Tag: rest

Year of Abundance Project Revisited; Embodied Abundance

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

Time to revisit my Abundance Project, for a review of what has (or hasn’t) been going on with it the last few months!

I clearly haven’t been doing a monthly review for each month’s theme/actions. And it’s not that the project itself went by the wayside, because it didn’t, although it has taken a vastly different form than I could’ve envisioned when I crafted it. Some aspects and actions just haven’t been possible (such as June with its Social focus and all the gathering/neighborhood ideas I had!) and a certain depletion or narrowing of creative energy coupled with intense work/therapy focus meant I didn’t always come up with anything much clever to fill the gap either.

Some of the monthly themes took on such an ironic feel in their timing, considering quarantine. April – Parenting? May – Family? A fitting focus for each of those months! Little of it looked in action as it had on paper, for sure, but was determined by the needs of the moment and the needs of the moment shaped the responses. Though sometimes I felt as though I were floundering and failing, somehow it all managed to be ‘good enough’ … and sometimes, that’s what abundance looks like in weird, rough times, giving yourself and others the grace of ‘good enough’.

Yet, though the forms morphed into something so unexpected, to have the abundance framework has helped hold me up somehow – hold me up in hope, remind me of love and joy and passion (which was this month’s theme focus, Play/Passion), and remember it’s not only okay but vital in times like these to nourish our joy, to find wonder, to be playful.

I suppose one reason I felt hesitant, as if it were inappropriate to write of abundance in such of time of upheaval and uncertainty, distress and despair, when it’s so apparent so many don’t have the same chances to participate in and know abundance, and when so many other topics urgently needed attending, voicing, and engaging. To me, for a while it felt that writing anything about an abundance project seemed out of tune, that it would be misattuned and disharmonious (and attending to attunement is a key part of my deep meaning of lived integrity, my 2020 word). Whether or not that seems like an accurate interpretation of the situation and energy to others, it was something I felt moved to be respectful of and intentional about in whatever I did offer or share.

And, goodness, how is ‘abundance’ supposed to look right now? How is my abundance, your abundance supposed to look? Or perhaps more accurately, how does it and how can it look? Beyond that, how does abundance look for those grieving loss and injustice, for those suffering oppression, for those laboring for liberation right now?

How to define, refine abundance right now? How is the year 2020 a year of abundance; what abundance can be drawn from all this year has brought, broken down, cracked wide open, thrown wildly to the winds, swamped us and our world with? Those are questions that perhaps can’t be answered yet, perhaps the answers are still buried, hidden, unfolding, perhaps some answers are vividly, defiantly, beautifully present in the challenge, pain, and grief.

One thing I know – abundance itself remains as real and present, as valid and vital as ever it was. The experience of abundance, the ability to access and know and choose abundance in its many forms, a right all deserve. Abundance in the form of moments of awe and wonder, nature’s healing gifts (such as blue butterflies I saw on my recent solitary retreat). Abundance in the many forms of hope and grace, love and liberation, joy and justice, liberty and equity, solidarity and empathy, honesty and healing, humility and truth, community and collaboration, rest and restoration …

I’ve been learning of embodied activism (being connected and present in mind, spirit, and body in social justice and advocacy action, in racial justice work, and antiracism practice – and this makes perfect sense to me as a therapist and yoga teacher, considering we experience life in bodies, our bodies carry our memories and traumas, and so the work of justice and healing needs to happen intentionally through and in our bodies to be a whole work). But considering the many forms of abundance makes me think of embodied abundance … embodying abundance. Abundance present and embodied in nature, in us, in our relationships with ourselves/our bodies and in our relationships with others. Us learning to be present in our bodies and our world, to be embodied, and to embody abundance for one another in all those beautiful qualities of being and serving and advocating listed above.

So, perhaps this points to an answer to some of the questions above …

abundance can look like and be
hope and grace embodied,
love and liberation embodied,
joy and justice embodied,
liberty and equity embodied,
solidarity and empathy embodied,
honesty and healing embodied,
humility and truth embodied,
community and collaboration embodied,
rest and restoration embodied!

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

Resting in the posture

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

The blog has been quiet again! That is what happens to the blogging life when the demands of grad school loom large in the form of two giant research papers. Fifty-odd pages later, I can come up for some air … and take final exams. Then start all over with two more classes promptly starting, two days after these classes end … keep breathing!

Oh, and add yoga teacher training classes into that mix: intense, full weekends once a month, and two of them close together, right in the midst of the rush of the research papers and the exams! Just keep breathing, yes …

Well, this is the life and the workload I chose, and so I am not complaining! I am still learning how to breathe mindfully through it all, however. Still learning how to ‘rest in the posture,’ as it were.

Resting in the posture is something I’ve learned from yoga, a way to sustain, settle, stay in strength,  to find strength to stay in a challenging posture. (To give credit where credit must be given, I learned the phrase ‘rest in the posture’ from a lovely book called Meditations from the Mat, by Rolf Gates. )

In yoga, to rest in the posture is to be able to stay in the pose, deepen into it, even to surrender into it, when the temptation is to bail out of it instead.

But to be able to stay in it, to find strength, means first pausing, stepping back out of the pose a bit, adjusting, and then moving back into it again. It means letting go of tension, letting a softness and lightness flow through bones and muscles and mind instead, surrendering stubbornness and surrendering into the struggle, into the challenge, into the pose in the moment.

Challenging, difficult poses or postures aren’t just found in yoga, though! They’re found everywhere, in parenting, in marriage and friendships, in the workplace, in going back to school, in taking on a new adventure, in suffering the loss of a loved one, or even in the most ordinary-seeming everyday days … and in a sense, the posture never ends. It changes, but flows on, like a river to the sea …

Learning to rest in the posture then, in some way or another, seems essential to having the strength to sustain the posture, to handle whatever the challenge is, to embrace the struggle or the suffering. To sustain and be sustained, to embrace and be embraced through it.

So, sometimes I am struggling in a pose, or struggling in a yoga class, and I remember, ‘rest in the posture,’ and I feel something in me, in my body and in my heart, shift and melt … and I realize, the strength and will and joy to endure are there!

And other times, like when I felt overwhelmed with life happening all at once, research papers, yoga class homework, kids out of school for the summer … I think, wow, how can I manage all of this?! And I remember, ‘rest in the posture.’ And something in me shifts, settles into acceptance, and vital grace is there again.

Let go of tensions, let go of resistance to the challenge, struggle, or suffering, let go of what is not needful or helpful. Pause, rest, surrender, re-adjust, find the grace and joy and strength of this moment! And be amazed at how much grace and joy and strength there is in you, to tap into when you rest in the posture. And be in awe at what postures (of life) you can rest in and how much rest you can find there.

In writing this, I realized that this phrase ‘rest in the posture,’ is so much like a phrase I used in an earlier post, ‘take refuge in surrender.’ They really are so much alike, but yet different, perhaps, too. Instead of me explaining what I think that means, I think I’ll leave space for you to decide whatever the meaning is for you!

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And,  related to the idea of the posture never ending, but shifting into new forms, and finding grace to rest in the new posture …

I find myself moved to do something that is like shifting into a new posture, something that seems scary to me, because it’s perhaps making myself vulnerable in a way I haven’t before, opening up my heart-space, my soul, to you all in a different way …

And that is to share on this blog, in a section of its own that I will set up soon, a statement of faith/spirituality that I wrote after a dear friend said to me, you should write a statement of faith; I would love to read it!

Sharing it feels sort of like a posture that I might rather avoid because of fear I’ll fall out of it or embarrass myself, but something says to me, just take refuge in surrender and rest in this posture, too. And who knows what grace will come from it!

So, check back soon! 🙂