5/23/18 - bones in my foot reinforced and replaced with hardware.
6/21/18 - total hip replacement
6/22/18 - learning how to walk again
I know to say that my yoga is helping me to walk again may seem like an oversimplification of things. But it’s true.
Yoga has always helped me to get back on my feet both figuratively and literally.
When my sons father was murdered over 20 years ago it was the breath that I learned in pranayama yoga that allowed me to stand upright and not feel as if the ground under me would never be back.
When I lost my job and suffered public humiliation and I felt my knees buckle I turned to my meditation practice to begin to see myself and my worth again.
In 2012 when my weight skyrocketed to 283lbs and my doctors said I...
When I was a little girl, I sung in the choir of my church. I loved singing. I never wanted a solo. But I loved singing. Until one day, a older girl, leaned over and said, "your singing out of key!" I recoiled. Only a little at first and then I tried to listen to all the voices around me. I sang out again. She gave a sigh a disapproval. The next Sunday, when it was time to sing in the choir, I pretended to be sick and I held that as my story for years.
Its difficult to be a voice within the many voices that are always rising up. It's hard to be a different voice in the midst of people that choose to follow status quo and not trust the inner workings of their uniqueness. It was at least a t...
Over the last two weeks Eric and I have been on vacation enjoying the sights, sounds and people of Colorado and Arizona. We have hiked, watched (not directly mind you) an eclipse, sat under the stars and moon and even the looming clouds of a monsoon.
During that time I have had the opportunity to see the sky clearer than I ever have I believe. From being anywhere from 8,000 to 1300 elevation I felt I could touch the heavens.
One night while outside and meditating I remember the opening my eyes to folk-like music playing somewhere there in Telleride and I started thinking of the nursery rhyme:
"Hey diddle diddle. The cat and the fiddle. And the cow jumped over the moon."
I laughed to myself and wondered where and why my min...
The frenzy around the eclips has taken hold of folks in Oaray Colorado and all across the US. Posts on where to get your glasses to look safely at the sun to disappointment of not enough black out for their taste and even a woman who was going to lay naked to eclipse bathe. This phenomenon that some have never experienced in their lifetime has brought people to a standstill if only for the two minutes of the peakeclipse.
I was also excited to find a spot to sit and take it all in. It's surprising how 85% of the sun being blocked by the moon still is considerably light and no zombie apocalypse didn't ensue. But what was surprising for me was how incredibly still I got not only for that moment but for the day and I w...
It's 98 degrees.
It's 98 degrees and it's 7:30 a.m.
It's 98 degrees and it's 7:30 a.m. and I'm hiking in Arizona.
And the temperature is rising.
Everything is dry.
The earth looks like its craving a drink. The brittleness of each step is heard as I walk through the rock and sand of the path. The quail run across my path as if the hot dirt causes them to move faster looking for shade.
As I look at my phone I realize at 8:15 it's is now 102 degrees and I feel the dryness in my bones and my mouth and I'm thirsting for water so I pause and take a drink. In that moment I hear the sounds of what has created their home in this treacherous heat and how they have adapted. I find a rock and I pause.
I take a mom...
I have seen this statement as a bumper sticker over the years. The other day while having lunch at Red Fern with a friend I saw it again drive right past me again, while I sat having verbal vomit about a host of nonsense. In that split second, it hit me.
Crap! My ego got me again.
As I sat and had lunch and complained about my bodies aging breast or aching hips.
Or rants about ridiculous drivers or raging tweets from narcissistic individuals. I stopped in that moment and reflected back on how loudly my ego was screaming at me to separate myself from others and judge them. Even, how my ego invited me to judge my own body and to judge what I perceived to be wrong in others. So, as we sat in the outside portion...
Yesterday while at a training that I am in, two of my peers became very sick. It was evident that they shared in the same food or drink that caused a reaction in their body that floored them. As we hovered over them, through the act of sending love and healing, it was clear that going home was what was for the best so that they could recover.
Sometimes going home, that place of our center is where we heal.
In my morning meditation I have different "rituals" but one of them is I pull from a "mind-training" deck that is full of slogans that help in the training of being of service and loving kindness. As it would be today, the slogan the I picked was...
ABANDON POISONOUS FOOD
Well, duh! My ego screamed at first.
Then, I said to mysel...
I have always struggled with identity and worth.
That sentence is hard for me to say out loud. For a preacher and yogi that guides others into understanding of their own identity and worth to have that struggle is humbling and also filled with shame. The humbling part is easy to grapple with. At least for me. I have no problem articulating an area that causes me to pause in my own humanity and ego. However, it is more difficult for me when it is coupled with shame. Why? Because shame is the underbelly of fear.
Shame makes me cover up. Because of fear.
Shame makes me hide. Because of fear
Shame makes me to play small. Because of fear
Shame makes me blame. Because of fear.
Shame makes me feel...
Wake to Love
Yoga isn't just a practice, it's a way of life