Friday, February 27, 2009

Feedback

I want to thank you, dear readers, for your feedback. I always appreciate feedback whether it is a gentle reminder that I have my head up my ass or words of praise. It all feels like love to me. When I say that I appreciate being reminded when I have my head up my ass, that is my ego's critical language. What I mean is I appreciate being reminded when I am coming from my ego. The feedback I received from one of you concerned calling my foggy-minded state "getting stupid" in my last blog. She was triggered by the word stupid, finding it self-deprecating. She was right. I am now calling this state of mind "ungrounded". This comment very much contributed to me. Now I know when I am ungrounded I am not doing anything wrong and there is nothing wrong with my brain. I am ungrounded and I need to use my breath and focusing on my hands and feet to ground myself or do whole brain posture or practice my grounding chord exercise or eat protein or rest or walk or sing. Criticizing myself and being angry with myself for being urgent or anxious, makes the fogginess worse. I can simply use being ungrounded as a message that I need to ground and come back into my body. The reader also suggested that I had written about my fear that there was something wrong with my brain before. She knows that my Mom has alzheimer's and wondered if I was afraid I had it. She spoke of her experience of relief when she asked her physical therapist if the pain in her wrists and shoulders was arthritis and was told it wasn't. This allayed her fear of having her mother's arthritis. Anything we can do to let ourselves know that our fears are not real is so useful. Remember that FEAR stands for False something Appearing Real. I can't remember what the E stands for. There is nothing wrong with my mind, I just can't remember what the E stands for. It's lovely how everything fits together. Forgetting what the E stands for gave me an opportunity to practice being kind to myself for forgetting. Does anyone know what the E stands for in FEAR? All I can think of is energy and I don't think that is right.
This question about my fear of alzheimer's prompted me to spend two hours yesterday using my PSYCH-K trade with my skilled PSYCH-K partner working on being ungrounded and my anxiety about my mother's alzheimer's. I love PSYCH-K. In the healing process we balanced for many beliefs including: It's OK for me not know everything
I am a unique person totally separate from my mother
I forgive myself for the love and affection I withhold in anger from myself and others
I forgive my mother for having alzheimers
I eat all meals and foods in a conscious, mindful manner.
It was very powerful. Afterwards I mindfully ate my meal without any distractions. I really enjoyed tasting the food and using the time to relax. Today I feel clear and powerful and ready to bring compassion to myself and to others. Such a deal.
Is there some feedback you are wanting to give but are holding back? Is there some feedback you'd like to ask for and are holding back? See if it would be useful to risk. The possibilities for feedback making a contribution are vast.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

"getting stupid"

There is a state of mind I call "getting stupid". It is as if a little elf has pulled a black curtain across the part of my brain that functions on a linear cognitive level. It is hard for me to access my intellectual resources from that place. My short term memory isn't very accessible. When I go to the coat closet in my mind where the words are kept someone has stolen all of the coats. If I judge myself for being stupid and think it is happening because there is something wrong with me, it gets even more difficult to think clearly. The anxiety created by self criticism thickens the black curtain. Now I am two steps away from accessing the neural pathways that allow me to process information. In my fear a familiar story arises that there is something wrong with me and with my brain. I am realizing that it happens when I am not grounded in my body. It is happening right now. There is enormous resistance inside of me about writing about this phenomenon. I can feel the power of shining the light of awareness and compassion on myself about "getting stupid" and sharing it with you. I am breathing deeply now and focusing my awareness on my body, especially my hands and feet. As I relax and move into my body the fear dissipates. My ego is very protective of its territory. It doesn't want me to look at this one. It would rather that I judge myself for being "spacey" and leave it at that. Mindfulness and compassion threaten the ego. I want my ego to know that it gets to come along for the ride. I am not trying to kill it off, but rather to embrace it into all that I am. How do fear and anxiety contribute to "getting stupid" ? How do rushing and a sense of urgency make worse. How can i committ to slowing down ?I want to explore this state of mind more and bring curiosity to"getting stupid" . Can you relate to this? Would you be willing to explore this phenomenon for yourself?
Let's support each other in breathing and grounding ourselves in our bodies and shining the twin lights of mindfulness and compassion on our own minds .I'd love to hear from you about any of this.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Boomeritis

It is so good to be back here. It is lovely to have a wonderful vacation and have my satisfying life waiting for me at home. I am really blessed. I love writing this blog. It gives me such a great opportunity to integrate what I am learning and to share it with you.
I have been reading the novel Boomeritis by Ken Wilbur. He is a very wise scholar/mystic. I went to the library and it jumped off of the shelf. I love when that happens. Wilbur's non-fiction books have been hard for me to decipher lately so I was excited to read his novel. I like reading Wilbur's theories of spiral dynamics within the context of a story.This is a zany and juicy journey of consciousness seen through the eyes of a twentysometing son of two flower children. Boomeritis is the concept that many baby boomers are higly developed and also very narcissistic. The book speaks of the need to move beyond the Me generation to a more complete embracing of all of the stages of human development. What he calls Integral Transformation Practice is a method to practice developing further. That is the idea of exercising on all four levels: physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. It really resonates with me because my work, life and website are about, Opening to all that you are in body mind life and spirit. www.andreasilver.net
Physically it is suggested to look at what you eat and how you move your body around. Emotional exercise is to pay attention to your emotional states while not identifying yourself as your emotions. Getting help in doing that can support emotional intelligence.It seems so important to be willing to be with the experience of our feelings underneath our stories about them. To exercise mentally it is suggested that reading books about integral ideas is useful. There are several suggested. As I read them I will recommend them.I'm not comfortable recommending books I haven't read. The idea is to read anything that expands your consciousness beyond the ego self.Anything that supports us in getting that we are more than our personalities is useful mental exercise. Spiritually meditation is suggested as the timeless and tested method of calming the mind and opening the heart. Meditation practice is spiritual exercise. What is beyond who we think ourselves to be? The book suggests that integral transformative practice will help us to find out.It is important to not be rigid about these forms of exercise and become compulsive about them.
In looking at those four areas of exercise I am glad to be more focused on reading again. I have weaned myself off of e-bay. For a while there I was wallowing in the world of things and feeling both drained and hyped up.I want to continue reading books that support my growth including novels. I can now trust myself to live my life and read a novel. For years reading a good novel meant I would be so obsessed I wanted to do nothing else but read. I would stay up too late and immerse myself in the world of the book.I am ready to practice being passionate and balanced about reading fiction. As you look at those four areas of exercise where do you want to focus your attention to expand the quality of your life? What is one area and one thing in that area you could look at right now?

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Centering in Sedona

Hi everyone. I'm back. I had a wonderful vacation in Sedona. The weather was quite cool yet the sky was sunny and clear the entire time. The place we were staying had free daily yoga classes. It was such a pleasure to be a student of yoga in such a concentrated way and to come away feeling as if I had learned so much to share with my yoga students. Then to top off the classes there was a steam and a hot tub. Steam rooms are my idea of bliss. I love wet heat. It seems to melt away the tension in my body.
After my mornings of self-care Gary and I hiked the trails through the gorgeous red rocks every afternoon. We would rest and meditate on the rocks enjoying the warm sun.
We were finally able to sleep together. That has been a major issue for me for the almost four years we've been together. I have needed to sleep in separate beds or not sleep at all. We've worked it out to sleep separately and it has seemed very sad. Before falling asleep and first thing in the morning can be such a sweet time to share. It seems as if the ego can be quieter at the times surrounding the relaxing of the mind and body into sleep.
Gary has a time share and that is how we got to go to this place. When we realized we would have only one bed we decided to go anyway. We knew there would be a couch too. Something about the beauty of the place and how relaxed I felt with Gary helped me to trust that I could sleep. I slept a little better each night. Gary wore snore strips and that really helped. So did sleeping in a king sized bed. At night I often breathe through my mouth, snort and wake myself up and this time I wore snore strips too. If they didn't make me look like Miss Piggy I would wear one all of the time. It made it so much easier to breathe through my nose. It's funny how easy it is to take things like breathing well and sleeping for granted until they are an issue. This feels like a big hurdle for me to cross over. One more obstacle removed to being willing to be in a committed relationship with Gary. I am amazed at the depth and power of my resistance. I am grateful to him for staying with me through all of it. I am so scared of letting go of my independance and surrendering to sharing my life with a man even one that I love as much as I love Gary. My ego tells me horrible stories about how awful he is and I believe the stories. On this trip I realized the stories are about making him wrong so I can confirm my belief that there is something wrong with me for being with him. What would my life be like if I could let go of believing there is something wrong with me? It has been at the core of my identity for my entire life.
It mostly manifests in my ambivalence about primary relationships. On this trip I practiced being aware of obsessing about Gary either positively or negatively. I worked with myself to bring my attention back to myself.
I would say to myself, " It's not about him." and return to my circle. I could see how focusing on him keeps me from being present. With practice I was content and satisfied much more consistently. I appreciate being with a man who understands my process and genuinely wants to support me in my growth. I am committed to practicing returning to my own center when I am using obsessing about Gary to wander off. It is my intention to challenge the belief that there is something wrong with me and to enjoy my wonderful life more fully.
How do you wander off from your center? What do you use to avoid being present? Would you be willing to notice one strategy to keep yourself from being present? Once you have recognized it see if it would be helpful to committ to bringing yourself back when you become aware of using it.
It is very good to be writing again. Thanks for listening. Love to all of you, Andrea

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Buddies

I am feeling kind of revved up about my trip. I am very grateful to be able to go on vacation for a week. As I said yesterday this will be my last blog until I return on the 20th unless I get inspired to write on vacation. I love writing this blog and it will be good to have a break.
In my PSYCH-K support group tonight we worked together on our individual goals and our group goal. The group goal is to have fifty people at the next PSYCH-K introductory workshop. It is amazing to me what happens when ten people come together and pool their energy. Being held in the support of a group is quite powerful. It is as if we are all working toward each other's goals. We each have a buddy who we stay in touch with at least once a week. It is so good to be accountable to another person. I know my buddy is available if I feel stuck or to cheer me on. My book is blooming as we speak. I think I found an editor that I like. She is reading the book in the next week while I am gone. I am starting to be able to see my book in the hands of many people. They are excited about what they are learning from it. I am starting to get that I really do have something to contribute to people who are challenged by their relationship with food and their bodies.
I realized that I have been using food to ground myself. Today I have been practicing breathing into my body and being aware of what I am sitting on if I feel either too much into my head or too much into the clouds. I want to be able to feel connected to the universe and grounded in my body at the same time without eating unwanted food to get there. My intention is to remember to breathe into my body while preparing to leave on vacation and carry that into the week ahead.
Is there something you would like to get support with from a buddy? Could you think of someone in your life that you'd like to approach to join together to help each other reach a certain goal or intention? Two people working toward manifesting each others' intentions so much more than doubles the energy. It is sometimes challenging to ask for help. We have to push through our worries that we are bothering people and our fears that we don't deserve support and have to do things alone. Remember every time you ask for help it gets easier to do it the next time. The people I feel the closest to are the ones who make themselves the most vulnerable with me. They are the ones I feel the safest being vulnerable with myself. If you want to, schedule a plan to check in with this person at least once in the next week. It's important to have a plan so that it actually happens.
I look forward to writing again on the 20th or maybe the 21st. I want to be gentle with myself if I'm tired the night I get home. I hope you are gentle with yourself this week.
Love to you,
Andrea

Monday, February 9, 2009

Intention

As I said, I committed to publishing my book in 2009 in a PSYCH-K support group last week. Since then I have read the entire book and have an appointment with a potential editor person tomorrow afternoon. I want to run the title by you to see what you think. When I was woken up in the middle of the night many years ago and told to write this book I was given the title Eating My Way to God. I created the subtitle: a food addict's journey to freedom. It is about my spiritual journey that evolved as a result of confronting my compulsive eating patterns. If anyone out there has any thoughts about whether that title or Eating My Way to Freedom: A food addict's spiritual journey sounds better I would appreciate hearing about it. also if you have any other ideas for a title please share them with me. It is exciting about the power of intention. Creating and committing to an intention seems to move the power of the universe behind it. This book being published seems more real to me each day. I am finally ready to do my part. Writing it was not that hard. I love to write and I learned so much from writing it. The hardest part was pushing through my fears and doubts about whether i had something worthwhile to contribute. The step of putting it out there into the world in a bigger way has been much more difficult. Printing off copies, having them bound and selling them has been a good step. I have sold about thirty books. People have benefitted from reading it. Now it is time to do what I said I would do which is put it out there in the world so more people who have issues with food can use it to alleviate suffering. It is scary to trust that my book is good enough to be published. I am trusting that if it is it will be. I think I need more than that. I have the intention of doing whatever my part is to publish my book and then to let go of the outcome. Trust in God, do my part and then let go. I ask for help from the universe in realizing and manifesting my intention. The first step is to believe that it could actually be true. I will use PSYCH-K to explore my beliefs around that. I am curious about what my resistence (fear) is.
Do you have an intention you would like to put out into the universe? Could you write it down and begin to see what it feels like to grow it?
I will be out of town next week so I probably won't be writing after this Wednesday the 11th until the following Friday the 20th.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Monnya

Tonight I got to hang out with my daughter Monnya. It is such a deep pleasure to share time with her. She and Isaac are getting married in August. It is so fun to begin to plan. She was willing to try on my wedding dress that I wore when I married her father 25 years ago. I had a fantasy about her wearing it at her wedding. She is such a good kid and was very gracious about it. It looked awful on her and it's hard for me to believe I even wore it. It was fun, though. The thing about being with Monya is I don't care what we do. It is just fun to be with her. I feel so blessed to have a daughter who is such a vibrant, creative and loving person. She decided not to go to college and has created many jobs that would usually require her to have gone to college. Her latest is artist in residence in two Bergen Park elementary schools. I am excited for her. She is such a good teacher. When she teaches her students get that she cares about them as people and supports them in being all they can be. Her enthusiasm and warmth are great motivators. She teaches gymnastics and aerial dance to kids and adults. I'm not sure where this is going. This blog may be an opportunity for me to brag about my kid. I hope that is OK. I am wildly enthusiastic about my daughter and what she's doing with her life. She takes risks on a level that I only dream of. It has been a great joy to support her in being as out there as she is. She has always believed in herself and pushed beyond her fear to learn new things. Her latest is learning Portuguese. Monnya decided it was a beautiful language and she wanted to learn how to speak it. She bought the rosetta stone course and is studying it while running on the mini trampoline.
She has always been an inspiration to me.It is hard for me to be a beginner. It scares me to feel out of control and inadequate. Sometimes I am willing to and Monnya has always been my cheerleader. When I was thinking about doing my yoga teacher's training course she said, "Go for it and don't worry about your age. You are not old." It really helped. I love that she calls me and makes dates to spend time with me. I am beginning to relax into our adult friendship and to trust that in addition to loving me, she likes me. I sure like her.
Last summer she set a boundary and told me she didn't want to hear me obsess about my relationship. Since then our relationship has grown much closer. I am sad that she had to set the boundary instead of my realizing I was being inappropropriate. I have mostly stopped pressuring her to talk about her feelings, too. The less I pressure the more she does. Although I must confess that I tried to get her to do PSYCH-K in the restaurant tonight. She looked at me, rolled her eyes and said, "Couldn't we just go home? I really don't want to be doing therapy in a Chinese restaurant." I wonder if it would've worked better in a Mexican restaurant? Seriously, I realized I just got carried away and apologized. Sometimes I imagine it must be very challenging to have me for a Mom. Sometimes it is probably quite wonderful. Whatever else either one of us messed up with as parents she was always held in love and acceptance for who she is by both me and her father. I am very glad we were able to give her that sanctuary. She has taken it and run with it. She literally flies. It helps me to remember that I can now provide that sanctuary of love and acceptance for my own inner child. I have had lots of practice with Monnya. Andie, my inner little girl can benefit from what I have learned from parenting Monnya. I want to practice feeling the level of love I feel for Monnya and then beaming it on Andie. Would you be willing to beam your love into your heart to the little child inside of you? Take a few full deep breaths and imagine her or him in your heart. Let your self feel gratitutude for that little person for getting through what he or she had to to survive and help you to arrive at who you are today. Let that gratitude morph into feeling love for that little person for all of the courage vitality and depth he or she had. Feel that love filling him or her and filling you. It's it's hard for you to do, imagine an unconditionally loving earthmother being holding the child in love as you observe. Feel what happens in your own heart as you watch her being held in love. Breathe that love into your own heart and send it out into your whole body.
In my book: Eating My Way to Freedom; A Food Addict's Spiritual Journey, I quoted Eda LeShane, " All the little girl inside me wanted was love. I gave her food instead." What have you given your little person inside instead of love? Would you be willing to be mindful of that and give her or him love? It's what he or she deeply deserves and always has.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Moon

Yesterday on my walk I noticed the bright white quarter moon showing up in contrast to the clear blue of the daytime sky. I have always felt very connected to the moon. Sometimes I even go out and howl at it. When I take out the trash at night I attempt to remember to focus on the moon and be comforted by it.
As I walked each time I would move away from being present I would look up at the moon and remember who I am not. I am not my obsessive thoughts or my judgement about my obsessive thoughts. I am not the critical voice in my head telling me I am walking wrong, living wrong, loving wrong. I am not the part of me that is so focused on what's going on inside of me that I miss the crisp beauty of the warm winter day and the sound of the river. I am not the voice that says there is something wrong with me because I missed those things. When I look up at the moon I smile because the moon knows I am not all of that even though it is all a part of me. The moon knows me as a sister. We are part of the same sky. The moon accepts me as I am and cuts me some slack. It takes me seriously and then invites me to giggle. The daytime moon has a lot to teach me. It didn't have a plan of showing up in the sky today. It just did it because it was there to do. It didn't think,"Wait a minute it's daytime, I'm not supposed to be showing up for this." It just showed up in all of its glory and didn't give a hoot whose vision of reality she tilted. I thank her for tilting mine. When I left the park she was behind me and I decided to visualize her to bring me back to the present. It's called the virtual moon practice. I realized I could have the moon in front of my eyes whether she was in front of my eyes or not. Today on my walk there she was again. She reminded me by her presence that my presence is sacred and ultimately all I have to connect myself to all there is. I am grateful. Where are you with the moon? She is waiting.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Following through

Another reason I love writing this blog is because it encourages me to walk my talk. When I write about something and suggest you look at it, I do too. I have been much more aware of creating quality alone time since I wrote about it. I have been spending less time on e-bay and have been eating without reading more. I have even let myself lie on my living room floor a few times. It feels good to give myself credit for doing what I said I wanted to do.Is there something you said you wanted to do that you are now doing? Would you be willing to pause now and appreciate yourself for following through? It feels so good to say "Good job" to ourselves.Today I was really blessed with a gift because I paused and didn't make myself go for a walk when I didn't want to even though I thought I should. At 3:30 I finished working with a lovely couple. I thought my next client was at 5. Instead of making myself go for a walk in addition to leading Laughter Yoga I decided to give myself a break. When the doorbell rang at 4:00 I realized the appointment was at four. I had it written down for 4 but somehow got it in my head that it was at five. If I had made myself go for a walk I would've been gone when he got here. I was very grateful that I got to see such a tangible benefit of pausing and checking in with myself instead of knee-jerking to a should. Even the things we do to nurture ourselves can become tyrannical. Bringing mindfullness into my alone time has been really helpful.What have you noticed about your alone time?