when stillness isn't the answer

This morning I woke up feeling ‘buzzy’- my mind was racing, I felt off-center, and the quiet I’m used to being able to find just wasn’t there.

The ‘answer’ to this that we mostly find in the yoga/ meditation/ wellness spaces is to sit still until things finally calm down... with the implication that this is ‘bad’ and needs to be fixed. That calm is better than activated.

Does that sound familiar? Where have you heard that before? Maybe it was from parents or guardians. Maybe it was in school. But it’s like our whole lives we received this message that quiet and compliant is better.

I’m not here for that anymore. For me or my clients. Because passion, joy, excitement, healthy anger... those are all *amazing* things and they are rarely quiet.

I don’t want to be peaceful- I want to be fully human and fully sacred at the same time.

Wild, animal instincts that connect me deeply with the heart of the world and something so much larger than my small self.

So instead of trying to ‘fix’ myself this morning, I asked my body what it needed and wanted to feel balanced and took it outside for a run and mini dance party. I didn’t try to still it away- I found a constructive way to let it express.

And now, I still feel joy- today is just more of a silly, high-energy day for me (yay!)- but I can also feel the peaceful, grounded center. And it’s not in spite of the fizz in my veins; it’s alongside of.

What does your body need today? Do you know how to speak its language? Be in relationship with it, rather than dominating it? Do you feel wildly human and deeply connected? If not, are you ready to start? 💚

an auspicious day (and ways to lend support to India)

Have you been to India?

It’s the kind of place that will change you, if you let it.

I certainly can’t make any statements about the people and the land there, as those stories aren’t mine to tell. And I’m aware of the very colonizing practice of using a sovereign people and land as a backdrop for your own stories… but those are the ones that are mine to tell.

With where I was in my life in October of 2017, the story that India taught me was one of letting ritual and the sacred weave itself into and out of the messiness of being human.

I also saw resilience and adaptability and ingenuity everywhere. Humans, going about life, doing their best, sometimes in conditions that would be unimaginable based on what most of us here in the U.S. are used to.

It’s become a cliche to say, but the sounds, smells, and colors everywhere really were a feast for the senses.

I can’t even put words to exactly how it nudged me into a new path because the path it put me on is still unfolding. All I can say is where I am today is due in HUGE part to the practice of yoga and my experiences engaging with the people and land when I visited.

Vedic astrologers (the astrology practice of India) will tell you that today, May 13-14th is an auspicious day - AKSHAYA TRITIYA. The sun and moon are both in their strongest astrological positions and any intentions set, any acts of kindness and charity are magnified.

While this may be a great day for you start a project or spend some time giving thanks for the things you have, it’s also a great day to remember that if it’s one thing a global pandemic can teach us, it’s that we are all connected and that we cannot truly thrive if others are not also thriving.

That healing cannot be achieved in a bubble and that wellness is collective.

In most news cycles, disasters come and go very quickly - but the impact is ongoing and frequently long-lasting.

On this day of heightened possibilities for healing, prosperity, and love-as-an-action I would like to invite you (if you haven’t already or if you can again), especially if you are someone who has benefited from the practice of yoga, to give something in support of people of India who are still being devastated by a surge in COVID cases, further complicated in some areas by recovery efforts from an earthquake.

I know it can be intimidating and overwhelming trying to figure out what to do and where, so I'm simplifying it down to a few links to organizations doing on-the-ground work within communities where the need is great.

Remember that individually, we cannot save everyone or help everywhere, that more is not always more - but that little bits when and where we can matter.

Pick one or two - or, if decisiveness is a challenge, give to one of the umbrella organizations like Give India or India Aid.

• If you feel called to help women and girls at risk for trafficking who have been left particularly vulnerable during this last year+, you can do so here.

• A lack of oxygen for those who need it is playing a huge part in the fatality count. Hemkunt Foundation is working to provide oxygen to COVID patients

• There is a big divide between the rural and urban areas in terms of resources in India, as in many places. Goonj works to balance access to resources through grass-roots organizing and redistributing. During the pandemic, they have been providing support for migrant workers and other vulnerable rural and urban populations and using their organization and distribution skills to get help where it is needed.

• Khalsa Aid is an international crisis response organization that operates on the Sikh principle of “recognize the whole human race as one” and are currently focusing efforts in India on meals and medical support.

• Give India and Aid India are both organizations distributing donations to smaller efforts and more local organizations providing meals, PPE, and other necessities.

Many blessings for you in your own prosperity and loving efforts - what we feed with our attention and devotion is what grows.

Whether you can give money at this time or not, let’s all commit for today to feeding and growing Love.

feeling extra anxious (socially) these days?

Photo by Claire Nolan

In conversation with a client yesterday, it hit me:

We’ve been on a cleanse- a social cleanse.

And those who have done a cleanse know that during the cleanse and after, everything feels heightened.

The ‘during’ period is the mirror that shows us all our coping patterns- by disrupting our ‘normal’, it invites in more awareness. It takes away the things we reach for to comfort, to numb out, to just be on auto pilot with. It’s one of the great benefits and also one of the things that makes sticking with cleanses feel so hard.

But if we stick with it, we get more clarity. Those unconscious things are brought to the surface and we can become more mindful, more centered, more self-aware and self-aligned.

Then comes the re-entry. If we’ve been on some kind of dietary cleanse, we have to slowly reintroduce foods. Too much, too quick, too soon has very obvious physical symptoms and repercussions. Things that don’t feel good but that we used to do without thinking... very obviously don’t feel good.

It’s like layers of skin were peeled back, sloughed off, and we’re newly born- tender and a little raw.

If you’re gradually reintroducing yourself back into social situations and groups, I invite you to go slowly. Reintroduce mindfully. And, if your mind and heart are excited but your body suddenly seems anxious, give yourself some grace.

Some people may not feel aligned with you anymore. That’s ok. I’m case you need it, this is your permission to feel what you feel.

And remember that your nervous system moves somewhere between geological speed and the speed of thought. Even where there is love and excitement to be back together- those hugs can feel good *and* they can feel like too much too fast too soon.

Be kind. Be patient. Things are functioning exactly as they’re meant to.

Healing happens in a spiral

Photo by Dibakar Roy

Healing is not linear- it happens on a spiral path; different depths of challenges (re)appearing not as a sign you’ve failed, but as a sign your capacity has expanded and you’re ready for another piece.

As Rilke reminds us: “Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything.”

When I first began to suspect some part of me was lost to myself and needed finding- it started with the mind.

I needed to know what I thought and believed; the sound of my own voice vs the internalized voices of others.

And that helped. A lot. Until it didn’t.

I was more aware, had more clarity. But my behavior patterns didn’t really change. And I kept finding myself in similar situations again and again.

Although I wasn’t able to articulate it at the time, the next stage of self-(re)discovery was to move from the wisdom of my mind to the wisdom of my body.

In the same way that other voices had gotten tangled in with my own, my wants-needs-actions were tangled up and I wasn’t always sure which held more truth and more freedom in any given moment.

This week, I’ve been exploring the next layer of that. My mind and body have very different ways of wanting to approach each new day. And usually I go with my mind. This week, I’m going with my body.

It’s feeling really good.

For so long, we’ve mind-fully dominated our instinctual ways. We’ve disconnected from an embodied way of knowing and relating. And that disconnect heightens the feeling of being pulled in a million directions and not knowing which way to go.

What if, for the rest of this week, you asked your body how it wants to move? When it wants to move? How it wants to be nourished and tended to? What if you stopped telling it what to do and began listening instead? What if you built a relationship rather than a domination?

What might be possible?

aren't we lucky to be human?

I am reminded through the deep, embodied shadow work that has been coming up the last few days in sessions with clients how wise our bodies are, and how free we can get when we can access that beyond-mind wisdom and release the things we didn’t even know we were holding.

I am also reminded through the bubbling joy that has permeated the healing space and the celebrations we have had around breakthroughs and new, healthy habits of the miracle it is to be human and to be able to transform.

So today, I paused (actually, I squealed with joy when I saw the irises had opened and ran outside to be with them) to celebrate beauty and the heart of the world that connects us.

Because it is hard to be human. And it is also beautiful. How lucky are we? 💚