Where is everybody…?

I woke up grumpy. 

Not simply aggravated, or even annoyed, but straight up grumpy.

The kind of grumpy that had me lying there in bed planning how I was gonna share the wealth with the first person I met. The kind of grumpy that had me building a catalog of slights and creating a corresponding menu of rebukes, so that I could be ready to express the mood no matter who the lucky target recipient was.

Yeah, that kind of grumpy.

Which is not like me. And, thankfully–thankfully, thankfully, thankfully–there was still enough of me present that I recognized that. And so rather than surrender to the momentum of these thoughts,  

I called a pause… And I got curious.
Full disclosure, it wasn’t my most subtle or eloquent inquiry. I believe that I started at, “WTF? What is happening here? Seriously!”
But it was enough to halt the momentum.

And give me space to breathe.

And–gradually–feel my way into better questions:

Why on earth are you being so nasty first thing in the morning? 

What has you so upset?

Are you still tired? Hungry? Thirsty?

You do know what will happen if you say that, right?

Why would you want to say such a thing to him?

Seriously, darling, what is going on here…?
Eventually, it came out: my feelings were hurt and I was in the reflexive response zone. And my feelings were hurt because there had been low attendance at the event I hosted the day before. 

Ah, that makes perfect sense! People let you down, you’re hurt, you reflexively want to hurt in return. 

And now, instead, you get to decide what to do with/about that hurt. 
My first instinct was to turn to my journal. 

I was very aware of the possibility that this journaling session could degenerate into a bitch session, so I made myself start with gratitude. Now, I know that forced gratitude journaling isn’t quite in keeping with the spirit of the thing, but it was important that I find at least three things that had gone right–essential really. I probably wouldn’t have been able to articulate it then, but it’s crystal clear in retrospect. Starting with something, anything, good-feeling would create a space that allowed for honesty while also pointing me towards constructive Possibility. 
Turns out that many things had gone right–nine to be precise. Numbers one and two definitely felt  forced, but by the time I got to number three I was on a roll. And by the time I got to number nine, I could definitely feel that my momentum was shifting. And I felt much more ready to explore the question at hand.

Still cautious of my tone, I framed the journal entry as a debrief of the experience–that is literally the phrase that I started the entry with. And then I just let myself write… 

The results caught me off guard…and then surprised the heck out of me!
I was caught off guard by the fact that I had several constructive suggestions for myself: a promotion that could have generated more buzz; to what extent timing probably played an issue; and even some inspiration based on a few unexpected participants. 
I was surprised, when I found myself writing this:

If I had done my 100% for the event and folks had bailed, then I could’ve surrendered the outcome to having done my best. But having been unable to give it my all, there’s the nagging sense that I could have done more and had a different outcome. 

I wrote it. Then I read it. And then I realized, I wasn’t experiencing hurt feelings, I was experiencing Guilt. 
My working definition of the word guilt draws liberally on the work of Karla Maclaren and Brene Brown. These two brilliant feelers and thinkers have taught me that guilt is the feeling that arises when my behavior is out of alignment. Out of alignment with my values, my priorities, my commitments, my Joy, my Truth. Guilt is my signal that I’m moving through the world in a way that doesn’t sync up with my Inner Wisdom.

In this case, I had planned an event with the best of intentions but work and schedules had intervened, leaving me with minimal bandwidth to nurture it. So, it wasn’t that people had let me down, I had let me down. Ohhhh…
Now for the coolest, potentially trickiest, part: owning my guilt without letting it own me.

If I had let my guilt own me, I would have been on an express train to the land of self-recrimination. Why do I always do this? I should have found the time; I should have made the time! Why didn’t I plan better? Blah, blah, blah… You all know the script and you all know how icky that script feels in your chest and how it solidifies the weight pressing into your shoulders. You can come back from that, but it takes quite a bit of effort, so let’s just not go there.
In this case, the process of inquiry that revealed the guilt to me was also the process of sitting with and owning it. Cool, huh? By listing specific things that I could have done differently–that I fervently wished I had done differently–and starting to think through how I will actually do things differently next time, I was simultaneously 

1) acknowledging that my behavior felt out of alignment to me

2) acknowledging its consequences, and 

3) exploring what both had to teach me about how to be more aligned, more in the Flow, more true to my Self on the next go-round.
Oh, and I was also forgiving myself. Not letting myself off the hook, but definitely giving myself credit for having done my best under the circumstances. It got done. And it was a solid first step. And I’m gonna own that too.
So, I ask you, do have any opportunities to come back into alignment today? And how will you lovingly create the space in which you can do so?

When’s it my turn?

Everyone is good this year

Oh wow, that was truly awesome!

What a great song

Ooh, I like what she did there

Nice riff!

What if last year was just a fluke?

Oh man, that was really good…

Will I be able to do as well as she did?

What if I forget my lyrics?

What if I can’t follow along on the improvs?

Wow, she’s much better than me…

Welcome to my Mind. 

It’s Day 1 of my second annual (and ever!) singing workshop, and I’m toggling back and forth between enjoyment + appreciation and comparison + fretting. 

One moment I’m swept up in a fantastic performance.

The next, I’m fending off a creeping dread that I’m not anywhere near as good–and everyone will know it

It’s a potent cocktail of (quantities approximate):

3 parts comparison 

1 part scarcity

1 part perfectionism

mix well, garnish with a fresh sprig of self-doubt 

And yet I’m not drunk. Not even politely buzzed. Quite the contrary, I’m clear-eyed and sober, watching fascinated as this inner dialogue unfolds across the day. The thoughts are like intermittent clouds, occasionally enough to obscure the bright sky of mind–all but one corner of it. And that corner is the part of me who is able to Witness and Breathe. And while I’m nowhere near proud to be having such petty thoughts, it’s amazing to realize that I’m having them, rather than them having me. 

I’m pretty sure that I have Tara Brach to thank for the experience. Her book Radical Acceptance has taken my experience of mindfulness not just to a new level, but also in a new direction. Inspired by her teachings, I deliberately choose to accept the thoughts. Rather than brand them small and petty (though they so clearly were!) and try to banish them from my consciousness, I experience them:

Thought… Oh, how interesting, I’m comparing myself to her. That makes my belly churn. {breath}

Thought… Oh, I see, now I’m measuring how much of the teacher’s attention will be left for me. That tightens my throat. {breath}

Thought… Hmm, now I seem to be thinking this is a competition. That sits like a lump in my chest. {breath}

Thought… And now I’m inventing disaster performance scenarios. That speeds up my heart and I feel antsy. {breath}

Connecting each thought to the associated physical sensation was incredibly powerful. It allowed me to stay grounded and to, in a way, hold space for myself. It also kept my attention from getting sucked into thought loops. I simply acknowledged each thought as a visitor to my inner landscape and sat with it. Even, as Tara suggests, inviting them to share a cup of tea. After all, they are aspects of me and are worthy of the same compassion that I give to the more obviously lovable parts of my Self. Some stayed longer than others, but none of them really got any traction. Without additional mental energy to feed them, they just kind of hung out, milling around aimlessly. Once it became clear that there wasn’t going to be much else going on, one by one they drifted away like people leaving a party that never quite got started…

I’m convinced that my choice to accept rather than fight was the key to this whole experience. And by the time it was my turn to sing in front of the group–last in the day, so I had plenty of time to practice both comparison and radical acceptance!–I was just excited to sing. Yes, I was a bit nervous to do so in front of seven strangers, but mostly just excited to be in the music. And I wound up having so much fun! I sang a challenging song, one towards the top of what I think of as my comfortable range, then played, riffing and improving with our instructor. Sometimes it came out ugly. And that was perfect. Sometimes it came out sweet. And that was perfect. Still other times, it came out two octaves higher than I thought I would ever, ever sing. And that too was perfect. It was all perfect because it was all suffused with the sheer joy of doing it. And made that much sweeter by the inner journey I took on the way there. 

So, I ask you, where are you resisting yourself today? And how will you use your mindfulness skills to open the doors to the healing magic of fuller self-acceptance?

Did you hear that?

Hatsurei ho
The whisper was so subtle, so faint that I almost missed it. In the breath between waking and opening my eyes, it ghosted across my awareness…
Hatsurei ho
And, thankfully, I caught it. Considered it. And yielded to it. 
I completed my morning ablutions and then, rather than strapping on my running shoes, I strapped on my meditation cushion and entered into ritual. This particular ritual comes out of the Reiki tradition, and it’s a process that we practitioners use to clear our energy. I think of it as both tuning myself up and clearing out any clogged pipes so that energy (call it Ki, Chi, or Prana; a rose by any other name…) can more effectively move through me to a recipient. Thirty-or-so minutes later, ritual complete, I emerged feeling renewed and reinvigorated. And grateful for the gifts that the Reiki healing tradition offers. And grateful that I had been steered to this ritual–one of so many that I know–at the moment when it was the perfect thing to bring me home to myself.
For me it was a lesson in remaining alert to my inner voice. It was also, just as important, a lesson in the value of being a spiritual magpie. By which I mean opening to all spiritual traditions and approaches, shamelessly incorporating elements that resonate with me whether I buy into the entire theology or not.
Hatsurei ho

Vipassana noticing techniques for grounding

Tonglen for navigating uncomfortable emotions

Thai massage for offering and connection

The Placement Process for asking for and opening to help 

Native American flute for relaxation

Midnight Mass for immersion in holy awe

Asana for coming home to my body

Pranayama for quieting my mind

Kirtan for ecstatic community

Earthing for the cellular pleasure of infrasonics
The list goes on and on and on and on. I have been exposed to so much wonderful wisdom over the years and I consider myself to blessed to have been able to integrate it all into my own personal, individualized spiritual mosaic.This probably won’t seem all that insightful to most of my friends and readers who are in the yoga and/or spiritual communities, but for me it is. 
I was born and baptized into the Episcopal church and raised firmly within its walls. And while I always had questions about God’s claims on exclusivity, I accepted them well into my teen years.  Then, like most of us, I went to college and that was the beginning of the end. It was a ridiculously short walk from Comparative Religion 101 to my current gleefully eclectic brand of paganism… kind of. Because even as I left behind the content of the strict Christian doctrine of my youth, I carried its structure with me for a long time. So, although I embraced Buddhism and yogic philosophy and Abraham-Hicks, I did so sequentially, eschewing much of the previous tradition as I learned about and embraced the new. Yup, I was basically a serial spiritual monogamist. And yet for all the sweetness that each new model for experiencing the Divine brought, none felt fully complete:
The Buddhism of my college days didn’t seem to leave much room for the normal ebb and flow of emotion and relationship

The Yogic philosophy of my early practice didn’t seem to leave quite enough room for my body’s specific needs

The Law of Attraction teachings didn’t seem to leave enough room for me to just have an occasional bad day

So, somewhere along the way I became polyreligious. It wasn’t deliberate–at least, not in the sense that I came out to my priest and my loved ones. It was more like a gradual knitting together of all I’ve learned as I chose tools and techniques for each situation. Swami Satchidananda taught that
Truth is One, paths are many.
And somewhere along the way, I began living that principle. My Truth is the absolute love and peace at the heart of this universe and I embrace all experiences, teachings, and rituals that remind me of it, ground me more fully in it, and infuse me with it. And I feel no compulsion to limit myself to one particular set of ideas or approaches. Why should I limit my approach to god when the divine is incomprehensibly limitless?

So I ask you, what is your Truth? And how open will you open to all the ways of experiencing it?

What are you smiling about?

If you’re gonna spread something in your wake, it might as well be glitter.
– meme seen on a friend’s fb feed

Me, I’m smiling about everything and nothing at all! I’m just having one of those weeks, a wonderful series of moments when I feel in step with the world. And I gotta’ tell you, it feels goooood.

I know that normally I write about something I’m noodling on or a challenge that wrestling with, but not today. Today, I am feeling downright sparkly. In fact, I spent the better part of the evening trying to come up with Something Serious to write about, but it’s no use, I’m just feeling too darn cheerful!

So, I’ve decided to give in to the good feelings–bask in them, maybe even go so far as to luxuriate in them. And, really, aren’t the good feelings what we should be giving in to? I mean, if you’re going to surrender, it might as well be to:
the genuine warmth of a heart hug
the technicolor brilliance of Saturday afternoon in the park
the gooey magic of warm chocolate chip cookies
the giddy laughter of a slumber party
the restorative sweetness of a good cuddle
the insane deliciousness that is homemade blueberry-banana pancakes
the thrill of recognition when you meet a new-old friend for the first time and
the soul nourishing experience of community

Because these moments are where the magic happens. These moments are a direct expression of the joy that pulses at the heart of the universe. These moments are what it’s all about. And every time we allow ourselves to open fully to their (sometimes bittersweet) vulnerability, our capacity for the good stuff grows. It also becomes catching…

Case in point: as I made my way through the airport yesterday, I locked eyes with a woman. Small and intense, she seemed to scowl at me as she darted along in her husband’s wake. Full disclosure, I briefly contemplated challenging her to a scowl-off (I’m not a saint, after all) but it felt so much better to just smile…so I did…and her answering smile illuminated her face, highlighting its softness and grace.

It’s a small example, I know–mere seconds exchanged between strangers–but that’s kind of the point. When we are fully in our Joy, we broadcast that frequency. And it calls to the Joy in others, inviting them to (re-)join us in the Magic. It may be “only” for a moment, but in that moment both lives are sweetened because both hearts open.

So I ask you, what do you have to smile about? And who are you going to share some of that sparkle with?