I haven’t come to this 10 day silent meditation retreat to become enlightened, I’ve come because even though I’ve got a sweet and loving inner dialogue, I find there’s often a lot of clutter and noise in my mind, and I began to wonder if my mind could do with the equivalent of push-ups. I mean, I take really good care of my body, and my mind’s been feeling a little flabby these days.
I am sure you can relate: in an unchecked mind, the voices can be self-defeating, and deafening.
Even if I am not after enlightenment, per se, a little Nirvana is always nice. Nirvana is a Sanskrit word that literally means "to cease blowing,” as when a candle flame ceases to flicker. I like this version: a still, sweet center, which remains intact, no matter how the storms rage around you. It’s not about getting the winds to be silent, but to find the space in you that never moves.
So, as I sit in meditation these 10 hours a day, I get really good at observing what is happening now, not what I wish was happening now. It’s kind of like taming a wild animal. You’d expect a wild animal to snort and protest and charge up against the containing walls. But if you were an animal tamer worth your salt, over and over again, you’d extend your hand with the kindness and effort of training.
I don't develop hard-willed discipline, I develope loving kindness toward myself, on a bodily-integrated level. I get to experience, directly, what it is like to come back to my center, with loving kindness, amid the raging storms of my mind, amid the sweet and intelligent wanderings of my mind, amid the very real pains and panics of my body. When the storms rage, I can be sweet peace for myself. I have the direct experience of not abandoning myself when the going gets tough, no matter the weather, no matter what life, my mind or my body throws my way.
As I get more prowess with the practice, I realize how much I love and respect my mind and body. I realize how I deeply trust myself to wander as well as self-correct. I begin to really enjoy the process, regardless of the painful hours. My mind is toned, on its way to being buff, actually! I notice more space, less clutter internally.
I feel like I am flirting silently with body and mind, with no witness but myself.
Enlightenment? Flirting? Join me for my July Tele-Class (Yes, it’s FREE)
Enlightened Flirting: Taming the Voices in Your Head
Thursday, July 26, 2007
8:00 - 9:00pm EST
Still searching for your ever-elusive glow and radiance?
Feel incapacitated by the viciously self-defeating voices in your own head?
Far from frivolous, flirting is the key to your kingdom.
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Learn to apply a simple and sweet three-step process to tame those crazy voices so you can experience more peace, self-confidence and enjoyment immediately. Whether it’s at a bar, at home or at work, you’ll learn how to fearlessly flirt with enlightenment!
Learn more and register: use this link:
http://www.redefiningmonogamy.com/teleseminar.html
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Off to be quiet
Tomorrow morning I get on a bus to the Vipassana Meditation Center in Shelburne, MA, to begin a 10-day silent meditation retreat.
OK, people. I am a dancer and a yoga teacher. If you told me to dance for 10 days, no problem. But sit still? We are talking wake up at 4:00am and sit meditation until 10:00pm. Did I say sitting?
I am being just a touch melodramatic. I am actually looking forward to withdrawing from the world, settling into nature and simplifying my food and daily routine. This retreat is something that is very meaningful to my boyfriend, who has done it over 5 times, so it is an experience I want to share with him. I am always up for an exploration into the nature of reality and the relationship between body and mind. I am also always up for more sweet training for my mind, which, like most minds, can tend to get unruly with problem creation and problem solving and tends to forget all about the divinity in the here and now.
There is more than just a little bit of a wanna-be-monk in me. I look forward to reporting my experiences on the other end.
And after 10 days of silence, I'll surely have a lot to say about it!
OK, people. I am a dancer and a yoga teacher. If you told me to dance for 10 days, no problem. But sit still? We are talking wake up at 4:00am and sit meditation until 10:00pm. Did I say sitting?
I am being just a touch melodramatic. I am actually looking forward to withdrawing from the world, settling into nature and simplifying my food and daily routine. This retreat is something that is very meaningful to my boyfriend, who has done it over 5 times, so it is an experience I want to share with him. I am always up for an exploration into the nature of reality and the relationship between body and mind. I am also always up for more sweet training for my mind, which, like most minds, can tend to get unruly with problem creation and problem solving and tends to forget all about the divinity in the here and now.
There is more than just a little bit of a wanna-be-monk in me. I look forward to reporting my experiences on the other end.
And after 10 days of silence, I'll surely have a lot to say about it!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Getting To Good
Like an acme safe ala cartoonland, I recently feel like I got hit on the head with EXACTLY HOW to have my life and relationship be great, gorgeous always full of fun and delight.
Only instead of landing like a ton of steel, this landed like a drizzle of honey on a bed of feathers.
The price to earn pleasure is not pain and suffering.
The price to earn pleasure is enjoying what is already HERE.
It is pulling your head out of your own ass and looking around and acknowledging all the good that is already present.
The best place to start is approving of what is SO.
It is looking around at God's green earth and the flora and fauna and crazy wonderful humans inhabiting it, and finding it good.
The key to getting the good stuff is to start with the good stuff.
And the key to getting things to be better is to start with the good stuff.
The law of physics around having things get better is that things have to be GOOD before they can get BETTER.
If things are bad, they have to get good before they can get better. You can't get from bad to better, you have to get to good first.
The law looks something like this: bad --> good --> better.
The key is to start with good. Then, when things are good - I mean, that's pretty great, right? Could stop right there. But what if things got even better?
I have an awesome relationship. It floors me constantly and there isn't a day that goes by where I don't feel grateful and blessed for this work of art we've co-created. We've recently had one rocky point where we are not on the same page: around whether to have a child together. And a few months ago we were having a really crappy time figuring this one out, in fact we almost broke up because of how much we were suffering trying to figure it out. It was then pointed out to me that we were having a terrible time and losing big time, while we were figuring it out.
(Enter visual - safe falling on LiYana's head).
Wait a minute? What if we could we have a great time figuring this out? What would that be like?
And what has happened since then is amazing - a torrential deepening of love and appreciation, an easy clarity around what we both fear around having a child, and what would be amazing. All the while a greater sense of partnership and so much more fun and enjoying each other. We're figuring this one out, and having an even better time doing so.
We both pulled our sorry asses out of "bad" and got ourselves to "good" and it keeps getting better and better and better....
These are things I've always known, but sometimes they alternate between peeping and sleeping in me, but now they are roaring and won't shut up. Thankfully.
This is largely due to some amazing courses I have been taking this summer with Morehouse, (www.lafayettemorehouse.com). This is a collective of "Responsible Hedonists," who've been living together successfully for around 40 years, by the simple and delicious philosophies of how to live well and have rich, fun, happy and satisfying lives.
I might get this slightly wrong, but here's the essence of a great quote that sums it all up nicely:
"Your enjoyment is your blessing on God's creation."
- Vic Baranco
Only instead of landing like a ton of steel, this landed like a drizzle of honey on a bed of feathers.
The price to earn pleasure is not pain and suffering.
The price to earn pleasure is enjoying what is already HERE.
It is pulling your head out of your own ass and looking around and acknowledging all the good that is already present.
The best place to start is approving of what is SO.
It is looking around at God's green earth and the flora and fauna and crazy wonderful humans inhabiting it, and finding it good.
The key to getting the good stuff is to start with the good stuff.
And the key to getting things to be better is to start with the good stuff.
The law of physics around having things get better is that things have to be GOOD before they can get BETTER.
If things are bad, they have to get good before they can get better. You can't get from bad to better, you have to get to good first.
The law looks something like this: bad --> good --> better.
The key is to start with good. Then, when things are good - I mean, that's pretty great, right? Could stop right there. But what if things got even better?
I have an awesome relationship. It floors me constantly and there isn't a day that goes by where I don't feel grateful and blessed for this work of art we've co-created. We've recently had one rocky point where we are not on the same page: around whether to have a child together. And a few months ago we were having a really crappy time figuring this one out, in fact we almost broke up because of how much we were suffering trying to figure it out. It was then pointed out to me that we were having a terrible time and losing big time, while we were figuring it out.
(Enter visual - safe falling on LiYana's head).
Wait a minute? What if we could we have a great time figuring this out? What would that be like?
And what has happened since then is amazing - a torrential deepening of love and appreciation, an easy clarity around what we both fear around having a child, and what would be amazing. All the while a greater sense of partnership and so much more fun and enjoying each other. We're figuring this one out, and having an even better time doing so.
We both pulled our sorry asses out of "bad" and got ourselves to "good" and it keeps getting better and better and better....
These are things I've always known, but sometimes they alternate between peeping and sleeping in me, but now they are roaring and won't shut up. Thankfully.
This is largely due to some amazing courses I have been taking this summer with Morehouse, (www.lafayettemorehouse.com). This is a collective of "Responsible Hedonists," who've been living together successfully for around 40 years, by the simple and delicious philosophies of how to live well and have rich, fun, happy and satisfying lives.
I might get this slightly wrong, but here's the essence of a great quote that sums it all up nicely:
"Your enjoyment is your blessing on God's creation."
- Vic Baranco
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Could it be this simple?
The day started out well, my skin waking up next to the skin of my beloved, a clear swath of time devoted to all the things in my business i haven't been able to get to. But by the early afternoon, I felt strange. Uninspired. My goals far off and remote and like I've got to slog a marathon through molasses to get to them. Internet marketing is a stretch for me. Sometimes I enjoy the learning curve and I feel proud and accomplished, like I just cut down a huge tree with only my two arms and a hand-saw. Sometimes I just want to gnaw my own leg off - anything to get out of learning this shit.
When my boyfriend got home, I stepped into the shower and responded dismally to his queries about my day. As he spoke to me through the shower steam, the fog in my head and heart cleared a little and I thought, apparently I only sleep with geniuses. Let me count the ways I love this man. Could it really be this simple? I bet you are wondering what he said to me.
He said a lot of things, but first and foremost he said, "You should just do the things that are fun for you."
Now, I know all this. And most times I live this. But not today. Today I forgot. Today I played the hide and seek game we all love to play as humans: the forgetting and remembering game. Forgetting that life is on our side all along. Remembering that if we follow what we love, if we lean toward what is most fun, like a plant leans toward the sunlight, life opens its richest heart to us.
I stepped away from the computer, made a New Mexican green chili stew, a quinoa salad with cumin and scallions and fruit and nut bars (we're both not eating sugar these days, but still have a sweet tooth!). It felt good to create something tangible, do something I love, and that I am good at! When I sat back down, I made a list of what would be most fun for me as I continue to build my business. I proceeded to write fun and inspired emails. An hour later, someone I hadn't even thought to contact wrote and asked me about creating a workshop series for her new mothers group.
In fact, yes, it really is this simple.
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine...
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination.
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
When my boyfriend got home, I stepped into the shower and responded dismally to his queries about my day. As he spoke to me through the shower steam, the fog in my head and heart cleared a little and I thought, apparently I only sleep with geniuses. Let me count the ways I love this man. Could it really be this simple? I bet you are wondering what he said to me.
He said a lot of things, but first and foremost he said, "You should just do the things that are fun for you."
Now, I know all this. And most times I live this. But not today. Today I forgot. Today I played the hide and seek game we all love to play as humans: the forgetting and remembering game. Forgetting that life is on our side all along. Remembering that if we follow what we love, if we lean toward what is most fun, like a plant leans toward the sunlight, life opens its richest heart to us.
I stepped away from the computer, made a New Mexican green chili stew, a quinoa salad with cumin and scallions and fruit and nut bars (we're both not eating sugar these days, but still have a sweet tooth!). It felt good to create something tangible, do something I love, and that I am good at! When I sat back down, I made a list of what would be most fun for me as I continue to build my business. I proceeded to write fun and inspired emails. An hour later, someone I hadn't even thought to contact wrote and asked me about creating a workshop series for her new mothers group.
In fact, yes, it really is this simple.
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine...
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination.
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Taking Space in Thailand
As April heads to a close, your Intrepid Guide finds herself on the wild boarder where Thailand meets Burma. I've thoroughly enjoyed this past month - the steamy street markets and food stalls of Bangkok, the constant call of the crashing waves and the response of the cicadas on our tiny island sanctuary in the gulf of Thailand, and now the relative cool of the rice-terraced mountains of the North.
Having just gone through a rough patch with my boyfriend a few months ago, we are enjoying the fruits of our efforts, recalibrating to a life of love and adventure together. Living on top of each other in and out of asian countries for a year with no real support but each other put more pressure on our relationship than usual. I am blessed and cursed to be with a younger man, which has many advantages (ahem), but also puts us at different stages of life, wanting different things from our lives due to our age/experience. This came to a head a while back, swinging us both into an uncharacteristic space of not being able to work it out together.
These last couple weeks, I notice a trend with my clients that echoes this very one: trying to work out an issue with the very person they are having the issue WITH. It is hard, and often counter-productive - and what to do about it?
The best way I know out of it is to either involve someone else, a "neutral" third party whom you both trust, or take some time and space - or both.
Our choice was to take some serious space. We have always been good about asking for time alone in our four plus years together, but never to the extent of putting tens of thousands of miles between us for a month at a time. I went and stayed with friends for a couple weeks, he went to be with family.
Ah, the benefits of taking time and space! It can be more helpful than any "working at" the issue, like a crowd of busy beavers. Space apart has a way of bathing the issue with a gentle mist that, partnered with time, lifts to reveal things settled, calmer, and somehow clearer.
And no, it doesn't have to be thousands of miles worth of space. Among my clients and family and friends, I have noticed creative, interesting options for "taking space" within relationship.
One client of mine has taken a lover, and she finds that a date once and a while renews her commitment to her relationship to her husband and their kids. (Of course he knows about it).
Another client and her husband worked out that every year they would take one month to be apart and do whatever they wanted, including being lovers with others, with the full understanding they would return to their marriage at the end of the month. They found that having time to be on their own and accountable to no one was a great refresher for their relationship and marriage.
Another, with a business with her partner in a very small town, takes time to travel on her own often for a month at a time, several times a year.
In addition to the drastic thousands of miles approach, my boyfriend and I often take a couple nights a week to do our own thing. I favor alone-time or girl-time, and he favors the movies.
Taking time and space - however much or little - is a opportunity to get centered, regroup as an individual, and mostly to miss your partner. It is important to re-remember all the things you love about them, which are sometimes easy to forget or take for granted when you are together, entwined and on top of each other all the time.
Where did I go during my month across the ocean? I went into the very necessary place of contemplating NOT being together, untwining our lives, and what it would take, emotionally and spiritually, to do it on my own. That was an extreme place to go to, but important. Because of going there, and the gift that time always gives me of seeing my partner for all that he is rather than all he is not, I was able to re-choose clearly and strongly into this relationship. And I do re-choose it, consciously and actively, everyday.
SO where does that leave me and my boyfriend, here in Thailand? Closer than ever.
Having just gone through a rough patch with my boyfriend a few months ago, we are enjoying the fruits of our efforts, recalibrating to a life of love and adventure together. Living on top of each other in and out of asian countries for a year with no real support but each other put more pressure on our relationship than usual. I am blessed and cursed to be with a younger man, which has many advantages (ahem), but also puts us at different stages of life, wanting different things from our lives due to our age/experience. This came to a head a while back, swinging us both into an uncharacteristic space of not being able to work it out together.
These last couple weeks, I notice a trend with my clients that echoes this very one: trying to work out an issue with the very person they are having the issue WITH. It is hard, and often counter-productive - and what to do about it?
The best way I know out of it is to either involve someone else, a "neutral" third party whom you both trust, or take some time and space - or both.
Our choice was to take some serious space. We have always been good about asking for time alone in our four plus years together, but never to the extent of putting tens of thousands of miles between us for a month at a time. I went and stayed with friends for a couple weeks, he went to be with family.
Ah, the benefits of taking time and space! It can be more helpful than any "working at" the issue, like a crowd of busy beavers. Space apart has a way of bathing the issue with a gentle mist that, partnered with time, lifts to reveal things settled, calmer, and somehow clearer.
And no, it doesn't have to be thousands of miles worth of space. Among my clients and family and friends, I have noticed creative, interesting options for "taking space" within relationship.
One client of mine has taken a lover, and she finds that a date once and a while renews her commitment to her relationship to her husband and their kids. (Of course he knows about it).
Another client and her husband worked out that every year they would take one month to be apart and do whatever they wanted, including being lovers with others, with the full understanding they would return to their marriage at the end of the month. They found that having time to be on their own and accountable to no one was a great refresher for their relationship and marriage.
Another, with a business with her partner in a very small town, takes time to travel on her own often for a month at a time, several times a year.
In addition to the drastic thousands of miles approach, my boyfriend and I often take a couple nights a week to do our own thing. I favor alone-time or girl-time, and he favors the movies.
Taking time and space - however much or little - is a opportunity to get centered, regroup as an individual, and mostly to miss your partner. It is important to re-remember all the things you love about them, which are sometimes easy to forget or take for granted when you are together, entwined and on top of each other all the time.
Where did I go during my month across the ocean? I went into the very necessary place of contemplating NOT being together, untwining our lives, and what it would take, emotionally and spiritually, to do it on my own. That was an extreme place to go to, but important. Because of going there, and the gift that time always gives me of seeing my partner for all that he is rather than all he is not, I was able to re-choose clearly and strongly into this relationship. And I do re-choose it, consciously and actively, everyday.
SO where does that leave me and my boyfriend, here in Thailand? Closer than ever.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Monday, April 2, 2007
Man on the half-shell
This morning, from his hammock overlooking the gulf of thailand's salty waves, my boyfriend reports to being "happy as a clam."
He is every woman's dream at the moment: open, sweet, attentive, flirty, sexy, and sharing his thoughts (and feelings!) freely. We share a saucy spark, from heart to heart, and from, well a bit lower than that, too... I relish these times. As much as I know and accept that they come and go, I also study them so I understand the elements that go into creating them, so I can do so with greater ease and facility next time. In the eternal quest to decode and befriend this strange species of shellfish - Man - I wonder what it takes to turn "clammed up" to "happy as a clam?"
Ever the metaphor whore, I start to think about men as mussels. Sometimes men are closed, hard shells clamped down and water-tight, and sometimes they are open, happily offering up their sweet, salty, soft insides, like a Venus, goddess of love, who stands amorously on such a shell. You can't force mussels to open - you might get poisoned - but there is a way to have them open willingly.
Here is my impromptu recipe to do just that:
1. Pluck from natural habitat. Place in a container with some water.
We all get used to our lives, even if our lives are amazing, so going somewhere different, doing something differently or changing it up in some way, necessitates we are more aware and attentive, rejuvenates the senses, and wakes us up a touch. It is so important to create a space that is different than normal, familiar life. This beach in thailand is working well, for sure! But if you can't take a vacation half-way across the world, you can create sacred space, or a container to connect inside of, anywhere, anytime. Set the space, be intentional: it can be as simple as lighting candles if you usually don't, going out for dinner if you usually stay in, turning off the TV, getting in the bath together, or spending a night in a hotel, just for the fun of it.
2. Add heat and steam.
The general rule is that a woman needs emotional connection to be sexually intimate, and a man needs sexual connection to be emotionally intimate. Sort of a catch-22, at times. My boyfriend tells me he pulls away and closes down when I don't prioritize our sensual time, when we are unable to connect, sensually. It is the thing that allows him to feel like we connect deeply, that we are on the same page, and that he is important and won't lose me to work, distractions, etc. And he is right - I often don't prioritize this. I love life in all its forms and minutiae. I call myself an "intellexual," meaning sometimes my work, or a deep and juicy conversation with a girlfriend can be as amazing as sex. But really, tell me, how in the world can I prioritize e-mail over connecting, heart and body, with my love?
So we make it a priority, just like yoga, exercise or work get a fair slot in our lives. At the risk of sounding super-crunchy, I'll share with your our Connection Ritual next posting. In the meantime, create your own, and we can compare notes!
Gramma was almost right: the way to a man's heart might sometimes be his stomach, but usually it is a little bit further on down...
He is every woman's dream at the moment: open, sweet, attentive, flirty, sexy, and sharing his thoughts (and feelings!) freely. We share a saucy spark, from heart to heart, and from, well a bit lower than that, too... I relish these times. As much as I know and accept that they come and go, I also study them so I understand the elements that go into creating them, so I can do so with greater ease and facility next time. In the eternal quest to decode and befriend this strange species of shellfish - Man - I wonder what it takes to turn "clammed up" to "happy as a clam?"
Ever the metaphor whore, I start to think about men as mussels. Sometimes men are closed, hard shells clamped down and water-tight, and sometimes they are open, happily offering up their sweet, salty, soft insides, like a Venus, goddess of love, who stands amorously on such a shell. You can't force mussels to open - you might get poisoned - but there is a way to have them open willingly.
Here is my impromptu recipe to do just that:
1. Pluck from natural habitat. Place in a container with some water.
We all get used to our lives, even if our lives are amazing, so going somewhere different, doing something differently or changing it up in some way, necessitates we are more aware and attentive, rejuvenates the senses, and wakes us up a touch. It is so important to create a space that is different than normal, familiar life. This beach in thailand is working well, for sure! But if you can't take a vacation half-way across the world, you can create sacred space, or a container to connect inside of, anywhere, anytime. Set the space, be intentional: it can be as simple as lighting candles if you usually don't, going out for dinner if you usually stay in, turning off the TV, getting in the bath together, or spending a night in a hotel, just for the fun of it.
2. Add heat and steam.
The general rule is that a woman needs emotional connection to be sexually intimate, and a man needs sexual connection to be emotionally intimate. Sort of a catch-22, at times. My boyfriend tells me he pulls away and closes down when I don't prioritize our sensual time, when we are unable to connect, sensually. It is the thing that allows him to feel like we connect deeply, that we are on the same page, and that he is important and won't lose me to work, distractions, etc. And he is right - I often don't prioritize this. I love life in all its forms and minutiae. I call myself an "intellexual," meaning sometimes my work, or a deep and juicy conversation with a girlfriend can be as amazing as sex. But really, tell me, how in the world can I prioritize e-mail over connecting, heart and body, with my love?
So we make it a priority, just like yoga, exercise or work get a fair slot in our lives. At the risk of sounding super-crunchy, I'll share with your our Connection Ritual next posting. In the meantime, create your own, and we can compare notes!
Gramma was almost right: the way to a man's heart might sometimes be his stomach, but usually it is a little bit further on down...
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