Lifting Fog

To be human is to experience yearnings. 

Is this the path? What’s next? Do I stay here or keep looking? There has to be more... isn’t there?

In our 20’s, course-correcting is expected; even welcomed. In our 30’s & 40’s the hourglass-sand slips faster, begging us to firm-up decisions with expiration dates. In our 50’s & beyond the dusty sand-clock reminds us – the first act is over...a second and final act (if lucky) calls us to lift our gaze from life’s business. With this upward glance inviting impending existential angst. Numbing agents are miracles for such malise. Dopamine relief, conveniently a path away.  

The road to serenity isn't a smooth ride. One can expect to get jostled and thrown from the vehicle. Resisting hedonic joy-rides, staying put, and buckling-up for the less traveled road requires faith, tolerating discomfort, rejection, and driving down the foggy road.

The break in midlife fog brings awareness of silenced-desires, the examination of expectations, and dreamlike vows adhered to. The well-worn trodden pathway of the “urge to please” becomes too obvious to ignore. Somehow this contract, signed at youth, has lost its brain-washing lure, and like a shrunken, itchy, wool sweater is destined for the donation bin. 

Revising life’s contract requires the willingness to cull wisdom, hold steadfast to personal truths, and to source joys and fulfillment beyond dutifulness. To vow to your heart daily is an ambitious goal. To not do so is a foggy existence.

Brave Balance

High level acrobatics performed on a bar, a vault, the floor, and a precarious beam requires bravery. It’s difficult to fathom the perseverance required to perfect flips, turns, endurance, and power on the road to becoming an elite Olympic gymnast. Simone Biles’ withdrawal from the final individual all-around competition in the Olympic Games to focus on her mental health may be her bravest twist yet.   

Struggling with balance is real. Not a sobriety-line-walk, or on a standup paddle board; rather, life-balance. Society-seedlings are planted throughout our lives: you can have it “all.” A thriving career, a happy family, and an abundant social calendar.

When my kids were young, I was in the family-rearing season. With four children under six, there was zero balance; my attention was focused on keeping them fed, clean, and away from poisons. Now that they’re independent, I have time to step up my career, and pick up balls I may have left undribbled. Seasons will continue to morph and shapeshift, and I get to decide how to define balance, choose my terms, and figure out what best serves me. 

Movement, mindful-meals, sleep, and quality home-time are my non-negotiables. When these are dialed in, I feel energized, aligned, courageous, and better able to serve. You’re not what you do, the model car you drive, what school your kid gets into, nor the Gatsby parties you host. You are a being, a being inhabiting a physical form. If the world’s greatest Olympic acrobatic athlete can self-advocate and reserve her right to respect whole-health, what’s stopping you?

Flight

Poppy woke up at 5 am today with the energy of a six year old boarding a flight to Disney World. Other days she’s like a senior in high school, sleeping in till 10 am on a Saturday. She at least granted me time to grind my favorite beans and brew my coffee. With a warm mug-in-hand, I followed the sassy nine pound hotdog outside; God I love this dog.  

While meandering around the driveway, I witnessed a hummingbird enjoying her own breakfast brew; succulent bee balm nectar. Instantly, my heart strings tugged at memories of my dad (he left this dimension in 2001). They say your children are your outside hearts. I guess this makes sense because when I think of his departure, I feel hollow; like my shelter of origin was ripped open in a storm leaving remnants of a past family life lived. I feel this especially in my solar plexus....a raw, gnawing convergence of my gut and lower chambers of my heart. 

How can a tiny bird bring me back to my dad? Hummingbirds are memory-connections because my brain wired several observations after his passing. Although my dad attempted to attract hummingbirds to his bird habitat with sweet nectar-filled bright feeders (at his home in Essex Junction) they never came; that is, until he passed. That spring, a plethora of hummingbirds enjoyed daily nectar-inebriation, a joy for my mom to witness. Coincidence? Maybe. 

Then there was my son’s middle school graduation. Graduations, and holidays in general, always intensify the cavernous grief space. We all know who’s missing, yet are too scared to mention his name. This would give way for the cavity to rise up to your throat and into your eyes before any chance of swallowing it back down. A snotty nose, guttural sobs, and bloodshot eyes are a sure way to wreck a joyful event. 

So, as dutiful moms we triumph. We make sure the khakis, shirt, and tie are ironed. We make the post-ceremonial meal. We get the graduate there early, and the wake of the family, including grandma, there on time, while choking on the lump, blinking humidity back, and breathing shallowly so as to not unleash the gasping grief that resides at the convergence of the heart and belly. 

However, on this warm spring evening the joy of his presence was felt above the pain of his loss. Inside the festive, graduation-gymnasium a hummingbird appeared. Perhaps attracted to the fuchsia decorative flowers used for the event, he joined the celebration. 

Maybe you too have meaningful signs that connect you to past loves. A butterfly, dog, bird, or specific atmospheric energies. We get to wire our meanings, and feel those we miss in uniquely connected ways. We get to feel to heal and wrap ourselves up in the mystery of it all.

And if we are all “made of star stuff”– according to astronomer Carl Sagan, then our loves are never more than a flight away. 

Which will you feed?

Cherokee Wisdom – The Story of The Two Wolves

"An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

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I first heard the two wolves parable years ago while attending a yoga conference. It instantaneously alchemized my understanding of – internal emotional landscape.

Observing self-aware panoramic views is accessible; most days. Cultivating peace within that space, is the practice.

Starving the bad wolf, feeding the good one, and noticing when the bad one sneaks back...again, and again.

When practicing regularly, the bad one shows up less frequently...and when she does, she's not famished; only mildly hungry.

Philip Goldberg, an interfaith minister says – "spiritual practice won't drive away pesky aspects of life, it's more like an immune booster, or sturdy garment that keeps us dry and warm in a blizzard"

Contemplation:
How can you ensure you make time to regularly knit a sturdy garment?

Head & Heart

I’ve been on a quest to balance the energy within my “self”; the self my soul/spirit currently occupies. This incarnation is a mere temporary blip, a sentiment my brain could afford to recall more often. Perhaps I’m feeling called to this yin-yang practice more now, because the breadth of this one life (as Mary Oliver would say), is no longer a vast, endless wilderness. The forest edges are growing inward, like prolific sod that maneuvers toward garden beds, despite yearly edging.  

In a past life, (for those of you who don’t know me well), I practiced endurance sports. Training for triathlons was what I did, morning, noon, and night. Endless hours on trails and in lanes. Miles and miles of pushing, pulling, reaching, kicking, and strategizing. This trailblazing training undoubtedly codified my inner resilience. A resilience I’d need to draw from in upcoming years...another post for another time. Suffice to say my head and heart experienced extreme road-rash.

Through the years I’ve continued recreational running, biking, swimming; even sporting a race-bib now and then. But the craving for  head and heart integration lands me on my mat, with persistent  frequency. It’s here I cultivate trails of empathy, intuition, receptiveness and prune the trails of competition, determination, and assertiveness.  

I’m not certain of almost anything in the world right now. And I’m not a guru expert. I love energetic workouts; they are therapeutic for my vagus nerve. I also crave working-IN, which brings balance and flow to my mind, body, and soul. These moments, minutes, hours, on my mat, make it easier (not to be mistaken with easy), to cultivate “self”- love. This love of “self” helps me thwart egoic weeds from suffocating my head and heart. 

During classes, I invite you to plant your “self” on your mat. Tune inward, nourish your head and heart, question invasive weeds, and cultivate an inner landscape where love proliferates outward beyond the physicality of your "self".