Turn of the Tides

I had my heart opened up.

Just enough to let the light in.

He didn’t try to do it. He didn’t do anything but smile, dance, and then hold me sweetly. My body remembered the sweet grace of a warm embrace, the mutual sigh of contentment, if only for that one shared moment.

And right on the heels of the night, Doubt came galumphing along. Doubt is an insidious character, the elephant that never forgets an infraction by anyone (real or imagined).

Doubt lacks compassion. Doubt assumes the worst. It’s a real downer.

And Yearning also popped in for a visit, which only made Doubt more insidious.

Tired of the chatter and confliction, I went for a walk in the park, something I had not done for much too long.

Walking along the creek, something softened in me. That sound, that rushing, undulating current of water always softens my edges, washes away my crusty armor, and leaves me naked, ripe for the taking, if only I allow it time to work its magic.

The water surged, welling up in my eyes, across my forehead, and deep into the belly.

“What on earth am I sad about?”

And at that moment, it was clear. I was mourning the loss of Nature in my life, of MY nature…..the familiar turn of the tides in me that I have turned from in an effort to be strong, to leave the painful past behind, to turn my intention to the future, toward stability and growth.

I have made it so I don’t have time for my dear friend and confidante. I shunned her because she washes away my armor, she opens up my soul and leaves me naked, bared to anyone who can See.

It’s scary being vulnerable, being true and open and honest. It’s scary opening up after a heinous divorce and then being let down yet again.

It’s scary to trust myself, knowing I have let mySelf down so many times.

My friend, no matter how long I neglect her, is there, reminding me to remain sensitive, to trust in the evolution of process. She is there in my orchids that took 18 months to bloom, and Oh! How they bloomed! And she is in my herbs, and drooping plants, and bright plants, and in everything that grows and dies in my life.

And she spoke to me at the park.

“Stop, and listen. Hear the creek, the rhythm, let it beat upon your back. Let the air rush through your lungs. You are alive as you can be. Isn’t it glorious?!”

And she showed me her treasures….tiny flowers nestled in the knot of a tree, nature’s flowerpot, mini worlds of fungi, lichen and moss, solo flowers standing proud, and then a tall, smooth tree that beckoned me with it’s quiet, unassuming strength.

And I laid my face upon its smooth skin and let my tears fall, and it held me.

No judgement, no expectations, no words of advice. It just held me, supported me and welcomed my tears. And I wrapped my arm around the trunk, so thankful for the unconditional and ever-present love, support and acceptance of my dear friend.

“It’s been too long, my friend, too long.”

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A Year To Clear, Day 25

Ok, it’s actually day 54 or something, but I haven’t been doing my daily “drip” of information. I could beat myself up about it, but I am not. That’s not what it’s about.

If you are already lost, I am doing A Year To Clear by Stephanie Bennett Vogt, an online program that gives daily tidbits, thoughts, videos, etc on clearing stuck energy in your life, typically in the way of clutter.

Today was a video talking about the sh*t that comes up when we try and clear clutter. It doesn’t always feel good.

I love when Stephanie said, ‘It’s not about getting it done. It’s about getting it!’

She talked about taking a clothing item that we haven’t worn for whatever reason but still hold onto, and just holding it in your lap for one minute. With compassionate awareness, notice what sensations and thoughts come up.

Well, the first thing that came up for me was that I was resistant to doing this, to meditation. Evidently, a lot of stuff from my divorce has not been processed, and I am not really interested in processing it. Yet, I keep getting signs from the universe to go there.

Next, I thought about time, and I had this dread of adding a task to my day. So, I thought to my closet upstairs and pictured a yellow, Indian style flowing dress that I have had for many years and never wore. Immediately, it was clear to me that this yellow dress represented a side of me I was afraid of losing.

 

I realized in that instant that I was afraid of getting rid of the dress because that would mean losing that flowing, feminine, gypsy side of me, that free-loving wild soul from San Francisco that I so miss and adore.

Of course, that’s absurd, but we make these odd connections to our STUFF. Evidently, in order to be able to clear the stuck energy around this dress, I need to first be aware of this relationship, and then I need to allow myself to be that free-spirited gypsy girl more often. yellow dress

Compassionate Awareness leads to Unstuckness.

Amazing how all these years, I go through my closet to see what to get rid of, and in the TASK and DOING, I never made the energetic connection to why I was actually holding on to it. And the best thing about this exercise, is I never even had to go upstairs and into my closet. It helps, but an energetic connection does not need physical connection.

I would love to hear if you try this, and what happens for you. If you are interested in the online course, go HERE.

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A Year to Clear

As is par for the course on a New Years Day, I slept in. Thankfully, I remembered to turn off my alarm, and at 10am, I awoke, with crusty eyes, swollen hands, and an internal panic of all that I “have” to do.

Insert big EXHALE here.

Let me start over. I know 2016 is going to be big. 2015 was huge. I let go of a lot and brought in so much that I now don’t have enough hours in the day to do all that I brought into my life and would LOVE to do! It’s a real problem, folks.

I wake up, and my mind starts with, you “should” do yoga. That’s a healthy way to start the day, every day. You shouldn’t drink coffee. It’s hard on your adrenals. You really should go play on your pole. Don’t sit down on the computer right away without stretching and being active first. And on and on… I think I have an internal mother on overdrive.

And then I think of all that I want to DO in my life.

  • I want to dance more, like full dancing, with jumps and leaps, and performing, and pirouettes, and floorwork, and all the pain and beauty I remember.
  • Oh, and I have a pole downstairs that I want to learn to use, but for some reason am not.
  • I want to write more, so I think a daily blog again would be good.
  • I started a fellowship, so I know I need to study.
  • Of course, I want to somehow turn that into a business where I actually help people be healthier, vs. approve medications that are prescribed by other people and that I know are making them sicker.
  • Oh, and I want to be healthy and strong, so I want to keep up the workouts in the gym, and of course the meal prepping.
  • Perhaps I might do a figure competition as well.
  • Somewhere in there, I really want to have more close relationships with people. Yet I am reticent to have a relationship outside of myself. I want to let people in….slowly.
  • I want to clear the clutter in my home….starting with the file drawer full of things to file…and I need to download my quicken for the YEAR and figure out what is biz and not…and organize so I can study, so my heartrate doesn’t quicken in panic every time I walk in the office….
  • And all of those things take Time, …and Focus…. and Presence.

And yet, I am remembering going through some of my old posts last night after coming back from New Years festivities. So many of the posts are about Surrendering to the unknown, to letting the current image of things as we think they should be fall away. They are about Trust, Self Love, and BEing.

So, I sit down with my coffee, open up my computer, and this page is looking at me (which I opened last night)

A Year to Clear What is Holding You Back!
Premium on-line course by Stephanie Bennett Vogt
(9,538 people have taken this course)
 

This is a 365-day on-line course available from Stephanie Bennett Vogt. We will email you when your new lesson is available and you will be able to login and read each lesson on-line or print as they become available and click to listen to the guided audio meditations. Your first lesson will be available immediately after you enroll.

“The journey is the treasure.”-Lloyd Alexander

 

Well, I took it as a sign, and I signed up. Part of me thought, “Amy, there you go committing to yet one more thing,” and the other part of me said, “It needs to happen. It will help me focus on what is most important each day, help me in seeing that I don’t have to do it all every day, that it’s ok to let some things go so other things can come in.”

So, no New Years Resolutions, except maybe to ALLOW my Self to be all that I imagine and more, or less than I imagine, and to trust that letting go of what I imagine will allow something I cannot imagine because it is a whole new way of being.

I like the sound of that!

What is on your mind as we head into 2016? 

 

 

 

Feathers bleeding rainbows

I’m tired of thinking.

“Why?”

“Is that true?”

Questioning my thoughts, constantly. Questioning myself, constantly.

Do I really want to do that? Or am I motivated by ….God forbid…Weakness?

I hear myself talk to people and feel I am dominating the conversation. Something in me believes that I am selfish, self-centered. I guess I am afraid of being perceived as so,…to be honest. My parents used to tell me I was selfish. They told a boyfriend of mine I was selfish. Stories.

It all happened then, so why should it matter?

Exactly.

Round and round the chicken coop we go. Feathers flying, words bouncing around and hitting the heart, emotions everywhere. Feathers bleeding rainbow…

I cry easily. I am emotional. I am rational. I think a LOT. I want connection with others….bad. I find myself wishing someone would reach out to me. I have reached out to so many, but things don’t come to fruition often. And when I really think about it, am I seeking connection with others or to disconnect from myself? From the mental chatter, the disorienting constant shift in thoughts? The internal drive to do, and the struggle with not wanting to do anything….

My, how shifty is the feeling of “rightness”, the feeling of wholeness and content. My, how the mind likes to drive me. It takes so much time, it seems, to be quiet with these thoughts, to let them play out until I reach the truth. Perhaps meditation is good for that… a focused exercise in being quiet and still. YET, for me, so much clarity has come from letting my mind chatter and watching it, following it’s thought patterns.

Feathers bleeding rainbows…I like how that sounds.

Turning it around

In a half hour, a complete stranger helped me to understand a power struggle between my daughter Keely and myself that has caused us much strife over the past year. I left this call with a “stranger” able to breathe freely in a way I haven’t felt in months.

This person somehow, in a twist of celestial fate, showed up in my Facebook feed yesterday offering free 30-minute calls to people. She goes by April Dawn*, which I find even more interesting, as my daughter goes by Keely Dawn.

She reminded me indirectly of the mirror our lives are to our internal state. I expressed concern over my daughter’s ability to make things happen in her life for herself, and how I hate being in the position of having to decide whether to step up for her again or to let her feel the consequences of her lack of action. April said she sensed a lack of trust in my relationship with my daughter, and asked me to turn around my lack of trust in my daughter’s ability to make things happen. She asked if in some way I might be acting from the fear that I am not able to make those things happen in my life, and it hit me like a brick.

Yes, as always, it was my issue all along.

I let myself down when I was 18 when I quit San Francisco Ballet School. I have lived with that regret ever since. I have found ways back to dance here and there. I blamed circumstance. I pointed the finger at my folks for not financially supporting me when I needed it. But in the end, it was my responsibility to ask for help, and to find a way to make it happen, to believe in myself enough and to love myself enough to make my dream my life.

And I didn’t do that for myself.

And I project that regret onto my daughter, fearing she will do the same thing. And it’s not right, nor is it helpful.

The call happened twenty minutes ago, and already some of the details are fading, but the lesson isn’t. I have put so much energy into trying to “help” my daughter succeed at what I think are the most basic things, and all I really need to do is make things happen for myself. Live by example.

My fear of not being able to make my own dreams come true, has led me to put pressure on my daughter to make hers happen. Near the end of the call, April asked how I felt about making things happen for myself, and I remembered that in the past year, I have actually made some huge strides for myself in that direction. Lately, I have been feeling very stuck and impotent in that area, but reminding myself of the steps I have taken suddenly reaffirmed my trust in myself, and hence, my trust that my daughter will be o.k. She is on her own path, and she will find her own way. I sighed out tension I have been holding for months.

When I take away my fear of letting myself down and learn to trust myself, I suddenly trust that my daughter can do what’s right for herself. And when I am in that place of trust, I can guide vs push her. I can be there for her, but let herself do what she needs to do. I can allow her to find her own way, and remain available for her, but not intercept.

I can trust her because I can trust myself, and that’s a HUGE relief for both of us!

*April Dawn has a Relationship promotion going which I am happy to spread the word about. If she can help me reach clarity in a half hour on something I have missed for months, I can only imagine how she can help guide people in 4 months!

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Permission to Be yourSelf

I recently realized something so clearly, and while at first it seemed so simple, so obvious, it was profound.

In my last relationship, I had met a man that I saw as generous beyond measure. His motto was “We, Us, Ours” and all that was his was also mine. We had fused, become one, and he wanted to share it all with me. It felt like an affirmation from the universe that someone finally wanted to share all of who and what they are with me. The abundance of spirit and the material world both collided and coalesced.

I also remember him saying in the beginning that I could do whatever I wanted. I didn’t have to work if I didn’t want to, or wear makeup, or dress a certain way. He also never said he would love me regardless of what I did, but did give me “permission” to be myself, for the most part. Of course, there was disapproval of certain actions, like dancing (which is my first love) but I was “allowed” to do them….At the time, all I heard was I could be Me.

I was sitting enjoying a beer recently when it dawned on me… I don’t need anyone’s permission to Do or Be anything. What I once saw as a generous offering to me was in fact a mirror showing how I didn’t give myself permission to do as I pleased.

I had put my power in someone else’s hands.

By putting that authority in his hands, I allowed him to control everything I did or didn’t do, simply through his approval or disapproval. I wanted to please him, so I gave up what I loved and did what I could that made him happy, which ultimately didn’t work. Why? Because I wasn’t being myself.

I realized I had given over all of my power, and I saw the detrimental effect it was having on me and thus our relationship, so I started taking back my power. I stopped asking for permission to do what I wanted, stopped waiting on his availability to plan my day and my week, and started doing what was best for my well-being. I spent more time with my daughter, got my Oregon licensure, got a job, bought some nice new clothes for myself, started yoga teacher training with my favorite teacher on Maui, and was really on the up and up when he left.

I don’t need anyone’s permission for anything I do or say.

It is a huge switch in my entire being to acknowledge that, to KNOW that. I am thankful for him reflecting that back to me, for giving me the permission I wasn’t giving myself, so that I could realize how I had given up my power.

How often do we give up our power in our daily lives? How often do you not question the status quo just enough to get the results you need? How often do you let things slide to keep the peace? So often, we actually create more peace when we speak our truth from a place of self-edification and knowing.

How often do you NOT give yourself permission to stand up for what you want? At a restaurant, if you ask for something and they don’t give it to you, can you remind them of what you asked for and request it clearly and nicely?

Do you find yourself changing your habits or dress to please someone else? Why? At whose benefit? More importantly, at whose cost? If that person can’t love you as you are, it’s best to let them go.

Now, if someone tells me I can be myself, I can say with all certainty, “You are right.”

12.21.12: The Day the World Ended….As We Knew It

12.21.12 was truly the day my world ended as I knew it.

I started a whole new book in my life. I am filled with so much love and appreciation, hope and light. The shift to all that I dreamed occurred. That internal shift is being reflected back at me at every turn, in every moment of my days.
So thankful to those who have helped bring me to this point, to those who explored the depths of pain and suffering with me, and to those who continued to see my light when I couldn’t, to those who patiently stood by, held space for me, supported my effort to transform my existence into something more TRUE to my essence.
I realized True Love in a man so full of life and love, a man that reflects back all of my inner beauty, and I his. I raised to a new vibration, and he saw me. It was finally time for us to come together, even though we had been circling each other for over a year.

We are writing a new book together, and it’s going to be amazingly beautiful. It already is!

Thank you, Universe, for providing me all of the lessons, however harsh, of the past few years that prepared me for a love so deep and true.

I bow fully in gratitude to the beauty of the universe we create every moment of our existence. May every human being feel great love within and see it reflected from without.

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Co(s)mical life

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I got busy with the Hurricane Sandy deployment and couldn’t keep up with the posts, but I will go back and post the pics, because it was an awesome experience. TONIGHT,… tonight…. I have felt so many waves of emotion. … Continue reading

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Hurricane Sandy Deployment: Days -9 to 0

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This gallery contains 6 photos.

Standing in the temporary pharmacy here at South Nassau Communities Hospital, feeling like I have been transported out of time. The time warp hits when you get deployed. Many people don’t know that I am a member of the Disaster … Continue reading

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153- Holy Past Blast Batman!

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Life has been very full lately, largely of stressful things…. really stressful things. Yet, it is all balanced by so much beauty and support, that I honestly can’t complain. I don’t want to be in crisis mode all of the … Continue reading

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