Where's Your Focus?

It's incredible to me how things seem to just show up at the right time.  What follows is a true story of gratitude that turned up on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  It's a story told to me by my husband Ed, who spends part of every Tuesday as a volunteer visitor with Mended Hearts.  These volunteers go into the local hospital and visit heart patients and their families. To qualify for being a visitor you had to have had a heart related incident.

It is said that some of our biggest challenges turn into our greatest gifts and this is a reflection of that saying.



Just over four and a half years ago, Ed underwent open heart surgery.  He was treated with great care in our local hospital and a few months into his recovery was seeking a support group and discovered Mended Hearts, a national organization that had a chapter at another hospital.  This inspired Ed to bring the organization to where he had been treated as a way of giving back.  It is well known that having support by those who've been through what you're going through is extremely helpful.

This past Tuesday, after a long day of work, we both sat down to dinner and catch up with our day.  I am always curious to hear who Ed saw in the hospital on his visiting days and as he told me this story you could see the emotion rising within him.  On his way into a ward, one of the nurses suggested to Ed and his fellow visitor, that this particular woman would be a good candidate to see.  The nurse pulled up two chairs alongside the women's bed so that Ed and cohort could sit and visit.

She warmly welcomed her new visitors with a smile and an obvious sense of gratitude for the company.  As it turns out she was back in the hospital running a high fever following the insertion of two cardiac stents two months prior.  In addition, she had ovarian cancer, which was thought to be in remission but another tumor had just been discovered.

Yet, the woman couldn't help but share how grateful she was for "all of the wonderful volunteers" or as she called them "angels from God" who visited her in both the cardiac ward and cancer center.  She arrived in the United States two years ago escaping the turmoil of her native Egypt and landed in the desert with her husband because her two sons were living here. 

Ed said she was just effusive with thanks and smiles.  He was struck by the simplicity of her attitude, that even in having difficult health challenges, she was STILL here, STILL alive and ever so thankful to simply still have a life.

This story demonstrates that her focus was on her life, not her health challenges.  It is thought that if we can whittle down our thinking to the most fundamental idea of appreciating what we have in this very moment, that the fluctuations of our circumstances truly fall into the background.

This story reminded me to stay focused on what I can do rather than what I can't.  On what I do have rather than what I don't.   On who I am, rather than what I'm not.  Coming into the present moment, we sense our breath, our life and our heart beat.

Be fully alive and awake in your experience as it's happening NOW.  Why wait to celebrate this journey until you're faced with life's obstacles.  As Ram Dass beautifully says, "Be Here Now". 

And as both Ed and this wise woman demonstrated, we can take our darkest moments and turn them toward the light.  

In This Moment, I Am Grateful

It's the weekend before Thanksgiving which lends itself to an easy (if not obvious) thought of the week...that of gratitude.  In the past I have undertaken a gratitude practice via Facebook.  I was asked  to join a group that set the intention of writing and sharing five things that we are grateful for, every day for a month. I thought this to be a great practice, one that I can share with a larger community, but more importantly, a practice that reminds me of how incredibly abundant my life is.

When we undertake a conscious choice to acknowledge what we are grateful for, it brings us into the present moment and allows us an opportunity to release negativity.  When people dwell on a pattern of thought that isn't a reflection of their highest self, it can be likened to a downward spiral, dragging our energy, attitude and spirit into darkness.  Our body reflects this in slumped posture, illness or agitation and we become a short fuse in the world that may ignite rapidly given the slightest chance.

If we find ourselves trapped within the looping negative dialogue where nearly every thought and sentence begins with something like:

"I'm frustrated with...

I don't have enough...

I'll never get...

I'm mad at...

I'm not worthy and...

This country is in a..."

Then maybe it's time to undertake a serious gratitude overhaul!

One of the many striking things about traveling through India was that people generally seemed happy. Not only were they incredibly polite, but how they greeted us as well, as the day seemed to hold an authentic sense of thankfulness. So many of these people had much less in the material world than we here in the States, yet their industriousness seemed to hold an underlying sense of being thankful for the chance to make a difference in our experience.

When we sit each day and engage in an inner dialogue that conjures up all that we're thankful for, it's as though a switch is flipped. We shift our perspective away from what appears to be lacking to what is present in our lives. A practice of gratitude allows us to remember all that we are, all that we have and all that we can do. It's more than enough when you get right down to it.

So, for this Thanksgiving and the next few weeks, I will stay committed to my daily gratitude practice. Feel free to join me...you'll be thankful you did!

The Energy Current

These past couple of weeks my teaching has been inspired by the visual of our bodies having currents of energy much like that of a flowing river.  It was prompted when I was listening to an acupuncturist describing chi and the meridians. I am able to visualize these channels of flowing water coursing through our liquid bodies and, on occasion, getting dammed up and stagnant.

The longer I teach yoga, the more I see the practice being a method of altering energy and less a practice of over-simplified stretching and strengthening.  The lengthening and strengthening of the body is one way that we begin to move into the current of energy flowing through us and we often recognize where it's not moving.  This turns up in the form of fatigue, muscular tension, a particular soreness or lack of awareness.  As we begin coupling breath to movement, it's as though someone has taken a spotlight and shone it on the parts of us lying in the shadow.

I remember a story told by Matthew Sanford, an adaptive Iyengar yoga teacher who is a paraplegic.  Following a horrific auto accident that left his sister and father dead and him paralyzed, he was told by the medical world that he would never again "feel" anything below his injury.  He flat out says, "They were wrong.  When I sit with my legs stretched out in front of me and think of pressing through my heels, I feel something.  It might not be what you feel, but I definitely feel a sensation related to this energetic flow coursing through my legs."

As I heard him sharing this story, it awakened in me another level of awareness related to us being energetic beings that can feel and sense beyond what is obvious.  We can sense when someone is tense.  We get a gut feeling around certain ideas or thoughts.  We can visualize doing something without moving a muscle, and when we actually do it, we're better at it.  We can move, sense, tap into and alter the energetic flow in our own bodies.

What this tells me is that this process is often guided by seeing our intention in action as a thought that arises within us.  I'm a very visual person and enjoy the images that my mind's eye can see as I explore the inner highways of my own energy. I can encourage the flow of energy to move wherever it seems to be lacking.  I often encourage students to stand on their feet and see cables of energy flowing out of the soles through the soil, past the earth's crust and into the middle of the earth...grounding ourselves to this gigantic planet.  We then draw the earth's energy up through these cables and send it through our own bodies, exiting the crown of the head and penetrating out into the skies and galaxy as far as imaginable.  We are the energetic conduit between heaven and earth.

It is thought that if we have stagnation or what I refer to as "energetic clogs", that can also be out of balance and perhaps leaning toward disease.  By moving our bodies, connecting to our breath and opening these rivers of energy that channel through our entire physical network and beyond, we connect our mind, body and spirit.  We engage the elements that create our entire being and in doing so our awareness grows.  If we're stagnant, we can DO something about it.

Let's begin by stepping onto our mats and finding the soles of your feet connect to the earth and to your soul.  Inhale and go...

Where IS Away?

 

 

A few weeks ago I spent a week at an Off The Mat Leadership Intensive with about 45 other participants.  Not only do I have deep respect for the grassroots determination by which they go about effecting change in the world but love this tribe and the types of incredible people that gravitate to them. 

  

One such person at the retreat was Julia Butterfly Hill, also known as the woman in the tree.  Julia sat in a 1000 year old redwood for two years and eight days as a way of protesting against the vast destruction of ancient forests.  She added such a sense of compassionate activism to the group and spoke to us about her experiences.  She was such an engaging storyteller that I sat completely absorbed in what she has learned through her life experiences. Her deep love and respect for the planet made her words so provocative.

  

One thing that has stuck with me since her talk was regarding conscious consumerism.  Our culture revolves around "stuff" and earning enough money to buy it.  I participate in this process.  I like nice things and I try to de-clutter when it seems I have too much.  But what is shifting in my awareness is HOW these things make their way into my life, where are they made, what are they made out of and once they leave my life...where do they go? 

  

It began way back when I was in elementary school and we learned about recycling aluminum cans.  We crushed them down and took them to a local truck near Ralph's Supermarket where some guy would weigh them and hand over some cash.  Sweet!  My newer intention is to have recycling going out to the curb on a Monday morning and minimizing what's in the trash can.  In order to do this, we compost as much as possible which is dug back into our own vegetable garden each fall.  Another goal is to donate to local thrift stores clothing and other items, or bring items into a consignment store where if they sell what we no longer want, we get 60% in return.  The aim is to not just put things in the trash can but think how they can be redistributed.  Again...Sweet!

  

Yet, I can't get out of my head Julia's words, "when you throw something away...where IS away?"  It just keeps echoing and then it sinks in that away is not away at all.  It's simply out of my sight, and our planet, Mother Earth, is left to deal with what we no longer want or need.  I can't help but feel that I'm not doing enough and that my own consciousness around being a consumer has so many opportunities to expand and lessen my own footprint. 

 

It's so easy to get lured into thinking that we need more and it happens to me constantly.  So my next intention is to pause and deepen my knowledge before getting something and to think about where it comes from and when it leaves my possession how will it impact the environment.  It seems the least I could do for the privilege of living upon this great planet.

 

Thank you Mother Earth...I'm listening and will try harder.

Shifting Of Seasons

 

You can feel it.  It's in the air.  Cool mornings and crisp blue skies.  We just passed Halloween here in the United States and Thanksgiving is just around the corner.  Our local population is beginning to swell with more cars on the road and people returning to yoga class.  This time of the year in the desert

is simply beautiful and as we begin to experience shorter days, longer nights and a shift in the external environment, it has got me thinking about how I can choose to shift my internal environment in order to be in a more harmonious relationship with the seasons.

In these modern times of having access to not only electricity 24/7 but to all types of food that is typically out of season, we have lost a primal connection to the rhythmical change of the seasons.  Want fresh strawberries in December?  Can do!  How about tomatoes?  No worries...got them available as well.  It's as though our cells are being conditioned in not being able to discriminate the change of the earth's cycle.  It may be getting dark at 6pm, but we can stay awake all night.  Our circadian rhythm has been tricked by technology.

And then we wonder why we might feel a bit out of sorts.  Could it be that we are simply out of sync with the wisdom of the earth?  I think that's a big YES.  Instead of winding down with the sunset, we continue to plug on through into the late hours of the evening and then wonder why our minds are racing when we try to drop off into sleep.  It might be cold outside, but we stay with eating cold rather than cooked foods.  How many restaurants do you frequent that have what's in season on the menu?  Or do you go to an establishment and expect to have your favorite no matter what time of year we're in?

I love the shift in the season and if I pay attention to my internal cues, I find myself wanting soups and hot tea.  My intention is to become a better listener to what the season is offering.  If the light dims, that's a cue to begin to unplug, snuggle in and relax.  The sister to science of yoga, Ayurveda, is all about adjusting how we eat and move according to the season.  We are a simple microcosmic reflection of the greater Universe and if we can recognize the shifts, we can then be in greater union with the big picture.

As the seasons change, perhaps we can step more fully into that shift on our individual internal levels.  It's an inviting time to turn more inward through the practice of meditation or mindfulness.  Pause when you're outside and notice how the trees and plants are responding to the changes by changing colors, dropping leaves or going dormant.  It's a beautiful reminder for us to perhaps do the same.

And if you're in the Southern Hemisphere...get out the flip flops, tank tops and head into that wonderful spring/summer fruit and veggie crop.  Now is the time to put your bare feet on the soil, open your arms wide and feel the energy of the sun on your face.  It's even getting close to throwing something on the barbie, eh mate?