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.
I Want To Know
What does happiness look like?
I want to know
Does the sun always shine bright behind the clouds?
What is behind the darkness that has settled over my heart?
Is it temporary too…as they say all things are?
What is temporary?
I want to know
Is temporary measured in hours or days or years or seasons?
Is it constant? Does it come and go as it pleases?
When and how will I know?
How will I know?
When the waiting is done?
When it’s time to dream again?
When I peel off a layer, that another one will not make itself known?
How will I know?
When what I thought I knew, is no longer true
When truth takes on many faces,
And I haven’t a clue,
On just who to be or what to do?
What will I do?
When the “I” that thought it knew itself
Reflects back another “I” and another “I”
And a thousand parts that make the whole,
Reflect back me that is also you!
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 MoreThe Invitation
Sharing one of my favorite poems. I heard it again in yoga class this week and it reminded me how much I love it! Enjoy!!!
The Invitation
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.
Working 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 MoreStory Of Love and Time
I wanted to share this story below with you. I don’t know who wrote it. It was shared with me at the end of a long and challenging yoga practice by the instructor leading the practice. It moved me deeply so sharing here with all of you who are on this journey with me.
We all run into challenges in life and life itself at times seems to be a constant wave of expansion and contraction. It is not the easiest thing to do when we are in waves of contraction to remain open with our hearts and minds and still embrace life with open arms. Yet it is exactly this very invitation that is offered to us during every stage.
Enjoy!
Once upon a time, in an island there lived all the feelings and emotions : Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all of the others, including Love. One day it was announced to them that the island would sink! So all constructed boats and left. Except for Love.
Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment.
When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help.
Richness was passing by Love in a boat. Love said,
“Richness, can you take me with you?”
Richness answered, “Sorry Love, I can’t. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat and so there is no place here for you.”
Love next asked Vanity who was also sailing by in a beautiful boat. Vanity was also ready with the same answer.
“I can’t help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat,” Vanity answered.
Sadness was close by so Love asked, “Sadness, take me along with you.”
“Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself!”, sadness said in a sullen voice.
Happiness passed by Love, too, but she was so preoccupied with her happiness that she did not even hear when Love called her.
Suddenly, there was a voice, “Come, Love, I will take you.” It was an elder. An overjoyed Love jumped up into the boat and in the process forgot to ask where they were going. When they arrived at a dry land, the elder went her own way.
Realizing how much was owed to the elder, Love asked Knowledge another elder, “Who Helped me?”
“It was Time,” Knowledge answered.
“Time?” thought Love. Then, as if reading the face of Love, Knowledge smiled and answered, “Because only Time is capable of understanding how valuable Love is.”
When 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!
When 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 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!
Read More
Castle 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 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
Searching 4 What?
It only makes sense that one of my first few blogs should be about searching.
Sure, but what does it all mean? Searching 4 Something? Who is searching and for what? To be honest, I don’t have a universal answer. I don’t by any means profess to be any kind of expert on the topic of searching. There are many “experts” past and present who have written extensively on the topic of humanity’s search for meaning in life, for love, happiness, for answers to life’s important and not so important questions. In this very moment, I foresee this blog being about my own stories. Ones documenting my adventures in the internal and external worlds I play in. Having learned some lessons recently on impermanence, I recognize that this too may change. My intentions for this blog, what I may want to write about, the lenses that I use to view and make sense of my world are all changing as I even write this. I don’t have a fancy GPS guiding my journey. Just an old fashioned internal compass that I am still learning how to fine tune!
It is my humble opinion based on my own experience as well as the stories I have heard and observed of fellow travelers… that many of us do indeed at times go on a quest of sorts. Some life event happens to us and takes us by surprise. Maybe it affects our health, affects our family, our community; that sparks a question or a subtle change in us. Perhaps an inner nagging that something or everything in our life does not fit quite as nicely as we were used to anymore. A new car, house, re-decorating the living room again just doesn’t seem to give any real lasting pleasure. Artificial and superficial conversations about the weather, the plans for the weekend or any other topic seem to have lost its allure. So either at a conscious or unconscious level, we start looking for answers, explanations or even just a temporary stopgap. Sometimes stopgaps, which the dictionary defines as an improvised substitute for something lacking, are necessary as a means to survival. Watching hours of television re-runs, staring at the inside of an open refrigerator for the 10th time in an hour, re-organizing the insides of all my closets and sleeping have all been familiar friends for me on this journey.
Meeting discontent and emptiness at the crucial intersections of life can be tough. We can and do struggle, grasping at anything to find firm grounding, even a häagen daz ice cream bar at times!
This is my very real journey. I am learning to live it moment by moment. The somewhat anal retentive parts of me want to quickly organize my life into neat little stories in chronological order. But life is messy and it does not quite work that way. At least my life does not. I have discovered that “linear paths” do not exist all too often. Time and life have been great teachers in showing me the beauty in my very own “non-linear” path towards searching for meaning and wholeness.
In my own journey I am still learning to listen and stop fighting the emptiness I feel inside and outside. I am stumbling, falling in holes for long and sometimes…more recently… shorter periods of times and learning to embrace it all. The emptiness, the sadness, the loneliness that remained even after I spent the afternoon at Starbucks with friends, are all clues, vying for my attention. When I remember to just “be” with the pauses in between the constant thinking and analyzing, then… the questions themselves sometimes start to become markers and ignite and light within me a path that reveals this inner quest I find myself on.
These are my searching stories, my postcards on this quest. Happy travelling!
Read More
My 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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