Who's Your Puppet? Who's Puppet Are You? That is the Question.

Day 35 of  108 Days of intense self-study of my Life Play. I'm not rating it yet, but I'm guessing it's probably rated about the same as everyone else's at certain times of their lives and so, I think we can all relate.


I'm on Chapter 6 of The Bhagavad Gita and it is as if each chapter follows the lessons my life is offering me for growth in any given week.  The following is my self study challenge this week inspired by the Gita.


A short summery of chapter six as it resonates with me: Through Meditation one learns to calm an agitated mind in order to keep outside experiences from swaying us from knowing ourselves completely and loving ourselves fully. When we truly know and love ourselves, we are no longer bothered by other people's view of who they think we are AND we no longer try and fit people into roles we want them to play in our story of life because we no longer live in a story of illusion, but rather in a story of truth, seeing all sentient beings as sparks of the Divine and having equal regard for all, be they elephants, rats, Saintly beings or the worst kind of criminal. We also learn not to be elated by good fortune or depressed by the bad, rather, looking inward towards self realization and seeing those same qualities in others.  

The Great Illusion: All The World's A Stage.....

You can build a stage in your mind and you can assign roles to the people you interact with, who then become actors in your life, rather than allowing them to be the beautiful imperfectly perfect beings they are with their own views and experiences. You can put words in their mouths and create experiences for them that aren't even true without them knowing it.  You can do this all without their permission, but you can not, without their permission make them do or be anything that they do not agree to. If we take the time to know ourselves, we can no longer be played by someone with ill intentions and what once was a person administering a mind-fuck is now seen as a person suffering more than you are.  You can then choose to offer compassion and understanding while refusing to play dress rehearsal with them.


No thank you. I don't like that outfit you picked out for me, it doesn't fit. Those aren't my shoes to fill.


No thank you. I really don't need to create more Drama in my life to feel interesting and to be entertained.


No thank you. I don't have to buy into your script to "see" or "hear" you; we can agree to disagree and I can love you just the same.


No thank you. I won't re-wind and replay those negative words you said about me in my mind because I've checked and they do not resonate within my sacred mind-space.

No thank you. I don't think I will stay in this chapter anymore and our contract is over until a sequel that resonates more harmoniously for us both is written.



But, yes, thank you for allowing me the freedom to be myself. Thank you for telling me I don't need to play by your rules or become something I am not to please you and you do not need to change to please me.  I am pleased by you already because I truly see you, I truly hear you, because within you, I see me and I am not afraid to take a good, close, look because I am my own Stage Manager and I happen to know the story I'm writing has a happy ending. I wish the same for you too.

I Chose Meditation Over Whiskey! *High Fiver to Me*

I'm now into Day 17 of my 108 Days of Svadhyaya (Self-Study).


I've been learning a lot and it's nothing like I thought it would be, not in the feelings I have or in the methods I have actually embraced. I'm going to choose one subject of the 108 Day journey I am surprised about. 


 : BRAG ALERT: This is a very monumental accomplishment for me. 



I've practiced yoga almost 20 years and have tried and tried to practice meditation in a way that made me crave it. After trying dozens of methods of meditation, Tratak meditation (candle gazing) has been my meditation of choice until a good friend of mine I met via Facebook offered me a 15 minute meditation consisting of pranayama, visualizations, chanting, self-inquiry, and dedication of offering. This has been the PERFECT meditation for me. This is keeping my anxiety in check and the levels of anxiety I feel are much lower AND I feel more connected to my purest self and the world as a whole. While there are many more topics I could write about in this Blog today, one thing I KNOW about this moment, is I have 20 minutes to write this, no more than that and that is enough and THAT is what meditation is teaching me.

 Through this new meditation method I have realized I am attached to negative labels *shudders*, labels that I tell everyone else to reject. "Refrain from negatively labeling yourself, you will become dependant on it," I often say. It turns out I have been attached to my label as a person with anxiety AND have spoken openly about my Cracked Out Monkey Mind that I feel gives me spunk and helps me accomplish my many projects (with a smile on my face). I am happy to announce I've not been feeding my monkey crack anymore and I still have spunk....spunk with clarity....and I'm getting more accomplished now than I ever thought possible...with less mistakes even......and my smile is almost so ridiculous it could be on a Orbit Gum commercial with sparks of stars flying off my teeth it's so bright.


So, I am detaching myself from these labels that no longer serve me. I am changing my Labeling of Cracked Out Monkey Mind with Anxiety and am now calling myself a Serious Meditator in recovery from anxiety. I knew my new label was working when I had an exceptionally challenging day a few days ago and wanted a quick fix of  Wild Turkey 101 and Coke Zero so I could relax while I was cooking dinner for my family. Instead, I put down the chopping knife mid-bell pepper, went to my Sun Room and practiced meditation. I craved it. In that moment I KNEW I had become a consistent Meditator (with a capital M).

So, naturally, the first thing I did was create my meditation space and I documented it with a couple of photos. I have had a chair in my Sun Room for a couple of years with stuff piled on top of it (the stuff changes) and so, I dusted it off, fluffed the cushions and sat down to begin dusting off my mind. It's a beautiful journey and my 20 minutes is up. Enjoy the before and after pictures of where it all happens. I wish I could show you a picture of my brain activity also, it's probably all Zen like with only a few cobwebs here and there. So in-love with this journey. 

BEFORE

AFTER

Rebirth and Renewel: Sa Ta Na Ma

My blog has been neglected, but this is my personal space and it misses me, or rather, I miss it. After writing the last entry in September, I ended up going through some shifts in my life, wringing me out and catapulting me so far and so quickly I feel I've lived many lifetimes since. 
 
Today is Easter and I found myself in some nostalgic moments, beginning last night when my son refused to decorate eggs with us (sniff) and then this morning when some music from my college days came blaring through my speakers reminding me of those days I lived for everyone else's vision of who I should be.  How I have changed since then and how many more (sniffs) will I have as I watch my children grow and change.
Easter and Spring encourage the feelings of optimism, inspiration, and growth.  For growth to occur, change must take place, when something changes, something else must cease to exist as we know it.  We often fear change, but without change, we aren’t living. 
 
It’s simple to grasp concrete objects such as eggs bringing forth new life or seeds manifesting new growth and even still, the birth or death of an animal or human being, but what about those things we cannot see, but feel? The cycle of life consists of many deaths and rebirths within a single incarnation as life brings us experiences.
In this life I have lived many and the person I was  just 5 years ago, while at the soul level is still the same, I am now someone I could have never imagined myself “growing” into. The growth I have experienced came from the death of dreams I had with tumultuous relationships, failed goals, and embarrassing mistakes. At the time the pain and suffering of these events were not welcome, but now I view these things as the fuel behind the person I am today and I love who I am today even more because I went through all of these things and never lost the sense of my truest essence.
 
While I have experienced and continue to experience many deaths and rebirths, the most notable came for me when I was married and then divorced within two years. Madly in-love, I married a man when I was in my early 20’s who was an emotionally abusive addict, someone suffering on such a deep level that it brought out every part of me that had been suffering silently from past trauma for years. I never knew I could be so hateful, fearful, and desperate.   He isolated me from my family and friends the best he could, literally telling me to run from him, yet leaving me no way out. I remember one early morning, after one of his drunken episodes and night out with other women, I had locked myself in the bathroom, afraid of what he might do, having already thrown up from his insults, when I realized I was either going to die or this stage of my life had to be over. No matter how much he was suffering, I could not complete this cycle of karma for him or myself if I stayed.  It was time for this dream to die and a new life to be born and so it began. It was a painful death, but one that eventually led me to where I am today. The people I know, the career I have, my current husband and children, I experience because I moved to Texas when I married him. What a wonderful gift he gave me.  From the birth and eventual death of that marriage, came many births and deaths, and more continue still and for each of them I am grateful.
 
As I watch people go through this cycle I realize how necessary it is and I hope they may be as blessed as I have been in understanding it is all a part of our growth process. Life is not made better up on the mountain top, but in the deep valleys where we have the choice to either give up or come face to face with our true grit and move on to that next chapter.
 
One of the first Chants I ever practiced is Sa Ta Na Ma.  The Sa Ta Na Ma Kriya Meditation is used to embrace and celebrate the cycle of Life, Death, Birth, and Rebirth. When we can accept and embrace that change is the only constant and that we are here to evolve and grow, each death we experience becomes a little less painful than the last and each birth comes a little bit easier than the one before.

Sa Ta Na Ma: The Five Primal Sounds
Each Sound Evokes a Feeling:
Sa: Expansion
Ta: Transformation
Na: Universal Love
Ma: Communicativeness

Each Sound Represents The Eternal Cycle of Life:

Sa: Birth
Ta: Life
Na: Death
Ma: Rebirth

For Each Sound You Use a Hand Mudra:
Sa: Thumb to Index  Finger = Gyan Mudra
Ta: Thumb to Middle Finger = Akash Mudra
Na: Thumb to Ring Finger = Prithvi Mudra     
Ma: Thumb to Pinky Finger= Varun Mudra

The Meditation Practice:
Yogi Bhajan once said that if there is any meditation you practice, let this be the one.
Combine each mudra with it’s sound repeating each 3 times out loud, 3 times whispering, 3 times silently, 3 times whispering, 3 times out loud. As you progress, you may then practice this for 11 minutes, then work towards 31!

Embrace the Cycle!

Changing My View

 

When the same situations that cause us suffering occur again and again and we have exhausted all options of changing these types of situations with our current view and/or methods, the only thing to do is change our view and quite possibly, set ourselves free.

I have been a grasper, a person afraid of abandonment, and a dependent on outside appreciation to feel self worth. I have held fast to my ideals, believing my way is the "right" way because I come from love with well wishes for the greater good. I have made others wrong, so I could be right. I have tried helping others, but in some cases have only held them back with my intrusion, not trusting in the natural flow of the Universe.  Each and every time, I have been the cause of my own suffering.

I am making a vow to change my view and have been prescribed by my teacher to meditate more, retreat a couple of times per year, and learn to let go and let flow, narrowing the gap of no return on my negative emotions. To do this, means I will have more energy to do what I love most in the world, which is help people.

Of course, I knew all of this all long; I just needed to hit a personal bottom so the magic could begin to happen. I am now ready to do the work. 

When people see some things as beautiful,

other things become ugly.

When people see some things as good,

other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.

Difficult and easy support each other.

Long and short define each other.

High and low depend on each other.

Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master

acts without doing anything

and teaches without saying anything.

Things arise and she lets them come;

things disappear and she lets them go.

She has but doesn't possess,

acts but doesn't expect.

When her work is done, she forgets it.

That is why it lasts forever. ~Tao Te Ching

Best Thing I Bought in 2009 (Space for Alone Time)

A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them. ~ Liberty Hyde Bailey

I find peace surrounded by plants and trees. My entire life I have gravitated towards sun rooms and since the days of my 1st apartment, have wanted a sun room, a space for myself and all of my beloved plants. This year, we built one onto the house and I have just started to move into it. Even though it's only half way moved into, I feel comforted in this space. My sun room feels like a cabin with cedar on the walls, plants lining the windows, and wind chimes moving with the wind outside. This is my own personal heaven.

My in-laws have a sun room and every time I visit I curl up on the wicker love seat and take a nap. I don't typically nap, but the plants combined with the warmth of the sun somehow give me the permission to let go. During this year's Thanksgiving visit, my six year old daughter found her way into my in-laws sun room and curled up on the wicker sofa. Shortly after she was comfortable, my son walked in and sat down across from her, taking it all in. Suddenly my daughter yelled out,"This is MY alone time, you need to leave!"

This is EXACTLY how I feel when someone steps foot into my sun room. I will share it, however, even though I don't want to. I think my entire family feels the peace radiating from the plants and I am pretty certain the plants enjoy my daughter's singing, my son's silly jokes, and my husbands abundance of awesomeness, but I still must have my alone time. We all need alone time.

When I do have my sun room to myself, this is the perfect space for mindful meditation, beginning with a pranayama practice, followed by focusing on one plant or the sway of a wind chime outside of one of the windows. My favorite pranayama to practice before meditation is Nadhi Sodhana. The object I focus on depends on what catches my eye first and the length of the meditation depends on the circumstances of the day. My hope is that this gift I bought myself this year will turn into a more regular meditation practice from here on out. I'm pretty sure a regular meditation practice is going on my list of things to accomplish in 2010.

Namaste'