Beyond frustration

Frustrated. It has been one of those days with the feeling there is much to be doing and yet somehow nothing gets started because I just do not know where to start. Perhaps that means there is nothing to be done, yet. Perhaps that means the first step is to become clear.

But I find myself waiting for answers. Not being present, waiting for the emails, waiting for the phone call. Perhaps that means I am not making decisions from a place of discernment, rather from a place of reaction to the calls. True. Thus leaving myself powerless. Ahhhh... yes, that is the feeling behind frustration.

So I just need to do what feels right for me, and in that, I trust I will chose the action that is supportive and beneficial to myself and others.

More seeing

Two things came to my mind at the same time. The first a comment from my yoga teacher and the second my confused thoughts about work. The first was a simple comment that was made 30 minutes after I sauntered into an amazing practice room at Prana Del Mar in Baja. With 12 hours of travel already logged that day, my mind was receiving, not processing much as I found a seat for this 5 day Kundalini adventure.

"Will you continue to practice (Yoga methodologies) for pain management or do you long for something more?"

Then my mind rolled around the challenges in my life right now. I could immediately sense the struggle... and this thought, "but how can I maintain my life, the life of my child and pursue that connection?" The defence, "I can't make more room for this! I am already so busy."

There was the answer. I do want more than pain management.
Then came a feeling of relief. There is no need to strive. I will just apply as much effort and discipline as I can on what I know will be a long and sustained adventure... but I can only ever make this journey, one step at a time.

Girl Talk

I had the pleasure of re-running memories of a friendship that supported me in what was an incredibly challenging time in my life. As I recalled the so many girl talks, I could see my animated confusion and the well known face of my girl friend I could not remember what was said, rather I remembered how it made me feel... Safe.

We all just want to feel safe, especially when we don't. When the the rug is pulled from under us, we just want to get the ground safely back under our feet. And yet this is the perfect moment to learn to fly.

For some of us flying is too big, we just want safety. Someone I love is in just such a place. The rug is gone and they don't want to fly. How can I help? I just want them to fly. But I am not them and this is their fall.

Compassion. My heart stills and I go to the place I believe they must be. I can see I have been here too, feelings of fear and sadness, with no ability to change what is. Perhaps in some way I am still in this place. I smile. Tears fill my eyes and love for them blossoms in my heart.

Walking on the Wild Side

The sun shone through the clouds creating windows of bright orange and red light across the granite rocks. Fynn and Tour run ahead. I am taking my time, contemplating what V7 I would want to climb. Why am I resisting climbing something here in NS? There is that one at Chebucto, close to home, not really needing a spotter. Who could I ask to be a climbing partner? No, spotter? What is this tension about? Hmmm.... Is that the problem with climbing, the resistance? Is it that I do not want to have to trust anyone? YES.
Makes sense, everyone I have trusted as a climbing partner has let me down. Whew.... well, everyone I have trusted and been intimately involved with. Huh... Didn't see that coming.

Doing V7 just got harder.

Definitely afraid to trust people. Wait. My heart speaks, urging me to see all that I have gained from that trust and then broken trust. All the climbing adventures, writing, training, five years of travel, a marriage, a child, so many amazing friends. All possible because I allowed myself to trust. And with the broken trust, I picked myself up and grew even more. I learned to trust my own capacity to love, to be open, in the face of great loss.

Would I still want this goal if nothing but the pure act of climbing existed?
Climbing just two people, sunshine, cool rock, no responsibilities, distractions. Just a challenge, an adventure to explore. Just moving, sharing how to make the body fit the sequence.
So really, the goal is to share a project with a friend.

Don't worry about the how.

Sankalpa is a powerful thing. A goal, an aspiration. As I reflect this morning on a sankalpa to lead me into the New year, I am stumped. Not because of a lack of things I want to accomplish. Oh no... there are plenty of things I would like to accomplish, to change in my life. No, it is because of the challenge of discerning which of those many things to focus on first and then immediately skipping to the how. It is a lack of faith that it will just happen unless I make it happen.

Just call me 'control.'

Where did the power to just go on the road and be a rock climber go? What happened to the fearlessness that I had all those years ago disappear to? That bravery is now buried under mounds of responsibility and things that will distract me from having to live up to that uncomfortable lifestyle. Spending your days living in a car or van, even a Ford F-150 is very freeing from responsibility, but it can be challenging to always have to cook hunched over your legs. Or to get dressed laying down.

So perhaps it is not the responsibility as much as the fear of getting that uncomfortable again. Fear of not having enough juice to do it all and then some more. It's easy to sit behind the excuse of being a single parent. Lots of people cut me slack for my very full life. It isn't easy. But it is also joyful and fun and can certainly fill ones days. And yet, there is also the possibility to add to the spice of my own life. Maybe a PhD is not the answer. Maybe the how is to just do what it is I love to do, allow the world to see it.

That takes faith and patience and perhaps a little hope, but definitely just takes doing. Can you guess what it is that I love and haven't been courageous enough to share fully with the world?
Are you holding something back?
Here's to 2012! Just a little doing each day, like one Yoga pose leads into a sequence and one 5.7 leads to 5.13, if you just keep doing.

Giving 120%

The room was still and quiet. For me there was just me and time. Distracting myself from the stillness, I roamed the internet and eventually found myself watching youtube videos of Chris Sharma. I have known Chris. I remember watching him just not let go in Santa Cruz. As I watch his Wanderlust interview and see his discomfort with new moves... Yoga moves, I realize that what we do is what we become good at. But more importantly, how we do something determines how well we will perform.

It is not a matter of technique or strength as much as it is a matter of desire. When we really want something, we will put all of our being into it. All of our strength and all of our know how. Our awareness becomes locked on the process and we are led through the process, rather than conquering it.

Clearly Chris' desire is to always climb the next level. To see what is next and can be done.
What is my desire? As I reflect on this, I realize this has always been a struggle for me. For many years my desire has been polluted with the desires that others have for me. My parents desire for a degree in science, with the end of that came my partners desire for rock climbing, so I too climbed. With divorce I found Yoga, but even there perhaps it has been the desire that others have to be great teachers that has diverted my path to teaching. And in teaching, I have found the prescriptions of yet others to shape what and how I teach.

More reflection reveals a gem. When I sat in the back of a Ford F150 in the blazing sun on warm July days in Rifle, Colorado, I was free. I was writing. I was sharing all the knowledge I had gained from my own experience with climbing. Not the training offered to me from other, but from my own experience. I was alive. I was climbing as I wrote. I was understanding and blending together all that I understood and articulating it. That was fulfilling.

Climbing routes was only a means of learning for me. Practicing asana has only been a means of gaining understanding. Reading book after book after book has been the fulfillment of a desire within me to learn, understand and offer in my own words my perception. Can my purpose really be that simple?
And yet it makes perfect sense because I cannot do anything in my life half-assed. I must do it fully and completely and when I can't put 120% in, I lose interest.

Sometimes I long for those days of climbing again... the fitness, the fun, the travel. But what I really miss is the absolute absorption in learning. Yep... that's me, the perpetual student.

Merry Christmas

The stove burns brightly, the clock ticks and I sit. I take a breath and feel the pleasure of my lungs expanding and my heart opening to the gift of life. I watch my fingers dance across the keyboard and words from my heart skip across the page. Magic.

Today, as a community we celebrate the gift of life, we remember the generous spirit in our hearts. We connect as family, as one. I am so very fortunate to celebrate and remember these things more than once over this Holiday season. My wish for the New Year will be to remember and celebrate life, abundance and generosity every day.

With an open heart, I can find the light inside me and share it with the world. That is my greatest gift to give.... and the world reciprocates. For when I see my light, then I can see the light in others, and be grateful for their gift.

Merry Christmas everyone.