The Power and Prejudice in Our Stories
I t is my 8 year old daughter that inspired this post. The thought of writing about “our stories” has been on my list of post ideas (that are written on various post-it-notes and stored in a basket for a rainy day when I might just run out of ideas) for a while now, without me getting jazzed up to actually write it…until now that is! I was driving my two mini Zen masters home from school last week, when my son saw a boy from his school walking home and made it a point to yell out to me, “MOM, that’s the boy in my school who is such a show off!”
Before I could glance over, my daughter pipes up in an exasperated way as only 8 year olds who are going on 25 can, and says to her brother, “That’s a real judgment and a label and plus you don’t know what his story is!”
Read MoreWhen I Grow Up Part VII: Excavating!
Here it is! It has taken a while coming. The post it self has been written for ages but I needed to get comfortable sharing it. Sit with the fears of what people might think…and befriend them also. It is the next step for me in reclaiming my own wholeness and embodying what I speak of or teach when I do workshops in Mindfulness. We need to get comfortable with first of all learning to see all of ourselves…the parts that are hidden and most likely even outside of our own awareness for now. Eventually as we learn to see all of who we are, the acceptance will follow along and then we no longer need to hide anything to the world. Our living our own truth with courage is inspiration enough!
What excavating have you done in your life? What have you found? Send me your stories of courage!
“Encapsulated”! This really is a great sounding word. I heard it used last October when a reporter on CNN used it to describe the experience of the Chilean miners who were trapped underground for 69 days before being rescued. Those of you who watched these events unfold will remember the care that was required in drilling a tunnel to reach the miners trapped more than 600 meters underground. Any false moves during this process could have resulted in a further disaster of the entire area perhaps collapsing on top of the trapped miners. Excavation needed to happen carefully and precisely to prevent further damage.
I have found that it sort of works the same way when we are doing our own personal excavating of our own lives.
Read MoreHunger Without A Name
There is this hunger I have lately. It’s here making itself known in every moment like an intrusive visitor. When I pay attention, draw it close and tune in, it intensifies, ravenous, raw and burning as if I have not eaten for days or even lifetimes.
Forgotten Dreams
A little poem about forgotten dreams. I am juggling about 4 posts right now that just don’t feel like they want to get posted!!! So while I wait for them to be ready, here’s a quick little poem I penned today! I seem to be meeting a lot of people these days that resonate with this message? How did we forget what we came here for? How did guilt and his friends move in and take over our dreams, our hopes and end up cajoling us to settle for what’s safe?
Is there anything in your life that you settled for instead of going all the way?
Consider this poem a little teaser or a small token…for making you and me wait for Part VII of the when I grow up series…it is on its way! I promise!!
If you came home one day to find guilt living in your home
Wearing your clothes,
Sleeping in your bed,
Pretending to live your life,
What are you to do?
Who let guilt in when the doors were all shut?
Who opened the doors?
Who made the cracks on the walls?
Who made you turn away from the truth that you once knew?
Guilt is what robs you of sleep,
Sprinkles fear dust when you dream,
Reminds you of the bills that need to be paid,
Shows you the homeless guy on the street,
Ties you up in doubt till you beg for mercy,
Please no more…there is no need!
I give in!
I will turn in my dreams,
To stand on solid ground,
For the bills need to get paid.
And the world… is just mean!
Let me forget me,
The castles, the hopes, silent pleas
All the people and things
I could have been
We need bread to eat
Solid ground to sweep
What remains of the bitter crumbs,
Of the life we just never got to meet!
When I Grow Up Part VI – Telling The Truth!
Writing the truth is much harder than I ever thought it would be! It is much easier to face truth within the four walls of your therapist’s office or over coffee with your best friend. Truth and I have even gone so far as to tolerate and lately enjoy each other’s company in moments of silence with ourselves. Yet, writing the truth for the world to see and hear…this has been more than just slightly terrifying!
Read MoreWorking With Rage!
Yes…I cheated a little bit. This post did not sit with me as being “complete” after I posted it a few days ago. It just felt incomplete as if I was missing something. I was missing something! Read on…if you read it already…you’ll know what I added today…if not and you are seeing this for the first time…don’t worry about it and just enjoy!
Here`s something that surprised me about myself. Yesterday I got triggered and I mean really triggered. What was it that got triggered? Quite simply – Rage! Old, stored up rage!
Read MoreWhen I Grow Up Part V – Embracing Process!
Yes, Yes, I know! I have been a bit remiss on posting this entire week! It’s not that I didn’t want to write but rather that I couldn’t. Didn’t have the energy to! Some of you might remember that I started this 30 day yoga challenge a couple of weeks ago and for the first time in my life, I have found something that is physically stretching me beyond my comfort zone and I am finding myself sticking to it! It has not been an easy week!
Read MoreFind Awareness – Quick!
More of my musings about awareness! It’s here! In this very moment…as we notice our breath, the pause between the breath….a whole universe of now, just waiting to be discovered. Unaware, unnoticed it slips out of sight…gone forever! Only to be replaced by another irreplaceable “now”! All portals to the here and now…the place where much of the world has chosen not to be.
Picture is from one of my favourite places…the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY…taken this summer at a Mindfulness retreat. A labyrinth into or out of now…into or out of ourself?
We don’t know that we’ve lost it,
Won’t know until we find it!
Find it!
Quick!
This thing called Awareness,
It’s precious, subtle, scared and soft.
Trust it, love it, worship it and keep it safe!
Make it your friend!
I Am On A Speeding Bullet Train!
The inspiration and all the words for this poem came a few days ago. I quickly scribbled it down and then didn’t have a chance to look at it again till today. I am continually in awe of surrendering to this creative process and what seems to come out through me because sometimes like in the case of this poem, I look at it and think, “I didn’t write this!”
Read MoreWhen I Grow UP Part IV: Learning to Love and Live in Limbo!
Ok! So there you have it! If you read along so far expecting me to have it all figured out – sorry to disappoint, but I don’t. I am writing this live from the road remember…things are still in process and our work here is about learning to love the process...even if we have to start out with gritted teeth and clenched jaws and a stomach full of butterflies!
I am learning things along the way being “in process”. Like for example how challenging it is to give up socially acceptable labels that give you an identity and a pass to fit into the “normal people” club!
Read MoreTree Pose, Balance & Compassion …Random Roads to Healing & Awareness
Picture below…perhaps one view of the “elusive bridge” I refer to below…read on! Picture is from a place in Denmark that caught my attention this summer…now I know why!
I had no intentions of writing tonight! I am actually trying to recover from a trying week of changes and am taking a bit of a break from writing part IV of the “When I Grow Up” series of posts. More on that later!
The kids are back at school for another year and we are all adjusting to the new routine of a different way of life that comes with the freshness of a new season. On this journey I am constantly learning to embrace change, and learning to make tiny adjustments to my way of looking at and being with myself, the people and situations in my life. In a way, it’s sort of like Mother Nature with her changing seasons … nudging us all to let go and embrace the new, as just a part of life…to welcome it no matter how much we may be attached to the way things “are” or “were”.
It’s just not my kids that have gone back to school. It seems that the curriculum that I have been enrolled in at the University of Life just stepped up things a notch or two!
Read MoreWhen I Grow Up Part III: Dancing with Awareness & Acceptance!
We were never really taught attention in school were we?
Our parents and teachers likely “talked to” paying attention! They might have even screamed it into your ears if you were the really, really brilliantly creative kind of kid. The kind that takes a little bit longer than most to tune out their internal rhythm!
We can live through our delusions for quite a long time. We can forget our music, or that we ever danced or sang to begin with!
Read MoreWhen I Grow Up Part II: Forgetting How To Play!
In those days I ran around shoeless a lot! It was one of the few freedoms I knew!
I was a child…and children just needed to do what they’re told!
I grew up being plagued by these tenets! They haunted me during recess at school, on silent car rides home and times in between while I was busy forgetting how to play!
Read MoreWhen I Grow Up: Part 1
No one told me I could be a writer!
Or an artist, a creativity expert; a specialist in playing or an observer of internals worlds! In fact, no one told me that I could be anything I wanted to be in my own life. I don’t think we still explicitly tell our children that they own their life – do we?
Read MorePostcard From Prison!
This picture…one taken from a recent vacation is of the “Portara” meaning “the huge door” in Greek. It is what remains of a temple dedicated to the Sun God Apollo…you see just a brief glimpse of the sun in the middle of the door way before it set into the sea! The doors “in or out” are right here, in this very moment!
Tonight I met one of my best friends for coffee and dessert. It was good for me to get out! I don’t often do it. Not because I can’t, because I can and am well able to. I have an extremely supportive partner who helps me honour this great latitude and freedom over “time” I have given myself. So whatever it is I want to do with myself, my time, he is there for me 100 percent! Without sounding overly cheesy, I recognize with gratitude all the ways that he is there for me! This post though is about something else altogether!
So even with this freedom over my time, during this professional “time out” to recover from illness and time to be in stillness, why is it on most days I feel as empty and depleted and filled with dread…in my own magnificent self-made prison?
Read MoreLessons from the Road: Packing Light!
I made an observation while we were travelling last month. You see it concerns our luggage of all things! Now before you skip over to the next post, hear me out…there is a gem in here somehow like there is all things and especially ones that seem mundane!
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Letting go of “GOD” the word!
I want to share how this poem came to me with the intent of honoring the flow of creativity. I recognize it when its there and when it’s not…yet trying to invoke it or find it…I have yet to decipher that complicated formula. So this poem, came to me in the early hours of the morning …I had just finished writing another piece and knew that I needed to get to sleep! Two energetic kids would be jumping on my bed in a matter of hour or two and just as I was putting my head on my pillow, I felt the urge to write these words…“Even the word “God” seems irreverent somehow.” I stayed in bed for a few moments and then more words and an urgency to write it down before I lost it forever!
I wish someone had taught me to honor creativity when I was a little girl…before I learnt to fade out the yearning and the longing to create! I am grateful to have a 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th and many more chances to discover it again. It’s reminds me of Rumi’s invitation in his poem, “Come, come whoever you are…” You can read more of it here. I believe that we all have this invitation without an expiry date to keep coming back to our love no matter how many times we have given up… on our dreams, our lives and our selves.
I write all this down to share and also to help me remember when I look back. In terms of the poem itself…it took on a life of its own once I started listening…it’s roots though lead back to a conversation with a dear friend and teacher who continues to help me in my work to see clearly! Thank you!
That which I called God
Is neither male or female
Black, white, brown or pigeon
Labels mean nothing to me
Even the word “God”
Seems irreverent somehow
When It is the reason that one life form can kill another
When some dominate
And forget the earth our mother
How can a word that points to something and everything
Also leave trails of blood and terror
Throughout centuries past and present
How could such a word mean love
When it also vibrates and resonates in the truth of the opposite?
I say,
Let’s scrap the word
Lets’ let go of “God” the word
It, he, she doesn’t care
Call it the sky, an ant, a pigeon
Anything but that word
Find instead, goodness everywhere!
And call it anything you want!
Holes In The Sand and Stories I Told Myself
This was a difficult and painful piece to write but even more so to share…
I have a dream.
I am 6.
I see me wearing my home-made underwear and playing on the beach in front of my ammamma’s (grandmother) house. I have dug a hole in the sand and I am trying desperately trying to fill it up with water but it keeps on draining into the sand. Maybe if I run a bit faster I can fill it up before it empties. I don’t like empty holes.
There are 3 photo albums my mother created especially for us…her three daughters. The one with the pink orchids on the cover belongs to my middle sister. The one with the picture of a huge tree in the front is that of my youngest sister by 4 years. The one with the 2 puppies sleeping in a basket is mine.
Read MoreTransition Blues: Learning to Swim in Half Cooked Soup!
There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. –Anais Nin-
Back to writing! I have been struggling with over exposure lately! Every topic I want to write about seems to be tinted with something more personal than I feel the courage to share at the moment. It feels like I have been floating in half cooked soup lately.
Read MoreMeeting Death At The Door
In his poem, I wanted to recognize the invitation that has been sent to our family. We are fortunate to have been told ahead…death has made his announcement …he’s on his way! We have been invited to get ready, celebrate life, say our goodbyes to a family member who has had 96 years to live and learn and love in this temporary place we call home. When that moment comes, may she turn to the light confidently and find her way back to her real home!
I feel death knocking at the door
The raven knows whose turn it is to go
Or is it to come
Come back to home again
Listen
The trees, the wind, the grasses all know
When a life is born
And
When it returns back to the flow
Yet we could also know
If we cared to see
To hear
To feel
The subtle changes in the wind
The way her breath moves in an out
The way her smile leads with a trail of doubt
When the eyes long to be set free
When food and life have lost their taste
When her connections here seem to be misplaced
We can know the time is coming and prepare
Celebrate her life, rejoice, not despair
Or
We can send her away someplace else
Pretend that this life here will never end
Behind walls and curtains where others alike
Have been sent to hide death out of sight
Death laughs at our childish ways
There are no walls, no cells to keep him at bay
Birth and death…they know just how to play
One leads, the other follows and then they reverse
Read More
Getting Nowhere: When things don’t go according to plan!
All weekend I have been trying to get “things done”! The problem is that productivity, creativity and any kind of will seem have gone into hiding. I feel like I am swimming against the current or climbing a stair case leading to nowhere! I know that wisdom has left me some clues to pick up somewhere here but I just want to keep my blinders on. It’s like, I like the agony of pushing forward even when there seems to be a larger force pushing me back. What am I doing engaging in this self inflicted torture!
Read MoreCastle Wisdom – Messages from a 13th Century Warrior!
On a recent visit to Denmark we decided to visit one of Europe’s best preserved castles. Egeskov castle offers a spectacular first impression! It’s stately presence dates back originally to the13th century, although its present form, was completed in 1554. It sits right in the middle of a small lake (moat) which is about 5 metres deep. Once upon a time, the only entrance was via a drop down wooden bridge. Strangers and uninvited guests were not welcome!
Read MoreMissing my kids and other insane stuff for those sane enough to notice!
So this is one of those blogs that started out as something and ended up as something…so I am putting it “out there” the way it is right now…what do I know? I am just the scribe! Thanks to my friend R for the lovely picture of her and her daughter. I saw it while I was in the “thick” of this post…you mirror so beautifully what took me an entire blog entry to get to…
The house is extremely quiet tonight! Our kids are at their grandparents.
Read MoreConstruction Troubles Phase 1: Navigating Relationship Potholes!
I recently had a not so nice of an interaction with someone very close to me. Their identity is irrelevant for my reasons for writing this are not to point out their faults but rather to shed some light onto areas in my own life that need some fine tuning.
I was mad! Boy was I mad! Who did this person think they were?
Read MoreIt’s Just A Phone!
You were just a little boy…perhaps only 5 or 6 years old…a curious, precious, and careful child. You were the one that took care of your toys. Perhaps because there wasn’t too many that your parents could afford at that time. Your dinky cars! You wouldn’t throw them around and let nicks and scratches mark their their shiny bodies. These were real to you and once something was entrusted to you, you took care of it.
Like the way you take care of me!
Read MoreShifting Weather Patterns
I often find myself noticing a constant mirroring of my internal world to my external world. It is a “truth” I seem to have had some awareness for all my life… that often or maybe even always, my internal world is a reflection of my external world. Lately I have come to know the reverse was well.
Read MoreLearning to Sit with Monsters
Sitting in meditation for me is uncomfortable! Not just physically. That’s a given for someone who has slouched most of her life. I have yet to master sitting “in an upright and dignified” position…which is a common set of instructions provided by very dignified looking meditation teachers. I might start out like a mountain, but I soon transform into slouchy jell-o on the brink of melting into grape juice and gelatin!
Read MoreInvesting In Delusions?
I’m sitting by the poolside watching my son and daughter play in the pool with their cousins. We are vacationing for a few days on the spectacular island of Naxos in Greece and today will be a pool day. In between reading, conversations with my husband and taking in the poolside fraternizing,
Read MoreTrauma is a Tyrant
Trauma is a tyrant
He has friends in all the right places
Guards, who are ready to attack
Trespassers on forbidden territory
Don’t mess with him
Don’t mess with them
Don’t go places you don’t belong
Don’t go digging filled in holes
Don’t go searching underneath rocks or stones
It’s not safe
Deep inside
The other side of these walls
If you are a good listener
Learnt to not to listen to your-self
You will heed this advice
And stay safe
Outside the lines
And
Waste away your life
But,
If you are brave
If you long to taste the possibilities
Of forgotten dreams
Or felt too long
A gnawing, a knowing, a nagging
Or longed to walk in bright sunny fields
Making daisy chains
Without pain
Then,
You will take down your masks,
Take off your armour
Lay down the swords
And go deep, deep into the unknown
And meet these creatures of terror
You will swallow their poison of fear
And
Spit it back in their faces
Transform,
Become the antidote
Which you will use
To find yourself once more
Read More
Frolicking In Regret!
I was getting ready to leave my kids for a week to attend a workshop/retreat of sorts and my mind was on a million other things that needed to get done. That being said, I was everywhere but where I most needed to be in those precious few moments I had with my children before our 7 day break. They wanted my attention. I grudgingly pretended to give it to them while trying to be in 10 different places physically and about a million different places in my “head” as I tried to get things “done”. Kids are smart and they soon figured out that mommy was no fun to be around tonight and slowly they drifted off to sleep sprawled across my bed in positions that resembled a lopsided Lego creation.
Read MoreMy Take On Mindfulness
Victor E. Frankl said it briefly. “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response”. This is the power of practising Mindfulness. It’s a practice that allows one to harness the potency of the present moment and the growth that sprouts in cultivating that space. My take on this practice uses a few more words!
Read MoreAn Ex-Corporate Junkie Comes Clean!
A seeker, a searcher, a sojourner on a path into the vastly undiscovered, unknown territory that makes up me, myself and I. Somewhat of an understated yet sometimes aggressive smartass who had to get lost to discover that she was searching. An ex-corporate junkie who for a long time was clueless and blinded by the "bling" of everyday distractions to notice all the hooks, the hookers or the hooked, never mind the artificial highs and depressing lows. Am I clean now? Read more About Me and keep coming back ...I’ll come clean!
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