Love

Fynn wakes up and begins immediately to interrupt my thoughts as I ponder my day.
"Mom"..... "Mom"
"Morning Fynn"
"I'm hungry"
This is the demand for food and me to get it for him. An expectation comes with it that I will carry it upstairs for him so he can enjoy it in bed while watching his show.
What is loving here? I could get up and get the food and take it too him while I consider that really he is old enough to get his own breakfast and quite capable. And that I do love him and would love to have someone bring me breakfast in bed. Conversely, I could remind him that he is quite capable of getting his own breakfast and please come downstairs and do so. I am not a slave.
The answer with love, the skillful choice lies is what feels right for me. There is not just the answer to his need, but also the delivery of the answer. What does feel right? Can I deliver the food without feeling negative judgment?
Ahhh... when I do something I cannot do with absolute positive love and offering, I should not be doing it because I am not loving myself. The tricky business here is that I love my son and want him to have a healthy breakfast and I feel compelled to ensure that happens  AND I also believe it is important for him to learn how to take care of some of his own needs.

It's all in the delivery.

Trust Yourself

The morning birds are chirping and the dogs wait somewhat impatiently at the back door. Another day has arrived and soon enough will depart. Yesterday I was not noticing the birds. I was planning for the session I was to deliver, hoping that I had everything together enough to make it all make sense. As I opened my email, I read the message, "Trust yourself." Ahhhh.... perfect.

As I moved through surprises, challenges and discussions during the session, what I watched was the continued desire to move back to details and not to rest in the intention of why each person was running this business. "How do we get the instructors to not act like police?" I would guide them back through the maze of why and then how that might look different, "how can I support my instructors in maintaining safety and building relationship with our clients?" and then they would move back to a detail. "We get them all to test one specific method." The method may work, but does it add to the experience of the customer?

I do this too. I want to be compassionate, playful and joyful, yet I hear the voices in my head telling me that I should go for a run or I shouldn't buy a coffee pot. My face tightens, my shoulders lift as I roll into a dialogue about finances, aging and health. In that moment I am stressed, dissatisfied. "Trust yourself." The focus shifts to HOW do I want to be right now, relaxed, joyful... I don't care about the coffee pot - it is not in front of me. I am not running, I am writing. A smile creeps onto my face and the shoulders drop - just a smidge. Maybe now I will choose a run and it will be because I want to play in my body that way, surely that is the only way to run.

Breathe

Spring has arrived and there is beautiful evidence of rebirth everywhere. The sun rises and the sun sets, life continues. So too with each breath there is a beginning and an end and then there is the next breath. In a sense a rebirth in each moment. Yet it is so very hard to look at each moment as each moment. I carry into the next moment all the history of the past moments.

I remember when I was learning to surf - I had no idea what would happen next. I could not predict when I would catch a wave, I could no know when I would find the right balance to stand and it was all happening so fast there was no time to think, only to act. I could only paddle as hard as I could, then push down on the board and pop up to standing. Then I was either on the beach or in the water, swimming to the surface.

One day I missed catching the wave and the water pushed me face first hard into the ocean floor and held me there. Surfing was never the same after that. I paddled and yet never quite hard enough. I resisted the force and flow of the water. I carried the memory and fear of that fall into my next moments with the waves.

Can I look at each moment with a beginner's mind and paddle as hard as I can, fearless of the outcome? Or at least with enough courage to try as hard as I can and know I may still be pushed to the ground? What do I tell the students in my Yoga class when I ask them to be courageous? "Stay with your breath, focus your attention on the rhythm of your breath; breathe all the way in and out." Practice. Sounds so simple, but not all the waves are as apparent as the ones in the ocean.

Not Knowing

Once in the Orient, a seeker talked of suicide with a sage, whose clear and gentle eyes seemed to be gazing at a never-ending sunset.

"Dying is no solution." the sage affirmed. 

"And living?" the seeker asked.

"Nor living either," the sage conceded, "but who tells you there is a solution?"

~story from If You See the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him. 

This says to me that when we look for solutions, we miss the moment. And it is only in this moment that we can know the correct action. The choice to live is a moment by moment choice. Even if you choose life, you can only choose it for THIS moment, because you do not know what comes in 100 moments from now.

I started this blog as a way for me to drop my teacher voice and relate to myself as a vulnerable human. Initially, I didn't tell anyone so I could stay courageous and honest. Since I started telling people about this blog, I have seen myself move into my teacher voice again. My shield is up and I stick to discussing ideas. If I am the expert, I affirm my knowledge and my value to you. The problem is, it is a lot of work to try to be important to someone in every moment. I am dependent on an audience - a kind and generous audience.

If I drop the shield, what do I need or want right now? I want to know I am of value, my life has some meaning - that their is a solution. So what happens when is none. At one point my life was built around a marriage - it didn't last. There was no solution.

Funny isn't it. None of you can give me a sense of meaning until you are with me and even then it is only for that moment. It is temporary, roles, meaning comes and goes just as my role as wife was came and went as will my role as a mother continue to change. There is no solution - no end, there are only the moments, each moment as it comes.

Can I choose to value myself in this moment and the next and the next and the..... even when no one is telling me, even when I am making mistakes - even when there is no reference point? I guess that is the real practice. 

Who do I want to be here in this moment? I want to be open to all of you. I want to be courageous. I want to be able to love when hurt, I want to be able to be brave when consumed with fear. My experience is that even by questioning - as I have just done in this writing, questioning why I am preaching, I can see what is behind it - my fear of not being good enough for all of you. (And as I am editing this, apparently I still need to practice being enough for myself).

Seeing beneath the surface, I can hold this moment less tightly and it feels lighter. Now I can focus on being open and brave. Thank you for listening.

Disconnected

Lunching with a friend and she paraphrases the following, all negative emotion is just a cry for help. I immediately understand how much I have been crying out and why.

I keep thinking I need to do it all on my own and I keep resenting that I am doing it all on my own, BUT what I am not seeing is what I am not paying attention to. I am paying attention to the external things, the material world the relative reality where I am a mother because I have a son. A world where I feel it might be easier to do it myself than to coordinate others. A world where I am constructed from the things, people and experiences of my life.

Then there is a reality where I place my attention on the lesson in the experience, I place my intention on how I want to be, not who I want to be. I see that when I stop trying to be connected, stop worrying about continuing people's ideas about who I am, communication is much lighter and freer and opening to the connection is more probable. I feel that everything is perfect, just as it should be.

Even as I write this, I watch myself censor my words -- my own fear to accept who I am, the fear of rejection by the reader. But then in not writing from my heart with the intention of support you the reader, I am the one rejecting me. And I am the one trying through pleasing language to connect. A subtle shift in awareness, but so very key.

Growing

I have been listening to new audiobooks these days, in an effort to fill my mind with something other than the thoughts of buying Nick out of the house and the feelings that have been stimulated. Very well meaning people tell me their thoughts and it feeds the mind frenzy as this process unfolds.

The books are my distraction - a way to ignore what I think is right or wrong and how I feel about it. They definitely let me close off from my heart and analyze the concepts and ideas. Safe - somehow this makes me safe. Problem is that every book has a truth hidden within it and the heart, upon hearing the truth will not lay quietly under the blanket of rationalization.

The result; very early mornings, more salt than I need in my diet, variable breaths and a need to garden, cut down trees - do physically demanding work. I guess it is just a way to get things done. The truth; stay focused on the intention - who I want to be. Then put skillful effort into the actions that support the who.

Who do I want to be - compassionate, kind, loving, nurturing and supportive held together with the strength of resolve and discipline. Joyful. Therein lies the work - softening enough to see the joy in all that is.

What's the use...

"What's the use of a beautiful voice if you nothing to say,
What's the use of strength and muscle if it is only to push and shove,
What's the use of two ears if you don't hear the ones you love." ~Ted.com- Eddi Reader

Powerful truth.
These words speak of compassion and opening to the views of others. It is so easy to be confused by the needs and desires for oneself and the greater good. These are powerful thoughts for me as I attempt to move forward skillfully these days.

I wish to use my strength and muscles to embrace those I can.
I wish to use my ears to hear the dreams of those I love, and those I don't.
I wish to use my voice to open hearts and minds.
Staying here is sometimes frightening and groundless.
But is only with groundlessness that we can feel true faith in oneself. Therein lies real power.