You know... chakra work and meditation sure are two bittersweet things in life. The whole idea of opening up and releasing attachments can be so good for you. But I discovered today that sometimes you can open up and you can let go and once you've done that, you really see what's left. Sometimes in your practice you finally let go, more than you ever have before and you see what all those attachments were attempting to hide, what feelings they were trying to protect you from. And sometimes it catches you off guard. Sometimes meditation doesn't make you feel like you're sleeping on a bed of roses.
I don't mean to be melodramatic or sing the blues. I'm really just in shock, the same way I always am when chakra work/meditation makes me feel euphoric. Between circumstances surrounding the last week and the meditation-yoga combo I worked through at home today, I'm seeing a clearer picture of the methods I've invented to protect myself from vulnerability and rejection-- methods that are generally fall in the "isolationist" category. It's hard to be hurt by others when you remove yourself from their presence. It's equally hard to feel the essential human connection using that same tactic. It's that pattern, again, of me turning inside so much and so often that I stop reaching out. The only thing that's changed is that it's just getting easier for me to see it.
I have a hard time blogging when I'm in this kind of a mood because I don't like to let other people see that I'm vulnerable, that I make mistakes. It's hard to admit that I get scared. It's hard to admit to myself that I get scared of yoga because of how much more clearly I can see me, and see the things I've tried for so long to ignore. It's hard to admit that I am not enough, that I need others and that I need proximity to others. But here I am, admitting it even though I don't want to and posting this blog even though I don't want to.
This is not a blog of hopelessness, though, hear you me. This is a blog of confronting the skeletons in my closet. I see them, I recognize them.
Now it's time to start clearing them out.
Showing posts with label meditation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meditation. Show all posts
02 January 2009
15 December 2008
i'm all ears
The time isn't right for any words on fear just yet.
Instead I have a few words about listening. The saying goes that prayer is talking to the Divine and meditation is listening. I think that we, as people, tend to a lot of talking, a lot of asking. But when it comes to listening, we just don't seem to have time. Or we aren't open to the answer. It's very easy to ask, but my goal now is to listen and to receive openly. The answers can often be so subtle that if we aren't in tune, if we aren't paying direct attention, we won't realize that it ever came.
Listening takes practice and patience and an open mind/heart. Today was one of those rewarding days in meditation. So often in meditation we get frustrated because we don't have revelations or epiphanies every time we sit and so we give up. It's hard, but I am trying to be persistent and consistent. It's like payday. You have to work a while and then at the end of the pay period, you get a check. So there I was and I had prayed and I had come to a place in my meditation where I was listening, for a change. Really listening.
And I got an answer.
I knew I was listening because I really felt that it wasn't me that gave me that answer. The answer came from the greater Me, the part of me that is Divine, the part of me that I attempt to reach through my yoga practice and my meditation. I recognized that I hadn't just "come up" with an answer. I'd received an answer.
It was a really neat feeling and it reinforced the idea I've mentioned before about the universe taking care of me. In yoga teacher training the other day, we were beginning a meditation and Chris came over and laid a blanket over me. It was a gesture that was tender and nurturing and motherly. What I got from listening today was the same thing. A tender, nurturing gesture from my Mother.
The time and effort to meditate seems to be a small price come pay day.
Instead I have a few words about listening. The saying goes that prayer is talking to the Divine and meditation is listening. I think that we, as people, tend to a lot of talking, a lot of asking. But when it comes to listening, we just don't seem to have time. Or we aren't open to the answer. It's very easy to ask, but my goal now is to listen and to receive openly. The answers can often be so subtle that if we aren't in tune, if we aren't paying direct attention, we won't realize that it ever came.
Listening takes practice and patience and an open mind/heart. Today was one of those rewarding days in meditation. So often in meditation we get frustrated because we don't have revelations or epiphanies every time we sit and so we give up. It's hard, but I am trying to be persistent and consistent. It's like payday. You have to work a while and then at the end of the pay period, you get a check. So there I was and I had prayed and I had come to a place in my meditation where I was listening, for a change. Really listening.
And I got an answer.
I knew I was listening because I really felt that it wasn't me that gave me that answer. The answer came from the greater Me, the part of me that is Divine, the part of me that I attempt to reach through my yoga practice and my meditation. I recognized that I hadn't just "come up" with an answer. I'd received an answer.
It was a really neat feeling and it reinforced the idea I've mentioned before about the universe taking care of me. In yoga teacher training the other day, we were beginning a meditation and Chris came over and laid a blanket over me. It was a gesture that was tender and nurturing and motherly. What I got from listening today was the same thing. A tender, nurturing gesture from my Mother.
The time and effort to meditate seems to be a small price come pay day.
07 October 2008
i begin to wonder
Sometimes I go to yoga class and I really can't help but wonder. Sometimes I have something really pressing on my mind and Chris' closing zen phrase will seem to address me directly, as though she knew. Sometimes I build my intention mentally before class and that night's instructor will ask as a class that we build that very same intention on our mats for that practice. Sometimes I can't help but wonder what it is... How, how, HOW is it always seeming to be in tune with exactly what is going on in my mind? Tonight, our teacher was Mark, who hasn't been to instruct us in 5 weeks. Just last week I realized that my upper body strength was improving vastly. No... I still can't do a push up, but I realized I can lower myself with impressive (to me) control, leading with my chest instead of my hips and... what's more... I can hover. I can hover. I can hold myself an inch off the floor for about 10 seconds without struggling. Wow, I never thought I'd see the day.
Anyway... sure enough, Mark walks in class tonight and almost as though he knew I was mentally tooting my own horn about my great arms... he humbled me. Not with spite, obviously. And not in a way that made me think, "Oh, I'm not so strong as I thought after all." There was no mental frowning. He humbled me but he gave me confidence. He worked my arms. He let them show themselves off (again, only to myself) but he also seemed to let them know that they certainly aren't done. I'm digressing, but it was exciting. It was like my arms were getting a chance to be excited about the adventure that lay before them. Lucky for me Mark will be teaching the next 2 Tuesdays, so they'll probably get some more action, those arms.
The point is... I am beginning to wonder. How much of this "speaking to me" is just chance? How many times can that happen? Could it be that the message is just all encompassing, so it could speak to anyone in any situation? (The thing is, I know I've been skeptical about this kind of stuff and I'm very, very hesitant because the words I'm going to have to use, for lack of any better, are going to have a religious connotation, despite my not intending them to have one at all.) But I really just don't know if I think it's all chance anymore.
Laura said in her blog the other day, "I believe in energy." And I loved that. Simply and beautifully said. So now I'm really thinking I'm on my way to tapping into that energy, that it's really there. I think it's energy that goes by many different names: God, Brahma, Allah, Mother Earth etc etc. But tonight I think I realized it's there. I believe in it. I believe in Energy. It's there for us to touch 24/7. It's speaking to each of us in every moment. All we have to do is come to the moment, to learn to be alive, and it can be ours.
Anyway... sure enough, Mark walks in class tonight and almost as though he knew I was mentally tooting my own horn about my great arms... he humbled me. Not with spite, obviously. And not in a way that made me think, "Oh, I'm not so strong as I thought after all." There was no mental frowning. He humbled me but he gave me confidence. He worked my arms. He let them show themselves off (again, only to myself) but he also seemed to let them know that they certainly aren't done. I'm digressing, but it was exciting. It was like my arms were getting a chance to be excited about the adventure that lay before them. Lucky for me Mark will be teaching the next 2 Tuesdays, so they'll probably get some more action, those arms.
The point is... I am beginning to wonder. How much of this "speaking to me" is just chance? How many times can that happen? Could it be that the message is just all encompassing, so it could speak to anyone in any situation? (The thing is, I know I've been skeptical about this kind of stuff and I'm very, very hesitant because the words I'm going to have to use, for lack of any better, are going to have a religious connotation, despite my not intending them to have one at all.) But I really just don't know if I think it's all chance anymore.
Laura said in her blog the other day, "I believe in energy." And I loved that. Simply and beautifully said. So now I'm really thinking I'm on my way to tapping into that energy, that it's really there. I think it's energy that goes by many different names: God, Brahma, Allah, Mother Earth etc etc. But tonight I think I realized it's there. I believe in it. I believe in Energy. It's there for us to touch 24/7. It's speaking to each of us in every moment. All we have to do is come to the moment, to learn to be alive, and it can be ours.
06 October 2008
breathing in, breathing out
I've decided to start a meditation routine in addition to my yoga practice. There are moments in class that I am in deep relaxation and I feel like I can feel the tiniest bit of real, true presence and I think that's something worth developing and reaching for. Thich Nhat Hahn said in Buddha Mind, Buddha Body that unless you are present in this moment then you aren't really alive because you're living in the past or the future or in a fantasy. But presence, alertness, mindfulness in this moment... that is to be alive. Sometimes we get so caught up in what we're worried about and some place that isn't right here and we're just losing all this time... all these moments... all these nows... exactly where life is happening. I've been one of those people and it's caused me suffering. So with diligence and intention, little by little I'm going to learn to be really, really alive. Not threatened by the silence, but amazed by the vastness. Not a slave to my mind, but a master of it. Not reactive towards my emotions but just simply aware of them.
Slowly but surely, I'm going to learn to be.
“Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”
Thich Nhat Hahn
Slowly but surely, I'm going to learn to be.
“Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”
Thich Nhat Hahn
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
