Friends and the kindness of others...

Challenging times are made so much more manageable by friends who help along the way.
The help I am talking about is not about "fixing"  it is more like "serving".    We serve each other in all kinds of ways in many varied circumstances.   Often we are not aware of the impact a small gesture of kindness makes.   "Service" is a form of support and caring.   It is a tonic when we feel alone or afraid.   It lifts us up and makes us stronger.   It makes the journey easier.
When we are experincing hard times we need to be open to the kindness of others, letting go of
whatever hold us back from accepting what is offered.
 When we allow others to help us , as my friend said, we are giving a gift to them, also.
 It is reciprocal.
 There is an old saying that I hold dear.  It goes something like this:   "At the deepest level, there is no giver, no gift, no receiver... only the universe rearranging itself"... author unknown.

Difficult Times

Illness has so much to teach us about life and about ourselves,  especially if it is a prolonged illness.
As  I go through dealing with symptoms from my health issues that are at times debilitating, it changes my perspective.   I want so much to cope well to the best of my ability using the tools that I have practiced over the years in better times.   Some days I have a positive outlook and can live well with what is happening.   Other days the circumstances of my life seem so  overwhelming I fear I am losing my ability to just hang in there.    In those times I can loose confidence in my ability to stay with what is...  
I am wondering if sometimes we expect too much of ourselves... We think if we have learned and have achieved a certain level of wisdom that we will be able to respond at a higher level in each moment.   I suspect that is not what being human is.   Being human is being able to experience all of it and humbly accept that we can only be where we are, walking the walk with the ups and downs and experiencing an array of emotions without trying to only accept the so called positive ones.   Learning to be patient with ourselves as we climb a "mountain", as we get discouraged at times, or afraid, is all part of the journey.   We don't get to leap over the emotions we don't like.   If we do we will probably  have to visit them later when they burst forward, unexpectedly.      I believe that is where I am doing some intensive learning now... being more comfortable and accepting the difficult emotions as they come and go.

Nature Heals

Because of current health issues I was not able to plant my outdoor pots as I usually do in late spring.
For weeks I kept looking out at the sad looking planters containing  a few perennials  that survived the winter but looking very negelected indeed.   Maybe they reflected myself and what was happening in my life.   I had simplifed my life and was not able to put energy into things that were not essential.   A friend had offered to do my pots for me, but that meant I had to go and pick out the plants I wanted  and I didn't even have the energy for that.   So my pots went uncared for .

This past weekend my energy and my wellness shifted and I was able to get to the Garden Spot to pick out flowers and plants.   Yesterday most got planted and now I look out at the happy planters and I feel a wave of happiness just to see the gift of nature.    I feel a surge of healing happening inside my heart... my body may be still trying to heal but my heart has taken a huge step forward.

Summer begins...

We have moved gently from spring into summer yoga and it feels quite perfect and so needed.   The days are long and temperatures are warming.
The  two readings  in our first two classes have come from a book entitled,   Being Generous.  The Art of Right Living.
The first week was a story about a woman who said she was sorry,  apologizing after carrying a burden of shame for many years.   The second was an act of pure kindness and compassion  from one stranger to another.
Both these stories are examples of the practice of generosity.   Generosity invites "a spark of hope by which people themselves are transformed, enabled and revivified."
How does generosity become not just "an exceptional attribute but more an ordinary, everyday constant?"
"Generosity is a creative act... an attitude and an ethos."

If we choose to we can practice the art of generosity in our daily lives by making it a priority to be generous in some way, large or small, everyday.   Overtime it becomes a part of who you are, for  "being generous... you become generous."

Sorry for very few posts lately...

Just to say I am sorry I have not posted much lately.   I have been dealing with a health issue that
has taken up a great deal of my energy.   Hopefully  I am moving towards wellness and
will be back to writing again soon.

"I thought it was just me..."

"I Thought It Was Just Me" is the title of another book that Brene Brown has written on shame and shame resilence.   The more I read Brene's work the more I see how insidious and prevalent this is in our society.  One very important way that we can become kind, compassionate and true to ourselves,  is by becoming "shame resilient".   The thing about shame is that everyone has it.   We cannot get rid of it but we can learn to identify it and move through it.  All of us want to be perceived in a certain way. We have an ideal of how we want to be seen.  We also have "unwanted identities" of how we don't want to be perceived.   Many of these unwanted identities come from our family of origin.   Of course, often society and culture contribute to these identities.
There are certain things that trigger our shame.   Brene calls them "shame triggers". 
However if we view vulnerability and shame as "weakness", we are less likely to investigate our own shame triggers.  Understanding our vulnerability and shame is a source of strength and this will lead us to finding the support we need to see the big picture (context) aswell as "normalizing" and "demystifying" it.

Vulnerability and Shame

This quarter our hot topic, our theme, is shame.   I know that sounds scary and frankly it is.
It is scary partly because we don't talk about it.    Shame often involves aspects of ourselves that we keep hidden.  We think if people knew "that" about us they would think less of us.  We would rather put up a good front and somehow fit in.  However, that kind of thinking takes its toll.   We live with constant fear, however deeply buried, that we will be found out.    Instead we keep dancing, as fast as we can.    Some of the things we keep hidden have to do with a huge range of issues: appearance and body image, family, relationships, parenting, money, work, health, addiction, sex, aging and religion to name a few of the main ones.  Yes, to feel shame is to be human.
What I hope we will all learn, as we wade through some of this, is to become more shame resilient.   In doing that we will relax into being more ourselves, more authentic, with a whole lot less fear and anxiety and ultimately more lovable and more real to each other.

The book I am using this quarter as a resource is Brene Brown's  The Gifts of Imperfection.  I would encourage you to get your own copy of this book and keep it close.   It is full of down to earth wisdom.