Tag: journey

Retreat reflections: Mindfulness vows to myself

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

I began 2019 with a silent retreat at a lovely, serene spiritual oasis in northeast Nebraska (St Benedict Center). It was a time of deeply mindful, sacred rest – exactly what my body and soul needed after a busy, intense, revolutionary year full of some pretty powerful learning and growing experiences! 

When I arrived, my soul felt it was home. I knew, my body and soul knew, here was a place of deep peace safe to rest and be – and all I had to do here was rest and be. Lay down burdens, step into another world, set aside the phone and the watch, re-connect to and follow the rhythms of nature and my own body. What a delight and relief!

For me, this retreat was like a spiritual pilgrimage, a journey within, to see what I could find and learn in the silence and to see what gifts and news silence would bring me. I came with some deep desires. What I hungered for was to find and learn what would help me live my purpose to be more present in my life and with others. What I thirsted for was to immerse myself in Presence and know deeper healing and wholeness.

After arriving and settling in, I thought, to find what I’m seeking I need to set intention(s) that will give me clear direction. Oh, yes, I sought space for my soul to wander free … but I also didn’t want my mind to wander lost either!

I sat in the solarium that first afternoon with pen and notebook, surrounded by books and light and spacious quiet, soaking in the peaceful ambience, a still quiet at ease with itself. I reflected on how I could act with deliberate intention in physical and spiritual ways to support and deepen my purpose and practice of presence, to embody mindfulness.

In this quietness, these words came to be my guide and companion on my retreat journey. And they’ve stayed! I decided they weren’t just retreat vows, but life vows. I printed out and framed a copy I keep in my bedroom, and another I put on my desk in my (new!) office space, to keep my purpose ever before my eyes, engraved on my mind, nurtured in my heart, informing my words and my work, flourishing in my whole being.

There were many rich lessons, wild and precious moments of pure joy and aliveness, profound healing experiences, and other gifts I’d love to share down the road perhaps (some feel like they are only meant to be told in how I live but the ones meant to be told here will tell me, I’m sure!). But for now, just this seems enough and more:

Guiding Mindfulness Vows

(My Vows to myself on my Retreat and for Life)

When I walk, I will walk
When I sit, I will sit
When I eat, I will eat
When I write, I will write
When I read, I will read
When I rest, I will rest
When I listen, I will listen
When I observe, I will observe

When I look, I will look deeply
            into myself
            into what is present

When a feeling arises, I will feel it as it is
            and then set it free
            chaining to it no story

I will be with my body
                       my heart
                       my mind
                       my soul

When I notice myself in distraction  
          I will redirect myself with a gentle grace
When I notice myself in rumination and self-recrimination
            I will give thanks for my awareness and
            return my body and mind to the one act
                        of presence

            of walking
            of sitting
            of eating
            of writing
            of reading
            of resting
            of listening
            of observing

Above all and in all
            of experiencing this moment
           of being and inter-being

With my presence, I will be present
With Presence, I will be present

Redefining everything

/ Lanae / 2 Comments Featured

I’ve been feeling like my words have all been coming for me recently, echoing back at me … both reproachfully and hopefully!

All the various deep intentions I challenged myself to practice and to be …

Being mindful, practicing deep listening

Being an includer, practicing radical inclusion

To nurture belongingness for those who have felt a sense of not belonging

Being peace

Being stillness, being a healing presence

Choosing abundance

Living these words has felt painfully hard recently, feeling like I was failing to live my spiritual practices. And yet these words, these intentions have still anchored me …

In mid-October, I gave a reflection at my church home about choosing abundance and gratitude. How I learned to choose abundance, abandon the myth of scarcity, the one that said that there wasn’t enough and I would never be enough or have enough. How I’d spent years in poverty-thinking and I was done with that …

But even though I passionately declared myself done with it, I guess it wasn’t done with me!  I found myself mired, struggling to remember abundance or to have the strength to choose it, day upon day. And I felt like such a fraud … teaching what I was struggling to do/be!

And what I wrote recently about coming to see my life-mission as being peace, being stillness, being a healing presence? Certainly, there’s truth there, regarding that as a calling, but how it was presently showing up in my spirit?? Mmm, not so much maybe! Even when I published the post, I was thinking, my dear girl, this won’t ring right  … because right now, your energy, your spirit doesn’t match these words!

I certainly wasn’t feeling like I was a healing presence, because I definitely didn’t feel still or serene within. I was aching, hurting, grieving, feeling lonely, unsupported, burdened, overwhelmed.

It’s not been an easy year by any stretch … yes, there has been much blessing, but a profound collection of losses, and an accumulation of layers of grief and sorrow.
The specters of depression sprang up … anger, fear, shame, despair, loneliness. Self-pity, resentment. Seeds I didn’t want, didn’t want to water. They made it difficult for me to remember abundance, to choose it … and they’ve caused me to begin redefining what choosing abundance looks like, in different circumstances. How does one draw abundance from dark emotions? It’s a (lonely) labor of love!
And I’ve tried, oh, I’ve tried to remember abundance in this hard, valley season … if it was hard to choose it, at least to remember it! To remember the gift of belovedness.
I’ve tried to nurture my spiritual practices, and let them nurture me. I’ve tried to rest in this posture, difficult as it is (more of my words that came back to me).

In all of that, I think the theme of this year has become redefining! Redefining – and refining.

Redefining myself, redefining my spirituality/spiritual practice, redefining my intentions and expectations. Redefining abundance and what choosing abundance looks like.

Redefining even the act of defining things, learning to let go of my need to define things!

Redefining everything …

There was the divorce … and learning to live life as a single, working mom (while continuing grad school!). And I’ll not sugarcoat it – it’s been hard and deeply overwhelming. Yes, sometimes such a triumphant feeling to realize what I can do and what I can handle, but also – overwhelming!
And yet, so many big decisions to make on my own and so many responsibilities and obligations (like, managing finances alone!), and so much uncertainty, and so much on my plate …  and so little time!
The busyness and fullness of my life – on one hand, satisfying, and yet on the other, feeling like it robbed me of friendship and connection time.
A cold and searing loneliness confronted me.
And the voice of poverty told me that I didn’t have enough support, care, love, affirmation …. but oh, how it told untruths! I do know that, because the voice of abundance brought again to my heart the many beautiful things that dear friends have done for me, big and small:

  •                 the friend who got a family photography session gifted to me
  •                 the friend who organized a clothing drive for my children at the beginning of the school year (and the generous response to that)
  •                 the long phone conversations with one friend
  •                 the friend who sat with me as I cried in shock after losing my job earlier in the year
  •                 the friends who have picked up my son from middle school several times when I was working
  •                 the kind, loving words here and there that have added up to a sweet bouquet

Too, there was also the felt weight of withdrawal in some long-time friendships (from my past church), heavier in my heart as silences made the sense of emotional distancing more tangible. This weight has lightened, though.

Redefining friendships, connection, sisterhood, community … learning what my village looks like. It might not look like what someone else’s looks like, or the ideas that society and social media have given me, but it doesn’t need to! If I open my heart, if I see with different eyes, if I look right next to me, it’s there … you’re there! Friendships, community, sisterhood – they are for me just as they need to be for me for this season. And are enough, if I let them be!

And then there was my first girlfriend experience, and then a break-up. To be clear, it was a special experience, rich in many ways! I’m thankful for what I learned from her and the relationship, but the break-up really rocked me.

Redefining love-relationship needs and desires … learning to be content unpartnered, for now.

Then, I lost one job – but found another, one that has been good for me in so many ways. Loss = gain.

Redefining my professional value and competence. 

Hopes humbled and dreams deferred …  A niche that I had had the idea that I might fill, but became clear didn’t belong to me. Some dreams and passions that I had to say goodbye to, at least in the form I had envisioned them.

It turned out to be a long, hard goodbye, and it’s been hard to find the hellos that follow the goodbyes. Even though I know about letting go gracefully of that which is not meant for me, and that letting go of old possibilities opens up new opportunities, I still felt the deep sting of loss, all the way into my core.

And it shook me, badly, unexpectedly. It stirred up resentments and fears that surprised me with their presence and power. I think it showed the depth of my attachment to those expectations and ideas, too.

(So much for learning to practice non-attachment! This quote comes to mind: The mark of a moderate woman is freedom from her own ideas. Alas, I am not (yet) a moderate woman, then! But it’s a life goal!)

I’d made the mistake of attaching my identity to my idea of what my role, my calling was. I’d tied my sense of belongingness to it. So, I felt unmoored  … another loss, another grief. One I didn’t really receive with grace or gratitude, I tell you!

Redefining calling, role, identity. And – letting go of the need to be defined by them.

So yes, the last while, loneliness and grief have been familiar companions.  So familiar I simply decided to befriend them and make peace with them. (I think that’s how you draw what abundance and healing there is to draw from them, anyway!)

I know that this is the holiday time, the season of joy to the world and peace on earth, and it’s not festive to speak of loneliness and grief and sorrow – but these are also a part of the holiday experience for many, because they’re a part of the human experience.

Redefining the value and reality of grief and loneliness.

Don’t get me wrong, I do know joy still, I know there’s a place of joy deep in the center of my being; I know there’s light within! There’s still stillness …

Redefining ideas and expectations about being stillness, being peace, being a healing presence.

I have learned and am learning still that I need not judge myself for not always knowing equanimity and stillness. There’s no need to define myself by the presence or absence of any emotion or experience. I’m human – part of being human is feeling deep pain, experiencing grief, sorrow, loneliness, dark emotions. As I’ve written before (more words that keep coming back for me!) sorrow is a sacred part of belovedness. So is grief. So is loneliness.

Redefining my whole emotional experience.

Redefining my journey, my story.

Redefining everything …  refining everything. Being refined.

Further and deeper, learning to let some things be undefined … learning to let the journey and the experience be as it is, in this moment, this season!

 

 

Adventures in letting go, following the flow

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

Today I followed the Spirit and went for a drive, to nowhere in particular for no reason other than to go for a drive. I had not planned on going for a drive, but I left the church and thought, I think I’d like to go to the park and sit by the water for a little while. So I went there and watched the sunlight dance on the water, little sparkles of sun flitting across the water as the wind rippled both water and light …

And then I decided I might sit somewhere else so the sun would be at my back, but when I stood up, I realized, Oh, I’m done here. Whatever I needed there, I had found – or it had found me – and so it was time to move on. But to where? Home? I didn’t know … yet.

But when I got in the van, it came to me – I know, I’ll go for a drive! And it was just me, and nowhere else I needed to be, and nowhere I was needed to be, so why not? (And how many moments like this are there for a mom of four with a full life … so if the opportunity opens up, follow it! 🙂 )

So I headed south out of town and down a county road, and just let the miles roll under my wheels. My window open and the soft, spring-smelling wind rushing in and ruffling my hair. The sunlight making the corn stubble gleam gold. The valleys and the turns in the road. Another world, it seemed to be. The sun and the wind and me.

It felt like one of those journeys you don’t know you need to be on until you are on it … and sometimes miss because you resist the whisper-nudge in your mind and soul that says, let go and just follow the flow of life, and see where you might go, just today, just for now. Let go and see where you go!

Sometimes, it is okay to go where you know not, to go without knowing yet where you are going, to let plans go and just go, to follow wherever your heart, your soul, follows the Spirit. A free-spirited following of the Spirit, a free flow …

Aimless? Reckless? My little adventure might seem a bit of both, but really, it was neither … it was an intuitive letting go, and it ended up filled with purpose and purifying peace.

It was like a driving meditation, instead of a sitting meditation or a walking meditation!

Because I found a rich stillness, a worshipfulness, and an exuberant liberty I could not have found, and the Spirit spoke to me in ways I could not have felt or heard if I had stayed where I thought I ‘ought’ to stay.

If I had resisted the simple impulse that said to me, Go, let go, just go? Then I would have missed the gift of the simple, pure freedom of just being, and just being with the Spirit as it was being with me … I would have missed what my heart, mind, and soul needed, today. I would have missed the lessons and the answers waiting for me on that journey …

To summarize them simply:

If it is a question of letting go, the answer is … let go!

Surrender to the flow of spirit in your life … wherever it may lead, follow with trust. It’s okay to let go of the need for certainty and control, to accept not knowing fully, and to follow without knowing. Find the comfort that there can be in uncertainty and impermanence.

If it is a question of loving, the answer is … Love!

Love hard, love deep, love whole-heartedly in a whole-souled way, love fiercely and fully … and if heartbreak or soul-ache comes from it, do not fear to grieve the same way. Be willing to grieve as deeply and fiercely as you’ve loved. Better the grief that might come from loving and losing, than the grief that comes from not letting go of fear and just loving …

If it is a question of being, the answer is …. BE!

Be free, be truthful, be love, be grace, be courage, be compassion, be peace! Do not so much act or advocate for change, as BE change. From the right being, the right doing will follow, the right change will follow.

 

 

 

A healing journey

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

I would like to try to reflect upon my recently completed yoga teacher training experience … but I have no adequate words to express the journey. Sometimes there aren’t words and all words are adequate for is to say that they are inadequate to describe the immensity and intensity of an experience …

I suppose I really want beautiful words, the most beautiful words, to paint the most heart-stirring and gilded, evocative and fluid and flowing, picture possible … I feel that the experience is worthy of the most beautiful words that I could find! But what I carry forward is gratitude, for the journey and for those beautiful people, beautiful souls all, with whom I shared it!

I would not have imagined the big-ness of the spiritual journey upon which I was embarking … the layers of my soul that would be exposed to me, the depths that I would plumb, the magnitude of relational shifts, to myself, to others around me, to closer friends and family, to the earth herself …

Oh, like the unfolding of a lotus, a thousand petals opening infinitely outward! There it is, one image to illustrate it …

But perhaps I have to return to the spiral … like that in the trinity labyrinth tattoo that I have on my inner left ankle. Three spirals seamlessly flowing into a center and back out and around in an unbroken line, this labyrinth represents a spiritual journey, re-creation, awakening, transformation …  spiraling in, spiraling out.

As much as the lotus ever unfolding outward even while the tight bud seems to remain at center represents my feelings about this yoga journey, so does the labyrinth, spiraling in, spiraling out.

Sometimes you must fold in on yourself to open outward and bloom, sometimes you must go deep inward in order to find your way back out.

Sometimes you must walk through the darkness and the fire to find light and peace and stillness … be burned to nothing to find cleansing and purifying and wholeness.

I feel that this is not only what happened in the actual teacher training weekends once a month, but also over the entire seven months in the midst of the training …

Did the experience of beginning the teacher training begin opening my heart to an even deeper searching for truth and deeper willingness to live it, regardless of the cost to my ego and my comfort, or did the searching of my heart for truth and my soul for a voice lead me to the teacher training? Perhaps both. Perhaps it matters not.

All the threads were unfolding as they were meant to unfold … as I walked the path, the path opened itself to me, and as I embraced it, it embraced me.

I began the journey with the conscious thought that I needed to learn a deeper physical practice, to know the asana aspect of yoga better … perhaps to bring a balance to mind, body, and soul that I have always sought and craved. I began knowing that I was not in balance … I knew meditation, contemplation, reflection. Well, so I thought!

Those spiritual elements were my focus, perhaps I should say, my idol … ego was in my spirituality. Ego was in my meditation …

Even though I loved to exercise, to run, and found it a spiritual thing, I still did not have what I would call body/soul integration. There was a disconnect, an imbalance in the way I lived with my body, used my body, thought of my body, shamed my body for being a body, for being an imperfect body. For being less important than my soul.

I didn’t live in a soul-ish way in my body. I lived with much ego in my body … a prideful discipline, not a compassionate discipline.

And going through the yoga teacher training, I learned that deeper and more compassionate body discipline, I found that body/soul connection. I found the soul in the asana practice … and it brought me back around to the meditative elements, but deeper into them, deeper into the soul.

Because I learned to find the soul in the body and the body in the soul, and to know that the soul and body need to have a loving relationship … and I need to have a loving relationship with both …

And as I came through to the end of my training, I found myself back where I had begun … where I had never left, having but gone deeper, through the body into the soul … using the body to let go of ego, and in the letting go, finding the soul. In the letting go, the self-surrender, the surrender to the sacred, finding the stillness …

I learned the art of stillness.

I learned that I want to teach the art of stillness.

I learned that I CAN teach the art of stillness. But only if I stay in the space where I am willing to keep surrendering ego and surrendering to the sacred, to the light, to belovedness …

And I want to show that stillness is a safe place … that it is a safe space to be, to see the soul and know it.

May I teach, may I live, may I be with others in such a way that people can see stillness is a safe and beautiful and healing space to be … a safe space to wake up to the soul and find wholeness and healing in the stillness,  and then live awake and whole!

I am grateful that I have found wholeness and safeness in stillness. That I have come to know stillness as the safest space to be and to become anew, to always be becoming anew …

And coming, becoming, from that place of stillness, to be in my body and my soul in a new way, to be in my relationships and in this world, in a new way, a deeper way.

Stepping out of the boat (again): owning my truth

/ Lanae / 4 Comments

You might act as if you’re at peace with whatever happens now. However, the truth is that your attractions are pulling you strongly in two opposing directions and you don’t want to let go of either choice. Unfortunately, it’s time to stop living under the illusion that you can follow divergent paths for much longer. You are at a fork in the road and you must make a final decision before moving forward.

I can’t remember where I originally found these words, but when I rediscovered them in my files today, my heart pinged again, and I thought, OH! I have no idea why I first saved those words, but they resonated with me again  ….

Inspired me to reflect further about letting go, about not living under the illusion that it’s possible to follow divergent paths … about moving forward in truthfulness, moving forward in and with Belovedness.

The last few years, my life journey has brought me to several forks in the road, forks where divergent paths met. Both could not be followed, and I had to learn to choose. I confess that at times past I have attempted to hold onto all possible choices, to hold on to an illusion that it was possible to reconcile contradictory paths … but I’ve learned to let go of some illusions!

Many things – interests, possibilities, or relationships – can be integrated into a clear path to follow, but truly conflicting paths cannot be converged into one harmonious way of living, no matter how hard or how sincerely you try.

I love the idea of a middle way – that whatever the divergent-seeming choices might be, there is another way, a way of both truthfulness and peace. I find myself now always looking for a middle way …

Sometimes this middle way is a way of understanding that what seems to be an either/or choice can be a both/and choice, where perspectives or truths that seem to be in opposition can actually be held together and balance one another. This is a beautiful path to see and to follow, a way of choosing peace, finding harmony. This is equanimity, in vision and in action.

Sometimes, the middle way is a way of moderation, sometimes a way of concession and compromise. Sometimes compromise is the path of truthfulness and authenticity; sometimes not. And when it’s not a path of truthfulness, it’s not really a true middle way, a way of peace or of belovedness.

Sometimes, what compromise means is a fear of committing to a clear purpose and path, a fear of committing to authenticity and vulnerability. Fear of claiming an identity, of taking a clear stand, making an open acknowledgement …

What is in stark contrast here is the desire to move forward in a direction of authenticity and vulnerability, but also to remain in a place or path of seeming certainty and safety! To be honest, or to be hidden or to hide behind silence … but is remaining in silence a path of truthfulness and authenticity, or a damaging, deceiving compromise?

And over the last couple of years, I’ve confronted that question in various ways, at deeper levels … and I’ve made some agonizingly difficult decisions to follow a path that diverged from the familiar and comfortable status quo. But this became a path of peace because it was a path of truthfulness and authenticity, of integrity and wholeness.

There’s something I’ve chosen to share in my everyday living, with friends and family, in my faith community, and now here …  I choose this path of truthfulness because for me it’s a path of peace and of belovedness, because it brings a liberty that far outweighs any costs.

I won’t, I can’t, hide behind silence anymore. I choose to be authentic and vulnerable, though this is a risk both exhilarating and terrifying.

As I mentioned in my very first blog post, I am stepping out of the boat:

I am no longer afraid or ashamed to identify myself as gay, nor to stand in love and solidarity with all those in the LGBTQ+ community.

It’s also true that I would rather not pigeonhole myself into any one label. I am simply who I am. I am a person. A person with an interesting sexuality, yes, but my sexuality is only a part of me that doesn’t define all of who I am.

Yet, it’s an important aspect of who I am, and I had to learn to make peace with it and love it as a part of who I am innately, so that I could be whole, live in authenticity and integrity.

I have previously told my story of finding the gift of belovedness  … the gift of wholeness and reconciliation. Accepting and embracing the truth about my sexuality is also an integral part of my story, of finding that gift of belovedness. I suffered deeply from years of denying or despising my sexuality, not able to accept or love that part of myself or to be a whole person …

But knowing all of myself as beloved, as deeply accepted and embraced by Love, helped me become whole! Helped me learn how to echo belovedness …

And so I send this echo of belovedness, this echo of truthfulness, into the world and hopefully into your hearts!

Stepping out of the boat

/ Lanae / 1 Comment

This is a brand-new venture to me, one that in many ways does indeed feel like a ‘stepping out of the boat’ experience! Over the years, a few friends have broached to me the possibility of creating a blog, and while I loved to write and felt I had been granted a gift for it, I felt hesitant to put myself and my words, my thoughts, into public space. Much safer, perhaps, to leave them in a private journal! (And besides that, it’s much easier to start up a journal – just get a nice notebook, maybe with a cool design on the front, a good pen, and start writing. I feel a bit overwhelmed with all the blog design logistics and possibilities, but I’m learning, and I’ll keep learning, and maybe tweaking, as I go!)

It wasn’t only a matter of vulnerability, however, but that the time didn’t seem quite right; I didn’t feel prepared with a clear purpose, vision, or calling. But somehow, these things have settled into place, and so, when a good friend again encouraged me to start a blog, the answer within me was clear: “yes, now is the time!” Yes, time to use, to share, to open my gift in fresh ways, not be silent and not hide, even if it does feel like ‘stepping out of the boat,’ out of a comfort-zone into a challenge-zone.

The phrase ‘stepping out of the boat’ arose from a poem I was introduced to a few months, a poem that acted as an inspiration and affirmation of courage to take a bold risk at that time. I think it is just as applicable, just as affirming for me now, and perhaps it can be so for anyone reading it here too!

To sinful patterns of behavior that never get confronted and changed,
Abilities and gifts that never get cultivated and deployed –
Until weeks become months
And months turn into years,
And one day you’re looking back on a life of
Deep intimate gut-wrenchingly honest conversations you never had;
Great bold prayers you never prayed,
Exhilarating risks you never took,
Sacrificial gifts you never offered,
Lives you never touched,
And you’re sitting in a recliner with a shriveled soul,
And forgotten dreams,
And you realize there was a world of desperate need,
And a great God calling you to be part of something bigger than yourself –
You see the person you could have become but did not;
You never followed your calling.
You never got out of the boat

Gregg Levoy

Having begun, I hardly know where to start, except just to start! It might help a little to clarify why I chose the name I have chosen for this blog, what its story is. The word ‘belovedness’ has come to be very precious to me, as the way I experience my relationship with the Divine, but also as the way in which I want to be in relationship with others, with everyone. In my spiritual journey, I have come to know that I am beloved, that I live in Belovedness, and so this love, this belovedness, is what I want to pour forth in my being, my living, my writing.

I want to speak and write in belovedness, to send echoes of belovedness into the world, and to encourage, inspire, promote, and cultivate love, compassion, and justice. I may touch upon challenging topics at times, but always with earnest intent of speaking for and in belovedness. I’ll post happy things, grateful things, thoughtful things, playful things, joyful things, too … all are part of the echoes of belovedness!

There is, of course, a backstory, the narrative of my life’s journey, this path that I have followed in becoming who I am and who I am still becoming to be, this path to belovedness. Rather than begin with the sum of it, I’ll share as we go along together. And I do hope you all will come along, and help make this a space of honest, vulnerable conversation and connection, a place to learn and grow together!