meditation practice

It is so good to be writing again. I needed an evening to myself with nothing planned so I could devote myself to writing my blog. Recently I have had some issues with my password to enter the blog which I finally figured out. I notice if I am patient and keep going and ask for help I am learning my way through basic use of technology. It takes practice.

I wasn't encouraged to problem solve about fixing things when I was growing up. My friends who were encouraged, face technical or mechanical problems with curiosity and confidence. I once asked a male friend how he figured something out that I was stymied by. He said he just kept trying things and he knew he would eventually figure it out, which he did. It takes practice, he said.
 
I have begun to be less timid about trusting my instincts and resisting my impulse to throw my hands up in frustration and defeat especially about technological issues. In addition I was able to figure out which position of my car light would allow it to shut off automatically and get myself to a kirtan or chanting circle without taking one wrong turn. I notice if I keep breathing and let my fear of doing things wrong just be there I seem to know what to do more easily. I have a long history of getting very lost and being really upset with myself. If I can stay present and be kind to myself I have more access to my pre-frontal cortex or the part of my brain that does reasoning.
If I clamp down in self-judgment when I am being self-critical that is a double whammy of being mean to myself about being mean to myself. The key is to practice allowing what I am feeling to be there and being kind to myself. I am continuing to practice mothering myself with love.

I am noticing the more I practice being mindful, which is awareness with acceptance, the easier it is to think clearly. That means allowing what is to be there whatever it is. That is the kind thing to do. So, what I notice about my meditation practice is that the more I practice the easier it is to be mindful in my daily life. I have been listening to an audio tape in my car called Mindfulness and the Brain. In it the anatomy of the brain is explored and the specific benefits of mindfulness meditation according to research are celebrated.
This blog is my pitch about starting or continuing a regular meditation practice.

I was introduced to meditation in my early twenties in a course I took called Silva Mind Control.  I enjoyed learning the techniques and played around with them for a while after the course was over and then stopped. 
When I first returned to meditation and starting practicing regularly, I was motivated by a challenging and destructive relationship with overeating. The intense anxiety I experienced had worsened to the point where I knew I needed attention. In the beginning my mind would go careening off hundreds of times in the few minutes I was attempting to focus on my breath. My anxiety made it hard to breathe let alone focus on my breath. I had a very scary experience with food where I knew I was threatening my life with my behavior and I let go of my relationship with the punishing God I had been brought up with and felt held  by a loving God for the first time. I cried out for help to this new loving god. I cried deeply feeling the pain of my life and I began  to feel my heart open.  In about three weeks of making myself sit every day I could sit still long enough to take a somewhat relaxing bath. This makes it sound like I was a very dirty girl until then. My apartment had only a bathtub with a sprayer. In time I learned to hang out in the tub and relax.  I had also started doing yoga poses every day that I learned from a book by Richard Hittleman.  Gradually my anxiety lessened and I could more easily follow my heart in my ongoing spiritual life journey. Yoga and meditation helped me to save my life. I will always be grateful.

During the almost 36 years since then I have practiced yoga and meditation most days. I have had many benefits. I want to share some of them with you to encourage you to allow yourself to reap these benefits or continue to reap these benefits if you already practice meditation regularly.
I am less reactive and more responsive when I am triggered by something. When I am upset it is easier to soothe myself, feel my feelings and allow them to be experienced and released.  My meditation practice has allowed me to build the muscle of bringing myself back to the present in the midst of whatever, in my daily life. Therefore it is easier to notice when I am focused on worrying about the future sooner and return to right here and right now. Underneath my worry is fear. When I can feel the sensation of the fear in my body and breathe into it mindfully, with awareness and acceptance, I can then feel calmer and ask myself "what do I need?" In this way I am learning to be curious and confident about problem solving. Meditation has given me the confidence to be more patient with myself and trust in my own pace. Therefore it is easier to learn new things.
I am so grateful for my meditation practice. It is the foundation of my life.  If you are new to meditation or to sitting regularly would you be willing to begin with one minute? Sit in a comfortable position and draw a circle around yourself in the air. This circle is a symbol of sacred space that's made sacred by you bringing yourself your own attention. It symbolizes being openhearted and having healthy boundaries at the same time.
Let your eyes close and focus on breathing into your belly for a minute.  You can use a timer or count twelve full deep breaths which is about a minute. When your mind wanders off  as minds do, kindly bring yourself back by refocusing on your breath and welcoming yourself back to your circle. The blessings of a regular meditation practice will eventually lead you to sitting longer. You don't have to push it.

If you already have a regular practice, good for you and congratulations on giving yourself this great gift. Keep up the good work even when you don't feel like it. That doesn't mean not to cut yourself some slack, it means to allow yourself to sit and be with not wanting to sit, sometimes even for a short while. That's why its called a practice because we practice. If you already have a meditation practice consider adding in a time of gratitude at the end. Acknowledge yourself for sitting and being in stillness with yourself. Let yourself feel gratefulness in your heart for whatever you feel grateful for.
Thank you for reading my blog. It is my deep pleasure to share my writing with you. Keep practicing.

Complete Attention

I was attending my regular deeksha blessing group last week. Deeksha blessings are an opportunity to either send  or receive the awareness of the oneness of the universe. I place my hands on another"s head and ask for the oneness of my universe to move through me into the other person's being. I was initiated to be a blessing giver by my friend Ginger who is a oneness trainer. I have found deeksha blessings to be a powerful healing tool during the five years I have been practicing with it.
In the group  before we give each other deeksha blessings we do a guided meditation or chant and then hear the quote of the day. This quote is provided by Shri Amma Bagavan who is the leader of Oneness University in India. His vision is for all people to connect with their inner divine to become aware of the oneness of all beings.

On this day the quote was: Incomplete attention is the root of dissatisfaction. This quote rang very true for me. My mind can go all over the place and I end up having a challenging time focusing on the present. One reason I love my work is because it is easy for me to focus on the person I am working with and not be distracted. I often feel a grat deal of satisfaction from my work. The scattered feeling I get from being lost in my mind chatter, planning or comparing or judging is uncomfortable. I long to be more focused in the present and less dissatisfied. So, I thought, if incomplete attention is the root of dissatisfaction then a way to be more satisfied would be to bring complete attention to whatever was in my experience in the moment.
Complete attention is a path to satisfaction.

So, a practice was born. In meditation, when I inhale I say to myself complete and when I exhale I say to myself attention. When I notice my mind has wandered off I kindly say to myself complete attention and bring myself back to my breath. The structure is lovely and helpful and I have been starting my sessions  and yoga classes with teaching this tool. In my daily life when I remember, I say to myself complete attention to bring my mind back to being present right here and right now. It is a way to mindfully notice I have wandered off without scolding myself. It is helping me to be more willing to completely experience whatever is in my experience without judging it as good or bad or positive or negative. Everything in my experience is worthy of complete attention.

See if complete attention could be a useful tool for you. I notice  as I practice this tool I am feeling less distracted and scattered and more centered. This creates more space for me to feel gratitude.
In this moment I am feeling gratitude for the expansiveness I experience from writing this blog. I am also very grateful to you for reading it. It is so satisfying to be bringing complete attention to your attention. Many blessings, Andrea

Daring to write

Ah, writing. It is so good for my soul. It is like food that nourishes me, filling me with vitality. Writing expands my heart opening me to the muse inside who I often hide from. What am I so afraid of? Is it the passion inside of me that I am scared if unleashed will have me running rampant screaming through the streets? What would it be like to come out of hiding and face the brilliance that lives inside me? That lives inside of all of us. Would it be like inviting my inner critic to take a vacation on a beach somewhere or at least to recognize its truth may not be my truth? What if I could know that the voice that tells me that other people will think my writing is stupid and that noone will care about what I write would tell me that whether I wrote or not? What if I knew that the inner critic was my muse in disguise daring me to write anyway. I have always loved a dare.
I dare to write because when I write I remember who I am. I remember that I am part of the ocean waves that lap the beach in the early morning light. I am the beachwalker at sunrise with her toes in the water watching the waves move up and down her legs as she skitters back from a large wave that will soak her pants. 
 When the next wave comes in I surrender to the wave. My pants get soaked and it feels like an adventure of letting go of always being careful. How does being careful keep me safe? Being cautious keeps me safe. Being careful keeps me small. How big could I be? Could I reach for the stars as if I were reaching into a new shiny pink lunch box that was mine for the reaching. What would my life be like if I saw smallness as an option? What if the signpost said small ness is the path to the right and to the left is checking out a green elephant with an emerald in its third eye asking me to follow it home? 
I need not be afraid that I will be too big for my britches. Whose britches are those anyway and how could I be too big for them? Mom, I know you were protecting me from a world you thought was scary. A world you were sure would eat me alive if I was as creative and honest as being me was. You also needed me to need you. If I got as big as I was I would be bigger than you and not need you anymore.  My smallness didn't make you happy. I thought it would. It wasn't my job to make you happy. It is my job to jump into the unknown and let go of the legacy of defining myself according to your boundaries and your truth. My truth is I am as big as the sky.I open my arms wide and breathe into this moment. I fill my body with the breath of the force of life.That life force holds us in love cheerleading us to be all that we are. Give me an A- N- D- R- E- A ! Hear it cheering for you. Hear it calling your name and inviting you to be all you can be. To reach beyond worrying about what other people will think and listen to that voice of spiritual support guiding us to come back to this moment and see what it has to offer.It is OK for me to be alone. I am safe. My mother is part of my spiritual support team now cheering me on to let go of her fears and her smallness and enter life with full inhale and exhale. That is all it takes. Being big is just being who we are. I dare you. 

Letting Go

I am glad to be writing tonight. It has been five months since my mother died.  I have been in grief counseling through Hospice and it has been very helpful in being with the experiences  of sadness and disorientation and the search for new meaning in my life that are part of my grief.
I was with my mother when she died. My experience was one of awe. It was so clear to me that she was not her body. Her body was the shell left behind when her spirit was ready to depart. During the decade of the decline of my mother's mind I watched her check out little by little until she was barely communicative. Sometimes she could speak a word or two and her eyes were still very expressive.Yet she was a very different version of the smart, strong-willed, sometimes critical, sometimes supportive, person she was before dementia. I missed who she was and also was relieved to be less afraid of her because she gained sweetness as she declined.  I have spent the last five months processing what she meant to me and how our relationship has impacted my life. I am emerging as person who is less dependant on external validation and more trusting of my own truth. I am more in touch and connected with my little girl inside and my spiritual support. I am more open to asking for help from and  listening to spiritual guidance.
Being a part of my mother's death was like watching her free herself from the confines of her physical body. Her spirit expanded as she left and filled the room. I was aware of both the eternal nature of the spirit and the impermanence of life. It was so clear to me when my mother died that we are here for a short time and then we shed our bodies and move on to what's next. After my mother's memorial service my daughter and I left for a camping trip. Our intention was to honor ourselves and my mother in nature. Praying and walking and singing and soaking I took in on a deeper level how unhappy I was in my relationship of eight years. With the distraction of my busyness gone I could face how I yearned to let go of all the years of trying to make my relationship work. During my relationship with my partner, when I would go deep inside and ask what I should do the answer was , love him with all of your heart. I know that meant accept him for who he is and stop trying to change him into who you want him to be. That was my part of our relationship dance. I had been moving toward that acceptance in the months before my mother died. I had gotten to the place where I really accepted my partner for who he was and loved him for who he was. When I listened to my inner guidance I would now hear , love him with all of your heart and let him go. He was unhappy too. We would go back and forth from being willing to let go  of each other because we both knew being partners was no longer the right relationship for us, to clinging to what we had and convincing ourselves that it was good enough. We would each angrily threaten the bond saying we were going to leave and then plead with the person wanting to leave to stay. Our spiritual connection was strong and had been the glue that held us together.We were both scared to let that go fearing neither of us would ever find that again. We were both afraid to be alone. We had been in couples counseling with two different skillful counselors.  After our sessions we often felt connected and close for a time and then would be back butting up against some fundamental differences. I think we both knew on some level it was too painful to continue and too scary to let go. We separated a week after my Mom died. It took great courage to let each other go. I know it was so painful for both of us. I hope some day to be able to  ritualize the completion of our partnership and to recreate our friendship. We were able to be mostly respectful  and kind about separating and I am so grateful for that. It was very scary and very sad. Letting go of my partner and my mother and facing my fear and sadness has been difficult and very healing. It is scary for me to be alone and yet I am getting stronger as I learn more deeply to look within for my strength. It is so challenging to reach out for support with my friends. It is easier to isolate myself. I am fortunate to have some very good friends. I feel blessed. I embrace this era of my life with all the challenges and joy it brings. I am finding contentment within myself and facing my lonliness  mostly without running away. Meditation and yoga have been lifeboats to help keep me afloat in these turbulent and ever-changing waters. I cry a lot and am laughing more. I think they go together. In the midst of it all, I am grateful for my rich full life. I have work I love and a new grandson. Death and new life. When one door closes, or several doors, space is created for the next door to open. 
Thanks for listening and for giving me the space in your life to share  my journey with you. I am wondering what your lifeboats are that help you to navigate the choppy and smooth waters of your life?

Colt, grandson extraordinaire

I am writing this on my IPhone because I have tried several times to write on my home computer and it isn't allowing me to enter a new post. I have very exciting news. Colt,  my first grandson, was born on November 8th 2013. He came ten weeks early and has been in neonatal ICU until today. Today he came home with his happy parents. I am so excited to be a grandma. I never thought I could
 love anyone as much as I love my daughter. I loved Colt before he was born. I started sending him deeksha blessings every day when he was newly conceived. Out of this energetic connection I felt close to him and connected. When he was born ten weeks early it was very scary. Two paths were before me. One pathways full of fear, worry and anxiety about what would happen with
Colt. The other pathway was about All is Well. That was the pathway where I kept asking for spiritual help to come back to when I found myself spiraling off into worst case scenarios. When I met Colt in person my love deepened even more. He was so tiny and so beautiful. I felt like I had known and loved him always. Seeing my daughter with him was so heartwarming. Colt's parents have done such a good job of parenting under very challenging circumstances.
It has been such a teaching to love this little
Being so much and to keep allowing myself to be afraid for his well-being and to return to
trusting that the universe is holding him in love and that he is OK. My trust in the universe has been strengthened by asking for help. If left things up to my ego I would fear the worst. So it has been a blessing to notice the path of worry and ask for help in trusting the all is well path.
I welcome this precious being into my life and honor the new era for his parents and for me. I  ask for support in being the best grandmother I can be- a good enough grandmother. I ask to trust that my love is strong and can be felt and counts even if I am far away. Thanks for sharing my joy. I am so grateful for all the joy my sweet grandson has brought to my life already. All is well, even in the midst of my fears and doubts. All is well holds us in love waiting with the patience of a grandmother for us to return to awareness of it. What can you ask for help about returning to the awareness of all is well in the midst of today?

Artist's soul

I'm not sure what I am writing about today. I have been practicing surrender this month so I am writing with the idea of surrendering control about what I am writing. Let's see what happens.  Thank you for being part of my experiments.
I have been walking in the leaves almost every day. The crunching sound is very satisfying and my little girl inside, Andie, loves it. This has been the most miraculous fall I can remember. The leaves have been so much more orange and red than usual. As I walk the trees take my breath away with their beauty. I have been asking for spiritual support much more often in the past few months. My grieving process has been very deep and challenging. There is something about having both of my parents be dead that makes life seem so much more impermanent and fragile. Hence, I have a heightened sense of wanting to honor each moment and be present for it. I have been asking for spiritual support in giving consistent attention to my little girl inside so she can feel safe and secure. I didn't get that growing up and I often felt scared and self-conscious. I tried very hard to please my mother. She was a very hot and cold person. She could be very loving and then for no reason she would be angry and slap me. I learned not to trust people and to be wary of relaxing around others. Now I want to continue learning to soothe my little girl inside so we both can relax.
Andie loves to do artwork. My grief therapist gave me a plain cardboard mask to decorate. The assignment was to decorate the outside to represent my adult self and the inside as my little girl inside. Last night I painted the mask. In the process of painting I realized two things: One is that Andie is a great source of inspiration and creativity. When I give her consistant attention I get to tap into her spontaneous passion for creating art. The other is that creating art is deeply satisfying for me and I want to do more of it! My dream is to reclaim my artist self. Andie really wants to help. So, back to the idea of surrendering control. If I relax and let go of planning out all of my time I can create more space for being. In that space I can ask for help in surrendering to my inner guidance about what I want to do with my time. In the moment I can be patient about waiting for what really feels right to bubble up. I can lie down on my back and breathe and wait. Being is a challenge. Sometimes even my spiritual practices feel compulsive to me because they can be so fueled by doing them to be OK. Lately I have been kinder and more flexible about being OK regardless of what I do. I think I am doing a good job at being more spacious with myself and showing up for myself with love regardless of whether I exercise, meditate,  pray and do yoga every day. Expressing myself artistically isn't going to become another practice I feel badly about myself for not doing. I want it to flow from kindness rather than conditionality.
It's funny how difficult doing even somethin I love to do can be if I feel like I need to do it to be OK.
That's the principle of negative magnetism of the universe operating. I made it up. It is that anything we thing we need to do or have to be OK alludes us. The universe knows we don't need to have or do anything to be OK.  When we love ourselves conditionally the universe steps in and lends a helping hand. I remember when I thought I had to be a certain weight to be OK. That certain weight was a lot less than I weighed. Only after I stopped hating my thighs and thinking somehow that would make them smaller and accepting and loving my body as it was, was I able to have the body I wanted.
So, I even have a room in my house I call my art room that has become my junk room. I have begun to declutter it gradually in a slow and steady way. If I think I can berate myself intop cleaning the room up I know it grinds me to a halt. All or nothing becomes the game. What works better is to do a little at a time to carve out the space for my artist's soul.
Part of expressing my artist's soul is to write this blog. Andie and I both appreciate all of you who read this blog and the support you have given me to express myself creatively. Thank you

My mom's death part 2

I am writing in purple in honor of my mother. My mother loved purple. She had a bumper sticker on her car that said, I Love Purple.She made me a purple and white afghan that took her four years to crochet. I have wrapped myself in it for twenty years when I am working. Wrapped in it on the first cool fall day this week I remember her and feel wrapped in her love.
  My Mom has been dead for almost seven weeks. I have been seeing a grief counselor through hospice, who has been very helpful.I have learned so much about grief and how pervasive an experience it is. Grief has affected me emotionally, physically intellectually and spiritually. I cry often without exactly knowing why, I have been having trouble sleeping and remembering things, I feel a  sad, heavy weight on my shoulders and fear arises without warning. I am so aware that I am the next in line with both my parents being dead. I feel disconnected from the universe and then joy floods in and I feel connected to all there is, grateful and filled up. 
   Mom had two TIAs which are mini strokes on Monday August 4th which left her pale and listless and less able to move . She seemed to rally during that week eating and drinking well.  My mother started her dying process that Friday night. She stopped wanting to eat and then on Saturday spit out what she was given to drink. I worked with the  loving staff of the assisted living facility to let them allow her not to eat or drink. They cared about her and wanted her to keep living. I cared about her and wanted her to be allowed to die. They were willing to listen. On Saturday night I felt her declining. On Sunday, my partner came down from Boulder and my daughter he and I assembled my mom's kosher casket. Her wishes were to be buried next to my father in Colorado Springs in an orthodox Jewish cemetery. A kosher casket has no metal parts and hers was a plain pine box. It was a sweet ritual to build her casket together and increased my sense that she would be leaving soon.
I was supposed to leave for Boulder to see three clients and our couples counselor on Monday. I decided to cancel everything and stay in Denver with my mother. We called the hospice nurse and when she arrived she said my mom wasn't in her final decline and could live for a week. I felt silly for cancelling everything and began to second-guess myself. I realized I wouldn't have been comfortable leaving regardless. That afternoon my daughter and my nephew came to visit their grandma and said goodbye to her. They were very close to her and it was sweet and sad. That night the caregiver asked me if I wanted to sleep in my Mom's room. I instantly knew that felt right and was so grateful to her that she offered. They were kind enough to move her roommate to another vacant room so I could sleep in the bed next to my mom. During the night my Mom was breathing heavily with the rattling breath my father breathed the night he died. I felt an outpouring of love for her fill my heart. All of my impatience and frustration and feeling of being burdened by taking care of her melted away. I held her and told her I loved her over and over and thanked her and asked for her forgiveness and forgave her. At four in the morning I woke up and went to her bed. She died shortly after. Her eyes were wide open all night and she was reaching upward. It felt to me like she was connecting with my father. That was comforting to me and I hoped to her. It took me a long time to be sure that she was dead.  I sat with her body for two hours trying to be sure and thinking I needed someone else to validate her death. Finally I knew she was dead because her extremities were cold and her heart had clearly stopped beating and she wasn't breathing. I knew I could trust my own truth and didn't need external validation. That was very healing for me. I called my sister at 6 and she knew my mother had passed. She was on a plane to Denver in a few hours. 
   It was a beautiful experience of being alone with my mother  during her dying process. It was so clear to me by the dawn that she wasn't in her body anymore. I could feel so keenly the impermanence of life.  I could see her body as a vessel that she had inhabited and now had left. I knew her spirit was free. I knew she was no longer imprisoned in a body and mind that were so very limiting for her. I could feel her spacious presence with me and no longer in her body. It was a very joyous experience. I felt kind of dazed and other-worldly and had trouble relating to all of the peoples' condolences at first. Watching the mortuary people take her body away brought me back to the earth. She was buried, as is the Jewish custom, in 24 hours, in a simple graveside service on Tuesday in Colorado Springs.
Being with my Mom through her dying process has had a profound effect on my life. Death informs life. I will write more later. Thanks for listening. I hope my experience with death is informing your life, too.