Can a Good Down Dog Save Your Life?

Living this far north (almost at the 60th parallel) one mixed blessing we have this time of year is daylight.  Right now it is light until almost 11 o'clock at night.  There are many things I LOVE about these long days.  With all of those 'loves' aside, getting kids to bed at a reasonable hour becomes the impossible task.

Today I got to enjoy (sarcasm) a whole class full of children who had, by Wednesday of this week, already exceeded the functional limited of exhaustion.  Now I am by nature an optimistic person.  But even I could not stand in the face of such overwhelming circumstances.

I came home at the end of this day completely tapped out, nothing left to give.  I laid on the couch for a while and watched two DVR'd episodes of Oprah, thinking the whole time that I hated her and I couldn't tolerate her success or her money or all of the eff'ing good she has done in the world.  Most days I quite adore the woman.   But today all I could see was the contrast of her world and mine.  On one show she was giving people make-overs.  If you could have seen me at the time, I'm sure you would have thought me worthy of a nomination.

Then I thought about how poorly I was handling my state of mind.  Which just made me feel worse.

Truth is, there are times in life when we just feel low.  We get thrown off balance unsuspectingly and find that our rebound muscle isn't flexing.  For me, these circumstances are almost always born out of fatigue and overwhelment.  In such moments it is easy to open the gates and allow a flood of negative memories and emotions to come rushing in.  Much easier in fact than to do the thing that is best for us, and that is to stop the deluge in its tracks.  The pity party dress is not so pretty.

So I turned off the TV and folded up the blanket I'd been hiding under.  Reassured myself I'm not really fat.  And went and found my yoga mat.

Sometimes you just have to reach in a better feeling direction.  Sometimes turning the corner is all the work you really have to do, the rest just shows up.

Opening to Grace

Every week I've been striving for a different focus in my Sunday night yoga session.  Of all the yoga classes and teachers I have had, the one that impacted me the most always set an intention for the work we would do in that hour.  This resonated with me right away.  Not only was I able to bring more ease to the practice but also became more open to surrendering myself spiritually to the poses.

This week we'll focus on opening ourselves up to grace. 

There is something intuitively powerful about the word grace.  It holds within it an intrinsic beauty of expansion. When we extend grace to ourselves, we cannot keep it from others.  We can find grace within and we can also channel it from beyond ourselves.  Accepting grace is an act of surrender to a benevolent source that seeks to watch all things grow and develop into what the cosmic orchestra has ordained for them to be.

Grace can catch us unaware.  We feel it when we share in the joy and pain of another.  It washes over us and cleanses as it moves.  Grace is like a benediction.  A prayer for peace.  For mercy.  For forgiveness.   It is a call to compassion and charity.  Grace abounds.   It is limitless, a cup that over-flows. 

So today, give thanks for all that has been so richly bestowed upon you.  Allow and accept the generosity of all that is graceful to be yours.  Abide in grace.  

Aspiring

I'm pondering tonight.  There is so much shit going on in the world.  And here I sit in the comfort and peace of my living room a million miles away from dictators, civil war, thwarted human rights, earthquakes, tsunami aftermath and the threat of nuclear reactor melt-down.  It would seem the Chinese curse of "may you live in interesting times" couldn't be more applicable.

Last night I watched the documentary Force of Nature/ David Suzuki.  I was moved to tears several times by this biography of such a thoughtful, intelligent, perceptive, humble man.  Suzuki oozes passion for the love of this planet.   We all know him as an environmentalist, but this doc brings you into his personal space, the events that have forged this exceptional human being.  

An interesting tie into current events is that Suzuki is a second generation Japanese Canadian.  Both he and his parents were born on Canadian soil in Vancouver.  This however did not insulate them from an onslaught of racism following the bombing of Pearl Harbour.  Anti-Japanese sentiment was at an all time high.  Suzuki's grandparents were returned by ship to Hiroshima while the remaining family members (along with many other Japanese-Canadian citizens living in the lower mainland of Canada's west coast) were sent to the Slocan Valley in British Columbia.  Not long after, Hiroshima was the casualty of the world's first nuclear bomb attack.

Here is a clip I love of Suzuki in 1972.  Long before he became a leading environmentalist, he had some pretty astute observations on what it means to be human.

Quantum Leaps

Okay, maybe not quantum but I have taken a leap.  Leaps are good.  In some form or another a leap propels you forward, albeit at times down (occasionally gaining speed as you splat against the concrete).  Leaps are wearing your heart on your sleeve.  Leaps mean you are willing to risk public embarrassment. Leaps also mean you are open to the possibility of soaring as you spread your wings and take a chance.  Leaps do your heart good, regardless of the outcome.

And what you ask am I leaping around about?  Yoga.  I've decided to instruct my first yoga class!

Oh don't you worry, I've already mentally gone through all of the reasons that I shouldn't do this, reminded myself of all the ways that I am not qualified.  But, in the end, I've decided to risk it and do it anyway.  Failure to launch fears be damned.  And to be completely honest, those voices of opposition have been pretty small in proportion to the expanding part of me that WANTS to be a yoga teacher.

Practicing yoga has been and continues to be a force in my life that has opened me up.  Gotten me in touch with something deeper.  Something connected to everything else.  I suppose in a way it is for me the theory of everything.  The place where it all comes together and yet infinitely expands at the same time.  Amazing how so much can happened on one small 2 x 6 foot plot of real estate that can appears to the onlooker as slow and static.  Yet there I stand in Warrior, slaying my demons one conscious breath at a time.

With my whole heart, I believe that life rewards action.  The parable of reaping what we sow is as relevant as it has ever been.  I once read about a Zen master who looked on the mind as a garden.  The soil already contains the seeds of all that life can possibly offer ~ the good, the bad and the neutral.  It is up to each person to cultivate and care for their garden ~ this is in essence the responsibility of your life.  Your emotions are the catalyst to growth and development.  How you respond to your world is how your garden grows.

Don't spend your time worrying about the weeds.  Tend them daily.  Don't spend too much time gazing at someone else's garden and wishing it were your own.

Nurture the qualities you desire to bloom within yourself.  Do it by design.  Lead with your heart.  And take a leap with your soul every now and again.

Sweetness

Today is a milestone birthday for me. I'm 35. And I just might be the most content I've ever been in my life thus far. Nothing is perfect and that is the charm of it all.

I have found ME. Stripped down. A few pounds heavier. A bit wrinkled around the eyes. But all me. A very sweet place to move forward from, indeed!

A Brief History of Life (my Life that is)

I woke up this morning thinking about chaos theory. I love this idea, that in all randomness and seemingly chaotic and unrelated behavior there exists order. I first learned of this theory from a university roommate (a male engineering student who arrogantly assumed that my little "training to be a teacher brain" could not possibly comprehend such a deep school of thought. As I recall he would also refer to himself as stellar this and stellar that. However he did share his love of Lyle Lovett music for which I am forever grateful.).

So this weekend got me thinking on chaos and how our lives unfold. We went to visit our friends Rod & Jullie in Comox BC. Rod & Jullie were the first couple we met when we moved to Vancouver Island in 1994. To this day, despite rarely seeing them over the past five years, they remain the kind of friends for which time apart has no bearing on our relationship. Spending time with them makes me realize how incredibly blessed we have been to share our lives with smart, caring and conscious people.

When we moved away from the Island in '02, Jeremy got work with a water utility in Halifax as a Watershed Manager, taking care of all forested lands surrounding the water supply. This was more or less a political position that involved a lot of PR. Last year he left the water company to take on a Divisional Forester position with a large forestry company here in Alberta. Part of the reason we agreed to come to Alberta was to be that much closer to the Island and be able to take weekend trips such as we just did. I'm not telling you all this to impress you (Jeremy is a pretty humble guy) but to tell you that the choices above came out of seemingly random but seized opportunity.

Rewind to the past weekend and Saturday night. We were together with our friends (many of them) for dinner. A lot of company restructuring has taken place over the past five years on the west coast and people who all used to work for the same company now work for several different companies. Personally, I'm glad we missed all of that shuffling as it was a time of great uncertainty and stress. But the dust has now settled and Jeremy was approached by a friend to apply for a position for which his current work and watershed work would be huge assets. Coincidentally, the two people he has consistently used as reference on his resume over the last ten years are in the hiring seats. The position actually just closed on Monday but special allowance has been made for him to apply late.

A part of me is as giddy as a school girl. Mostly because I thrive on change and also because the choices made in recent years seem to have been validated - they actually were leading us somewhere. And even if that somewhere brings us full circle, we learned things about ourselves and life that I am convinced we could not have learned on any other loop.

Of course I do not know the future and therefore do not know how this is all going to come out in the wash. We have all witnessed a sure thing head south (without us). But I do know that Jeremy and I were able to reconnect this weekend and it felt like the way it used to feel. And that was sweet. And we do love the Island.

Don't worry... I will keep you updated.

:-)

Unbound

I am grateful for my life. Who I am. The way I laugh. And sometimes cry. How I think and the ability to change my thoughts, just because I can.

I give thanks for all aspects of my Self, in this present moment. For battles won and lost. And sometimes just because I stayed to fight or declined the fight altogether.

I am unique, and this in and of itself is cause for joyous praise. I aspire to my own experience on a road that sometimes twists and leads into extended meadows of rest and renewal.

I celebrate and acknowledge those who have written in permanent ink, leaving behind messages and parables that will forever bear witness in my becoming. That you saw me through when I needed you and you picked me up when I needed that and you allowed me to stay down when the time for getting up wasn't quite right. And even if you didn't do it out of love, I'm still thankful that you did it.

I give thanks for everything I've ever done and failed at. Or succeeded. Or didn't quite complete. I forgive myself for every moment I did not meet the mark. My life is not marked by negative or positive - it is just my life, and it is all beautiful - even when I must recognize beauty in new ways.

I give thanks that I am UNBOUND. Funny. Extraordinary. Curious. Odd. Surprising. Uncommon. Common. Amazing. Divergent. Bewildering. Breathtaking. Staggering.



I give thanks that MY life is MY own. I will keep my power and use it for good.