Period.

End of conversation.

It is what it is.  

This is a simplistic yet accurate statement about our relationship to reality.

As you read that last sentence, does this seem somewhat depressing to you?

To me, in this moment, it sure does.

There is a larger-than-life event unfolding for me, and I am NOT a happy camper.

It is not my choice.

And…..guess what?

It’s happening.

Period.

Ugh.

But wait, where are we in this?

We do participate.  We do have preferences.  We do interact. We do impose our will.

Yet, in the end, reality is relentless.

It wins.

But there is good news and here it is:

We can craft, we can mold, we can continue to create our right-sized relationship to reality.

We can practice some skillful strategies and perspectives that soften, that support, that literally help us to partner with life in each specific moment……

Drum roll:

TO MAKE IT EASIER.

TO LET GO MORE EASE-FULLY.

Easier?  In this moment, easier sounds really good to me.

Here are three simple strategies, my favs, just the headlines, for partnering with life just a tad more skillfully, moment by moment:

• First, everybody’s favorite—

BREATHING & RELAXING.
Just like on the yoga mat, as we tense and hold our breath, life, the pose-of-the-moment, gets harder.  Breathing right into the sensations, relaxing around the tension, softens us. The moment comes and goes more fluidly.  

• A second, less favorite perspective—

REMEMBERING THE BIGGER PICTURE PERSPECTIVE—WE GET WHAT WE NEED.
The yogis tell us that we get what we need to grow, that circumstances bring to us exactly the people, the places, and the things which will open the wounds that we carry, for healing, for release, for purification.  The way out of It, whatever the moment might be, is truly, through It.  If you can feel it—you can heal it.

• Third—

GETTING ON THE WINNING SIDE
Allowing the situation to unfold, even and especially if it’s painful and we initially resist it, outliving the feelings, this is the journey of freedom, of consciousness, of heart, of vulnerability and of strength.   As we allow ourselves to be carried through the feelings, as we ride the waves and release them and outlive them, more is revealed. Literally new brain functions emerge, new neuropathways are formed, new behavior comes into play.  We are on the winning side. We grow, we evolve, we become more of who we really are.

This teaching is a book, condensed, at this moment, into 409 words.

This teaching is a lifetime of practice, condensed, at this moment, into 417 words.

This is the hero’s journey, condensed, at this moment into 429 words.

And if you are reading this, you are a hero.

You are a woman, a man, a being of consciousness and grace.

You are a woman, a man, a being of strength and tender-heartedness.
You are a woman, a man, a being of willingness, readied to befriending your own resistance.

Dear Woman,

Dear Man,

Dear Being of consciousness and grace,

Your practice, Dear Hero, in whatever body you are wrapped, is to do your best with life as it is, moment, by moment.

Breathe and relax and ride the waves, as you can.

And if you can’t.

That, too, is an essential part of your healing.

Whenever you are able, whenever the breath returns, remember those profound words of Rumi:

The door is round and opened.

Dear Friends, what waves are you riding?  Has life given you something that you don’t really want, that you don’t think you selected?  Welcome to the human dilemma. Breathe and relax and imagine, just imagine, that wrapped inside that yucko situation is a gift, waiting to emerge.  I don’t say that to take away the feelings. No. I say that to give us courage and the perspective to take the next breath, to ride the breath through the feelings.

To abide the moment, truly this is the hero’s journey.

Dear Friends, please keep in touch.  I learn so much, I am so blessed, by your emails.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com

To summer,
With blessings—
Aruni

Apologies for the somewhat obnoxious emoji image.

It was difficult—and not funny—looking for an image to support the title, one that represents sweet and funny.

I couldn’t deal with the kitties wearing paisley bonnets.

I settled for the emoji.

The humanized emoji.

Sorry.

People tell me that I’m funny.  

Earlier in my life, I utilized humor to protect myself, an invisible shield between me and the harsher realities of my life, like people, like my speech impediment, like being in love with Audrey Hepburn.  

Monogamously in love.  

For a decade.

Humor made me feel less vulnerable, like the invisible Colgate shield of protection from those old television commercials.

It shielded me, or so I thought.

Being busy amusing people was a checking out of the moment for me.

It kept me safe.

I believe it’s different now.

I’m different now.

Humor has become a checking into the moment for me.

I do think I’m funny.  Not as a protective response, but as an invitation.

I use humor to connect.

To myself.

To a bigger perspective.

To you.

Without it, a glum neurotic emerges within me, and willingly spreads her words of negativity and almost-despair.

I really don’t want to give her the car keys and let her drive me through my day.

Humor protects me from that voice within me and connects me to a looser, a fuller, a bigger perspective.

I crack myself up fairly regularly.

I also believe now, in this, my crone-hood, humor serves the function of allowing me to be real and deep with people.  

As I touch into deeper truth in my teaching and writing and coaching, my humor is the spice, the easing digestive sprinkle that makes the moment more manageable, the truth more digestible.

Speaking of sweet and funny, I again came across this video of Dancing Matt and watched it.

I think I can watch it forever!

I find it so amusing, so sweet, so importantly healing.

Matt Harding was a video game designer who got sick of creating games of destruction and war.  He quit his job, began traveling the world, in his words, “dancing badly with people” from many international locations.

Matt says, “We’re stuck on this planet together and we need to take care of each other.”

I love that sentiment.  

I believe these last few years of cultural and political breakdown have opened the essential door for our connection to ourselves and to one another.

This is the time.

The time is now, for connection with ourselves and each other.

Even if you have seen this video, please watch again, for these few minutes of sweet and funny are so healing, so relaxing, so amusing, so touching.

What do you think?

Pretty good, huh?

Give us the courage to laugh.
Give us the courage
To see ourselves in each other,
No matter the differences.

Help us
To remember
That
You are just me
Over
There
Disguised
As
You.

Dear Friends, what makes you laugh?  What lightens your spirit? What doesn’t?  What did you notice during the video? Please, as always, send on your responses.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

All voices welcomed—all experiences, sacred.

Blessings, Aruni

Vacation behind me, I reluctantly fumble my way through a fully over-booked work-week.  

I am the “booker”, the one who schedules myself.  

There is nobody to wag a finger at here, just me.

What a surprise, this ancient tendency of mine to take on too much.

I’ve been puzzling with my ancient addiction to loyalty, to commitment, to responsibility.

Perhaps underneath this addiction is a giant and infinite pool of people-pleasing?

If I do everything, for everybody, and I do it perfectly and seamlessly, will you then love me?

Will I then, be done?

Over?

Finished?

What is this “done” thing, Aruni?

And this post-vacay shock?

I’m chuckling, remembering during my NYC life, coming home from summer vacations and returning to East Fifth Street.  That was some serious culture shock.

Returning to the Berkshires, to Seekonk Cross Road, as in the above picture, there is no prob here!

Problems emerge from inside of me, I do believe, rather than from outside.

Perhaps in the clear mirror of spacious, choice-filled vacation time, my Type-A-Push-Personality is clearer, easier to see.

In this moment,

In this moment,

Right here and right now,

I look out my window.

The Christmas Tree farm sits, more softly in late spring grass.  

The baby trees, short little fellas, poke their little heads above the greenery.  

Little green skirts of soft grass cover almost three-quarters of their bodies now.  

Their larger siblings, their adolescent brother-and-sister-trees stand strong, their bottoms soft in grass, their tops emerging bravely into the sky.

To see this.

To notice, to feel,

To be with this!

What a gift it is being right here, right now.

How I wish and hope and pray and imagine—less doing.

And more being.

To sit more.

To breathe more.

To let it all be as it is.

I snicker some more, as I remember this wonderful poem by Tukuram, a 16th, century Indian poem and priest:

I love the writing of this, my/our blog.  

I love this.

It is the organizing spiritual focus of my week.

Yet this week, I make it work.

Yet this week, I make it hard.

Yet this week, I deprive myself of the deliciousness of it.

So intent on the production of it (for lack of a better word), the doing of it, the completion of it,

I push past the savoring,

Past the being with it,

Past the deliciousness.

Ah, the human dilemma.

Isn’t being human such an odd and funny thing?

May we all savor more.
May we all struggle less.
May we be right here,
Right now.
No matter what we are given,
May we soften into what is.

Dear Friends, I am committed to practicing more mindful scheduling—next week, oh, will be so much more spacious.  I am committed to not making my doing-ness wrong, but to lean toward the direction of being.

I am committed to walking, biking, playing with me and Zac the Dog.  I will keep you posted.

And you?  What do you push through?  How do you push? What do you choose for this upcoming week?  Please let me know. I am aruni@rnetworx.com.  All voices are so welcomed in my heart.

All blessings,
Aruni