What Yin-Yang Really Means ...

“If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day. Nothing stimulates our appetite for the simple joys of life more than the starvation caused by sadness or desperation. In order to complete our amazing life journey successfully, it is vital that we turn each and every dark tear into a pearl of wisdom, and find the blessing in every curse.” ~ Anthon St. Maarten

The Yin-Yang.

It's always been a favorite symbol of mine. In fact, back when I was a sad, angsty Denny's hostess at 15 years old, a regular customer came to know me so well, he gave me a yin-yang keychain one day ... just randomly.

I still have it to this day.

Until Yoga teacher training, I never really thought about it much more than it symbolizing balance — which it does.

As the years passed through me, from 15 to 29, it has come to mean a lot more. In Yoga, we talked about how the yin and yang energies coexist in all of us. Most people think they are opposing energies, positive and negative, light and dark, fire and water, male and female, life and death.

But they're actually complementary energies. And that's the part I didn't really understand until recently. See for me, and most people, I don't enjoy feeling pain, sadness, heartbreak, anger. I used to avoid those feelings, especially pain, at all costs.

In the end, however, they always found me and seemed to assail me, consume me all the more, as though having multiplied during the time I ran from them or built up walls against them. What I've learned now is those emotions are part of the grand balance of life. If we deny them, how will we ever remember what their opposites are, how will we recognize what joy, love, kindness and giving feels like?

I know, for me personally, the feeling of yin (the shady side) gives me a deeper appreciation for the yang (the sunny side) of life.

However, in the past, I used to live in the yin of life. When depression hit, that's all I felt and I got so used to it, feeling any yang emotions felt foreign and uncomfortable. Life experience and where my path is now has changed a lot of that.

So the idea of making room for pain still causes tightness in my chest, like a fight or flight instinct at the flicker of a threat. It's like a visitor that just irks you. Opening the door to it is like pulling teeth.

But I think when you look at that visitor in a new light, in a kinder light, it doesn't look so menacing after all. You realize it's a part of joy and love and compassion. That there is an ebb and flow to all of it.

I've felt heaviness in my heart the last few weeks ... for many reasons, some more prominent than others. This weekend it decided to knock on my door, it wanted to enter. And I let it this time ... I was terrified to be honest. The last time I let myself "feel" the things beckoning at my door, I felt crippled by them.

But the reality is, at that time, my mind ruled everything. It reined over me, like it does most of us. It played those same old records. But I've since created new record grooves. And even though those old records tried to play over and over this weekend, and while they did anchor me to the floor a few times, my needle eventually found the new grooves ... and as I looked at the pain I felt as a source of information as well as a complementary emotion to joy, it didn't scare me quite so badly anymore.

Perhaps we could all do this more often when we feel fear, anger, pain or sadness gripping at us ... wanting to climb into our beds at night. Maybe we can start to imagine them as just the other half of all those other emotions we enjoy and love so much. That they're part of one another, just like the yin-yang symbol.

Maybe we won't be so afraid of them anymore ... maybe instead, we will be the grand observer, the ever seeing, ever knowing walls of our homes as they walk through and walk out, over and over again.

Perhaps then, those sometimes powerful "shady side" emotions won't dictate our actions or rule our decisions anymore. Perhaps they won't consume us so much.

As I quietly ponder these things while touching my keychain ...

I dare to hope.

~C~

Empowerment, Love and Amrit

Life is perpetual therapeutic irritation. Learn to make it therapeutic and not problematic. ~ Amrit Desai

The urge to take pen to paper hit tonight as a few things came to mind I'd been letting marinate for a few weeks.

I had the honor and privilege to sit right up front during a lecture my Yoga teacher's guru gave two weeks ago. Amrit Desai, who studied with the masters in India, where he was born, and is considered one of the pioneers of "authentic" Yoga teachings in the west, came to my instructor's studio from Florida, where he now resides.

In his 80s, it is quite possible he may never come this way again. But there he was, in Columbia Station with all of us for an evening, bringing an amazingly serene essence and a breadth of wisdom with him.

I could go on and on about the things he spoke of, but I wrote down some of his quotes from that night that cover much of the high points in his discussion:

~ As inner conflicts reduce, the external conflicts reflect that.
~ We are hardly ever present in what we do.
~ Start giving what you are asking for (or as Gandhi famously says, be the change you wish to see in the world).
~ We are always looking for fulfillment outside. The ego is always trying to find fulfillment by looking for the right partner. Everything you are looking for comes from within.
~ The ego mind uses Prana (our life energy) to find outside solutions … excessively using energy for who you are NOT.
~ Don't buy into your reactive perception of anybody. You and I are not separate, we are all one.
~ When you remove the inner conflict, you see the outer conflict is false.
~ You have the power to change your life. No one else can do it to you. If you judge someone, you are lost. If you say you're a failure, that's what you'll create. You create your own problems.
~ When you are in love with that higher power in you, you are happy always.
~ Life is perpetual therapeutic irritation. Learn to make it therapeutic and not problematic.

Another thing Amrit said that hit me in particular is that I have all the power I need within myself. I don't have to be a victim or victimize myself. I don't have to bring my past scars into the present moment and allow my past patterns to repeat themselves or to influence my present moment reactions and responses to things.

Another point to ponder ... any external conflicts we have with others or a situation, etc. is a reflection of an internal conflict. I used to say "he made me react this way" or "she made me feel crazy" ... but no one has the power to make us do, react or say something that isn't already IN us. Yes, people "affect" us ... but to realize we truly do hold the reins to how we react or respond is powerful if embraced.

Observe, don't react, Amrit said. If we are able to observe ourselves and our lives from a non judgmental, almost third-party perspective, we will find it easier and easier to be at peace and ease ... to truly enjoy life and not react to things or instinctively fight or flee in situations that don't warrant it.

The past is the past and I can't go back and change circumstances or how I responded or didn't respond. But I can harness that power within me from this day forward. Amrit helped me feel empowered ... and more in control of my life and happiness than I truly realized.

Which means any of you reading can be empowered, too. We all try to seek fulfillment externally, in our partners or in other forms (i.e. alcohol, drugs, food, entertainment, sex) ... but that pursuit is the product of our ego. And it is a losing battle. It might bring temporary gratification, but it'll always be temporary, never continuous. Because the ego thrives on the "wanting more." 

But if we fall in love with ourselves ... if we truly accept ourselves and love ourselves, we will find true and continuous joy. I believe it. I also believe it doesn't come easily and it is an ongoing process. But it is one I'm finding more and more merit in as the days breathe past me. 

I hope you do, too.

~C~

Amidst Tragedy, Hope For Change Ignites. But Where Will it Truly Come From?

Too immensely raw to touch ... what we have all felt the ripple effects of this week. The heaviness inside is beyond what I could imagine. It is as though I feel the gaping wound of all humanity at this very moment.

I don't want to immerse this post in sadness. There is plenty of that in all our hearts I believe. So what I do want to express here ... is hope ... and love. I have found it hard to breathe through a lot of the news this weekend. As I'm sure many others have ... especially parents and teachers. So I decided to pick up my Yoga Journal magazine and see what my eyes fell onto.

They fell onto an article titled "Lead With Your Heart." The article is about heartbreak and how important it is for us to continue loving, even through the most immense remorse. How it's vital for our existence as a species.

There will always be questions of why in life. Why do things happen? What can we do to prevent them? And the answers are rarely, if ever, found on the surface ... on the outside. And they're rarely, if ever, found in one thing, one "solution."

If you really think about life in general, it is often a cultivation of many things, many facets — not just one — that creates us and everything around us ... whether it is the food we eat, our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well being, our overall lives, our days, our jobs, careers, our families, our homes, our accomplishments, all the tools, machines, inventions we use every single day, nature, trees, gardens, farms, animals, storms, the elements.

Everything around us, our own individual make ups, are an intricate web of working parts. So why wouldn't the way we incite change in the world not include that same intricate web of working parts?

We are all of this earth, and are separate beings, yet tied to the same energetic source. Somehow, we forget that.  From the moment that umbilical cord is cut, we begin that slow separation in existence. And the majority of us, driven by the mind, are so focused on "standing out" somehow, on being unique, on being better than or more significant than others, on compartamentalizing everything and everyone we see, judging, critiquing, categorizing people, situations, emotions ... or some of us are just hell bent on wanting to feel special apart from the rest, we forget the great connection between us all. We forget the amazing compassion and relation we have to everyone and everything around us. That we are not so separate ... that it doesn't have to be me against him or her ... or us against them.

We forget the root of our entire species, our entire existence. Whether you believe in a higher power or not ... atoms, energy is an undeniable part of all things. Some of us explore our universe, speculate what's beyond our own galaxy, while others focus our attention inward, get caught up in our daily grinds, in our own problems or gripes or the oblivion of materialism, technology, the media, reality TV. We fail to see that everything we could possible need is right here inside us all. We've lost that connection ... in so many ways. Yet that connection is vital for our existence.

As Christmas approaches, many families, not just those who lost children in Connecticut, but those who have lost children and friends, relatives all over the country and world through tragedy, will be filled with unconscionable sorrow. And many of us will feel helpless in their midst. But the truth is, we're not helpless. We're never helpless. We all have the power to tap into that infinite source, to send light and love to not just those who have lost loved ones, but every single person in our path.

As we, as a species, change, so will everything outside of us. We are life ... and in life there is power.

Whatever outward action follows to help in the healing, in the transformation or ignition of change, it will fail to cultivate the desired result if it comes from anywhere but inside.

After all, that's where it all starts. It doesn't start with politics, with laws, with services. All of those things will undoubtedly help weave that web of working parts. But the nucleus doesn't stem from them.

The nucleus ... stems from us.

~C~

P.S. I will leave you all with a song my best friend Katie sent me awhile ago that was a salve for my heart these past few days:

Philip Phillips "Home"

"Home"

Hold on, to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m gonna make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m going to make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m gonna make this place your home

Now Is Truly All We've Got

“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time — past and future — the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

"We may be searching for answers that will helps us move from anxiety to peace, from confusion to clarity and from emotional pain to happiness. As the world's great wisdom traditions tell us, the answers are always within. By going inside and connecting to the deepest level of our being, the clamor of competing outside messages begins to fade and inner awareness dawns." ~ Deepak Chopra.

This post is going to be a bit “out there” … so consider yourself warned ;-)

There was a time in my life, pretty much around the time I was 15, 16, 17 and 18, when I was a lot more spiritually in tune with myself and those around me, when I was meditating a lot, in touch with nature, the elements and going to intuition seminars with my cousin, Nikki.

I remember still dealing with depression and anxiety, but having such a strong sense of self and my true identity that I was able to keep a lot of those mind-related worries and issues in check or they eventually didn't exist at all. They didn't hold the power they eventually began to. Those who know my personal life, know the various experiences, bad and good, that ensued and have brought me to this point. Unfortunately, along the way, I lost that identity and was no longer tapped into that higher self, so to speak, like I once was. I began to fully identify with my mind, with memories and an obsession with a better future. I always got sidetracked or put getting back in touch with the spiritual part of myself on the backburner, thinking, “One day I'll get back to it, after I deal with this, this and this.”

Well, I'm done with that. In fact, in the last five months, I have had countless signs pointing me to the present moment. The first major one, in March, when my heart condition acting up from stress and anxiety led to a hospital stay. The emergency phycisian walked into my room and just stood next to me for a minute … he studied me, looking into my eyes and then began talking about holistic treatments for the things going on with me. I was so taken aback. I mean, I can't imagine holistic emergency physicians are a commonality. He talked to me about holistic ways of relaxing and finding peace and a mindset free of anxiety/depression, hurt and pain and disease. A few days prior to this, two people I randomly encountered (one was a source I interviewed for a completely different story) talked about meditation, Yoga, Reiki. My Yoga instructor at that time was also talking about Chakras (or our energy centers).

I felt a strong pull inside, like I did as a teenager … that calling. And yet, I didn't respond … again. I got caught up in my daily grind, in sorting out my emotional and psychological issues while putting my spiritual self on the backburner. But, as per usual, the universe doesn't work on MY whim. Since then, I've had continous, seemingly random references to those same practices, including me starting to receive the Yoga Journal and being turned onto Eckhart Tolle's teachings.

I have many moving parts going on right now in my life. But I realize none of that matters. Just like when I was younger, I don't need to complete one thing or another to reengage with this part of myself. It can work harmoniously with anything else going on in my life, good and bad. And it's different now. I'm different now. I'm not the little girl I was then (even though she makes her appearances on occasion still). And I'm not without my scars, my mistakes, flaws, regrets and hard-learned lessons. But everything in the readings and teachings I'm finally paying attention to is simple: Live in the NOW … be always present.

It's about ending your mind's rule over you. It's about no longer identifying with your mind and with time itself (meaning the past and future). It's about realizing those are illusions and everything that matters and that we experience is happening right this second … it's not happening in the future or in our past.

I am so sick of my mind ruling me. In fact, I'm determined now more than ever to change that. I've done it before so I know I can do it again. But I also know it's going to take a lot of practice, time, discipline and dedication. The mind/ego can be a VERY powerful thing and feeds off of emotion and identification, so any threat of separation is going to naturally cause resitance. But I'm up for the challenge.

So, instead of just starting to physically do stuff every day (Yoga, stating my intention every morning, meditation, etc.) I've been reading, reading and doing more reading to “prep” myself for this undertaking. The physical stuff wasn't cutting it without the mental, emotional and spiritual mindset in place.

So, I'm going to leave you all with a few Tolle passages that have hit really hard. And I'll elaborate more on them soon.

“For so many people, a large part of their sense of self is intimately connected with their problems. Once this has happened, the last thing they want is to become free of them; that would mean loss of self. There can be a great deal of unconscious ego investment in pain and suffering.”

"Intense presence is needed when certain situation trigger a reaction with a strong emotional charge (something that happens to me more than I'd like). The reaction or emotion takes you over — you 'become' it. You act it out. You justify, make wrong, attack, defend ... except that it isn't you. It's the reactive pattern, the mind in its habitual survival mode."

“Time and mind are inseparable. Remove time from the mind and it stops — unless you choose to use it. To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation. This creates an endless preoccupation with the past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be.”

“The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.”

“Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.”

“The mind creates an obession with the future as an escape from an unsatisfactory present.”

“The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes your 'future.'”

And lastly, this one REALLY hit me, because I've often regained perspective in certain overwhelming moments of my life by imagining myself on my own death bed and thinking about what would really matter in that moment.

“Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret to life is to 'die before you die.'”

Think of that.

~C~

Compassion, a gift or curse?

"Sometimes someone says something really small, and it just fits right into this empty place in your heart."  ~ My So-Called Life

So, I assume somewhere I signed up for a free sampling subscription of Entertainment Magazine. At some point, I have started to receive the Yoga Journal in the mail as well.

Instead of being baffled, I'm just going with it ... especially because the things in these magazines are resonating with me more now than ever before. I was reading my August Yoga Journal about a week or two ago. One of the articles inside talked about three different types of breathing exercises people can do throughout the day to bring them into a state of calm and relaxation ... and one they can presumably maintain throughout the day the more they practiced them.

I'm starting to practice them, but it's definitely a process and like any "practice," you really have to be consistent to get results.

Another article that also hit me pretty hard was "More than a feeling, practicing compassion can strengthen your relationships."

What was interesting about it is, the article suggests those of us who are easily compassionate toward others and act on that compassion in their everyday lives are more spiritually heightened, engaged and aware ... more in tune with their natural instincts.

"You're likely to gain much more profound insight into your own well-being and have more success in your interpersonal life," said Emiliana Simon-Thomas, a consulting neuroscientist with Stanford university's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. "Compassion facilitates more meaningful connections with other people."

That part is what I resonated with most, because when I think back on the most meaningful connections I've made over the years (in my childhood, teenage years, college and adulthood) they've been borne through compassion, understanding, a feeling of belonging as well as being accepted.

However, in my past, I've sponged up others' strife and tribulations so deeply (especially a few years back), I would lose myself. This article touches on that, too; referencing a nine-week program that uses meditation techniques adapted from various contemplative traditions — such as tonglen, a Tibetan Buddhist practice where you imagine breathing in another's suffering while sending out love and kindness as you exhale.

The idea is to teach students how to nourish their compassionate instincts and to regulate their emotions so that they can feel another's pain without being engulfed by it. Which is what I have been actively trying to do for the better half of a year now.

This article also talks about why some of us lose this part of ourselves. I've encountered many people like this over the years, especially in my field. For me (and as the article also mentions), it happens when our minds are disconnected from our hearts. When we mainly dwell in the reasoning mind, we often experience other people as obstacles toward our goals rather than fellow beings on the path, according to Swami Ramananda of the Integral Yoga Institute, who suggests we take a few moments a day to cultivate compassion to help bring us back to our hearts. Because our hearts have the capasity to embrace everything.

However, the mind and rationale always has it's place, I believe. And where I've gone wrong in the past is being either too much of one or too much the other. There are those out there who would love to take advantage of "too much heart" people. I've met them. And there are plenty of "too much mind" people who are impossible to penetrate, who have trouble knowing how to live. I've known them. I've been one of them.

But when I've found that in between — and granted, it's come and gone since it, too, is an active practice that must be upheld consistently — I've found both peace and elation ... joy and love, even if just in glimpses or stolen moments. But the key is practicing more of this compassion technique regularly to maintain that balance continuously.

The Yoga Journal cites a 2010 study that showed 85 percent of adults said they felt greater well-being after volunteering, 73 percent had reduced stress levels and 68 percent felt healthier. The study supports the notion that freely serving others can reduce anxiety and depression, speed up recovery from illness, reduce pain, help older adults stay mobile and increase longevity.

One guy quotes "rather than aspiring to volunteer, find something you can do that works for the life you have right now. Start with something that's within your grasp and build on it."

I liked that ... because that's how I feel whenever I do something for someone or even just bring a smile to someone who is down ... or put them at ease somehow.  It's something that is within my grasp and part of my daily life ... and costs me nothing. Nothing but a few moments, nothing but a piece of my heart.

That's how I feel every time I exchange a meaningful conversation with a close friend or connection. It feels nourishing inside and it's this natural thing that just happens. And I notice it building on itself all around me now, in the people that have come into my life and in the things people share and the bonds I've formed over the years.

And that compassion and those bonds are the very ones worth living, loving and fighting for.

~C~

Staying With the Itch

The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I've always enjoyed a good Longfellow quote from time to time. This one felt as though he reached into the shadows of my heart, deciphered their complex code and penned it in a few simple words.

In the last few days, coming back down from the heights of my trip and attempting to plant my feet in the soil again, I've been thinking about many things, one of which has been memories. Clearly, we all have them. Some of them hurt, some of them cast wispy smiles on our faces, some, a flickering ghost of a tear. But we all have them. I've written poems and talked to friends about this phenomenon that tends to happen to me, and others I know, went the sun goes down and the skies darken around us. For me personally, I have this love/hate relationship with the night. As Scott Fitzgerald says: "In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day."

There's something about nighttime, especially the mid-hours of night, that seems to strip down all layers of armor, inhibitions and distractions, leaving me in a very raw and vulnerable place. But it's more than just that. It's as though whatever I'm feeling during that time -- whatever memory has decided to visit or emotion has overtaken -- is magnified to the point where every fine detail of it is exposed all around me. Obviously, this could be an amazing feeling, depending on the emotion or memory, but if fear or anxiety is involved, it can sometimes be crippling, causing a sleepless night.

Well, I've also been doing a lot more Yoga lately. One of the guidelines of the Yoga philosophy is embracing the concept that we own nothing. Everything tangible in our lives is something we are only borrowing for a certain amount of time ... our money, our cars, our houses, clothes, electronics. Sure, we "buy" these things, but they could be stolen tomorrow. The idea is that we decide what value we place on those things. If we realize they aren't truly our possessions, things to be attached to, but are gifts to enjoy for the time we have them, then when a time comes that they are gone -- whether stolen, discarded, destroyed or simply lost -- we can more easily let go, remembering they were never really ours to begin with.

But memories, those are different. Those are the intangible pieces of us that we'll always have. Those are the gifts or, in some cases, curses that we cannot discard, try as we might. Another aspect of Yoga is breathing, often through discomfort. So, when night falls and I find myself in that place of shadowy memories, I've decided to apply that physical discipline mentally and "breathe" through the discomfort, not to change the song that's playing or the channel on the TV or cast away whatever has triggered the memory. Instead, I'm learning to become intimate with it, embrace it despite the hurt or discomfort. Because, just like during Yoga exercise, if I avoid the hard poses, I'll never gain more flexibility or be ready for anything more. But if I breathe through the displeasure, eventually the ache ebbs, the muscles and tendons ease ...

And, just like that, I'm ready for what's next.

"Learning to stay is a description of meditation. Learning to stay is also a description of staying with the itch and not scratching." ~ Pema Chodron.

~ C ~