“There’s a common misunderstanding among all the human beings who have ever been born on the earth that the best way to live is to try to avoid pain and just try to get comfortable.”

That’s Pema Chodron, the awesome, uber-kind Buddhist teacher, from her book, Awakening Loving-Kindness.

Announcement: I am not comfortable.

I am seriously not comfortable.

I am fine, and I am not comfortable.

Through a series of remarkable and blessed events, in this past year, so very much has been both given to me and taken from me.  The details do not matter. What matters is my commitment to believing that I have been given exactly what I need to continue to heal, to continue to become more of who I am.

I pick Pema’s perspective, I’m trusting her, she who tells me that to exile this pain would be to miss the doorway to so much more of my own life energy.

I choose all of myself.

I choose to embrace Aruni and my ever-growing, always-evolving self.

Here are the headlines:

I was a profoundly lonely child.  Because of a series of life issues about which I have written books (please do read!), I was pretty sure I wasn’t like you other Earth People.  

To name a few “issues”, we all have our own; I stuttered, which was Hell on Earth, every word a potential breaking of the silent denial of my family, that “nothing was wrong.”  There was a lot wrong.  

I wanted to kiss girls.  I really wanted to kiss them.  A lot. Especially Audrey Hepburn.  That was bad in 1958. Really bad.

And, my daddy was going to die at any moment.  He didn’t die, but—he was going to. Any day now.  He lived to be 85.

To survive, I retreated into fantasy, 50’s television and movies, my parakeets, my monogamous friend, Gladys, building model cars, and being in my room.  
ALONE in my room

With the ‘60’s and college, I found drugs and alcohol, of course.  That story could have had a hideous ending.

And it didn’t!

I have been blessed, blessed with recovery.  

I have blessed with yoga, blessed with healing upon healing upon healing, a bounty, an abundance of healing.

In these passing years, without knowing, I continued to run from my child’s loneliness, becoming super-hyper-uber-independent.

I GOT THIS.

A personal, silent motto.

Truly, I did.

No loneliness here.

I wrote books, taught and taught, got slightly successful professionally, had a home, had a marriage.

Decades and decades later, I knew something was so wrong.

Running from my loneliness was so futile.  It was all so exhausting, so draining. 

What was missing?  What was wrong?

And then life got my attention:

Miracle upon miracle, this last year, I fell in love.  

I came to life.  

I awakened.

I played and shared and hugged and loved and snuggled and adored.  

I was adored.

And then, a year later, it ended.  

That which I knew would never end, ended.

That which I loved was taken from me.

I am beginning to see and surrender into the appropriateness of this ending.

Bottom line–now I am alone.

At 70!  

With heartbreak.  With disappointment.

With my lonely, frightened ten-year-old child as my companion.

And I’m fine.

I cry.

Then I don’t.

I worry about being alone.

Then I’m alone and I have perfectly amusing and enjoyable time.

With myself.

I wonder what’s going to happen, with a puzzled terror.

And something happens beyond anything I could ever construct.

NEW BEHAVIOR:

I welcome her, that scared little lonely girl.

I invite her in.

I’ll take care of her, as best I can.

And when I can’t……

I’ll be back.

Pema says:

…”to lead a more passionate, full, delightful life, we must realize that we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is.”

I’m going with Pema on this one.

Let’s look to that other spiritual sage, that wise one, Bing Bong, the hero from Inside Out, the amazing Pixar movie, set in the mind of a young girl, as she learns to navigate her emotions.  I’ve shown this clip before but, damn, it is perfect. If you have seen it, watch again—give yourself the gift of these 2:36  minutes.

 

Thank you to Pema and Bing Bong, for leading the way.

Dear Friends, what parts of yourself do you run from?  What might be hiding behind that wall? How can you relax today?  What kindness can you give yourself?

Please do keep in touch—all emails are celebrated.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com

All blessings, Aruni

In an odd and fluid way, this moment is like a nanosecond in a twenty-nine-hundred-hour-movie- marathon called Our Lives.  We have our noses (I’ll use first person), I have my nose squashed up against the details; I can’t see around the corners.

I can’t see the bigger picture.

I am evaluating, dissecting, analyzing, and pro/conning the moment from this tiny, most limited perspective.

Nose squashed against the tree trunk, I have no conception of the forest in which I stand, the forest of possibility, of manifestation, of grace, of possibility.

I stand, nose squashed, wanting it to be different.

What an odd and funny thing it is to be human!

I occasionally look to my Archangel Oracle Cards, by Doreen Virtue, cards that draw upon the archangels and their core teachings, for validation and reassurance.  (Ha, I’m laughing at that sentence. If you told me that I would be That Person who just said That, I would have not believed you.) The other night, in a frenzy of Wanting the Moment to be Different, I picked up a card.  As I turned it over, it said to me:

Divine Order
“Everything is how it needs to be right now.  
Look past the illusion 
and see the underlying order.”

Those damn archangels.

This is exactly what I need to hear—not necessarily what I want to hear.

I sat with this message for a bit, considering, digesting.

As is my practice, I put the card on my altar and lit a candle.

As is my practice, I wrote the message on a sliver of index card and carried it in my pocket for a few days.

I took some time, as I considered breathing into it, considered living into it.

Yep.

I can hear, I can feel its truth.

Look past the illusion, the archangels tell us.

What does that mean?

For me, the illusion is what I want to be happening, what I think SHOULD be happening, the moment according to Aruni Nan Futuronsky, me, the Great Author of Life. 

It’s an illusion—because it ISN’T happening.

It’s a delusion, a mental desire that has not manifested into reality.

REALITY WINS.

Reality is relentless and in the bigger picture, no matter how it feels or how it smashes our hearts asunder, reality is here to bless us.  

I do not say this to take away any of the suffering, the heartbreak, the devastation of real life, life on life’s terms, as we say in Twelve Step.

I say it to give us courage, to remind us what we already know, to remember—no matter what, we can be okay with what is happening.

Eventually.

No matter what, we are okay.

See the underlying order, the teachings tell us.

Tricky, indeed.

Seeing the underlying order takes time.  Often, I must simply (and sometimes it isn’t simple) outlive my feelings of rejection, my own wounded, injured self.

I can report that every time (yes, every time), I have outlived my feelings, and eventually surrendered to life as it is, every time, what I am given is beyond anything I could have created for myself.

Life’s plan for me is so much vaster, more gorgeous, more glorious than my own.

Can I imagine that the highest will unfold for all, as life unfolds?

No.  Not when I’m sad and frightened.

But I can feel sad and frightened, and lean toward that possibility.

Can I imagine that there is an order, a perfection playing out, that is protecting and caring for me?

No, not when my broken heart is wailing and my stomach is aching.

But I can feel those feelings and lean toward that possibility.

I have decades of evidence-based data from my life, from my sobriety, that tells me reality is here to bless me, to protect me, to care for me, for love me.

Most of the time I can’t feel that—but I believe it—and I practice it—and I will outlive my feelings.  I will outlive my feelings.

I am outliving my feelings.

Tweaking life’s rejection to life’s protection, a sigh of relief and possibility, tiny-teeny-weeny, emerges in my belly.

Tweaking I’m not getting what I want to I’m getting what I need shifts my constricted belly toward more relaxation.

Imagining that life is not here to hurt me, to take from me, to deprive me of what is mine—but to imagine there is protection and care, in all of it, ALL OF IT, especially the pieces of life I do not want—as I do that, as I lean in that direction:

I am freed.

Dear Friends, not an easy teaching, this one, but surely, it is an essential one.  Life on life’s terms. How do you practice this? What do you notice? What parts of your life to you wish to be different?  Where do you tussle with reality?

Please do keep me posted.  Your emails are a gift. I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

Best,
Aruni

I have a reputation for being a Teacher of the Morose.  

It’s odd, because both you and I know that I’m fairly funny.  

These long lonely summer days, I’ve actually begun having an occasional and randomly amusing time with myself.  

This is good news.

Yet I do think I have a bit of a yogic rep (in the tiny yet vast Kripalu world) for being a “deep diver,” leading introspective programming.

Ya think?

It’s probably true, and for that, I am grateful, forever-grateful.

My boss is a good enough guy; he’s committed to light and feathery outdoor programming, like the yoga of standing paddle boarding while chewing gum, under a full moon, possibly smeared in oblong patterns with menstrual blood, if you have any, while playing jolly Beach Boy music.  

Whatever.

A few years ago, he sat me down, looked me in the eye and told me to create a workshop on “joy.”

Without saying “Lighten up, babe”, pretty much told me to lighten up, babe.

I contained my internal response (“GRRRRRRRRRR……..DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO…..) and created a workshop on joy.  It’s been a powerful springboard, this workshop, into some rich learnings for me, about joy, yes, and about moroseness, about pleasure, yes, and about pain.

After leading this workshop for a few years, with initial reluctance along with a tiny slice of holier-than-thou-ness, I’ve eventually relaxed into it and learned a lot.  Here are a few blog-ish headlines:

You want joy?

Cultivate the capacity to be present with your moroseness.

You want happiness?

Practice being with your heartbreak.

We get it all.

Our part of the process is to strengthen our container of being here, of noticing, of feeling.

Joy is a practice.

It’s not a lump, a thing, sometimes bestowed upon us, like fairy dust sprinkled on our heads.

We practice.

We partner with the universe, creating the circumstances in which we are available to the joy that is already there.

We practice expanding our capacity to feel.

We practice cultivating our capacity to be here, now.

We practice cultivating our capacity to notice without judgment.

We are not the ones who give ourselves joy.  

We are not the joy-givers.

We are the joy-receivers, the vessels through which joy surges.

Yet we have a responsibility, a relationship to create the circumstances for joy to flush us open and alive.

Here is a tiny yet hopefully impactful Two Minute Experiment in Joy.  You’ll need somewhere to sit comfortably, a pen and paper, and two minutes.

Ready?

Let’s begin.

This is my personal practice.

This is the way I open to Grace.

This is the way my mind mostly quiets.

This is the practice that brings me the most peace.

And—interestingly, my dogs taught me.

Early in my canine-care-person-incarnation, walking Lucy and Zacy twice a day occurred as effort, as a to-do thrust upon me, as an-almost waste of time.

I couldn’t settle into it.

Overly involved in their bodily functions, certain things had to happen for me to relax, poop and dog-pee-wise.

There was a goal.

For me.  

Surely not for the canines.

Surely there were other, more important things that had to get done, in my life, in LIFE, that I had to do.

I almost-resented the never-ending nature of it, their always-need, to take them out…..

….. to take them out.

Always, to take them out.

Yet, taking them out, out became one of the greatest gifts of my life.

Lucy Doodle (blond/bombshell/party/dog) and Zac Joe Doodle (monk/disguised/as/salt-and-pepper/pooch) taught me that prayer and walking were one.

Although I had led walking meditation for years at Kripalu, it was a slow-motioned process, appropriate probably only for the Forest Room at Kripalu or the privacy of one’s own deeply carpeted bedroom. Walking in super-slow motion, allowing the weight to so gradually shift from one foot to the other, etc., was clearly deep and lovely yet annoyingly impractical, for me.

I am a zoomer.  I zoom through the day.

Yet again, I managed to frame spiritual practice as something I didn’t do right, something I didn’t do enough of, something externalized I had to mold into, and become.

And falling short—always, falling short of my own spiritual expectations.

But somewhere, somehow, Lucy the Dog and Zac Joe Doodle’s constant smelling, sniffing, exploring, and savoring showed me, in their silent, magical-canine-kind of way, that it was all a prayer. 

All of it was a prayer.

Let the walking be a prayer!

They were surely doing that and having a much better time than I was.

The practice gradually revealed itself to me.

Let my steps in natural rhythm carry a repetitive prayer, mantra, affirmation through my body.

Let my prayers walk onward, into and through my body.

Let my prayers drop from my brain, my thinking self, as an idea, down into the cells of my body.

It was genius.

It was clearly not my idea.

Clearly with every sniff, with every tiny pee (liquid or not), with every single full-bodied sniff, they were alive with Presence, filled with Grace, connected to the Flow.

I started finding prayers available to me.

And to this day, this is my core practice.

I walk a lot now, with Zac, at 93, more ambling, at my side.

I walk alone these days much more, alone I go, sadly and strongly alone, with no young spry doodle at my side.

And prayer is available in most steps, a tether, an anchor, calming me down while opening me up.

And silence emerges and blessings emerge and ideas emerge and insights blossom.

And birds sing and deer dance and leaves celebrate and sunshine beams

Upon me.

Dear friends,

Find your rhythm.

Be found by your body’s rhythm.

Add words—simple, short, first-person affirmations—

Song lyric, line from a poem, from a prayer—let the words be a tether that return you back to your body, while flinging open the doors to the glory of the world around us.

This is the coolest, most subversive practice; you can be walking in Home Depot deep in prayer…….

Heading toward a potentially crappy meeting at work…………

Trudging the path in the shopping center parking lot.

And you can be alive with prayer,

Walking with prayer,

Filled with prayer,

Anchored by prayer,

Released

By

Prayer.

One with prayer.

The Doodles lived it.

Let’s practice.

Let’s walk our prayers.

Dear Friends, keep it simple.  Let the words come and go. Practice the anchoring inside and notice the expansion outside.  We get it all, inside and out, one step at a time.

Keep me posted, of course, and always!  I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

All blessings,
Aruni

We’re not alone.

It doesn’t always feel that way, that is for certain.

Yet I believe there is support.  

There is connection.  

There is an energetic partner that we have,

Dancing with us,

No matter what is happening.

Over my years of trudging this wacky road of healing, as a teacher I have been conflicted about appropriate, inclusive language to name this Force.  Here are a few I have used and discarded, only to use again, in no particular order:

• Grace
• Energy
• Prana
• God (triggering for some)
• Higher Power (nicknamed, in the casual version, HP)
• Higher Self   (ugh, implies lower self, hate that)
• Zac Joe Doodle the Dog (God disguised as fuzzy, salt-and-pepper canine)
• Reality (my current personal fav)
• Nature (such obvious glory!)
• My 12 Step Home Group
• Flow
• Flow state
• Positive life force
• Grace
• Jesus (the name of any teacher or teachers who speaks to your heart)
• Angels

The bottom line here is—fill in the blank for yourself.  What works for you? That’s the name.

IF there be one, fill it in.  If not, please keep reading.

______________

As a Reform Jewish kid growing up, despite years of painful Sunday School classes, a hideous and unsuccessful dip into Hebrew School (really triggered my stuttering), and confirmation at the age of 13, I heard and felt nothing that offered any sense of partnership, solace, or support.  To the contrary. The orange drink in those little wax boxes that you had to squeeze to open, served at Sunday School recess, gave me raging headaches.

I continued to drink them throughout my limited yet well-intended Jewish education.

Truly it wasn’t until I got sober, many painful “headaches” later, that I was confronted by this idea of conscious contact, in 12 Step lingo.

I was urged through the 11th Step to seek “through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God as I understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out.”

What?

I thought a lot about that for a few years, wandering around New York City, going to meetings, puzzling, living sober, with a very busy, attempting-to-be-spiritual mind.

I tried hard.

I am a hard, hard trier.

Not a lot of solace was available to me through thinking—which, by the way, is probably not a spiritual practice.

And eventually, the doors of Kripalu yoga on and off the mat beckoned me into a body-centered spiritual exploration, urging me to look inside, to feel, inside, to search, inside.

There lives divinity.

LOVELY! 

YES!

I GET IT!

And yet, what a work in progress I am.  

How fully I believe, how easily I forget.

How totally I surrender, how willfully I grasp back—that which I think is mine.

If it isn’t happening, it isn’t mine.

I don’t remember finding this song, Calling All Angels.  I don’t remember the time when it wasn’t a part of my teaching world.  I have played it consistently in the Inner Quest Intensive for decades.

Here it is.  Please—promise me you’ll listen and watch and feel.  It’s KD Lang and Jane Sidberry:

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, dear friends.  It is so intense being human!  It is such a trudge, such a journey.

These lyrics blast open my heart, so powerfully, for me, describing that human dilemma:

Then it’s one foot then the other
As you step out onto the road
How much weight? How much weight?
Then it’s how long? And how far?
And how many times before it’s too late?

Whatever your practice, whatever brings you closer to that which is not your mind, that which is not your will—be it walking or hugging a kitty, swimming or knitting or meditating or cooking Thai food—whatever it is.  For the love of life, do it.

Let’s practice getting closer to that part of ourselves that knows—that remembers—that has such ultimate forgiveness for the forgetting—that part of us that is Us, the greater, the higher, the connected Us.

Being human.

What a dilemma, as these lyrics proclaim:

Calling all angels, calling all angels
Walk me through this one, don’t leave me alone
Calling all angels, calling all angels
We’re tryin’, we’re hopin’
We’re hurtin’, we’re lovin’
We’re cryin’, we’re callin’
‘Cause we’re not sure how this goes

*By Jane Siberry and KD Lang

Dear Friends, 

Check out this sunset outside my window in the picture above.  Holy mackerel! How blessed are we.  

I pray to keep my eyes and heart open, to see the signs, to hear the angels in all their configurations.

I pray to remember I’m not alone—that you are here, too, we are in it together.

You are just me over there, disguised as you.

Please keep in touch.  All voices welcomed—all experiences sacred.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com

All blessings,
Aruni