My response to trauma.... Restoration

Maybe it is audacious of me to speak and act in the ways in which I do. I will still speak and act in the ways in which I do.  Maybe it is unrealistic of me to look at circumstances and situations that humanity finds itself in, both on a local and  larger level and stay determined to  see hopefully.
Maybe one could say it is naive of me to hold the beliefs I do in regards to humanity and restoration. But I do still hold them.
Maybe it is easier when seeing a valley of dry bones, to despair.
Seeing children suffering
Seeing adults not knowing how to adult (whatever that is...)
Seeing so much, maybe too much
Maybe it is easier when seeing a valley of dry bones, to allow those dry bones to dictate and determine the realities of life and living.
Maybe more than naught the world gets to have its way of terror, pain, suffering.
Maybe it is hard to see the glass half full.
Maybe the glass is beyond empty, if that would be possible.
Maybe the screams of lack of resources and tired people get to drown out the whispers of hope.
Maybe we see the glass and want to break it.

It isn't that there aren't the days where I don't agree.
It isn't that there aren't the days where the realities of living upon this earthen soil do their best to weary my soul.
I am not so optimistic as to think that the glass is always half full, certainly not usually the person who says F%*& half full, we are overflowing.
I am painfully realistic at times
I am sorrowful
I am pained
I am doubtful
I grieve
I lost
Maybe those realities get to darken out the sun.

Maybe it is a beaten dog that comes back for more and more, not knowing when to retreat.
Maybe it is that one just doesn't know when to throw in the towel.
Maybe it is the lack of wisdom that doesn't allow for the call of "uncle," to come forward.

Or maybe it is curiousity.
For most days it doesn't feel like resiliency or hope.
Most days it feels like stupidity to not just give up, give in, wave the white flag...

My response to trauma does not come from learning in a book.
My response to trauma hasn't been gathered from lecture or text.
My response to trauma isn't because I have studied.
My response to trauma is because I have lived.

I have lived days that have screamed surrender
I have touched moments where my soul did just that

I  have laid my head down not knowing how to pick it back up
I have swallowed that which life handed me and despaired of the very breath.

Maybe the landscapes that are covered, with dry bones, serve to remind us all of the brutality of human kind towards one another. Maybe greed and Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest get to rule the manner in which we step towards one another. Maybe acquiring and consuming not just goods but lives empower the powerful to rest securely.

My response to trauma was not forged sitting in the seats of lecture halls.
My response to trauma was found in dark rooms and scary places.
My response to trauma was not formed as a thesis, an idea,a suggestion
My response to trauma was formed out of a need to find that life after trauma is possible, that it can be more then just surviving.
My response to trauma was formed because I needed to see the valley of dry bones more as the exceedingly great grouping of people then a pile of thrown away parts of humanity.

What does it mean to live and live a mangaliso life?

First and foremost it means you get to live.
You've already survived.
It isn't so much thriving, while that is my hope I will hold space for for all.
It is living.
It means that restoration is possible.
It means restoration is possible because there is a people who see you already as a member of an exceedingly great population, that once was aware of depths of dryness, sorrow and lack but now gets to know breath renewed and bones made strong.
It means this isn't hype, or selling you an empty bill of goods.
I wouldn't sell you short like that.
Too much already has.
It is realisitic.
That I promise.

Why Living Mangaliso?

Because I had to find a way forward that was beyond surviving. Because I wanted to hope against hope that it wasn't because I was resilient enough or hopeful enough. Maybe it is that I am just that stupid enough to not know when I've been beat. But you see, I am convinced that that is who you are too! You've survived already more than what should ever be asked of any human being.  Now human beings gather around together to say, survival isn't enough for you. I want you to touch life.

RECOVERY

My response to trauma is that upon each day, sometimes only upon each step within the day there is hope. That darkness must flee when light comes rising above the horizon. That life and breath and beauty and movement comes and restores the soul into places of peace.

My response to trauma comes against all those that said I should not become a wife or a mom. My response to trauma comes against all those that said I would live drooling sitting in some corner locked away. My response to trauma comes against all those that said I can't. I respond to trauma's whispers and shouts, au contraire I most certainly can. I can and I will.... Once a pile of dry bones, I am now standing on my feet. Body and breath are being restored through the words of creator and prophet.

Living Mangaliso...

It is your life
It is your body
It is your breath
This is your restoration...
This is your moment
This is the fact that YOU ARE AN AMAZEMENT!


And it is time you lived!!!!

 

The Sounds of Change...

I was sitting on the stoop.

Wow.

That word throws me back to the days when we lived in Brooklyn.  An amazing neighborhood. One way street, two streets up from the harbor. Our kids were young. We were young. Down the block or over a few lived opportunity galore; bagels, pizza, Chinese food, parks, aquarium, botanical garden, zoo. The City (Manhattan for those of you that think when someone says, "The City," its referring to LA :)  ) was just the crossing of a bridge or the going through the tunnel and it was there. That magnificent sky line, the FDR, the parks, the museums, Times Square. I can close my eyes and be back there in a heart beat. 

I was young. Did I mention that? I was young.

Hungry to learn. Wanting mentors. Wanting people to speak into my life.  Never to speak for me per se, but to speak into my life, to help guide me, to give me opportunities; honestly to ride behind their wake and not have to drive. Maybe that's a part of being young. Maybe its a necessity at certain ages.  Maybe.  Maybe if the mentors care more about the person then they care about growing their project, their ego, their thing.  I've met some of those people. 

How do you know the difference? Sometimes you can't. Sometimes it is actually in the ending, in the parting where you will see.  I have been with those and worked side by side day and night on conferences, events, projects. Spending so much time together, one thinks there is friendship there. In some communities relationship and job lines get blurry.  I let them get blurry.  I own that.  Even when, maybe especially when it is ministry, I wished I had get those lines straighter.  Projects are projects and events are events. Life is a whole other realm.  If you are perceived as the project or on the other side a key note speaker, there are roles to be played and things to be done.  When they are done.... they are done.

Boundaries. 
I didn't learn about them soon enough.
I'm glad I am learning about them now. 

It isn't that we can't have people that walk with us, we just can't have people that walk for us... While you might bawk at that idea and yell, "I don't do that." I didn't think I did that either.  It is hard to look at. It is hard to acknowledge. We really do want "Moses," to go into the scary places alone and bring out the chewed contents for us to then have, as if we were baby birds waiting in a nest.. never wanting to fly.

When  that shifts in a person, lots break loose. Within the person, within the community around the person.  I  am aware of what previous mentors of mine felt about tattoos, felt about yoga, felt about many things. I abided by them. When someone didn't, aka a dear friend got tattoos, I saw the most unchrist like behavior.  I'm not sorry.  I think Christ would say it doesn't matter what you put in or on your flesh, what matters is your heart. I saw a lot that was wrong in the name of law and conformity. I saw a lot of people not thinking for themselves. Buying hook, line and sinker into  the quid pro quo of the institution, else be thrown out.. thrown away.

Too many people stuffing their own thoughts, their own voices. Too many people contorting their life as to fit into the narrow perimeters set down by others. Recently it came to my attention that a client of mine for yoga therapy was told not to work with me. Not because I lack proficiency at what I do or anything like that, simply because I do yoga. This modality was bringing freedom to said person.  Said person was in conflict.  It is this person's conflict to work out. I can not work that out for them. 

Living Mangaliso is about Restoration, Discovery, Exploration, Expression, and Explosion.  Finding restoration into the places where harm occurred. Discovery and it's journey into who you are; your preferences, your passions, your desires.  Exploration, stepping into those places. Seeing which are really a part of you and which are residue from others that needs to be washed off.  Finding YOUR voice, the song that vibrates forth from YOUR life equals expression! Through all that process, we are then brought to the place that we explode into and take over our own lives. We explode into our own lives and out into the world.  That is the Living Mangaliso.  You are the amazement. Not because someone tells you you are, but because you learn that its the truth for you!


Back to me sitting on the stoop.  A child of mine was processing life.  She was processing how comments were being made about me and yoga. She was processing the source of the comments. She was processing how people were talking about her parents.  She was struggling with faith.

This human being, while my daughter, is a phenomenal human being. While I'm her mother, it doesn't take long when talking to her for anyone to realize that.  This one afternoon, as I was letting the warmth of the sun cascade over my tired body; she came down and sat next to me.  There were two songs she wanted to share with me. The first was sweet. The second has changed my life.  Leave it to a fifteen year old to be able to see things clearly. 

I love this song. It's true. There will always be people who will knock down. Let them. They can't really knock you down. Keep standing your ground. Keep Recovering. Keep Discovering. Keep Exploring. Keep Expressing. Keep Exploding.  Keeping Living. Keep Living Mangaliso.

 Lyrics to Sounds of Change (Click Title to Hear Song)

I see you've been chasing your monsters
And they've been driving you bonkers
Just blinded with drunken launches
Of lights and blowin they conscience
If you really want to juxtapose
And take a darker color with a blush of rose
And then you put it in your ink and watch it grow
Your mind is always open when your eyes are closed
Because your blind to color and your blind to greed
Blind to all the things you don't need
Then you find a minor and then you plant a seed
Then you nourish it a little and let it free

You're building it up
They're breaking it down
Want to give up
Keep holding your ground
You're turning it up
They're deaf to the sound
Oh the sound, the sound of change

Here and now, the horns are playing
The victory sound, I live in the now
The sky is my home, and I live in the clouds
Now or never, bound forever
Making the change, making it better
I live for this shit, I love the pain
It's part if the journey, it's part of the game
I've been alone in the dark and the rain
I've seen the end and I wasn't afraid
I've been in tears and I wasn't ashamed
I hear a sound and the sound that I'm hearing is change

You're building it up
They're breaking it down
Want to give up
Keep holding your ground
You're turning it up
They're deaf to the sound
Oh the sound, the sound of change

You're building it up
They're breaking it down
Want to give up
Keep holding your ground
You're turning it up
They're deaf to the sound
Oh the sound, the sound of change

Well they try to put hands on my ears
Ooh the sound
In my heart I'm still hearing it clear
Ooh the sound
Tell me why do they fear what is real
Ooh the sound
You can't stop what is already here
Ooh the sound

You're building it up
They're breaking it down
Want to give up
Keep holding your ground
You're turning it up
They're deaf to the sound
Oh the sound, the sound of change

You're building it up
They're breaking it down
Want to give up
Keep holding your ground
You're turning it up
They're deaf to the sound
Oh the sound, the sound of change

Ooh oh oh oh oh
Ooh oh oh oh oh
Ooh oh oh oh oh
Ooh the sound, the sound of change

Ooh oh oh oh oh
Ooh oh oh oh oh
Ooh oh oh oh oh
Ooh the sound, the sound of change

 

You owe it to yourself.... 3 months in (How fast time flies)

How fast time flies...

A quarter of year has been lived. I started, A Year Without Fear, twelve weeks ago.  I let out one of those puff smiles. A puff of air releases forth from my lips. My soul saying, "Wow."

When I think of twelve weeks ago, when I think of today; I marvel.  I marvel at the life I have lived.  I marvel that I have lived. I have lived much life in the last twelve weeks.  I have stepped forward again and again. I have been thrown back only then to pick myself back up, stepping forward even if the rate was infinitesimal.

I started thinking I would make lists each week of what this year was like each week.  Except I then didn't want this project to be about me, my list.  Standing one quarter of the way through it isn't lists I want to give you.  It isn't my experience I want to give you. 

What I want to say is this... Time will pass.  We will all live another quarter of a year. We will all live another twelve weeks.  I have lived many sequences of twelve weeks.  August 16, 2015; my oldest daughter was turning 15. That's enough to put fear into the heart of anyone.  I had been doing soul work. I had been seeing all the places fear hindered me, I didn't want that hindrance any more. 

Standing under a tree I began my first private yoga therapy session with two new clients.  I didn't know what I was doing.  I mean I knew the yoga poses. I knew what I wanted for these individuals. I was also meeting them for the first time. I was also finding my way onto new territory for the first time.  I am now over a dozen sessions in, I don't feel the same way.  I taught chair yoga for the first time. I taught gentle yoga for the first time. I had yoga students for the first time. First times equal one thing more than anything else. First times are just that first times. 

I had been used to standing upon the strength, experience and expertise of two plus decades. I had been used to being the teacher and director. I had been used to knowing what I was doing. You know how terrifying it is to give that up? What it feels like to start all over again, without the assurance or certainty that there really is something to start, can truly produce fears of all sort. Fear of looking foolish. Fear of failing. Fear of doing something wrong. Fear of humiliation. Fear of not knowing the way. Fear of being asked a question and knowing that the answer doesn't lie confidently within.

These twelve weeks I have had more firsts then maybe in the last twelve years. While I might be exaggerating, I don't think I am.  So here's the deal. When you step into a project such as mine, making either a private or public agreement that there will be journaling, that there will be blogging; that there will be some form, however loose, of marking time.  That there will be a taking of the temperature if you will. There will be a constant motivation towards overcoming fear. There will be acknowledgements of failure, success, times of petering out. 

I have set before myself that this year will be different. There are things I want out of life. Time will never come to start, if we just don't start... jump in, begin! Time moves onward and onward. How many times have I said I will do this, I will read that book, I will start that program, I will learn, I will, I will, I will and fill in the million blanks that never get done. 

I wanted this year to be different. I wanted to begin to do and become all of those things that I've wanted to do and become.  I wanted to stop thinking that I would begin tomorrow, because that tomorrow never comes.  So I started today. I made every day the day I start. 

I found a new place to do chair yoga this past week. I simply saw the place. I had fliers for a chair yoga class I was already doing. I drove up the driveway. I parked my car. I grabbed fliers and business cards and what I needed. I walked in. I asked to talk to the programs manager. I shook hands. I opened my mouth. I talked about the chair yoga class I was already teaching. I was asked would I be willing to teach one weekly at said location. 

If I had never driven up the driveway. Heck, before that if I had killed the thought. If I hadn't allowed the thought to go and ask and give them a flier. If I had allowed the voices of fear to say any number of things, I wouldn't have driven up that drive, extended a handshake, opened my mouth.. gotten the job.  There is nothing I am doing that anyone of you can't do... It might not be yoga, it might not be spiritual direction, it might not be yoga therapy. Those are my things. But what is yours? Might you fail? YES.. that is a given.
I promise you that if you try what your heart dreams of you will fail here and you will fail there, but I will also tell you that as long as that failure or "no, thank you," doesn't get the best of you you CAN'T FAIL. 

I have laughed more, loved more, cried more, accomplished more, known myself more, challenged myself more, asked more questions, met more people and this list could go on and on for the last twelve weeks then in any other sequencing of twelve weeks.  This is your day. This is your time. What will your Year Without Fear look like?  Take the first step.

Commit to taking an assessment of your life...
Where are you?
Where do you want to be?
What do you want in a week? A month? Three months? A half of a year? 3/4 of a year? A year?
Can you let yourself dream? Why? Why not?
Assess your strengths? Know your weaknesses.  Where do you need help?
What are your fears? What are the things that you think will hinder you?
What are your desires?
Begin to talk about them. Begin to journal. Begin... simply that... JUST BEGIN...

You will be telling me in twelve weeks all the amazing things that have happened for you!  Just take the step... Take the assessment. Take a walk. Get real honest with yourself. No one else is looking. Get the help you need. Begin.  Don't wait for tomorrow. That age old adage is true. The tomorrow that you will begin will never come. Start today.

When religious fear cripples the heart, the life, the breath.. When religious fear suffocates what do you do?

A comment I got today hit home.

A fear of making a religious mistake, was the utterance.

I flashed back to months ago, to a year ago, to a lifetime ago.
I have lived a life time knowing fear all to well...
Those same sentiments filled my heart.
Religious fear.

You know what cured it?

Me, the yoga mat, an Episcopal Priest, some new friends, and the Spirit of the Living God.

Let's just start with what finished that last sentence.  Maybe that's where I should have begun. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom! Not fear. There is permission not restriction. There is internal change not an external adherence of religious criteria and standards. There is beauty. There is wonder. There is power. There is life. Where the Spirit of the Lord actually is, there is LIFE! Light, joy, peace, kindness, compassion... That is the Spirit of the Lord.

I've lived a life time, decades;  living with  discernment, intuition, knowings. I was taught by others  how to hone that which was within me. I teach others how to understand what is within them. I was shown how to trust that which I felt, saw, heard, knew. I show people how to trust that which is within them and beyond them.

 Beyond any of my training. Beyond any of my education. My favorite teacher has been Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit's job to lead into all truth. Not the role of a man or a woman. Not my role and not yours. To know the Spirit is to know the nature and character of spirit.  The Spirit is whole. Lacking in nothing. Kind and generous and true. Capable and beautiful. If one of Christ's last promises to humanity was that the One who would be sent back to earth had a job to do. That job was to lead into all truth. ALL. Not American, white, heterosexual, name a denomination's preferences for theology, etc...TRUTH.. BUT TRUTH
 The Spirit's job is to lead all of humanity into all truth.  WHAT AN IMMENSE and COMPLEX JOB!  Only suited for the Spirit of the Living God.  Not for me. Not for you.

So how dare we take a whole practice that is 1000s of years old and deem it unworthy, deem it demonic, deem it 100% dangerous regardless of the practitioner.  I won't go into the arrogance of that. Because the reality that keeps me grounded and full of joy and able to hold the tensions and questions that come, is that when Christ appeared on the religious scene the religious were afraid.  He was new. His message tore at their insides. His message compelled humanity to reach higher and beyond human flesh into the heart of divinity and to become higher, and more like the very one who had created them.

 His teachings threatened the status quo of centuries. His teachings brought the religious face to face with God and the religious hated it so much that they killed the very God that had come to save them. His teachings opened up access to the leper, to the woman, to the Samaritan, to the child, to the hurting, to the sick, to those that were deemed untouchable, unclean. God came down and pronounced that there was no human being unclean, unable to touch the hem of the garments of God, none unlovable, none unacceptable.

God came down to earth.  There is no place on earth God wouldn't go.  So ask the questions. Admit your afraid. Admit you don't know. Admit that there are things in the world of spirit and light and liberty and joy that we don't let ourselves touch. AND THAT IS SAD!  Out of fear we call something that is holy and beautiful demonic.  They did, we do.. it hasn't changed.  Religious human beings called the Christ demonic.  Let that set in.  Fear... Fear of change,  fear of being led wrong, lack of control.. FEAR.. fear... fear kills. Fear breaks up friendships and creates 1000s of denominations.  We like what we like and we want to have an us and a them. BUT CHRIST made humanity the US.

It took me and takes me deliberate energy to overcome religious fear.  I was paralyzed. Enter an Episcopal priest who had nothing to lose and nothing to gain from my life.  My religious community had lots to lose.  My religious community had to face that one of them was changing. One of them didn't want to have an "us," a "them." But that man, that priest.. had nothing to lose by being my friend. Nothing to gain because of who my husband was, or who we had been trained by, or any number of things.  (Just as a side note... next time any of you think to ask me what John Paul Jackson would say about yoga realize that I know! I know because I heard him myself, say what he personally felt about yoga. Don't you remember? My husband was on staff. We graduated and taught for the ISD. So of course  I know what JP would say.  Do you want my truest answer? Not polite. Not reverent of the dead. Honoring yes.. I honor that man. You have no idea, how much he changed my life.  BUT GUESS WHAT?!?! He was just a man. AND HE COULD BE WRONG! He was wrong about things. Why? Because he was a man.  No ONE man can lead ALL of humanity into ALL truth, unless that man was God. And while some treated that man like a god! HE WASN'T. We can all be wrong.

So how do we know if we are right? What do we do when fear comes crashing in? What do we do when someone says God is going into Samaria and allowing lepers and women and children to touch Him. What do we do? Do we crucify? Do we kill? Or do we realize that this God is so much bigger, so much more capable, so much more full of love!  What do we do when religious fear comes to suffocate?

Pause.
Breathe.
Remember.
Pause.
Breathe.
Remember.

Call to mind the nature and character of Spirit.

Pause
Breathe
Remember

Allow love to come in... WE all pontificate that perfect love casts out fear. Maybe we can close our mouths for a while and walk it out.... There are utterances all over the place in the culture I have been a part of, desires for the new thing, hunger for more of the Spirit,  need for an "outpouring."  I guess my question is, NO.. I know my question would be when that presence comes if it is on the yoga mat would you scream crucify? Yoga mat.. Samria?  Woman with the issue of blood.. Yogi in white? Tongues... Kundalini?

Religious fear comes and says there is danger because actually there is danger... and religious fear knows it... There is danger because there is power, light, love and liberty.  Religious fear and people recognized Christ and were threatened. Religious fear wanted the source of light and love and liberty dead, so that light and liberty and life would die.  BUT the thing I know about religious fear.. is that if we pause, breathe, remember.. maybe we can touch the hem of the garment of perfect love and cast it out.

That is me.. that is the ME part of my equation.  It was me, a yoga mat, an Episcopal priest, some new friends and the Spirit of the Living God.  It was all of that and so much more. I touched perfect love, I touched a love so true, so real, so magnificent and in its perfection I have begun to cast out fear.... So ask your questions and take your steps BUT don't crucify all over again the one who walked into Samaria...

A year without fear... Week 10 begins So what's next....

When I think back, I can't believe it has already been ten weeks.
I must admit not even a quarter of a way into this journey, I am a bit tired. I must admit not even a quarter of a way into the journey, I am more than a bit curious. More than a bit exhilarated. More than a bit still afraid.
There have been weeks fear has been a very worthy adversary, and there have been some weeks in the mix that I have stood in ways I have never seen before.

I honestly didn't know what to hope for, think upon, desire.
I couldn't foresee what would happen.
I just knew that this was a journey that needed to happen. 

So some highlights both personal and professional...

I started a brand! LIKE REALLY...
During yoga teacher training I inquired about a word, and heard back "MANGALISO!"  A word with Zulu origins, it means you are an amazement.
So I let myself dream. I let myself quench the thoughts of "who do you think you are?" And I stepped upon the stairs of an idea and have watched it actually become something!  Facing the fears of failure, humiliation, being embarrassed, the what ifs of if it doesn't work were turned into what ifs this does work? What if I can create something that brings together many streams and modalities of health to empower people into their own amazement, not because they are being told BUT because they really believe it for themselves!  Gosh!!! I had to be willing to at least try!

What other things happened?

I cleaned out the past. Literally a project I had been dreading for over a year was completed in 3 days!  Within two weeks most of the lingering details were taken care of and I'm finishing crossing the last "T" and dotting the last "I."
What was the largest victory of those moments?
I faced not just the project but the emotions that came up. I allowed myself to admit sorrow, frustration, and anger.  I turned to safe places and said, "I can't process this alone, I need help." I let myself  feel and experience an ending. I let myself be vulnerable.

I've journeyed these weeks and months moving step by step ahead and weathering the steps that threw me back a mile or two or three.  I picked myself up, reminded myself of what I am doing and placed one foot back upon the ground and then the other and began to walk again.  OR not. Some days I let myself just sit. I've learned much in silence and quiet. I've met lots of new people. But so very interestingly unexpected, I've been meeting myself.  I've actually been showing up more in my own life. I'm trying to not edit myself or my voice, I'm speaking my truth and living it and that has been amazing!

 I've faced the fears of "what if no one shows up," lived through the times when that happened, and faced the fears of "what if no one shows up," only to then have to face the fears of SHIT, someone showed up, now I've got to too.

I've talked about things that I would rather let lie in some dark, forgotten basement closet, and lived in the reality that sometimes facing dark, forgotten basement closets are just the thing one needs to do. I've gone to more first coffees that have turned into second and third coffees and are becoming friends. I've allowed myself to explore curiosities and found out who I am and who I am not. Having realized that I'm changing, I have faced the things I thought I was, and said good bye.

I'm letting myself have a journey of discovery. An exploration into the unknown. I have laid down what I thought my life was going to be, and am letting it become.  I let go of places I had built up that weren't healthy any more and in so doing lost more than I ever thought imaginable. Except the old adage is true in losing a life so much more is gained.  I white knuckled it in the beginning. Totally white knuckled it.  I had only known one way of living for over twenty years.  It was scary. I didn't know what to expect. It took time. I had people in my life saying that that was ok. It is ok for things to take time. It is ok to walk slowly. It is ok to let becoming be becoming.

There still is much to face...

Launching a new website
Finishing a book
Expanding my yoga teaching and therapy experiences
Getting more training
Meeting more people
Putting myself out there time and time again
Facing lonely times
Facing confusing questions
Sitting with myself
Admitting I am pretty amazing
Showing up to life daily
Loving people who are hard to love
Allowing others to  have their own journey (not being afraid of differences)
Waiting.. Just that Waiting
Dreaming.. Just that never stop dreaming
Admitting when I need help
Being willing to scrap something that isn't working and go back to the proverbial drawing board

SO MUCH TO FACE!!! So much living to be done!

How about you? What are your steps today? We always think big.. website, book, scale the mountain but what is the small first step for you today?  Telling someone how you honestly feel about something? Saying hi to someone you have wanted to meet. Taking a walk by yourself. Shutting off all noise aka phone, computer, etc and sitting in a moment of silence.    What can you do today that brings you further into the life you want to be living?  Maybe facing the reality that you aren't quite there yet? Maybe admitting that you need time, that grief or sorrow or life has knocked you down and you aren't ready to get up yet? You know what is courageous and amazing about that? Letting yourself be ok in that moment! That takes great courage.  We don't give each other enough permission to be with the dark and ugly and unwanted stuff.  Give yourself permission today.  You will step forward.  I know you will. If not today nor tomorrow, a day will come.  For now give yourself permission to be amazing in that you face this day with all that it is or isn't and you breathe.

Facing fear and the giants that come with them and all the details takes time... ten weeks in and the journey has only begun.

Recovering from trauma... You can do this..

What happens when step by step you keep stepping?  Well, some days amazing things happen. But you know what? Some days you step in a pile of shit. It is what you keep doing after that.

There's been this journey I've been on for... well, for a life time! I'm  thinking though that  I've actually just begun to show up. The truth of the matter is I've been learning all along how to show up tiny step by tiny step.  The complexities of life and living are such that we all hope that one day (and fill in the blank). Seriously.. what's the statement you tell yourself ... One day when (and fill in the blank).  That that day will come and all will be resolved. So many make so much money telling us so... But I'm not telling you so.

I'm not here to be the cheerleader and say something like, "THIS IS THE DAY!" Maybe it isn't for you.  Maybe somehow telling yourself "one day when...." (and fill in the blank). serves you some how.  Maybe you aren't ready for the next next step.  That has to be ok.  Hear me.. I'm not mocking here.  So many self-help gurus shouting at us to do this or do that and each one of those things is a magical pill. I'm saying there is no magical pill.  It will eventually take you stepping into life, realizing that maybe some magical "one day," isn't really what is going to happen... But maybe each tiny step leads you to that day when some magical things do happen.  Upon that journey you will take five steps forward and then a day will come when you are thrown a mile back.

That too is ok...  

When we hear statements like "This is your day!" Or any one of the million self help prophecies out there, and there are millions, it gets exhausting and discouraging.  We wait and wait and wait around for something to happen. When nothing spectacular happens we feel like we missed something, lost out on something, or worse.. Did something wrong and so thus and so didn't happen.

I'll tell you a secret. Spectacular things are happening all around you, and while you wait they go unnoticed and unseen and unappreciated.  That the sun rises every day is pretty spectacular. That people find ways to smile in a world that can be pretty harsh most of the time is pretty spectacular. That people face getting up day after day, when the days can be long and hard but something in them just won't let them quit though everything in them wants to.. that's pretty spectacular.

I'll tell you another secret.  There is no winning.  NOT REALLY. Life really is a journey. WE aren't kind to ourselves or each other.  We don't give each other time to let things be sorted out, to let things just happen, to allow for growth and healing and process. We keep unearthing seedlings to look and see if any growth has happened and we end up killing the process and the seedlings.

Recovering from trauma takes time. That might suck and not be what you want to hear. But it is true.  Letting your body, your psyche, your spirit, your emotions, your heart, your mind, your breath heal takes time.  Rushing through it will only cause harm.  Give yourself and others the gift of time. Show up as much as you can today.  Try. Take a breath maybe slightly deeper then you did yesterday. Just think about trying it out.

Time
Rest
Quiet
Stillness

Maybe you have never known calm. Maybe it will take a year for your body to relax within a moment of silence to feel what calm can really feel like. Are you really not going to give yourself a chance?  You can do this.. Step by tiny step. You can give yourself permission to heal.  It is ok, that you can not do today what you thought you needed to.. Now this isn't permission to then not get up off your ass ever... I don't think that is the problem most of the time. Most of the time I think the harshest judge and critic live right inside your heart and mind and that you need to take time to meet them and look at them and hear them and then decide are those really the voices you want to be listening to?

I'm serious.. just ask my therapist. I came to her and on our first day together I said something like this.. "I sit where you do for lots of people.  I can't do it for myself. I make a living out of seeing things and really seeing things and helping people along their paths. I am blind for myself. So I need you to help me see those blind spots. " My expectation was we would meet twice a week for a few months and I'd be good to go.  I was very very wrong.  And at one point, she therapeutically put into my life only seeing each other once a week.  I was on a race with what I do not know. Maybe the demons of the past were chasing my ass down the freeway of life, except nothing was free.

Time was taken from you. If you are healing from trauma then time was stolen from you in one way or another.. don't let it keep be stolen.

I had bought an animal totem of a turtle.. Just a small stone turtle to keep in my hand or a pocket, to hold and remind myself often that life as a turtle has its benefits... But within a month of having that thing I lost it.. Silly me it was too small and I was still going to fast to make sure I had kept it safe.  Next there was a necklace with a turtle on it that I could put around my neck. However it didn't go with everything and I like to accessorize and so it wasn't working.  You know what I did?  I got one tattooed upon my right shoulder. YUP!  A turtle in a bright and pretty blue, reminds me every day to take it slow, take it easy, pace myself and even know it is ok to go into the shell every now and then.  When recovering from trauma it is a given.

You can do this... And doing "this" isn't huge spectacular moves and break throughs. It is showing up as much as you can, when you can, being gracious to yourself, letting yourself have room to breath, giving yourself grace to learn how to live in your body, with your self and in this life.  You can do this... Not because so big self help guru is yelling in your face, but because look at what you have already done!  You can do this... because you can and doing it means doing it the way you can, how you can, when you can ...

Again I will quote some of the most amazing words my therapist ever said to me..

In your time
At your pace
As it should be 

Recovering from Trauma... Finding home and reclaiming our bodies

There are some things, unlike me, that will never get old.

As I approach turning 44, I  am rethinking so very many facets of life and living. This morning I was remembering this one statement, "Live Your Life." Yes, it is a common phrase, but the moment that was circulating within me was the time when it was whispered in my ear three years ago.

I'll never forget that day.  I was walking back to a retreat site. We had yet to move to Virginia but the physical move was pressing inward.  I wouldn't say I was praying. I was walking.  I was feeling more of an oddity than anything else.  Dressed as if I lived in Charlotte walking the back roads of Southwest Virginia.  It became a funny game for me, how many pick up trucks could pass me where the driver looked, looked again and did a second double take.  Oh it wasn't that I was dressed all that fancy. But I certainly felt out of place.

I thought I was going home to something that had been growing for almost a decade and a half.  I thought this country road would literally be bringing me home.  So the moment that that whisper landed so did fury.  It was startling to me. I didn't want to live my life per se. I wanted to live the life that my husband and I had been planning out for almost eighteen months, maybe even 15 years.  I knew something about that whisper was telling me things were going to be different.  I didn't want things to be different, not back then.  Ever so grateful now for whispers on the wind.

I wasn't being brought home to anyone location.
I was being handed my life.
I was being brought home to me, to my body, to my soul, to my spirit... To my life.

This morning I began to grow into a deeper awareness of my body.  Laying quietly in bed, I began to think of this journey that I've been upon.  This journey  into my body.  Again, I will say that in the Christian spheres I have lived in there is almost a criminal lack of understanding or acknowledgement of embodiment. The adjective most used for any talk about the flesh is evil. Legalistic standards of morality suffocate questions let alone any communication concerning living life within the framework of flesh and bone.

I've thought about this post.  I've thought about this post a lot.  The nature of the stories of my life are such that they make fabulous "Testimonies." Stories of  how "God saved me," of how "God healed me," of all the things "God has done."  As long as the language used was appropriate. As long as the story was cleaned up enough so that the horrible parts were shared in G rated environments.  I bought it though.  I thought I was sharing stories that were changing people's lives. In some cases they really were doing just that.  For all of that I am immensely grateful.  But at what cost?  And that has been part of this current journey.  That has even been the journey this morning.

My life isn't food or fodder for the general populace. I am not some robotic "survivor," who has stories to tell. In hindsight that is how much of all those years felt. I used to be able to tell stories of my life to hundreds, and now I can barely get them out within the safety and privacy of a therapists office.  What's the difference?

I've been invited onto a path of reclaiming my life, my body, my emotions.  It matters to me and the people, now walking with me, that I get the time to integrate body, emotion, soul, spirit, life, energy, vibration. It matters that the moments of my life aren't just some "story," or "testimony," to be shared.  They are the moments that I stand on or fall on.

Back to this post. This morning I shockingly came to the place where I was recalling the more recent steps.  It felt organic to come to my laptop. It felt right to come to these keys, close eyes and let a dance of words float from my heart through my arms into my finger tips and upon the screen. I've been given such a gift. I really have.  It isn't a journey that is special and exclusively mine.

My body once was not my own.  Other people's rough hands touched my arms, my  legs, my body. Other people's rage filled voices filled my ears.  Other people's mouths took liberities. I knew too early on in life,  that my body was not my own.  I learned to early in life to regard it as such. No longer was it even a body. No longer was I even a person. I was thing. It was an object. I lived above it. I lived away from it. Never, or as little as possible, residing within the temple that was created to house me. I wouldn't even let myself me a "me."

Sadly that mentality fit very well within ministry circles.  Be aware of spirit, be aware of movement, be aware of what is happening within others and be able to tell them.  I didn't need to be an "I," because we are called to "die to self," anyway.  It mattered not whether we had even developed a "self" to be sacrificed and laid down to a deity of American materialistic consumeristic making, certainly not the character of the Jesus who first wanted a woman to know she wasn't condemned.  In those moments between an adulterous one and the Christ, His heart was first and foremost for her preservation. Before any instruction would come, he ensured all stones were where they needed to be, and all onlookers had vacated the scene.

If we could honor one another in such a spirit.
If we could empower each other back into our bodies, back into our lives.
If we could allow for space, breath, time and privacy for the journey.
If we could... I tell you there would be more stepping upon stones liken to the ones that I have leaped off of..
We would give each other wings to soar.
We would give each other spaces within to explore and the time and gentleness to empower that exploration.
We would empower people to find the home that is them. The home that is their body.

I wasn't coming home to Southwest Virginia, nor was I coming home to anyone set of people. I was coming home to me, to myself, to my life, to my body.  That journey has been awful, painful, debilitating, exhilarating, and so fabulous that there aren't enough words to express the reality of the implosions or the explosions or the quiet being put back together and breathing in simple and serene places.

The me, I am these days smiles a whole lot more than ever
The me, I am these days cries a whole lot more than ever
The me, I am these days shouts and screams a whole lot more than ever
The me, I am these days can sit quietly with the me, I am these days and I wouldn't trade that for all the world.


This series.. Recovering from Trauma  will continue... But before leaving you I want to give you an exercise that was actually one of the very first journeys I took into reclaiming my body.  We will start with hands because they are one of the simplest ones for most people.  Remember your breathe. Remember your body.
Remember you. Wonderful, fantastic, AMAZING you!

Hands

Spread out your fingers in front of you and stretch them out.
Look at them.
Really look at them.
Finger tips.
Nails.
Knuckles
Joints.
Back of hand
Palm
Turn them over and over and allow emotion to arise if there is any
Note even if it is boredom.
These are your hands
Think about what you have done with your hands
Pause
Breathe
Think about what has been done to your hands
Pause
Breathe
Spread out your fingers in front of you and stretch them out.
Look at them.
Really look at them.
Finger tips.
Nails.
Knuckles
Joints.
Back of hand
Palm
Turn them over and over and allow emotion to arise if there is any
Note even if it is boredom.
These are your hands

 Do you like them?
How have they changed?
What do you want to do with them?
What can they do?
What can't they do?
What do they feel like?
Under hot water?
Under cold water?
In front of a flame?
Holding something heavy?
Holding something light?
Holding each of them? (Place hands within each other)
Holding them in prayer position?
Holding them faced open?
Holding them in a fist?
Holding them facing down?
Explore and examine your hands! They are hands! They are your hands!

Recovering from Trauma... Our Breath

It was a sensation unlike anything I had ever felt before.

Something was different in my body.

Even my eye balls felt it.

I couldn't find the words to describe what was happening.

I opened my mouth and said, “I feel airier.”

Lighter

Fuller

Clearer

Who would have guessed it was as simple and profound as finding my breath.

But that is what it was....

I had been practicing yoga for a little over a month. People were commenting upon my posture, my demeanor, my countenance. What I was noticing was my spine. It felt airier. I felt taller. Was I perhaps breathing, really breathing? Was I breathing for the first time in my life? I truly believed so.

And it was magical. It was delightful. I was riding breath into new places. I felt alive. Breath filled out crevices within me that hadn't seen fresh air in decades upon decades. It was amazing. It was exhilarating. It was potent. It was awakening. It was deafening. It was terrifying. It was invigorating. It was horrible. It was alive. I was alive. Breath was entering my body day after day, coursing through my frame and creating new pathways into the very depths of my mind, my soul, my spirit, my body.. ME!

When trauma shows up, breath disappears.

In the very moments that we need breath the most, we close our mouths and out of impulse don't let it in.

Shocking or horrible moment occurs, inhale rises chest, mouth closes, lips press firmly and tightly, eyes grow huge, and we stay there.

Some stay there for decades.

Never exhaling the moment that stole their breath in the first place.

Forever living in the shallow tides of prana, breath.

Prana, is the Sanskrit word for breath, life – giving force.

Hebrew origins of man have clay meet breath as the beginning of all human kind.

With in their stories of the prophets of old, the Hebrews tell of a man named Ezekiel and a valley of dry bones, again breath brings restoration and strength. The Christ would exhale upon the cross and all creation would be affected. People of the Pacific Islands hold stories to be sacred as they are told, expressing the truth that within the story the breath of the people are found.

Breath is the life force of all things, yet I was never taught to breathe.

Oh Mims, who needs to be taught to breathe?

All of us!

All of us, would be my answer.

Hildegard once wrote, “The feather flew, not because of anything in itself, but because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.”

“A feather on the breath of God.” 

What an image! 

To live life within that scope would be quite the adventure.

 How can one get there? 

How does one get there?

It took me a while to realize that all that I was feeling had a great deal to do with the fact that I had ceased to breath from my chest, with slow and shallow gasps of air, and begun to learn to pull breath into my body from the depths within. Breath was flowing in upon the inhales and out upon the exhales. Breath was coursing up and down my frame. Breath was filling out my toes and feet, my calves and my thighs, breath was coming into my torso and filling my lungs. I was expanding. I was riding the breath into new places and new places were opening to receive it.

That was both a delightful experience and a horrible realization.

If we don't think that the very thing that empowered our creation isn't as powerful as all that, then we are fooling ourselves and have lost touch with essential qualities of true life.

Pockets that had lived in dark, dry, suffocated places were being rattled within.

Awoken.

Brutal and beautiful things were taking place within.

A defibrillator of sorts was being introduced to my chest.

Shocking what breath can do!

“Come back to life,” was the song. “Come back to life,” was the invitation.

Events happen. We move on. We try. We keep getting up. We keep telling ourselves we are breathing, although we feel absolutely suffocated.

Pause here...

Let yourself settle...

Do you feel suffocated?

Where?

What does it feel like?

What do you need from breath?

Is it to just start again?

Go deeper?

Let yourself be carried by the breath for a while?

Dearest chest breathing friend, I was one of you and there are days I visit you. Except now I recognize the difference so much quicker. There are moments clarity of thought arrive in ways I never knew. There are moments where life feels richer and more full then ever before. But all of this should come with a disclaimer. Breath is powerful. Breath is potent. Breath will change things. It is not stagnant. It is dynamic. In its arrive, its power to affect all of life, bringing forward life is immense and will call for a response. Please, whatever you do... don't forget to breathe!

In an article in Psychology TomorrowMagazine, the Dr. James Reho does an amazing job exploring faith traditions and the reality of breath. It was some of his first statements that pulled me into the entirety of the article.

He writes, “ Breathing is never really simple. Our breath bears our emotional history and is a playing field for our flirtations with both Eros and Thanatos. While our relationship with our breath is often barely conscious, the quality and form of our breathing enhances and communicates much about our emotional state. As children, we hold our breath to get what we want; breath steals and expresses our will. When we are frightened; we gasp for breath sharply with the upper chest; breath influences and expresses our anxiety level.”

He goes on to say, “At some point, as Western Cultures came more and more to take on the viewpoints of Modern philosophy and the Cartesian paradigm, such practices ceased to make sense. Then as discomfort with embodiment (Sexuality, death, particularity, etc.) came more and more to define the Western mind and spiritual paradigm, such practices became either feared or dismissed and ridiculed.”

It is a fantastic article and well worth the entire read.

For our point here... Let me say, there is much detail and complexity to the healing of trauma. Breath is a vital point of beginning. Learning deeper inhales, and deeper exhales, and moving fresh prana in and around and through your body will bring immense change.

Pause here:
Breath exercise: Three part breath focuses the attention on the present moment, calms and grounds the mind.


This  exercise is often done while seated in a comfortable, cross-legged position, but it is also nice to do while lying on the back, particularly at the beginning of your practice. When you are lying down, you can really feel the breath moving through your body as it makes contact with the floor.
1. Come to lie down on the back with the eyes closed, relaxing the face and the body.
2. Begin by observing the natural inhalation and exhalation of your breath without changing anything. If you find yourself distracted by the activity in your mind, try not to engage in the thoughts. Just notice them and then let them go, bringing your attention back to the inhales and the exhales.
3. Then begin to inhale deeply through the nose.
4. On each inhale, fill the belly up with your breath.

My spine felt airier, my head felt cleaner and clearer and I felt more alive then ever before. Traumas from the past resurfaced as the breath entered, but it is time to clean house. It is hard. But then I cling to the promises of Ezekiel... These dry bones CAN and WILL live again, empowered by breath they come back together and learn how to stand as an exceedingly great army. Because that is what we do! That is what I do! I have learned to stand. Now I am learning to stand and breathe.

Recovering from trauma: Our bodies.....

Welcome to a multi post series.

 One which I have thought quite a bit about.  Recovering from Trauma will touch upon issues that people face as they live in their bodies, with themselves and the realities that they have faced.  These posts will touch upon stories and give examples and exercises in regards to  body and breathe and meditative techniques that will empower us all to live a richer and more full life, overcoming fear and pain and empowering each other towards a deeper wholeness then maybe ever thought possible.

There are so many things we don't talk enough about it.

 In a book entitled The Girl Next Door, I am writing about that very thing.  We live in neighborhoods, next to people; we live and work and walk among each other and pass each other on streets and in buses, in restaurants and malls. Presentation  dictates that which we think about one another.  Exterior vestiges displaying that which we choose to portray to the larger world.

I used to watch people drive around the cul de sacs of the neighborhoods I grew up within.  I used to hear how people wanted to move to this part of town or that part of town, the best schools, etc... I used to watch out of my window, as if I could hear their deepest longings to live upon streets like mine.  Perception of what life is like upon those roads, within those houses.  Perception is as people would make it to be, it isn't reality. 

So much happened in those "perfect," suburban neighborhoods, stacked with perfectly manicured lawns, beautifully painted shutters, and mail boxes lining drive ways measured exactly same width and distance from street and curb.

Perfect.

Perception. Very faulty.....

The stories that I share in The Girl Next Door, are shared to empower people towards knowing that they have a voice and learning how to use it.

How am I going to use my voice this evening?

I want to talk about how yoga, unlike anything else I have experienced, in almost 44 years of living, has empowered me to live and exist in my body. A place, I would rather normally be caught dead in, then ever live fully within.  I've negated my body most my life.

This past weekend I took an amazing Restorative Yoga Teacher Training class.  It reminded me of when I started yoga, when I went for my 200 teacher training, when I would walk for the first times into a studio and lay down upon a mat and begin to a move a body that I had hated all my life.  Somewhat, ok totally not somewhat, actually completely 100% oblivious to my own body and how it can move, how I can live within it, what it can feel.

As a very young child, I became master at disassociated living. I became an expert on how to leave my body, and float above it, living far away from it, completely disconnected from every reality that happened, within or without.  The sad part of that existence,  one at least, was that it became to the degree that it didn't matter whether the events were good or bad. I had conditioned myself to survive. I had taught myself not to feel. I had learned how to negate all sensation.

To that reality I still pretty much existed when I stepped upon the yoga mat back in December 2014.  My body and I are not friends. I am not saying that in ten months my body and I have become BFFs. In some ways I still struggle very much on a daily basis.  I'm almost 44, I am 5'2", I weigh normally around 140ish (can I just say information that I haven't even told my therapist, nor am I willing to go in and stand and be weighed blind) But tonight I have felt the importance upon this post and the ones that will follow.

Yoga is the one modality that is getting my butt in gear towards touching life; within the framework of bones, tendons, tissues etc.  Yoga has been the path that has brought recovery beyond my wildest imagination.  Yoga has put me back into my body; not always and not every time but more then not I have laid, stood, sat upon that mat and been transformed. I have opened up my heart and mind to receive the physical reality of me.  Christianity doesn't talk about the body as much as it should. It talks about the evils of the flesh. It talks about this or that, but it didn't, in my case, ever talk enough about the precious reality of the embodiment of God within Christ and how our bodies are truly temples that hold the Holy.  (Christianity isn't the only world faith that teaches that about our bodies being the temple, and sadly it probably does one of the poorest jobs of doing so.)

So I lived.  During my stay within one organization it was known that the world known leader had his thoughts on people who were heavier. It was image issue. Something he believed reflected upon himself and his organization. Other churches I have known, have their staffs order out of the same catalogs for clothes as to present a look that was and is congruent with what they wanted to be perceived as being.

Why is this relevant to a conversation about trauma and body? Because even in places that need to be safe, messages of image f#%@ with people's heads. F&*%ed with my head. And it shouldn't be so. It re-traumatizes people and it is wrong.

There are enough messages out there about bodies, body types, beauty, small versus large, etc....

Yoga broke that down for me...
Want the low down on my psyche?
Oh I will tell you, you don't...
You really don't but here goes unedited for a few minutes...

Why? Because I have some need to self-reveal to the degree of humiliation?
NO...
Because I am struggling right now in life to even put any food in my body. I negate hunger. I over exercise. I go days without eating and I think that is strength. It isn't strength. It is stupidity. I need to stop. Guess what? I can't. I am not in control of food or body image or what my eyes see or what I feel.

When I first went to yoga and had to see my body in a mirror, the disgust and horror I felt daily was at times beyond me.  I would say to myself, "today I might look hideous, and that won't change tomorrow but soon.. hopefully soon it will."  The fact of the matter is that though lighter in weight now, that feeling didn't go away. Doesn't just go away.

But yesterday I laid upon my mat after a Hot Yoga class followed by a Restorative one. I was so grateful that it was one of my absolute favorite teachers, and I felt safe. I felt so safe with her presence and instruction filling out the studio.  I relaxed into my body during each class. I stretched and breathed, I laid still and allowed breath to find its natural rhythm.  I felt solid within my body. I felt relaxed. And I knew.  I knew that posts like this one and the ones to come had to be written. Unedited. Raw. Real.

It is said that one out of every three girls have known some sort of physical or sexual abuse, and one out of every five boys.  There are lot of people walking around in life devoid of the reality of what it feels like to feel safe within one's own skin.

I know I have a voice and experience to help with that, not as an expert or one who has gained solid victory. But one who is fed up with the messages and lies I tell myself about my body, about me.  Facing fear down these days has opened up the invitation to exist physically within the world.  As I do so, I need yoga. I need a safe place where I can come and move and breathe and be. Yoga puts me into my body. Yoga has been a restorative pathway through which I have entered my body, stayed put more than ever before and lived much more fully then I ever have.. Physically, emotionally and spiritually.  I still have a long ways to go, but step by step I'm moving there. Even upon the weeks where it isn't so much 5 steps forward, its more like 2 miles back. But then I know there's a modality I can touch that will ease me slowly and surely back. I can lay, sit, stand upon my mat in a safe place and feel what it feels like to be a human being within a physical reality.

I want to brag upon the studio I'm a student at, and if you don't think this would be your reality at yours, you need to change.

So one of the ways that verbal cues were given to students who were in stretching poses, such as Warrior II, was to stretch arms out as if you were being pulled apart.  For reasons I won't go into in this post, that verbal cue, literally produced hives and would cause immense ripples within my being. After talking about that reality with my therapist, I went into the studio. I approached the owner. I expressed that I knew I was only one student out of the hundreds that that studio sees, I said that I didn't expect that there would never be another utterance of those verbal cues but that for personal reasons wondered if there were other ways such cues could be given.  Let me tell you, that was pretty early on in my yoga experience.. Basically in December. You want to know something? From that day to this I have never heard those verbal cues ever again, multiple teachers, tons of students and yet upon that day to this day.. I was not only heard but my heart's desires (NEED) was listened to and acted upon.

Talk about safe places!

One component that is very large in my heart in starting Living Mangaliso and Yoga Therapy and my work as a Spiritual Director is to create safe places.. Physically, emotionally and spiritually.  I have been given that in Yoga. I have been given safe places to explore what it can be like to live an amazing life within my body.  I have been taught that one can be free with their body, that I can listen to my body, that I can express myself through my body.  I have been taught and shown and strengthened towards the reality that my body and I can be acquaintances for now and that bit by bit we will grow into a friendship. I have been taught that all of this can happen in its own time, at its own pace as it should have always been.

In posts to come I will share some exercises I have created and others that are just out there to help assist you back into a very full life and friendship with yourself and your body.

For now just begin to notice. Just begin to be real with yourself. How does it feel to be in your body? Where does your breathe land most days? What do you want?

Speak loving kindness and blessings of life into your body. Begin to own that you are a you and you are a beautiful you at that, gifted with a body. You are a precious gift. Learn to be that for yourself and you will live that more fully for yourself first and also with and for others. 

Here's my stone.................... Week 5 came and went... Jumping to week 6

I would need several blog posts to catch up on the last two weeks of this journey.

Living out the year without fear has taken form time and time again. Even offering amazing surprises at every turn.

My favorite.....

It is true. When you put something out into the Universe, when you say I am standing at this juncture and this is where I am, movement and vibration and shift begin to happen.  In six weeks; I have lived more, completed more, started more, cried more, screamed more, laughed more, hid more, duck and covered more, paused more, questioned more, bothered friends, family and therapist more then ever before. Ok, maybe not ever before but darn close.

 Back to the words "my favorite" I have watched the journey transcend my life and touch the lives of those I know and love and those that I have never met.  It doesn't get much better than this folks.  A pebble is thrown into a pond and the ripples start forming.

I have a child with some very significant learning difficulties.  Now that he is getting older, he is very aware of the fact that he can't quite read or write at the level of his classmates just yet.  The beginning of the school year was traumatic for him.  We sat quietly. We snuggled and shared lots of love. We entered into meditation and postures to calm and relax him.  We lived through tears. (I haven't been the only one crying.) We lived through fights over homework. We lived. Then he came home one day.  Beaming. What were his words to me, "Mom, I faced my fears."  What would come out of his mouth, and then not too much later when an email from his teacher appeared in my inbox stating the entire story, was amazing.

He had read. He had read new words without assistance. Then he wanted to read them to the entire classroom. There's no way within a whole blog post I could express how monumental that was, let alone a few sentences.  This kid was beaming. He had faced his fears and he had won!

I haven't talked much about this experiment at home. It is only on its sixth week. I wanted to take it step by step.  But here was this 9 year old shouting out, "Mom, I faced my fear." He had read in front of a class of his peers who he knows reads better then him. And man... did these people celebrate him. His teacher, principle, aid, and peers..... It was a banner day!

Now here's the thing. Did his learning difficulties leave his life? NO. They did not.  But fear began to ... more than anything, he stepped into the arena and said to the giant, "here's my stone."

What were my stones these two weeks?
More than I could account for.... Hence the missing post from week 5....

I faced a project I had been putting off for 6 months and in one week was done from start to finish.  I lifted boxes, threw out garbage, made more trips to the dump then I care to think about.. but from one Thursday to the next I stood upon ground and I remained standing.

Let's not be frivolous about fear or change or life.  This isn't some mega church program I am trying to sell you. I am not some pumped up, change your life, all is easy and prosperous cheer leader standing on a stage telling you to face your fears. Matter of fact, do you remember the posts where I wrote about the days before the year without fear.  What I want to say more than ever now, six weeks in, take the time.. go slow, this journey isn't easy.  Take time to really look at your life, what you want and what you don't and what it is going to take to get there.... What you think it will take, take that.. now pause. Really think about where you are, and where you want to be and what stands in the way... the journey from A to B, will take everything you have and then multiply that by (well, I honestly don't know what to tell you.) Realize it will take more than you ever imagined.

Step anyway................

For on that second Thursday, when the project was all done and everything was picked up and completed.. I stood. Yes, I did. Because that is what I have set my heart to do in this season. Having done all I can do I will stand at the end of the day.  I will stand. I will show up time and time again, saying.. I have done what I can do and now I will just stand. (There's a favorite Christian passage in their holy text that says, "having done all stand." Another translation will say "firm." Having done everything I can do, I will stand firm.)  I stand firm on the fact that this journey is hard, it is taking more from me at times than it has given back yet, but still I stand.  Some days taking ground, some days giving it back.... only then to take it right back to myself again and again and again.

Back to that Thursday.  I stood. I stood as I watched the same truck and actually the same driver come and pick up a storage unit (3 years later) that had once held hope of something that wasn't meant to become. You see what the mega church, prosperity only message people don't tell you.. is that sometimes things don't work out. Sometimes you stand in the gap that is left when the trailer and the truck pulls out leaving empty earth behind.  And at that moment, there is no hyped up message that can get your fires lit.  There is only ache, there are only tears, there are only moments to stand alone in silence.

One must stand and grieve. A good portion of that process will happen in quiet, out of the way places.. standing alone.

This current weekend is fascinating to me.  A weekend that for me held newness and continued training, also held some very different things for different groups of people that have been in my life both in Virginia and  in Charlotte, as well as  in other places.  A weekend rolled onto our calendars and into our lives. People who once had been in communities together enjoying and celebrating relationships were doing very different things. This weekend holds for me memories of other weekends, and moments and events that would roll out and change the lives of many.  But this weekend also holds new beginnings this year... New faces, new ideas, new things to learn and experience....

To negate times, seasons, passageways negates what the human soul needs.  There are moments needing to be remembered and lingered over and let go of... the process takes time. Living without fear for me in moments means seeing the calendar, not ignoring the dates forever stamped upon my remembrances, taking a deep breathe, touching grief and still putting a foot forward into the future and new dates and times to be had.

There are moments to pause and be silent. There are moments to remember and ache and be still. There are times I have awoken from the dream and found out that it was only a dream and it wasn't real. Or if it was real, having lived the dream it is time to wake up. Because there are also other dreams. There are also other moments to come and sing and shout and dance and do life and living.  There is a time for mourning and then the dancing will come. There is a time for letting go and releasing. There is a time to receive. There is time to let the tears fall and let the body shake and let the hurt be and then there is a time to not so much dust oneself off (because living with the reminder and residue of that dust isn't such a bad thing) but a time comes when smiles will come back, the body desires to dance again and the hurt (which remains) doesn't cripple.

This year without fear, isn't without fear. I know I have said that before. This year without fear is about showing up. This year about fear is saying back to life, that I know it is changing. In some places it has changed forever and will continue to change. It is about admitting the weeks where fear gets to put a tally mark on its side. It is about admitting that some days my eyes ache for the old familiar; for old friends, for old places, for the known, for my aunt, for what I knew before......  Sometimes my heart lurches and I fall to my knees and I lay my head down and just let myself be. Because sometimes living a year (or a moment) without fear takes everything there is to be taken.  It isn't all pretty. Sometimes new is exhausting. Sometimes the continual putting oneself out there into new places with new people is simply and profoundly exhausting and I touch the grief of having watched comforting familiar places pass away. Literally and figuratively.   And then the exhilarating moments arrive too, what I have found is that in between exhaustion and exhilaration is a new normal.  It is that first smile and first awkward "getting to know you" conversation. It is the first attempt to try something and watch it soar or crash but picking myself back up again, to show up again, to try again, to feel insecure again, to struggle with vulnerability again, to hate transparency again, to ask the questions again and again and again, to say the thank yous again.. and oh, those small smiles of appreciation passing them on again and again.

Gratitude erupts. I am grateful for those who I have journeyed with, I am grateful I had my auntie in my life for 43 years, I am grateful for the two plus decades of work and all the people within those days that brought me to where I stand today and I am grateful for the fact that no matter what any one day holds, the sun will always rise. 

So when I say having done what I can do I stand. I plant my feet and with a resolute firmness I stand. I go to my knees and tuck my head and try to breath and I stay in that posture with a resolute firmness. I face week 7 and the rest of this year with a resolute firmness.

A year without fear isn't about living without fear... it is about living.
It is showing up and standing. It is saying to all the Goliaths out there... Here's my stone.

My Yoga/ Christian Journey : When There is a Void ... I Pray.. Let There Be Light

As I said, I have  never planned out a blogging sequence. That is until now.

I can feel in my gut that there is something missing.  A portion, an articulation, an essence of which, desires to find expression.  I am not so brash as to say I have the fullness of  such a thing.  I do believe I am a pilgrim upon a journey of discovery.  I do believe, that as I walk this narrow dusty path that which I behold is bringing transformation.  I do believe, that there are people, places and postures along the way that have much to teach me and are teaching me much.

I begin with this posture.
I begin in this place.

I humbly come before my God, who I believe created me in the very heart beat of His essence.
I humbly come before you, who I believe I am connected to... Holding the high priestly prayer of Christ so close to my heart. The reality of Oneness.  Oneness of all things and of all people... I read the words of one of His last earthly prayers and am so moved by His hunger for humanity to understand our Oneness with each other and with the Divine.

This... this posture is the one I begin this intentional conversation within.....
Humbly coming... laying all that I think I thought I knew down and uttering an expression .. In my knowing I did not know and now that I do not know I am beginning to know.

In the beginning of all things there is a story and as it goes, there was void and things were formless and Spirit hovered .... There was no form. There was void and there was darkness.

When chaos and void and darkness reign what do we need?
Spirit to Hover.
Spirit to be engaged.
Light

When chaos reigns in our hearts, in our bodies, in our minds what do we need?
We need to find a greater order, we need to find light and peace and yes.. Spirit!

Let there be light.............

Light brings that illumination through which we see.

Was that "let there be light," a big bang of instant spoken word from Divine Creator sparking a revolution of beauty and wonder and fullness?  Did that expression of let there be light bring forth a wonderment and awe and revelation?  An expression that says chaos can be brought to higher order, voids can be made full, and darkness can be eradicated by light.

As is true for the natural world, so is true for the human life... the human heart.

Let there be light... Let a greater order by which we can see come and fill that which was once empty and dark.  May we learn from the void, the darkness, and the emptiness and touch fullness, light and creativity.

What came after the utterance of light was a burst of creative power and expression, exploding time and time again. This expression kept expanding and expanding as the ever widening circle of reality went from good to very good and then to holy.

Creative expression in the form of the water, land, sky, earth, creature filled the space as did human. Clay was taken into hands and breath was added. Breath!!!!  Very good was declared. Clay was formed into substance. Clay was formed. A body became.  A body became and was still until the breath came.  Then there was life.

Light. Creativity and fullness. Body. Breath... In the beginning of all things, as it is written in ancient Hebrew texts. We weren't left to be floating spirits without a body. We were given the gift of body. Body is house and temple and can be home. (More on that subject..lots more on that subject to come.)

Then came holy.  What is holy?  The very first thing that the Creator ever pronounced as being holy was rest.
Sabbath and rest and trust would become the crux of the journey between God and that which He spilled His image into, us! 

So in the proverbial beginning and in this beginning I see so much  to lay a foundation upon.

Spirit ... energy, vibration, frequency, sound, light, breath
Voids being made full with creative wonder
Rest being enacted as an act of holiness.

Yoga comes from a Sanskrit word, a derivation of the word yuj, which means yoking as in a team of oxen. Another way to read and understand it is to think of union.  The practice of yoga is said to be for the union of body, mind and spirit. In the creation account that I know Christians and Hebrews look towards there is that union.  The divine yokes His essence with Creation, calling things good, very good and holy.  In all essence in the beginning there was the yoking together, the union of The Divine Presence, Creation, woman and man, light, breath, energy....

There is nothing in that list that is separate or other than what I find in the very heart beat and practice of yoga.  A space created for me to step into, to discover the void within, to strengthen and feel the strength of my body that houses me, (We are now the Temples of the Spirit.... I find that as much in New Testament reading as I do in other sacred texts.) to grow in awareness of my need for breath and movement and to bring alignment with all that I am into a space that will help focus my mind upon whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is good. I am told to think upon such things. The practice of meditation and yoga brings together a peace and a stability within so that I can grasp a hold of the peace that passes all understanding and bring that off the mat and into my life.

  I wouldn't start my yoga practice until December 2014, however in July of 2014 I was asking within the pages of my journal that I would be led into a deeper understanding of the body, mind and spirit connection.  I could feel the pull of something upon my soul, yet knew not what it was and then came the practice of yoga.  There was such an intense hunger within to touch understanding.  Why a body? What does it mean that we have a body? How can I be more fully in my body? What is my soul, my mind, me? What is my Spirit? How do the three come together?

Void met form
Breath met dry bones
Light entered my eyes and my soul igniting my spirit and brought deep life into my body 
Rest was found

The practice of yoga isn't to be made christian but a Christian can do yoga.
The practice of yoga isn't Buddhist but a Buddhist can do yoga.
The practice of yoga isn't Hindu but a Hindu can do yoga.

The practice of yoga transcends the specific expression of any one religion and can be as varied as there are people. Some use the straight forward posture driven practice to grow strength and be more present within their own bodies. Others incorporate a more meditative stance.

Step by step....  I take this journey.
Finding an articulation that is expansive and inclusive and rings true and lives in union with all that I know of the Lord's nature and character.  There is nothing I see in the beginning of all things that would deny the basis of holding a yoga practice deep into my heart and my life. There is nothing I see in the beginning of all things that says I must first call something "christian" before it can be holy or safe or "right."   I see there was a void. I see Spirit hovered and then after the passage of time spoke and came energy (What is light?), creative power and humanity full of breath......