I M Perfect lady

Tag: Inner

  • Listening.

    In the book, "Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child" by Thich Nhat Hanh, he writes about Listening.

    "When we speak of listening with compassion, we usually think of listening to someone else.  But we must also listen to the wounded child inside of us.  Sometimes the wounded child in us needs all our attention. That little child might emerge from the depths of your consciousness and ask for your attention.  If you are mindful, you will hear his or her voice calling for help.  At that moment, instead of paying attention to whatever is in front of you, go back and tenderly embrace the wounded child.  You can talk directly to the child with the language of love, saying, "In the past, I left you alone.  I went away from you.  Now, I am very sorry.  I am going to embrace you." You can say, "Darling, I am here for you. I know that you suffer so much.  I have been busy.  I have neglected you, and now I have learned a way to come back to you."  If necessary, you have to cry together with that child. Whenever you need to, you can sit and breathe with the child. "Breathing in, I go back to my wounded child; Breathing out, I take good care of my wounded child."

    "You have to talk to your child several times a day.  Only then can healing take place.   Embracing you child tenderly, you reassure him that you will never let him down again or leave him unattended.  The little child has been left alone for so long. That is why you need to begin this practice right away. If you don't do it now, when will you do it?"

    "If you know how to go back to her and listen carefully every day for five or ten minutes, healing will take place.  When you climb a beautiful mountain, invite your child to climbe with you. When you contemplate the sunset, invite her to enjoy it with you.  If you do that for a few weeks or a few months, the wounded child in you will experience healing."

    "With practice, we can see that our wounded child is not only us.  Our wounded child my represent several generations.  Our mother may have suffered throughout her life.  Our father may have suffered.  Perhaps our parents weren't able to look after the wounded child in themselves.  So when you're embracing the wounded child within us, we're embracing all the wounded children of our past generations.  This practice is not a practice for ourselves alone, but for numberless generations of ancestors or descendants."

    "Our ancestors may not have known how to care for their wounded child within, so they transmitted their wounded child to us.  Our practice is to end this cycle.  If we can heal our wounded child, we will not only liberate ourselves, but will also help liberate whoever has hurt or abused us.  The abuser may also have been the victim of abuse. There are people who have practiced with their inner child for a long time who have had a lessening of their suffering and have experienced transformation. Their relationships with family and friends have become much easier."

    "We suffer because we have not been touched by compassion and understanding. If we generate the energy of mindfulness, understanding and compassion for our wounded child, we will suffer less. When we generate mindfulness, compassion and understanding become possible, and we can allow people to love us.  Before, we may have been suspicious of everything and everyone.  Compassion helps us relate to others and restores communication."

    "The people around us, our family and friends, may also have a severely wounded child inside.  If we've managed to help ourselves, we can also help them.  When we've healed ourselves, our relationships with others become much easier.  There's more peace and more love in us."

    "Go back and take care of your self.  Your body needs you, your feelings need you, your perceptions need you.  The wounded child in you needs you.  Your suffering needs you to acknowledge it.  Go home and be there for all these things.  Practice mindful walking and mindful breathing. Do everything in mindfulness so you can really be there, so you can love."  Thich Nhat Hanh 

    I know that we are not truly listening If we only listen to others and neglect hearing what our wounded child needs.  Unhealed wounded children are the source of all the pain on this planet…

    Each of us can end the pain and suffering by learning how to hear what our wounded child needs.

  • My own formation.

    In the past six years I have been learning new software, my body functions the same, it just responds differently.

     

    My arms move, my mouth speaks, my brain thinks yet they are doing things completely in a new way.

     

    It is like waking up one day and your body refuses to do what it used to do; the inner driving force has switched gears completely, it is all backwards.

     

    This new software has me moving in the opposite direction of my old flying formation, I go right and others move left, I go up and the others go down, I feel totally out of zinc.

     

    I am the lady in a country line dancing row… three steps off.

     

    It seems I didn’t have a slow software exchange, but one day a whole complete system was inside of me.

     

    Like a new me hopped inside and began living my life while still in my old life.

     

    I have to give credit to my husband and children for being able to bring this new me into their old lives, to welcome and get used to her new ways.

     

    As we go forth there will still be more steps I will take that will be out of rhythm with theirs, and we falter and then get used to this unique dance of ours.  Me going one way and them going another in harmony.

     

    We are dancing to the same song but moving with our own rhythm.

    I often feel like the odd duck, but oddly a very free duck.  I fly in my own formation. 

     

  • Reconstruction on the Outside.

    I was surprised at how at ease I felt writing and even how peaceful I was inside, how comfortable I wrote my thoughts as they drifted by, as I looked upon this day, as I just seemed to write effortlessly.
    Six years later the me that is doing The Artist’s Way is completely different inside than the last time…I have a hard time recollecting the old me.
    She was a compilation of her parents, built upon their patterns and beliefs, structured to fulfill their needs, a woman with very little sense of self.
    Now my insides are bursting with me, my knowing and fully comprehending who I am, where I came from, how I made the choices I made etc. A woman with her History pretty much figured out, but a woman with an open slate and a big world to explore.
    The other thing missing inside is the fear of changing, the dread of trying something new and even appearing silly or a beginner…all my sense of pride is gone, with nothing left to lose, I can only gain.
    It is astonishing to me how different I am, the years slipped by and tiny layers of confidence grew on me, so that I am in a much better spot to now add accessories to the new me.
    Just as a woman adds to her outfit, I will add to the strong core of who I am, colorful and exciting things, my bling.
    I have never been a person to wear wild clothes or trends, to dress with flair and be fancy, but I can feel that I am standing here, in need of a bit of that.
    Perhaps The Artist’s Way will change my outward appearance to match my insides…or at least begin the reconstruction on the outside.
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    The journal cover I made for myself yesterday!

  • Selfishly I Respectfully Do Not Care!

    “I respectfully do not care!” is a new quote I heard from Martha Beck as she spoke today on the Lisa Oz radio show.

    People have told her (Martha) that in order to promote and sell books and to keep her selling herself she needs to be on facebook, twitter and the like, but doing so has made her sick, physically sick with shingles.

    She found that she can talk with her daughter, and if her daughter feels her mom says something profound, her daughter will post it online.

    Martha has total trust in her body and she was getting physically sick doing what others wanted her to do, but what wasn’t natural or feeling right for her.

    When she says, “I respectfully do not care,” it means I respect what you are saying, it’s not for me.

    I love that.

    She is following and listening to her body.

    This may be my second favorite quote from her and it validates that you heard the request, but don’t care.

    Don’t care if all are doing this, me and my body are not okay with it,

    “I respectfully do not care” almost sounds like what I tell my children. I respectfully do not care if all the kids are doing it you are not. (when the other kids parents didn’t care and we had different rules.)

    This phrase actually gives you the freedom to be an individual, to follow the signals of your body, to listen to the inner knowing, to care more about yourself than others.

    Selfishly I respectfully do not care!

  • Choices we make.

    What I want to know is do we all have the same choices and the same mechanism that selects them?

    Is it possible that some of us have choices while others do not?

    What makes some of us change our choices and others continue selecting the same ones over and over like ordering the same thing from the menu of life?

    Is there a moment in time when all the choices we have been selecting seem distasteful and we then meander to another part of the menu?

    What happens to us inside that creates the desire for something new?

    Something changes inside of us, something happens to the mechanism that chooses.

    Looking back with 20/20 vision, I can see how a new truth landed inside of me, demolishing my old choice maker.

    All my old choices seemed useless, inauthentic and utterly distasteful.

    Those choices created an illusion that deflected reality.
    In order to walk hand in hand with the truth of reality I had to change all my choices.

    So, was it that choices were limited before or was the truth limited?

    Was my mechanism broken or designed to create illusion?

    Is it possible that we choose based upon our level of awareness, that the choices are always there, we just are unaware?

    All I can know is that my choices are just as limited now, for I feel akin to sticking with my truths, to being authentic with my feelings, to aligning myself with reality.

    My old options are still available but I have lost the taste for them.

    Guess at the end of the day we all make choices based upon what we know, what we feel and our own inner truths.

    It isn’t that the choices are limited; it is that we limit our choices.

    And each of our lives is reflected of the choices we make.

  • The Journey….

    In Kim Rosen’s book, “Saved by a Poem” she writes,

    “ I discovered how the separating lines of culture and age can dissolve in the presence of a poem the first time I went to Africa. In Kenya, at the Tasaru Ntomonok Rescue Centre for Girls in the Rift Valley, I unexpectedly found myself speaking a poem to a group of Maasai girls, only a few hours after I met them. I had long wanted to visit this miraculous place, ever since it was opened by Eve Ensler and her organization V-Day in collaboration with Agnes Pareyio, a Maasai woman who dedicates her life to stopping the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). Tasaru, also called the V-Day Safe House, was created as a haven for girls escaping FGM. Fifty or so girls live at the house at any given time. Each has had to leave her family and community. Many have traveled alone for miles, barefoot over rough roads, spending nights hiding under the bushes for fear of being found by wild animals.
    My first few hours there were awkward. My shyness kept me from striking up conversations with the girls, most of whom though they understood English, did not speak it willingly. They were shy with me too, keeping their distance and watching me in twos and threes, whispering in Maa (the language of the Maasai) and giggling.

    Finally I decided to go over to the kitchen, where I heard a lively singing as a group cooked ugali (Porridge made of cornmeal) and cabbage over an open fire. I listened outside as the last song dissolved into gales of laughter and a cacophony of exclamations in Maa. But the chatter instantly hushed when I walked in. A tall girl who spoke excellent English came up to me and stood directly in front of me: “Do you remember my name?”

    I didn’t. I had been introduced to about 20 girls in the last couple of hours and could not for the life of me remember which beautiful Maasai face went with which name.
    “Salula?” I asked sheepishly, grabbing the only name I remembered. “No!” The girls shrieked with laughter at what must have been a big mistake on my part. “That is Salula!” They pointed at one of the youngest girls, who had arrived at the Safe House only months before at the age of 9, having been rescued in the midst of a forced marriage to a 42 year-old man.

    “I am Jecinta.” The tall girl spoke to me with exaggerated patience, as if to a two year old. “Do you know any songs?” Clearly she was giving me an opportunity to redeem myself.

    “I know some songs,” I said. “But what I really love most is poetry.”
    “I write poems.” An older girl with exquisitely chiseled features and piercing eyes was looking at me intently from behind a huge cauldron of steaming cabbage. She was dressed with more sophistication that the others, wearing a tight sleeveless shirt and matching short skirt that made her look more woman than girl. I noticed her gold necklace and earrings as they glinted in the light of the cooking fire.

    “Do you know any of them by heart? Can you recite any of them here?” I asked.

    “I am too shy to do that.” Her beautiful accent made even this simple statement sound like poetry. “I cannot.”

    “May I recite a poem to you?” I asked her. “Then maybe after you will want to recite yours to me.”

    She nodded. Suddenly I panicked. What poem might these girls relate to? I pored through the archive in my mind. Not one seemed remotely appropriate. Their life experience was so different from mine.

    The kitchen became strangely silent. The clatter of washing and cooking had ceased. The whispering and giggling that had been a constant soundtrack in the background was quiet. All the girls stopped their work and were waiting for my poem.
    Out of nowhere “The Journey” by Mary Oliver, a poem I hadn’t thought of in months, burst to mind. Without even taking the time to run through it silently to see if it was appropriate, I began speaking: “One day you finally knew / what you had to do.”

    The poem is about leaving home, turning away from the many voices that demand that you stay, risking the anguish of those who need and love you, and walking alone into a wild night in order to save “the only life you can save.” The girls listened, transfixed. Each of them had lived through such a turning point. Each of them, at a very young age, had defied tribal tradition and left her parents, friends, and community to save her own life. Who could understand these lines better than they?

    It is difficult to describe what happened in that crowded smoky kitchen as I delivered the poem. There I was, a white, middle-class American woman, speaking words written by another white, middle-class American woman, surrounded by Maasai girls who had grown up in tribal villages in the Rift Valley, in families so poor that two cows their parents would get when they gave their daughter to an old man in marriage were their only hope of a better life.

    But as “The Journey” filled the kitchen, there was no separation between us. We were transported into a timeless, placeless, languageless realm where we were the same. By the end of poem, tears were running down my face and several of the girls were crying as well. Several of them dove toward me, wrapping their arms around my waist. There was a long silence. The Jecinta asked, “Who is this woman, Mary Oliver? Is she Maasai?”

    I shook my head, barely able to speak. “American,” I whispered. “Mzungu. Like Me.”

    “How did she know?”

    In the silence that answered her question, the girl with the gold necklace and piercing eyes came from behind the cauldron of cabbage into the center of the dirt floor.

    “I am ready to say my poem,” she announced.

    In a single wave, the other girls and I moved to one side of the kitchen, spontaneously creating a stage among boiling pots of food.

    “I am just a girl child.” Her voice was surprisingly strong, pulsing with a natural rhythm as contagious as any slam poet’s vibe. “It sounds good but oh no-/ To my father I’m just a source of income.” She continued through the list: her mother who sees her only as a “beast of burden,” the boys at school who objectify her beauty, and “the sugar daddy,” for whom she was just “a juicy fruit to be eaten raw.” The poem ends with the wise and heartbreaking question, “Who cares for me?”

    By now there were about two dozen girls packed into the smoky kitchen or leaning in the windows. As the poet spoke her final question, we all cheered and burst into applause. I looked around the crowd that had gathered. Most girls were melted into each other, their arms draped around their friends. Two girls had maneuvered me into the space between them; one rested her head on my shoulder. For a long moment of silence gazed at each other through the smoke, our eyes full of light.

    In these moments of poetic communion when life comes into a harmony, miracles happen organically: the stroke victim’s brain starts making new synaptic connections; a sense of uncanny peace and joy pervades the Freedom Space as bombs explode in the surrounding streets; the armed Sunni soldier embraces the Shiite poet in tears of joy to discover they feel the same grief and longing; a runaway Maasai girl hears her own story told by a white
    American writer, and she is empowered to find her own voice. When you speak a poem that is written in the language of your soul, you become a voice for the heart in the world, and everyone around you is blessed by a sudden grace.
    Kim Rosen

    The Journey

    One day you finally knew
    what you had to do, and began,
    though the voices around you
    kept shouting
    their bad advice —
    though the whole house
    began to tremble
    and you felt the old tug
    at your ankles.
    “Mend my life!”
    each voice cried.
    But you didn’t stop.
    You knew what you had to do,
    though the wind pried
    with its stiff fingers
    at the very foundations,
    though their melancholy
    was terrible.
    It was already late
    enough, and a wild night,
    and the road full of fallen
    branches and stones.
    But little by little,
    as you left their voices behind,
    the stars began to burn
    through the sheets of clouds,
    and there was a new voice
    which you slowly
    recognized as your own,
    that kept you company
    as you strode deeper and deeper
    into the world,
    determined to do
    the only thing you could do —
    determined to save
    the only life you could save.

    ~ Mary Oliver ~

  • Yoga Heals a Loveless Self

    “The purpose of yoga is to heal.

    Most people start practicing Bikram Yoga to flatten our stomachs, stretch our tight hamstrings, and/or to prevent future injuries. And yes it will do all of that, but those are the secondary benefits to practicing Bikram Yoga. The purpose of this yoga is TO HEAL and that healing takes place from the inside out. It works on a mental level (and spiritual level) to heal our minds. Only then can we begin to change our self on the outside.

    Bikram says, the yoga practice teaches us how to like our self and we start taking better take care of our self then we fall in LOVE with our self!”
    Karen Buckner

    What I didn’t know when I began this practice was how out of love I was with myself, and how my love of my self depended upon another.

    If they loved me, I was okay.

    I never loved me alone, by myself without doing for another.

    It is shocking how dependent we are taught to be on another’s good opinion, how we act/be/live/think/believe to be loved.
    To have another love us, yet we don’t stop and think what it would take for us to love us, alone.

    Doing was my self worth, which I mistook for love.

    I was worthless unless I was doing.

    Imagine this type of self-love where you give and give and give until there isn’t any energy left, until you are filled with resentment of the takers who are your love givers.

    Giving to get love?

    My damaged body is what drove me to doing yoga, with an arm hanging limply at my side, my upper shoulders and neck one huge knotted ball, I began to work on self.

    What I didn’t know was that I was actually filling up my empty tank inside and dumping out all the past beliefs about how to love, changing my inner beliefs of my self, one-second at a time, as I paid attention to my breath and body.

    Each day I brought my body to the mat, and focused on my breathing, as I twisted and bent this constricted body into unimaginable poses, I was changing deeply inside.
    It is a like strenuous physical magic, while I was concentrating so hard to change my body, my insides were healing, my sense of self blossomed, my inner strength to be me became strong, my mind sought clarity and the willingness to face what is…the list goes on and on.

    Yoga heals a loveless self.

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  • My Lady’s Holiday…

    My friend and I spent the past few days on the shores of Lake Superior at a little beach house my In-Laws own. 

     

    Transported away from being a responsible mom and wife, allowing us to just be ourselves with ourselves and with a wonderful friend.

     

    We did yoga on the deck in the sunrise and I then took my chilly bath in the lake, followed by a healthy breakfast of yogurt and fresh berries.

     

    We then sat our chairs facing the water, soaking up rays and sharing our selves with each other, the books we read, the things we know, and the things we don’t know….

     

    From floating on inner tubes to paddling kayaks, our day and evenings slipped by.  By sharing and talking we come away more alike and less alone.

     

    It came to me that I would like to do this with all my Lady friends, all the wonderful woman that I am in contact with, old friends, new friends, young friends and old friends, a Lady’s get together, bringing together many Ladies in one place, all getting to know themselves and each other in a place filled with natures gifts.

     

    While talking to my friend we decided this should be an annual event.

     

    We talked and dreamed and schemed and planted the seeds for a “My Lady’s Holiday”.

     

    A weekend event that all you need to bring is your wonderful spirited lady within, to come and share, to come and meet, to come and play and be.

     

    My Lady’s Holiday has reconnected me to me, and has given me a gift of a deeper friendship.

     

    Take your Lady on a Holiday; take her for paddle on the Lake, a refreshing swim, lay on an inner tube, share an afternoon with a friend, do yoga stretching her body, open her up to the wonderful opportunities of a great friendship.

     

    Expand her horizons, learn new things, meet new people, learn new things about old people, sit and enjoy a lazy afternoon, bring your Lady on a Holiday from being so responsible in life, give her time to play with a friend.

     

    I look forward to many more “My Lady’s Holiday”.

     

     

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    My buddy….

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    The wonderful dinner she made…

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    and me by our Artful Fire Pit…

    Life is good!
     
     
     

  • Dance Going On Inside!

    Sight challenged isn’t just for those whose physical eyes have technical problems and hearing challenged isn’t for those who can’t hear sounds.

     

    I am thinking there is a much larger Sense Challenge going on, where most are not connected to their own bodies.

     

    It is amazing when you are connected to your senses how much there is to feel, see and hear.

     

    As I did my yoga on the river yesterday my senses were overrun with sensations a feast so large that you can only sample a little at a time.

     

    My eyes were witness to wildlife along the river banks, to the flies dancing on the river, to those buzzing and landing nearby, to clouds slowly making their way across the sky adjusting their formations as they move along, to floating butterflies coming by to see how my poses were going.

     

    My body felt the heat of the noonday sun, the relief of the gentle breeze, the coolness of the water I sipped, to the uneven ground I stepped upon, to the stretching muscles, the concentrated balance, to aches and sharp pains of a body unaligned, to the relaxed breath in between poses.

     

    My ears picked up the concert of birds singing loudly competing with Bikram’s voice, the distant sound of cars, the loud splashes of the beaver delightfully playing, the wind in the leaves…

     

    And behind all of the senses is a feeling of awareness.

     

    It is the awareness that makes the other senses come alive.

     

    Without awareness the whole orchestration of the Universe goes unnoticed.

     

    The more you see the more you see.

    The more you hear the more you hear.

    The more you feel the more you feel.

     

    Our bodies are used to appreciate the Universe and I believe there is a whole other Universe inside of us.

     

    There is an echoing dance going on inside!

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