As you can imagine, I’m a big believer in the potential of aches and pains to reveal more than physical ailments. It’s no surprise that my sister thinks I do a lot of navel gazing. I’m trying to figure out what’s in there! What am I storing in that tight, lower left back of mine? I’m quite sure my body is trying to speak (sometimes scream!) some fabulously useful information to my heart and mind. I, for one, think it’s imperative (and fascinating) to listen.
And let me tell you, my hips have been doing some talking lately. Despite regular yoga classes, I haven’t been able to discern on my own what they were saying. So yesterday I had the great fortune to experience the gifts of Bev Johnson, a practitioner-in-training of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy (PRYT). “Through assisted yoga postures and non-directive dialogue, PRYT guides clients to experience the connection of their physical and emotional selves.” (Contact Bev this month for a half-priced session!)
Boy did that little right hip flexor have a lot to say! In 90 minutes, out came pouring a virtual storehouse of vision, emotion and deep knowledge about who I am, what I’m becoming, and what I need to leave behind.
I’m sure you know by now that I’m also a big believer in the transformative power of tears. Let that river flow, I say! So many women try to tamp down their sensitivity. They apologize for their emotions. Perhaps you are one of them. Perhaps you believe your God-given, feminine, feeling self is an unwelcome burden on loved ones, colleagues, and pets (I’m no dog expert, but the few I’ve come to know are pretty amazing in the face of a crying human.)
You may believe that others are not interested in the depths of your heart. Well, I am! Your body is! And I’m quite sure God is. I’d venture to guess that those who love you most are too – even if they’re unsure of their own capacity to be your witness.
In the online dating world, there are some men who profess rather loudly that they want “NO DRAMA” (and they usually capitalize it!) To that, I respond with a DELETE! I believe these men would be better off dating their own kind for a while. In my opinion, an evolved man has grown his ability to hold space for a woman’s emotions. While he might not understand or even like her in that state, he honors the part of her that feels deeply, the same part that has the capacity to love him without end. Stuff one; you stuff the other.
I’m not advocating reckless wielding of the emotional torch; yet, I am encouraging all women to feel. It is just fine to do so. Really, you were made this way. Who cares if it is PMS induced? Open the flood gates! We can do our best to consciously minimize the impact of our darker emotions on others, yet by some means, we must let them out. Otherwise, they get stored. We’re going to feel them one way or another.
I used to cry a lot more. My Colorado friends lasted through many a tear-streamed hike up and down Arbaney Kittle Trail. There are pews across America soaked because I was moved by words, ritual, and the coaxing open of my heart by a power greater than I. Nowadays, I can predictably count on at least one massive bawl-my-eyes-out session per month. It usually happens in the car. Sometimes mildly prompted by the day’s events; more often brought on by a good country song like Keith Urban’s “Thank You“. Sometimes I think I’m losing it; until two days later when I remember it is part of the territory of me as a woman. Part of the territory of me as woman.
Being a woman is not something to be contained, altered, fixed, or managed. In the words of our esteemed 43rd President, bring ’em on! Bring on the PMS tears, the church tears, the weeping at family goodbyes and the moving realizations of greater truth. Trust their capacity to cleanse and inform. Trust that your rawest self is a grace and power to behold.
Posts Tagged ‘God’
Experiencing Life Through You and Me
November 30, 2009How could this be? Me? Writing about God all the time? I’m no God expert – I’ve got a million questions! Won’t I scare away potential clients? Shouldn’t I be talking about attracting true love, creating a fabulous career or manifesting the sexy, red, stretchy dress I want for Christmas?
Is this authentic? How could I be so into God? Yikes… that makes me a little different than I thought I was going to be. You see, I grew up feeling shocked and mad that kids in my high school said I would go to hell if I didn’t believe what they did. “Well,” I thought, “That’s not too fair now is it? I’m 16! I’m not perfect, but I try to be a good person. What kind of God would send me and my loved ones to hell just because we didn’t go to your church?”
More importantly, why would I want anything to do with that kind of judgment and exclusion? No way! I had enough heartache to deal with as a teenager much less worrying about going to hell.
So here I am 25 years later… not totally sure I fit within the Christian church, not really matching the low-key vibration of a Buddhist path, loving the gorgeous Hindu goddesses while knowing nothing about Hinduism, and coming from a family who finds spiritual grandeur and truth in nature. Yet lately, when I sit to write this weekly email about what is on my mind and heart (that I hope will be of some use for others), it keeps coming back to something about God.
(Note: if this ever gets too preachy for you or I start sounding like the high school people I just dissed, you are always welcome to send me a note or to simply unsubscribe.)
The thing is… it’s all God for me. This whole exploration of the depth and breadth of self, the fullness of life, and the sweetness and heartache of love is completely intertwined with the spiritual aspect of living as a human in the world and on the Earth.
This weekend I watched a simple, little, funny movie called “The Answer Man” about a renowned spiritual “guru” who is also a cranky, foul-mouthed, lonely guy. People come to him for the answers that he himself is seeking. It is in an unexpected love for a woman and her son that he begins to feel his authenticity and his connection to God again.
From that place, he offers to his girlfriend this beautiful line, “You are here so God can experience the world through your eyes…Through you, He falls in love with the world all over again.”
That’s the little nugget I’d love to offer you this week. It reminded me that there is a reason for our being here in exactly our unique form – so God can experience the world through our eyes, our skin, our breath, and our hearts.
For every yummy glass of buttery Chardonnay God gets to taste through my lips, you may share a cold Heineken. For every new crush that makes my heart skip a beat, you may allow God to experience a mother’s wide-open love for her precious new baby. And for every ounce of human anger and sorrow God can feel through the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof’s description of injustice (ala this young man’s health care travesty), your passions may ignite a thousand different responses.
This week, I invite you (and myself!) to try this practice on for size: Let God feel what it is like to be human through you, your love, your body, your emotions and your actions. Notice if and how life feels different and whether little things seem a bit more magical and sacred. I’d love to hear how it goes.
Who Speaks to You?
November 24, 2009Yesterday, I was introduced to Rob Bell by way of his Open video. I then proceeded to watch Flame, Whirlwind and She. (see NOOMA for downloadable full length versions.) I may be the last person in America to have heard about this hip and controversial Christian thinker. Let me say, it was instant wow and deep regard. Perhaps even infatuation (I admit I have a weakness for big thinking, cool-glasses-wearing, idealistic guys.)
He’s the evangelical pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and… a graduate of Wheaton College (note: they don’t dance there.) Hoo boy! Bible church, no dancing, and evangelical… that trifecta is more like “lions, tigers and bears” for liberal, pole dancing, multi-faith me!
Yet I took it as a good sign that conservative bloggers blast him. In a Boston Globe interview he says the word “evangelical” has been ”hijacked” by the political right. He offers instead, ”I embrace the term evangelical, if by that we mean a belief that we together can actually work for change in the world, caring for the environment, extending to the poor generosity and kindness.”
He’s written a book called Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality; he honors the feminine qualities in God (that alone makes me want to move to Michigan) and he likens God’s care to that of a mother’s fierce, lay-down-her-life love for her children. He speaks with palpable commitment, yearning and gentleness. And most importantly for doubters like me, he struggles with having no answers to unanswerable questions.
I’m not writing about him so you too will think he’s great. I bring him up simply to say that this unexpected “evangelical” voice went straight to the heart of someone who feels closer to God on a yoga mat than dressed up in a pew.
Who does that for you? Whose integrity inspires you? Whose passion speaks to the deepest questions in your heart? Whose values make you feel ah, yes, there is hope?
As you can tell, I love people who speak up about what they believe. People who say, “This is what I stand for. This is what I suffer. This is how I yearn to love and live.” By letting you know exactly who they are, they give you permission to take or leave them.
Richmond yoga teacher Aimee Yowell is another one who really goes for it. She is pure embodiment of what she teaches. With the spirit she exudes and the devotion to something greater that she brings to her teaching, each 1 hour and 15 minute class feels like a 3-hour journey to the core of it all. She is unabashed in moving as if the life of her soul depended on it. It’s infectious and it is an invitation to discover what frees my own soul. I love her willingness to put out there exactly who she is and the gift she offers.
Tell me, who turns you on to life? Who inspires you to rise up and participate with all you have in this magical, mystical ride? Tell me. Tell them. Tell others.
Trust on a scale of 1 to 10
October 4, 2009“I felt the strong bond that women have with each other regardless of how well they know each other, the compassion we have toward one another and the capacity at which we can whole-heartedly give and receive of ourselves.” – Women’s Circle participant
In a workshop a few years ago, we were asked to stand in front of a woman we didn’t know and sense how much she trusted other women on a scale of 1 to 10. I hesitantly yet honestly rated my partner a 4; she gave me a 9. Was I naïve to trust so willingly? No, I intuitively knew it was a gift from growing up with my own built-in women’s circle of four fun and devoted older sisters and a deeply loving mother.
My trust of the feminine has also been infused by my experience in a college sorority (I know, it’s true, hold your smirks), being witness to the strength and raw emotion of thousands of teen girls in Girls For A Change, and spending countless hours in women’s workshops opening my soul to be seen and felt by fellow travelers.
It was painful to so viscerally feel the walls inside this woman in front of me and wonder where her mistrust was born. Perhaps from an early experience of being abandoned – emotionally or physically – by a significant woman in her life who lacked the capacity to fully care for a child. Perhaps from the betrayal of adolescent girlfriends trying to mask their own insecurity. Or perhaps she found it difficult to trust the depth and tenderness of the feminine in herself, leading her to mistrust it in others and in the world.
While I’m grateful for my experience with the women in my life, I do understand what it’s like to have a hard time trusting what is unfamiliar or unknown. Just today I wondered, on a scale of one to ten, how much do I trust God’s will for me? It’s always a 10 in hindsight! Or easily an 8 when, conveniently, God’s will seems to match my own. However, it is certainly more of a 0 to 3 when I don’t yet understand, the answers aren’t clear and I feel I’m in a holding pattern (more like a cell!) with my yearning and confusion.
At those times, it takes all of I’ve got in mind, body and spirit to surrender to this something which “passes all understanding.”
I’m learning though, through gradual experience, that trust is indeed a more magical, empowering and tender way to live, a way that heals old fears. For me, practicing trust goes hand-in-hand with learning to receive. Opening my heart to another’s inherent goodness or to the care of a power infinitely greater than my human self, allows me to discover just how deeply I am seen, held and loved. It’s a moment-to-moment choice I choose to make again and again.
Showing up for Big Mama
July 27, 2009Who’s Big Mama you ask? On alternate days I call her God, Him, Shakti/Shiva, the Universe, a particularly spectacular sunset, the sweet sounds of a baby, my inner sense, and a whole host of other names.
I know how to show up for Big Mama on my yoga mat. I breathe deep in my belly. I practice opening my heart. And there she is inside me, part of me… ahhhh… together again.
Church however is a different beast. After a five year hiatus, I’m finding myself in a bit of a pickle every week. There is nothing I dislike more than taking a shower and wearing anything but my cozy pjs before noon on a Sunday. Does God care if I show up in wrinkled clothes with sleep in my eyes? I don’t think so.
I intentionally get up a little early so as to relish in the NYT Style Section with a hot coffee before I run out the door. No shower, but I do at least brush my hair, throw a clip in, add mascara, and mow down the 25mph drivers on Monument to make it there before the ushers really glare at me. (Man, they start on time at this place!)
I don’t believe everything I’m supposed to recite and I don’t understand the meaning of half the readings. I don’t even feel that church is the best place for me to connect to that all powerful force of love in the world – I get self conscious praying around all those people!
However, I like the act of showing up. I like ritual. I like people who believe in something enough to devote their lives to it. I like the prayers for peace and social justice. And most of all, I like seeing what makes its way inside me.
Each week is a stretch. A stretch to not judge the people who talk during the sermon (don’t they know that’s the best part?!) A stretch to not feel alone in this big community of old and young. A stretch to ground my life and my work in deeper meaning.
I think, I hope, that’s what God cares about. Not my messy hair.
We don’t talk about God in the Women’s Circle but we do show up. We show up for each other and for ourselves and to discover what’s underneath.
Being v. Doing
March 23, 2009I was listening to the Carolyn Myss recording of “Anatomy of the Spirit” on my drive home from the Eastern Shore after visiting my family today. At the end she closes with a prayer, extended from the traditional, by Reverend Jim Cotter that reads:
God be in my head and in my understanding
God be in my eyes and in my looking
God be in my mouth and in my speaking
God be in my tongue and in my tasting
God be in my lips and in my greeting
God be in my nose and in my inhaling
God be in my ears and in my hearing
God be in my neck and in my humbling
God be in my shoulders and in my bearing
God be in my back and in my standing
God be in my arms and in my receiving
God be in my hands and in my working
God be in my legs and in my walking
God be in my feet and in my grounding
God be in my joints and in my relating
God be in my guts and in my feelings
God be in my bowels and in my forgiving
God be in my loins and in my swiving
God be in my lungs and in my breathing
God be in my heart and in my loving
God be in my skin and in my touching
God be in my flesh and in my paining
God be in my blood and in my living
God be in my bones and in my dying
God be at my end and at my reviving
by Reverend Jim Cotter, Prayer at Night’s Approaching
I was struck that the author isn’t asking God to “do” anything for him, rather simply to “be” with him, in every part of him.
In my life right now I am learning and practicing the concept that my beingness is enough… that I do not need to prove my value, that others can actually feel me more in my being than in my doing.
We’ll be exploring this “beingness” and how to find it in ourselves in the middle of our busy lives in my next workshop “Step Outside the Cubicle” on April 5. If you are interested, please take advantage of the early bird workshop fee of $65! (valid until March 29) Simply email a note letting me know you are coming. I’d love to see you.
Click here for more information.
