Open your Christmas Presence early - and often - this year!

‘Tis the month before Christmas, and where is your heart?

Is it spinning in the gotta-get-the-perfect-gift, make-this-the-best-Christmas-ever rush of commercialized insanity that’s become a sort of sick norm? Is it aching with the loss of a parent, spouse, or loved one who is no longer a part of your life, and will be sorely missed over the holidays? Maybe your heart is reaching back to the Ghosts of Christmas’ past, lost in the memories (ecstatic or painful) you wish to re-create…or avoid.

Maybe you’re asking yourself right now “My heart? Where’s my heart? Who’s got time to think about something like that?”

If there’s such a thing as a prime time for becoming stressed out, over-extended, and disenchanted, it’s probably the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Love them or hate them, the holidays are intense. Asking yourself Where is my heart? may just be the most important thing you can do this year to hold on to your sanity and actually appreciate the holidays.

Because Christmas isn’t really about presents. It’s more about Presence. And being present is about being in your heart. Appreciating exactly what’s right here, right now. It really doesn’t matter what the circumstance is - even some of the suckiest situations, when viewed from a state of heart-felt presence, have their own beauty and grace. Really!

So, I’m encouraging you to open your Christmas Presence early this year. Early and often.

But, you ask, how can I become present when I'm in the thick of it? What can I do??

When you feel yourself spinning out with all that needs to be done, notice what it feels like in your body. Stop - even just for a moment - and breathe. In that stolen moment lies presence, and in presence lies choice. What can you do later, or delegate? Does it all really have to be done? Why are you doing it? And, maybe just take a break!

If you’re feeling the loss of a loved one, grieving their absence and knowing that Christmas will never be the same without them, notice the feeling. Then Stop - even just for a moment - and breathe. In that stolen moment lies presence, and in presence lies choice. Maybe there’s a way to honor those feelings of loss, and all the Christmases you spent with your loved one. What is needed? Maybe it's time to create new rituals to celebrate in a completely different way.

Notice when your mind wanders into the world of Christmas Past, and Stop - even just for a moment - and breathe. In that stolen moment lies presence, and in presence lies choice. Feel the memory, let it wash over you, and let it go. Ask yourself what is needed to create a meaningful Christmas in this time, right here, right now. You will never re-create an experience from the past. Not really. And when we try, we rob ourselves of the present.

You'll notice a common theme here: Stop. Breathe. Make a choice. That's really all there is to it. When we step into the present moment, we are at choice to create exactly the experience we want to create. I know it doesn't feel that way - it may not even feel possible! But I encourage you to try it. Even the smallest amount of presence can shift your experience of life a lot.

I'm wishing you a beautiful holiday season, filled with love and appreciation for this incredible life we are living.

Heart image credit to vectorarts.net

The Eye of the Storm

Have you noticed that life is running at high speed these days? Not just the small stuff, the everyday busyness we all face of work and family and mowing the lawn, and keeping the house at least mostly clean. No, I'm talking about the big stuff, too. Off the top of my head, I can think of five people in my immediate circle of family and friends recently diagnosed with or dying from cancer - ranging in age from 31 to 85. People are being asked to work harder and longer hours at their jobs. The TV news is filled with horror stories of mass shootings, missing or murdered women, wars on the verge, foiled terrorist plots, economic crisis narrowly averted...this all swirls around us like a hurricane in motion, threatening to pull us into a chaotic mess of fear and despair. I hear people talking about feeling as if they are spinning, sometimes out of control, in their lives. Do you sometimes feel like that? Flying around from one thing to another, always just a little bit late, rushed, and harried?

Years ago, a teacher I studied with by the name of Nadia Eagles, spoke words along these lines: What we notice directly determines what we miss. So, what does that mean? It's simple, right? When things get tough, just focus on something else? Well, that's a fine thought. I'm thinking it'll be pretty hard not to notice my friends and family with cancer. I'm pretty sure that's not what she meant.

She was not talking about ignoring what goes on around us. In fact, she was talking about exactly the opposite of ignoring what goes on around us. She spoke of noticing it all. Every bit of it. The moment we notice a feeling and label it as "bad," we completely miss any other aspects of that experience. Feelings are not usually one-dimensional. They are rich, and subtle, and often multi-layered. Even the most intense and painful feelings quite often bring us to a new understanding on some level. 

What if we broadened our view, and really learned to see life's experiences as simply that - Life's Experiences. What if we noticed everything about each experience we have - and our feelings related to it?

I've been a nurse for 30 years, and have worked with patients and their families in all phases of life. I helped bring new life into the world for hundreds of happy and excited families. I've also helped women through the tragedy of delivering a stillborn baby. I've been there for unexpected, traumatic deaths, and equally unexpected miraculous recoveries; for long, drawn-out "life support" used on dying patients, and for transitions from life that were filled with unspeakable grace. Some of these folks were only able to see the "bad" in their situations. However, there were many who live in my memory today because they were so present with what they were experiencing. They found beauty in the most difficult of times. Their lives were enriched because they were open to the truth of what was happening to them.

What I know to be true is that this life is made up of millions of different kinds of experiences. We, as humans, have emotional range that is vast. Whether we label our experiences and emotions as good, bad, or ugly fundamentally doesn't matter a bit. We're going to have them. It is simply life in action, and if we can find a way to show up for ALL of it, then we can discover beauty in literally any situation. Yes, I did say any.

So, all of that said - what does it mean to show up for these experiences? How do we become present to all aspects life? Another great teacher I've had the fortune of studying with, Wind Eagle, teaches how to become open to the stillness. This is a powerful practice, and with some conscious intention, you can build the skill to drop into the stillness any time, any place, under any circumstances. Really! All you need is your body and your breath. Any you have both of these along with you, no matter where you go.

It's like finding the eye of the hurricane. Sure, the wind is whipping around you, blowing everything and everybody in its path all over the place. However, at the center of every hurricane is the eye. The still place. No wind. No chaos. Just stillness. 

When centered in that eye, nothing can blow you off course. Nature provides us with a beautiful teaching here, right? What if we were able to stay in the eye of our personal hurricane - able to see all that is going on, a 360-degree view? Able to take it all in. And because you're tethered to the quiet place that lives inside of you, you're not sucked into it.

Hurricane photo credit - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

How do you find this quiet place? And how do you hang onto it when the fur starts flying?

One of the most easy and effective ways is to start building bridges in your heart and your mind to times when you had peak experiences of happiness, peace, calm, and connection with the very core of yourself. Sometimes people experience this when they are in nature, or in church, or while they are creating some item of beauty. Remember vividly what this experience felt like. Or, go out and create some new experiences! Focus on really getting the sensations and feelings locked into your body. Like Happy Gilmore said in the movie:  go to your happy place! 

It's when we vividly remember these experiences in our bodies that we can begin to use them as a bridge back to the experience any time or any place. It really is as simple as remembering the state. Imagining the state. It's been said that the body, the emotions, can't tell the difference between a real experience and a vividly imagined experience. We're relying on that idea here.

Then, when you find yourself starting to spin with the hurricane of life, take a deep breath and re-create those physical sensations in your body. Visualize the eye of the hurricane, and go there. Don't under estimate the power of this activity. With practice, you can drop into a state of openness and quiet with just a few breaths. No one needs to know you're doing anything at all. I used this countless times in meetings when it was either that or get up and start banging my head on the wall. Which is almost never a good idea during a business meeting. I've used it when someone was up in my face yelling at me. It works. I promise, if you practice this technique, it works. 

So have fun with it. Create your own little happy-world that you can access whenever you want. It might not take the painful experiences away from your life. Likely won't. But when you live from this strong, quiet core within yourself, you are in a much better position to fully experience whatever life puts in front of you. 

And that, my friends, is the Peace Lane.

Spring Emergenc(y)

I've been struck by the idea of emergence lately...perhaps triggered by the extraordinary, delayed spring here in Minnesota, and my longing for the emergence of the warm sun and some green-ness and flowers. However, I'm thinking it's more about an inner process I’ve been going through over the course of this past year or so. I’ve been deep into figuring out how to express myself from the authentic core of my being (this, apparently, is what can happen when one enters her fifties). Whatever the cause, emergence is up for me. I find myself turning it around and around in my mind and heart, noticing all kinds of ways emergence emerges in each day.

What I'm aware of is the challenge of allowing that comes with emergence. Allowing often means slowing down, listening carefully. Even...gasp...waiting! We (and I mean the collective "we" here) don't like to wait! In our society, it's much more common - and in many ways, more comfortable - to treat everything as if it were an emergenc-y! We want it right now, as soon as we're aware of the desire.

Okay, if I'm going to be honest here, I can replace the "we" in the preceding paragraph with "I." Historically, I've been the one making things happen. Make the plan, work the plan. And what I've seen happen over and over in my life is that I find myself exactly where the plan led me, but realize that it's not really where I want to be at all! So how do I figure out where I want to be??

Recently my friend Molly shared a recording on the topic with me, and it has been turning in me for weeks. The speaker was Derek Rydall, and he did an interview with Kristin Howe from the Manifest Everything Now program. His take on manifestation really spoke to me, and is very much in alignment with what I've learned from my teachers over the years about the flow of energy in this universe. Rydall makes the bold statement that self-improvement is an oxymoron, and that the obsessive drive we have to improve ourselves actually takes us further from true fulfillment and covers up our original perfection - and often leaves us feeling more broken than we were when we began our quest for self-improvement! He claims we are already the thing we're seeking - that we have it all within us, all potential just waiting to be activated by our attention and intention.

Wow. Pretty heady stuff. But is it?

The ancient wisdom traditions I've studied also speak of emergence, although the languaging is somewhat different. Both the Mayan and the Egyptian Huna traditions I've studied teach of the perfection of the human spirit - that we are born with our full potential intact, like a blueprint in the genetic code of our cells. In fact, the word Huna means hidden treasure - that divine kernel of perfection that resides in each of us. In each cell of each one of us. Like the genetic blueprint that makes an acorn into an enormous oak tree, we are programmed to become exactly what and who we are. We don’t find the oak tree taking courses on self improvement, striving to have branches that are as beautiful as all of the other oak trees. In nature, original perfection is simply expressed.

Photo credit link

So if it's all right there inside of me, why can't I just express it already?

Could it be because I, like so many, treat expression like an emergenc-y? Try to make it happen, rather than let it happen? Or because I’ve been on a 25+ year journey of self improvement? Striving to be a better, more slender, more beautiful version of the absolutely amazing, perfect human being that was born 52 years ago?

I am learning to allow life to unfold. And what I'm discovering is that it makes for real, true living. It's much, much easier than forcing things. I have a level of contentment that I have never had before. All of the striving and pushing I used to do left me feeling as if I'd never "get there." What a revelation to see that I'm already there! Every day, I'm already there. 

Photo credit link

 I gotta say, I love my fifties. If that’s what it takes – age, experience, wisdom – to move out of that constant striving for something better, then I’m grateful for this phase of my life.

What is trying to emerge from your genetic blueprint, the soul of your being? How would it feel to just allow life to happen? To know the perfection that is in each day? These are questions worth pondering...

Sing for Your Life

It's Spring!

Right??

Just yesterday morning, I know I saw grass in the yard next door. Now - nearly a foot of snow.

In Spring!

I have been hearing a lot of complaining about the snow, about this long winter - and, yes, I've done a bit of complaining myself. I've also found myself wondering about what Mother Nature is telling us. In the old Wisdom Ways, the people watched, and listened for signs from nature. They received information as to what had come before, and what was yet to come by watching the cycles and seasons of life. So I've been thinking about that, and wondering about this late emergence of spring.

As I shoveled my walk this morning, these thoughts were turning in me - what parts of me are lying dormant like seeds in the frozen ground, huddled deep inside of me, waiting for those "just right" conditions before I feel free to express? Sometimes there is such a powerful yearning in my spirit, a longing to burst forth like the first brave shoots of daffodil, poking through the snow. I looked around, and it occurred to me that no matter how intrepid the daffodil, there was no way those shoots would find the sun today. The conditions are not right. No matter if we think daffodils should bloom in April or not, the cycle of this winter season is not complete.

Photo credit emiline at Flikr

Is this true of my own inner yearnings? I am an Aries woman, always on the go, always ready to get out there and make things happen. In many ways, this trait has served me well. But the deep, inner parts of me don't respond to that type of push. I remember when I was a little girl, I was doing a science experiment for school that involved planting seeds and documenting their growth. My little Aries self was certain I could make them grow faster - I made a little slit in the seed and gently pried it open before I put it into the earth. Even back then, I felt this urgency for emergence.

Now, at age 52, I'm finding myself working more with allowing things to emerge in their own time. Trusting that I am living, expressing, emerging in perfect timing each day. Taking care of myself, creating the right conditions - and, sometimes that means waiting for the right conditions. Waiting for the season to turn.

My mind was busy as my shovel worked the piles of snow. And then I heard it. Across the hush of the snow, the unmistakable song of a cardinal.

Photo credit: quietly me at Flikr

Bright and cheerful, cutting through the silence, filled with the pure joy of expression. The song of life. The sound of it - the energy of it - filled my heart with so much happiness. I looked around me and saw the beauty of the snow. I know, I'm hearing a collective groan from all the Minnesotans reading this - but I really did see the beauty. The peaceful quiet. The joyful expression of life.

So, my learning in this morning's shoveling exercise is this: we've got to sing for our life every moment of every day! The conditions are what the conditions are; what is emerging is what is emerging. But my song - nothing can keep my from singing my song of life. If the cardinals can sing with such pure abandon in spite of the cold and snow, so can I!

What form does your song of life take on this day? Maybe it's the smile you sent to the crabby waitress at breakfast. Maybe you reach out and call someone you haven't spoken to for awhile. Maybe you turn up the music loud and sing along to your favorite song - just because you can. Whatever the form, sing out loud, sing for your life!

Making a Lane Change

photo credit: Håkan Dahlström via photopin.com

Do you ever feel like this? Sort of off-kilter, knocked off your foundation, like you've "lost your moorings?"

For whatever reason, I've felt a bit off balance over the past couple of weeks. I've spoken with many others who have been feeling the same way. Is it the change of season? Here in Minnesota, we tend to blame almost everything on the changing seasons...or perhaps it's a disturbance in the force, a la Star Wars? The alignment of the stars? Whatever the reason, it's here. And it's disturbing. It feels like nothing is quite right.

The other day, in the course of just an hour or so, I made a series of phone calls from my "To Do" list. One call after the other felt like a roadblock. I got several No's to requests I made, then got cut off a couple times when I was placed on hold....my tension level was climbing. Normally I'm able to just let it go, move on to something else, it's no big deal. But because I've been in that off-kilter place, I was having hard time getting letting it go. It felt as if the door slammed shut on each path I ventured down.. You know the feeling, right?

For me, it starts as a tight feeling in my chest, then it'll move down to my gut, and if left unchecked, soon it feels like I've got a tiger inside of me that's going to explode out of my throat and take out the next person who tells me NO!

Definitely not the Peace Lane!

What's a gal to do when the obstacles are being thrown in front of you, when nothing feels right, when you've got a proverbial tiger in your tank?

Photo credit freefoto.com

I stopped. I stepped away from the desk, put down the phone. Looked out the window, watched the birds happily flitting around my bird feeder. Walked around outside (in our "spring-like" 40 degree weather). I breathed. I chuckled a bit at the rapid-fire succession of signs that life gave me telling me it was time to stop. With just that little bit of distance and focused attention on how I was feeling, it became easy for me to see the path forward. I was able to go back to my desk, pick up a project that I wanted to work on, and enjoy what I was doing. Sometimes, you just gotta step away from the "To Do" list.

My point is: even when we're feeling knocked off our foundation, just becoming aware of the state can prevent a serious spin-out into crazy, hair-pulling, blood pressure raising hell. There's a part of me that has always associated this awareness, or mindfulness as some would call it, with the image of a blissed out meditator sitting in lotus position chanting OM. This is not how most of us live our lives! What I've come to learn is that mindfulness of whatever state you're currently in can really change that state. 

So when you feel yourself start that tension spiral, STOP. Take a two-minute break. Even if you have to pretend it's a two-minute potty break in order to get away, step away from what you're doing. If you can be outdoors or even see outdoors, do it. Breathe. Pay attention to what you're feeling. Notice how you're holding tension in your body. Breathe some more.

It's not about trying to figure out what happened or what to do - it's about being completely present with what you're feeling. Sometimes just acknowledging it can shift you into a quieter state.

Think of it as changing lanes.

There are lots of techniques you can use to release tension. Some people breathe out tension as they exhale. Some visualize the tension melting away. Some folks feel better after a quick walk, or jumping up and down, or screaming into a pillow. No matter what technique you use, it starts with STOPPING and becoming present with what you're feeling. Sometimes, that's all the technique you need.