Love on Everything

When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep...

~ Kahlil Gibran

Only a few people know that I have been on a hard-core, take-no-prisoners mission for most of my life: to find peace, to experience deep and lasting happiness, and to live and love without fear.

Sounds kind of noble – but I assure you that it is not. It grew out of an intense longing to feel less uncomfortable, less scared, and less out of sorts in my own skin. Most of my movement in life, in fact, has been an attempt to navigate around an unseen, mysterious and truly undefinable fear.

Gratefully, there is a lot of motivation in discomfort. I have read countless books on the subjects of happiness, spirituality, and love. I have tried therapy, church, meditation, prayer, EFT, running, writing, ayurvedic herbs, and briefly, anti-anxiety medicine…all in attempts to meet the day with some semblance of grace.

You see, slaying the dragon of fear is an exhausting and never-ending job. Keeping the things you silently fear from actually happening?  This takes an unimaginable force of vigilance.

The only problem is – it doesn't actually work.

And it isn't truly living.

Ironically, relief finally came when I stopped making part of my Self the problem. I stopped looking at my own fear as the enemy. I began a new practice. When fear showed up, I called on the most nurturing internal voice I could muster, and it whispered back:  “I know baby… I know. I see you. I’ve got you. It’s OK.”  This voice (I like to call it Love) gives me the freedom to feel the feeling, and somehow let Love have at it.

And then I sing a mantra. I distract my mind from whatever it thinks is real at the moment and I give it something beautiful to latch onto.

In this way, my fear - which was really just strong emotion that I didn't want to look at - began to show me things; when I was uncomfortable, when I needed to shift directions… or simply change a thought. It showed me I still had memories to let go of, and that I needed to change my diet and to take up a lasting daily yoga practice. It showed me it was time for a new job and an extended trip abroad.

Imagine the surprise and relief to see that the dragon was nothing more than a puppet show on the wall. By simply turning the light in the other direction, the world actually lit up around me.

Kundalini yoga has been integral to adjusting my nervous system and strengthening my ability to see the world differently. The practice, mantra and discipline have been catalysts for positive change in my life, and are the key ingredients to a secret sauce I could never give up. But I know this won't be the recipe for everyone.

Happiness, however, is. And the real trick is in listening to and trusting that your own feelings will lead you to where you need to be. It is in believing that the Universe truly will take care of you – if you quit your job, follow a long-held dream or a fresh intuition, move on from a relationship, or even, just maybe, allow that part of you that you have never accepted, to live peacefully within you.

We each are whole and complete – nothing extra added. So love on all of it; the good and the so-called-bad. Then perhaps the true magic show will begin to show up and dance on all the walls around us.

Always in Love.

b.

Today Is the Day

“I always knew that one day I would take this road,

But yesterday, I did not know that today would be the day”

Nagarjuna

Some say there is a journey in each of us. Maybe we are simply the outpouring of some higher power’s journey – like the brilliant video game designer that says, “Let’s see what happens when we try THIS…” then simply lets go.

I believe we do have journeys within us – which began long ago; perhaps many lifetimes. What I do not know (yet) is what my particular journey is. And in the last year of my fourth decade on this planet – and for those of you not counting on your hand – that would actually be my 30s, not 40s, thank you very much – I wonder sometimes if I shouldn’t know by now.

I have many friends whose journeys have taken them into the breathtakingly humbling and beautiful world of parenthood and family and the sweet giving over to another’s needs before their own. Other friends have devoted themselves to a single cause – healthcare, building a school in Africa, the creative process, teaching, and the list of course goes on and on.

Throughout my life, I often perceived some new “destination” held the answer. I moved around a lot.  And I changed jobs a lot. I also dabbled in many religions and spiritual practices, spinning a simplified amalgamation that continues to bubble and stew. Lately, Kundalini Yoga breathed and stretched and powered its way generously into this little hotdish.  

Today, I feel more peaceful than ever – without the desire to change anything except the part of me that thinks that the answer, the destination, the road I must be on, is out there.  The whole journey has been happening within all this time.  A great forgiveness was necessary. A great acceptance is still in progress.  And an even greater and grander “letting go” is my secret and ultimate wish.

In nature, we see the utter fluidity and freedom of movement in birds and fish, or the flexible, mutable strength of plant-life. And in human nature, it is there too, in those few amazing souls who allow everything to just be - trusting that all is well, despite the melee others may be viewing in the same scene. The gorgeous result in all of these instances is that they flow, they glide and they get in the very groove with God in some sort of creative mash-up. 

Whether through meditation and breath work, prayer, or simple all-encompassing love - it can happen. We find that there is something beautiful to appreciate in every circumstance, every so-called “problem.” As humans, we have that extra cognitive capability to take complete ownership of our thoughts and what those thoughts are creating around us. And perhaps it is only Grace that allows us to release it back into the flow.

It is this grace I wish for myself. And it is this grace I wish for you today.

All my love,

b.