being real

Last week I wrote about my envy of the skilled and lithe yoga teacher Angela Farmer. One of my yoga students was moved by my blog and sent it to a woman who was in contact with Angela. Yesterday I received a warm and lovely reply from Angela acknowledging my being real. By writing about my shadow self, the part of me I think I need to keep hidden to be accepted, surprising and heartwarming things come my way. I am finding the more I am willing to be my authentic self the more easily my life flows. Now this has a caveat. In the beginning it was very important to me to make myself emotionally vulnerable with people who supported me. I don't think it is smart to be real with people who will ridicule or get defensive in other unpleasant or unkind ways. We live in a culture that values pretense. In many situations what works the best is the presentation that appears the most confident. In the beginning of my journey toward increased authenticity I made the mistake of sharing my soul with people who judged me for not having it all together. I ended up feeling misunderstood and messed up. At first I thought if I shared myself honestly it would motivate other people to share themselves honestly. Then I would create the deeper connection I was seeking. Two problems: One is that when I am giving to get I rarely get what I imagined. The second is that I needed to develop discernment about taking care of myself with my sharing. If a person wants to share honestly my doing so could create some safety for him or her to do what he or she wanted to do anyway. I began to develop better detectors for my own emotional safety. How do I tell whether a person will be receptive to dropping down below a superficial exchange? In the beginning I resisted having a superficial exchange. I began to see a value in small talk. I saw how jumping right in was pretty intense for most other people even though they might be comfortable in a few exchanges. What were some good ways to drop down? It's always a good idea to ask the other person a question that you really want to know the answer to and then to listen to the answer attentively. It's amazing how much safety this can create and how much spaciousness for a satisfying exchange to occur. Also a comment about your present time experience provides an oppportunity to connect in the present. For instance," I am enjoying this party. It's kind of surprising given how challenging social situations can be for me." Eye contact and slowing down my breathing are helpful tools to relax and show up. What has worked for you when you want to connect?
After alot of practice being myself with other people has gotten much easier.I used to worry much more about what other people thought of me. Now I realize that other people are not usually thinking about me at all because they are more concerned with what I am thinking of them. I am now more able to validate internally.Internal validation is knowing I am OK from the inside rather than seeking external validation from others. This is not to say that I don't still take things personally. I am still the queen of taking things personally. What's changed is that I can sometimes notice my own reactivity with mindfulness and compassion. What do you notice about being more of your authentic self with others? What's scary about it? What's in it for you to do it?Is there someone you'd like to get to know better? A good place to start is to tell the person you'd like to get to know them better and suggest a meeting. Is there someone you'd be willing to practice on? I appreciate praciticing with you. Feel free to write comments to my blog. The e-mail link is now working.

Envy

In the Enneagram, each point has what's called a passion. The passion in the enneagram is the energy that moves us away from our center toward our personality. For the one it is self-righteous anger, the two is pride, the three is vanity, the four is envy, the five is avarice,the six is fear, the seven is gluttony, the eight is lust and the nine is sloth. Today I read an article by Sally Klempton about envy. Since I identify the most with the four type, envy is my passion.
The article suggested that envy can be subtle. It can masquerade as irritation or annoyance with another person. Sally directs us to explore underneath the annoyance to see if envy lurks underneath. Envy is an embarrassing emotion for me. I judge myself harshly for begrudging someone else their talents, successes or good fortune. It feels so unevolved to secretly hope another will fail. Sally Klempton suggests that underneath envy is our own disowned self. When we feel envy it is often with a peer. The envy is about some quality we are jealous of in another that we don't own in ourselves. She advises getting underneath the story of the envy to the feelings underneath and being willing to be with them.
One of my yoga students lent me a DVD by Angela Farmer called Inner Body Yoga. It is a wonderful yoga class taught by this beautiful woman who appears to be in her sixties. She is incredibly flexible, fit and sensual. She seems so comfortable in her body. She has long luxuriously curly silver hair and wears no makeup. Her husband Victor who is a yoga teacher and an artist, painted these gorgeous pictures of women in yoga poses that illustrate the DVD.
Angela has created her own form of yoga and teaches internationally. As I moved through the class I was very aware of the limitations of my own body and a familiar feeling of tightness in my heart. The green monster was rearing its head within me. I wanted Angela Farmer's body. I wanted Angela Farmer's husband. I wanted Angels Farmer's comfort and ease with her sexuality. I was making up a story about how she does it right and I, by contrast, do it wrong. In my story of being one-down, she is beautiful, talented and lithe and I am dumpy, inflexible and aging rapidly by the minute. Feeling these feelings I am awestruck by the creativity in my story. I could see I was using Angela Farmer and the story I made up about her to feel crappy about myself. Sally Klempton suggests looking at what you want for yourself and sending these qualities to the person you envy. So I want to age gracefully and be grateful for my body and accepting of what it can and can't do, I want to be more and more comfortable with my body and my sexuality and I want to be a creative and inspiring yoga teacher. On top of all of that, I want to have fun. I imagine sending all of that to Angela Farmer and her receiving it smiling and bowing. Sending it to her I am more aware of my own generosity of spirit. I feel lighter and more spacious. It feels true to me that we are all one and that sending these things I want to Angela Farmer I also allow the space to see them in myself. This is fun. Envy doesn't have to be kept in the closet. The shadow is the part of me that I find unacceptable and keep hidden. I shine the light of day on my envy and invite her in for tea. She sits down and faces me and I let myself open to her and accept her as she is. She is a vehicle for me to empower myself. I ask her if she'd like some lemon and a few carrot sticks and allow her into my heart. When I can notice what I find unacceptable in myself without judgement, the charge of shutting down my own heart to myself releases a bit. Angela Farmer and I are sure a pair of passionate, creative sixty year old yoga teachers. I open to allowing myself to be inspired by her body and her talent as a teacher.What do you find unacceptable in yourself? Is there something you envy in others that you aren't owning in yourself?

Circle of protection

An update on my brother. He is in a shelter with many helpful services where he can stay for ninety days. He is commited to making a new life for himself. I am so glad. Thanks for listening.
Today I have been thinking about Peace is in my Heart. When I protect myself within a circle of white light it allows me to open my heart. That circle is a boundary that helps me to stay open-hearted to myself and chose what I take in and what I don't. In the past I have shut my heart down to protect myself from the unwanted energy of others. Abandoning myself leaves me drained. When I am in my circle I can be around other people and chose what to take in. Then I my heart can be open and I don't have to feel drained and overwhelmed. When my heart is shut down I am also much more vulnerable to the criticism of my own ego.
Draw a circle around yourself and see it extending above your heart and below your feet. Imagine it infused with white light which comes from the universe through the top of your head. Breathe into your heart and feel the protection for your heart which this circle gives you. Spend a minute breathing into your heart and when thoughts come up bring yourself back to your circle. You can place one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly. Breathe so that both your hands move. Breathing into your heart connects you to the source of all there is and breathing into your belly connects you with the earth. Within your circle you are connected to the universe and the earth at the same time. After breathing and feeling connected and grounded in your circle feel the sense of peace that protection brings. Peace is available to us because it is the source of all there is. When I am protected and openhearted I can interrupt the warnings of my ego. For instance, right now my ego is telling me I am not making any sense. It also says that noone is reading this anyway so why even bother to write? In my circle I can protect myself from my own ego too. It is easier to reply to my ego
and calmly say, "That's a thought" when surrounded by white healing light. It is easier to be the witness to my ego's attempts to convince me of its fear stories. It isn't necessary to defend myself or to treat the ego angrily. When I can witness it as energy I don't want to take in, acknowledge it and move away I move toward peace. So now I am picking my nails. I have learned that means I am anxious. If I allow myself to feel the energy of the desire to pick my nails and be with the anxiety it begins to lift. It doesn't go away. What I notice is that there is more spaciousness created in my heart when I am willing to be with what is. The story my ego is telling me is that I don't know what I am talking about. I can acknowledge that as a story and say, Thank you for sharing. When I move to be present with the anxiety under the story I can feel the pull to pick my nails instead of feeling the anxiety. I have been picking my nails since I was a small girl. As I feel the desire and be with the anxiety I am protecting the little girl inside me from my negative core belief that there is something wrong with me. My little girl is safe inside my circle protected from the negative core belief. I see her inside the circle and imagine the belief outside the circle. I feel more peace and more space in my heart to allow the peace that lives in my heart to be there.
Experiment with your circle and see what you would like to be protecting yourself from right now.

Snowstorm

Tonight I am so grateful to have a warm house from which to watch the heavy snowflakes steadily falling. I think about the people who have no homes. Tonight my brother is one of them. He moved to Tuscon a few weeks ago. He went there with very little money and his car died and he was robbed. He has been a troubled soul for a long time. He tried to get into the homeless shelter and missed the last bed. He called me to give him money to stay in a cheap motel. The motels won't take payment with my credit card over the phone. He has his bicycle and is trying three more motels and will call me back. I feel for him. I feel helpless and powerless. I also resent him for being addicted to pot for over forty years and being in denial about its impact on his life. Now he has no money to buy it.Maybe this is what had to happen for him to acknowledge his addiction. I wish I could make his life different. He found a motel that would take my credit card. At least he has a place to sleep tonight. I am relieved and thankful. Tucson is going down to 32 degrees tonight. I am scared for my brother. I am planning to send him metta. That is a ritual to energetically send lovingkindness across the airways to another person. The prayer I will send goes like this:May you be peaceful. May you be happy. May you be free. In this body. On this earth. In this moment. It's something to do when there is nothing to do.
Tomorrow when he calls I will do what I can to help him. I will get clear about what I can do to help that will actually be helpful. I will try to set some boundaries and give what I can. Then I will do my best to let go. I am torn because if the tables were turned I know he would help me. He is my brother. I love him and care about him and he is a bottomless hole.I will meditate tomorrow and ask for guidance about what to do and what not to do. My spirituality has three parts: Trust in the universe, do my part and let go of the outcome. I will go deep inside and ask myself how best to honor my spirituality in my relationship with my brother.
Do you have any family members with whom you have a challenging relationship? Have you been involved in the process of discovering and setting healthy boundaries? What have you discovered?

Contempt

I went to a very useful workshop on relationships last Friday given by Terry Real. The thing I most got out of it was the idea that contempt takes two forms. One form of contempt is grandiosity where the contempt is directed toward another person. This type of contempt results in blame and judgement and the lack of taking responsibility for our own behavior. We go one- up and feel better than the other person and make excuses for our behavior based on blame. I blew up at you because you were criticizing me.The second type of contempt is shame. That type of contempt is directed against ourselves. It results in blaming ourselves and thinking we are crappy people and/or there is something wrong with us. With shame we often go one-down and feel inadequate and inferior to others. Most people do both kinds of contempt, yet major in one and minor in the other. Contempt is a knee jerk defensive reaction to discomfort or pain. This fit in with the other valuable gem from the workshop which was the idea of first consciousness and second consciousness. First order consciousness is the knee-jerk reaction. It is a response that got created in childhood that is automatic and familiar. It is also famous for getting the same ineffective results. Terry calls it Door A. When we respond and pick door A we are using our limbic brain the part of us that chooses to fight or flee. Second consciousness employs the neo-cortex of the brain or the thinking reasoning brain.
Second consciousness or Door B is a mindful choice. It means recognizing the knee-jerk or the "whoosh" reaction of doorA, taking a breath and making a conscious choice to be in our functioning adult. Sometimes we will already be beginning to respond on automatic pilot when our inner voice of guidance says, "Wait a minute. Take a breath. You don't have to do this how you have always done. You could chose door B. Contempt in either form is door A. The beauty of meditation practice is that it is the practice of choosing door B. In meditation each time we notice ourselves lost in our stories we mindfully bring ourselves back to the present moment. With practice bringing ourselves back to right here and right now and making a choice from that place, begins to replace our knee-jerk reactivity. Not perfectly and not all the time, however more and more you begin to notice that in the face of things that were incredibly triggering in the past you are calmer and more centered. The more I practice meditation it is easier to recognize a shame attack as self-contempt and bring myself up enough to look out of my own eyes and let myself know that I am OK even in the face of disapproval, comparison or anger. It is also easier to recognize the contempt of going one-up and being incredibly judgemental and critical of another as grandiosity and bring myself down to look out of my own eyes. Then I remind myself that I am no better and no worse than anyone else. Working with my knee -jerk reactions with mindfulness and compassion provides the opportunity to meet myself and others with more kindness and to grow from that kindness toward same-as, releasing one-up and one-down. I am committed to living my life choosing Door B. I am committed to working with my contempt and to healing. I am committed to forgiving myself when I don't and to forgiving others when they don't. I want to thank Terry Real for all of his good work with so many people and for providing so much food for thought. Living a life with less contempt is so very juicy for me. It supports me in moving closer to really knowing that I can take care of myself and be in close relationship with others at the same time.Where are you with contempt? What does it bring to mind about your relationship with yourself and others?

Community

I have been immersed in the novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck for several days.
I finished it late last night. I first read the book in college and barely remembered it. I did remember that one of the characters was named Rose of Sharon. My undergraduate school Cornell University sent a copy of the book to all of its alumni because they felt it was very timely to read in the midst of our current economic challenges. It was about a family in the 1930's who were tenant farmers and got kicked off of their land and replaced by tractors. There was widespread unemployment and millions of hungry people traveling to California in search of enough work to feed their families. The 12 members of this family traveled across the country with all of their belongings piled into a sawed off jalopy. Everything was scarce except for their respect for each other which seemed to grow as their money supply shrunk. At one point the mother of the family says, it seems like we only used to think of family and the less we have the more we think of everybody. People pulled together and helped each other even though they had next to nothing themselves. There was a sense of community created by people in tent camps traveling west sharing each other's births and deaths, tragedies and celebrations. At the end a young woman who has just given birth to a dead baby feeds an adult man dying of hunger her breastmilk. What I got from the book is that in times of trouble people pull together strengthening themselves and each other. In these challenging times it is now important for us to pull together too. Community means different things to different people. I participate in several groups and yet don't feel like I really belong. To me it has always been difficult to stick around with a group of people and accept all of the dogma and drama that goes with it. I am rethinking my position. I think I had the idea that I had to like everyone to be part of a community. Of course that is never the case. It makes sense that in a community of people brought together for whatever reason there are people who are drawn to each other and people who are not. I am yearning to feel part of a community with enough like-minded people in it. I don't have to like everyone, nor does everyone have to like me. That is a fantasy, just like the perfect partner. I am ready to begin searching for a community with like enough values that I can feel safe being myself. I don't know what it will look like or even what the common interest that will gather the people together will be. I am open to begin creating one if that is what is needed. Where are you about community? What has been your experience of community in the past? Is it appealing to you to feel a part of a community or not?

Food

I want to write. I don't want to eat when I am not hungry. I am feeling anxious and I know that expressing myself creatively will help me to feel less anxious. I can't think of anything to write about. I forgive myself for not being able to think of anything to write about. I forgive myself for writing anyway even though I think I have nothing to write about.
I forgive myself for eating when I am not hungry. I forgive myself for rationalizing that I am eating healthy food so it doesn't matter if I'm not hungry. I forgive myself for feeling restless and empty and not knowing what to do with myself.
Restless and empty
I don't know
What to do with myself
So I eat.
It could be worse. I could be shooting heroin. I could be mainlining chocolate doughnuts. I could be blaming my relationship for not making me happy. I closed the refridgerator and am feeling empty and restless and writing about it. Lucky you for getting to read all of this.
Maybe you are lucky. How often do people get real about what is going on with them? It is always helpful to me to hear about someone else's stuff. I feel so much less alone. Sharing this with you I feel more connected and less alone. It's nice to know that someone is listening. Reaching out feels good. It's hard to reach out when things don't feel good. It's easier to pretend that they do feel good or to complain about the situation rather than share my feelings and be emotionally vulnerable.
I am breathing deeply focusing on the exhale. Now I am humming on the exhale. I remember that when nothing feels right, it's time to do nothing. I am restless and edgy and I need to go rest and be with myself and be quiet. I have been resisting that by thinking I needed to do something. I am tired and I want to rest. When I am tired it is easy for me to think I am hungry. When I am cold it is easy for me to think I am hungry. When I am thirsty it is easy for me to think I am hungry. When I am full it is easy for me to think I am hungry. In the book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman talks about women who mistake many feelings for hunger. They are medicating their feelings under food. I am one of them. It is important for me to be mindful when I think I need to eat. Instead of kneejerking toward food I want to pay attention to what is going on inside me underneath the story of my desire for food. When I tune into my body right now I can feel my fatigue. I worked with a lot of people today. I am depleted and need to rest and no amount of coconut butter will revive me. I am going to rest now. Thank you for listening. It does help to write. Creative expression is very useful. What is your relationship with food like? Is there a way you are medicating feelings by eating? Some people medicate feelings by not eating when they are hungry. Notice your relationship with food and see what you can learn about yourself.