Want to stay young? Keep the mind vigorous? Stave off Alzheimer's? Everyone recommends taking up a new hobby. I say look to your past for something you have stopped doing. This year I've found what's old is new.
Over the years, somehow I learned to sit down and shut up. Talk about giving up on my gifts. I remembered to walk, but forgot to dance. I remembered to talk, but not to sing. Somehow I became embarrassed about it all. Who knew? It seems like the free person on our left only comes out for the holidays like a good dress, then goes back into the closet until the next festive event.
As I write this, I'm at church and the preschoolers are practicing for their Christmas program. It's adorable, but they are also learning to conform. Now this is a big overstatement, but there is this feeling of sit down and shut up (except when I tell you to stand up and perform). It's important to society that we learn how to be polite and respectful of others, but it can be taken way too far. Turns out, that's just what I did.
As we approach the new year, it is a great time to look at our lives, maybe see a few things that we have given up, some of that zest for life that has been lost. Now, identifying the problem is not nearly enough. To remedy the situation, we need a plan. Make a regular, public commitment that will restore the smile to your face.
I had never made a New Year's resolution before, but last January I chose 3 areas of my life that I felt I had "given up" on. I resolved to be a better friend, learn how to sing, and remember how to write. All things I had given up in the pursuit of being a great parent. Totally unnecessary, but if you watch What Not To Wear, apparently it is quite common. It was time to become a beginner again.
What is so cool is that I have made progress in all of the areas. For me the key was to make the commitments public. If you set a weekly date to meet a friend, she is likely to make you stick with it, just like an accountability buddy when you run. I also joined the choir. Even when there are 10 other people singing your part, it is important to the group that you show up for practice and church. Peer pressure works. As for writing, this is my 127th post. I'm getting somewhere on that promise too.
It's time to begin thinking about this next year. I've been tossing around ideas- learning to improve my website, committing to dancing and playing games, I'm not sure yet. Right now anything is possible for 2013 and I'm so excited.
This morning we celebrated 9 years of yoga at Saint Timothy Church! It has been such a blessing to me. When I first began, I was brand new to teaching yoga. I knew I had a lot to offer, but I was way intimidated by teaching adults. To be honest, I have never gotten over my disbelief that people will do what I say. Once in every class I think, "why are they listening to me?" As a student, I know that if I have driven to the class, I'll do what the teacher says. But these lovely people just keep showing up, Tuesday after Tuesday (450+ times!). I am truly blessed.
Another remarkable thing is how much I still need to learn. Each time I practice on my own, attend a class or teach a class I learn something new. Just this morning, I learned how to get deeper into Garudasana (eagle pose) from watching one of my students. Who knew that if you lifted your top leg a little more, the whole thing gets easier (I'm definitely going to need to work on this one when no one is watching... like I said last Thursday, lately I've been having a falling down practice, not a standing practice). When the teacher and student salute one another with a "Namaste" at the end of class, it is truly felt on both sides. I have learned a lot from my students. Thanks.
What better way to say thank you than with gifts? The table was full of sugar scrub and healing crystals for my faithful students. Now, what I'd really like to have here is a picture of the food, but someone came to class unprepared (yes, that's me of course) and my phone's battery was dying.
Later in the day, I had a meeting with the great folks at Netcrafters. One of the topics we talked about was who my target audience is. In the traffic jam on the way home I figured it out! All of my students loved the red chile chocolate cookies- these are my people. If you want to join the tribe, here is the recipe (we like them so much we keep them frozen and only cook one serving at a time. It is not energy efficient, but it does save the expanding waistline).
Red Chile Chocolate Cookies
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
dash salt
1 1/2 Tbsp. cayenne pepper
1/3 c. cocoa
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 c. flour
Preheat oven 350.
Mix first 8 ingredients on low with a mixer until just blended.
Mix in baking soda and flour.
Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Scoop dough into 1 Tbsp. balls and bake for 8-10 minutes.
Lately I’ve been feeling like Dianna Ross in the song “You Can’t Hurry
Love.”
You just have to wait,
You gotta trust, give it time,
No matter how long it takes;
But how many heartaches must I stand…
So if you replace love in
the song with growth (yeah, now it
doesn’t have the same meter), I am right there with her, and I think many
others are as well. How many times have
you heard yourself say, “Why is this happening to me?” or “How
many times do I have to clear this same issue?” What about, “I would rather die than go on
dealing with this?” You know you
are pretty worn out when you get to that one! As we journey through the
year, you must remember that things are getting intense here on planet earth. When it comes to energy and the polarity in
which we live, the thermostat keeps rising so what are we to do about it? Often we are growing and changing, but we
lack the internal measuring stick that makes progress visible.
When
the kids were little we began making marks on their bedroom wall, a line at
their height with a date beside. It
remains a wonderful reminder of how they grew.
Sometimes there is barely a quarter inch between marks, other times it
is several inches. I need to keep
reminding myself, I am no different.
Sometimes the body is just taking on nourishment to support and other
times we grow so quickly there are growth pains. Both states are perfectly fine.
As I talked about yesterday in “Ask the Right Question,” one of the
issues that I have been working on is serving a larger variety of clients and
accepting money with grace. An
interesting follow up comes from my mom.
She is the most service oriented person that I know. When she retired we all expected her to move
to some Third World country and maybe we would see her once a year. It had always seemed strange that she taught
at one of the wealthiest schools in the city.
When I told her about my big revelation, she said, of course the poorest
of the poor (emotionally and socially) can be among the rich, why do you think
I stayed where I did.
After I
made this realization, several new clients have booked and others who have
small businesses which also try to be affordable have expressed concerns about
the same issue. Seems like it is going
around. Two years from now I will not
remember this growth and again feel like my progress is stalled if I don’t find
ways to note my life. A blog is one way,
but there are many others. My favorite
is a file called “The Way Things Were.” In it I keep the little notes of people who
have asked me to pray for them, the statements I sent reiki to through my reiki
grid, the changes that I asked for through the BioGenesis Amplifier and
Translator. I started keeping this file about four years ago. There are many interesting things in there
and I get a sense of progress by reviewing it periodically. For example, some of the earliest were about
my oldest learning to drive and now he is a better driver than I.
Over
and over I see there really is progress.
This helps me find the place of gratitude to ensure more growth and
change. My desire is for that gratitude
to fill your life. Namaste.
As I
was ruminating on this post today, I was given such an opportunity to practice
what I preach. I was driving a “new to
me” car and was unsure just how much gas might be left in my tank when the gas light
goes on. So I pulled into the nearest
gas station. The station has 18 pumps
and 25 cars jockeying to get in first.
I’m not sure if I have the gas to go anywhere else, so I resolve to wait
(with patience). As I sat there in line,
giving plenty of room for cars to pull out, a little car zooms in and cuts us
all off.
Now
there are several possible reactions to this and much as I hate to admit it, I
took the least attractive option. I gave
the car the evil eye and proceeded to get a good, righteous anger on. In the midst of this revving up to ramming
speed, I remembered my blog post and changed my attitude. At first I just
released caring, but then moved on to loving all of the people at the gas
station. They weren’t any different from
me. We all just wanted to get gas quickly
and get out of there. As I pulled away
with a happy heart I realized the whole maneuver had taken just over 11
minutes. Definitely not worth losing
your inner harmony over.
In yoga
we do heart openers, in BioGenesis creating we feel the warmth of the heart, in
HeartMath we focus on heart coherence, but where to begin to find this feeling
place? How to find ease and harmony with
any situation? Though I had heard all
the words before, tried meditation, practiced yoga, read the books, the first
technique that ever worked for me came from Dr. Amen’s HeartMath. What follows is a summary of his Quick
Coherence Technique and this is a link to the webpage http://www.heartmath.org/free-services/tools-for-well-being/quick-coherence-adult.html.
1. Heart Focus. Focus your attention on the area around your heart,
the area in the center of your chest. If you prefer, the first couple of times
you try it, place your hand over the center of your chest to help keep your
attention in the heart area.
2.Heart
Breathing. Breathe deeply but normally and feel as if your breath is coming
in and going out through your heart area. As you inhale, feel as if your breath
is flowing in through the heart, and as you exhale, feel it leaving through
this area. Breathe slowly and casually, a little deeper than normal. Continue
breathing with ease until you find a natural inner rhythm that feels good to
you.
3.Heart
Feeling. As you maintain your heart focus and heart breathing, activate a
positive feeling. Recall a positive feeling, a time when you felt good inside,
and try to re-experience the feeling. One of the easiest ways to generate a
positive, heart-based feeling is to remember a special place you’ve been to or
the love you feel for a close friend or family member or treasured pet. This is
the most important step.
I am a scientist at heart so I have
included a small explanation of why this works below, copied directly from the
HeartMath store website http://store.heartmath.org/. Please feel free to skip it if this is not
your thing, but give this wonderful method a chance. It can change your life. The least that can happen is restore your
peace of mind and that is no small thing.
The heart is a primary
generator of rhythmic patterns in the human body, and possesses a far more
extensive communication system with the brain than do other major organs. In
addition, the heart plays a particularly important role in the generation of
emotion. With every heart beat, the heart transmits complex patterns of
neurological, hormonal, pressure, and electromagnetic information to the brain
and throughout the body. As a critical nodal point in many interacting systems
- physiological, cognitive and emotional - the heart is uniquely positioned as
a powerful entry point into the communication network that connects body, mind,
emotions and spirit.
Doc Childre and the
research team at the Institute of HeartMath (IHM) have shown that techniques
which combine intentional heart focus with the generation of sustained positive
feelings lead to a beneficial mode of physiological function they have termed
psychophysiological coherence. Correlates of psychophysiological coherence
include a sine wave-like pattern in the heart rhythms, increased heart-brain
synchronization (alpha rhythms become more synchronized to the heart) and
entrainment between heart rhythm patterns, respiration, blood pressure rhythms
and other physiological systems. Although psychophysiological coherence is a
natural state that can occur spontaneously while people are feeling genuine
positive emotions and during sleep, sustained periods are generally rare.
As an interesting side note, my husband had a great example of the difference between our "normal" state and coherence. I love some of the songs from The Pogues, a celtic punk band. One day my husband played me some of their other music...
Here are The Pogues
Here are The Pogues on HeartMath. Reach inside and expand your heart.
So, you’ve taken your first reiki class, now what to do with your new found abilities? And when do you start feeling the reiki like your teacher said you would? And what about the next class level?
Expanding your reiki capabilities is no different than any other skill. As Lily Tomlin said when asked “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice!”
I heard the best piece of advice yesterday from one of my students. We were talking about learning to use a pendulum and the importance of daily practice. Her suggestion waslink it to a habit. It can be anything you do daily from brushing your teeth to washing the dishes to scooping the cat box. Decide you will do a bit of reiki each time you make the bed. Actually, I use the reiki to clear the bed as I make it each morning and the basement as I clean the cat box. Put reiki into the food that you cook. Start small with just one habit, give the reiki each day for two weeks then expand as far as you like.
One of my favorite ways to practice is to pick one thing in my life that I would like to support, or change for the better, and give it reiki for 10 minutes a day. This practice began last year during the Lenten season and completely remade the relationship that received the reiki. What a gift that was.
Like-minded people make doing anything easier. Find a reiki share.
It is one of the few places where you are not the only crazy person in the room. It is an opportunity, with little or no cost, to both give and receive reiki, not just whatever friends and family members you can talk into a session. Each person uses reiki in their own unique way so it is a great way to learn other techniques.
Years ago, I left my Reiki 1 class slightly irritated about the ease and confidence of JoAnn, my teacher. It felt so unapproachable and progress so intangible. Now using reiki is like breathing, an automatic thing that can be done intentionally. Someday I may just practice reiki in Carnegie Hall.
