur family?  ‘You have so much to be grateful for.’

If a friend has been unsuccessfully looking for work for 6 months and is getting desperate and dispirited, we’re the ones who point out how much worse things could be or remind her that gratitude begets happiness and success.  We could even give her a framed fluffy kitty picture to show how much we care (and then she could say ‘thank you’).

171116 turkey moo

So what’s the matter with acknowledging that someone took the time to visit or thought to give us a gift?  Why wouldn’t that attitude contribute to our recognition of the ongoing gifts from the Universe?

Why wouldn’t we want to help someone out of pain and back into a brighter place?  Why wouldn’t gratitude be the connection to the potential new beginning in every present moment?

A mindless ‘thank you’ doesn’t tap into the gratitude stream the same way an enthusiastic and heartfelt expression of thanks does.  And a thanks for the tiny token underneath a steaming pile of what we hope can be used for fertilizer doesn’t really hold integrity when the pile isn’t acknowledged.

Yes, there is potential for gratitude in every moment.  Yes, the search for that gratitude can put us in touch with elements of our world that could use our recognition.

Sometimes, there are more pressing needs.  Like the need for someone to just be present through our discomfort.  Like the need to recognize our own value or to draw our own boundaries.

So, how about we save gratitude for the times and places we really feel it?  Connect with the Universe with integrity and let it know how you really feel.

May you find much to be truly grateful for this season.

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