Sometimes Progress Feels Like Retreat

relaxation and rest

    Yeah, it's frustrating.  The world tells you that happiness is where it's at.  Keep a gratitude journal.  Take time to do what you enjoy.  Relax like a cat.  But what happens when your path takes you through darkness?
    The first time I ever experienced this was in a yoga class.  The class was at the old Tri City YMCA, taught by Shalini Latour (aside from being a yoga teacher, she makes gourmet chocolates, yum!).  The class focused on neck position.  In each pose she would talk us into correct placement of the head and shoulders.  About 45 minutes into class I began to cry.  Tears flooded down my face.
        It was like there was a cyst of unhappiness in my shoulder and when the muscles relaxed, it released all of the poisonous emotions stored there.  At the time I was mortified, but everyone just let me be and  I finished the class.  Of course, later I learned that emotions can be stored in the body, and are often expressed on the way out.

Me, trying to get into the Elephant camp
 Chang Mai, Thailand

        At these times, it is important to remember the glass is half full.  Here we are, working so hard to be positive. To get there, sometimes you have to plow through yesterday's troubles to get to tomorrow's peace.
       This picture is of me in Thailand.  It is in 1989 and I am at my young, fit best.  Look at my body posture. I'm terrified.   Notice the fear in my body. This fear (or anger or grief or whatever other emotion) happens all the time.  If you don't let it out, it get's stored in the body.
       It is important to remember that the healing crisis, whether it be physical or emotional, is part of the healing process.  Let the unhappy feelings wash over you, then return to your emotional center, the calm of a cat sleeping, safe and secure.

Another Reason to Get Up in the Morning

This morning's sunrise.  I just had to share!

Piece of a Cake

from La Dolce Vita

    Last night as I was winding down to bed, I was frustrated.  You know, you say your prayers, offer your day to God and then apologize that the day was such a poor offering.  I've been working for days on a YouTube video and am having difficulty putting it together (lets just say, it's still not posted).
    So in the free association that happens before bed, I remember this horrible cake my sister and I made for our mom one birthday. In our minds we were making a beautiful offering like the Amaretto cake pictured at left (my personal favorite cake ever made).  This cake, however, was a yellow cake, straight from the box.  We had mixed it up according to the directions and set it in the oven to bake.  Sounds like a great beginning, yes? Well, let's just say the end did not live up to the beginning.

from Breezy Cheetah Pop

      As we removed the layers from the oven, one was dropped.  We took the good layer, then spread the bad one on top.  It looked a bit like freshly mixed cement.  Then it was time to decorate.  This was long before the advent of Wilton's concentrated coloring, so to make a frosting of the lurid red I remember, it must have taken two bottles of food coloring.  To complete, we added multi colored sprinkles.  Of course we did not take pictures, but the cake at right has the same feel of our sorry cake.
      My thought last night was how gracious my mother was in accepting her ugly cake, then it came to me how much I would enjoy it from my kids as an expression of love.  Maybe the day was not such a waste.  Later, I told my husband about the different ways to see the day, he said "Who cares, it's still cake!"  I guess we could restate it as "Any day above ground is a good day."  Hope you all have many more good days, and I promise, the video is coming.

A Little Wisdom from Henry Ford

Henry Ford
from biography.com 

     After Thanksgiving dinner, as we all sat around rubbing our bellies, my brother pulled out a group of quotes.  He is a cross country coach and gives them out before each meet.  Here's the one we were given...

There isn't a person anywhere who isn't capable of doing more than he thinks he can."- Henry Ford

    For me, the clear message here is not just the possibility of doing more, but also, to choose wisely where we do more.  If I go to church, and don't like the message, do I spend more time bad mouthing the speaker or trying to love him?  Loving what drives you crazy, now that is doing more and doing it well.

 

Who Needs Big Brother?

Me on the iPad

     Last night I made an interesting experiment.  I have always wondered what I look like when I do yoga.  I've spent the last 9 years demonstrating, but have never really been sure it was clear.  I finally figured out how to know.  I set the iPad up on the floor next to me as I practiced.  Now the bad part was that the iPad is angled, so I had a triple chin and my belly was huge, but I noticed some very interesting (and reassuring) things.
     First a caution, watching yourself is not for the faint of heart.  You will be surprised how often you fall down, grunt, pant and possibly curse, but what we are looking for is the overall picture.  The thing that I found the most reinforcing was how my downward dog just kept improving as the practice went on.  In each pose, with each adjustment I was both marshaling my energy and expanding outward.
      I also noticed easy fixes for poses that feel problematic.  In my cat-cow, the heads of my arm bones are rolled forward. In today's practice, rolling them out and back felt so much better.  In standing poses, bend the front knee more, in eagle pose (garudasana), sit down further.  All of these changes were so easy and really improved my practice. It let me be my own teacher.
     Now don't go overboard and tape each practice.  A home practice is about inner correction and knowing, but sometimes, an outside perspective can help.

Your Inner Fountain of Youth: Yoga for the Face

He reminds me of Jackie Chan
"Take this, wrinkles!"

    Do you remember how your mother said "If you keep making that face, it might stay that way forever!"  Turns out she may have been right.  We hold so much tension and suppressed emotions in our faces, often we don't look our youthful best.
    Over the past weekend I had a booth at the Victory of Light festival in Sharonville, Ohio.  I was lucky enough to be right next to Sebastian Rey Skin products.  The men at the booth were so much fun, it was like having a floor show all weekend.  Even more important, they looked so young!  As the Expo began to wear down, we had more free time to talk.  Now, a girl never tells, but these men looked about 20 years younger than they were.  Talk about a ringing endorsement for self care.
     Tuesday's yoga class brought this into the physical by relaxing and restoring the face from the inside.  It is always so interesting to find how much tension we store in the eyes and jaws and how easy it is to release it (if only for a little while).  Here is a shorter version of the practice to use at home. (Writing this blog post has been very relaxing, because I keep doing the acupressure points to figure out how to accurately describe them.)
     (The beginning massage is loosely derived from Acupressure's Potent Points: A Guide to Self-Care for Common Ailments.  I highly recommend this book! It explains acupressure, then offers relief for what ails you.)

image from Healing Journeys

• Begin by taking a comfortable seat in a chair or on the floor. Settle into the present time and place. Notice your breathing for several rounds.
• Move to more conscious breathing.
• Inhale and imagine it enters through the front of your throat (your fifth chakra).
• Exhale and imagine it exits through the front and back of the throat.
• Allow the breath to settle and bring your hands into prayer pose (anjali mudra).
• Tip your head gently forward and bring the joined hands to your forehead, touching the index fingers to the third eye (the point between your eyebrows). Rest here for a few breaths.
• Keeping the index fingers in place, spread your palms (keeping palms facing one another) and gently place your thumbs on the bone at the outside our your eyes (right where crow's feet begin to form). Rest here for a few breaths.
• Place the index fingers on your jaw, right below your ears.Keep hands off of your face. Rest here for a few breaths.
• Move the index fingers to the back of the neck, about half way between shoulders and base of the skull.  Slide the index fingers about an inch from center line and gently hold. Rest here a few breaths.
• Place index fingers on the base of the skull (occiput). Rest the index fingers about two inches out from center line on the big tendons.  Hold for several breaths.
• Complete by brushing down the whole body. Begin by gently brushing the face with your hands, moving down the neck and whole body. Crown pull, moving the fingers out from center line on your whole scalp, massaging the head. Pull hands out from center line for the neck, top to bottom and finish by pulling hands over base of the neck to shoulders.

Cat-cow (Majariasana)
from Women's Health

• Come to table pose (svanasana) on your hands and knees.Exhale, round your back into cow. Inhale, arch back and look up into cat. Move through cat-cow (majariasana) with your breath for several rounds.
• Allow the body to settle back into table pose (svanasana).
• Move through cat-cow again, but this time inhale into cow (not cat!), arching your back high.  Imagine that you are inhaling through the back of your heart. Exhale, opening the front of your chest, moving into cat. Continue for several rounds.
• Now time to add the face. As you exhale for cat, open your mouth and eyes wide, sticking your tongue out just like the guy in this picture (keep those eyes open). Continue for several rounds.

• Settle back to table, relax your face, turn your toes under and stretch back to downward facing dog (adho mukha swanasana). 
• Since this is our first down dog, stretch out your legs, moving from side to side to open the backs of the legs and hips.
• Settle back to your downward facing dog, then begin cat-cow just like the last time on your hands and knees. Inhale, round your back up to the sky, breathing in through your heart. Exhale, open your mouth and eyes, sticking your tongue way out.  Move through cat-cow for several more rounds.
• Walk your feet up to your hands, coming to uttanasana (standing forward bend). Place your hands on your hips, inhale to mountain pose (tadasana).

    Now that your face muscles are awake and alive, on to your regular practice.  Do a few sun salutations paying attention to relaxing the face, particularly the eyes and jaw.  Soften the eyes and give a small smile (think smiling Buddha, not Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland).

    I like the first sun salutations to be very gentle, walking back and forth rather than jumping, and making the poses very gentle variations, continuing to pay attention to the face.  Work your way gradually up to jumping back and forth between uttanasana and plank and more vigorous poses, always softening the eyes and jaw. 

    Continue to inversions and standing poses while relaxing the face. End with corpse pose (savasana), setting an intention to relax your face consciously every day. Dip into your inner fountain of youth.

Happy Thanksgiving!

from Blacksheepsite

2012 first pie

      Happy Thanksgiving! As I sit to write, the first pie is out of the oven with more to come. I just love a holiday all about food and family, from the families we were born in to the families that we create.   I was blessed to be born into a large crazy family.  My Grandma, Henrietta, lived with us 4 days a week, and this Norman Rockwell painting shows how she would cut the edges of the crust off the pie.  It was one of the great goals of my life to be able to hold that pie up and cut off the edges.  Thanks, Grandma.  Here is a picture of as her with the grandkids in 1973 (yours truly is sitting front and center in the yellow dress).

     Those families we create are next on my gratitude list. My little family began in Cincinnati (with just me), but over the years has grown.  I have cooked turkeys in Annapolis, the Philippines, Sicily, Florida, Cincinnati and Florence.  In each place there has been a wonderful gathering of people to share it with.  My favorite turkey was one in Sicily.  It was the first with one of those red buttons that pop to tell you the turkey is finished.  The darn thing stayed firmly in the turkey after three or four hours (it felt 5 hours...).  I actually called Mom back in the States.  Calm and collected, she said stop worrying, just shake the leg, see if it's loose.  Can you imagine getting a call from your frantic daughter six time zones away?  Thank God for my mom.

from Timing the Perfect Turkey

I also give thanks for all of the things I have learned this year and especially to my teachers:

•  JoAnn, Wendy, and Sianna in various classes
• my friends at bible study who continue to expand my mind
• my students; yoga, reiki and others
• most of all, my family, Greg, John, Daniel and Joan

My teachers also come to me through books.  From Pavel Tsatsouline, who teaches how real men stretch, to Steven Pinker, who proves the decline in violence, to Susan Cain, who taught me that I was an introvert, I am truly grateful. (By the way, her book got me interested in the Meyers Briggs personality test.  Turns out I am an INFJ which is only one percent of the population.  It explains a lot of things and frees me to be myself.  What a gift!)

from Carlos Flores, USNA class of 1988

     My next offer of gratitude is for those who serve our country in the military.  The definition for veteran: someone who has written a check, payable to “The United States of America”, for any amount up to, and including, their life.  This post from August is about our gift of Thanksgiving to the country of Grenada by invading in October of 1984. I am especially grateful for those who continue to serve, keeping our family gatherings possible through your service.
      A small side note of gratitude goes to my internet.   I have been having problems until this morning.  Let's just say I have 13 draft posts and four more rough ideas caught in the files of my computer.

From Tewksbury Rod and Gun

     One final note of gratitude goes to the beloved American Turkey, who gives his life annually that we might have a great dinner.
      If you would like the pleasure and health benefits of adding a bit of gratitude into your life, let me recommend Happy Rambles.  It is an online gratitude journal.  Each day they send and email requesting your entry and store your replies online. It makes you realize there are things to be grateful for every day.

P.S. I am truly grateful for my boys who are in the kitchen pealing and chopping potatoes so I can post on my blog.  I have been showered with blessings!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Some Roadblocks are Good

         So often anything that slows forward progress is automatically classified as bad. Tonight I was given a demonstration of the opposite; sometimes we slow for others or even for ourselves. For example, a parent reduces their career to take care of the kids; a driver allows several cars to merge before road construction; a teacher allows the student to learn at their own pace.
           Tonight I was trying to make a box to store my reiki grid.  Not long after I started, this is what happened...

    Yes, that is Joy. Right in the middle of my project.  Usually a sleeping cat will stop all my forward momentum.  And that is a good thing.  She makes me slow down and think.
     In this off time that was the gift of Joy, it gave me time to review my yoga video.  Today I was struck by the great idea to video my yoga practice  so I could see myself like the student I am and give myself some pointers.
      Of course, I noticed loads of flaws, but the thing that struck me most was the progress I made in that one 45 minute practice.
       I have very tight muscles.  It's one of the things that makes me a good teacher.  Each pose is so hard for me, I learn lots of tricks to coax the body in to the pose.  Watching the practice made me see how much better my downward facing dog was at the end than it was at the beginning. Yes, I still fell down in eagle pose (on both sides!), but my alignment was better each time I went into eagle in a different way.
        This is exactly what I look for in my life.  Those small, incremental improvements that can be so hard to notice.  This is the gift of the roadblock. It makes you slow down and really see your life.  Thanks, Joy.

Obama vs Romney with a Grain of Salt

   By this time, you are probably burned out on election day emails and commercials (and phone calls!), but I feel the need to inject a little levity into the debate.  We are all so polarized and so sure we are right!  I have to admit, when I look at my voting record and where it has gotten my beloved country, I know I need to be a bit less biased and take it all with a grain of salt.
     Here are a few memes I found to add some laughter to the final hours before the polls open.  It was hard to find some that were just funny because everyone is so angry and impassioned.  My first selection honors college students everywhere who know what a great deal they have in college and just want life to stay that way...

      Joe Biden is possibly my favorite politician, ever.  He is always surprising and interesting even when I completely disagree.  I have no idea how someone who consistently speaks his mind has made it so far, but while he would make a fun dinner companion, maybe not such a great running mate....

     It was hard to find a Republican answer to the Democratic meme above.  All of the memes with Romney felt mean spirited (not to say that most of them with Obama weren't), so I had to settle for this one using a photo of Ryan...

       I leave you with a few words from Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Semenary...

May God bless America, not because this nation deserves to be blessed, but because He is a God of grace and mercy.  Oh God . . . save us from ourselves.

Now...

How to Grow in a Desert? Focus Your Energy

flowers in the desert- source

      There is a desert, the Atacama, that stretches from Peru to Chile, where parts have not seen rain since record keeping began.  The only moisture available comes from a dense fog known as camanchaca, formed when cold air associated with ocean currents originating in the Antarctic hits warmer air. The amazing thing is that this harsh climate supports more than a million people.  Both plants and people survive by harvesting the camanchaca fog.
         The plants are low growing, having hairy leaves and many branches to provide the most surface area for the fog to condense upon. People do something similar. They use fog nets, fine mesh screens that capture the fog and allow it to condense.  This provides enough water for the people, but also their animals and crops to survive.  Scientists are developing man made structures to to the same thing. I have included some fascinating pictures of fog towers in development.  The final towers will be 400 meters tall!

Alberto Fernández and Susana Ortega's fog tower- source

            I learned about this fascinating place several years ago, and as with so many things, promptly forgot.  At Friday's yoga class, in the middle of savasana meditation, it popped up in my mind (sorry Wendy).  Recently I have been told by several people that I need to narrow my focus.  The reason I am not seeing the success that I desire is that I am giving too much passion to too many projects.  I have been sending out energy like fog in the desert, plenty of water, but all it nurtures are a million tiny plants.  Even before this advice, I had been thinking maybe it is time to stop taking the next class and playing around with the next bit of healing technology.  I really like reiki and yoga, with a little help from the BioGenesis tools and the crystals.

fine mesh to capture the fog

      It is time to pick one of two affirmations and set them up like fog towers in my own personal desert.  At first, even thinking about doing this was a bit daunting.  It is easier for me to see a few steps than the ultimate objective.  In this instance clarity came, not in a flash of insight, but in realizing what I don't need to work on.
       A friend had offered me a book about deathbed wishes (you know... I wish I had - spent more time with my kids- had a relationship with my family- worked for charity etc, etc, etc).  All of these desires are great, but they are what I spent the first half of my life working on.  In staying home with the children and focusing on family and church work, these areas feel strong.  What I need to work on is what everyone else does in their twenties- business and health.  Once I figured out the focus, the affirmations began to arise.  One is very strong and the other is still a bit murky.  I know I have it right when I can look myself in the eyes in a mirror as I say the affirmation out loud.
        Like the fog towers in the desert, my two affirmations are already beginning to collect energy.  When I arise in the morning, they are my fuel.  Before beginning my yoga practice, they are my intentions.  Even as I clean house, it is toward these affirmations.  With these in mind, I drink the cool clear water of progress rather than wandering in the fog.

How Did I Become a Liberal?

   As the election approaches there is more political news than I care to follow.  Each candidate from dog catcher to president is saying what they think most of us want to hear.  There is something lovely that comes from all this strife, however.  Each bit of news and each commercial opens an opportunity to look inside, to notice what we really think about issues and how we arrive at these conclusions.
    I have arrived at a stunning conclusion.  I have discovered that, at heart, I am a liberal.  Not a Democrat. Not a Republican.  I find value in both parties.  I find problems in both parties. The greatest value I have found however, resides inside.
  What makes this such a shock is that all of my life I have been a closet (or not so closet) conservative.  I'm not really talking politics, more of a life philosophy.   Though it constantly surprises friends, I have a really hard time changing.  My mind says "Yes! Go out there and learn something new.  Be different." but my inner most heart says "Change in scary.  Even if this is bad, it is the bad I know..."
  This is the year I have dedicated to the affirmation, "I am willing to change."  It takes conservativism and throws it out the window. Aak!  There are times that I wonder if it is such a good idea, but I found a very interesting article that expresses my inner motivations in a way that I have no words for.   Though he is talking about politics, the feelings expressed are why I feel change in all aspects of our lives is so vital.

The pessimist-conservative can stand athwart history and yell stop, confident that change will only make things worse.  Liberals, however, have to wrestle with the- yes, sometimes naive- desire to make things better.  We see consumerism and call for ad-free public televieion programming. We see environmental depredation and call for carbon taxes... Our answers may sometimes be wrong, but they express a faith... in man's ability to improve his lot.- excerpted from "Old Glory" by Nick Baumann in Commonweal Magazine

    In this season of great change, I hope you find your  inner liberal, your belief that the world can become a better place.  This place of optimism allows for healing and growth.  Be Blessed.