I Am Willing To Change!

     Everyone got it right!  2012 is a year of Great Transformation. This is the time to use my favorite Louise Hay affirmation, "I am willing to change." Now, I'm not a believer in the end of the world, but I know that my world is changing remarkably (with one child in college, the other going next year and lots of other changes, one could say it is the end of my world as I knew it). Think R.E.M.

    Our entire house and property is in a state of upheaval.  We brought home furniture from our trip to New Jersey.  It is all lovely and fits into the house much better than I expected.  However, it has necessitated rearranging almost every room in the house.  Two rooms are completely finished.  I love them.  Those others, not so much.  They will be great soon (or as soon as I get to work).  The funny thing about this change is it is just work, not upsetting, just irritating in the fact that the living room is full of books and the parlor with pictures and our bedroom with.... (you get the picture).
   To add the cherry atop the sundae of change, we have been trying to find a contractor to put in a back patio for us the whole spring and summer and Friday it finally happened. On Friday morning our back corner looked like this...

  It began life about fifteen years ago as a beautiful English style garden, complete with vegetable patch.  When the kids were small we would spend hours in the back yard playing and gardening.  As they grew and life happened things have changed.  Since I knew we would dig the whole thing up, this year I didn't pull a single weed and boy does it show.  The only things we wanted to keep were the three redbud trees I had planted to honor my dad.  He died in springtime just as the redbuds peaked.  The last week he was alive I put over 700 miles on my car just driving to and from the hospital and dropping the kids off with friends.  That week I spent a lot of time admiring the redbuds along the 275 loop around Cincinnati.
      So, we were changing, getting rid of things that no longer served us (the garden) while keeping the things we loved (the trees).  Sound a bit like energy healing and growing up?  When we set off to make a change for the better, the first thing we need is the proper tools.  If you've ever had a session with me, you know I use my Nu|vision computer system, Biogenesis tools and healing crystals.  To fix this backyard, we needed 6 men and a Bobcat.

   In under an hour, my once beautiful, now weedy English garden was a pile of refuse. Though I kept portions of all the plants, it was hard to see the remainder discarded.  It is like when a child goes to college.  It is good for both you and your child.  Usually there have been years of straining the bonds of civility.  It doesn't make driving away with the adult child in your rearview mirror any easier.  Fortunately we have pictures from all the Easter egg hunts and good times that were had in the garden (when it was a child as well).

   Acknowledging that is time for a change can be challenging, but this spring we decided what we were looking for was more of a park than a garden.  Wouldn't it be nice to have a place that was restful and beautiful, a place where we could entertain and enjoy? Absolutely.  The tear down is the first step.  Friday we ripped off the band-aid.

The Job of a Teacher

  So often when we search for a teacher as an adult, it is so difficult.  We have these small windows of availability (I am only free on Tuesday and Thursday evenings...).  We want someone who will challenge us, but not too much.  I see it like searching for a spouse as an older adult.  As a teen and young adult, our list of "must haves" is fairly short.  At 45, my list is considerably longer.
    I just found the perfect representation of my ideal teacher.  This past Sunday I went to a great art auction and fundraiser at Bolero's Dance Club.  All of the proceeds benefited the Brighton Recovery Center for Women.  There were graffiti artists, break dancers, and many demonstrations.  I just fell in love with watching the artists.  I've only held spray paint to paint my tools orange so I wouldn't lose them at job sites.  Here they were creating art!  A series of pictures I took of one of the artists, Max Unterhaslberger, clarified my thoughts about teachers.

    In this picture you can see the beautiful orange, red and tan under painting.  It is like the student who first walks into a yoga class.  The student is already beautiful.  It is the teachers job to highlight and define the beauty that is already there.

     In walking into each class the teacher has some idea of the class to be taught, but the specifics are dictated by the students who attend. Each class is an opportunity to reveal the beauty within the student.   When you find the teacher who can do this for you, that is the teacher to keep!

    It is worth moving heaven and earth to attend the class once you find the right teacher.  My reiki master lives in Louisville, an hour and a half drive from my house.  For a two day class, I'll drive more than six hours and count the time well spent.  Each Friday my mom and I attend yoga class at Shine Yoga Center.  The class is an hour and half and so is the drive.  So worth it!  I hope you find your teacher as well.

The Importance of Family

    About two weeks ago, we sold my father in law's house.  He is happily living in a wonderful full time care facility (I must say, I never thought that would be a possibility- I can't believe how wonderful the staff are. After all the horror stories, who knew that my sister in law could find a place like this...  It just goes to show we all have different talents.  What the staff does on a daily basis, with genuine pleasure, I think would drive me crazy if the resident were not my family. Watching the staff gently herd the residents to dinner and activities is a beautiful ballet.)
    We have had to make lots of decisions.  What things are important to each person?  What is important to our forebears? What will have meaning to our children?  After all, we have owned a house (one or another) for 27 years.  Our house is completely furnished and our children are not old enough to need anything.  What to do?
     It was such a funny situation.  Here we were, four adults who had known one another for twenty three years, walking on eggshells.  All of us had heard the stories of families who never spoke to one another again after disposing of the parent's household goods, even if the parents owned very little. We all were working so hard to please one another and just get along.  It was funny how hard it was to think in a house with four adults thinking so hard.
   What was so interesting was each of us had memories attached to different objects.  We wanted the milk glass candy dishes that our boys had pilfered candy from them each visit we made.  My husband wanted an oak chest of drawers that he refinished with his mom.  His sister longed for the blanket chest that had been in the family for years.
     The best thing was how patient everyone was with one another. Even though we were slowly driving one another crazy, with the four of us continued to work together and finish the job.  It is times like these that create the family, not just the fabulous Italian dinner that we shared with my father in law and his brother.  Norman Rockwell times are great, but those other times forge the family.

(A little aside......As I said earlier, our house was fully furnished so we really had to be careful about what we brought home.  Deep in my heart of hearts, I didn't want anything.  The irony of the situation is, by bringing home that dresser (and a hutch for another room), my son's room is much more functional.  Guess fully furnished is actually a floating target that changes as our lives change.)
 

A Study in Contrasts

     One of the things I love best about yoga is the deep contrasts that fill the practice.  Yoga is a practice of movement and stillness, of drawing in muscular energy and radiating out organic energy, of peace and of joy.  Anyone who has attended one of my classes knows that the class is mostly quiet, but I tend to try to get my student’s to laugh. If they don't laugh, I'll still laugh at myself because usually when I'm laughing, it means I'm a bit uncomfortable.  Being a bit off balance really adds to the adventure.  I know in my home practice and in the classes I attend, if I don’t fall down at least once, I haven’t been trying very hard.

“First there is the fall, and then we recover from the fall.  Both are the mercy of God!”- Lady Julian of Norwich

     Without falling down, and risking the appearance of failure, we don’t know just how far we can push life.  Each step out into uncertainty brings growth. Grandma Moses started painting in her seventies.  What if she was too afraid? My childhood Christmas favorite, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas  was illustrated by someone who society says should have been sitting around waiting to die. Just think, Julian of Norwich lived from 1342-1416.  It seems so long ago, but truth is truth no matter when it was learned.

     It may seem strange that I equate falling down with laughing, but in yoga classes, they are often the same.   We approach class very seriously, usually with very clear goals.  The goals may vary from a getting a workout to finding inner peace to weight loss to increasing flexibility.  The problem is, when we hold so tightly to our goals, we can lose sight of other benefits.  

BKS Iyengar, the master of alignment, in Triangle

    I love to laugh, even in the most trying times.  It can be rather annoying for those around me… Think about how it changes things.  Say you are doing Triangle pose.  I just love to use this pose to teach the principles of alignment.  So, you are in my class and I have told you “draw muscular energy  up your legs, inward spiral the back leg, outward spiral the front leg, press strongly into the outside edge of the back foot.”  We haven’t made it above the waistline and already you have 4 things to think about.  If you don’t start smiling now, your brain may explode!

    The interesting thing is, once I perform the final bit of alignment  in any pose, the smile, I find that the outer skin begins to soften.  The muscles that were holding so tightly to my purpose become more gentle, more flexible.  The pose becomes a joy.

     I was thinking about this recently when my husband and I were staying at a friend’s house.  It is a bit older and the plumbing wasn’t the best (Yes, it takes a special kind of crazy to move from joy to bad plumbing, but just follow along, it should make sense soon).  As I began my shower, my husband began to shave.  Let’s just say the demands of the sink completely overpowered the demand of the shower.  The temperature gyrated wildly from arctic to boiling.  What was interesting was that, as soon as I let go of the idea that cold was bad, it became invigorating.  As soon as I relaxed to the hot water, it was only boiling in comparison to the cold. The hot was actually pleasant.  I began thinking, maybe I should do this again tomorrow to see if I really don’t like it or was it just so different from my norm I categorized it as bad?

    As Richard Rohr says in Falling Upward: Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life “Our institutions and our expectations, including our churches, are almost entirely configured to encourage, support, reward, and validate the the [status quo].”  He is talking about the importance of status, security and stability of living by the rules.  Smiling and falling over is about breaking the rules.  Soften the outer skin and have fun!

Tools for the Journey

    Recently I was reading National Geographic (yes, published in April, but National Geographic none the less).  The article was about summitting K2.  While the article was great, it was one picture that really caught my eye.

From  http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/04/k2/brown-text

   If you can ignore the incredible mountain scenery, look a bit more closely at the two hikers backpacks.  Can you see how different they are?  Each has the gear that they need and part of the group gear.  I think this is the perfect description for how we can best approach each stage of life.  We are always doing our bit to take care of our family and friends, but we also need to pack the gear to take care of ourselves.

   Right now I am in a time of taking care of others.  The day has loads of phone calls and errands that were not here two weeks ago and (hopefully) will be gone soon, but in the mean time, I need to pack the gear to take care of myself.  To figure this out, I need to look at my history.

     In times like this, the first thing I do is stop taking remedies.  Since I have lived for 45 years among the chemicals and stresses of modern life, I am usually taking an herbal or vibropathic supplement for some condition (right now, it is 3 vibropathics).   Also, I check for best practices, some habits that will benefit my life for this season (like taking an epsom salt bath each night or using the Hanna Kroeger laser light on thyroid and thymus, check and check).  Once I leave these behind, the next thing I do is start to eat junk food (and by junk food I don't mean chips and beer, just food that is not good for me).  If I can keep to the remedies and good practices, then I am home free.  To reference the picture above,  I have brought my sleeping pad and ice pick instead of doritos and flip flops.

      How to break this pattern of decay?  I recommend a chart.  I have never outgrown a progress chart, though I can't find the great gold star stickers that my teachers used to put on their charts.

Here is mine for this week (I took the picture on my new table for my meditation corner.  I love the vibrant cloth cover and the ability to put the stones I want near at hand).  A few things to notice, it is important to be honest with yourself, rather than put an x in the box for something half done.  I figure 80%-90% compliance is just fine in stressful times.  Before I took to making charts, I was 0% compliant.  Also, something cool, in my last post I mentioned taking your temperature and drinking lemon water to alkalize the body.  Since I began two and a half weeks ago, my morning temperature has raised about a degree and a half.  It is not normal yet, but what a difference.  The funny thing is I thought I felt great before I began, now I'm learning great can get better.  It's like when the doctor asks you about pain levels.  You may think you are at a pain level of 10.  Break a bone. that feeling of bone grating on bone is a whole new experience.

    The difference between one good feeling and another is really summed up by this picture.  Here we are, out on a balcony on an Alaskan cruise, looking at the glaciers.  Both of us are engaged and interested, having a good time.  To quote my feeling above, "feeling great."  My son is in a t-shirt and jeans.  I have on his jacket, my jacket, gloves, a fleece, and a long sleeved t-shirt.  There is feeling great, and feeling great with lots of health.
     Keeping with my check list is the first step into my feeling great days.

Love Your Liver: or how to surround the dragon

   Have you ever watched the television show House?  I used to love watching how the group of doctors took a number of symptoms and kept looking at the patient from different angles to come up with a diagnosis.  They would write it all up on a board, ponder and pace.  They would try different medicines and somehow at 55 minutes into the show come up with a miraculous solution (usually).  The process is called differential diagnosis
    If you were trying to apply this to energy healing (and, I am), we start in the same place.  What are the symptoms?  What in our life or our client's life is not working and could use a little help?  We could go on for days, but let's not.  I like to gather a symptom list so we can look for improvements, not to diagnose.  Remember in energy healing we do not diagnose, treat, or cure (it would be illegal!)
    In any given situation, some healing steps are universal.  We want to create conditions in the body where it can just heal itself.  So we look at the terrain.

1. Does your body run cold?  Take your temperature each morning upon rising.  A body temperature routinely under 98.2 has a hard time burning off predators (bacteria, viruses, etc.)
2. What is your pH?  Use Nature's Sunshine pH Test Strips 100 strips  first thing in the morning to check salivary pH before eating or drinking anything.  Ideally your body is neutral (pH of 7).
3. Look at your diet.  Try to eat on the alkalizing side of the chart.
4. Drink warm lemon water twice a day.  Use the juice from half a lemon and pure water (I use the Soma Board, Water Revitalizer and the Wings of Genesis on my water, as well as filtering it) This not only cuts down on the mucus in the body, but it alkalizes as well. (Tip from experience, do not buy the big beautiful lemons that beckon in shining piles, go for that bag of organic lemons.  Not only are they smaller and chemical free, but they are also easier to juice.  The first time I tried this, I used a large lemon.  The water was almost undrinkable!)
5. Watch the Quantum K video.  The video is 23 minutes and seems a bit odd on first look.  I have found the quantum K numbers to be very effective in my practice and this is an easy way to use them. The last section on Spiritual Healing references some beliefs that I do not hold, but it is mixed with a lot of things about forgiveness that I wouldn't want to miss.  You'll have to decide for yourself.

The next places to work are more Peter Pan than gardening. Just think lovely thoughts.

1. My first stop is Louise Hay's   Heal Your Body A-Z: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Way to Overcome Them.  For the liver she suggests the probable cause is that the liver is the seat of anger and primitive emotions.  Her healing affirmation is  "Love and peace and joy are what I know."  Tape the affirmation to your bathroom mirror and say it to your self several times in the morning and evening.  Keep it in your wallet or use it as a bookmark.
2. In Jin Shin Jyutsu, liver is attached to middle finger (anger).  Hold the middle finger with the opposite hand.  If you'd like to make this stronger, say to yourself "I release all anger."
3. Young Living Oil of Transformation.  Get a little help with the anger, use some of this oil. By replacing negative beliefs with revitalizing new thought patterns, a transformation in behaviors, emotions, and attitudes is possible.  I found some advice to use it with polarity yoga.  I have never tried this, but if I'm working on the liver, why not try something new.  I'm not sure if I could stop laughing which is a great tonic for anger.

       There are just so many more things to do than take a pill.  Only two of these suggestions take any thing other than your body and a few groceries.  After coming up with your own list of symptoms and remedies, give it a try.  Most of these suggestions will help with any condition.  After a few weeks, assess your progress by running through your symptom list.  Drinking lemon water and eating a bit cleaner raised my body temperature a full degree in about two weeks.

       I love how energy healing has broadened my world.  Be Blessed.

The History of Medicine!

      I was researching my next post and found this!  Enjoy....

History of Medicine:

2000 B.C.   Eat this root

1000 B.C.   Roots are heathen. Say a prayer.

1850 A.D.  Prayer is superstition. Take this potion.

1900 A.D.  That potion is snake oil. Take this pill.

1940 A.D.  That pill is useless. Take this antibiotic.

2000 A.D.  That antibiotic is no longer effective. Eat this root.