“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” ~ Buddha

On Sunday our beautiful cat Grace died. She was such a bright light in our house. She had a sweet, dainty face, a big voice and an even bigger attitude. She trained us very well in the almost 16 years we have shared a house.

She was an early bird like me and we did pretty much the same things together most mornings. Grace liked to be fed around four a.m. followed by a specific brushing routine (just her head, chops and spine to the end of her tail). Some mornings she would tolerate (barely) if I slept in until five. She would meow and hit her paws against the half french doors near her food dish to announce she was ready for me to come to the kitchen or she would announce herself in the bedroom with loud meows and start knocking things over on purpose. Sometimes if I went into the bathroom first or poured a glass of water before getting her food in her dish, I’d receive a nip on the calf as if to say, ‘umm, the food is what we do first.’ She was big on bossy but also big on a routine that required she snuggled into my legs and purr on my meditation cushion with me after she’d eaten and been brushed.

This week there is a huge gap in my mornings. I miss her. I can feel my clinging to how things have been.

On the weekend, she transitioned from acting ‘off’ to being very ill. Overnight on Saturday she was hardly moving. I was up with her like I have been up with my daughter when she hasn’t felt well. I slept little but later felt guilty that I slept at all knowing it was the last opportunity I had to make sure she felt loved. In the final hours, before we took her for emergency vet care, I began to realize we would likely have to let her go. I loved her. I love her. Letting go is difficult.

Death can be a wonderful teacher. I am aware of how much I have felt inclined to deny the present by replaying the past. I am sadly aware that future mornings will be different. I am aware that love exists in the present and physical presence of a beloved isn’t a requirement.

Death is also a wonderful teacher because the conversations at my house the last few days have been so valuable. I have watched my own words about guilt over not doing enough be received by my daughter and realized that is not the role model I want to be. We are all enough because we do our best in the moment with the information, skills and resources we have. ‘Not enough’ doesn’t live in the present moment and can be destructive when we drag it into the future. As a family, we have spoken about the permanence of physical death and the choices we have: to live in gratitude that we shared our lives with another being, to be with grief when it arises without pushing away opportunities for joy.

The death of anything in your life (broken relationships, roles you have played that are no longer required, a job you have lost or a dream unfulfilled) brings with it incredible opportunities for looking inward at your relationship with yourself. Practice with yourself to love, to live gently and to let go. This can only happen in the present moment.

Where do you spend most of your time? If your gaze is stuck in the memories of the past or projected into the future, you are missing the sunshine right outside your window? You are missing the opportunities to truly live and to become someone else’s sunshine so they might find enough warmth to look inward too.

“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” ~ Buddha

“‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” ~ Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

I used to teach yoga classes at a local Montessori pre-school. The kids were between the ages of three to five years old. There were lots of things I loved about doing this: high energy and silliness was a requirement, the kids were fun and always made me laugh so much and they also were constantly teaching me what it means to be authentic and how early many of us are trained to be someone other than who we are.

Are you a people-pleaser?

Acting ‘nice’ is generally rewarded. If you become adept at pleasing others you are likely to create more social connections than those who constantly rock the boat. Nice is nice to be around but nice also has a not-so-nice side. Nice can stand in the way of acting in accordance to your values. Nice can render you immobile when action is best for all involved. Nice can stand in the way of healthy behaviours and growth. ‘Nice’ is also not the same thing as being kind or being honest. Acting nice often comes at the cost of being authentic; aligning what you do with who you are.

Speak Your Truth: Is it true? Is it Kind? Is it Necessary?

In certain circles, ‘speaking your truth’ has become a common phrase. It is often used as a counter behaviour to all the over-the-top people-pleasing. I have struggled with regarding this as a useful practice. I have sat around more than my share of healing circles where ‘speaking your truth’ was anything but healing. Instead it seemed more like a green light for poor behaviour; a way to cling to old stories, an excuse for being in judgement of others and the world, a way of talking the talk without walking it. How can that possibly serve anyone well?

Here’s what I have come to believe: speaking your truth is part of the path toward authenticity and becomes particularly valuable when grounded using the wisdom of the sensations in your body. Get in the habit of using sensations in your body as your sounding board. When you do or say something, how does it feel? Your body doesn’t lie. Does it feel true? Kind? Necessary? Does your body retract when you gossip or ignore your own needs? Pay attention. How does it feel when you honestly sing someone’s praises and support their dreams? How does it feel when you do the same for yourself? Does your body sing and bloom too?

Try it for yourself. Speak and live your truth to become real. Alienating yourself from yourself has repercussions. Start now. Practice your way into an authentic life that you love. I’m trying my best to walk that path too.

“Sometimes the greatest miracle is being able to face exactly where you’re at and say: This is where I am, no running, no hiding. There is gold for me here and I intend to find it, no matter what.” ~ Unknown

When I was pregnant there was a certain point about mid-way through the pregnancy that for some reason a light went off for me and I actually recall thinking with alarm, “I’m really doing this.” There was no U-turn that I could see ahead which was absolutely okay but still it was a moment of really knowing ‘there is no going back’, no running or hiding. I was becoming a mother and that was for life.

What happens though when you still can make the U-turn but know it isn’t in your best interest?

The pull of the past or a draw toward a better future is so seductive sometimes that we might forget that power is always in the present moment. It isn’t necessarily easy but it is possible to make a plan for where you are headed by using your past experiences as a guide while you consciously act from exactly where you are.

Figure out small ways to flex your muscle of presence. Maybe it is through more formal practices like yoga and meditation but maybe it’s not. Your practice might be to actively listen when your spouse speaks. It might be to resist the pull of checking email during certain times of the day with no exceptions. It might be to wash the dishes with the intention of being there for every movement. It might be to watch your breath one minute for every hour of your work day.

The want-to-be-present that lives inside your daily practice will ebb and flow. Do it anyway. Some days there will be gold. Other days you’ll act like a baby about it. Sometimes I will catch the voice inside my head negotiating out of the last ten minutes of meditation or while I’m doing a standing yoga series I’m enjoying my inner voice might already be opting out of inversions or backbends. Decide on the practice and then live up to it AND actually be there for it.

Maybe then, when it comes to the bigger things; the disappointments, the heart breaks, the devastating losses, maybe then you will have the courage and tenacity to stay the course even when all you long to do is make a U-turn.

“Busyness is the greatest distraction from living, as we coast through our lives day after day, showing up for our obligations but mostly being absent from ourselves, mistaking the doing for being.” ~ Maria Popova

During the first lockdown last spring I found myself moving between what I would describe as intense restlessness and lots of doing alongside a grateful (albeit sometimes reluctant) awareness of being. Time suddenly appeared more on my side than ever before. There was no travel time anywhere, my husband also began working from home and helped more often with weekday meals, I didn’t have lunches to make, appointments to meet or yoga classes to lead. There were no pick-ups or drop-offs for my daughter, nor were there weekends away, dinner parties, lunch dates or lots of extra kids at my house crafting, eating and making their presence known by the joy and mess they left behind.

Still there were many days, especially at the beginning, that were a blur. I wasn’t present for all of the moments that added up to each day because I was ‘busy’. A new schedule emerged that in many ways mirrored the previous version; I maintained ‘busy’ but presence and leisure time were still an unobtainable luxury.

With the second lockdown, this has settled upon me. Again. I really thought I had a better handle on my busyness with the last round of pandemic lockdown training.

How does the pandemic or life in general allow you to reflect upon using ‘busy’ as: 1) a badge of honour, 2) an excuse, 3) a way to hide.

Busy as a Badge of Honour

Does busy for you mean that saying no is a missed opportunity for accomplishment instead of a chance to create a healthy life balance? Does staying busy create forgetfulness that at best is inconvenient for maintaining a highly scheduled life and at worst is hurtful to those around you when you fail to show up for them? Are you proud of being busy even amidst the fallout of having not a minute to spare? Do you ask the question, “Are you busy?” as words that could be replaced for, “Are things going well?” Do you feel successful when you juggle more things than most or when an additional impossible ‘yes’ becomes a checkmark on your to-do list? Check-in honestly about your relationship with busy. Is it really serving you and getting you closer to an authentic life? Busy is not a badge of honour. It is a choice with consequences of how much of your life is actually lived as it happens.

Busy as an Excuse for “Why Not”

If you are too busy you sometimes don’t have time to write the letter, to support the cause, to call the friend who talks for hours, to figure out the plumbing issue, the relationship issue, to finish the novel, to clean out the junk drawer, to determine what you could beneficially contribute to the lives of others. ‘Too busy’ defers action to another time but it often also distorts the hierarchy of your core values. What is really important to you? What are you missing when you keep your schedule and your mind cluttered? Is it a valid reason to not pay attention to your life? Wouldn’t you be more compelled to act if you were acutely aware of your own loneliness, your poor filing system, your leaky roof that needed to be replaced five years ago, or of your consistent sources of joy and fulfillment? If you aren’t spending much time in the present moment there will always be plenty of reasons for why not to act because after all you have too much to do to spend any time being who you are.

Busy as a Way to Hide From Connection

How do you hide? Do you overeat, disappear into your screen, gossip, gamble, clean, worry, complain, obsess over your health/the past/the future, excessively plan/exercise/drink, or do you use work commitments to keep yourself from yourself and those you share your life with?

What if your brand of busy is full of virtuous endeavours? What if you have no time to ‘be’ because of all your helpful ‘doing’? Does a lack of connection matter when you dedicate your life to helping others?

Who does it hurt when you choose to use distraction to avoid being with whatever ‘is’ in your life?

Having a positive impact on the world around you is important. Of course it is. And yet…Numbing out, regardless of how you do it, is cheating yourself (and others) from your life truly lived. When hiding deprives you of connection with who you are and with those around you, aren’t you a shadow of who you could be? Aren’t you a flicker of light in the world when you could be the sun?

Presence is everything.

“Consciousness is always drawn to the most distracting object: the bumped toe, the loud noise, or the hurting heart.” ~ Michael A. Singer

If change is a part of life, why are some changes so difficult?

According to Michael Singer in his book, The Untethered Soul, we can look at difficulty through the example of having a thorn in our skin. We can spend our whole lives protecting ourselves from the pain of the thorn when it gets bumped or we can decide to remove it.

This sounds reasonable and simple enough but what does that really look like in daily life? What happens when someone you love brushes against the thorn in your skin?

Let’s assume you recognize a disturbance and your consciousness is drawn there because someone you love expresses an idea about money that you don’t agree with and you have a story you tell yourself around this idea so that the mere mention of it bumps against your thorn painfully. If you are capable of letting it go, it ends there. You won’t draw other people into your personal drama around the thorn. You won’t put energy into protecting your thorn either. If you have allowed yourself to feel the disturbance before letting it go, the thorn starts to work its way out of your skin. Maybe not all at once, but little by little the sensitivity lessens and the thorn comes closer to the surface.

What happens when you let your consciousness move toward the disturbance and then reside there? You give away your peace and the chance to let it go. You also give away your opportunity to grow as a person when you become the disturbance instead of the watcher of the disturbance. This fallout often isn’t pretty…The one you love temporarily becomes your adversary so you can defend your position. What was once beautiful looks ugly or what felt possible becomes insurmountable. The world is the same but your consciousness has shifted and your perspective becomes obscured by the pain of your thorn that is pushed in even deeper.

Questions worth considering:

Do you want to use the life you have left protecting all of your inner thorns? Or do you want to lean into the discomfort and remove them? Practising presence is a practical approach amidst difficulty and a necessary tool for embracing change and welcoming growth.

“And what is it to work with love? …

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit…

~ Kahlil Gibran

This first week of 2021 I have been reflecting on what I want the rest of the year to look and feel like. I want all my strivings and efforts to be work that is love made visible. It is a tall order but what is the beginning of the year for, other than to embrace possibility?

I bought a 2021 goal tracking book in November. It is beautiful…it is full of inspiring quotes and has ribbons to mark pages. I have sat with it on my lap quite a bit since my purchase but I actually haven’t written a single thing in it. I saddled my sister with the matching book and she is feeling the same way; like there is this looming and monumental task ahead that she feels obliged to complete.

Here is what I have set in motion instead. I’ve gone back to my tried and true goal setting/vision for the future stuff with a few added intentions of using the fancy book to stay on track. Look out 2021, I’m taking the reins.

Are you a goal setter? Do you want to be? Do you want to chart your course or tweak how you move through the coming year?

Here’s a process to follow…see if all (or parts) of it resonate for you:

Figure out what your top nine core values are and then rate them from 1-9 with 1-3 being the absolute most important filters (also read the word ‘filters’ as motivators) for all your goal categories. I think it is important to see/understand your landscape of nine core values but work with the top three for goal setting. When there is more than three, I think it’s hard to stay focused. If you want a list of core values to work from try this link.

Goal categories (add or subtract what feels right for you): Financial, Career/Business/School, Relationships, Free-Time, Family-Time, Health and Appearance, Personal Growth, Making a Difference.

Normally, I make a vision board for the year using images I am drawn to and I allow the process to be more intuitive. I like working this way. I am often surprised to see what materializes from my efforts. I also separately set yearly goals. This week, I decided to shake things up for 2021; I am making my vision board a visual representation of my structured goals. I know, I’m a wild woman 😉

So here’s a tangible example…let’s say your top three core values are: Health, Security and Freedom. Use these values to develop your goals under the goal categories. Images you could look for to create your vision board in the Financial Category would be an image for financial health, another for financial security, and one more for financial freedom. In the Career/Business Category it would be career health, career security and career freedom. In the Relationship Category it would be relationship health, relationship security, relationship freedom and so on for each category. Your vision board and yearly goals would look very different if the core values were: Adventure, Fun and Creativity. It would be the same exercise using the same goal categories but the results wouldn’t be anywhere near the same as the first example. You might enjoy adventures and be creative but if your core values are more in-line with health, security and freedom, you would be missing the motivational piece to go after your goals with your whole heart. How else can we make our love visible if our heart isn’t in it?

Use your core values as the spring board to develop your goals to create direction for the year that feels razor sharp and innately satisfying.

Next steps:

1. Once you create your vision board, look at it every single day.
2. Use a calendar or journal to track small, daily, actionable steps toward the goals that speak directly to your values.

Let me know how the process goes for you. Keep it simple (no fancy journals necessary). And most importantly, just begin.

The Snow Fairy ~ Claude McKay

Throughout the afternoon I watched them there,

Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky,

Whirling fantastic in the misty air,

Contending fierce for space supremacy.

And they flew down a mightier force at night,

As though in heaven there was revolt and riot,

And they, frail things had taken panic flight

Down to the calm earth seeking peace and quiet.

I went to bed and rose at early dawn

To see them huddled together in a heap,

Each merged into the other upon the lawn,

Worn out by the sharp struggle, fast asleep.

The sun shone brightly on them half the day,

By night they stealthily had stol’n away.

…

What happens when you feel down about something that isn’t likely to change in the immediate future? How could meditation possibly help?

This blog post you are reading right now wasn’t what I drafted on Monday or redrafted on Wednesday. Everything I came up with to share was just a lot of blah, blah, blah.

The truth is, I’m bummed. Last Friday I taught two yoga classes and was chatting after with a friend saying how much being back since the initial five month Covid break has been very special. I have been appreciating each class and each person attending the classes beyond what I could explain. I am literally so excited to walk into the yoga studio every single day I get to teach.

I have also been in the midst of planning my 31 days of messages for the month of December and even though it was disappointing not to be handing out my little envelopes stuffed with messages this year, I’d adapted.

Yay, right? And then…last Friday afternoon (just hours after I was blabbering away about how fortunate I feel) our area moved to the ‘orange’ classification for Covid and all classes at the place I predominantly teach were cancelled. Again.

So what could sitting alone in meditation or getting on my yoga mat for my personal practice possibly do to help with my heavy heart over no longer sharing space and time with yoga students on a regular basis?

Lots.

Just as the title of this blog communicates, “Finding the good does not mean denying the difficult.” I am disappointed. I will miss having somewhere to go again. I am feeling like the winter months are looming with what is likely to hold continued and increased Covid safety measures.

The difficulties still exist but when I practise in meditation and yoga to let go of all the things my mind wants to spin out from those initial thoughts, it helps me to create enough space to also find the good that continues to exist.

Of course there are an abundance of things in my life which cultivate feelings of gratitude. Of course this is a blip in the bigger scheme of things. Of course having time to focus on other work I love, continuing to spend time outside and with my beautiful family is a blessing. The opportunity to watch how my mind processes difficulties is also something to be to truly grateful for.

In the words of Henry Miller,

“It is almost banal to say so yet it needs to be stressed continually: all is creation, all is change, all is flux, all is metamorphosis.”

Last Thursday I met my two sister’s for lunch. One of my sisters ordered and picked up the food. We all met at my other sister’s house and ate on her front porch. It was a warm day and it was so nice to be together.

We passed out the food, ate and chatted about all kinds of stuff and then my sister pulls out a little something extra out of the food bag. My eyes brightened. I really, really like these peanut butter balls with chocolate chips so when I saw (what I thought) were those sources of yum, my sister quickly informed me, “The woman at the counter said they didn’t have the peanut butter ones so I got these instead.”

Sigh.

I had bought the ‘other’ ones before too when they were out of the peanut butter balls and they were just meh. Anyway I opened the cute little box and took a bite. It was weird but the first thing I tasted was…peanut butter? So then I really poured my attention into it. What was in it? Tahini? They wouldn’t use another nut butter if it was the alternative to the peanut butter balls. Or maybe they would? Peanuts are a legume. Maybe it was almond butter? Nope. I know almond butter. I finished it off and thoughtfully chewed. I couldn’t figure it out.

I said, “These taste like the peanut butter ones.” Both of my sisters agreed. We looked at the box for ingredient info and there wasn’t any.

It was bugging me so I looked up their ingredient list online which was:

Peanut butter, honey, oats, coconut and chocolate chips

It turns out the ‘just meh’ balls are no longer even on the menu. (Apparently, the woman on cash was unaware of the change too. The coconut on the outside maybe confused things?) Regardless, the star of the show that day was in fact the peanut butter ball.

On the way to teaching a yoga class later that afternoon I was thinking about how perfectly this story aligns with how to explain ‘the watcher’ in meditation.

In the case of the peanut butter ball, my mind was still providing commentary. However, on my attempt to decipher the mystery ingredient, I allowed the commentary without being pulled away from watching.

Watching the breath is the same in meditation. It is the same as watching sensation in your yoga practice. If you work with a mantra, an imaginary or other sensory cue, it is similar. You allow the mind to do what it does; it comments and evaluates and persuades. The you that is you is not this voice in your head because you can watch the voice and direct your watching. You are something other than the voice.

In this case with the peanut butter ball, my attention was poured into my sense of taste. My mind was busy commenting on what the mystery ingredient could be or not be. It veered off into probability about substitutions for peanut allergies. I was aware of my commenting mind but I resided within my sense of taste.

This distinction between the voice in our heads and who we really are lives within this discussion. It is also where all of our barriers to peace as well as our path to authentic freedom exists. We are not our minds. The more often we practice being the watcher, the more likely we are to become aware of the power our mind chatter has over our lives.

Here’s a link to a recipe I love and fyi: it is not a peanut butter ball 🙂

https://monicaswanson.com/cookie-dough-balls-inspired-by-oh-she-glows-everyday/