A Renewal of spirit

Light Heart: 2011

This past month I did something I've never done before: I reached out to my community for financial support. I hadn't intended to, but an opportunity arose that I felt compelled to act on. It was one of those opportunities that may only arise once in a lifetime. Rather than risk missing it, I chose - not just to step out of my comfort zone but to step into my vision of community - and ask for help.

To understand how difficult this was for me, I'll share that not too many years ago I nearly killed myself during an illness because I "did not want to bother anyone." I was too dizzy and weak to do anything but crawl on my hands and knees to get to the toilet, and food was out of the question. My head felt as though it might burst with pain and pressure. I was severely dehydrated.

When help showed up at my house one late night out of worry and fear for my welfare a week later, I was so out of my head with fever and illness that I got startled; and out of my fear, I got angry and yelled at them to leave. They did, but came back the next day and took me to a doctor.

After weeks of tests, no one could identify what was wrong with me. Two rounds of antibiotics later, I began to improve so they let me stay home rather than sending me to a hospital. My Mom came to stay with me to help with my recovery, after my sister called and told her that something was wrong because I wasn't making any sense on the phone. It was a very humbling experience and one that I learned a great deal from.

Months later as I returned to myself, I realized how traumatic that experience felt to me; I'd just been too out of my head to notice it. If my friends had not stopped by, I might have died right there in my own home, for no good reason other than my own internal obstacles. I promised myself I would not do anything like that again to myself, and that I would heal whatever it was in me that kept me from asking for help even in such desperate circumstances. 

Humble Woman: Paris 2004

And so, here is the result of that healing journey. This month I stepped beyond old stories and wounding, beyond embarrassment and shame, beyond fear and excuses, choosing instead to step into a vision of community that I hold - one that is supportive, loving, intimate and authentic - in which we are all held as family. And it's been absolutely beautiful.

Not only has my community shown up to offer financial support, but they have done so with complete joy and gratitude in their hearts. They hold the vision for my expansion just as brightly as I do. They honor my journey just as deeply as I do. They are as happy as I am about this opportunity. The blessings of joy and fullness on this adventure continue to show up in my email and snail mail boxes. And every one of them is sent with pure love and a "Thank you!" to me for the opportunity to help...

My heart is bursting!! This is the kind of community I want to live in. This is the vision of community that I hold. And through this simple, heartfelt request, I've gotten to feel it and watch it in action. And it is SO humbling and wonderful. It has renewed my spirit in the community of Humankind.

And my friends, this is what it's all about: boundary-free, heart-felt love, love love just because you can...

PS: The request was for blessings and/or financial help for Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training so I can take advantage of a scholarship I was awarded and get officially certified. I think after 12 years of practicing and 4 years of teaching, it's time :) With all the loving support from my community, the rather large investment fairly quickly went from impossible to affordable. Thank You Community from the bottom of my heart!

Me and My Ego

Me and my ego are friends now. We weren't always friends but over the past several years, I've made it my mission to befriend my ego as much as possible. I spend much of my time watching it closely through reflection from others and through my own self-witnessing. For a time, it was a part of me that I resisted and tried to rid myself of, mistakenly believing that I could. In some circles, people speak about the ego as a kind of a Human curse to overcome or even "kill" from the Being. The ego is blamed for some not-so-pleasant aspects of being Human...

Yet, as a Human Being created by a Divine Source, I believe there must be a reason for the ego aspect of who I am. I could make all kinds of guesses as to what those reasons may be, but all that really matters in the end is that I accept it as a part of me. In all my resistance to my ego, I discovered that as long as I'm a Human Being, I'm part ego. If I were not a Human Being, I might not have ego; and certainly once this body dies, I will no longer be bound to the ego that lives within its makeup. But for now, I am an ego-linked Human Being. And so the old saying Keep your friends close and your enemies closer is my guide around my ego these days. Not that it's my enemy, but that it is a difficult part of myself to witness since my humanity is so entangled with it.

I don't enjoy being in servitude to my ego - blindly allowing it to dictate my choices and behaviors. To shift this dynamic, I accept that it is a part of who I am, and as with my other "dark sides," I seek to find its gifts. One of those gifts is its knack for independence and uniqueness. My ego is what separates me from everyone and everything else here. It is the part of me that identifies with "I am" and allows me to honor my individuality as I interact with the world. Granted, the ego's version of "I am" is always attached to something, so it is always "I am this" or "I am that." Eckhart Tolle points out that this is because our egos live in a constant sense of lack that leads them to seek to have or be something all the time. And yet, there is no one on the whole planet exactly like me, and my ego not only knows this, but celebrates it! I am a unique contribution to and expression of the Divine. The question is: Who is this "I am," really?

And herein lies the paradox of being Human: "I am" is a false separation because I believe that at my core, I am pure essence and united with all else. The quantum sciences are showing this to be true - that every part of this life is nothing more than energy at its core. And with that energy comes mass, awareness and consciousness. When we take away our physical aspects and drop down deep into the root of be-ing, we find only energy, mass, awareness and the possibility of consciousness. This means that at the quantum level, we live in a energetic soup without a sense of separation yet with pure awareness and possibly even consciousness. Wow - try and wrap your mind around that one!

Yet for now, with my pure essence housed in this physical, sacred vessel, there is ego present. I can do my best to be aware of my ego; to stop over-identifying with it or allowing it to rule my choices and behaviors; to connect more deeply with my pure essence beyond ego, and to live my life from that place more than from my ego. Yet in the end, until I die and shed this body, I have an intimate relationship with my ego, even if I can't identify exactly what my ego is.

I believe that ego and mind are infinitely linked. Language is what links me to my ego; thoughts are the energy that feeds the ego. With language and thoughts come stories and judgements, desires and resistances, attractions and repulsions... dualities. Dualities are a construct of the mind and its language. The dualistic language and stories that my mind creates generate emotions in my body, and if I believe those stories (if I attach meaning to them), I fall into drama and suffering...That is why some - myself included - often refer to it as "Ego Mind" or "Parasite Mind." Eckhart Tolle calls it "the Pain Body." The constructs, stories and attachments of the ego are a mental part of Human be-ing linked to our suffering.

The "non-ego" part of who I am is the part of me that strives to live beyond the mind with its constructs, stories and attachments and in what some call Unity Consciousness - no separation. Non-ego be-ing is based more in the essence of who I am - my purity of be-ing beyond the mind. It's that divine or loving witness part of my Being that is timeless, changeless, deathless and, according to certain Buddhist traditions, primordially pure.The non-ego part of me is the part that is considered my true nature - the part of me that remains after the body dies. Some people call this our "Original Face." This part of be-ing is not limited by a sense of separation, but instead is connected to the whole of the infinite energetic field out of which it is believed we are all born.

In my forthcoming book about our mystical journeys, I describe it this way: "Energy is the common factor in all things. When we distill life down to its roots, it is all energy and space. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, a Tibetan Bon Buddhist master, explains that 'everything begins with primordial space, the Great Mother from which all things arise, in which all things exist, and into which all things dissolve.' He goes on to say that within this infinite primordial space, energy moves. This energy, also called lung, prana, chi or qui, is pure, boundless and pervasive. No one knows what causes this movement or flow of energy to arise; it simply does. Inseparably bound with this energy is what Rinpoche describes as a 'primordial awareness, pure and without identity.' Energy and awareness exist together, resting neutrally within the infinite space of the Mystery until 'there is movement' and something arises out of the Void - something is born and an energetic pattern emerges."

To unite with this part of my Being or what I call my essential self - the pure essence of who I am - I must detach from my identification with the mind and its antics, and instead, identify with this essential self, even though I cannot completely separate the two while I'm living this Human life.  This is my greatest challenge: To reach toward a place of living in non-ego, I must go about the practice of "un-egoing" myself!

Non-ego be-ing has little to do with the mind and everything to do with the heart. Non-ego be-ing is about shifting my awareness away from identification with my thoughts and feelings, and into identification with my pure essence - that primordially pure part of my Being that is my Original Face. How? How do I do this? Well, this is the journey, isn't it? Life is - if we choose it to be - a process of un-egoing ourselves. The task as I've come to see it is not about purging my ego from my Being, but about befriending my ego within my Being. As a friend, the ego informs me of where my work is to move beyond my fears and into a greater sense of wholeness and love. It shows me where the obstacles to identifying with my Original Face are, so I can do practices to overcome them. Each time I find, heal and release one of those obstacles, I get clearer and clearer in my relationship to my Original Face.

Un-egoing myself means that as a friend, my ego becomes my ally rather than my enemy. I undo it's hidden hold of my thoughts, choices and behaviors, and step into a collaborative and supportive relationship with it instead of a power struggle. By undoing it's hold on me, I un-ego myself, giving my personal power back to my essential self rather than mistakenly giving it to my ego. Eventually, I might reach a time when I am living completely in non-ego. That's the dream though I'm not convinced it can be the reality 100% while I am a Human Being.

My latest challenge at un-egoing myself led me once again down the road to don Miguel Ruiz's four agreements, particularly don't make assumptions and don't take things personally. Yes, these old friends of mine resurfaced in a big way! I recently witnessed myself taking things personally from friends, colleagues and my sweetie, so I brought my attention fully to each experience to see what I could discover. And right there in full view I caught my mind taking their statements and making them about me, filling in gaps with assumptions and stories, wanting to be right, and then judging and criticizing myself for what it created. Oh, my ego is a stinky little devil...

Now, it's true that a creative and active mind can easily jump into assumptions about what these folks really meant by what they said - dissecting and adding to the words between the words that were spoken and making inferences about their true meaning about me. And an even slier mind can use spiritual lingo and concepts to prove its point. And still, these are only assumptions, inferences and stories. In the end, it doesn't matter what their meaning was. All that matters is that I am clear about my own dream and how I choose to live it. I have no control over the perceptions, preferences, needs, desires or repulsions of others. I only have choice around how I hold my own and how I respond to theirs.


 And so I move steadily onward in my journey to un-ego myself along this endless road to liberation. I've learned to keep a close eye on this sly friend, and to appreciate the ego's company for what it offers me: clarity and endless opportunity to clean my Being even more deeply than before.

Surprise!!

Today I woke up early to see my sweetie off to a Saturday gig... I mean, early: 5 a.m.! That might not seem early to you, but it's early to my body, which is generally not ready to be up until there is a hint of sunrise outside.

Sometimes when I arise that early, I feel cranky and not quite awake. But today, I woke up feeling happy and full.  I saw my sweetie off and went back to bed to meditate and dream. I love dreaming just before sunrise because the content is rich and creative for me.

Maybe two hours or so later, I made my way into my meditation space. That's when I saw it: a beautiful surprise set up by my sweet Sweetie sometime outside of my awareness, which is a tricky thing to do because I spend the majority of my time in my office where my meditation space is, and I'm in and out of that space all day long until I go to sleep, generally.

But there it was - my Anniversary surprise: a vibrant yellow Marigold; a beautiful and sentimental card; a certificate acknowledging the day we met at a car wash; a red "Love" candle; a Chinese 6 Coin Hanger for abundance; and several of my favorite chocolates!

My heart burst open at the sight of all the love that was sneaked into my day...Oh - what a feeling it was! I cannot describe how such a simple yet deeply thought out gift touched me to the point of tears.

My sweetie got me; my sweetie got me really good with that surprise. My mind was not in the space of "anniversary" because we debated and ultimately agreed that our official anniversary would be what we both considered our first date: November 9th.

But we met on March 26th at a car wash. Yep, I was waiting for my car (which conveniently got "lost" in the back some place) and there we found ourselves sitting on a bench outside engrossed in conversation for an hour. My sweetie's car came out before mine even though I'd been there for some time before...

That's when I discovered that my car was "lost." When I asked about it, the college student girl with the drying towels in her hand said, "Oh - that blue Mazda back there is yours?? We were wondering who it belonged to!" Um, yes, that blue Mazda is mine. For some reason I'll never know, my Mazda wasn't driven up to the front like the rest of the cars. It had been sitting out back for over an hour, and I had been sitting at that car wash for two hours by that time, thoroughly enjoying the visit with my new sexy and sweet friend. I'm not sure who they thought that Mazda belonged to but it was parked out back, clean, dry and ready to go.

That "delay" gave me and my sweetie plenty of time to decide we kinda liked each other, and to make a date to reconnect in a month or so after I returned from some travels I had coming up. I like to believe that it was divine intervention so we could meet, but that's just the romantic in me...

So when I discovered this beautiful gift this morning, I was completely surprised. "Anniversary" was nowhere in my brain. Until I read the card, I had no idea what the surprise was for; and even then, I was a bit confused: "Anniversary? But we decided that was in November!" It was the perfect art of surprise.

I was reminded that love is simply that: a random expression that reaches out and unconditionally touches the heart of another, just to love. How blessed I feel to be the recipient....

I love love!!

A Pain-Filled Lesson

It's been an interesting couple of days following an injury on Saturday. I'm deepening into the spiritual teachings I've been practicing for a few years now around opening to pain, particularly those of Stephen Levine: "...resistance turns pain into suffering; soften and explore the constant state of change within the sensations; watch the unfolding of sensation as a process; when we begin to respond to discomfort instead of reacting to it, an enormous change occurs. We begin to experience it not as just 'our' pain but as 'the' pain. And it becomes accessible to a level of compassion perhaps previously unknown; (and we begin to experience) the personal in its universal aspect."

The practice I'm focused on now through the Awaken series on conscious living is to reprogram the body's response to pain, including and especially the reaction of the mind to pain. Most of us grow up learning to avoid pain. It starts very young when we hurt ourselves. If you watch small children fall on a playground, they generally show a short-lived reaction to pain until or unless the adults around them react. Then it becomes a big drama! But if they are not critically hurt and the adults either don't notice or respond calmly, kids express their pain with some startled sounds and then get up within seconds and keep playing.

Usually what happens in our growing up years is we get message after message from adults to avoid pain, that pain means something is wrong, and that pain is something to be scared about. These adults are well-intended; it's their job to care for and protect us. They are responsible for our welfare and survival. Yet what we carry into adulthood from these experiences is a belief that pain is bad.

Believing that pain is bad as adults, we avoid and resist pain, which means we close our energy body around it. But what if we could stay open through pain? What if we could simply experience it as fully as we allow ourselves to experience other sensations in life? What if pain was not something bad to be avoided, but just an intense sensation instead? How might that change our experiences of it?

That is my practice. It's a practice in moving beyond the mind to open the energy body no matter what the sensations. In the realm of dying and death (as we are exploring in the Awaken series), it is a way to reprogram the body and mind to respond openly to pain rather than closing around it, so that as we die we can experience peace no matter what. When we master this,  a level of separation develops between us and 'the pain' that offers spaciousness to find joy and peace despite the sensations that may be running through the body. Since none of us know what our dying or death experiences will be, this is a great practice to master! Ultimately, it allows us to create and hold a container of bliss through the transitions of the body.

I got to practice this yesterday. I can describe how much pain I was in by saying it was tremendous! I (carefully) taught two yoga classes and interacted with people all day who had little idea what my body was experiencing (though the shiner around my left eye gave them an indication that something was different). My goal was to open my energy body so large that the pain would simply be a tiny part of my day's experiences, and to create enough space around the pain that I could bring in and hold joy.

I succeeded, mostly. I was aware of my pain yet not ruled by it; I acknowledged it instead of resisting or ignoring it; and I consciously opened beyond it to bring in joy. The pain was there and so was everything else; it didn't dominate my experiences. I shed some tears last night over the pain that felt linked to old body memory and energy that was ready to be released; it felt good to release it. In the end, I experienced a day filled with healing, joy and love instead of just pain.

Today I remember what it feels like to be in chronic pain. I remember experiencing chronic pain for two years following a serious car wreck in my thirties. Back then, I fell into a deep depression. Pain was the focus of my life as I took steps to find healing for my body. Although not the most pleasant part of my history, the experience led to a dramatic life change that I consider an awakening for me. 

Today, my body aches from my neck down to my hips and I still have a pretty nice shiner beneath my left eye. I know what to do for my body when it's healing, so I'm doing those things. And yet I notice myself leaning into the comfort of knowing that this pain is temporary. I wonder: "How might this experience be different for me if this were not a temporary condition?" I cannot answer that question, yet I do contemplate it.

Sometimes accepting what is gives us the opportunity to experience it without any temporal boundaries, since we can't know when or how what is in the present moment will change. But things in the present moment are always changing; that's the nature of energy and everything here is rooted in energy. I find comfort in that. When I attune myself to the subtleties of the pain in my body today, I notice the shifting sensations. The pain is not a static experience; it is a dynamic one in my body. As I deepen into that awareness, my body relaxes and opens, my breath softens and slows, and I find spaciousness within my being to expand around the pain and beyond it.

I could choose to view this experience as nothing more than a painful, unfortunate accident. My choice instead is to view it as a brilliant opportunity to reprogram my body and mind's experience of and response to pain. It is an opportunity to move toward mastery of opening big enough that I can find the spaciousness within my being to experience inner peace and joy no matter what... even tremendous pain and (ultimately) in the face of whatever my own dying and death may bring. Tonight I teach two classes, and I will teach them filled with joy, love and pain.

Every experience we have in life is an opportunity to grow and open. Today I am reminded of what a gift that is and my heart is full and happy despite the pain. I think that is pretty amazing...

Sacred Intent for the New Year

We're four days into the new year and folks are all about new year's resolutions. Personally, I turned in my resolutions years ago for intentions. My dictionary says that resolution is "boldness and firmness of purpose" while intention is  "an aim or purpose." Call it semantics if you want, but it feels like a softer, gentler, more focused way to hold my energy for the year.

When we set intentions, we are putting things into motion on an energetic level. This is why it is so important to hold intentions in a sacred way. They are powerful acts of creation. When we set an intent, we are, in fact, creating a movement of energy in the infinite field of energy that we live in. We are asking for something new and specific to arise, and we are saying no to what no longer serves us. This is a sacred act not to be taken lightly. In taking such things lightly, we risk creating chaos in our lives.

This is a great time to take stock of our past resolutions or intentions, to choose again what we want to carry forward and what we want to let go of, and then to consciously cut from what we're leaving behind. Consciously cutting from what we no longer want in life is as important as choosing what we want. It frees up the energy we had invested in the old thing to feed the new thing we want today.

 We are allowed to change our minds and change our direction; things change all the time. To ignore the changes means we are not present with what is. We can drag all the old stuff forward if we want, but all it does is weigh us down, slow our movement and add confusion to our journey. Now is the perfect time to review our old intentions and revise them, updating them to the newest version of who we are.

The funny thing about intentions is that they are a two-part process: we have them, we hold them with 100% commitment and yet we surrender them at the same time. Well, we don't really surrender them; we surrender how we think they should look. Usually when we set an intent, our mind butts in and tells us how it should look when the intent is met - how we will know we've succeeded. But the reality is that our mind doesn't see past our nose, so the picture it gives us is very limited and limiting. The mind wants us to believe that what we want is impossible or unobtainable for whatever reasons it conjures up. If we let it, it can stop us in our tracks...

That's why it's important to let go of the image the mind creates as the measure of whether or not we've been successful in our intentions. It's about releasing attachment to the outcome and opening up to the infinite possibilities. The feeling state of what we want to achieve seeds the Universe with what we are asking for; it's the vibration that the Universe responds to. So we let go of the how ("How will this happen? How will this look? How is this possible?") and focus our energy on the what. What is it that we want to feel when we meet our intent?

This is a great year to open up to the infinite possibilities surrounding our intents and invite the Universe to be creative in supporting their expression in our lives. We must open the eyes of our hearts to see the possibilities most clearly. They may not look at all like our mind imagines them, but that doesn't mean they didn't show up. If we limit our view to that of our mind and to what it thinks things are supposed to look like or how they're supposed to happen, we might easily miss what it is when it actually shows up!

I am reminded of how powerful it is to celebrate each intent and hold gratitude for each step we make toward it. Even the ones we let go of and cut from are important markers along our journey. What we don't choose is just as significant as what we do choose. Each choice is an expression of our being; each thing we accept or reject is a reflection of who we are in this moment. Take nothing for granted.

It's easy to fall into the trap of judging ourselves for not meeting our new year intentions. Be aware of this trap! Instead of judging yourself this year, take time to reflect on and decide if each intent you set is really what you want, and then celebrate your freedom to choose anew as you move your life forward.

Happy New Year, my friends. May you be inspired by the infinite possibilities of life.

Choose Love

I started off this year doing something I've never done before: Instead of sleeping through or partying in the new year, I went to a gentle yoga class from 10 p.m. to midnight and then with this beautiful group of people, chanted in 2011 with "Om." At midnight, we shared a very full "Happy New Year!" and then popped open some champagne to toast the movement, the newness, the brightness and the divine. Wow - it was inspiring...

This year already seems to have some themes. The ones that I've noticed already are:

• a beautiful blending of old and new
• lots of movement - energetic and otherwise
• lots of openings - opportunities to step into new things 
• lots of doorways or gateways - choices to brighten our lives
• divine support - the shifts are happening easier and faster

I've heard the word "easy" more times in the past few days than I can count. And I've heard story after story from folks about how some need they had was quickly and easily met in an unexpected way, or how their long-time dream - whatever it was - suddenly became a reality. I take these stories as a really good sign for 2011!

I feel the Source energy vibrating more quickly now as if it is poised to respond to people's choices with excitement and love. And I sense that it's not the Source energy that has shifted; it's us who have and are shifting. Possibilities and opportunities have always been here, and it has been up to us to see them, open to them and choose them for ourselves.

Choice is our nature and our gift. Every movement of our energy is a choice - our thoughts, feelings and actions. Whatever we choose is perfect. Yet I've learned to choose in each moment with awareness that it is a choice - my choice - and that all choices have physical and vibrational consequences.

 I cannot control the choices of others, yet I can control the choices of myself. Despite what anyone around me chooses, I can always choose for myself. It's just that simple.

I am reminded once again of a line from a song one of my spiritual teachers felt inspired to write recently: "Choose as love what is." I can make a conscious choice to be inspired and driven to action by love rather than something else, just because I can; it's my choice. What do you choose?