Category Archives: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

Music for the spirit

I have always been a very musical person. To clarify, that means I’ve always been moved right to the core of my soul by music. Not that *I* can create that music. I love singing but the only one who likes listening to me sing is the dog (not the cat). The most entertainment my singing has ever brought me is watching the looks of mortification on the faces of my children while I sing and dance around the kitchen singing loudly to some 80s song. It actually brings me a lot more enjoyment than it should, doing that.

This morning I was driving to my walk after dropping the kids off when I started watching the lady at the red light across the intersection from me. She was maybe in her early 30s and was all dressed up so I assume she was going to work. Usually I pass people on their way to work and they already look so exhausted and unhappy. I often think what a miserable way to start the day off, big frown of stress, coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other, cell phone going (yes, I’m aware that that’s more hands than we have – you should see the drivers here, it’s insane). But back to this lady. I don’t know what she was listening to but oh man she must have loved it. She was full on car dancing. Hands waving up in the air, head flinging around, mouth singing. She was having a blast. She had an advance green while I was still waiting and I smiled as I watched her happily sing her way through the intersection. I don’t know where she was going or what is happening in her life – but for that moment in time she was radiating happiness. I was having kind of a groggy morning and she lifted me out of my fog and put a big smile on my face that I carried through my cold morning walk.

The power of music.

Music has always been able to enhance my moods. When I need to get myself up and moving, I have a song for that. When I’m feeling melancholy, I have a song for that. When I’m homesick, I have a song for that (Alberta Bound by Paul Brandt – I just had to stop and watch that 3 times – now I really am homesick. That is where my soul lives while the rest of me is stuck elsewhere). When I’m happy I, I have a song for that. Songs bring back memories of good times – every time I hear Billy Idol I see my badass little pony Pirate bouncing his head along to White Wedding.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to go to a JourneyDance at Kripalu which was probably the first time I spent 3 whole days dancing – in public – to the rhythm of my soul. I remember Toni Bergins saying something to the effect that she didn’t need therapy as long as she could dance. Very true. I loved it – and I’m not really one usually to be shaking my moves in public. I could tell things were going the wrong direction for me when I was back a couple of years later and couldn’t do the lunch time dance because I could feel there was so much sadness in my body and I couldn’t stop and deal with it then. I’m dancing again now though!

Every morning the kids and I listen to Deva Premal  on Pandora. Every once in a while the ipad is missing or I forget to turn it on and always the kids say “mom, don’t forget to turn on your yoga music. It makes me feel so relaxed and ready for the day.” The morning whining and fighting has all but disappeared since we started listening to her to begin our day.

I was first introduced to her music 8 years ago in Quebec at my first yoga class. The Gayatri Mantra affected me in a way that no other piece of music ever has. Without being able to understand a single word of it, it reached right into the core of my soul and shone some light. It made me feel safe, happy, warm, relaxed and at peace.

GAYATRI MANTRA (from Deva Premal’s website)

Om bhur bhuvaha svaha

Tat savitur varenyam

Bhargo devasya dhimahi

Dhiyo yonah prachodayat

Translation:

Praise to the source of
all things.

It is due to you that we attain

true happiness on the planes
of earth, astral, causal.
It is due to your transcendent
nature that you are worthy of
being worshipped and adored.
Ignite us with your all
pervading light

I listen to that song at least once – and often many more times – a day. It lightens my soul and makes me a happier person. Day 3 of my 44 days of happiness was brought to me by that lady car dancing at the light. I’m thankful she gave me the opportunity to reflect on what joy music brings to my life.

Standard
Uncategorized

The history of love

A few years ago I read the book The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. I enjoyed the book, and it’s probably time to read it again because I can’t remember most of what happened in it. But, there was one character who stood out for me – Leo Gursky – as someone I already am, or someone I could see myself turning into. Leo is an elderly man who has moved from Poland to New York. He spends his days terrified that he will die and that no one will notice him gone. He does things like make sure he goes out for a cup of coffee and then “accidentally” dropping his change all over the place. His goal is to make sure that someone notices him every day. That way if something happens to him, at least someone would be able to say – yes, I saw Leo, he was out getting coffee.

At the heart of his issue is loneliness. I think that’s why his character spoke so loudly to me. With all the moving we have done over the past 10 years, loneliness has been a common theme in my life. There have absolutely been days where I have felt like Leo. Where I felt like at least if I went out and did something to make people notice my existence (like dropping my change all over the place), people would know that I was alive.

I think this is also why the candy man at church speaks so loudly to me. He is out every Sunday passing out his candy and making friends at the church. If he’s absent one week there are 20 kids who are upset that he’s not there, and asking him if he’s ok the next week when he returns.

Believe it or not this actually fits in to my 44 days of happiness.

It was cold this morning. We are far enough south that we didn’t get any of that New England snow storm, but it was still cold. And I was feeling lazy. And I didn’t really want to walk. Even though I know that walk is so important for my spiritual wellbeing. Fortunately, Dottie ran and jumped in the car before I could break her heart, so we ended up heading out on the path anyway.

I have my regulars that I see on the path. There are a lot of seniors, but they’re all in Florida now – so it’s mostly other moms like me.  There is one other lady who is there walking no matter the weather. We laugh because I’m from Canada and she’s from Hawaii and we are the only people who can bear the heat and the cold all year to do our walks. The walk is as spiritually important for her as it is for me. We always stop and have a little chat when we run into each other. Sometimes we walk together, but we both have said how the quiet morning walk is what sets us up for the day -so often we just chat and then head on our separate ways.

Some days when I see my regulars on the path I think of Leo. Things aren’t as lonely now as they used to be but I’m still always so happy to see my regular people. The other ones who know how important that morning walk is.

So, today my moment of happiness comes from acknowledging that sometimes life is lonely, and like Leo it’s important to have those people who notice you. My happiness comes from having those people on my daily walk.

Standard
Uncategorized

44 days of happiness… starts now

Today is my birthday. The intention for this year is to follow my bliss, to be happy. To follow the path of least resistance by allowing good things to come into my life. What better way to kick it off than with 44 days of happiness? 44 days where I spend each day with the mindful intention of doing and finding things that make me happy. I got the idea from my daughter who seemed to turn turning 10 into a month long event, and also from a hight school friend who recently told me when she turned 40 she spent 40 days doing something special for herself.

So, these will be my 44 days of happiness. Or, the 44 days of Melissa.

Day 1 naturally was pretty easy since people always go out of their way to make sure that your birthday is a special day. But I also noticed I was happier in my soul today. I could feel it when I was out walking this morning. I felt it when I was working on my Ayurveda course. And I could feel it when I was hanging out with my kiddos.

The kids today get the credit for bringing a smile into my heart. They both made me a special card for my birthday. Jenna’s is here:

IMG_1287

The picture above is us holding hands under a rainbow. The poem below melted my heart:

I love you, I love you, I love you mommy

I love you, I love you, I love you so much

You’ve always been there for me

I am going to be there for you

i love you I (heart) you

so much mommy

happy 44 b-day

swoon. Takes my breath away to be loved so much. I love her that much too.

And from Jacob:

IMG_1288

He makes my heart so happy. I love them both so much and there has been no greater joy than being their mom.

To top it off, my Facebook feed was flooded with friends and family wishing me a happy day. I am so blessed that I have so many people in my life who are really good, decent, solid friends.

Happiness is off to a great start.

Standard
Uncategorized

Closing out 43

Tomorrow is the start of my new year. I know it’s more popular to make your new years resolutions for January 1 but since my birthday or “new year” is on the 26th I have found it makes more sense for me to focus on my intentions for the new year on that day. It’s not something I ever used to do, I preferred to wing it and focus on things as the desire hit me. But, when I turned 41 something inside me changed and I decided to make a concentrated effort to make who I am a better person.

41 was the year that I followed the philosophy “be the change you want to see in the world”. I decided that if I was going to live in a better world that the changes for the better had to begin with me. I started looking long and hard at how I was living and making changes that would make that life a better, happier and more balanced one.

42 was the year that I worked on “healing”. All the thought of the year before had made me realize how broken I was. I had stripped myself down to my core in the effort of rebuilding and that drained me completely. I started learning about Ayurveda, learning how to feed myself better, discovering the importance of a good nights sleep, learning to meditate. Learning to heal myself.

43 was the year that I worked on “strength”. I wasn’t healed yet, but I could feel inside that I was ready to get stronger. Right before my birthday I saw a picture of someone doing the dancer pose and decided that was something I wanted to be able to do myself. I worked on it all year. When I started (and I wish I had taken a picture) I couldn’t stand on one leg and pull my other leg up towards my bum to grab it with my hand. I had to use a yoga strap to pull that foot up. Tonight I had Jenna take a picture of my progress over the year:

IMG_1217

It’s huge progress. I’ll keep at it and post another picture next year.

44 will be the year of “my happiness” my happiness. Because I’ve learned that when I’m happy I spread happiness which makes the world a better place. I’m going to walk myself down my path of least resistance and consciously allow good things happen to me. Way too many times in my life I’ve had wonderful opportunities knock on my door and I’ve turned them down because I felt I didn’t deserve that kind of happiness. Now I feel not only do I deserve it, but it’s my duty to seek it out. We all deserve to follow our bliss.

My pose goal for the year is to be able to sit and stretch forward reaching my toes and have my body lie flat against my legs. I’ve never been able to do this. In junior high I used to do terribly at the flexibility toe touch. Although, while I’ve never been really flexible that way it did annoy me years later when I got married and we were comparing how we could touch toes. He could reach hands on the floor no problem. Then I realized that while he was taller than me his legs are 4 inches shorter. Which helped me let go a lot of the “I can’t touch my toes” insecurity of jr. high. I can touch my toes now. I love that yoga is noncompetitive – I need that.

Here’s my pose at the beginning of the year:

IMG_1271

I’m excited about this year. A whole year focused on happiness. I have a feeling that wonderful things are going to manifest this year.

~ namaste

Standard
Uncategorized

Pay attention!

Yesterday I was at the dentist getting my teeth cleaned. I loathe going to the dentist, but oh how I love the feeling of clean teeth!
While I was waiting I opened my kindle. I’m reading “You’ll See It When You Believe It” by Wayne Dyer. Hit the page turn and the next page was this:

2015/01/img_0362.jpg

Which is exactly the phrase I blogged about I the other day the other day

It’s still knocking at my door. I’m paying attention.

Standard
Uncategorized

My heron, my river

My herons and my river have been a huge force in re-stabilizing my life here. The herons and I have an interesting relationship. I’ve noticed that they don’t pay a lot of attention to the other people on the path, but we seem to have a real attraction to each other. Maybe it’s because I’m one of the few people who actually stops and stares at them, but they really seem to notice me (even on days when I don’t stop and stare). I figure it’s fair enough if I’m staring at them for a while that they’ll get upset, squawk and fly away. But often they either fly right ahead of me and land on the riverbank or they pop up right beside me from the water’s edge and fly away.

Yesterday I walked by Henry Heron (yes, I’ve named them) and as soon as I got beside me he flew away. I was sure he was gone, but instead he flew about 30 feet upstream and landed on a rock right by the edge of the water in a prime heron watching spot. This picture was taken with my iphone, I was maybe 20 feet away.

2015/01/img_2719.jpg

He stayed there the entire time I stood watching (and taking pictures). As I continued up the path I came across the second heron (Heidi Heron). She was standing right beside the water on my side of the river – usually they’re on the far side of the river away from the people. She flew downstream right beside Henry. Then they both turned and flew upstream past me. Henry stopped a little farther up and Heidi took off. I figured she was off fishing somewhere else for the day.

I continued on my walk and as I crossed a narrow bridge in an area where there are NEVER herons I saw this: (can you see her? she’s hiding in the top right part of the picture)

2015/01/img_2720.jpg

A most unusual place for one of the herons to be. Dottie the Dotted Dog and I stood on the bridge for a long while and watched her march up and down the water.

So, what do these herons mean? They make a point of making sure I notice them when I’m out walking. Why are they so insistent that I see them?

On purely a personal level, for a long time they helped ground me and bind me to home. I’d take a picture of Henry or Heidi and text it home to my dad. He would go out on a walk and take a picture of the heron that lives on the slough near their house. It helped remind me that no matter how many miles apart we are, we are still bound together. They were my birds of un-homesickness.

Spiritually, herons remind us of self-reliance, self-determination and independence. They remind us to go with the flow of life (ha! a big one for me now following my path of least resistance). A lone hunter with the ability to stand steadily on it’s own (amazingly long) legs – a reminder that one does not need a large amount of support to have the ability to stand on one’s own.

The Heron symbolizes balance – the ability to be strong and secure on the ground yet fly with grace and ease in the sky. They will wait patiently by the water but when they see what they want they go after it with no quickly with no hesitation. They represent the need for solitude as well as the one to explore (which is a big part of my morning walk). Herons are able to walk into deep water with no fear knowing that they will remain balanced on their own two feet.

So, pretty much exactly what the goal of my river walks are – to ground me, to remind me that I can stand on my own two feet. To encourage my self-reliance, to know I can walk into the water and remain balanced.

Standard
Uncategorized

Emotional Age or Physical Age?

I’m turning 44 next week and while part of me says “Holy $h!t how can that be possible?”, there’s a deeper and calmer part of me that says “Bring it”.

When I was a teen I never thought I’d make it to 20. Not that I planned on dying, I just could not imagine myself being so old as to be 20. The worst possible thing would be happening. I would be an adult.

Well, I made it past 20 twice over (and a little bit). I still think the worst possible thing that could happen to me would to become an adult.

I had to go downtown in Calgary a couple of weeks ago to get my passport. It was cold out so we walked through the plus 15s to get to the Harry Hay’s building. While we were walking all the cool downtown businesspeople were out having their cool downtown business lunches. Some of them looked happy and excited to be there and some of them looked completely beaten down by life. What I thought as I walked past them was “Thank God this is not me. I would never be happy living this life down here. I’m so happy I chose a career path that keeps me out of an office.” I know people who have office jobs and love, love, love them. Me – not so much.

My kids have been known to say things like “We have to go to _________ and they said we need a responsible adult. You’re an adult mom, they don’t have to know you have the maturity of an 8 year old, try and see if you can pass it off.” And they say it with smiles on their faces. Because they have told me over and over how much better it is to have someone who loves to live life as their parent (they were around when I didn’t love to live life, so they know the difference).

It seems to me that once you’re in your 40s, unless you have cosmetic surgery (even then it only covers up so much), your face tells the world what kind of life you’ve lived. A lot of my peers look exhausted, run down and like most of the fun has been sucked from their lives. Others look happy and full of life (ojas) – they’re the ones the others talk about “how does she stay so happy and young looking?”

At our church we have “the candy man”. He’s an older man who sits up at the front of the church with a big bag of candy and passes out a piece to each child as they walk back from communion. Last week before church he walked up to me and gave me a tootsie roll, then as I was walking back from communion put his hand out to stop me and then gave me a whole handful of candy (I very inappropriately did a little happy dance in the aisle). I’d like to think he recognized that my inner child needed a little something sweet to get through the rest of service (I was the only adult to get candy). He’s also made me decide that in 50 years or so when I’m finally old I’m going to be “the candy lady”. In a church where so few of the kids know the “grandparent generation” he is loved and visited with by all of the kids.

I may still not be 100% sure what I’m going to be when I grow up. But I know what kind of life I want to live. I want to continue to be the mom singing along (badly) to Def Leppard at top volume while my kids cover their ears and yell “mom!!!!! aghhhhhh“. I want to continue to smile every day and wake up with the feeling of gratitude that the day ahead is going to be another wonderful day. Although my physical age may be increasing, I want my emotional age, my spiritual age, to remain at an age of happiness and joy.

Standard
Uncategorized

From FOMO to FOMA to Fearless

FOMO – or the Fear Of Missing Out – is a real condition and it runs strong in my family. So I come by it honestly.

I used to push myself to do things that I maybe didn’t really want to do because of FOMO. I would go places and do things that my inner being knew I didn’t really need to do because of FOMO. What if something fun happened and I wasn’t there?

Then I got brought to my knees by anxiety. Well, to be more accurate it kind of crept up on me until it finally had weakened me enough to bring me to my knees.

I had to reassess everything. What kind of life did I want to live, how did I want to live it?

I went from being a regular, quiet, introverted type, someone who was generally pretty happy with life, to someone who was so overridden with anxiety I was having a difficult time getting through basic daily activities. I ended up with FOMA – or Fear Of My Anxiety. I started being afraid of doing things because I was afraid it would give me anxiety. I wasn’t just not doing things that made me anxious – but living with a fear of things that could make me anxious.

Not a fun way to live.

One day I realized that if this was ever going to change I was going to have to deal with both FOMO and FOMA, and that I was going to have to deal with it myself. I was very aware that living 2,000 miles from my home and my emotional support system left me in a place where I was going to have to dig deep and figure this out myself. I had two little ones who needed me to be emotionally present for them and who I needed to give my emotional support to. They’re probably going to grow up and say “Gawd mom was such a mess”, but I’d prefer it wasn’t because of this issue.

I accepted that for me FOMA and FOMO were intertwined. I didn’t want to miss out on anything, sometimes I felt the need to be a part of the activities to make sure they ran properly (control – a fear based issue). It took me a while to realize that in the grand scheme of things *I* wasn’t that important. All those things would keep on happening whether or not I was there. Wouldn’t it be much nicer to pick and choose and participate in those activities that genuinely brought me happiness? To be present and focused in the activities I was involved in?

My cure for FOMO? The joking understanding that nothing fun happens if I’m not there anyway. I know this isn’t true, and that tons of fun things happen every second of every day that I don’t participate in. But, do I really need to be a part of everything?

Dealing with the FOMA? This took lots of time. I pretty much stopped everything and rebooted myself. I cocooned for a while and looked after myself. For the first time in my life I actually put myself and my needs first and really looked after myself. I began separating myself from people and activities that increased my anxiety (this was the most difficult and most important thing I did).  I looked long and hard at the things that had to get done and prioritized them. Knowing that I was not going to be doing everything but that the things I was doing were things that were important to me. Knowing that I wasn’t missing out on anything because the things that I was now doing were bringing me more happiness and more meaning.

Spending two months at home this past summer in a nurturing and caring environment helped boost me right over the top from where I felt I was dealing with my anxiety to where I felt like I was fearless of my anxiety. Amazing how a good dose of being grounded and loved and reminded of who you are at the core of your being will do that.

Since that I have been working on being Fearless. Before this would have meant that I did anything I was challenged to do no matter what my inner voice told me. That I never showed fear. That I was always brave That I met every challenge with little regard for my personal consequence. Now, being Fearless has an entirely different meaning. Fearless to me now means that I don’t have to live with that feeling like I’m not being true to myself. As long as I’m being true to who I really am I’m confident with my life and happy with my choices. I don’t feel like I’m missing out because I’m doing the things I really want to do. I’m living a more peaceful and blissful life. I’m not quite where I want to be yet, but at least I can see that I’m walking on the path. That makes me grateful with each breath I take.

There is another side to living with Anxiety. It is possible to get through it and move on to finding true happiness and joy. I feel more bliss now when I’m living in my sweet spot than I ever have before. This does not mean that there aren’t times when I feel anxious, or times when I’m sure I’m missing out on all kinds of fun. What it means is that I’m becoming more comfortable and relaxed in knowing that I’m on the path to freedom.

Standard
Uncategorized

A spiritual being having a human experience

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

~

The last few days I’ve been doing different readings and this quote is showing up everywhere. Even randomly on my Facebook feed. My dad and I had a conversation somewhat along these lines over the holidays. It seems to be something that I really need to pay attention to.

I find it so easy to get hung up on being a human being. The physical experience. How does my body feel today. How does my body look. I walked along the river this morning and thought about the fact that I am a spiritual being having a human experience. I felt my body resist this thought (whaaaat? No you’re not. Feel me, I’m here). And at the same time my spirit feel joy at this thought (thank you for finally noticing I’m here. When that body is gone I’m still going to be here, you know).

Being a spiritual being reminds me that we are all gifts from God (even those people who annoy me, I need to especially remember that those people are). We are all here with a Divine purpose and it’s our job to figure that out and live blissfully in it. Find our dharma and live it with joy.

Remembering that I am having a human experience reminds me that any struggles are temporary. This physical aspect is but one part of the entity that makes me me.

That little light that shines in all of us? That is our spiritual being. Shining with love and bliss and brilliance.

Standard