Energy

Yesterday I spent the entire day in a state of awe at the amount of energy in the room of people committed to raising money for Bust A Move. As I gazed around the room I saw women of different shapes, sizes, degrees of fitness and health moving in their bodies. I saw men supporting women. I saw families coming together. I saw exuberance and I saw restraint. I saw volunteers, moving and shaking, I saw stage hands keeping us on track. I felt so much. Love.

As these beautiful belly dancers came on the stage and moved with such magic and inspiration, I realized how rigidly I hold my own rules about my own body -- still. I saw my self-consciousness of my very small titties as so absolutely ridiculous. I felt my own self- rejection.

Richard Simmons filled the room with his 3 rules - move your body, moderation and LOVE your self. And in the end, he looked into my face and offered me the love I withhold from myself. So many people offered love and acceptance and now I know I am controlling what comes in.

Receiving

Yesterday I was tired. My body was achy and I wanted to curl in a chair in the sunshine and read a book. My beautiful child wanted to go sledding. It was cold and the snow hard and the wind present. Choice. I wanted to give to myself the gift of peace and quiet. I also wanted to give to myself the opportunity to have fun and connect to my son.

We barreled down the hill with laughter as we hit the slide, or the trees or came off the side of the ramp. The sun lowered behind the horizon and finally it was time to go in and warm up. I went out because I 'should' give my attention and love to my son.

What I did not realize when I was trying to chose was that this was a great time for me to receive.
The sun's reflection of pink, orange and purple light, the warmth in my coat and boots, mitts and hat, the crispness of the air reminded me of all that is coming to me - given to me - without my realization.

I was not there to entertain my son, I was there to receive his laughter and joy in racing down the hill  completely out of control and with absolute exuberance.... if and only if I opened my heart to it.

Listening

There is tension across my shoulders, the collar bones collapse inward, my brow is furrowed and my tummy is tight. Closed. My general state is thinking. My heart is not open and I can see how my words push people away. I see it so clearly and yet seem powerless to change my energy.

I am overwhelmed with responsibility. All the responsibilities that I cannot let go of are what I wish to let go of. I struggle and resist the reality of what is. I struggle against what I believe to be the closed hearts of others and how can I fix it. If I do not feel I can connect, how do I engage them? How do I interact? Then clarity comes and I know.
It is MY heart that resisting who they are - it is MY heart that is closed. Ahhhh....

As I move toward beautiful people who will be offering their hearts, bodies and minds to a beautiful cause, I see the power I feel from one person in particular. She hears me. I know she listens and that makes all the difference.

Listen - I draw my attention into my heart and I listen. I need to hear what others are saying to me. Not their words. I need to feel their feeling about what they are saying. Then I will know what is skillful.
Practice.

Who are you?

The most important part of sticking with those New Year resolutions, goals or resolves, intentions, whatever you wish to call them, is that it needs to be pleasurable. As organisms, we move toward pleasurable things and away from pain. If the resolution is painful, we will not stick to it. However, everything has both the flavor of good and bad - think of a long run. Usually during the run (especially if running is not what you usually do) there is pain. A couple days after the run, there can continue to be pain. If you stick with running, down the road, it feels great to be so fit and strong. But when you can't experience fit and strong immediately, it is hard to stick with it.

And why are you running anyway? Why be fit and strong? Finding the answer to these questions is where you can make the connection to the immediate pleasure. Continuing with this example, I want to be fit so I can continue to engage in sport with my son.
Why is that important to me?
It is important to me to share, connect with him in ways that are fun and expressive.
What is it about connecting expressively that matters to me?
When we have fun together, the connection seems deeper, richer. I feel that I can be silly and so can he and we just accept each other.
So being fit is really all about connecting in a meaningful, authentic way with people. Hmmm. Who knew!?!
Now when I plan to run - how can I make it an opportunity to make that connection? My son could ride his bike next to me. Or maybe I shouldn't plan to run. Maybe we should do karate together. Or both.

Your turn. Why do you want to reach these goals you have? Why is it important to you? Keep asking until you get the real understanding of what feeling you are hoping to achieve through the pursuit of the goal.

Sticking to it - attitude

This time of year, resolutions are popular. I prefer to call mine a resolve. As you may have noted, I resolve to offer my best to the situations I am in and the people I am with. The trick is sticking with this and remembering it day after day. And how on earth do you remember it when that s.o.b. just cut you off?

I touched on it in the last blog. You need a strategy. You have to plan the execution of the resolution into your day. Easy enough - set an alarm on a watch to go off periodically each day to remind you to do it right now - no excuses! Or wear a bracelet - every time you notice it, execute.

The main thing here is quality. I can 'offer my best' in a variety of ways, but if my heart isn't in it, it won't matter - it won't be my best. Exercise resolutions are only as effective as your attention to the activity. Your heart has to be in it - you have to carry the right attitude.

Attitude is choice. To create the right attitude, you have to think about all the pleasure this action, deed brings to you. When I was bouldering, there was one particularly challenging project I had. Within the first 3 moves, the granite crystals would cut deeply into the tips, and within three tries, my tips would be bleeding. Taping was not a solution because I couldn't feel the holds and accuracy was everything at this grade for me. It was painfully hard to be motivated to even try. Where I put my attention made all the difference. To cultivate the will to try, I would recall how painful childbirth was, well this was nothing relative to that experience. Then with the will to try in place, I would visualize my successful attempt. I would close my eyes and watch myself move over the rock, successfully getting the key hold to the finish. I would feel the muscles and joints in my body responding to the effort. This action of mindfullness changed my attitude from one of resistance to one of excitement and motivation.

The mind does not know the difference between imagined, visualized success and actual success. In a Yoga pose, rather than critically analyzing my limitations, or paying attention to the discomfort, I can visualize myself holding the pose in perfect alignment, feeling my grace, strength and flexibility. With these feelings, the process is beautiful, pleasurable, pure joy. When I see only my perfection and success, I feel successful and perfect. That is exactly as it should be, after all, we are all perfect just as we are.

Resolve

As 2010 quickly approaches, I am thinking of what I would like to do differently, what potential goal I would like to achieve? I remember when I was climbing, I always had goals - the next route to climb, the next grade to do. I was really good at achieving goals - I could plan the right amount of physical work, when to rest and how to learn the route and climb it pretty quickly. I realize that what I was really doing was trying so hard to feel good enough. I would climb route after route so that I could be seen as strong enough, fit enough, smart enough to train people in rock climbing. I felt a great deal of gratification too - the process of getting to experience movement in such a state of flow was very exciting and gratifying.

I know I am not alone in this. Lots of people will be setting goals with the new year and many will be about feeling better about themselves. Some people will excuse themselves. I hear it all the time as a teacher; "I am not flexible enough to do Yoga." "I need to get stronger before I take a climbing lesson." People are funny. The whole point of being in the class is to learn how to get flexible and strong efficiently and safely. But no one wants to look bad or inept. We all worry about how we will be perceived. Maybe this should be my New Year's resolution. I resolve to not worry about how I look to others. In a positive statement, my resolve is to offer my best to whatever I am doing and whoever I am with.

Step two in setting a goal is to figure out how I am going to practice it and plan to practice it regularly, getting outside my comfort zone. What does offering my best mean? In Yoga in would mean to apply skillful effort to the poses; more importantly, to practice with healthy alignment and attention to my breath, drishti, and the messages from my body about my limitations. It is so easy to apply to movement for me. Notice there is an inherent element of needing to practice, there is also the attention, focus and concentration and to challenge myself in the pose.

What is my best in relationships? I love what a great teacher for me said recently, "when you don't know what to do, ask yourself 2 questions; first, is this good for me? And second, is this good for the other person?" In relationships I will begin to ask these questions - is this act, these words good for me? Does it feel good to me? And as importantly, I will ask myself, is this act kind, helpful, necessary and honest toward someone else? (I tend to talk too much, so the necessary part will be very helpful in paying closer attention to the needs of someone else). I think this second question is very helpful in really listening to what someone wants to share with me.

Third step in planning is accountability. I will not ask myself to be perfect in all my encounters with being my best. But I will ask myself to set aside 3 times a day where I will focus on being my best. I will practice really asking these questions at least three times a day in relationships. I will also keep a journal of my experience so I can see even the smallest improvements and see what works and what doesn't. Nothing like a little failure to learn from.

Now... about my over 40 yr old ass... that needs work too. Compassionate work, but work none-the-less.

The Spirit of Giving

It is Christmas and this is my first Christmas without my son. It's lonely. It's freeing and it's fearful. It's joyful. All of it, in different moments. I have plans of visiting people and spending time with my family and their families, but ultimately, I still feel alone in those rooms full of people. A little part of my heart closes when my son goes away and when I have to think of my dreams of my own family that was dashed upon the granite shoreline of life, shattered and washed away in the ink of separation agreements and divorce petitions. I had a dream of my family and faithful love and growing old together and now that is gone. I did not dream this dream of my son being in a world I do not know. I did not dream this time alone at Christmas, with people but feeling so very lonely. And yet it is what seems to be happening.

Or is it? "You cannot search for reality, or for what you will, in isolation. It comes into being only in relationship, only when there is right relationship between man and man. So the love of man is the search for reality.' ~ Krishnamurti

My version of reality is that I am alone. Yesterday as I approached the malls and looked beyond the scene of hurried people, I could see people intent on the perfect gift, men tired of being in the mall, children excited and exhausted. As I looked at each, I could see a little of my own spirit. My own tiredness. My own frustration. My own worry of whether this would be a good enough gift. When I could see a little of my own emotion in others, the door to my heart opened and I felt so much compassion. Then my compassion turned on me. I am just like all these other people with their stories of what a perfect Christmas should be and their striving to make it happen. I understood, my own desire to have a perfect family, and that it is gone -- at least with the man I had promised my dreams to.

As I settled into the front seat -- still thinking that perhaps these weren't the perfect gifts -- I turned on my audiobook - little tidbits of support and encouragement as I drive home. The message coming to me loud and clear is the power of my dreams. I was still stuck on my old dream. I need some new dreams for this new, re-singled life I am living. What would that dream be? As I pondered this I came to see that the joy in our dreams is not just in what we are doing, but the joy in being a mom or a partner is in what we are GIVING. So I have decided to approach each shop clerk, party goer, and family member with the following mantra, 'what can I offer to THIS person in front of me right now?' Because right now and with the person I am with, is where the power of fulfilling my dreams and my love lies.