No Longer Wading. No Longer Waiting.

Words came to me, awaking me in the early morning hours of Saturday, January 15th. They began around 3:45 am and these words that I share here, I recorded at 4:09 am.

I am deep in it.

No longer wading. No longer waiting.  No longer hesitating and resisting.

I am in the flow.

In this space, from this space, I invite you to join me in a dialogue about learning, schooling and education.  This dialogue is essential. It is one that has been calling me for some time and now is the time to step, to share and to invite a conversation. Now is the time to elicit your view, your thoughts, your understandings, your experiences. Now is the time to engage.

I invite you to join me by engaging with these questions. Ask them, sit with them, be with what arises. Find me and share your experiences with me. I am eager to hear, to learn, to receive that which you are willing to share. If not me, find someone to engage in a dialogue with these questions. Enjoy the dive.

How do you know you learn?

How do you learn?

How do you know you have learned something?

Describe your experiences in school. What did you learn there? What experiences there shaped you?

What is the purpose of school?

What is the purpose of going to school?

What are the roles of schools?

What is education?

How does one get an education?

What does it mean to be educated?

What does it mean to learn?

What does it mean to be taught?

What do you know about learning in school?

I invite these reflections, your ponderings and your awareness to these questions for you to deepen your understanding, your connections with schools, learning, and education. Not from what we have been told, heard or read, but from your experiences, your own inner knowing.

Thank you for taking a moment or moments to be with these questions. I know from my own experiences diving deep, I access parts of me that want to be brought to the surface, want to see the light.

Bringing our truth into light helps guide our way on.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Sara

Forgiveness - Accepting where you are, where you were and what brought you here

Earlier this summer, I saw someone whom I hadn’t seen over 15 years. We were walking back from dinner and he shared, “I am sorry I did not hear you.”

I replied, saying something similar to, “You were where you were at the time, and that is okay. That is where you were meant to be. I know this because I was where I was at the time and the only way we can have this conversation now, is based on where we both are now.”

Meaning, now, here, with these understandings, this knowledge, this awareness. We were not able of having the conversation we had this summer after dinner, back 15 years ago, for if we were capable of it then, it would have happened and we would have not allowed over 15 years to pass in between.

That is the thing with time, it allows us to see. To grow. To learn.

I see now and understand, that individuals are who they are. They act from the place where they are and it is how it is meant to be. For if it was to be different, it would be. In this seeing, I am accepting that all is how it is meant to be, even when I wished it would have been different.

We are each on our own path, navigating life with the tools we have in the moment. We can look back to that moment, with what we know now and wish it could have been different, wish the event played out differently. We can do this from our lens, now. We acted from where we were then and life took us in the direction it was meant to go based on that interaction.

How often do we look back and say, If only I had….things would be different. Maybe they would be. Rather than looking back and wishing, I accept. I accept that things are the way they are, because that is how they were meant to be, are meant to be. Even if it was not how it was meant to be, it is how it was, it is how it is. Events unfold, situations happen and the way I choose to respond or react, how I acted and what I said, happened. I cannot go back, to that moment, the exact way it was with the players and the circumstances, with the knowledge and consciousness state that I had then. I can only do it now, and when I do, I look back with acceptance and forgiveness. Forgiveness for myself, for my actions and words. I accept my choices and take responsibility for them.

Take this morning for example, I was reading a book and there was the word restrain. Reading the word brought me right back to a time when I was taught to restrain children, to hold them so that they could not move. Reading the word brought me right back to the cold, hard tiled wall in the stairway of a public school in New York City where I held a child. Where I restrained a child. At that moment I thought, I felt it was the right thing to do. Recalling that moment now, in this moment now, over 20 years later, my heart was heavy, I sighed and tears welled up in my eyes. I turned towards the mantra I have been chanting, I forgive myself, I forgive you, to shift my energy and bring me back into the moment. At the time, I thought that was the best and right course of action. I did. For if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have restrained the child. Was it necessary? Probably not. Is it ever really necessary to use force to control someone? I cannot recall what happened that prompted me, that lead me to deciding that restraining was the right choice. What I do know, is that I did.

I chose to accept and take responsibility rather than wish differently.

There are so many events in my life, where I can look back and say, What if? Sometimes I do do this. I find it is not helpful. This looking back undermines my path, my journey and how I got here. (Even now I want to delete the line- rather than wish differently. In my desire to delete the line, I see how I want to ignore, erase and take away that which has led me here. Why? Because it makes me uncomfortable. It makes me look bad. Folks can question me, judge me, not like me). The choices that I have made lead me here, now, to this moment. Which is why I am grateful for opportunities, like this morning, where I am reminded, shown of my actions and choices I made in the past. I acknowledge them. I accept them. I know that they have led me here.

This is part of healing. Healing aspects of ourselves that feel wrong or ashamed, guilty and bad. It is what it was and now I am here. The weight remains. How my choices, words and reactions impact those around me, now and before. This remains. I am aware of this.  And I cannot go back and do it differently. (Well, I can in my mind, in a mediation I can see it differently. I have done this, but as I said, I can not call back the players, those that were there, those circumstances, that time I can not bring them back.) I do not get to do a redo. No. I cannot. Rather the second chance is the one I give myself. The one I offer myself. The acknowledgement, the acceptance, the forgiveness.

This is what is means to heal the hurt, the guilt, the shame and the pain. The agony, the worry, the self-doubt, the stories that are told about me that I hear that I know are not true, yet I cannot do anything about it. This is what it means to heal. This is what it means to forgive.

This is what is means to accept. To accept one another for who they are and the choices that they make. For they are not their choices. They are not their actions. We are all on a journey called life and our purpose here is to learn. We are here to grow and to evolve as a being, as beings.

A huge part of this evolution for me is acceptance and forgiveness. And when I think it is about forgiving someone else, all I can do is trace it back to me. I forgive myself. I forgive you. There comes a moment when I am saying this over and over and over and there is no differentiating between myself and you and I. A moment arrives and I forgive you, is actually me forgiving myself.

What remains is forgiveness, which once I arrive there, I find only love.

Acceptance. Forgiveness. Love.

I accept you. I accept myself.

I forgive you. I forgive myself.

I love you. I love myself.

A great act of surrender.

With a hug,

Sara

From Frozen to Flow

I have been writing about feeling stuck, being held, holding on to events, memories, thoughts, emotions for some time now. Now that this winter season is upon us and it has been cold, newness is arriving.

I was driving a familiar route yesterday along a brook and noticed the water falling over the rocks while some of it had frozen. It appeared frozen in time. Flowing and frozen simultaneously. Moving and frozen, both at the same time. I have always enjoyed looking at ice, its patterns, the way it extends out, the designs it makes among nature. I have fond memories of going on hikes with my dad on Sundays. I would be in awe with the water and how it froze on and around the rocks, when we walked the trails in winter. Observing and wondering how water would continue to flow underneath and around, while there were frozen sections.

Water is fascinating to me, as it has many forms. It can freeze, it can turn to vapor and steam, it can rise up, it falls, it flows, and it can appear to remain still and calm.  Water is also able to hold, suspend things, lift things up and it has the power to flow ferociously.

Upon seeing the ice frozen in the brook along with the flowing water, I pulled over to take in its beauty. To hear the sound of the rushing water, to watch it flow with ease, the many paths it takes, the soft curves of the frozen ice, the sharp edges of the crystals, the depth of the ice, the patches where it was thin and melting away.

It occurred to me then in those moments observing nature it her natural state, that I am like this water. There are aspects of me that are frozen. Frozen, held, bound in time to stories, narratives, events that I have allowed to define me. They are hard, rigid, cold, fixed. At times piercing and sharp, at times deep and opaque, allowing little light to come in. Sometimes, more and more in recent years as I deepen my awareness of this, I find myself flowing with ease and grace, finding my own way over, under or around navigating the path that is best for me in the moment, rather than returning or remaining frozen to what I have done in the past.

I am aware of how I have allowed these frozen aspects to determine aspects of my life- reactions, rigidity, anger and resentment. These frozen aspects provide a narrow view, a fixed mind stance that is limiting and does not serve. I see how these frozen aspects are begging (I typed this instead and yes, it is as if they are begging) beginning to thaw, allowing responses, flexibility, gratitude and ease in.  Softening and polishing the sharpness and thinning around the edges, allowing light in and movement to occur on the surface.

Water flows, that is what water knows to do, to flow. To move in the way it is needed to move. With grace and ease, finding its own way, at times with force and power when it has been held, blocked and dammed. We can look at the water and say is it trying to find is way, this way or that, asking itself, do I go there, here, over this rock, around this rock, what if I go this way, what will I encounter. Or maybe the water trusts its own internal nature, it knows is it able to flow. Finding its way with ease, not seeing a log and debris dam or the rocks as obstacles, knowing that its true nature is the flow, and that it will always find its way.

For that is what water knows to do, flow.

Allowing the thaw to occur and flowing with this knowing,

Sara

*Water has many aspects to its own nature. It can rise like the wave, evaporate into clouds, heat up in to steam and freeze into ice.  For the context of this piece, I am focused on water freezing and thawing, since that is how nature is speaking to me in this moment.

Giddy With Delight

As some of you know, I have spent many weeks breaking down boxes. Sometimes, while breaking down boxes I use a box cutter, other times I use one blade of a pair of scissors.

A few weeks ago, I came home and felt something in my back pocket. You guessed it, I had scissors in there.  While breaking down the boxes, it is easy to have the scissors placed in my pocket so I can get them with ease. When I have tried placing them on the edge of the larger bin that holds the boxes to be broken down, they often slide into the depths of the bin and I have to lean over and reach far below to get them out.

These scissors that I found in my back pocket are not mine, I use them while breaking down the boxes, so I placed them in my bag so I could return them where they belong.  Once I arrived, I took the scissors out of my bag and placed in the with the other scissors in a container just for them and began my task of breaking down more boxes.

The next morning, I reached into my coat pocket and yes, you guessed it, there I found another pair of scissors. As soon as I felt them, I began laughing out loud. Giddy with delight.

Scissors, used to cut, to slice, to severe.

Sounds right. All of this time breaking down boxes, deconstructing all that binds and holds, contains and defines and now the scissors are needed to cut through the rest of the attachments that linger, that want to remain.

Scissors, used to cut, to slice, to severe.

And there they were, in my back pocket, in my jacket pocket. Tools available to be used now, to cut away all that no longer serves, all that wants to still be attached.

Looking back, this is amazing on a few levels.

I am studying Jyotish and am currently in my Ketu Antardasha.  Ketu is the cutter. Ketu cuts the conditioned ways of being- the should’s, the have to’s, the need to’s. Ketu symbolize liberation, learning from the past while simultaneously expanding the capacity to receive. Ketu, also an anchor, invites us to root, spread and bring, to share that which wants to be shared, to grow the seeds so they manifest in reality. If this is not enough to make me giddy with delight, Ketu was also paired with Mangal (Mars) in a mystical house, symbolizing freedom and unity. What? I can not make this up!

 ***Note: Ketu is much more than this…and we can not talk about Ketu without Rahu…although, for the purpose of sharing here, this is sufficient.***

As I said, I was delighted in the moment when this was all happening and a few days after these events of coming home with the scissors in my pockets, opportunities in the two community spaces that I have been active in for the past seven months have dissolved and have come to an end.

I do not even need to know why, nor do I wonder. I sit here in awe, utter awe and smile.

Everything always finds its way to be, exactly as it is meant to be.

Here I am, swirling with this, smiling with this. Anchored in this,

Sara

*Here is an audio recording of a message I left for my Jyotish group. You can hear the words flowing from me, giddy with delight.

I See A Future for Our Children

I was guided to see the future in a mediation yesterday. The fire was stoked and these words came:

I see a future for our children.

One where they are seen for who they are. Their unique expression, their creative potential and capabilities. Where they held and encouraged, their fertile ground is cultivated and enlivened to express that which wants to express through them as unique individuals.

I see a future for our children.

One where there is space to be free, free being them. Where the who they are is celebrated and cherished. Where their ideas and interests are encouraged and nurtured. Where they are nourished, all of themselves is nourished to be the full expression of who they are.

I see a future for our children.

One where they are accepted for who they are. Where they gather around one another and celebrate their uniqueness, knowing that they each have a role to fulfill, a song to sing.

I see a future for our children.

One where they are held in community, that this common unity is born from their understanding and acceptance of who they are as unique individuals.

I see a future for our children.

One where they are themselves, participating and sharing themselves fully. To offer their gifts to the world while simultaneously creating their world with their active participation and response.

I see a future for our children.

Once where they swirl and dance. They connect with nature and one another through their own innate gifts. Where their ideas are encouraged and their expression is honored.

I see a future for our children.

One where adults follow their lead, trusting their innate capacities and knowing. Where they are valued and accepted for their own experiences and are encouraged to live the life they are meant to live.

I see a future for our children.

One where they work together in harmony, each playing their own part, fulfilling their own unique role, the role that they are here to play.

I see a future for our children.

One where they are themselves, that being themselves is the greatest gift. The greatest gift they can offer the world is to be themselves wholly and honestly, expressing as themselves.

I see a future for our children.

One where there is an acceptance for their unique gifts and expression of that. One which highlights and calls out their differences, while simultaneously acknowledges that interconnectedness of us all.

I see a future for our children.

One that acknowledges that we depend on and rely on one another to fulfill and play their part. That their call in life is to be themselves, the unique, divine expression that is them, that no one else can do or be or fulfill. For that is why they are here.

I see a future for our children.

One where they are held and seen with a gaze of love and acceptance. Celebration and delight. Gratitude and trust. Honoring that which they would like to share with the world, their perspective, their expression.

I see a future for our children.

One where they are seen as full, whole, complete individuals. Where they are accepted for their innate gifts that they carry.

I see a future for our children.

One where they are fearless in their learning and their desire to meet the unkown.

I see a future for our children.

One where they access their internal nature, driven by what they know inside rather than told by the external.

I see a future for our children.

One where they are encouraged to listen to the messages arising in their body, to be in tune and aligned with their own bodies, where they can regulate and adapt to environments rather than being controlled and managed by external sources, plans and systems.

I see a future for our children.

One where their curiosity kindles their passion to know more and engage with the world around them.

I see a future for children.

One where their natural curiosity is deeply connected to their internal motivation to know more about the world around them.

I see a future for our children.

One where their curiosity and motivation inspire them to learn.

I see a future for our children.

One where they are undeterred by mistakes and failures, for those are markers that they are growing.

I see a future for our children.

One where they leave traces of their learning and these traces guide their growth.

I see a future for our children.

One where they know that learning and growing involves fluctuations and perseverance, commitment and strength, volition and will.

I see a future for our children.

One where they know that when they fall, the getting back up and stepping forward is what is important.

I see a future for our children.

One where their imaginations are free.

I see a future for our children.

One where they know that the journey of life is to learn, to grow and evolve. That every step they take is the right step for they cannot get this life wrong. For they are life itself.

I see a future for our children.

One where they make sense of the world around them through exploration and their learning is their doing.

I see a future for our children.

One where they are wild and free, rather than stifled and conditioned.

I see a future for our children.

One where they are themselves and follow their hearts rather than being shuffled through a system that is designed to deter them from themselves.

I see a future for our children.

One where they know that they only thing they are to do, is to be themselves. Wholeheartly living fully, being themselves.

Yes, I envision all of this for our children.

A space where their unique expression is honored, cultivated and nourished. Where their potential is activated and the seeds tended to, so they rise and express in the way they are meant to contribute and participate in this world.

And so it is.

Wilson Snake River was with me for this, his presence guiding my way on.

Anchoring Myself

What is it that I am resisting?

What am I afraid of?

Why am I scared?

What am I resisting?

Why am I afraid?

What am I scared of?

I set these questions as the intentions of my day. To sit with, to be with all that arises when I hold these questions with me as I carry myself throughout my day.

A thought entered my mind while I bent down to pick up a pan. An answer came while I was preparing my lunch:

“Because you are not enough as you are. You have to do more, be more, accomplish more. Have a job, make money, be independent and self sufficient.”

Do you notice the thoughts that you have?  They are interesting to notice.  I used to not be aware that thoughts were happening all of the time in my mind. I used to not be aware that my mind was in constant dialogue. Constant narration. I was so accustomed to this, I thought it was normal. And it is, I am not alone in having thoughts, having a running monologue in my mind. So, in a sense it is normal. Until I became aware and able to distance my self from these thoughts and notice them. It was then, that things began shifting for me.

I’m sure I have had this constant narration happening in my mind for my entire life. The awareness of this, these thoughts that are mine and not at the same time, came to be one day during frog pose. This was many years back now, maybe six, maybe seven, maybe eight. The actual timing is not relevant, it is what occurred that shifted me. 

I decided that I would embark on a 10-day commitment. Ten consecutive days of yoga.  It was here, during these times when I had to be flexible working with the classes that were available to me based on my work schedule. In the short time I found myself gravitating towards the same classes which were all flow based.  When I was unable to attend the class I set forth to take, it was suggested that I try a Yin class, a slower class where we hold poses. To be clear, I would go to yoga and get on my mat to breathe. That is what brought me to the classes, I had to breathe. In order to move, I had to breathe and I was taught to match my breath to my movements. Back in these times, I rarely breathed. Or at the very least, took a conscious breath in. At this time in my life, breathing was something my body did that I never paid attention to.  What I really enjoyed was savasana, when at the end of class I would lay on my back with my eyes closed and breathe.  Nothing in the world mattered in those moments. I would stay there for as long as I was able. It was a gift.

Embracing newness, I entered the class. It was warm, the lights were low. The teacher’s voice was melodic and I was enjoying myself. Until I entered frog pose. I was told we would be here, holding the pose for some time. It was that moment, in that moment when I really became aware of my mind for the first time. It was in constant narration. This is hard. When can I get out? Why does this hurt? How much time has passed? When will this be over?

Now I say, this was not new for my mind. It flowed with ease asking questions, making statements, wanting to divert and distract, avoid and attest. My mind was in its happy place, doing what it does, and had done best. Narrate. Race. Talk. Fill the space with its thoughts.  It was here, when I realized it was not serving me. In that moment, my mind racing from thought to thought, trying to make sense, trying to get out of pose (which I could have done at any moment, but my mind told me I would be giving up and that others would look at me and see me as not strong and someone who gave up), telling me I was in pain and discomfort, I became aware that my thoughts were not serving me. They were not helping me or the event I was in. These thoughts were actually making the moment worse.

I have always had a thing with time. In fact, in my high school yearbook I left my sister ‘time.’ I was infatuated with time, concerned that there was not enough and that I would be late- which is funny to type now, because I have such a different concept of time that I am often late. As my practice on my mat continued, I began to notice the thoughts expand. Now they were saying things like, you have endured so much pain, why can you not handle 30 seconds in this posture? You have lived through harder things than this, why would you give up now?

While I was aware of these thoughts, it did not occur to me that they were self-sabotaging. Again, I thought these thoughts were normal and a natural, every moment, constant experience.  Until I met myself though the practice of mediation. Once I became aware of my thought and was experiencing the power of my thoughts I had been told, “let your thoughts pass by like clouds in the sky.” Or “Notice your thoughts like an airplane flying and land the airplane.” “Allow the thoughts of your mind to flow like cars on a road.” “Picture your thoughts floating on a leaf downstream.” It was so frustrating I would become angry with myself. Here is another thing I cannot get, do right. The awareness of the negative self-talk increased its reach, creeping in, showing up in every moment. And there was nothing I could do about it. It was tiring. Being me was exhausting.

Up until I found an actual practice, rooted in techniques.  Through consistent practice, I became and now am aware of my thoughts and I know that I am not my thoughts. For me, my journey consisted of actual practice, showing up daily, using the techniques, accessing the embedded technology. Reading a book and being talked to was not enough. I actually had to develop a practice and a commitment to this practice. Which I eventually began to see, was a commitment to me.

Now, most often, I can catch my thoughts. I hear them. I am aware of them. I notice the feeling they stir up and evoke within my body. Sometimes my mind narrates for some time, and then I catch on. Others, like the one that happened moments ago when I bent down to get a pan from a low shelf, I catch.

What do I do, you may be asking. What do I do when I catch the thought? I shift the thought to something else, most often a mantra, switching up and changing the pattern, the vibration. From negative, self-negating, self-sabotaging, self-doubt to positivity.

Sometimes, this does not work. Sometimes the familiar pull, the loop of repeat is playing and I have been so consumed by the thoughts that I am not aware until I have been brought into a spiral and the pull is strong. In these moments, I call a friend or sit for a deeper practice. And sometimes I write. Which is what I am doing now.

So, why am I scared? What am I scared of? What am I resisting? What am I fearful of? What is here, lurking, lingering waiting to be seen. I say this, because I feel its presence, I am aware of how it is showing up in my body. It is here wanting attention. Instead of feeding it, by giving attention, I am inviting it to be seen. What is hidden just below the surface? What is this feeling rooted to, connected to, stuck on, being held by?

This idea of “enough.”

For those of you who know me, you know this is not new. This is a constant battle that I fight. This fight within the confines of my mind, this story that I have taken on as mine, this story that says, “I am,” No, you know what? It does not begin with, “I am…” It says “YOU.” “You are not enough. You being you. Doing what you are doing day in and day out is not enough. You must do more. Give more. Work more. Contribute more. Participate more.”

This is it. This is how I know I am not my mind, because it does not say, I. No, it does not say, I. My mind says, YOU. Which shows, which verifies for me that I am not my mind!  I am not my mind! I am not my mind! I am not the thoughts that show up in my mind! I am not the thoughts that are generated in my mind! My mind is something that I have. Since I have it, I am aware of it and I can control it, rather than allowing it to control me.

So then, what am I afraid of? I am afraid of accessing the real me. The me, beyond the stories of my mind. The stories that are designed to keep me small, in fear, controlled. The stories that are limiting, narrowing and restricting. The stories that have been told to me, have been fed to me throughout my experiences in life. These stories that I willfully picked up, placed in my bag and carried. Identifying with. Accepting. Knowing no other. Knowing no other option.

UNTIL NOW.

I say now a lot, and each time I say now, it is now. For early in this piece, I say, with a strong knowing that I am not my mind. I am not my thoughts. And yet, each moment I have this awareness, this clarity brings me to a new now. A new understanding. A stronger foundation. A deeper rooting. A more expansive view.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I see. I am taught to be afraid of myself. To not sit with myself, to be alone with myself. I am conditioned to do, to produce, to perform. I have been conditioned to look elsewhere for my worth. To look to others projections of me, interpretations of me. To look at images and numbers on screens and on paper to determine my worth. To tell me if I am good or bad, fat or skinny, accepted or excluded, liked or hated, in good standing or not.

Yes. Yes. Yes. This knowing is becoming stronger. This knowing is becoming more consistent. I am becoming stable in this knowing. Anchored in this truth.

Wahoo!

Allowing myself to be anchored in this knowing, knowing that I will be rocked by the wakes and waves of life.

So it is.

Hari Om Tat Sat

Sara

The Lotus is Born Here

All of this is arising for me to see.

Reminded that the lotus grows, thrives in the muck, this is where she is born, where she extends her roots, where she begins to rise, opening her petals untouched by this dark water from which she emerged.

I began a Forgiveness Sadhana on November 11th. I knew early this summer that forgiveness was arising, the need to look at that which I have been holding on to, to stories I have been telling myself, the hook in which I allow all of this to hang on.  Yes, forgiveness was a word that I knew I would become familiar with. A concept that I would become intimate with. Yet I did not know what forgiveness was, what it required. I simply knew that it was necessary so I planted seeds with Lisa back in July as if I could forsee the storm I would be walking into.

What is forgiveness?  I ask myself, what is my understanding of forgiveness? I will forgive you, but I will not forget. I used to say these things. Forgiving was always something I was told to do for another. I never saw it as action that I would take for myself. I forgive you. Okay, I can say those words. What is behind them? Is there any meaning, any connection, any thing?  I think they were hollow, empty. Not because I was mean or didn’t care, simply because it was something I was told to do, felt I should do to release my guilt, to release my shame or attachment. I was told, if you say, I forgive you, then everything will be okay. I did not have an experience with forgiveness, I did not have a connection with it, it did not make sense, it was more of an action taken because I was told to, rather than an action that I desired to do. Not that I did not want to forgive, it simply had no meaning. It was empty, the words were empty because I was told to do rather than taught to understand, to have an experience with forgiveness.

For forgiveness is way more than these three words, I forgive you or I forgive myself. On the surface, yes, it is this, it is these words. Yet once you take the dive you really experience how vast the act of forgiving is.

I see now how complex the act of forgiveness is.  No, actually it is quite simple. The idea of it, the nature of it is simple. It becomes complex when I see how deeply intertwined and connected the things I want to forgive are- woven tight, knotted, a bundle, a tangle. One that require patience to undo, to unravel. Over, under, around, back the other way, over, no under, under to the left, then wrap around the top… Oh wow, this undoing requires total commitment and focus. While all the same time it requires me to surrender the desire to know, to fix, to figure out. Undoing requires me to trust my practice.

When I say I forgive myself for being angry and I begin to unpack this, asking questions to deepen my understanding of my anger and to get to the root, I see how vast the network of connection is- connecting to memories, events, stories, positionalities, beliefs about myself.

Let’s give it a go. I will share the dialogue in my mind when I engage with this forgiving of myself for being angry. (Note, this is happening in real time as I type. I had no plan on where this would go or lead…)

I forgive myself for being angry.

What really does that mean?

I forgive myself for getting wrapped up, tangled up, caught up in the emotion of anger.

How did you get wrapped up?

I lost my sense of self and stepped in to a role of wanting something other than what was being offered for me.

What are you saying?

I got angry, frustrated because I wanted to be there, not here. I wanted to have a different experience of life than the one I was having.

So you wanted to escape?

Yes, in a sense. But not really. I like the idea of what was being presented. What I could see from the outside and at times events in my life were challenging me and I thought that if I was there then I would not be experiencing these challenges.

Why would you rather have other experiences than the ones you are having?

Because I get tired, it feels hard. It requires effort and commitment and I think being somewhere else would be easier.

Oh, so you want easy?

HAHA. No, no I do not want easy. I know easy. I know that path. I’ve been there. I do not want that which I already know, I want new. I want new experiences; I want to grow.

Isn’t that what is happening here, you growing? You know growing is not always seamless. Growing requires energy and effort.

Yes, I know I am growing. At times it feels like, for what? Why? But then I am reminded that I am growing, I am outgrowing the familiar patterns, they ways in which I have been interacting with that which is happening around me, that which is happening within me. I am doing this because I want to grow, I want to expand.

Are you actually angry then?

No. At the root I am not angry. It is more of a frustration with myself that I get into when I forget why I am doing what I am doing, when I forget my intention. And me being here, right now is providing me opportunities for me to see that which I have been holding on to, that which I have been allowing to limit me.

Okay, bringing us full circle, what are you forgiving yourself for?

I forgive myself for forgetting my truth. I forgive myself for thinking that I am supposed to be someone other than me. I forgive myself for thinking that I am supposed to be living a life other than the one I am living. I forgive myself for wanting to be somewhere else. I forgive myself for not trusting that all of this will continue to work out, as it always has. For every moment in my life has brought me here. The moments when I attempted to control and the moments in which I was guided. All of it is resulting with me being here.

This is fun, let’s try another one.

I forgive myself for snapping, for reacting rather than not speaking or responding in a kinder way.

Okay, so you wish you would have done something different…

Yes, always. No, that is not true. I would not say I have regrets; I do not think that is true, that doesn’t resonate with me. It’s more that I know when I react it comes from a place of being maxed out, tired, when I feel I am alone, not supported, when I feel attacked, like life is against me.

Well, we cannot go back in time, we have only now. So, what can you do now?

I can accept that I snapped, that I reacted and that I said things which in the moment felt like the right thing to say, but looking back now, I wish I wouldn’t have.

Okay, what are you accepting?

I accept my actions. My words. That which I have said. How I reacted in the moment. I accept this. I forgive myself for this.

It feels like there is more you want to say…

Yes. It sucks. I know my words impact others. I know my actions impact others as well. I am not saying this from a place of power or control, of all knowing or being better. I share this from experience, I know folks have said things to me and from my place, my position, I received them. And at times I felt like I did something wrong to deserve them. Now, knowing what I know now, I know that my action had nothing to do with the reaction that I received. The reaction came from the other person. It emerged through the other person because that is where they were, and me being me caused something in them to be activated. Somehow, I interpreted me being me as the cause of their reaction. And when I recall events when I have interacted with others, especially children, I do not want them to feel that they did something wrong, that they themselves are wrong or bad or whatever story they connect to as a result of me reacting rather than responding. Because I know now, that I reacted because I lost sense, lost track of who I am and in this place of forgetting my truth, that all is happening for me, I tried to control or escape and it came in the form of reaction, in maybe hurtful words.

Wow. Okay. There is a lot here that has been revealed, unearthed. I see what you mean about how it is all connected, interconnected in a vast network, tangle. Maybe it isn’t a tangle. Maybe the network is being shown to highlight the interconnectedness, to show how it is all related. To show how the stories get easily absorbed and woven into the existing framework. This is the work, this is why we are doing the work, to undo this, so that the stories have nowhere to live, the masks have no place to hang, the narratives do not stick out hooks and barbs. For us to no longer be the glue to allow things to stick. Knowing this, what can you do?

Continue to show up for myself, face myself. To see this, all of this, see these stories, these false narratives, see my attachments, see my hooks, see my role, see my participation in it all.

How do you do that?

Stay the course, commit to my practice, honor my word and my commitment by showing up.

What is forgiveness?

These words came to me the other morning,

May you be at ease with where you are, irrespective of your location.

This seems clear. Forgiveness is being at ease. At ease with all that was, for all that was is bringing all that is, here now.

Do not get me wrong, sometimes forgiveness is showing up like a clenched fist, a tight jaw, nausea, extreme nausea, strained eyes, resistance, exhaustion, the familiar enough already, how much can one endure?

And in the same breath, I keep going, not wanting to carry these burdens any longer. Last week, while I got my booster shot, the nurse administering it said, you have strong biceps, you must be working out. I laughed, responding, “no it is the heavy burdens I have been carrying around.” So, it is this desire to no longer carry, to put down the burdens and weight of it all that stokes the fire, the fire I tend to in my belly, the fire I give breath to ignite, to burn.

I have been saying projection for some time, at least in my journal, how at the very least I have felt that folks project their stories on me and see me only for these projections.  It occurred to me today, that I also have projections and these projections are just like the projectors. An image is generated in my mind, some story about how someone has hurt me or is out to get me, how they have excluded me or shunned me and then I use this lens to see them. I project this image, this image that I created in my mind of them, on them. They become the screen that holds the projection, and when I am projecting, I do not see them for who they are, I only see them as a screen and what I am projecting on them.

For me, forgiveness is seeing, being aware and then acknowledging my part in this projection. Taking responsibility for my role, for my participation in creating, fabricating this story, this narrative that I believe to be real, so real that it becomes my truth. I see this as I am being projected on and when I project.

I make it personal; I make it about me. My desire to know, to make sense, to understand drives these stories. My mind generates stories to defend, explain and justify its positionality, its stance. And the more I spend time in this place, the stronger it gets reinforced.

I am reminded that I have a choice. I can choose to continue to live in ways that are familiar to me, staying in this space of ever repeating known. I can choose to love (yes, I typed this when I meant to type live and it really is aligned for I can choose to live in love and trust, rather than live in a place of wanting to control). I can choose to live in love, live as love, in total alignment knowing that I am here for a reason, here to be me, the unique, individual expression of me. In me being me, I can express the way I am meant to express, share that which I am meant to share.

I have made the decision to know myself fully and this desire to know is the fuel that drives me to not return to my same old ways I have been and meet new aspects of myself.

And I am reminded that the lotus grows, thrives in this muck, the thick of it all. This is where she is born. It is here where she extends her roots, where she sets her foundation and begins to rise.

For giving is only possible if we are able to receive.

Forgiving is only possible if we are able to receive.

Arising for me now, is this knowing, knowing that I am becoming more and more aware of how for so long I have lived disconnected from my body, disconnected meaning not in tune with my own power and for so long I have given up that power, for so long I have given that power over to others. I see how my practice and awareness is really awakening me to these opportunities to step in, to stand, to claim my power, my strength, my capacity, my capabilities and it is beautiful to know that there is an alignment and it feels so necessary.

Peace, the greatest act of love.

To dissolve all negative emotions.

Acceptance of self

                     of all that has occurred

                     of all that has taken place

                     of all that has happened

Acceptance of self

                     for all that has occurred

                     for all that has taken place

                     for all that has happened

Acceptance of self for there is no other

Peace towards others

Peace within

Being with all that is

Being with all this is arising

I forgive myself

I forgive you

I forgive myself forgetting my truth

I forgive myself for carrying my baggage in to situations

I forgive myself for not knowing

I forgive myself for blindly believing that which has been told to me

I forgive myself for not knowing and feeling I needed to know

I forgive myself for forgetting that I am whole and enough

I forgive myself for needing

I forgive myself for seeking

I forgive myself for hiding from myself

I forgive myself for numbing

I forgive myself for not always acting, responding in the way I want or feel I should

I forgive myself for what I have said and cannot go back to change

I forgive myself for what I have done to my body

I forgive myself for what I have allowed in my body

I forgive myself for what I have allowed to be done to my body

I forgive myself for not knowing how powerful I am

I forgive myself for not knowing how capable I am

I forgive myself for not knowing how strong I am

I forgive myself for not knowing that I am a force

I forgive myself for not knowing that I have a voice

I forgive myself for not standing up for myself, for what is right and best for me

I forgive myself for not speaking up and asking questions

I forgive myself for feeling I needed to be anyone other than me.

Bowing my head in gratitude,

Sara

Letter to myself on my Birthday

These threads, seeds planted, stuff that came to the surface in September is here now.  As I flipped through my journal from that time, I located this. Another letter I wrote to myself that feels right to share here and now. For the context of what is arising for me now is similar to what it was then, reminding me that these roots are deep, vast and wide, and there is a lot that I am holding on to and that is stuck to me at the same time. The letter, written on my birthday, speaks for itself.

Beloved Sara,

Namaste.

You are not bad.

You are not mean.

You are not at fault.

You are alive. Living fully.

Making -no- it isn’t making a

Mistake, it is simply learning

You are learning

That is why you are here.

To learn, to grow

That is why you came here

To this body, now

44 years ago

To be placed in these circumstances

To be presented with these opportunities

To grow

To learn

To see

To witness

To reflect

If everything went according to plan,

What if everything went according to plan?

Would there still be growth?

Opportunities to learn?

Is there a plan?

Hum

Is there a plan, a plan to be followed?

Or is it more a path with lots of different options, terrain

Places to go, things to see?

I say, “you cannot get this wrong,”

You cannot get it wrong

Who says there is a right way?

You are you

Being you

I am me, being me

Noticing the resistance, the anger

The emotion, the feeling

When are you at ease?

When you sleep? Yes, a full night’s sleep.

Waking when my body is ready

Eating food that is nourishing me, not full of

Flour, sugar and dairy

That makes you inflamed and swollen

When I have consistent time set for me to be, do me

What I want, on my own

Without pressure

From within and without

From myself and what I perceive to be from others

Yes, these most recent event occurred for me to see what is here, deeply, once deep, now exposed even more.

You know you do not like to be micro-managed, told what to do, how to do it, when

You know you like freedom and flexibility

We all do, I think.

Which is sharper?

The hatchet that cuts down dreams or the scythe that clears a path for another?

What wisdom does the eagle whisper to those who are learning to fly?

When a ball of tangled line unravels, what remains at the barb?

From what are the walls of a sanctuary built? And those of a prison?

Where will the ravens take the debris abandoned on the freckled sand?

Who spins the elaborate web that entraps the timed spirit?

Is fire born of words? Or are the words born of fire?

Does metamorphosis begin from the outside in? Or from the inside out?

We all like to have flexibility and choice

Your worries, beloved

Your hurt

Your anger

Your thoughts

The guilt

The worry

The hurt

The anger

The questioning

They are not “yours”

They arise

Watch

Acknowledge

Like pee in the ocean

Nothing

Tiny

Miniscule

Step. Step. Step

Forward, not back

Towards growth

Towards growth

Love,
me

*The questions in bold are from Pam Muñoz Ryan’s The Dreamer, which I was reading at the time.

The letter in the post was written in my journal. This is the actual notecard that I wrote to myself that night.

Journal Entry from September 6, 2021

In keeping with sharing open and honestly, I have typed my journal entry from the day after I wrote the letter to myself (see the previous post). Sometimes we get snapshots of a process or events and I feel called to share more “behind the scenes” of what was being stirred up for me to see. Looking back, it felt like I was being uprooted. Have you ever seen a tree that has fallen over and been able to look, really look at the root structure, how vast it is, where it went and what it held on to? Rereading my journals, at times is similar to this. I open pages and revisit moments that I have written, from a raw and real place, with a new perspective, with a gaze that has distance.   So here it is, a journal entry from September 6, 2021.

I sat with myself, my self last night. A ceremony. A speaking of the truth, honesty, acceptance, acknowledging steps toward, no, steps of forgiveness

No where to arrive to

No going somewhere

Not if I do this, then……

Now. I forgave last night. I see and forgive now.

I see clearly how fear is a driver in my life.

I need to do….

If I don’t do…..then I won’t grow

I am not worthy

I want to be like them

I know. It feels silly to write out, read and this is what is in my mind. The narrative I tell myself over and over, the narrative I have told myself over and over.

I am not

I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough . I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough being with this right here, right now.

I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy.

These words written here, now in the sun as the sun casts a shadow on the paper of my pen and hand

I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough.

I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy.

This acceptance. This acknowledgement. This recognition that I need to do more, be more, achieve more, contribute more is a story, is a narrative one that is not mine, one that I have picked up.

The story I have been telling myself is…

If I do……… then something will happen.

If I do ---- journeys and meditate everyday and do puja and commit to my practice and sadhana then something will happen. I will access the field of silence, my like will radically shift, all will come to me, as if it is not happening now.

I am missing that this, these events, notions in the mind are occurring now. It is like, I dreamt about not working and devoting myself to my practice, service, writing, learning, growing and it is happening now. I am so caught up in what isn’t, the lack rather than the love, that I am missing the bliss, the joy in this now. right now.

Waking to have a chai, write in the morning sun with the sounds of birds, cicadas, insects. To feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, the brightness so I squint.

Reveling. Cherishing.

I asked around. What else do I need.

No thing, Sara.

There is no thing to do.

No thing to achieve

No where to go

Be here, right now, in this

Present moment

Be with your breath, be with your

Breath

Here

The thoughts are attempts to escape, take me away from here

From here, this very moment.

The thoughts seek, are evidence of seeking, wanting, which comes from lack

No recognition of the beauty of, in this

Moment

Wanting more

Wanting more

Wanting more

Here.

I arrive here, with that deep exhale, sigh, all along it, the moment the experience I have been seeking, longing for is right here

Available now

By turning to my breath

Accessing the field of stillness and silence

Within

No where to go

No were to be

No thing to do

Because the breath is always here, breathing me

Us

It is not something I have to do

Is does it for me

My body breathes for me

On its own

Without being told

It shows up and breathes

All of the time

It has not given up on me, us

This breath which is more than air

It is life force

Connection of life and body

No breath, no life

It is what flows

All else can cease- sight, hearing, touch, taste, when your breath goes, so does the body

What we know of us here, now is in this form

Ah

Atcha

I’ve requested clarity and it is here

I am always been in service, this I know.

And I enjoy it, find pleasure, joy in serving.

Now I see it is also connected to being seen

Acknowledged

Rather than dismissed

Seen as an individual, not my traits or qualities

Rather being seen as an expression of the Divine, a human being

Someone like you, someone like me

We are connected

We all need a heart, to breathe or a machine to pump our blook and air and breathe

So I am you. Different but the same.

That is the invitation.

To show up, as see another as yourself

As you, as an extension or possibility of you

That could be you.

On 9.11, first responders were trained, trained, trained to turn towards, to go in and up

Everyday citizens showed up

Showed up, acted

Took action

Didn’t remain stuck in the same place

Didn’t allow fear to paralyze, limit, restrict

Move beyond, move with

Active shooters- don’t sit, no sitting

Take action

You stay in the same place

WHAT?

I couldn’t run

I couldn’t leave

I mean, I could have

I could have stood up and left

But I didn’t

Was that something I learned in school on how to be

A teacher

Don’t leave your students in the time of crisis, an air attack

No

Life-most events in life are not planned for, not prepared for

And yet, here I am

And the children I was with that day, the children in my class

Our community

All arrived in the loving arms of an adult, parent, friend, grandparent

As we walked, ran, among herds of people

Herd, huge gatherings

Not one child was

Lost, misplaced, unaccounted for

This is a huge responsibility in a city

On field trips alone, and on this day

When folks were driven by fear, panic

Worry

And Asher invited me to look at the moon, to look at the moon.

We do the best we can with what

we have, in the moment

We do the best we can with what

We have in the moment

I know this from experience

Yes, I could have done things differently

I could have said,

Yes, the towers might fall

That might happen

But at the time

That concept was not possible in my mind

I had not witnessed that, experienced that

So it was not, for me, within my reach

Some children know no other

Drones in their windows

Bombs

Gun fire

These are their knowns

An invitation to have deep gratitude

For all you have

All the supports around you

That you are held

Held

They said, the children, the children, the children

We said, what about us?

I’ve also become aware, this it is, it has been difficult for me to receive

When folks do nice things for me, things that can nurture me, hold me

Feel good for me

Drawing a bath, massaging my feet,

Offering help

I balk. I resist.

Denis shared this morning in practice this new moon is an invitation to transcend childhood stuff we have been holding on to

I invite love and freedom

Acceptance and grace

Peace within and without

To share this from a place of stillness, ease, peace, fullness

Amrita Pranayam, sip from the nectar of life, the eternal nectar, nectar of light and love and offer gratitude, service- offer back into the world.

Last night I got, received this

Get up and go to the bathroom, the soul needs to change, to travel toward the child, to childhood, to a child

I thought to record it when it was clear, but I didn’t. I woke, peed and got back to rest.

Solid sleep.

Now, 20 years later I see how I

Faced fear that day

How I looked fear in the face

And rose up, stood up

With a strong spine and compassionate

Trusting, loving heart

Trusting, trusting

Not escaping, not fleeing

No adding hysteria and fear

Remaining calm

I asked for help

I asked others for help

Put down your cameras and help

We have children

Now, so accustomed to images, it feels distant

No connection

Actual moment, captured, frozen, still

Not static, not static

Dynamic, movement, energy, emotion

Image

Games screens- shooting

                        Destruction

                        Buildings falling, collapsing

Known familiar, common

It wasn’t to me

Not familiar to me

Everyone has a story

Everyone has an experience, a memory

Stored in their mind

Mine is one of service

Of overcoming fear

Standing up and acting

Stepping, talking, taking action

Not

Remaining frozen, static, stuck

…..the ocean

Her presence today. Many rolling, lolly waves. One after another. Up, down, full of water, water in front, water behind.

I, today, for the second time, laid on my back, head towards the vastness, feet toward the shore.

Jai Ma, I chanted, as I rose up and down

Total trust with what came

What met me

Meeting myself here, now,

Sara

Letter to My Self

I feel called to sharing a letter that I wrote to myself, for myself here with you. I wrote this letter to myself on the new moon on September 5, 2021 . It is the first entry in my 76th journal. As I glance through this journal, I see that I wrote many letters to myself during this time, I was deep in the depths of old stories and narratives, hurt, sadness and fear. These letters are traces of my acknowledgement, of my acceptance, my journey towards softness and forgiveness. Which looking back to now, from here, three months after I wrote these words and those letters, I see the many seeds that I was planting.  Please note, you will notice that I switch between writing I and you, as I write as myself and I write for myself.

Dearly Beloved

Hari Om! You are always taken care of, always looked after, always held. It is only sometimes we forget. We forget that this is all happening for us. I forget that this is all happening for me. Every moment. Every experience. All of it is for me to grow. To see, to evolve, to move beyond, to connect with my true self. My Self that does not have stories, narratives, identities, binds of my mind. No Beloved, you are not that. Those stories other people have told you about yourself or about ways life should be or is.

The truth is, you are longing. Yes, it is a longing. This longing is at the root, the foundation, the base of all of your actions, your choices.

It is a longing to connect, to be with, to experience yourself. And we have. We have. We have haven’t we. Beauty filled. Dancing. Blissful. Ecstasy. There are no words to describe our being together. It is an experience that words cannot be located, there are no words, an experience beyond words. That deep exhale, that sigh you gave just now, that shows your commitment, your dedication, how much energy you exert, put forth.

Yes, effort, commitment and discipline. All of these are needed and they are not. Simultaneously.

What is needed is trust. Total Trust. No hesitation. Drop all doubt, worry. Lay it all down beloved, you’ve heard me say this to you before. Lay all of your worries and doubts down, lay all of your fears at my feet Beloved. Why would I say this if I didn’t mean it? My words are not empty. My words are not empty. I know you have heard many empty words, words shared, false promises, commitments not honored, your own words not honored.

I am inviting you, here, now, here, now on this new moon in September, to lay it all down. All of it. Release all of it. All that no longer is needed to carry. Lay it all down. Surrender it. Here and now. Right now. Surrender it all.

Allow yourself to be held in this love and grace. You are held in love and grace. You know this. You’ve surrendered before, you know you are capable of doing it, dropping away or not even. It isn’t even a dropping away, it is…. What is it? It’s when you get out of the way, but it is not really a choice or an option. It just happens, it happens- spontaneously. How do you know this?

India.

The words came up through, from the depths, your naval center, your seat of fire, of will.

You spoke without knowing. You. I spoke without knowing it was me until I heard myself, no, until I heard my voice and then I realized it was me speaking.

This is an example of total surrender.

It happens

It happens naturally.

Spontaneously.

When?

When you heed the call, when you respond to the call. When you step, step, step and trust the signs and messages guiding you. There is no hesitation, there is no doubt. None of that is present when you trust and surrender. Doubt is not here. Doubt is not there. For love is speaking, love is moving and expressing through you, through me. You’ve experienced this, when the words come. You do not know what you are saying, it is that you are not planning it, not thinking it through, planning it out.

It comes.

It comes in the moment.

It come to you, through you in the moment.

There is that and there is this, a knowing.

A knowing.

A knowing it is time.

You experienced trust, that night in September four years ago, that moment of clarity. When it dawns on you.

Beloved, Beloved Sara, you know this.

You’ve experienced this.

You beat yourself up with violent inner thoughts

You are not enough

You are not doing enough

Not doing enough puja, mediation, practice, devotion

You are so hard on yourself. You feel the need to always do more, becaue what you do is not enough. Because to you, to you, you feel to me, to me I feel I am not doing enough. And if I was doing enough, I would get something, arrive somewhere.

Phew. Deep exhale.

You saw the shirt of, on the woman in the store today- you think that was by chance. Of all of the people there, all of the people, she, with the YOU ARE ENOUGH on her shirt, showed up in line behind you. And you spoke up. You said, thank you for the message on your shirt. This moment came minutes after you looked up despondent on your phone because that is how you have been feeling.

Loss of hope and courage

Which totally isn’t true.

It’s more of an empty feeling,

hollow, void, nothing there,

blank stare,

looking through, beyond

the deep double exhale sigh

the tired, heavy weight, weights, burdens

you place on yourself

Yes, at times you are surrounded by negative thoughts, always focusing on lack

Yes, this is true.

And you know what to focus on,

You can tune your attention

Your focus

You sense the inner- I sense the

Inner frustration

Enough already

What is it, enough already of

30 years of taking shit

Of believing you deserved it, you were worthy of it

It all happened, whether you like it or accept it or not for you, so I could arrive here to this moment, to see, to witness how much, how much it hurts, how much I have internalized and accepted, feel like, felt like

I deserved it, asked for it, that it was my fault, that it was a punishment

Sara Beloved, oh Sara.

Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself.

You did what you could with what you knew in, at the moment

You did your best

I stood up. I spoke up. I confronted. I spoke on my behalf.

For myself.

For my life.

For my sanity.

And look, look at the experiences I have had since I did that, since I spoke up for myself and said

Enough

I am worthy

I am deserving

Of feeling loved, of being loved

Of being treated with respect

Of being heard the first time

I speak

When I say no

                    Stop

                     Enough

And I acknowledge that my desires to be seen, liked, accepted, for intimacy, connection

Those blurred my vision

My desires clouded me and

Impacted my choices

I see this now.

I recognize this.

I accept this.

Because this is true.

And you know what else is true?

I am strong. I am powerful.

I am here for a reason, for a purpose, to fulfill my Dharma

And all of this is showing up so it can be seen, highlighted and deleted. Because it is no longer needed, necessary

I do not need to remember

Hold on to this

This, all of it and so much

More brought me here to

This moment

Brought the tears,

The sobs, the empty hurts

The feeling of being alone

Because I have been, I have been

Alone.

And when I have been alone, I have come to know that I can rely on myself.

Yes, you can rely.

I can rely on myself.

I can count on myself.

I can trust myself.

I have trusted myself.

There have been many times

When you have gotten yourself, I have gotten myself into what

One may consider a mess

And here I am.

There is a larger entity, intelligence supporting me, guiding me, holding me and it is connecting to this energy that I long for, even though I know I have experienced this connection.

The Greatest Love of all playing from my phone in the middle of the night in my room in Seventh Heaven in India. The pictures, the messages, the texts, the voices I hear, the faces I see.

It is real. I am not crazy. I am not making this up. I am not sick. I am not unstable. This is true.

I am strong. I am powerful.

I have immense gifts and I am here to use them.

To shine my light by me, being me!

Fully radiating being me!

All of the seeking, the longing to connect is with myself, to stop playing small and to shine. To travel, to share my gifts of a loving gaze and listening ear. No judgment, fully accepting others as themselves.

I love. I love vast and deep. That is a gift I have.

I’ve accessed within myself.

I am strong.

I am powerful.

I have a voice.

I use it

For justice,

For rights,

For women,

For children.

Sara Beloved, we are here to shine, to contribute to the world by being true to ourselves, honest and true.

No more hiding.

No more shying away

No more playing small

I’ve got a heart

                hands

                arms

                feet

                a mouth

                ears

use them

use them

I will use them to uplift, to guide, to encourage, to support others on their journey.

Lokaah Samastaah Sukhino Bhavantu

On this night of the new moon, in this new journal and with this red pen

I am forgiving myself

I am forgiving myself for feeling like I needed to do something or more

I am accepting my choices- all of them

Acknowledging that every moment,

Every experience,

Every step

Has brought me here

To this very moment

And for that I am grateful

And with that knowing

I trust

I trust that all will continue to unfold for me in the way it is meant to be. It did before India and it will now

I know this because I trust

I trust

I trust

It, I will be shown the way, for my presence here is to serve and uplift, to share and encourage

These gifts are pure, not selfish. I am already doing that which I am meant to do, for it I was meant to do something different, I would be doing it and when I am meant to do something different I will. I know this, because I trust. I trust because I have been led and guided, encouraged, pushed, supported in the past and I am now, here in this present moment.

On this night of the new moon, I am generous and kind to myself, allowing that which wants to flow through me, flow through me. I invite love into my life, love that moves me, guides me, expresses through me. I invite love to move me and guide my way on.

I acknowledge fear.

I acknowledge the fear that has been here and I choose love.

I choose love.

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti. Hari Om Tat Sat

Sara Beloved, we are part, you are a part, I am a part of a whole universe.

I know this as truth.

Loving you always, in all ways,

Me.

9.5.21

Breaking Down

I have been breaking down boxes. Lots of boxes. Literally collapsing boxes to prepare them for recycling. I show up to a pile of boxes. Sometimes they are placed gently on the pile. Other times I can see they have been tossed.  I can tell if someone used scissors to open the box or if they ripped it open. Some folks crush the box with their hands, some step on them to smash or stomp them down. I prefer to use scissor to slice the sides with the tape, if tape is holding the box together. I also use a box cutter for the thicker, denser boxes.

In my box breaking experiences I have sprayed myself with meat juice from boxes that have held frozen meat, moisture from vegetable boxes has soaked my shirt and I know first hand what wet potatoes smell like.

I have been fascinated by the many types of boxes there are. There are thick boxes that hold walnuts, pancake mix, pasta. There are thinner boxes that hold beans, canned vegetables and fruit. This feels like a paradox to me, the denser boxes holding the lighter contents, the lighter boxes holding the heavier contents, but then I think about the fragility of the pasta and pancake mix in plastic wrapping that sometimes gets sliced when a box is opened with a blade or scissors. I also acknowledge that the other food items are held in cans, already having a protective layer before the box they are placed in. There are also half boxes that look more like trays that soups and canned chicken are placed on and then wrapped in plastic to hold them in place. Sometimes when I open a box, I find there are other smaller boxes inside, tucked and neatly packed away. 

I have found a rhythm to breaking down the boxes, since I am familiar with most of them. I find myself gravitating towards the ones that are “easier” to break down, the fruit boxes collapse with ease once you slice the tape that holds them together. I notice that I leave the milk, meat and fresh veggie boxes towards the end because know they require more energy and effort on my part and I push them to the side to get through the easier boxes first.

As I said, I have been doing this for time and not until today did it dawn on me that breaking down boxes is a huge metaphor for where I am in life, as I am literally breaking down all that binds me, all that holds me, all that contains me.

I am finding that some things that hold, bind, grip, contain me are easier to dismantle than others. Some stories and narratives appear bound to me, stuck with heavy duty glue, reinforced with multiple layers- just like some of the boxes I am encountering. I witness what shows up and feels easy to address, to be with. I am aware that I turn my attention towards that ease and comfort, knowing I will be more successful with some “areas” in my life than those that have been deeply ingrained and reinforced.

It is fascinating to me that I choose. I am aware of my preferences and tendencies. I have likes and dislikes with boxes, preferences towards what feels easy and hard, that which I choose to go towards and those which I choose to put away to the side. That out of sight, out of mind, trick that is not true at all, for I know they are there, lingering, waiting for me to get to them, so the task can be complete. I acknowledge this positionality in dealing with aspects and events in my own life. Similarly there are areas that I tend to gravitate towards that feel better, for I know that there are areas in my life that require attention that I have pushed away or to the side, stuffed down and packed away that brings on the feeling of nausea and that which I resist with a tight, clenched jaw. It is the feeling of, I have been here before and it is not pleasant so why would I want to return? Oh resistance, I am coming to know you so well.

A container. A receptacle. An object that holds something.

The truth of it is, I no longer want to hold that which does not serve me. I acknowledge all that has happened and transpired in my life, for it is what brought me here to this very moment. I am actively accepting responsibility while simultaneously forgiving myself for my role and my participation- knowingly and unknowingly in creating the events in my life. That is what is coming when I open the boxes, I am seeing what I have allowed and what I have given permission to and once it is opened and revealed, I can choose to close it back up, seal the contents and store them away or I have the choice to unpack the box and look, really look at what is there and ask myself what do I want to do with this now that I see it, now that it is revealed.

That is what I do when I open a box, I ask myself,

What is it I am holding on to? 

What are the notions and ideas that I have allowed to define me, to give me boundaries, to maintain me, to hold me in a certain position, a specific narrative?

What have I packaged, sealed and stored away?

What am I opening up?

What I am turning towards?

What am I diverting my attention away from?

I delve deeper,

What am I holding on to?

What am I carrying?

In what ways am I containing, controlling, restraining?

What do I feel bound to?

I soften,

What can I release?

What am I willing to collapse?

What am I willing to accept?

What am I willing to forgive?

Enjoying the metaphors in life with delight, a sly chuckle and at times a clenched jaw.

Always showing up and inviting you to do the same.

Holding you in a space without boundaries, in the container of love

Sara

Love is Free

A week ago I was browsing through a collection of notecards and came across this one. It is titled Graffiti Wisdom and was taken by Pamela Cloud in West Chester, PA. It struck me. The message is profound, simple and complex all at the same time.  Today, as I pulled out the card to write a letter written form, snail mail rather than typed and sent via email, I saw the phrase again, this time with new eyes. With a fresh meaning.

Love is free.

The thought that entered my mind as I gazed at the card and read these words again was, “and I have been resisting it for as long as I know.”

Love is free. It is always here. Within me. Outside of me. Surrounding me. Enveloping me. It is here. It is there. That is what there is, Love. Always and everywhere.

Only I have been resisting it. I have been ignoring this. I have been pushing it away.

How did I arrive here?  How did I arrive at this knowing? It is a combination; for this moment is inclusive of every moment. It is not one thing that got me here. It is not one thing that brought me here. It is all of it. ALL of it. Every thing. Every moment. All encompassing, leaving nothing out, inclusivity.

Yesterday in my practice, Meaghan said, “notice what you are resisting, the story you tell yourself that you cannot do, that you will not do.” In the moment, I laughed because what I did not want to do was chaturanga, choosing to do knees chest chin instead, fully knowing I am able and capable of doing chaturanga. I chose to listen to the story of my mind, the story of my lower mind, the story that holds me, binds me, restrains me- I am tired, my arms are not as strong, it is at the end of the practice….

Oh, the stories. The stories we tell. The stories we tell to justify our position, to claim status, to be right, to prove to others they are wrong, to protect ourselves, to shut ourselves off from hurt and abandonment. The stories to ignore, to distract, to divert. The stories we do not even know we are telling. These stories that are so known and so familiar they feel like they are ours, when they are not.

Becoming a witness to my mind has been a journey of accessing my own inner strength. When I notice what is arising, I see my tendencies. When I catch on to my patterns, I am able to see with such clarity. Immense clarity. When I say clarity, it is not like my vision becomes better, it is that I can see clearly. There are no obstructions, no projections, no images that cloud or distort my view. (*Interestingly, my outer vision is now going and I am in need of glasses. So while my outer vision is fading, I see how my inner vision is strengthening. Thank you Jeanette!)

Yesterday I watched a fly for some time. It was walking on the inside of a window panel, searching, touching with its legs and from what I could gather, sensing from its sight and smell the way to get outside.  The glass panel on the widow was clear, no obstructions, so from the vantage point of the fly, it might be wondering, why am I not there? Why am I here? Why can’t I get there?

Fly on the window, with a bird captured in flight!

At least that is what I was thinking about the fly when I was watching it yesterday. Today, I have a new perspective. Today I was able to see a more, I have a vast perspective on the fly and the glass panel. Yes, the fly was on the inside. Yes, I made the projection that they fly wanted to be outside. Could it be that the fly and window encounter was showing me that I can witness that which is happening outside of me and still remain inside? Can I maintain the stillness and clarity that I see from inside, without getting drawn into the fluctuations of life that are happening outside of me, around me?

As I deepen my position as a witness, I begin to see the patterns and trends, the familiar known ways in which I choose to interact with moments and folks as a dance. The tendencies have a familiar cadence, rhythm. The invitation of this is, what is arising now is to see from behind the window pane to witness how it is similar to observing from the audience rather than getting on the stage and engaging in the play.

For me, I can see how bias is carried into contexts and situations. We carry our baggage, our stories, our narrative into that which we encounter. We are not entering with clarity, rather we often enter from a fixed viewpoint, position. As I notice myself more and more, I see this. And sometimes I wish I haven’t, simply because once you know something you cannot unknow it and in the knowing, especially in the beginning it can show up and present what feels like more work rather than ignoring or not knowing. What I have found, and find again and again is that when we enter situations, we have choices. We can choose to enter clear and free, present in the moment. Or we can lug our baggage and stories in from previous experiences in. We can choose whether to maintain distance from afar, to remain behind the panel of the window so we cannot touch the event and that which is happening in front of us cannot reach us, access us. Or we can step in and join. I am seeing that, no matter the moment, irrespective of what is arising or happening around me, I have a choice. I always have a choice.  Instead of stepping in to participate, engaging in a role of savior, rescuer, fixer, amender, victim, villain, hero I can remain a careful observer, a watcher without getting drawn in, hooked in, sucked in.

Now that I can see this, I can also see when I want to join, when I feel the need to join, to step in, to say something, to participate and this awareness is also interesting. This is the piece that I am speaking to when I say it feels like more work. For me I find I touch something, I uncover some aspect of myself, my tendencies, my patterns, the familiar known roles I like to play and engage in and once there, there is always more. Most often I am delighted and charmed. Surprised, is a good way to describe it, as if to say “oh, there you are.” When this ‘more’ is revealed, when layers are unearthed, peeled back, when light shines in, I see how it is connected to something else, which is tied to another aspect.  It is all connected. It is all intertwined. It is deep and it is vast.

Roots are aren’t they? I am finding, only now, not before, that when you are uprooted you see that which you were holding on to, you see how far the roots have spread, as you uncover you see that some are shallow, some are deep, some reach far and some are woven in and intertwined with others. I am recalling a birthday party that I had when was younger and my dad transformed a room in our house into a giant web. Each of my friends and I were tasked with the role of undoing the web by following one end of the string to the other. Over and under we went. Taking steps around, and next to one another, forward and backward. We would spin. We would stop and take pause, reflecting on where we might go, what we might do. 

We were bound to one another; we were bound to the environment. That is how life is. We are all connected to one another, all connected to the environment, connected to the spaces in which is it all unfolding. All of it is dependent and reliant on the other. It is real or at least it feels real. Our reality is real to us, we are connected to it since we constructed it. How we are at any given moment is reliant on how we see the event, how we experience that which is unfolding.  At times we are fueled by these moments. That which we give attention to grows and gains momentum. That which we give attention to is relevant and meaningful to us as a result of our own experiences.

this image speaks for itself

Take for example a ‘problem’. The other day while driving the wheel flew off my car, over my windshield and landed in a field, inviting me to stay in a location for longer than I had planned. When I took myself out to dinner and attempted to pay for it using my debit card, I learned I had insufficient funds in the account. The manager came over and tried to ease what she felt was an uncomfortable situation, “I hope you have a better day tomorrow.” “I am having a great day today,” I replied. “Oh,” she said, “I heard you were having car troubles.”  Yes, there was a situation with my car that was out of my control and I did not see it as a problem, as bad. I saw it for what it was, a situation with my car that was holding me in a place longer than I had planned to be there.

What is a problem for one might not be a problem for another, I can see this and I am sure you have too. There are times when you listen to a friend, you witness what they are going through and you see how real it is for them.  You remain separate, you remain disengaged, not because you do not care. No, that is not this. It’s that it, the event, the experience that is happening for your friend is not happening for you and you see that. You are not drawn in to the emotions, to the feeling, rather you hold space, you support, you witness. There are also times when what a friend is going through touches you on a deeper level, it resonates with you, your own experiences. Here, when this happens you have the choice, knowingly or unknowingly. You can remain a witness or get sucked in, drawn in to that which is there because it is activating something within yourself that is not resolved. Something is still there deeply rooted within you, it is bringing your attention to something you are holding on to, something you are connected to which is why you have feelings about it. Emotions around it. Whatever is happening highlighting, it activating something within you to draw your attention to it as to say, I am still here, still lingering, please tend to me. We can tend to this when we become a witness, when we observe, when we watch, when we notice and become aware of what is showing up.

***Many folks refer to this as a trigger. I choose to say light up or activate since I already have my mind which can be a strong and powerful opponent so I do not need anything else in my head that is a weapon to cause pain, hurt and suffering.  

And that is what happened just now, I picked up this card that I purchased last week and I say it with a new lens, a new perspective. Bringing us back to the beginning, full circle, the card read Love is free.

And the thought that entered my mind, as I gazed at the card was, “and I have been resisting it for as long as I know.”

Ah, yes. I see. This is see clearly now. An invitation to tend to me. To nurture myself. To forgive myself.

I see how I have had desires to do things, desires to be places other than I am. These desires were blocking me from opportunities that were showing up and presenting themselves to me here and now.  I can see that the root of this desire was competition and envy, mixed up with feelings of should and shame, that what I am doing is not enough.

What I see, what I am coming to accept is that what is for me, is for me. What is for you, is for you. What wants to express through me, wants to express through me because I am me, uniquely me. As others are uniquely themselves.  Rather than engaging with the thoughts of I should, or I want to, or I ought to or ever I plan to. Rather than giving attention to the self-doubt and self-negating stories in my mind, I am inviting myself to soften, to give myself permission to be, here and now. To show up fully. To be present without projections, ideas and expectations.

For I know that the moments that have had the most profound impact on the trajectory of my path in life, have not been planned. In fact, most influential events in life are not planned. Who knows what will come from the wheel of my car flying into a corn field? I can see how my desires, my wants, my plans, my agendas, my expectations and my ideas on how things should go has been limiting me. I see how closely I hold on to projections based on my preferences, my likes, my dislikes, my opinions and judgements and how they could have blocked and have prevented moments in life from happening for me.

I choose to remove the blockages that restrict me from being free. I choose to release fear of the unknown, for the unknown continues to present me opportunities that are far greater than I have known. I choose to loosen the grip of wanting to know, to make sense of, to understand and I surrender all of my actions and the energy I place on seeking control. For I know, from my own experiences, that what life has to offer me is far greater than I can comprehend, way more expansive that my narrow view of what I think is possible.  I choose to live here and now, fully present with all that is arising.

Just as the fly arrived on the inside of the window panel, this is where I am meant to be. I can think and say that I want to be ‘there’ or ask how did I get here, but then I would be seeking and projecting my ideas rather than trusting. And I know, I know if I was to be somewhere else, then that is where I would be.

There is no other place than I would rather be.

For love is free and I am me.

Laughing, smiling and in awe,

Sara

If you have been reading my pieces, a song that would resonate here, with this piece is from Jimmy Cliff’s I Can See Clearly Now-

“I can see clearly now the rain is gone.

I can see all obstacles in my way.

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.

It’s gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day.

Oh yes I can make it now the pain is gone

All of the bad feelings have disappeared

Here is the rainbow I’ve been praying for

Look all around, there’s nothing by blue skies

Look straight ahead, there’s nothing but blue skies”

Subtle and Not So Subtle Signs

For a long while now, I have found songs or specific verses of songs playing in my head. I used to not think much about it. Now, from this vantage point in my life, I see them as subtle signs. Clues that are given that provide insight into what is going on in my life. I say subtle, because at times I do not always acknowledge them let alone heed them. Until recently. Now I feel these phrases and lines from songs are really speaking to me.

I have always had a fond relationship to the song, Do You Realize? by the Flaming Lips.

Do you realize

that we’re floating in space?

Do you realize

that happiness make you cry?

You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Four years ago when I was driving in the car, I had an experience that was awe inspiring in the moment and it has been showing up recently for me. The sun was shining, I had the windows open (I’m confident I had the music up loud and I was signing along although this detail is not part of this memory) and I noticed a sensation in my body that felt, different. Maybe even weird. What is this, I thought to myself? What is this feeling?  Within moments of asking, of my inquiry, I realized the feeling was excitement. Excitement was buzzing though my body. I felt energy buzzing in my body. It was a feeling I had not felt in so long, long enough that the feeling felt foreign. Familiar enough to not scare me, but foreign in the sense that it was really unknown to me. I had forgotten what it was like to feel excited about something. I know. I know. We could be with this awareness for some time. So telling, right?

The “something” I was excited about was a concert at a small, intimate venue in the place I used to call home. I was on my way to see The Flaming Lips. It was magic. Pure magic. Looking back it was wonderful to be in that space, to be a part of the creative expression, the energy. All of it was bliss. And of yes, they played Do You Realize?.

Maybe it was a sign, a signal to say, wake up, pay attention, enjoy life Sara. Life is meant to be enjoyed. Experienced. Be in JOY. Do not let these moments pass you by. Do not get hung up and entangled in it all. It is all an illusion, just as we think that the sun really ‘goes down’ and ‘comes up,’ rather than realizing we are floating and spinning in space around the sun on this tiny blue dot. While simultaneously at times this tiny blue dot feels so big, so vast that the people I love feel far away. And then I realize this, all of this is an illusion and in perspective my thoughts, the drama I wrap myself up in, the stuff that is happening in my mind is so minuscule from the vantage point in space, really why does it matter?

Songs have a way of speaking to me. I notice the lyric over and over in my mind and usually, within time, I catch on to the meaning of the lyric, its subtle presence enticing me towards awareness, to a deeper understanding. To see clearly.

I’ve written about the times when Pearl Jam’s Rearviewmirror came to me. When I had a huge awakening with the Beatles’ All You Need is Love.  Looking back and reflecting, I see how for so long now the theme of the songs that arise are about Love. Which brings me to a conversation I was having with Lauren a few years back. We were sitting at a café enjoying a meal when I shared, “You know all of the 70’s and 80’s love songs? You know how they are written for someone else, how you can interpret them as someone writing the words to express their love for someone else. Well, I am realizing that these love songs, these love songs are written for me, so I can love myself.” Yes, I still feel the same way.

I mean, Whitney Houston’s Greatest Love of All. That song has been speaking to me since I was in fifth grade pumping my legs to get as high as I possibly could on the swing in my school playground. I recall signing the lyrics out loud. I heard that song come through my phone once in the middle of the night while I was in India. No joke, I am not kidding, I was sound asleep and woke up to the Greatest Love of All being played from the speaker of my phone.

“Learning to love yourself, that is the greatest love of all. And if by chance that special place, that you’ve been dreaming of leads you to a lonely place, find your strength in love.”

P.O.W.E.R.F.U.L. I could play this song over and over and over again. And I do.

There was a time when the lyric, “two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year,” from Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here would come to me. And looking back, it is true, the lyric and the title of the song.

Soon after that, the line “Ain’t nobody gonna break my stride, ain’t nobody gonna slow me down, oh no, I’ve got to keep on moving,” from Matthew Wilder’s Break My Stride became my theme. That was how I heard it, when in reality the line is “Ain’t nothin gonna break my stride. Nobody gonna slow me down, oh no, I got to keep on moving.”  In fact, in June while visiting Ria and headed to learn how to curl, she asked, “Sara, what is your pump it up song?” I shared this. That is how powerful and enlivening it is for me, both the title of the song and its refrain.

Fast forward to now, in early September I had “Don’t let the sun go down on me,” show up. Yes, this line from the song that holds the same title by Elton John and George Michael. When I dove deeper into the lyrics, I found “But these cuts I have, oh, they need love to help them heal.” A few days before that at the end of August, Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up was on constant replay in my mind. “Never gonna give you up. Never gonna let you down. Never gonna run around and desert you. Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye. Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.” Before that, in mid- August it was Ambrosia’s Make a Wish Baby.  It took me sometime to really hear this one. For a while I thought it was saying “take a risk, baby” which is a beautiful invitation as well.

“There’s a new sun arisin’ (In your eyes)

I can see a new horizon (Realize)

That will keep me realzin’ You’re the biggest part of me.

Need your lovin’ here beside me (shine the light)

Need it close enough to guide me (All my life)

I’ve been hopin’ you would find me You’re the biggest part of me.

Well, make a wish baby And I will make it come true.

Make a list baby, of the things I’ll do for you.

Ain’t no risk in lettin’ my love rain down on you

So we can wash away the past so that we may start anew.”

Then Steve Winwood’s Higher Love began showing up. I was hearing “Bring me a higher love, Where’s that higher love that I keep thinking of.” And when I look at the lyrics I read:

“Think about it, there must be a higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is wasted time
Look inside your heart, and I'll look inside mine.”

Beautiful. These messages are full of beauty. Signals, clues, offerings for me to see, to connect with my Self.

I say they are subtle, because I cannot see them.  Messages that I can see usually resonate right away- do you recall the time I shared the piece about the Roto-Rooter truck being directly in front of me on my way home twice in two days? In fact, I saw a Roto-Rooter truck and a plumbing truck pass each other today.  I see you!, I said as they passed me by. I get these messages loud and clear. I see them and I hear them. And while my hearing sense is good, I know can listen better. I shared this with Katrina today, we can all work on being more active listeners. Really hearing what is being said and what is not being said. What is held within the words and what is held in the space between and beyond the words.

For me, subtle messages show up by the way of songs, lyrics and phrases. How do they show up for you?

Yesterday, I woke with the lyric, “let the good times roll” from the Good Times Roll, by The Cars playing in my mind. Let’s stay with this.

Letting the good times roll while listening and tuning in,

Sara

PS. I can write a whole other piece about how phish lyrics play out in my mind. You know what, I will. I will write that and share it here soon.

Do Yourself a Favor, Do Us All a Favor

I have been hearing, “Do me a favor,” a lot in recent times. It comes in a variety of contexts with a variety of requests. Most often, the person that is asking for the favor to be done, is asking for help. Rather than asking for help directly though, they phrase it with, “Do me a favor.”

I’ve been playing with this idea of “favors” for some time and I have come to realize that we all can do each other a favor, we all can help one another out by taking full responsibility for our shit. Yes, you read that right. It is time we all take responsibility for what we do and say, what we do not do, what we do not say, when we act, all of it. For it has everything to do with us and not the ‘other.’

Which is not what we are taught, we are taught that our current state has to do with something outside of us, something external. How often have you heard, “____ made me do it,” or “it is all _____ fault.” “Can you believe what  _____ did to me?”

It has nothing to do with them. It has nothing to do with any outside of you. It has nothing to do with any “other.” It has everything to do with you. Your choices. Your consciousness state. I has everything to do with where you are, what you have dealt with, what you have experienced. It has everything to do with this. Not anyone else. And the more we gain an understanding to this, with this, then the stronger we are.

I know this through a variety of experiences. And I know you have experienced something similar. Say you are with a group of friends, all sharing in the same experience, all doing, creating and participating in the same thing. Yet each of you walk away with your own unique perspective, view, feeling state about that experience. Even though you all were there together. That is because we experience life through our senses and they communicate directly to the nervous system and our nervous system governs our feelings which are subtler than emotion and thought. There are folks who study this and write about this and if you are interested in learning more, turn to them. I am here simply sharing my own experience, the meaning and own understandings I have come to by studying myself, my patterns and my trends.

This is arising now as I listened back to a few recordings. As you know, I record conversations with myself to gain great insight.  Today, while I was listening, I was taking out, I was removing the actual connections, emotional attachment to the people who were the ones doing and saying things and leaving the container in which it was all happening. You know what, that is how I had actual, tangible proof that how I interpret situations, experiences, moments in life has NOTHING to do with anyone outside of me.

We, meaning the collective, often talk about being triggered. I do not like to think about having a weapon in my mind, besides the one that is already there, for it is strong and destructive on its own. Rather than a weapon, I choose the visualization of being lit up, like lighting or an energetic charge that activates something within me, stimulates something within me that I know now, need to pay attention to. For it is a signal, a signal to tune in to become aware to notice. It is a signal that says, here is an opportunity to grow.

In the past this would happen and I would react by either becoming paralyzed, frozen, stunned, unable to act or wanting to run, hide or my go to numbing, to avoid it all, by not addressing it and stuffing it down and away.

Since I have established a ritual in which I record my thoughts by taking with myself, I have found many benefits. This paired with my ability to witness myself, to become aware of and notice my patterns, trends, tendencies, responses and reactions, I am really able to see myself and how I participate in creating my truth, my reality.

For so long I thought it was dependent on someone outside of me, that I was a victim, that I had no say in how things would be, would go. That I was to succumb to the external world and I would simply have to deal with what came my way. But even that was not enough for me, so I would do everything I could to control everything, every event, every detail, every moment. This, I reasoned to myself, would prevent anything from happening that I did not like or did not want to encounter.

Guess what? It doesn’t work that way. That is not how life plays out and it is exhausting to control everything. I see now how I spent so much time controlling and such little time enjoying. I read over and over in my journals, Why can’t I be happy? Why can’t I soften in and enjoy? Why can I not be in the moment?  I know now it was because of fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the outcome. Fear of what was coming at me from around the corner. Fear of not being in control. So I did what many of us do, I tried to control.

I spent so much energy, I exerted so much energy trying to control. I say trying because one cannot control. It is not possible. There are way too many variables and possibilities to control everything. And I know now, when I seek to control, I am not in alignment and I do not trust the natural intelligence that brought me to this very moment.

Once when I was skiing, I was gaining momentum and while I knew I needed to turn and head down the mountain, I was scared. I was scared to make, to commit to making a turn. There I was, picking up speed as I traversed the mountain and saw a tree, the only tree in the whole open vast bowl that I was skiing in and chose, actually choose to crash into the tree rather than turning and heading down the mountains. Yep, I resisted the natural flow, the natural movement and gaining of momentum. I smile and chuckle now recalling a friend who was down below shouting up, “the trees always win.”

Trying to control. Attempting to control the external, arrives from a space where there is no trust, it is generated from a place where trust does not exist. For if we fully trusted, why would we seek control.  I can say this now, I can type this now, I am aware of this and I still attempt to control. There are threads of fear and control in almost all of my posts, for it is real and it has driven me for so long, it has been a go to attitude, perspective, way of being for as long as I can remember.

Now I am seeing that it is not working and really, if I am honest with myself, which is why I write in the first place, to I get past the surface level stuff and access the truth, it is exhausting. That is why I am so tired, I am tired because I am trying to control, I am seeking to control what will happen, when it will happen, how it will happen and all of this is happening because I trust only sometimes. I have not fully surrendered to trusting, to trusting that all will continue to unfold in the way it is meant to and how I respond in the very moment, will bring what is next.

See, we all have choices. We all have a choice. We have choices on how we view, perceive, interpret, understand. We have choices on how we make meaning of what is happening around us, within us. We have choices about how we act. We choose if we want to respond, if we want to react, if we close ourselves off and shut down, if we remain open and receive. We can choose to control others or we can choose to take responsibility for ourselves. That is the invitation I am offering here. To take radical responsibility for our choices. To realize and accept that we are in control of ourselves and we have choices.

That is what I can do, I can only control myself, my actions, my responses, what I do, what I say. We can do this with choices. We can access this freedom through choice. Everything else is on the outside and no matter how hard I have tried to fix, to set up the environment, to problem solve, to trouble shoot, to plan, to expect, to anticipate, it is all going to go the way it is meant to. I know this because I have spent so much energy fighting this, resisting this. It all plays out that ways it is meant to be. Why? Because each of us is on our own journey and while on this journey called life, we are presented with opportunities to grow. Life is school. These moments, these moments that light us up, they are here to show us the lessons we are here to learn, these are the invitations to grow. That is our work, to grow. When we seek to control, we are seeking to prevent these opportunities for growth from happening. We cannot do the work for someone else, that is not our role. I know, I have tried. Everyone has to figure their own stuff out, that is their journey and we each have ours. Our journeys are unique to and for us, and while they are similar, we are each meant to do our own work. Try as we might, we cannot prevent these opportunities from arising, because they are arising for a reason. Stop resisting. Stop controlling. All that is arising is a gift, all of it is a gift, even when we do not know why. Even when our mind cannot comprehend or make sense of why these things are happening to us. It’s that they are happening for us. All that is arising is an offering for me to see, to grow, to learn, to remember. And softening in to this, embracing this and really, truly knowing this will free up so much of my energy, energy that I have wasted on trying to control, to plan, to predict.

What does this look like you may ask? It is a question I am exploring too. For I know, I know firsthand, I know from experience that the greatest experiences in my life are the ones that are not planned, which is most of them. We cannot foresee the gifts that the future has in store for us, what is around the corner, what is next. We do not know. I know from experience that when I do know, when I have some context of what I might or may experience I often resist and I no longer want to do that either.

No. Rather I’d prefer to be here, now in this moment. Present. Not missing anything or letting anything pass me by.

Which brings me full circle to why I sat to write these words for us. Everything that is happening, has nothing to do with anyone other than you.

Try it. Give it a go. I invite you to think of a moment in your life when something highlighted you, when you got lit up, activated. When you noticed a different sensation in your body than the one you were feeling before the event happened. Record yourself retelling your experience of that moment, share your perspective on that moment. Then go back and listen. See if you can, while you are listening to listen from a witness stance, as an observer, notice what you are saying.  Then remove the contents, the emotional connections to, the stories you tell yourself about the participants in the experience, the folks who spoke, the folks who did or didn’t do and listen to your words from that perspective, with that lens. Notice.

Here is my go at it.

A few weeks ago, I was at a food pantry and was told that there was not more meat in the freezer. “Really?” I asked, as I walked to the freezer, opened the door and peered in. Shariq, who told me there was no more meat was standing by my side and said, “what, you do not trust me?” “No, no, I do trust you, I said, I wanted to take a look.” Yet really, everything about my actions said and showed that I did not trust.

A week later, I was standing at the refrigerator and said to Jim, there are no more eggs. “He walked behind me as I put the cardboard box into the recycling bin and opened the fridge. I laughed and thought, he didn’t trust me. I know what Shariq is talking about. I just experienced it firsthand.

Then this past week, I was cleaning up after dinner and found a Pyrex with a chip on its edge. Returning to the cabinet to get more containers to put the remainder of dinner in, my mom said, “it is not going to fit in there.” “I know,” I said with my voice elevated. I was lit up. My mind was saying, you don’t think I know that that food is going to fit in here, don’t you think I know that already? You don’t trust my decision making? Do you not think I am capable of reading the amount of food and determining which container would be best for it to fit in? “I am only trying to help,” she said deflated.

It was based on a level of trust. I can remove the actual people. I can disassociate with them on an emotional level, not getting tied in or entangled with what they were saying or how they were saying it. Rather than getting involved or attached, I can see them as key players, playing their roles in the way they are meant to, so that I can see thread arising- TRUST.

Another way to think about it is getting to the root. You can ask yourself, what is at the root of this? What is underneath this reaction? What is the cause of this response? Where is this coming from? Where is this stemming from? I find that I can ask the questions and it takes some time for the answer to appear, it does not come in that moment. As with anything that we do, it is a practice, it takes practice and commitment. As my niece says, “everyday, even on the days when it is raining and thundering.” We can always create time to practice, for this action to become a practice.

It is so easy to get sucked in to the drama, the emotional attachment and back stories that arise, that show up in these moments. It is so easy. So easy, so known, so familiar we do not even know it is happening. It is only since I have been deepening my awareness as an observer, as a witness do I see how it is all interconnected and how it all plays out. How I play a role in it. How I participate in it. We co-create life. Life is not happening to me. Life is me. My life is me, itself. No me, no life. It is that simple. And so is my role and participation in it when I observe. It gets complicated and complex once I get attached, invested, entangled. When I start to tell stories to myself, to justify, to explain, to make sense. He did ______, They said______, She is thinking_______... Especially when I feel I am being a victim, that the world is out to get me, that I am being attacked, that I am bad and that I deserve this.

No. No. No.

I have to stop it right there, because that is not true. That is not the truth.

The truth is that life can be no other way than the way that I am.

Life can be no other way than the way you are.

For life flows through us, life is us. Without us, there no life. No one else can experience our life. No one else can experience life from our perspective. Because no one is us, we are each our own individual unique expression of life and life is flowing through us in the way it is meant to for you, for me. It is not meant to be the same. Think about how dull that would be, all of this sameness? Everywhere you look, sameness. No unique expressions, no diverse expression, only the same.

The story we tell ourselves comes from our consciousness state, a combination of the feeling, emotion and thoughts that we are experiencing in that very moment. Ask yourself, do you want to live in fight, flight or freeze and spend your energy that way? Or do you want to live in a place of flow, surrender and trust?

Do yourself a favor. Do me a favor. Do us all a favor. Show up and take responsibly for yourself, your choices, your actions and your words. Stop placing blame on others and face yourself.

It is not easy work, but it is worth it. At times it is even funny.

Sit back and enjoy the ride. Or maybe I should say, get comfortable and enjoy the show, since you are the one creating it, directing it, designing and acting in it.

Doing the work myself and welcoming you to join me. Really though, who else is going to do it for us? No one, so let’s go!

Sara

After note: I took fully responsibility and shared my reflections with my mom about the container and my response, to which she shared, “Why are you wasting your time thinking about that?”

The Beginning of the 44th Journey Around Surya... a glimpse into the first few weeks

On the eve of my solar return, I was in shambles. Full of anger, guilt, surprise, confusion, disbelief…my heart was cracked, my arms were heavy and my eyes were fighting back the flow of tears that wanted to burst through. I felt like a dam that was losing its capacity to hold back the force.

The morning of my birthday, before I got into the car to go to the beach (for I have never spent my birthday at a beach) I decided to clear up the debris and take out the trash, leaving all that no longer serves behind.  If you are familiar with my journey, you might have a wrinkled face with a thought similar to, she has so much shit to clean up. Or maybe you smile because you too know that once you do a deep clean, you have to maintain in order for the dust not to settle, to accumulate and for you to collect it all again. 

That morning I recorded a long piece, a long conversation with myself, a facing of myself, a coming to grips with that which I am tired of carrying around, tired of holding on to, tired of being burdened by.

Here is an excerpt from that recording. I type it here since I have not yet learned how to edit my recordings….

“I am seeing how I need to soften and not be so rigid, because the rigidity is not helping me at all. And I recognize that I do not feel I was being rigid last night, I was just honoring a commitment to showing up for myself, which is beautiful in itself, that I want to do that for myself. That showing up to a commitment I made to myself is important to me and I am making it happen. Rebecca offered that I create space on either side of my commitment so nothing wavers…..

So I wake up in the morning and I realized oh, this really did happen, it is not pretend. And I feel guilt, I feel guilty, heavy. And then I realized, I place so many restricting rules on myself, rules I feel to conform to and it is exhausting. I see how I have my own way of doing things and my own way of doing things is wanting to push through these barriers of how I feel, think I should be doing things. It doesn’t need to be so rigid. So there is this rigidness and this softness and what is real and what is not real and then all of the karmic stuff and I know that I am here to learn and I cannot get it wrong and it feels like I am doing it wrong and messing up and there is so much pressure it is really tiring.”

When I lived in a cabin on the edge of the wilderness, I was in awe with the wooden slats that framed the space.  There were what looked like a tear, a rip, with stitches on either side to hold it together. I would often lay in bed or sit in my red chair staring at these marks on the wall while the line, “you can sew it up but still see the tear,” from U2’s Sweetest Thing played in my head. It feels like this now, and as I type this I see tear can be read like tear or rip, but in a different context it can read like tear, or tear drop. It feels like I am being ripped open again and again. And the tears have wanted to flow and I am holding them back.

I am resisting. What am I resisting? I am resisting myself. Aspects of myself that I do not want to see, accept. Interesting, for these aspects are powerful and they are the truth of who I am. I spend time thinking about what others think of me and seeking that external. Often when I am seeking, placing power to those whose opinions of me do not matter, whose view of me is not in alignment. I am learning to turn inwards and trust internally, to trust my own inner wisdom and guidance. And at the same time, I am seeing that there are those, those who I love, who really see me, who offer glimpses of me to me. Friends who see more of me than I allow myself to see. They see aspects of me before I allow myself to see them within me. So it is a both and, it is not that I can not seek external, it is about whose voice I am giving power to. So really, when I think about this, I see that I am fighting myself, I am fighting these lower tendencies, these lower, reduced, fragmented pieces of myself that I have picked up from others and that I am still giving power to. WHOA. No wonder why I say enough, I am done. I am tired, I can not take this anymore. I see how I am breaking through and standing up and claiming me.

I know I have done this before. I know I have. I have started this work. What I know is that I saw glimpses of myself, pieces and parts and I had strength to do the work, yet not to sustain it. It ebbed and flowed. It had peaks and drops, periods of dedication and consistency and then void and avoidance.

Now I am backed. I know I am backed. I am backed by my own self, what I know about myself and how I show up for myself. How I have shown up for myself and how I am doing it now.

And all that is arising, is arising to show me traces of where I have been, what I have picked up along the way. It is show like the pink ring in the tub in the Cat and the Hat books, I can see it. Since I can see it, now I can clean it up.

With this, I feel called to share imitate recordings, conversations that I record for myself, here now with you. I feel called to share glimpses of this inner work. Why? So you can witness the pull of the mind, the wavering, the questioning, the inquiry, the longing. So you know you are not alone.

Here they are:

I celebrated my birthday at the beach and a few days later I went to Six Flags Great Adventure. When I got home that night, I sat for my evening practice and recorded this:

We are never alone. We are always held. We are always guided.

Everything is happening for us and while I do not always know why, I trust, softening and surrendering knowing I am loved always in all ways.

And so are you,

Sara

Enough

What is enough?  What does enough mean? What does enough mean in various contexts?

I have used the word enough in the most recent pieces I have written. Enough as a word is really arising and making its presence known to me. I’ve written- enough already and I am not enough.  I’ve been using this word- enough. So then what is enough? What do I really mean?

Enough.

A quick search reveals this meaning:

As much as or as many as required

With words similar to sufficient, adequate, ample, abundant, as much as necessary

And I smile because when Jeanette asked me, Sara, when you say you are not enough, what do you mean by enough, I responded, “I cannot live up to what I am expected to do, what I think I should be doing or ought to be doing, like it is never good enough.”

There it is again. Enough.

When I was teaching second grade, we would play a game called Broken Calculator.  In that game, we would pretend a key on the pad was broken and to get the numeral to appear on the screen one would have to use combinations of other numbers. For example, the 7 key was broken, so you were not able to press 7 to get to it appear on the screen. You could however use 6+1 or 5+2 or 10-3 or 8-1.

Once, when conferring with a writer I offered a variation of the ‘game’ and instead of having a broken key, I asked the writer to think about what other words they could use to describe the word they were using. And it is this version of the game that arises for me here, now.  If the word enough was broken, or if I could not use it, what would I say instead? What would I use to replace the word to convey similar meaning?

So here is the conversation in my mind:

You are not enough.

What do you mean, enough?

You are not as much as I require you to be.

Okay. Good. Now who is the I that is requiring you?

Others. Others who I have given power to, placed value and importance to, on. My parents, my family, people who do not even know me, who look at me a judge me, who think I am someone, something that I am not. Folks who know parts and pieces of me, who see only what they want to see, who see pieces of me that only fit within their narrow view, their narrative of who they think I am based on what they have seen me do or heard about me through someone else.

Okay, what do they require you to be?

Maybe something that I am not, maybe something that I feel I cannot live up to, their standards, their expectations. Feeling like I am always falling short. Not delivering, not doing.

Does this feel true? Do you really think that others, especially those who love you feel this way about you? Say these things in their mind about you?

Sometimes. Well, when you put it that way, no. No. I do not. I think that is made up, it is a projection. Like the made up conversations I have in my mind when I feel wronged, or when I feel the need to explain or justify. I am making it up, they are conversations in my mind, it is not real. I mean it is real to me, but the person is not there in front of me, I am making up what they would say in response to what I say. I have not actually heard folks say these things to me, well I have. Truth is, I have heard folks say that me being me is not enough. But I know that is not true. There is a deep part of me that knows this is not true. And there is another part of me that has heard this, seen or felt actions towards me that have shown me that this thought, this belief is true. I know I have been in environments in which this is the projection, the story that is told to me, shown to me. And it feels real. It feels true. 

Yes, that is true. That has happened. Those experiences are real. Can it also be true, that the ‘you’ you speak of, the other, the they, is actually yourself?

Yes, it could be. I see how strong my mind is. How crippling it can be, how limiting it can be. I know how hard I am on myself.  I’ve seen how my mind wants me to stay the same, continue doing the same, the familiar the known. It is a creature of comfort and to break free requires work, effort and energy.

What is at the root of this, it sounds to me a lot like comparison. There are also threads of expectations in here.  Who are you comparing yourself to? What expectations are you holding of yourself? 

This idealized version of a person, I suppose. Someone who is doing it all, getting things done, being successful, making money, contributing to society. Someone who is perfect. Living up to this perceived notion of what I should be doing and how I should be doing it. And when I am not, when I think I am not, I feel I am letting myself down, that I am not doing enough. That I am not enough. I fear that others feel the same way about me.

Ah, there is it. The truth of who you think you should be is revealed. Beloved you are all of that. You are doing. You are getting things done. You are showing up. You are sharing. You are leading. You are teaching. You are guiding. You are contributing to society. You are doing all of this is more. You are courageous. You are strong. You have a voice and you are using it. You are sharing your voice, here, with others so they do not feel so alone, so apart. You are being honest with yourself. You reflect on how you can do things differently and you accept how things have been done, how the choices you have made have played out and brought you here to this very moment. Beloved, you cannot get this life wrong. You cannot. You are not a mistake. You are here, living, fully and everything is happening for you. For you to see who you are, truly, for you to come home to the center of your being, by being YOU. 

I often have conversations with myself. In recent years they are softer and more accepting, before that I was so harsh and critical with myself. You see that playing out here in the beginning, on the surface. Once I keep going, staying with the process and going deeper, the truth is revealed.  I step back, I disconnect from my ego mind and witness. I watch from my third eye, in observer mode. I ask myself questions and see what arises. I know that I can separate myself from my mind, from my ego, from the stories. And at the same time, the pull, the power, the tug, the force is so strong.

Okay, to be clear and to bring clarity to this, I would like to share that I am enough. I know this. I am more than enough. I am sufficient. I am adequate. I am abundance. I am me and there is no one else I would rather be. I accept and include every moment that I have experienced that has lead me here to this very moment. 

What I am becoming more and more aware of, what I am noticing is that there are these hidden stories, narratives, ideas and thoughts that I have picked up along the way. I say picked up because that is how I see it. Somewhere along the way I have hooked into or allowed myself to be hooked into or allowed a hook to be set into me and these hooks, bind me or hold me to these versions, these narratives of me that we were once told, said, projected and I have accepted them to be true, accepted them to be markers of truth, I have allowed them to become melded with my identity, my perception of myself and in this molding, this allowing I have then begun operating from this place which then others begin to see these stories within me and thus the cycle continues, it is perpetuated on and on and on and on.

Until now, because now I see. I mean, it is not new. I have been seeing for some time now, I am aware of this. What I am noticing now as I witness this, is that these stories, these narratives, these conditioned set views of me, of myself and they do not mesh, they do not jive with the essence of me, of who I know I am.

Here, in this place is where I notice the resistance. And the more I disconnect, dismantle, become aware, the stronger the pull. There is this resistance that arises and it is fierce. I am a fierce competitor of myself. Strong and determined. I am a true opponent. At times it is fierce resistance as fierce fight, warrior stance, strong spine, eyes lifted and forward that say, do not mess with me. I grew up loving the movie, Adventures in Babysitting and am recalling the moment when Elizabeth Shue, the babysitter says, “Don’t fuck with the babysitter.” It is like this fierceness arises within, when we have had enough. There it is. Enough. Let’s try the technique,

It is like this fierceness arises within, when we have had as much as we can take, as much as we can stand, as much as we allow.

We can tolerate something for only so long and then we are done. Yet, in the acknowledgement of being done with that, there is the lingering energy, the lingering impact that leaves its residue, leaves traces behind, even when you feel you have taken out the trash, used the garbage disposal, wiped it up or flushed the toilet. When you think you have gotten it all, Whoomp there it is. More arrives, more appears and it surprises you.  Another phrase from teaching is arising now, “When you think you are done, you have only just begun.” There is always more. More. More. More. Always more to see, unpack, revisit, address, acknowledge.

Even when we think, I have had enough, meaning I have done all that I can, all that I have energy for, all that I feel is necessary, there is still more. Always more.

So when I sit and ask myself, what is at the root, what is below all of this self-hatred, self-violent thoughts, what is the cause of all of this and I heard, You are not enough, you being you is not sufficient, I was surprised and simultaneously humbled.

Ah yes. You remain. I see how you linger. How I thought I dove to the depths to excavate you and send you on your way and yet here you are. Always more to be done. While simultaneously acknowledge how much has already been done, be brought to the surface, exposed to the light, become known, no longer hidden in the depths and recesses, in the corners and behind closed doors.

What is that phrase, “Leave no stone unturned.” Yes, yes. I am the path and the path is me. There are no obstacles on my path, every moment, every experience is for me to see.

And within that, the perceived obstacles that I think are on my path are the ones that I have picked up and placed here, the hooks, the snares, the entanglements are all here for me to see, for me to learn, for me to grow.

How do I know this, you may ask? How do I know that these obstacles are a part of my path, a part of the path that I walk on this journey? I know this because there are opportunities again and again and again for me to grow, to learn, to see and to do differently.

Why? Because we come from fullness, we are fullness and when we give we are also full. There is never a place of lack, scarcity, there is never not enough. We are abundance in nature. We are full. We have ample supplies, reserves of energy, of support, of backing. Always. In all ways. We are never alone, even when we feel so alone, so separate, we are always a part, a part of this loving universe. This loving universe. A part of this one expression of intelligence that is always pulsing, always alive, always giving, always receiving. It has no end, there is no end.

How do I know I am enough? How do I know I am abundance itself? I know this because I have accessed this. I have experienced this. I know this from experience of connecting to the pulsating energy that is us, that is in me, that is in you. That is me. That is you. It is the same, and it simultaneously expresses itself as you and as me. It is before the words and can be located to express it, it is beyond any word to express it. And it is. It is this. It is that. It is full. When we take from it, is remains full. When it gives, it remains full. When it receives it remains full. It is always here, this natural intelligence, and its nature is abundance.

A friend yesterday offered a version of memory that I had not been exposed to, or maybe I have but since I have a tendency to forget, I might have forgotten. He shared that memory is here for us to remember what has happened and to use it as a tool to grow, to move forward, to evolve. To not do the same again. To not fall into the same trap, the same pattern, the same way. To do differently. To respond rather than react. To open to love rather than constrict in fear.

While I know no two things can happen the same way twice, I also know that I am presented with opportunities to grow in every moment. I often say to myself, “let’s do that again,” or “take two” or three or four or five or six or seven. I will take as many opportunities offered for me to see the true me. Not the one with projections and stories, not the one that has said you are not enough, you are not sufficient, you are not as much as I require you to be. For each time I step, there is an opportunity that is being presented to me to grow, leading me to a new place, a new space of understanding.

A new space of acceptance.

Isn’t that beautiful?

Loving you as me,

Sara

Dismantling

I located this piece in my pieces in progress folder on my desktop. It was written on March 6, 2020, a week before I departed India to arrive here in the US. I find it fascinating that today, really I am in awe, of all the days since I have written with piece, over 18 months ago, this is the piece I discover, uncover in the pieces in progress folder. And as I write this, I have a sly smile knowing this morning I was called to write a piece titled Enough which I will post once I sit with it for a few days.

“What brought you to India?” as a question, in various forms is a common question to receive.  Up until yesterday, I have shared a version of my “story,” which begins with “looking back, I can see now that I have been slowly dismantling my life, to make this possible.”  Slowly dismantling my life.

I have been really looking at my ego, very aware of its presence, its energy, its patterns, its desires. Since I was asked once what my ego looked like, I have given my ego a look, a role as a character. I see it as a phantom in a cape with a dark hood covering its head. He has a sinister look in his eyes and his hands are often up, slowly touching each finger to one of its counterparts on the opposite hand. I regularly invite my ego to the table or to pull up a seat to have conversations, to have an exchange. I have recorded few of these conversations and I have had the strength to go back and listen to them. As I spend time with my self and my ego, yes, I know they are separate. POWERFUL.

I am not my ego! I recognize and acknowledge all of the energy and power that my ego uses to try to dominate and to control and I KNOW that I am NOT MY EGO.  My ego made up, it is a false identity and it needs my lower mind, the mind that is consumed in worry, self doubt and fear to reign. The ego thrives only on fear. Fear is its fuel.

EGO, for me shows up as what I do, what I have done, my successes, my failures, who I know, my connections, where I went to school, where I grew up, the clothes I wear, the friends I keep, the decisions I make, the jobs I work. In my experiences, I have found that ego is consumed by doing actions.

I am a human being. Not a human doing.  I am so grateful to be here, to simply be here to have this awareness rise and bubble up within in.  I have known that I am a human being, this notion, idea, phrase, descriptor has risen within me before India, it now has a new meaning, there is more depth.

Here is an example, I am currently volunteering at Mother Miracle School.  I got the call, well it was a text that read: What day are you coming to the school. We want to schedule you to take the heights and weight of 444 kids. Ready….

I showed up. I arrived with a heart full of love and a wide smile, ready for whatever is asked of me.  That is how my experience continues daily, I show up with full presence, no expectations, completing what is asked of me. I am. I am here. I am present and with that I am simply being.

Yesterday, I was sitting, enjoying being kissed by the sun, drinking a warm chai and the actual meaning of “mantel” arose. A mantel meaning, a structure, a support that is above a fire, a space to hold or place things. I looked it up. I looked up to different spellings because the le, el rule is a s rule that I have not yet mastered (as well as alter and altar- thanks Mom).

I was in awe, pleasantly charmed with the meaning of both variations of the spelling (ah yes, homophones. I know they are different words, with different meanings that sound the same).

Take a look:

Mantel- a beam, stone or arch serving as a lintel to support the masonry above the fireplace.

Mantle- a loose sleeveless cloak or shall, worn especially by women.

It also means to clothe in or cover; cloak or envelop. To be covered with a coating. To spread over a surface. In ornithology it is a bird's back, scapulars, and wing coverts, especially when of a distinctive color. In zoology it is outer or enclosing layer of tissue, especially (in mollusks, cirripedes, and brachiopods) a fold of skin enclosing the viscera and secreting the substance that produces the shell. In geology, the mantle is the part of the earth that lies between the crust and the core.

***As I edit and add pictures, preparing to post this piece, now in October 2021, I also read that mantle means ‘an important role or responsibility that passes from one person to another.’ I am going to sit with this, be with this and allow it to soak in.

It was then that I realized, it isn’t that I have been dismantling my life, I have literally, taking off what I placed on the mantle what I placed there, to show. Right, we place things on our mantel to show what has value and meaning to us. In that moment, I realized that I have literally been taking off the mantel, my identity, my ego, what I thought I was.  I see that I am also removing the covering, the cloak I wear as well as removing the outermost covering and accessing what lies beneath the surface. So it that sense I am doing both, dismantling and dismanteling.

This is HUGE.  Seven years ago I choose to leave my job, my career, my profession is a defined sense as a classroom teacher with a salary and benefits, two and a half years ago my marriage ended, and I left my home and all that was wrapped up in that behind. Its not that I was dismantling my life, for here I am, living this life. I was dismantling my identity, the things I surrounded myself with that identified me. I am a teacher, I am married, I have a house and a garden and a dog (who I love so, so, so very much).

I remember when I was preparing to depart for India and I asked my sister to watch an oil painting that I purchased when I was in Maui for my first yoga retreat. It was a few months after my divorce was final and it was a huge step for me to take to embark on journey inwards with my body.  Carol and Ariel Mann, two beloved teachers of mine hosted Sole to Soul weekend and one day while walking in Makawao my friend walked into an Jordann Gallery. It was there that I spotted this beautiful octopus painting that I knew would be coming home with me.  Rather than having Mister Octopus, as he is named, sit in a box, I asked my sister to have him. She placed him on a shelf, that looks like a mantel in her kitchen and said to me, “it is not like you are going to die when you are there.” Softly, under my breath I said, “pieces of me will die when I am there, many parts of me that are no longer needed will die off and fade away.” While it is not that I died, aspects of myself have fallen away and I see how I no longer give or hold value to these aspects.

With those “things,” with those identities no longer defining me, I am me. I am here. And there are pieces of my identity that I still identify with and cherish- I am a woman, I am a daughter, I am a sister, I am an auntie. I am a friend. I am a leader. I am a guide. I am strong. I am powerful and I am meant to be here, right now.

I am these, yes, and I am also so much more vast and diverse while simultaneously simply and powerfully light and love.

In that light and love,

HUGS

Sara

What Are Your Next Steps?

This question has been coming to me for some time now. Folks ask me this question. It appears as a question, a genuine question. One that folks ask because they care, because they are curious. Because they love.

Yet this question meets me and evokes unease, tears, nausea, uncertainty- at times. Sometimes I can answer this question with confidence and in a knowing. Other times, I allow the stories and perceived stories, the perceptions I make up in my mind that align with the societally narrative of what a 44 year old woman is supposed to be doing with her life, in her life- these markers of status, of success, of accomplishments. And when this question meets me in a place of fragility, a place of not trusting, not owning my path and that which I am already doing, here and now, I get tangled. Tangled.

I recently read The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan. it I accepted her words as an invitation to look within. She writes, “When a ball of tangled line unravels, what remains on the barb?”

So I sit with this, I ask myself what is it that gets me hooked in the first place? I sit with this. I sit in the stillness, I sit and sift through the voice in my mind, the one that justifies, explains, protects. The one that quickly finds an answer, to excuse my tears, my discomfort, my tiredness. The one that puts up a shield to hide, to deflect. I reflect. What is it on the barb? What brought me into this place, this space?

That I am not enough.

Those are the words that arose just now, those words arose from the stillness and silence of the mind. I am not surprised. I am not at all surprised to meet these words here, for so long this is the story I have told myself, this is the story I have taken on, this is the role I have dutifully played. Over and over and over and over and over again.

There are so many events in life, words, phrases, interactions with others that light me up. Light me up on the inside. In this context, I am referring to the lighting up as being stirred up, churned up, evoked. The stuff that brings feelings of nausea, clenched jaw, tears, tiredness. The stuff that indicates that there is much more still here, waiting to be excavated, addressed, brought to the surface. Or as my teacher says, the stuff that is being highlighted so it can be deleted.

Last week, to mark my solar return and the next journey around the sun, I went to the beach.  I went to be with the ocean. Together we were. She and I. I entered her.  She was fierce, she was strong. As I stepped, my foot would drop down and the next step it would rise up, different from most other times when I would walk in on a flat, sloping surface. She carved the surface below to rise and fall, to have dips and peaks, these ups and downs. As I walked, she knocked me over and turned me around. I lost my sense of direction, I felt her force crashing over me, spinning me, pulling me down and spitting me out. I was exhausted.

That is exactly how I feel when I am being lit up. Disoriented. Turned around. Churned up.

While I was in the water, I did not see the debris. When I was in the water I saw the waves rising from the ocean and returning, crashing down and into one another. It was only when I stepped on shore that I saw all that had once been in the ocean, maybe in her depths, maybe on the surface, I saw all of the debris, that which is not meant to be there. I located the green foam from flower arrangement, bottle caps, a pen from a Comfort Inn, Styrofoam pieces, plastic wrappers, a golf ball, straws… all of this stuff that does not belong there. Stuff that was not noticeable while I was in the ocean, but stuff that was once clearly there and now deposited on the shore.

This is exactly how I feel when the stuff is brought to the surface, it surprises me, as if I forgot that it was there while simultaneously knowing that it is does not belong.

And here we are, with all of this stuff exposed. Brought to the surface. Litteraly. Yes, I know it is not spelled this way, and this is how I spelled it here in this moment. Full of litter. Literally and figuratively. Both.

What to do?  What does one do?

What do you do? What do you do when stuff is turned up, there in front of you for you too see?

You know what I do, I see it. I acknowledge it. I face it. I accept it. At times I own it. That which is mine to own, I own. That which I bring in to situations, my biases, my judgement, my lens, my perceived perceptions, I look at closely. Where is all of this coming from? What is at the root?  Where does this all begin?

Which brings me back to where I began, the simple, unassuming question of “What is next for you?”

For me, the question implies that what I am doing in this moment, is not enough. That there is something else, something more that I am meant to do, supposed to do, should do. And, here is it is, since I am not doing, says “I am not enough.”

Wow. This is deeply entwined. A big root ball, tangled, twisted, intertwined. Connected. Deeply rooted and deeply connected.

It plays into the story of what is successful, what is right, what is the path that society deems is necessary to be worthy and deserving.

I know I am not alone in navigating this. I can’t be. There are others, there are others of us who are asking themselves similar if not the same questions.

Am I enough?

Am I doing enough?

Am I worthy?

Am I deserving?

I often ask, “what more do you want me to do?”

And then I laugh. I full on laugh. Laugh out loud.  Who am I asking?

Who is the You? Who am I talking to? Who have I given that power to?

It is not you, it is me.

It is the conversation I have with my own self, the discussions in my mind, the intimate one that no one hears.

And here I sit. With this knowing and acknowledgement that, the very thing I am resisting is all within. These stories, these narratives, these feelings- all deposited by something else, all debris that is not meant to be here. Yet it is. And here I sit. Sit with all that is arising. That which brings me to laugher, that which brings me to tears, that which brings me to nausea, that which brings me to exhaustion.

That which brings me to this very moment.

Here. Now.

Not thinking about the next steps or where I will go or should be.

Because what matters is what you do in this very moment. Not when. Not then.

Now.

Sitting here now, grateful for the opportunity to share my voice, to use my voice.

To have a voice.

Humbly,

Sara

Face Yourself Fully

You cannot change yourself until you face yourself. -Anand Ji

My nieces and I often sing the lyrics to Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror.

And when we do, I smile for a lot of reasons. They choose to break into song, this song of all songs when we are walking, playing airplane on the front lawn, cruising around the cul de sac with ginger ales. It reminds me of my fifth grade graduation, we practiced singing this song in the library, but ended up not singing it because it was not as fast paced as the recorded version when we sang along with our music teacher’s piano.  I smile because the words resonate with me, they always have and they really are now. So when I heard my nieces sing this song this week, we turned it on, grabbed spoons as microphones and began singing.

“I’m starting with the man in the mirror

 I’m asking him to change his ways.

No message can be any clearer,

if you want to make the world a better place

take a look at yourself and

make the change.”

I am fully facing myself. All of it.  Sometime last year I made a huge revelation that in order to receive love, to feel loved, I had to give something of myself. I had grown to understand love as a transaction. When I first wrote those words, I stopped. I stopped typing and sat with what came out, what was coming up.

Now, I see that was on the surface and as I access more depth, more is being revealed. I see that I actually feel responsible for the actions of others, in some way I feel I deserve to be shunned, ignored, threatened, abused verbally and physically. Yes. You are reading that right, I feel I deserve it. That in some way my actions, by me being be, has activated something within another that causes them to react and as a result they are punishing me, that their choices, their actions are done and I am to accept them because I deserve them, I deserve to be punished.  I know. Let’s sit with this for a moment. Or many. This is huge.

It is disturbing to read. It is disturbing to think. It is disturbing to hear myself say these words out loud. And for me, to me they have been the truth, the way I have been operating, the way in which I have been carrying myself in the world.  Accepting the mistreatment, the lack of respect, taking it on, internalizing it as if I deserve it.

Ick. Ick. Ick.

And here it is. Out. Written. Spoken. No longer hidden. Uncovered. Revealed. Known. 

I do not deserve this. You do not deserve this. We do not deserve this.

That is the thing with things that are known, once they are known, they cannot become unknown. You can hide, you can pretend to not know, you can stuff it in closet, sweep it under the rug, turn off the lights, and yet, you know it is there, lingering.

Now, this is known about me. This being, somewhere along my journey I have become conditioned to feel responsible for the harmful, hurtful actions of other towards me, that in some way, my actions have prompted others to make these choices, choice to hurt and harm me and that in some way I am responsible for this pain, for this hurt that is being done to me. I have come to believe, that his is happening to me because I deserve it. Somewhere I have connected my actions with others actions. I have associated deserving the irresponsible choices of others as a form of punishment.

I see how we all have been conditioned in one way or another. You want something and someone who has the thing you want tells you no, and you ask again and again and again. And because the person who is holding the thing you want so bad becomes tired of hearing you over and over again, they say yes.  That, that message, that carries forward in to the world, so years later when someone says no or stop the person thinks they can keep going, being persistent and eventually you will give in.

I am here to tell you. NO. NO LONGER. I am standing firm, in warrior status, standing strong, grounded in the very truth of my being. NO. No means NO. Stop means STOP. Listen to the words that come from my mouth. Enough already. Enough.

No one should have to repeat themselves. No one should have to say No or Stop or Enough more than once.

We need to honor the words that are spoken the first time. Our words that are spoken need to be honored. Not later, not after you keeping trying and being persistent, NOW.

You know why this is relevant now, because I am saying enough. I am acknowledging that I did not cause the way folks speak to me, my actions are not the problem. I am not responsible for the actions of others. No I am not. What is mine is mine and I own it, I am facing myself fully and owning it. What is not mine is theirs, and what is theirs is theirs and I am no longer claiming it and taking responsibility for it. 

For so long I have had dreams about bathrooms and shit, releasing the waste, sending it down the drain, flushing it away.  A few weeks ago. I dreamt that I had to go to a yard store to pick up a vessel, it looked like a closet, to poop in.  So, I picked it up, I do not know if I carried it on my back, with a cart or a trailer, what I do know is that I brought it to the place I was and I pooped in it. Instead of leaving it there, with me, I returned it to where I got it from.  At the time, I did not make much sense of the dream.

Then, when I was writing it in my journal it came, the meaning came, I AM RETURNING ALL OF THE SHIT I HAVE COLLECTED WILLING OR UNWILLING OVER THE YEARS TO THE SENDER, TO ITS ORGINAL OWNERS, SAYING NO LONGER, THIS IS NOT MY SHIT TO TAKE ON, TO DEAL WITH, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR SHIT.

And you know what, we aren’t. We are taught, many of us are taught to not take that which is not ours. So why did I feel compelled, responsible, like it was my job to take on others shit.

You know what else we are taught, to accept it. To accept what is happening. To shut up, to not speak out. To not question, to not say anything. This teaching is powerful, it is a silent teaching, it is a teaching spoken though the eyes and actions, the teaching of power, control and fear. POWER. CONTROL. FEAR.

What I do know is that now I know this, I am aware. This awareness is here, front and center, loud and clear and I am acknowledging it. I am accepting it. I am taking full responsibility for all of this. For silencing myself from a place of fear, for taking that which was not mine and I am releasing it all to the original owner and for feeling that I deserve to be treated this way. I am not a dumping ground, I am not a vessel to hold your shit, your anger, your hurt, your pain.  I am not here for you to take you unwanted, unresolved shit out on me.

NO. Nope.

You know why? I know now that I am worthy. I am worthy of being loved. Feeling loved. Being treated with respect, dignity. I am worthy of being seen and spoken to.  Not only am I worthy of this and so much more, I am deserving of being seen, heard, acknowledged. These are basic rights of individuals, of human beings. I am here, claiming ground, standing firm on solid ground saying these actions, this behavior, this way of being, acting from a place of fear, the place that where power and control reside no longer acceptable.

Now I know. I used to not know this.

How you may ask, how did I not know I was worthy and deserving?

How do you not know things? For me, I do not know things because I have not experienced them, I have not felt them, I have not been told them, or interacted with in a way that shows this.

For me, I am okay not knowing. It is okay that I did not know, because now I know. Since I now know, I am facing myself. I am seeing myself. I am aware of patterns and trends, well grooved paths, familiar routes I have taken to be submissive, to make myself smaller, unseen, not heard.

Maybe I did know this and I forgot. I have a tendency to forget. When we forget, we remember. In remembering we realize we had forgotten. Well, I am here to say out loud, here and now, I am strong and powerful beyond measure. I know this as truth. I know this now and NO ONE can take this from me, NO ONE can silence this. No one. No thing. No Longer.

For I am here now. Facing myself FULLY.

“I’m starting with the man in the mirror

 I’m asking him to change his ways.

No message can be any clearer,

if you want to make the world a better place

take a look at yourself and

make the change.”

I’m starting with me. Making the changes within myself, for I know that is what I can do.

Taking the steps. Accessing my strength. Owning my power. Fearlessly being me. Free being me. Unapologetically me. Kirya, evolutionary action. Here. Now. Doing this for me, for us. Standing for all of us for have ever felt this and experienced this, you are not alone.

Inviting you to do the same. If you are not ready yet, know that these words I speak are also spoken for you. We rise. We stand. Together. Arm in arm. You are not alone.

With an embrace,

Sara

What is Familiar was Once Unfamiliar

I found myself drawn to the stillness of nature this morning. While walking I felt called to record short, one minute breath invitations for The Auspicious Octopus. I stood up after recording the third or fourth one and as I began to walk, a Great Blue Heron flew over the pond which I was sitting near. His flight, his wingspan, his presence, knowing he was there with me while I recorded delighted me oh so much. What a beautiful gift to be able to see him there. 

I meandered. Following the path as it led me. As I walked, I began to become aware of the path that laid out in front of me. Which led me to thinking about the path, our path. And how, for each of us our path is unique. And how our path is constantly shifting and changing with each step. As I walked on this path, this trail, I noticed how the environment varied, sometimes slightly, sometimes more pronounced. As the path led, I began counting my steps. While counting I noticed every step brought me to a space that looked different.

The invitation here for me, is to accept that you step and as you step it is familiar, its known. When you are in it looks kind of similar and then you step and it doesn’t look familiar anymore. Then, being in that space, the space that at one time didn’t look familiar becomes familiar and then you keep stepping. On and on like that. It happens again and again and again and again.

As that awareness rose within me, I made a choice to take a picture to visually show how this invitation presented itself to me. As I continued to walk, I counted 30 steps and stopped to take a picture. I noticed was each time I held up the phone to take a photograph, my necklace was reflected on the screen. (The necklace that I wear says fearlessness in Sanskrit. It was gifted to me by a family while working with their son in Brooklyn many years ago. I recently rediscovered this gift and find the discovery to be in alignment with my life. Living Fearlessly). When I arrived at the car and opened the back to take off my soggy socks and muddy shoes, I noticed my Sidi bike shoes. Siddhi. Siddhi in Sanskrit means qualities, gifts. Yes. Yes. Yes. Fearlessness is a siddhi I am growing, evolving, embracing, cultivating. Naturally. Effortlessly.

At times the path may appear wide or narrow. At times the path may appear well tread or overgrown. At times there are markers indicating you are on the right path. At times you may wonder where am I going?

Trust yourself. Activate your innate gifts, your innate capabilities. Your siddhis.

Every. Single. Step.  

Dancing in this beautiful gift of eternity,
Sara