February - month of love

Did I love myself today? Newsletter excerpt - blogworthy I think:

It's February. Valentine's Day is upon us. I just want to remind you of that cornerstone teaching of self love- the unconditional kind. How can I love myself a little more today? How can I acknowledge those acts/decisions/thoughts that have come from a place of love, no matter who dished it out, what it looked like, and where it happened? Am I willing to appreciate my existence as a vital part of creation? So this Valentine's week, here are some ways to give yourself the gift of self love. 1) Hydrate yourself and become more willing. Tell your water you love it and that you are willing to receive love from it. 2) Nourish yourself and replenish. Look at your food as divine, and love it before you eat it. Are you willing to become One with it? 3) Bathe and detoxify. Let the water change your electromagnetic field to help you shift your attitude, and to clean off any physical, mental, emotional, psychic residue that you may have picked up. 4) Breathe. Find the breath that's right for you. Not too fast, not too slow. Just the right amount at just the right tempo. Let that help you find a little more present moment. 5) Breathe. If you're feeling overwhelmed or crowded, try lengthening your exhale, or chant or sing, or just let out a few big sighs. If you're feeling apathetic or lethargic, inhale - pause the breath and feel the light, the nourishment, the act of breathing as an act of self love, then exhale releasing heaviness into the planet (the Earth is fine with heaviness). And if you need more support, clarification, or repetition on practices around self love, book a private, come to class, and/or check out some of these upcoming events! And even if you've taken them before, remember "repetition, repetition, repetition." They are never the same because we are never the same.

 Do I love myself a little more after doing ___________________?

Groundhog Day

6 weeks more of winter or an early spring? Does Phil the Groundhog see his shadow? Why does seeing his shadow, "scare him" and send him back into the hole? What if we consider that seeing our shadows as a sign of being willing to acknowledge the presence of light? For without light, there is no shadow.
And what is seeing our shadow? #gettinghonestfaster

just sayin....


So bring on the seasons. Whenever. 

Loopholes

It seems like many of us love to find loopholes. Some of us actually make it our business. The more loopholes, the better. The more loopholes, the more we can get away with.

Have we thought that as we strengthen the consciousness around loopholes, we may be weakening the fabric of that which contains the hole? Kind of like a hole in a sweater that keeps getting bigger and bigger. At what point do we no longer have a sweater we can wear? And if we don't respect the sweater in the first place, then why not get honest faster and find another one instead of slowly ripping the old one? Unless poking holes is a bubble-wrap thing. Then I get it. It's just for fun. And I'm not saying 'No" to holes. I like my sweaters to have some holes. Then the sweater is breathable. But I still want them to be able to keep me warm.

This isn't helping

In response to yesterday's blog about everything being fake news, I got a message from a person who I respect. This person said, "This isn't helping. Please never forward any of these to me again on this service."

"This isn't helping."

Wow.

What IS helping? I honestly don't have the answers.

What I know:
If you feed the beast, it will grow.
What beast do we want to feed?

I don't have answers, but I have questions:
By not feeding the beast, will it die and go away?
By choosing a side, are we helping?

I'm not really an expert on much. I'm just a person working it out here on planet paradise with everyone else. Tell me what will help. Is there a universal salve that will help?

I've thought about this, and in the current climate, I will most likely continue to explore the parts of me that are marching, polarizing, separating. The parts of me that don't want to hear what the other side is saying. The parts of me that want it to be my way or the highway. The parts of me that just want things to be easy "again." Whatever that means in the present. Cuz from where I sit now, there's not a lot of present moment in any of those statements.

So what helps? I don't know if I have a universal answer. Clearly, as pointed out to me by my friend. What I choose to do is keep testing the teachings and see how they hold up. Keep testing the teachings and see how I hold up. Testing, not because I want to find fault, but because I seek Truth. Truth that is not about politics, opinions, circumstances. Truth that is timeless. As Pandit Rajmani Tigunait of the Himalayan Institute says (paraphrasing), "History and politics rise and fall. Focus on the teachings that are timeless." (he said it way more eloquently than that paraphrase).

So no matter what side I find myself on, I'm still moving towards the center. And doing what I need to do in the present so I don't wake up with regret. So onward we march, hopefully listening to our internal Beat. Our internal Voice of Truth. And if we can't hear it, we keep marching until we can.

And person I respect, if you get this, no disrespect intended. Thank you for your response. It actually did help. And feel free to block me or delete me from Google+.

It's All Fake News

News Flash!

It's.All.Fake.News

Basically anyone reporting on anything is going to be reported through the lens of the reporter. It goes back to the Jeanism - "how fuzzy is your fuzz box?" The fuzzier the distortion pedal, the more altered the signal. The fuzzier the reporter, or the reader of the report, the fake-er the news.

This is also tantamount to busting such myths as "fairness" and "truth." I mean come on people! The reason things aren't "fair" is because "fair" is just one person's idea! There is no agreed upon "fair." And truth?  Most of truth is opinion. And we are back to fake news.

It's fake when we need it to be and truth when we need it to be.
Just sayin.....

Get honest faster

This is my new hashtag slash motto slash tagline slash mantra.

Get honest faster. Stop fucking around with yourself (unless you like to) and get honest faster. Start with yourself. Seriously. This may not be the time to dump all that latent anger or dissatisfaction with your life on the person or situation you feel justified in blaming. Begin with your Self, get some chops, then try it outside of yourself. (but it's never outside of yourself! Gak!)

Here are 2 starter steps:

1) Get Honest with Feelings
How am I feeling?
How am I really feeling?
If I don't know, am I willing to know?
What is the feeling I'm afraid to admit that I'm feeling - could it be that?

2) What About Actions
What do I want to do?
Am I doing it? (if the answer is yes, go no further. pat yourself on the back. enjoy your day.)
Why not?
What am I actually doing?
Admit that you are doing it out of choice, stop beating yourself up,  and get on with your life. If you don't like it, go back to #1.

More on this honesty business to come.

Roll with it? or Roll over?

Attack? Retreat? Or roll with the punches? Just because we may decide to "roll with it," doesn't mean we have to roll over. It means that we are moving from our center line, staying true to ourselves, acting from a deep integrity of Knowingness, not the one that externally based in "right/wrong/fair/just." 

Part of what we learn in yoga/life, is how to be flexible, how to roll, without breaking our own sense of deep integrity and truth. So if you feel like crap after you did a day of "rolling with it," maybe you were really just "rolling over." 

The question is - how do we know the difference? We feel a flow and ease in the midst of what may have been a struggle. We aren't clamping down, holding on, grasping for outcomes. We know what we can control (that would be ourselves, our minds, our actions, our thoughts), and what we can't control (pretty much everything else). We are willing to put out the effort to stay true without attachment to others "getting" us. And at the end of the day, we don't feel quite as beat up, spent. We don't regret our choices or our actions. We may be tired, but we feel good about ourselves, because we were ourselves. 

How do we get so we know the difference between rolling over and rolling with it? Practice. Awareness. Curiosity. Non-judgement. Be willing to "not know" yourself into "Knowingness." Get honest faster. And just roll with it. Without getting steam rolled. Or make a big snowman and lay on the snowball. Because you can.