I M Perfect lady

Author: bjukuri

  • Happy Returning To Life.

    On Easter we all are thinking of Resurrection; how it means to rise from the dead or return to life. 

     

    As I returned to my life, it has taken me on a wild and exhilarating ride, one that has taken me from the depths of hell up to the heights of Heaven, while tearing down false idols, correcting misconceptions, up righting upside down ideals, and bringing my self back to my life, a resurrection.

     

    Returning to awareness in my life has also been a day of reckoning, owning up to all the places where I had not been in my life; I now was facing the sins of the past in the present.

     

    I had been taught to believe that I could have my sins forgiven and forgotten, by merely saying a few words, and all would be well with thee, and that they had been transferred to someone else, like to Jesus.  And I would then be whiter than snow, clean, perfect a new slate. 

     

    No action was expected, just had to mumble a few words, admit that I had sinned. And like magic another could wash me clean and I didn’t have to do a damn thing.

     

    In my head perhaps this worked, but in real life it was a train wreck.  Inside of my head I was clean and perfect, in the reality of my life all the affects of blinking away my sins lay in their ugliness unchanged.

     

    I am not a historian nor was I ever deeply religious, but try and explain the applications of this sin and forgiveness thing to a child of say two.

     

    How does this work?  Can a little child pass off his bad deeds to another?  Where does stealing go when you confess?  Will a bad word evaporate and become unspoken, a hurt rendered hurt less etc? 

     

    As I sit on this Easter morning, I see the sheer volume of how religion has life so wrong, and in fact how it finds way to escape life instead of returning to life.

     

    Easter to me means returning to your life, being 100% responsible for all things you do, not schlepping off your negative traits, wrong actions, and weaknesses onto another person, but instead learning and exploring your whole self, being present in all aspects of life.

     

    Happy returning to Life!

     

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  • A U-Turn In Your Life!

    “A bend in the road is not the end of the road… unless you fail to make the turn.”    

      ~Author Unknown

     

    Each morning a bend appears, as I contemplate doing yoga another day.  I really only face this one day at a time.  So early each morning upon awakening, I take inventory to see if I have all I need to begin.

     

    I think there is a part of me that is exhausted by this yoga every day, one that wants me to revert back to the ‘good’ ole days.  It wants to slip back in to unconsciousness of being lazy, to go back to sleep in comfortable do nothing.

     

    Challenging that idea is another part of me, the one who enjoys being awake, aware and alive.

     

    At this point I am faced with two roads, one leading back a comfortable bed of lazy, or the one who is forging a new me.

     

    When life is at its busiest, when my time seems so limited, it would be so easy to find an excuse, for they lay scattered all about.

     

    Each excuse can be a sign that says, “Turn back.”

     

    Who knew that excuses were directional signs?

     

    I do now.  So each time an excuse pops up it is telling you to turn back into the old person you used to be.

     

    A U-Turn in your life!

     

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  • Relaxation Response.

    When I began doing yoga 92 days ago, the view was to make it to 60 days, yet I knew that 60 days of doing yoga and then returning to my old life, wasn’t what I needed.  I needed to add this to my life daily, for it to become a way that I treated my body, a habit, and not just a fleeting experiment in my life. 

     

    I didn’t know how I would endure this 90 minutes of Bikram yoga each day, but I wanted the results. 

     

    The requirement of me is do get to the mat each day, to challenge myself when things are the busiest, when time is crammed full of things to do is when I need this the most. 

     

    Once I begin my focus is on my breath, this pose, this second, and it enables me to then bring the same to my life outside of the yoga mat. 

     

    Below is a great example of why to do yoga daily.  I want to remain out of the flight or fight pattern, and in to the relaxation response!

     

    ”The autonomic nervous system is divided into the sympathetic system, which is often identified with the fight-or-flight response, and the parasympathetic, which is identified with what's been called the relaxation response. 

     

    When you do yoga – the deep breathing, the stretching, the movements that release muscle tension, the relaxed focus on being present in your body – you initiate a process that turns the fight-or-flight system off and the relaxation response on. 

     

    That has a dramatic effect on the body.  The heartbeat slows, respiration decreases, blood pressure decreases.  The body seizes this chance to turn on the healing mechanisms.”  ~Richard Faulds

     

     

     

     

  • Present Training.

     

    As I sat in a room with four other people, one was leading the class and the rest of us were to follow along.  It seems an easy task, to sit and be led, to sit and absorb, to be one with the whole class.

     

    Yet I found myself not following along, but going against the other students. 

     

    One wanted to know what was up ahead, had to know, what would come next, and couldn’t relax in this chapter, worrying about the unknown.

     

    The other two wanted to either change the way things were being asked of us, or stepped into the past operation regaling us with stories that had nothing to do with where we were going.

     

    Their nonsensical behavior was like a loud horn blast coming in and interrupting the flow, their worries/concerns/thoughts of past and future events bleeding into the now.

     

    What a great thing to witness and a frustrating thing to be part of.

     

    I seen how their minds kept leading them away from the task at hand, like pre-school aged kids they needed to be rounded up and brought back to class.

     

    I just never thought that the hardest part of ‘teaching’ someone is to keep them present.

     

    Their attention span was limited and as the afternoon progressed it became worse, and the more they stole time from training, the longer training became.

     

    My patience of idling along in the present, while they played out in the past and future wore me out.

     

    To sit and observe this behavior is so intrusive and rude to the present.

     

    It is the ultimate battle in each situation, between what is now and what was or will be.

     

    As I sat on the sidelines frustrated, I too was battling with what is, for I expected us to all remain in the present training.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Free

    “When you live in reaction, you give your power away.  Then you get to experience what you gave your power to.”   

       N. Smith

     

    To be in the experience of what you gave your power to can be a life changing moment, it can make you feel victimized, and you are.

     

    It is now very uncomfortable for me to lose my power, to lose sight of reality, to be a puppet in their reality. 

     

    In the past I was more comfortable being a puppet and it seemed normal to be moved by others needs and desires, I called it loving; I loved them so much, I gave up my freedom.

     

    I laid down my life and my power and became powerless for love, and lifeless.

     

    A victim of conditional love.

     

    The condition is you are their puppet, you do what they want you to do, you say what they want you to say, and then you can be with them.  Otherwise you are set aside, discarded and useless, they have no use for a puppet that is in its own power.

     

    My daily routine of Bikram yoga is cutting the old strings, disconnecting the lines and I get to see where I used to come alive, how I moved and why.

     

    It is an interesting and scary endeavor to experience the old ways with awareness, but when it is all said and done, I have found a part of myself that was being drained by fruitless actions.

     

    I get a reality check as to what my puppet actions actually did, and it is the opposite of love.

     

    Their indifference to my life while I served them is remarkable, what is more shocking is my indifference to my own.

     

    I picked up my life at 46, and every now and again, I drop it for an old love, yet I soon learn their indifference to me is still there, and on I go, grabbing up my life again, a little shaken, a little bruised, but free.

     

    (A survivor of a concentration camp said that the opposite of love is indifference, now I fully know what he means….)

     

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  • Indifferent to Love.

    “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you're the easiest person to fool.”         

        Richard Feynman

     

    It is amazing to me how a fool will take my place, how the mental lady slips into my awareness and shields me from the truth and unbeknownst to me, a different view of reality is transposed upon a kind world.

     

    This happens when I am wide-awake, it happens slyly as I bend back into an old relationship, I revert back to my old persona and with it comes tricky glasses and my awareness turns the opposites into truths.

     

    I am the fool and the fooled, which seems the weirdest of all circus tricks!

     

    What is even weirder is that I believe the foolish tricks and lose sight and faith in reality, while focused on the trick being played out in front.

     

    The trick feeds upon my fears, each lending themselves to each other in a whirlwind or a cyclone spinning madness upon my reality, neither stops to see if there is evidence to the contrary in reality, just whirling around false truths and replacing good with bad and bad with good, like flipping a switch, my whole world becomes hostile and I am immediately tossed the coat of armor to stand in defense.

     

    My enemies are those that love me, my friends those who are indifferent, flopped upside down again, I am mad.

     

    Not mad in anger, but a mad woman who focuses her energies to change what is; breaking reality once again, by not seeing the truth as it lays naked.

     

    This mad woman doesn’t accept what is but stands with potential of change.  She believes in potential of change, not in what is right in front of her.

     

    How would you hold on to the potential for change?  Does potential for change have roots?  How does one know the direction potential of change is heading?  Is that a spot to sit upon?

     

    If I sat in the spot of “potential to change” what am I doing at that moment?  Am I moving or acting in reality, or am I just simply evading change.

     

    This land ‘potential for change’ is where I stored my whole family (childhood family).  And in doing so it spared me from feeling reality.

     

    If there is potential for change, there is hope.

    And where there is hope, reality slips away.

     

    (I had to go back to an old post to grab this quote that I loved, and I still do.)

     

    “If you give up hope, you will likely find your life is infinitely richer.  Here’s why:  When you live in hope, it’s usually because you’re avoiding reality.”  Gay Hendricks

     

    I was avoiding the finality of indifference. 

     

    While I was hoping their indifference would change, I was indifferent to the love at hand.

     

    In my reality my home has love where indifference once stood. 

     

    When mad, I am indifferent to love.

     

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  • An Adult at Last!

    It is my middle daughter’s 21st Birthday, my second born.  She came with a face that didn’t quite believe all that she saw, forever seeing far beneath the surface of many things, curious, questioning, being herself even up against another’s wishes.

     

    I admire her strength to stand for herself, to be her own greatest advocate, willfully heading in the direction she wants to go, no matter what, making no excuses she is living her own life.

     

    I love that.  For she isn’t one who will succumb to peer pressure, so at anytime if she finds herself up to her neck in hot water, it will be because she swam in!

     

    It was like she intuitively knew that her life had to matter more; she is a great example how to be loud in your own life.

     

    Of all the kids, she is the one who challenged my techniques, my beliefs, and my road that I wanted her on; it is because of her, I am a better mother.  I was shown that my children’s life matter as much as my own.

     

    Happy Birthday Honey, I love you and your inner passion to be your own self, to stand up and alone for things you strongly believe upon.  I love your independent Spirit.  You are free to enjoy the day, may it be a good one!  An Adult at last!

     

     

     

     

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  • My Little Rowboat!

    ”One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.”  James Earl Jones.

     

    And what is beyond hard is when you do utter what is in your heart; your truth and you are not believed or heard.

     

    This sets into motion a belief that your insides are wrong and the outside unhearing ear is right.

     

    We never stop and consider that the ear is broken and our insides are right.

     

    I know that when my mother didn’t hear or believe my message of abuse, I was left not believing myself.

     

    When you don’t believe your own self, you are set out to sea adrift and must rely upon another for your sense of self. 

     

    You are without oars to steer yourself; you rely upon others for your sense of direction.  A life lived for others….

     

    I took my oars back five years ago, I now row where I want to go and I love love love the freedom that came with it!

    I am the captain of my little rowboat!

     

     

     

     

     

  • Welcome to Reality.

    “Meditation is running into reality.  It does not insulate you from the pain of life.  It allows you to delve so deeply into life and all its aspects that you pierce the pain barrier and go beyond suffering.”   Henepola Gunaratana

     

    Mediation is running into reality.  Not running from reality, but into the here and the now.

     

    In delving deeply into my life and all its aspects I have experienced pain and broken the barrier to be in the land beyond.

     

    What I used to think is that if you headed in the direction of pain, you would just get more and more pain that it would literally not end.

     

    What I learned is that beyond all the pain is a place of peace.

     

    Between you and that peace is a sea of pain that has to be acknowledged, felt and understood, it is your past coming to be reconciled.

     

    I sit in reality and deal with what is in all moments.  Even if past feelings come to the now to be dealt with, I am here now.

     

    No more tucking disturbing things into the suitcase called, later, or not now, instead I meet each new situation as it arises.

     

    I am the greeter of the present moment, like a wal-mart greeter, “Welcome to Reality.”

     

  • Relax and Enjoy the Ride!

     

    “Is Reality Broken?  Are you trying to fix it? “  Tao Now, Josh Barran

     

    There really are only two ways to see reality, either it is broken or it is working perfectly.

     

    How can you tell if it is broken or working perfectly? Who gets to decide? Do we each have our own sets of reality?  Is your perception and my perception separated and equally right?

     

    When you are sitting in reality, how can you tell if it is broken, what are the signs that something needs to be fixed and then how do you fix it?

     

    I just love the phrase, “is reality broken?”

     

    If you asked me a few years back, I would have given you a million ways that it was, and a busload of people who needed fixing.

     

    Now I see that all is perfect.

     

    Nothing has changed, the landscape, people and actions are all still the same, but I now see things differently.

    In nature if something is not right, it is called a freak of nature, it is going against the natural flow or natural expression.  A meowing dog is a freak.

     

    Why is it that we don’t do the same with people, that we set aside nature’s rules?

     

    We almost have freakish expectations of people when we want them to act/do/be something other than themselves.

     

    If we can accept them AS they are, we are not breaking reality.

     

    I used to see others with problems for they were not doing as I expected, little did I know I was the freak. 

     

    I was in reality expecting it to be different than it was; I was always trying to fix something that wasn’t broken.

     

    The fruitlessness of it all, fixing non-broken things, going into people’s lives unsolicited telling them to do things differently, changing that which doesn’t want to change, creating a broken reality, giving myself a job to break reality!

     

    A reality breaker that was the job I retired from. 

     

    As a retired reality breaker, I can now relax and enjoy the ride!