Everything Will Be Ok In The End

At the end, I wasn't ok. I thought I did everything right to end this project of #101DaysofAwakening and I really didn't like that it was over. 

I looked at my resistance to ending things I love. I discovered my feelings of pain and hopelessness that came with the end. I took time to celebrate what I had done in the first 101 days of 2014 and I was awed by how far I had come and how much I had grown. Yet I was still feeling unsettled about the whole ending process. 

I wanted to move on to the next project AND I needed to find resolution to the conflicted feelings I was having about #101DaysofAwakening. So I sat with it...for two weeks... and then... I got it. I now know how to end this project but let me fill you in on my process. 

When the 101st day came I felt the grief accompanied with the ending. I wanted to do something symbolic to wrap up the process so I took all my pages of processing One Belief Statements  and I reread each statement out loud, said good bye to it and burnt it. I did this process with my husband and when I had burnt the final sheet I told him of my new intention and who I was now that I didn't believe those stressful thoughts. It was a beautiful night, felt free and renewed. I felt totally connected with my husband and deeply in love. The next day I read the intention I had written for this project and I felt I had  nailed it! It was a weekend of great celebration! 

The following week I felt lost. I knew what I wanted to do for the next project AND something felt off about the whole thing I couldn't put my conscious finger on what was causing my discomfort with moving forward. 

Thanks to the #101DaysofAwakening I have learned to pay attention to my feelings. They are signals from my body letting me know that something needs attention. The tricky part to this whole process is that I am developing my ability to interpret these feelings and their meaning.

In the first week I attributed my upset to my new project. It was going to be on #101DaysofYoga. I was going to do 30 minutes of yoga everyday with  focus on spirituality, meditation and deep breathing. I'm glad I objected to that before I committed because I know very little about yoga and to commit to doing it every day to the degree I wanted to for 101 days was absurd. After thinking about it I felt like I was a 5th grader trying to write a dissertation on Marcel Proust. So I revised it. 

I still felt unsettled. My mind was telling me to move forward and that I was feeling antsy because I hadn't committed to anything yet. My mind screamed, "You are getting sloppy, you need structure, just move forward." As you can imagine it was useless listening to my mind so I tuned into my body. I was feeling sad about the end, which was to be expected but there was something else that nagged at me. It was a longing, I yearned for a missing piece and then it hit me. For 101days I ended every day with a gratitude. I need to end this project the same way. 

My first gratitude is to the person who is reading this blog and anyone who has ever read this blog. You have no idea the impact you have had in my life. The thought that some one is out there and cares enough about what I have to say to read these ramblings touches my soul. It motivates me to share, think and process. It is because of you that I am committed to being the best person I can be day in and day out because you (all of you are valuable, loveable and deserve the very best of me. Thank you for the constant inspiration and being a gift in my life.

Next I long to express my gratitude to my dear friend Marian. She is the biggest risk taker I know. She is fully committed to what is important to her and shares it with all of the world. She lays who she is out for everyone to see, judge, question, challenge, disagree and deeply love. She will never hold back because she is afraid of what someone will think of her. I was inspired by her pure self expression that she expressed (and continues to share) in her happiness projects. She is a courageous free spirit and I am humbled and deeply grateful that she calls me a friend and invited me to pay it forward. If it was not for her unadulterated bravery I would have never had the guts to put all my thoughts and feelings out for the world to see. Mar, I love you so deeply I wiggle ;) 

 The appreciation I have for my friend Lisa is deep and strong and lasting. Lisa you are MY Consciousgirl. You were the fuel that kept me going. You reminded me that there was someone out in the world who "got me." You were with me every step of the way sharing your joy and pain and inviting me to share more of mine. It was life changing to have someone share this process with so intimately. Our connection is at true and rare gift. You are my conscious sister. Thank you so much for your energy and your BIG LOVE.

 Of course I could not have done any of this without the love, guidance and support of my darling husband. Lindon when I think about how you held me when I cried, how you danced with me when I celebrated and how you read and reread countless blog posts I am moved to tears. You are my partner, my team mate and my best friend. You provide the safety to I need to explore the scariest places imaginable. I know that you and I will always be side by side, holding hands, smiling because there is nothing stronger then the love you and I have for each other. Sharing my life with you is the greatest adventure, having you be so involved and supportive of what I do is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. Thank you for being the kind of person that brings out the best in me. Nothing bring me more joy then being your wife. 

There. Now this project complete. Thank you #101DaysofAwakening for proving to me that everything will be ok in the end. 
 

Loving What Death Can Touch

This is the final week of #101DaysofAwakening and it has been the toughest week of all. I had every intention, consciously, of going out with a bang and having fun with the last few days of this project. Clearly I had a subconscious intention that was much stronger because I had a major tantrum. 

Let me define tantrum. 

People normally think of children uncontrollably kicking and screaming on the ground. My tantrum is much more subtle then that, its me not doing what I know to do. There is a feeling of righteous indignance, that if I were to personify it, it would sound like, "I don't wanna and you can't make me."  

However, my mind is slick so instead of hearing those words in my head I make up more adult reasons that people would "buy" like, "I'm just so exhausted." or "I'm too busy, I can't find the time." and my favorite "I'll get to it later."

As conscious girl I am well aware of that particular thought and feeling combo. I knew I was in avoidance of something, I just wasn't sure what it was. Normally, I would manage my feelings, I would do the task anyway, push through exhaustion and keep my word.

This week I decided to "lean in" to my avoidance. I didn't finish this blog on time, I put off doing my daily pages, I was halfhearted in my meditation and with all that going on I could hear my mind's judgement of not getting done what I said I would do.

I listened to the judgement but I didn't take it on or believe it. I was more interested in what was causing this feeling of sloth. I wanted to get to the bottom of what this tantrum was all about and why it was showing up now?

There is a saying that when your mind is quiet your soul will speak. Well, it's true. 

So I'm sitting in the waiting room at my chiropractor's office looking at the pictures of the babies he has treated and my mind starts to wander. I start thinking about my friends; several are pregnant or just had babies. They are all living in Northern California and I live in Southern California. I have missed several baby showers and I am about to miss another one. This makes me REALLY sad. I miss my friends and I want to be a part of their pregnancy and be with them and their beautiful babies but I feel so far away. I am afraid that their lives will change so rapidly and I won't be a part of it and eventually we will grow apart and we won't be friends any more. When I think about my friendship with them this way (anticipating an end) I feel sad and desperate and I obsess over what I can do to stay connected.

BINGO! I got it.

This is a huge realization for me! In being afraid of the end I do what I can to protect myself from anything ever ending. I am trying to hold on as tight as I can to keep whatever it is in my life, or worse, minimize how I feel so I can convince myself it isn't that important to me when it's over.

I see this "holding on" all over my life; in my work, in my relationships and I see myself playing it out at the end of this project. In fact when I tell the truth about it, I never finish books because I never want the story to end, it will take me weeks to read the last two chapters and I have already started two other books to distract me from the ending. I never want phone calls to end, I could talk for hours and when I have an appointment after the call I keep the conversation going until the last moment.

If I continue to live with this fear, then in my opinion, I am not really living. How do I know these things should remain in my life? How do I know that when people are ready to move on that they shouldn't? How do I know something better isn't waiting for me on the other side of the end? And the question that really has my attention now, how much am I holding back from enjoying how much I love something or someone right now because I am afraid it will end later?!

The end is a certainty, nothing is permanent. I can't protect myself from all endings and I love too many things to try and pretend I don't care. Loss is the cost of love. I am willing to experience heartache if it means I can have a deeper experience of love right now.

I can see that for the last 7 years I have avoided grieving my mom because I would have to face the end of that relationship. 

I deserve to miss my friends, we have a strong connection and it hurts being away from them. The relationship I had with my mom was so close and so beautiful it warrants my mourning. One day Lindon and I will have kids and I will watch my heart walking outside my body and I refuse to give up any ounce of love for them even if it means the possibility of experiencing overwhelming fear of something happening to them.

I love people, deeply, fully and intensely. My relationships mean everything to me which is terribly risky because people are the most impermanent thing in the world. 

I can see now it takes tremendous courage to love what death can touch. But I will think about that later. Its time for my chiropractic appointment. 

Coming Home

I love Tom Hanks. In fact he is my celebrity crush. I think he is funny, brilliant and tender. Next to my husband I consider him the ideal man. One of my favorite Tom Hank's movies is Sleepless in Seattle. I love a good Rom-Com and Tom is the prefect leading man. I have seen this movie more times then I care to admit and yet there is a line in the movie that always makes me cry.

I'll set the scene: Tom's wife has past away and he gets duped by his eight year old son into talking with a radio "love-line" host about his loss. The doctor asks, "What was so special about your wife?" To which Tom replies, "How long is your program? Well, it was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together... and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home... only to no home I'd ever known... I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like... magic."

When I think about Tom saying this it brings tears to my eyes. I find the thought so endearing. This character's experience of being with his wife was like coming home. There is nothing better than the feeling of coming home. To me that means being safe, warm, welcomed as you are for who you are. It is being in a place that is so familiar one recognizes it as a part of one's own self. Coming home for me is to be at total peace with where you are.

I can't imagine a lovelier thing to say about the experience of being with another person. I am currently having that feeling about coming home from India.

As to be expected, everyone has been asking about our experience on the trip. They all ask, "How was it?' and I struggle to answer.  I have never been to a place more unfamiliar. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes, everything was alien to my senses. At first the experience was exciting and thrilling. All the unknowns kept me on my toes and made me feel alive. It was a rush. Then it became scary. I felt a real sense of danger when we were sick or lost. The anxiety I would normally feel in those situations was amplified by the threat of being in a strange territory. That heightened tension led to exhaustion and then ultimately desperate longing and an overwhelming feeling of being homesick. 

And with all that going on Lindon and I connected and worked together in a way we never had before. The love we feel for each other evolved and flourished. We saw amazing sights that took our breath away like the Taj Mahal, prayers on the Ganges and the birthplace of the four noble truths in Sarnath. We ate amazing food that delighted and terrified us and met the most amazing people with the most diverse back grounds.

Travel, of any kind, is an opportunity to embrace what is unknown. It is an invitation to the senses to see what else is out there and what possibilities exist outside of our normal routine. In my mind traveling is the freedom to challenge what I believe is true.

For example, as I shared last week, I thought that in order to honor someone else's beliefs I had to put my own aside. That someone not believing what I believe somehow made one of us wrong.  Not true. In fact I can appreciate my own beliefs more while I am curious and interested in someone's viewpoint. Up until last week I thought that "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." This was so clearly untrue as I saw people praying and absolving themselves in the same place they threw their trash. Up until last week I thought that going to the bathroom was a private activity. I now understand clearly that was my own judgment as people all over India and Nepal used the side of the road, in front of God and everybody, as their personal toilet.  

I am writing this without judgement. In fact I write this with a sense of awe and reverence. There are people all over the world living life in a very different fashion then I would and I realized my objections to other ways of life are all self created. My objection is part of an illusion I must have created to make me feel safe or justified. So who would I be if I gave up my righteousness regarding what I think is best or true, and then ultimately knew that I was safe no matter what?

Traveling to India and Nepal gave me an undeniable experience that I make up stories of how to live my life and that what I think is right and true about people or what "should" be, isn't. Simply put; I am making everything up. If I like what I have made up I have the choice to keep it and if I don't I have the choice to change it. 

That feels like ultimate freedom to me. Undeniable power to create the experience I want when I'm in the unknown. This creative, free person is who I am without living in that bogus illusion. I feel more safe than I ever have because (and I only realize this now looking back on how I lived before) part of me always knew it was an illusion but there was a fear of what would happen if the illusion fell apart. 

These realizations have changed my life at such a fundamental level. I have come home, only its no home I have ever known. The surroundings are familiar but the experience is very different. In this home I have the freedom to be and choose what I like and don't like AND be with others who completely disagree and honor their opinions and I love that about me. 

I'm not coming home to California or America (although I deeply appreciate these places in a way I hadn't before) I am coming home to myself. To a place inside of me I never knew existed and always longed to be connected to.  The joy of coming home to this place in me is real, familiar and magic. 

Namaste: The Paradox

When I enter the temple I bow my head and press my hands together as if in prayer, "Namaste." I hear in return, "Namaste." We are bowing to each other, we are bowing to the divine in each other and in an instant we are no longer strangers.

In India and Nepal this is a standard greeting for everyone. Namaste means:

"I honor the place in you where Spirit lives.
I honor the place in you which is
of Love, of Truth, of Light, of Peace.
When you are in that place in you,
and I am in that place in me,
then we are One."

Can you imagine saying this to everyone you come in contact with? Could you imagine an entire nation holding on to this idea and bringing it up at the beginning and ending of every interaction? Each person knows they hold inside them love and peace all while knowing the same exists inside everyone else. It is truly beautiful. 

So with all that beauty in a simple greeting why is India and Nepal so dirty and smelly? Why is there so much honking and pollution? Why is there so much corruption? How can they greet you with "Namaste" and demand $10,000 rupees to move your travel documents to the top of the pile when you were the first in line, already?? 

Easy. It's all true. One does not negate the other.

I can see how a foreigner could view the attitude of Indians as very self serving, self centered and righteous. Take for example the honking. There is incessant honking, it's an art form. Although I have been here for three weeks I can not for the life of me figure out any rhyme or reason to it. To the untrained ear this honking sounds like a declaration of space. An aggressive, determined, angry declaration to the other drivers letting them know who is boss.

However a very wise  a woman said to me on my first day in India, "When you travel in India you must remember what you have in your pockets. In one pocket, it must be full of patience. There are too many people to have anything other then patience. The other pocket is your expectations, empty them. Carry none with you. You will only be disappointed if you keep your expectations. Besides you need more room for patience. If you open your heart you will see wonder everywhere you go!" 

She was right. I opened my heart to this beautiful country and the people in it and everywhere I looked people are living in alignment with "Namaste". 

On the streets people are honking still and when I listen with my heart I understand that they are communicating with each other. Each honk says, "I'm here, brother. I see you." They aren't declaring their space, they were sharing it. The traffic is busy and packed and yet each vehicle, although moving in a different direction, moves like water. They all flow together. Traffic lights and lines on the ground are just for decoration, these people don't need them. They are paradoxical masters as far as I am concerned, they make a stand for getting what they need and at the same time allow for others to do the same. 

I noticed this on our second day in New Delhi when Lindon and I took a rickshaw ride. A rickshaw is a tricycle with a bench built into the back. Its about 3.5 feet wide and we were going down streets that were 6.5 feet wide with rickshaws going the opposite direction. Now if at any time the rickshaw driver got aggressive and claimed the space as his own we all would have been stuck and traffic would stop in both directions.However no one thinks like that, they all move together.

At the end of the ride we thanked our driver and tipped him. Our driver then gave everything over to another rickshaw driver, all of them did. Lindon and I sat and watched this, as each rickshaw driver came in, they were tipped and they turned over all their tips to one man. 

What we figured out is that these drivers, after building a case for having worked so hard, pushing their legs to the brink and finally asking for "good tip" take all their money and pool it together. They each get more when they work together. It's really brilliant.

Lindon and I toured Muslim Mosques, Hindu Temples and Buddhist Stupas and what struck us most was what the guides called "Indo-Islamic Architecture"; a blend of Hindu and Islamic styles. For example a Mosque will have Hindu elements in it like "Namaste" arches and a temple will have a rounded dome which is an Islamic style. 

The greatest example of this is the Taj Mahal. This is a tomb built out of love by a Muslim emperor for his Hindu wife. 

This country has a very rich history of coming together and honoring the beliefs and ideals of others. What I have come to understand is that honoring someone else's beliefs is not at the expense of dishonoring my own. "Namaste" doesn't mean I put my beliefs aside for yours.  

I am so grateful for this trip and everything that I learned. I am so happy to be going home and seeing all my friends and family. I am desperately home sick and so sad to be leaving here and the incredible adventure I have shared with my husband. This journey has been hard, exciting, sad, thrilling, fulfilling, annoying, joyful, irritating, enlightening, frustrating and totally and completely beautiful. 

Today I am leaving with an understanding I didn't have when I came: it's all true. Everything is possible. The idea that it isn't only shows the limit to my thinking. I can be sad and happy at the same time. I can be selfish and considerate at the same time. I can be in love with this country and desperately home sick at the same time. I can be all that is me and be one with you at the same time. They do not negate each other, one does not cancel out the other. When I empty my expectations and see with my heart I see that all is possible right now. 

This moment. Right now. It is all possible. All Ways. Always. 

God and Trash Continued

Tonight I am in Varanasi, which is the birth place of Hindu and the final destination for thousands of Hindu pilgrims. Daily Hindu preists pray at the bangs of the Ganges river at sunrise and sunset while thousands of pilgrims chant along with them. It is the spiritual capital of India and is considered a sacred city to Hindus, Jains and Buddhists alike.

Tomorrow I will be up before dawn to witness the morning prayers from a boat in the middle of the river.

I have so much to share AND I feel I am in the middle of a great transformation. When I land in a place with better internet connection I will share more. However here is the spoiler alert: religion, honking, trash and the amazing ability to adapt to any environment.

In the mean time enjoy your week and remember that now is the best time and here is the best place for you to wake up and end suffering. Namaste. 

God and Trash

I would be remiss if I didn't write about God in this project. I had my first experience of God when I was 7 years old. I did not grow up in a religious household. My father has a relationship with God that is purely his own. He talks about it like he talks about an old childhood friend. My mother had a relationship with God that was one of deep respect with a hint of guilt. We didn't go to church, we didn't read the bible, we didn't have family discussions and there was an undeniable presence in the house that I am not sure I know how to explain.

Back to my first encounter with God. My brother and I got a weekly allowance for doing chores and every so often we were permitted to use our earnings for candy or soda. The candy store was right around the corner from our house and my brother and I would walk there together. In my memory we were alone but when thinking about it now it's highly unlikely my parents would let us walk there alone at 7 and 5 years of age (AND this is my memory so I will tell it how I like).  I was in charge (being the older sibling) and on this particular day my brother ran way too far ahead of me. I was running to catch up with him and as I did I passed a piece of trash in the gutter. I noticed it and ran past but then I had a thought that stopped me in my tracks, "God saw me see that piece of trash and ignore it. I need to go back and pick it up." So I did. I have been doing it ever since. I can not walk by trash on the street and not pick it up. God knows, I know.

When I was younger that experience of "God knows, I know" was really comforting. It was a feeling of a reciprocal nature, loving and tender. Something akin to, "I have this amazing life that God made possible for me and I am going to thank him by doing random acts of kindness that serve the greater good." Pretty enlightened for a 7 year old eh? Well I don't think so. Not so much enlightened as it is innocent and pure. A simple truth that I understood and experienced as a child and have out grown.

My relationship has changed. I still have the sense that "God knows I know" AND there is an attitude I have about it; I feel distant from God. She is still there, walking along side of me, and I am not talking to Her. When I meditate on it I feel pissy (funky butt) and hurt.

If you could interview the being inside of me that is angry with God, she would sound like this: 

"I feel I have done everything right. I have behaved well, been kind, cleaned up trash that is not my own and you take my mother away! Why would you do that to me? Why do I deserve this?! I don't deserve this! Therefore, I am turning my back on you. You will miss me and then you will be sorry!"

Of course God doesn't care that I have an attitude, He loves me anyway. He listens to me whine and complain and knows that I know that I am having a tantrum and She will be right here when I am ready to feel that tenderness again. (You'll notice I change the pronoun for God as I feel a masculine and a feminine quality for God and I simply have no idea so I am covering my bases)

So here is the kicker! I know all that! I fully understand that I am having a tantrum. I know my mom's passing away didn't happen to me. It happened to her. Her passing away had nothing to do with me but knowing all that doesn't change how hurt I feel. It actually hurts more because I know I could feel that love and connection again with God and yet I don't know how to get it back.

Though, there is something auspicious about 2014. This is all happening for a reason. This year I will celebrate my first year of marriage and my 30th birthday. It has also been seven years since my mother died and that seems very significant. Tomorrow I am leaving for my honeymoon in India and Nepal and those are places that have always called to me.

It is my intention to use this time away as a way to rediscover and reconnect to that feeling of deep love and connection. I am healing. I am ready to have the relationship I once had and develop it into something greater. I am leaving tomorrow and I am certain this adventure will forever change me, even if I don't connect with the Almighty in the way I envision I know He is always there which is why I always have and always will continue to pick up the trash.

Telling The Truth About the Lies I Beleive

 “The weight of lies will bring you down

And follow you to every town 'cause
Nothing happens here that doesn't happen there
When you run make sure you run
To something and not away from 'cause
Lies don't need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere”

I am not sure what the Avett Brothers had in mind when they wrote those words but they sing to me this week. I’m not talking about “telling a lie” as in, I know it’s not true but I say it anyway. I am talking about something more lethal than that. I am referring to the lies we believe and when they are unexamined we hold them as truth.

For example, Lindon (pictured left, Mr. Handsome, my husband) and I are planning this trip to India and Nepal for our honeymoon. I have taken responsibility for this trip. I have organized the travel, moved the process forward on our passports and visas, researched and purchased all the necessities for our travel, etc.

Yesterday I was feeling particularly stressed with all that needed to get done for the trip (we are leaving in 7 days!) and I was expressing my frustration to Lindon and trying to find the lie that I was believing that was causing these feelings.

He was asking me questions to help me get perspective and all of a sudden I felt myself get irritated with him. He was asking me questions I didn’t know the answer to and I was really starting to feel anger rise in me. At that moment I casually mentioned, “I want to fight with you. I am about to say something unkind because I have an urge to yell and I want you to be angry too.”

Lindon, being the gift he is in my life, replied, “Let it go then. Yell, shout, whatever it takes to move you through this.”

Before he finished his sentence, I could already feel the feelings dissipate. 

None of my thoughts were substantiated in reality. I was worrying about the future (which obviously hasn’t happened) and criticizing what I have already done based on what I know now that I didn’t know back then.

When I said I wanted to fight, while my husband was trying to help me become clear, I got that what I wanted to do was so far removed from what was really happening in the moment that it became easy for me to find the lie. Several in fact! I was believing the following lies:  “This is all up to me,” “Lindon is too busy, I don’t want to bother him,”  “Lindon doesn’t care like I do about this stuff,” “I didn’t research well enough to have this be easy,” “I should have known better,” etc.

Up until that moment where I acknowledged that I wanted a fight, these thoughts felt true.

So I have had to tell the truth about the situation to change my feelings. The truth is, but not limited to the following:

I never had a conversation with Lindon discussing who would take care of what by when for our honeymoon. I (unconsciously) assumed responsibility, preventing the possibility of collaboration. 

Words can not describe how much I appreciate this project. It makes me mindful, forcing the lies to surface more frequently.  I don’t believe them very long. The more habitually I catch them, tell the truth about them and shift my feelings based on the truth the freer I am to create what I want because I am present to what is happening right in front of me. 

When I set out to do this project I made it my intention to live a life of peace and fulfillment. A life where my thinking is in alignment with what is true. What I didn’t realize at the beginning is how many lies I believe and how habituated I am to believe them.

This project invites me to look at what is "dark" in me. I have been more uncomfortable in the last 63 days then I have been this consistently, ever.

I find this very exciting because I am interpreting this experience as the dark before the dawn. I can sense a momentum building as I go deeper into this project and deeper into myself.

The next piece that will really propel me forward is what the Avett Brothers wrote in their song about, “When you run make sure you run to something and not away from.” I can see that I am still running away from the lies. I am running away from what I don't like about me. I haven’t created a structure in my thinking to run towards the truth.

 
If I really want to have lasting change then I need to establish an emotionally compelling vision of who I am with out the thought: I should have known better.  A vision of who I can be when I find myself believing what isn’t true. In essence, what part of me am I running towards?

As I read over this post, I get the sense that I am running towards the part of me that loves learning and growing, the part of me that is inspired to be my very best self because of the love I feel for those around me. I am moving into the part of me that appreciates how wonderful my life already is and looking for ways to find out just how good life can be because if I find out I can share it with everyone. 

What better place to crystallize this vision then in India and Nepal? What better time then now?