I have found I am not a woman of leisure. My new schedule has given birth to a full weekend of availability for the most part and I don’t start teaching yoga at a studio again until September. I have not yet felt the the pull of facilitating a Circle or the Resistance.
“When all your desires are distilled;
You will cast just two votes:
To love more, And be happy.” ~ Rumi
Isn’t that skipping straight to the good stuff? Why yes. It is.
Now, let’s take a more scenic route.
I have a TV now. With channels. I hooked it up so we could watch the World Cup and my son could have the experience of American football without going to his grandmas…because his grandma is much farther away now. It has had the unexpected affect of reintroducing me to the Big Bang Theory and Anthony Bourdain. I don’t have a housekeeper anymore. So I sometimes spend hours doing laundry and watching documentaries. There is an itchiness under it all, though. There is more silence and when there is more silence there is more space to Listen.
My yoga has gone deeper. I am enjoying being aggravated by my impatience. As I sit on the couch, my spirit is restless. Sometimes I feel like I have figured it all out. And then the next day I feel like a pretender. And the only thing that is real is the Practice. It brings presence to the rest of my life. It grows my intuition into a magical experience that tosses synchronicities across the plane of my day. So often I feel the eager resistance of it and it is a comfortable groove that may never fit exactly right. It will always surprise me.
I once read that compassion is meeting someone’s pain with your love. And that pity is meeting someone’s pain with your fear. And this is important to me. Because the more I practice, the more I step outside my comfort zone, the more I love everyone around me, I meet the dilemma of this dynamic head on. And I often do not see it until after I have the meeting. Because I don’t want to pity anyone or anything. I do not want to feed that part of you or of me. It does not amplify the Truth and does not give strength. I am no stranger to constriction and yet that is my medicine. I can see it coming a light year away. I see it, feel around its edges with my prayers and loosen each knot, each time with patience. My constriction is mine to breathe into. I don’t want to amplify yours. So I am beginning to understand that each client, each patient, each Beloved will not receive my fear no matter how well dressed and tender it may appear. Empowerment!
This requires more silence and deeper listening mostly. And when I feel the strike of pain in the energy field of those I encounter, I have realized that if I pause long enough in response, there is a sadness underneath that is tangible. My sadness. Sadness that I will not do enough or be enough for those I love. And the more that I love, the ocean of that sadness grows until it can take my breath away. The duality is formidable.
So how am I working with that?
I have sessions. I Practice. I work with Universal Law. And I love more and more. I am figuring out how to wade out into deep water and love even the darkest parts of that sadness. Of my own pain. I see the Truth rolling forward and breaking through from the unseen into the seen world, kissing this world with compassion. It was never mine to control. And yet I can choose in freewill how to perceive the flux of energy that makes up this beautiful ocean. There are infinite choices.
And I allow myself to see it all. And happiness is all there is.