No Kidding

The Bible, that great repository of accumulated wisdom, teaches us much but not necessarily from a body-centered perspective.  We would need to look further east for that paradigm to emerge.  However, there is one line from the Bible that I believe is rooted in a bodily perspective.  The great and ever-popular line, “It came to pass”, has much to teach us about life inside a body.

As sensations build, we so often find ways to hop off the wave, interrupting the organic process of integration, the moving of feelings through the body/mind.  Because we are, in general, so unused to having sensations in our body, we find so many ways off that wave of integration.  Some of my favorites are—and not in order of preference—overwork, blaming others for my feelings, worry (the national Jewish pastime—as a Jewish woman I am qualified here to comment), and, everybody’s favorite, Netflix Streaming.  There is nothing, nada, zippo, wrong with any of these things, but when they habitually check me out of the moment, rather than keep me present for the process of integration, I’m interrupting the brilliance of my own body and cutting short the natural process of releasing feelings.  Feelings that are not released live in the body/mind.  Yes, folks, the issues do live in the tissues.

So what do we do?  How do we keep present in the moment?  The most profound tool of all lives inside of you, us—all, available in any moment.  THE BREATH.  Breathing shifts us out of the sympathetic nervous system, that place of “fight—flight—freeze” and, through the vegus nerve, moves us into the parasympathetic nervous system, or “rest—and—digest”.  It doesn’t get any better than breath for returning to the wave of sensation, for checking back into the moment.

So, friends, when the shit hits the fan, and it will (that is truly life’s guarantee as well as its job), breathe.  Breathe and relax.  The feelings really are coming to pass—they are not coming to stay.  Our bodies know how.  Practice using your breath as a supportive and powerfully effective tool of presence.  It’s only, well (forgive me for this) one breath away.

Zacy Practicing the “Nobility of Retreat”

In my world, this has been a truly huge week.  Leading the five day immersion program, Integrative Weight Loss, at Kripalu, and being fully there for it, juggling some of my own dear coaching clients, showing up for the second evening webinar on codependency, (getting over the horrifying edge of watching myself in that little Skype-like box, pale white with twitching, beady eyes), while keeping my mind in the arena of my book proposal—all have left me a little thinned out, just this side of annoyed.  Each thread of the week was rich and full of possibilities for connection and relaxed practice.  I would change nothing about it, feel profoundly satisfied with my participation in all of it, and appreciate the blessings these gifts have bestowed upon me.  Yet…..even if it’s all good stuff, it’s too much.  It’s just too much stuff.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD, the brilliant scholar, psychoanalyst, and cantadora (keeper of the old stories in the Latina tradition) asks us to consider how we participate in our own oppression.  Of this, I am clear!  I participate in my own oppression by over-scheduling myself professionally while underestimating the impact these commitments will have upon me.  I am the only one doing this; there is no external force here driving my schedule.  That would be me; I am the internal problem.

I feel emptied out.

I am emptied out.

Does anybody out there identify?  I imagine that, on a Friday night, I am not the only one experiencing this.

Swami Kripalu taught about “the nobility of retreat”. To mindfully unplug, to turn down the flames of connection, to shirk the tyranny of scheduling, to have more space and time to stretch out into daily routines, these are my choices this weekend.  Thanks, Swami K.  Your many-decades-old teaching is the prescription for me, right here and right now.

I am off to Netflix Streaming…….

Anybody joining me?

Water Becoming Ice

Something about this odd and mild winter!  I seem more attentive to and more aware of the changes in the earth around me.  As the temperatures now appropriately drop, the changing of water to ice in the wetlands behind my house and in Richmond Pond is riveting to me.  Each day, a different balance between water/ice emerges, as the fluidity of water morphs into its frozen winter state, and then melts again with warmer days. Each morning and each evening, walking with Zac the Dog, I study the changes with deep interest—something about this process touches me deeply.

I am reminded of my first sober springtime in New York City.  I had lived in the same neighborhood, the East Village way before its gentrification, for seventeen years.  Walking down St. Mark’s Place that first sober May, I was stopped in my tracks by stunning, pink-white blooming apple trees lining the sidewalk.  The sight was staggeringly beautiful to me.  Who had put these trees here?  When did they arrive?  Their beauty caught in my throat.

Young Jose, a wiry Hispanic guy, was sitting on the steps of my 12 Step meeting house in the middle of the block.  As I approached him I asked, “Hey, Jose.  When did these trees get here? I’ve never seen them before.”

Jose gave me a long stare.  His eyes seemed to soften as he offered, “Honey, these trees have been here forever.  Where have you been?”

His message stopped my heart.  I had never seen these trees before, despite my many daily treks across this block to the subway.  Where had I been?

It is so easy to not notice the beauty around me. It is so easy to allow the habitual to catch my attention and pull me down into the mighty to-do list, the emails, chasing the seemingly “important” tasks of each day.  Yet around me, around us, all, the earth opens and closes each day with stunning beauty and offers us, moment after moment, visual reminders of the grace that keeps this show running.  My commitment this winter—not my fav season—is to keep my eyes and my heart open to what is—to notice the grace around me.

And you?  What can you see today?  What moments of beauty are manifesting right before you? Give yourself the gift of this challenge— noticing the grace.  

December 25, 2015

The sun spills in, covering me with warm light.  The dog, exhausted and unconscious after devouring his holiday present, a smoked Texas wild boar bone, snores at my feet.  The morning is quiet and sweet, emptied of drama and filled with ease.  There really is nothing to do; there really is nowhere to go.

When I consider the immense emptiness I have felt in my life, the imagined uniqueness that separated me from everybody and from everything, I feel a catch in my heart.  So much grace!  So much healing.  Sitting in church last night, joining my candle with all of the other candles, my light with all of the light, I realize—much of the time, I am able to relax into the people and the places around me.  Much of the time I know I am not separate; that I am not alone, and that I am not different.

My point on this soft Christmas morning?  Transformation is possible in every moment, in every day.  All of it, all the moments, all of the days, offer us doorway after doorway of practice.  Relaxing into what is, softening around our preferences, breathing ourselves forward, outliving the feelings—there really isn’t much to do, but to practice being right here, right now.

Dear Friends, on this auspicious day, from my home to yours, from my heart to yours, may you be filled with ease and love and laughter.  May this holiday season envelope you with light.  

Wishing a happy and joyous holiday season to you and yours—

All blessings,
Aruni