Monday, August 26, 2013

Stress, Stretching Your Limits, and Transcendence..

The only way to become stronger when you workout is to extend just past your natural, comfortable limits. Well, that truth extends in every direction of life, tangible and intangible alike.

I tell my students regularly that when they practice, they should come to the point of comfort, then let themselves go beyond that, to the realm where it takes work to still breathe rhythmically and keep their facial muscles relaxed. We get to the edge of the comfort zone, and then where we would typically stop, we hover... And breathe.. And burn.. And let the intensity course through our veins and mind. This process is both purifying in our denial of limitation, our bold facing and enveloping of the sensations we may typically run away from, and in the growth it produces. We force ourselves to stretch our awareness to encompass more pieces of information in each split moment, instead of the brain's default maneuver: truncating anything remotely familiar and flattening it to a 2-dimensional version of itself.

This doesn't just happen on the yoga mat, or in the gym, but in our daily lives as well. At least, we are invited into this process, whether we embrace it or not is our choice. We tend to think of stress as something other than life; something we can escape one day, something not present in heaven or nirvana. Stress is ever present though, stress is a major guru in life- the heat and pressure giving us an opportunity and the energy to turn the coal of our untrained mind into the diamond of pure loving awareness and authenticity of spirit.

STRESS AND CHALLENGES ARE NOT OTHER THAN LIFE, SO DON'T KEEP WAITING FOR THEM TO DISAPPEAR BEFORE YOU START LIVING AUTHENTICALLY OR MORE FULLY!! Instead, use stress for what it provides- a potent opportunity for purification and growth. Anyone can be perfectly loving and peaceful on vacation, with zero responsibilities, no time constraints, but it takes an advanced soul to begin to generate love and peace right in the hot mess that is child-rearing, career, time schedules and limitations of time and space. THIS is our opportunity and challenge. THIS is life: life is love... And life is mining for the diamond of love inside yourself and letting its light guide you, not around or avoiding the dark and dangerous areas of life experience, but going right through them, feeling them, aching, hurting, falling, embarrassing yourself, stinging at the mistakes, and this letting that memory of pain motivate you to hold stronger to the truth of your heart in every single situation.

THAT is real life. Those moments where you are completely free from stress are blissful... Pure bliss, and you earn them by learning to dance with stress and welcome it as the training grounds. Eventually, you can handle an astonishing amount of stress without any ill effects, just a great deal of growth. It requires the development of intense self care as well: knowing when to rest, relax, hide, only to recharge and run right back into the ring.

Life is beautiful, amazing, pure love and miracles are unfolding around us and through us constantly. However, stress is part of this gorgeous experience. Stress and other suffering is the catalyst for real growth, real expansion, and the development of true, functional, unshakeable peace.

Let your desire to be a more loving, wise, compassionate, decisive and authentic being pull you through stress, let it motivate your development so that the more it hurts, the more you work on forming habits that express your inner goodness and sense of rightness. Slowly we stretch our limits and retrain our reactions, and down the road a little ways, we can see how far we have truly come. And the journey never stops... This is what it is to be alive as a human being.

Sent from my iPhone

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

What I Learned Today About Life & God and Stuff

How much can we grow in one day? Exponentially, especially on the days we feel ourselves kicking and screaming against the grain. Throw your hands up in the fight against uncontrollable elements of reality and the unknown. Go with feeling. Strive, force, fight to root yourself in love, NO MATTER WHAT!

I did that today, and here is some of the gems I discovered, or the new depth and shine I saw in these perennial wisdoms:

Exfoliation for the soul: The Divine is the fabric of the universe. The strife, the misery, the struggle, the suffering of the world and in your life is like the abrasion of rough material to slough off the tired shell of ignorance, resistance, self-imposed limitations and to enable to know yourself as your truth.. To strengthen you to live your passion and purpose, and to empower you to live love.

Love All Just As it is: Love no matter what is who we are. Everything is radiant loving conscious energy.. We are here to learn to love ourselves and the world and all in it in our perennial imperfection and luscious creative majesty, trial and error, fragility and all. Bodies that will someday fall away and decay like overripe plums falling from the tree, souls that shine through eyes and all the magic and misery of the interfacing of an energy being with a physical form.

BOUNDARIES: Just because our role is to generate equal love for self, creation and all life, doesn't mean we need to subject ourselves to disrespect or abuse. In fact setting healthy boundaries is a form of love.. Self-love and also a lesson to the who is informed of the boundary.

LOVE: Everything, EVERYTHING is an opportunity for this work.. Discovering wisdom, truth, health and LOVE! Omniscient, omnipresent, unconditional and vast love that is what we are made of..

Validation via MIRRORING: we shouldn't seek approval from others and we don't need to justify our truth!!!!!! We don't need to justify self-care!!!!! BUT we all get worn and maladjusted and askew, and keeping positive people in your life and allowing each other to lean a little as needed strengthens both... We are all mirrors of each other's goodness.. By living our love and presence an truth, we present others with a reflection of their greatness and beauty. And we all can stand to hear that our best is more than enough, that we are loved, that we are good.. Not that we don't know, but when we are so tired an harassed by the limitations of this body-soul interface, we blossom from this soul-nourishing reminder.

WE ARE LIMITLESS SOULS (in limited bodies): limitless souls get pissed off when having to face their limitations due to time, space and the needs of the physical form.. We can stretch, bend and transcend many of these limits but at the end of the day, we cannot break them all.. Not today. Accept this. Smile, laugh. Love.

DO EVERYTHING WITH LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop doing pointless tasks...
And start doing the everyday chores with love... Dishes and cooking..

I decided SO WHAT if most of the few short years I have with my son are spent making food and art.. Mostly food... Extremely nourishing food...?? So what?! If our memories are of our time in the kitchen, what better way to teach my son how to be a man: nourishing his body and those of others, pouring love into his tasks and thus his life, never to half-ass what he does, to take care of self and others, and to share heartfelt conversation with his loved ones, equally exchanging talking and listening, both done from the heart. Why fight reality? Why not make it a sacred experience!!

EVERYTHING IS SACRED!

Don't stop smiling! Be yourself at all costs!!!!

I will not suppress my joy, my love, my awareness, or my feminine style and grace. I will not suppress my wonderment, my girly excitement, my sweetness, or my undying urge to pour loving consciousness into the open hearts of any who cross my path, and to specifically treasure those who walk this life path with me for some time.

Never give up, no matter how rough. If the unknown is threatening, investigate, know what you can. Demystify. Inform yourself. And let go of what can't be googled, like what will happen next week. Be excited. Feel what you feel. But LIVE NOW! LOVE NOW!

And that's most of it.. That's just one day.. A pretty strange and isolated yet interconnected one.

Oh yes And we need to strive to be independent, know ourselves, take responsibility for our own health and happiness.. But God manifests Miracles through us all... So talk to Him with your feelings (no words needed, just feel and dedicate) but talk to the beings I. Your life.. They are God as well, and you are God as well, and so is the stereo and your car and the sky and the dragonfly and the neighbor and the rats and dogs and everything else that is. We are are like cells in the Divine body, all a part of the net of All That Is.

Love and blessings~

Sent from my iPhone

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Love (a poem)

Love  
By Laura Harrison




It is what we all desire to feel and to be,
to give and receive, 
it is the fabric of reality.

In the heart of every ache is love,
It is the root of joy and passion, 
Every sorrow and every tear, 
It is the opposite of fear.

Pain is to resist letting love crack you wide open, 
As you struggle the suffering persists, 
So why do we fight
In spite 
Of our innate desire
For love?

Don't fight to stay small,
Dissatisfied, complacent to just survive..
Let love make you brave,
Rip you wide open, tear at your heart,
Expand your capacity to feel.

Feeling is the only way to know what's real.

And why just survive when you have the choice to thrive?

Why close yourself into a small dark dungeon within your mind?

When at any moment love can open your eyes to boundless reality, 
And the ability to manifest your dreams?

Don't pull the covers over your head and turn away.

Don't whine, self-pity and complain.

Don't wallow in judgment and hate.

Why waste this precious life like that? Does it satisfy your soul to be so small and ugly?

Or do you wish to fly?

You don't need to know why..
Or how.. 

Other than to love.
Love is the source of all beauty
In the eyes of beholders.
Love is the feeling of being beheld.
Love is the truth that we are all connected.
Love is the divine within reality resurrected.

Seek love.
Give love.
Live love.
Love is everything.

Weave your inspiration into being, 
By opening what you bring
Into this world;
Your gift.

Let go of the heaviness of fear.
And remember yourself as love.
Love is the mantra, beating in your heart......
Love, Love...
Love, Love...
Love, Love...
Love, Love.







Sent from my iPhone