Joy For Life

I believe in human evolution. I believe in the human capacity to grow, to change to evolve and make a difference in this world--even if it's simply through our revitalized presence.

Over the years I've written this blog, I've done a lot of that myself. And I've been lucky enough to connect with a community of like-minded people who have done a lot of that, too.

Over the past few months--since mid-fall 2010, actually--I've felt a calling in my heart that was telling me there was somewhere else I was supposed to be, something more I was supposed to be doing. I knew it was more face-to-face being of service to people, sharing the liberating lifestyle tools I've learned and gained over the years. It occurred to me it might be starting a retreat company. So I did. (The next one, The Revitalized Woman Weekend, is coming up October 14-16 in beautiful BC.) But the feeling in my heart didn't go away. The message of "There's more" just stayed and stayed.

One evening I finally sat myself down on the floor, took some deep breaths and then hollered out: "Look, I know there's more I'm supposed to be doing! I can feel it! I hear it! But I don't know what it is! I can't figure it out. I've been trying for months. For crying out loud, please, please, give me some signs. I'm open to anything."

The next day, a certain flame-haired, funny and deeply soulful woman who comes to my yoga classes arrived looking a bit flushed. "Lindsey," she said to me, "I've been thinking about you for the last two days. Look, here's the thing. You're writing for Elephant Journal, you're doing retreats, you're teaching yoga, you're teaching women how to de-stress, you're working doing other things, too. You're too all over the map. The thing is, Lindsey, people just want to know how to be you."

Oh....oh. What on earth is there to say when someone says something like that?

Later that day a woman I really admire, a nurse-turned-Life Coach, said to me, "I can really see you coaching. I saw it instantly."

Later that week, Danielle LaPorte--of whitehottruth.com--said to me, "Lindsey, I know you have the kind of brain that thinks you need to be certified to do this kind of thing, but I bet you're doing it already."

Finally, another woman I really admire, a yogi-business woman who I've been so lucky to have been supported by, said to me, "You're already doing it for lots of people."

Message received.

Transmission accepted.

So, as of today, you'll find me over at libreliving.com--doing my best to share what I've learned about living a liberated life. Plus waxing poetic, or not-so-poetic, about lessons I've yet to learn. And yup, because I do have that kind of brain, I'm planning on signing up for life coaching revolutionary Martha Becks' Life Coaching course this fall. I would love to continue to share this path with you.

Please stop by to say 'hi!'.

With love,

Lindsey

Here's the thing.

It's not about having it all figured out.

It's not about perfection.

It's not about getting it right.

It's not about being happy all the time.

It's not about feeling strong all the time.

It's not about smiling, and shining and being joyful all the time.

It's not about good hair, good style, or faultless professionalism.

It's about being.

That's it.



With love,

Lindsey

So...I'm human. Things aren't always butterflies and sunshine. Sometimes things feel hard, and painful, and like a cut from a glass that broke as you were taking a long refreshing drink.

In this moment, I know a few things:
1. That, like Elephant Journal ed Waylon Lewis writes "In the Buddhist view the feeling of loneliness is identified as the feeling of Buddha Nature. In other words, loneliness is not a lacking of something, but rather the aching fulfillment of our open, raw, caring nature."
2. I feel like giving the universe the finger.
3. I think in the Buddhist view the feeling of wanting to give the universe the finger is likely also the aching fulfillment of our open, raw, caring nature.
4. I still feel like giving the universe the finger. In fact, I just did.
5. I don't think the universe cares that I just did that. In fact, I know that I'm still loved--big time.
6. I've sat with loneliness and pain and the ache of a hole where someone's love once was. I made myself sit with it, and not try to fill it--not even with chocolate.
7. I came out the other side with a newfound respect for myself, and the guru that is pain. I came out with a stronger understanding of my human nature. Of our human nature.
8. I can do it again.
9. I still feel like giving the universe the finger. And laughing, because, for crying out loud, do I have to make everything into a lesson? A potential for friggin' growth? Can't I ever just be small and miserable and ego-driven? Sometimes, maybe, but mostly I seem to have to just keep on truckin' down this path of evolution. Can't do anything about it once you start.
10. It hurts most when I try to change it. It hurts less when I accept what is.

In her book, Eastern Body, Western Mind, Anodea Judith says this:

"In order to overcome our limitations, we have to first accept them."

I'm writing this for two reasons equally: because writing it out helps me process and heal + because I want to make sure that the other people who feel pain and loneliness know they're not alone.

With love,

Lindsey

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Music can be yoga, too. Huh? Yup, in the same way that yoga in its most fundamental, last-of-the-8-limbs understanding can spark our flame, inspire us to greater depths, and lift us up to greater heights, music can do that, too.

Some music does this more than others. Enter Heatherlyn Music. This self- and accurately-described soulful, rooted, rockin', guitar-playing singer-song-artist, poet and storydwelling traveler has a voice and impact about 10 times her small but very strong size. I was lucky enough to get lifted up along with a bunch of others at a recent house concert.



This song above speaks to Heatherlyn's experience--one that resonated with me, too and probably lots of people who hear it--of the world as a sometimes superficial, constraining place to be. But check her out--up there letting her light shine, stepping up into her calling no matter what, singing her heart out. Inspiring, right?

Want more? Heatherlyn's got a new album out. StoryDwelling is due to be officially released September 2011. And I'm lucky enough to have a copy. It'll be getting prime playlist positioning in many upcoming Kundalini yoga classes. You can pre-order your own autographed copy at www.heatherlynmusic.com. In the meantime, stay ignited, inspired and elevated by connecting with Heatherlyn on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.



p.s. Here's Heatherlyn waxing poetic on the what's good about nature, moving your bod, and the creative flow. Lucky me gets a cameo.



Namaste,

Lindsey

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GUEST POST BY MICHAEL STONE


Awake in the World from Centre of Gravity on Vimeo.

Yoga and Buddhist Practices work in terms of complementary opposites. If you want to settle your inhalation, for example, you spend time getting your exhalation very smooth; if you want to find extension in the hamstring muscles, you refine the contraction of the front of the thigh; if you want to find happiness, you serve others. Inside a forward bend is the seed of a backbend; in the midst of anxiety, we look for the calmness of the breath—it’s always there.

Likewise, when we pay attention to the movement toward taking one’s life, we also find the desire to live. This desire to live is expressed in the desire to communicate. The trick is dropping our preconceptions sufficiently to recognize this instinct, this movement toward intimacy. Even as the old tree withers and dies, we can find small emblems of growth. Illness, both mental and physical, often separates the afflicted from the world. Yoga reawakens one’s connection with the whole body and mind and in so doing restores pathways of communication at an inner level that then begin to spread out into the interpersonal world as well. When we are safe in our own bodies, we have a ground from which to step out into the world.

Talking is a way of reaching something not clearly seen, verbally navigating through the fog of uncertainty. The problem with our Western perspective on suicide is that it’s hard to listen when our very deliberate focus is on trying to stop someone from taking his own life, stop the urge toward death, protect ourselves from the legal repercussions of not calling the police. Since we all walk this same winding road toward death, someone else’s desire to die brings up our own core ideas about death, dying, and what it means to live life fully. Suicide in the Judeo-Christian perspective is rejected as sinful. In the early teachings of the Buddha, there are many stories of people like Channa, Vakkali, and Godhika, who took their own lives and were not condemned for it. If there is a cultural view that sees life as continuous in one way or another, especially if there is no god that determines whether someone is born again or not, we have permission to reframe our conceptualization of suicide as sinful. Who are we to judge?

Suicide is an internal drama that needs expression for it to be resolved. Suicide and self-harm must be understood as having meaning within interpersonal and intrapsychic relationships that the person is involved in. Wanting to die means something. What wants to die? The problem with the “I”-making mechanism of the mind (ahaṅkāra) is that it creates stories (asmitā) that objectify itself. The “I” maker is constantly representing itself to itself, splitting the personality into a subject and object. This splits the ahaṅkāra into a storyteller that is telling itself a story by representing itself to itself. The core teachings of Yoga revolve around this case of mistaken identity. Any self-image is an objectification of the ahaṅkāra that serves to split the personality. If we understand the ahaṅkāra in this way, we can see that when one tells a story about oneself to oneself, one creates several selves. The ego can objectify itself. The task for the yogi is to pay attention to life in ways that continually undercut our craving to have a fixed point of view. All sorts of things happen in our lives, tragedies and miracles together. We lose what we love and are continually separated from what we want. This is the way life goes. But this careful attention to the way our lives truly happen does not always go along with the therapeutic intention to “help life go on,” “contract for safety,” or “provide ego support.”

A focus on the absurd, the messy, the tragic, and the shameful parts of us is what’s truly needed to open to our lives. With the help of a therapist, we can open to what we feel without fear. The key is being able to open to what we really feel, not just what we are allowed to feel either by our own internal judge or the unexamined assumptions in the medical stance of the clinician. Focusing on the body without searching for a way out can sometimes open up astonishing meaning within very old habits. We may even learn that the voice from the part of us that wants to die is exactly the same as the part of us that wants to come out into the world. The one who wants to die may really want to live after all. The “cry for help” is really a gesture to go through life with deep meaning and resolve. Wanting to die stands neither for life nor for death but for a deep experience of both of these opposites. To live is to allow for fixed views to die. To die is to be generous in our living.

(In Part 2, I will look at practical ways for working with the energies in us and in others that want to die.)

This is an excerpt from “Awake in the World: Teachings from Yoga & Buddhism for Living an Engaged Life” by Michael Stone (Shambhala Publications, June 2011)

MICHAEL STONE is a respected Buddhist teacher who draws on his background as a psychotherapist, yoga teacher, author and activist to bring the practice of mindfulness into conversation with contemporary culture. He developed the acclaimed Leading Edge Mindfulness for Clinicians Course in Toronto and has educated over one thousand medical professionals about the intersection of mindfulness and clinical practice. Michael has the distinction of being the youngest Buddhist teacher in Canada and maintains a busy travel schedule, teaching workshops and retreats throughout North America and Europe. He is the founder of Centre of Gravity: a thriving community of yoga and Buddhist practitioners exploring the convergence of traditional contemplative practices and modern urban life. He makes his home in downtown Toronto.

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About Krista Peterson
I am a 22 year old student, living in Orlando FL, working on getting my bachelors at the University of Central Florida. I aspire to be a writer and am particularly passionate about the health and wellness of our community. I have had many family members diagnosed with different kinds of cancers and various other issues which encouraged me to be a health and safety advocate. I have been practicing yoga for about 3 years now. Most recently hot vinyasa yoga and I absolutely love it. Krista Peterson can be contacted at: krista.peterson925@gmail.com