What Are You Entraining To?

Posted on by

 

I love the word “entrain.” It always feels to me like a way of becoming absorbed by something. A kind of joining up with a rhythm of some sort. One of the definitions of entrain is “to draw in or to draw along.”

That’s exactly how it felt to me one early morning this week as I sat by the river. Most of the water had turned to ice, though some was still moving beneath the frozen layer.  As I sat with the water and with the trees, feeling an enormous sense of calm come over me, I was reminded of why it is I am called to the woods.

It’s always far more than just a walk for me, or some form of exercise. Instead, it feels like an opportunity to get closer to who I am and to who I most want to be. It’s so much easier for me to remember what I want to remember and what it is that I want to emulate in Life when I am embedded in the natural world. There, the cadence and the flow of everything around me is something my body not only wants and needs, but is.

This is often a far cry from how I feel in the man-made world where the pace, the energies, the expectations, the visual landscape, the smells and more can leave me ragged, overwhelmed and out of touch. I think therein lies the rub for all of us.

What I mean by this is that what we expose ourselves to is what will determine how we feel. What we entrain to by way of what we surround ourselves with creates our experience of being alive. What we allow ourselves to be “drawn into or along by” tells us who we are and how to live. It tells us what is real and what is important. It tells us what is worth looking at and what is worthy of our precious life.

For a moment, just imagine yourself sitting by a river. How does that experience play in your body and mind? What possibilities and mind sets come pre-installed into this kind of entrainment with something outside of you? Then, imagine being glued to your screen day after day watching horrific images of suffering that you have no control over. What happens here?

Every day we have a choice about what we will be drawn into. What it is we will go along with. And while many would say there is nothing we can do. That this is just the way it is now. That’s just not true.

Unless we decide that it is.

Share this article

Show Me, Show Me

Posted on by

 

It’s not always easy to be in a body. So many things to feel. So many changes to experience. So many unknowns. So many ways we’ve been led to believe how quickly things can go so “wrong” so fast.

Which is why it can be so easy to try and over-manage our own bodies, or to give the responsibility for them to another person, system or thing. Because we have been so conditioned to look outside of ourselves for the fix, it can feel impossible to believe that our very own bodies are a source of great wisdom unto themselves, and that we have access to that wisdom as a source of guidance and inspiration around how to heal.

But if you’re willing to shift your perspective, and be a little (or a lot) brave, there is a way to rethink your relationship with your body that opens the door to all that wisdom, guidance and inspiration. And it all begins by deciding to see that you can be with this body of yours in a way where you come to trust what it is doing, and therefore telling you, about what it needs.

That means seeing the sensations of pain or the symptoms of illness and disease as pieces of information to pay attention to. And while many of us have never been officially schooled in decoding that information, your capacity to understand is already built right into you.

Somewhere deep inside, you do have the awareness of how to be with your body in a more open way. But to access that awareness means putting aside your assumptions and fears about what is happening and what you must do. And to instead, open yourself up to not knowing. This is not where most of us want to go. It feels too scary. Too risky. Too much like we’re not doing enough or that if we take matters into our own hands in this way, something will go wrong.

Not to worry. Your body knows what it is doing. If it didn’t, we would not have survived to this point in time. That’s why if you can be open to that reality, you have created an inroad into a perspective of how our bodies actually work. This as opposed to believing they are dangerous or out of control or something to fear.

One very tangible way to give yourself access to what your body is doing and what it needs, is to say to yourself, Show me, show me. Show me what this is all about. Show me what you need. Show me how to be with you now.

While saying this, if you can put aside, for just a moment, your fears or the drive to already have the answer, you’re in a position to be shown what you most need to know. You are in a mindset now to receive some real guidance as you begin the journey back to a loving and trusting relationship with your very own body. One that will serve you well, as well as serving those you come in contact with.

For the Truth is, you cannot be here without a body, and the more connected you are to your very own body, the more satisfying and connected you will be to your own life, as well as to the lives of all Life.

 

Share this article

Yearnings

Posted on by

 

All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name.

~Andre Breton

This beauty came across my desk recently. It felt as if I could have written it. When I thought about it more, it felt as if any one of us could have written it.

Below all of the to-do lists, the distractions, the hurts, the confusions and the unworthiness lives a place that yearns for Something More. Beyond all of the thoughts that would say, This is just how it is, and there is nothing I can do about it, dwells a knowing that anything is possible when the heart and its most sincere yearnings are involved.

Outside all of the fears that would say, It’s too dangerous, you’ll get hurt, that’s naive, people will make fun of you, this could never exist in the world, is an understanding that despite all the push back you might ever get from the world, this is actually what everyone truly longs for. A chance for the heart to give voice to its yearnings.

A chance to put the heart’s yearnings into form, to offer them as a gift to the world and to see them received by other hearts.

This takes a lot of courage. Especially in a world that has grown so jaded when it comes to matters of the heart. Not to mention all of the ways that each and every one of us has had our deepest yearnings denied, ridiculed, driven from us, and even harmed.

But the time is Now.

The true “fix” to what ails us resides in the heart and what it longs for. This is The Force in The Universe powerful enough to cut through the distortions, the derangements and the deals we have all made with the wrong things. Things that will never be enough because they do not honor what it is the heart is trying to name.

Personally, I yearn for relationships that are authentic and that bring out the best in all of us. I yearn to live in connection with All That Is. I yearn for the most loving energies to be in charge. I yearn to speak my truth and for it to be received. And I yearn for all of us to make way for the differences among us.

What does your heart yearn for? Can you be brave enough to name it?

Share this article

The Clarity Project

Posted on by

 

There is something about the light at this time of year. Something about the crystal clear blue skies. Something about being able to see the bare form of the deciduous trees and straight through into the heart of the forest.

We need this right now.

A way to see through all of the noise, the hype, the confusion and the fears. A way to see down to the bones of things. The courage to bear up under the clear reflection of the “realities” that are darkening our world by choosing to look for the Light.

This is not easy to do in a world that loves to churn out the doom and gloom. Not easy to do in bodies whose nervous systems have been frayed by all of the overwhelm, the drama and the trauma. Not easy to do when it seems like everyone around you is feeling the same way, and that to believe differently is to somehow put yourself at risk.

That’s where the Light comes in.

As a reminder of What Is. As well as, What Could Be. As a way of orienting to the eternal and enduring flame in times when it appears that the darkness is overtaking. You don’t have to go far. All you need to do is to step out your door and breathe in. All you need to do is to make a conscious commitment to align with the Light all around you.

This is more than just not going over to the dark side. For most of us, this is not where we live. Instead, for most of us, it’s about not feeding the fears around the dark narratives of the world. Not falling prey to the fear porn. Not talking about it. Not thinking about it. Not organizing your life around it.

And instead, to intentionally choose what it is you want. What it is you most want to see in the world. Who it is you most want to be. And then organizing your life around that.

Personally, I am making a commitment in the upcoming year to watch and challenge my thoughts like never before. To not allow a single belief I do not want to see in my life or the world to hang out in my mind without checking myself. Without refuting it. Without refusing to allow something dark to take hold within me without a fight.

So while we cannot change the darkness out there, we can change the darkness in here. We can refuse to be the carrier of anything less than Light. We can make it a point each day to check in and notice the quality of the thoughts we are harboring. We can question their validity. We can watch how they play out in our life.

And we can learn to connect the dots between what we’re thinking and what is happening all around us.

Share this article

What Do You Answer To?

Posted on by

 

I was in the midst of watching my mind recently during a meditation. On this particular day, it was filled with an age-old, negative and scary storyline. As I watched what was being played out, I heard a profound question being posed to me: Do you know what you answer to?

And then, on the heels of that question I heard, Remember what you answer to. 

As you can imagine, this question and the statement of pure guidance that followed, pulled me out of the thought loop I had been caught in; sending me into a place of contemplation around what this all meant for me. How framing the thoughts I was having, through the lens of being aware of what I most want to answer to, feels immediate and profoundly life-changing. A direct way into choosing what it is I will give my attention to. A strong question and statement to help me remember some things I never want to forget.

A kind of True North in a world always pulling us away from what it is we most want to line up with when it comes to how we are choosing to live. When it comes to what we answer to, as demonstrated by what we believe in and act on.

In truth, harboring negative, unreal and untrue thoughts can only leave me forgetting what it is I answer to. Can only leave me answering to all the wrong things. Ever. Like other people’s opinions. Scary and inflated news headlines. Past conditioning. Destructive agendas. Old hurts. Stories passed down the line that were never mine to begin with.

It’s so easy to believe you are your thoughts. So easy to stay with what you have been given. So easy to fall into herd mentality. And so very, very much harder to fight it. To refuse to pick up what is not yours. To reject what it is that hurts you just by thinking about it.

This is not easy to do. There is so much momentum behind thinking the very thoughts that get us answering to the wrong things. There is a social pull that drags us into believing certain things, going along with the crowd if you will, even when it is not good for us. Then there is all the information we are being fire hosed with that we are not challenging the validity of, that frightens us and gets us believing things that are not true. There is also our own survival system that clings to what we have always done as a safety feature, making it difficult to release the so-called “tried and true” ways.

And finally, there is the “benefit” of letting something or someone else decide what you answer to; a kind of abdication of personal responsibility for being the decider of what you will allow to go on in your own mind.

In the Yogic tradition, there is a practice known as Neti, Neti. It translates to Not this. Not that. A powerful orientation of rejecting what is false. A practice of the mind to sort through all of life’s experiences through the process of elimination. Running every thought and behavior through the grist mill of, Nope it’s not that. That’s not it. Whatever the”it” means to you.

“It” could mean being out of alignment with your values. Or maybe your spiritual beliefs. It could be the kind person you most want to be. Or how it is you want to talk to others. Using this practice helps you so that even when you are not exactly sure how to get to what you answer to, there certainly are things you know you do not want to answer to.

If you want to begin, you must have a way of noticing what you are thinking about, and therefore, answering to. Learn to catch yourself thinking whenever you can. And when you find yourself in a loop that does not feel like something you want to answer to, say to yourself, No, not this. This is not what I answer to.

What I answer to is…

 

 

Share this article

Finding Your Outrage

Posted on by

 

In the Yogic system, it is said we are living in The Kali Yuga. The Dark Age. It was predicted thousands of years ago that these would be difficult, selfish and desperate times. Times characterized by great upheaval. Times rife with apathy in relationship to what is occurring.

How interesting that the complacency we can observe in ourselves now was predicted.

This feels important somehow that this age, and our response to it, was already known. That a kind of forewarning was sent to us from another time. The question being, what will we do with that information? Will we use it as guidance? Or will we succumb to it all?

Yes, we are busy. And perhaps we believe someone else will take care of the strife. Yes, we are overwhelmed. And so we tend to stick our heads in the sand when it comes to doing something about what we are seeing. Yes, we are perpetually distracted and medicated. And so we do not feel the full impact of what is happening to our humanity. Yes, it is intense. And we can feel like we would never make a dent anyway, so why bother trying.

Therein lies the allure and the entrapment of apathy. That place where we don’t even try because it all feels like nothing we do will make a difference anyway. But aren’t there still some things worth fighting for? Things that matter enough to us that we will no longer tolerate the wrong things? Some set of values and beliefs that we will not negotiate?

I recently came upon a quote by James Hillman that I believe offers guidance here.

“Outrage is a sure sign of a soul awake.”

What brings up outrage in you? Could you imagine being brave enough to forego all the social niceties you have agreed to in order to harness the power of outrage? Would you be willing to let the voice of your very own soul speak up as a way to combat the apathy that leaves you agreeing to the downfall of humanity?

 

Share this article

A Winter Wonderland

Posted on by

 

It’s the first real snowfall of the year, and I’m out in the woods. There is nowhere else I’d rather be. Nowhere else that holds me like winter woods and fresh fallen snow. I can feel the silence, and it is deep. I can feel the stillness, and it is vast. And while I would love to get this all down on paper, my pen won’t work; despite how much I try to get it going. When I finally stop trying, sensing I’m not meant to put this into words just yet, that’s when I hear, “This cannot be captured or owned. But it can be known.”

As I walk on, I contemplate traditions like Ayurveda, where the understanding is that the wisdom teachings of this discipline and science are eternal. That a kind of primordial and powerful knowledge of “how things work” has always been here. And that that knowledge was “downloaded” into the hearts and minds of ancient seers and sages. To the Western mind, this seems absurd. Crazy even. And yet, even quantum physics would tell us that there is a field where all possibility (including knowledge) exits in potential form.

If this is so, wouldn’t it make sense that some of us could be so attuned as to be able to receive the infinite wisdom and knowledge that is available to us through that very same field?

What I’m talking about is different from information. Different from memorizing something. Different from being told something and believing it. What I’m talking about here is as different as reading about how to play the game of tennis, as opposed to being a master player. One is a bunch of thoughts and detached from experience. One is fully embodied and experienced on all levels. One is a surface approach. One is known at the cellular level.

There is a kind of deeper knowing that is available to all of us. This includes, but is far vaster then, what our intellect is capable of. But because of the strong hold that the intellect has on us, because of a culture that prizes the rational mind above all else, we have boxed ourselves out of the vastness of who we are. We have excluded ourselves from the possibilities available to us when we avail ourselves of Something More than what the rational mind thinks it knows. All that we are so sure of. All that seems so solid and true to us, is but a speck of dust as compared to what is available.

This is where Nature comes in. She can help us unlearn the limitations and blindspots of the rational, and often closed off mind that we have imposed upon ourselves. With a more open mind, there is no way you can be standing in the magic and mystery of a snow covered forest and not sense there is Something More. No way you can see everything around you and not know that you are but a speck in some vast Universe.

But it doesn’t end there.

When you can feel the speck that you are, you open to the Truth: Every speck is also the Universe itself, and therefore, has access to Everything that the Universe has to offer.

Share this article

Find Your Center

Posted on by

 

It’s hard to know what to write about at this time of year that doesn’t sound like a platitude. That doesn’t ring hollow. Or that doesn’t inflict some burden on us that we should be experiencing things in a certain way, when maybe we’re not. But as it goes whenever I’m in short supply of what to write about, a real gem dropped into my lap. A yoga teacher I love said something this week that feels like an enduring approach to a life well-lived. No matter the times. What she said was this:

“Locate your center. Move from there.”

At the time she was offering an instruction for a particular posture we were in; guiding us to go into the core of the body as a starting place before reaching out through the limbs. But as all great guidance goes, this sentiment can be applied to all the areas of our lives; helping us navigate through times that may feel confusing, triggering or overwhelming.

In life, locating your center, is all about starting with yourself exactly as you are. There is no reminder here to be grateful or to see things in any particular way. No instruction to rise above anything. Instead, it’s about knowing where you are, and anchoring yourself into the core of yourself before you reach out into the world.

This is different from believing you need to show up in a certain way. Different from expecting yourself to feel a certain way. Different from needing to measure up to some internal or external standard around how you must meet the times.

Instead, this is a moment to moment call to return to yourself over and over again, and to step forward from there. To speak from there. To act from there. To go in before you go out. No external instructions to tell you how to be or feel or act because when you go in before you go out, you connect to wisdom that is eternal, along with a clarity that transcends party lines, political correctness and social niceties.

And it is as simple as asking yourself, “”What is here for me at this moment, and can I be with it?” Whatever it is. Not as a way to indulge anything. Or to judge anything. Or to feel guilty about anything. But instead, a kind of going into yourself that allows for an honest recognition of what it is you find at the center of yourself. It is from there you are able to authentically, powerfully and respectfully step forward.

Share this article

The “Easy Steps” Trap

Posted on by

 

I was listening to a podcast recently around Wholistic Health and Healing. An orientation which I find to be a real and true inclusion of, and alignment with, who we are and what we need in order to be well. A way of considering everything that needs to be considered in the service of greater wellness and well-being. An “all of us gets to be tended to” kind of mentality.

I’m all in.

But at one point, the author began to outline his steps for how to get there, and I was once again struck by the dilemma we all face. That being, how to engage with the particulars of what needs doing for health and healing, without reducing it down to a formula. A kind of one-size-fits-all approach that pervades so much of how we think about what it takes to care for ourselves.

As I listened, I felt a desperate part of me want to subscribe to the steps being offered. The ones I was being told would insure my health and well-being. A kind of guarantee and well laid out plan that if I just followed it, all would be well. But then right beside this grasping desperation, I felt a deep rumbling around something else.

Around what it is I know to be true.

I began to think back on some of the most influential moments of my life when it came to caring for myself. They never came neatly packaged. As a matter of fact, every single authentic and lasting shift I have ever experienced in regard to self-care, health and healing (or really anything else for that matter), always started by admitting how awful things were.

Always began with me feeling how deeply I was suffering, and how fed up with business as usual I was. Done with the way I was treating myself. A change that was always initiated by some part of me having gotten so sick and tired of what I was doing, that I was ready to open myself up to what I had been previously closed off to. Maybe it was a knowing I had been ignoring. Maybe it was a fear I couldn’t address. Maybe it was a worn out habit I hadn’t been able to put aside.

Whatever it was that I was ready to open to, it ultimately carried me out of being separate from myself and the choices I was making, and right into the Truth of whatever I was experiencing. This is what took me to the “answer” or to the “formula” I had been seeking. Only now, instead of it being a hollow version of what someone else said I needed to do, it came from the deepest of wisdoms. A place born out of the suffering being felt, recognized, honored, and ultimately, transmuted.

Answers not delivered by another in some neat little package, but ones that emerged out of the messiness of giving birth to the Truth of my experience.

But of course, this requires being with what hurts. What is uncomfortable. What is messy, embarassing, scary and more. All things we typically choose to avoid. But all things that also carry with them the catalytic power of going from illness to well-being. No matter the specific outcome.

Which is why instead of going down the road of the promise of the quick and easy formula, we would be well served instead to pause for just a moment to notice that part of ourselves that wants the neatly laid out package, while learning to be more committed to the messages the suffering is sending.

Share this article

A New Day

Posted on by

 

Since the time change, I’ve been up well before dawn. It’s not my usual routine. But I’ve felt such a draw to being up to watch the day come in, that I’ve just been going with it. Every morning something unexpected happens; from deep insights about Life, to amazing encounters with Nature.

One morning, as I watched the sky turn into the most amazing gold and rose tones, all streaking across my view, it occurred to me that this was A New Day. Not in the obvious sense, as in, not yesterday, but in the largest sense of all. A brand new opportunity to be alive. A chance to do my life anew. An offer to experience what I have never experienced before.

A blank slate where anything and everything, could happen. A moment in time where I knew that that “anything and everything” possible was all up to me. And it felt good. 

But of course, the reason we don’t experience A New Day is because we think, speak and do in the same ways over and over and over again. Every single day. Our reactions to what Life brings us? The same. The words we use to talk to ourselves? The same. The habits we engage in? The same.

The enemy of A New Day will always be the refusal to let go of what we’ve been doing. In effect, the unwillingness to reconsider ourselves and our beliefs. And it will always be our fear of the unknown. Of not knowing what is going to happen. Which is why we so often double-down on what we have always done. Especially when things in our life or in the outer world get shaky, chaotic or frightening.

But as we find ourselves in such accelerated times of change, something more than just doing what we have always done, is being called for. That something more is surrender. A yielding to the Reality of the moment that has nothing to do with anything other than moving with What Is.

Just as the leaves are doing now as they release effortlessly to the season in their complete and total alignment with What Is.

We will move through many, many seasons in the years to come. Shall we act as if there is only one season? Or will we open ourselves to meeting what comes without resistance? And while many of our minds might go to a kind of “grinning and bearing it” mentality, a kind of hunkering down or sucking it up, this state of mind will never suffice. It will never be big enough to hold the possibility of A New Day. Nothing about “hanging on for the ride” will ever be magnificent enough to take our lives into a New Dawn.

If this lands, each morning as you start your day, offer up as a sacrifice your old self and your old ways. Speak to the dawn a prayer for What Might Be.

 

Share this article