soul

Living My Manifesto

/ embracingspirit / Leave a comment

It seems many people have opinions on other peoples business model, and the two most common statements I get as it relates to my yoga business is 1) I’d never drive that far for a class or student, and 2) I would never teach a class for that little of a rate (usually followed by a laundry list of all the trainings and education they have).

Here’s the thing. I’m not in it for the money, but the money is always there. I’m not in it for the fame although I am booked solid week after week and literally have no room in my schedule for more. I’m not in it for the ego, yet I know that I make an incredible difference in the lives of many.

Why do I drive hundreds of miles a day only to find my student still in bed because staff didn’t bother to wake him up? Because I said I would and because when he did decide to get up, together we created a beautiful session that included him doing something he hasn’t done in decades. This incredibly special student was injured at age 25 and his college roommate continues to write him a letter every single week and they are now in their mid 50’s. My student actually wrote him a letter back! Remember, yoga is defined as union and it doesn’t have to include pretzel shapes with our bodies.

I do it because it is service—which to me is defined as doing something without an attachment to personal gain. I do it because it is my gift. It is purpose. I do it because this is the manifesto my business and life is structured around.

The minute I start calculating how much money I am going to make, I have stepped out of service.

And do you want to know what? The money is always there.

I’d much rather show up within the foundation of my manifesto than seek out fame and fortune. That isn’t what I am about. I am about service and becoming the best version of myself through those I humbly serve.

Follow me for more goodness!

My Introverted Self

/ embracingspirit / Leave a comment

I love people—I really do. I enjoy the time I spend with people if it is meaningful. I am totally okay sharing that I am not great at small talk. I never quite got the less than interesting questions that most social hours bring up, and I also spent years living in shame that I did not go to college, I was divorced and living paycheck to paycheck for years, I was the mom of an awkward and very challenging girl with multiple disabilities, and back then I had not yet found my purpose. In general, I think I love people but I get easily drained by meaningless blather.

While I enjoy people, I also love taking care of my introverted self and my favorite way to do that is to go into the forest. To commune with the trees and be totally at peace and in oneness by the sights and sounds. I know that my time alone is vital for my overall well-being and how I show up and give back to the world.

Last week I took off on a solo hike to fill my soul with what she needed. I visited one of my favorite tree friends I have ever known. She has been a friend for many years and though I haven’t gone to say hello in a long time, she still greeted me with the same wonderful welcome. I played on the icy trails and I basked in the warm sun. I crossed over four miles of sweet Mother Earth and it was just what I needed to refuel and get clarity on a few things weighing on me.

I love how the sound of my feet crunching the earth somehow brings the answers I have been seeking. It’s like the world stops for a moment and I can listen.

I was reminded again just how blessed I am and how grateful I am. My life allows me to take off for a few hours and feed my spirit, plan things for the future, and mostly soak into the now.

Of course putting my hands on my favorite tree friend never hurts. She was just how I remembered–full of energy and an aliveness that blesses anyone who stops to receive.

How do you balance your life of people and alone time?

The Beauty

/ embracingspirit / Leave a comment

I want to know if you can see beauty

even when it is not pretty everyday, 

and if you can source from your own life from its presence.

Despite whatever is aching in your heart, can you still see beauty? No matter the despair, can you see beauty?  The physical pain.  The loss. The fears and worries of being human.

Can you still see beauty?

I learned many years ago from some of the wisest people that beauty is available in every moment, no matter what is happening in your life.  You see, my teachers come to me in a long-term care center for individuals who have sustained a severe brain injury.

Life for them is definitely not what you and I might  (initially) see as a beauty.  Their life has taken a huge detour and what was once their dreams of a family, a career, freedom to come and go, to travel, to do….is all gone. They now live within the confines of an old, dingy, strange smelling building relying on others for the most basic needs.  Many in a wheelchair and most unable to move parts of the body. And yet, they see beauty.  Every. single. day.

How do they do this?

Simple.  They choose gratitude.  They choose to see the beauty of the everyday things that we may take for granted; our bodies with all of the signs of aging and flaws, our minds to think and plan and speak, our spirits which fill the space with light.  They see the trees in the subtle changes as seasons change.  They notice the briskness of the winter air.  They take in the taste of the foods they are given.  They see the beauty in another human as they share the struggles and loss of daily living.

They do not see the lack and the limitations.  They do not look at their bodies with disdain and judgment. They do not see their living space negatively.  They do not long for material items.

The simply see beauty.  Even when it is not pretty everyday.

Can you see beauty even when it is not pretty everyday?

I know I am going to strive for that and I am going to receive the wisdom that they have offered me.  Beauty.  Everywhere we just need to look.

screen shot 2019-01-13 at 7.56.53 am

The Joy

/ embracingspirit / Leave a comment

I want to know if you can be with joy, 

mine or your own, 

if you can dance with wildness

and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your

fingers and toes

without cautioning us

to be careful, 

to be realistic, 

to remember the limitation of being human.

This week on the mat (or in the chair) we will be looking at joy and the choice we have to feel the smallest and greatest moments of joy in life without cautioning us to be realistic or careful or limited. To actually FEEL the joy that is within and who we are.  To say yes to the moments in life that bring complete joy.

Are you paying attention to joy? Tell me about a moment of joy in your life.

The moments of joy that stop you and pull you from the daily tasks that have become mundane and automatic.  Those moments that fill you with ecstasy and consume your entire being.

“…..Moments of mystical union can tempt us to spend our lives searching for those peak experiences and leave us unable or willing to receive the same joy where it is offered in the simpler experiences…” (Oriah Mountain Dreamer)

Joy finds us in the moments of elation when we feel a connection; to another, to ourselves, to the world and to the greater Mystery of life.  When we touch that part of ourselves that brings us directly into the face of our purpose.

And yet, as humans we so often deny our joy.  Our lives have so accustomed to feeling pain in the form of disappointments, resentments and past hurts.  We have lost the connection to the inner joy that is who we are. And what is our divine birthright.

For me, I want to cultivate and grow a deeper sense of joy in my life.  If it comes in the beauty of the sunrise or the sensation of another person’s touch, I don’t want to miss a second of joy.  I want to savor the moments of joy and fully embrace the pleasures of being alive.

I also know for me one source of  deep joy is found in my work.  Somehow we have been taught that to have too much of sense of greatness we will not have the concept of humility.  I disagree.  I choose to not diminish my abilities and my gifts.  I refuse to shrink back again.  I refuse to play small.

Small and joy do not coincide.

Sometimes we find that we expect too little joy in life and we settle for less.  In doing this, our soul is stifled.  Our soul becomes submerged in the litany of excuses that make up reasons as to why we can’t, or shouldn’t.

But life is so incredibly short.  And ultimately joy is a choice.

So tell me about a joy in your life.  Maybe one that came unexpectedly. A moment that you did not know was coming. The joy that caught you by surprise.

This is the work of the soul.  To find those inner caverns of ourselves and be willing to seek how we fit into the world.  It is searching to find that which we are made for and to say yes to joy.

The Sorrow

/ embracingspirit / Leave a comment
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. 
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been touched by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. 
I want to know if you can sit with pain,
mine or your own,
without moving to hide it,
fade it,
or fix it.

Every life has pain.   It is in the pain that we often find the deepest parts of our soul and yet as humans we are afraid of pain–emotional and physical.  We try to convince ourselves that we should be going around the pain.  Avoiding pain.  Not being willing to sit with pain.

It is impossible to be with another person’s pain if we are not able to be with our own. Our pain is often the window to deep wisdom about ourselves.  In that same way, when we are able to be with someone else’s pain–simply BE with it, we can also learn how to observe a reaction and how our impulse is to remove the pain by fixing it or fading it.

I believe that we must move into the shadows of ourselves. We rarely are willing to look at the dark spaces to find out more about who we are.  Dipping into that intimate parts of ourselves that we often hide.  But to show up in life full, we have to be willing to go into the vastness of the mysteries within us. Learning to be fully with ourselves, another and the world is the work of the soul.

When we learn to be with our pain, we call back parts of ourselves we have attempted time and time again to leave behind, we are to once again find that wholeness.  We are able to leave behind the idea of ‘perfection’ that often holds us back from a life of fullness and deep compassion for others.

Be with your pain and be willing to listen to the whisperings of your soul.

We will be exploring this on the mat this week and looking at the inner parts of us that back away from our sorrow, and search for the wisdom that comes from the pain.