Prayerful = Grateful?

In case you're wondering how the Prayer Project is going, the update is that I'm still doing it. I'm not doing it so much for specific people anymore as the requests faded out and I was reminded of something Caroline Myss said and that's "God's not deaf." So I let those peter out. If you want me to ramp it up again, just let me know!

My prayers have become more like energy awarenesses, if that makes any sense. Just noticing how the energy is in my body, in the imagined body in front of me, and keeping it open with my awareness. Fine. I don't know if it does any good, but it's what I'm doing. And sometimes I notice that I'm praying or wishing that things were different than they are. Like praying for obstacles to be removed. Not a bad prayer, but definitely a request that things be different than they are.

So this morning it got me to thinking, "what if I just prayed for things to be as they are?" And that led to, "that's silly, things are as they are and don't need my prayers," and that moved me over to "how about be grateful for how things are?" That seemed to fit this morning, so I just sat with being grateful for a minute.

Sometime over the weekend I read some quote on Twitter that was a reminder that if you don't like how things are, one of the things you can do is also be grateful for what you don't have that you don't want. Example - cancer. As far as I know, I don't have cancer and I'm sure I don't want it and that can be a blessing I count if were up to counting things.

Gratitude can look like being satisfied with what we have but also with what we don't have. Welcoming things as they are and as they are not. So I'm practising allowing the moment to be just as it is (like it needs my permission - ha!) or maybe it's better for me to say I'm resisting the urge to edit the way things are and I'm playing with just holding what's there. So even praying that I can stay in the moment is a shift away from being with things the way they are.

And one of the ways things are is that I like to mess with stuff. I tend to wish things were different. I like to improve my situation. I'm not satisfied in a number of areas and I'm constantly scheming and strategizing how I can make things go more my way. And that's how it is. That's how I roll. Today. I'm not committed to always being that way!

So today's prayer that turned into gratitude even includes me being a little meddler of my life trying to arrange things to please myself.

The Best Place to Be

I really believe that the best place to be is where you are. And I don't mean in geographical space. Of course it's rotten in Haiti and other parts of the world right now. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about internal realms. If you know where you are, then things line up - you come into alignment - and things flow more freely.

One of the best ways to find out where we are is to look at areas of unconsciousness, or where you're being "inauthentic." Look around your life and find a place where energy is not moving freely, where you're stuck and where you think you shouldn't be. Like I think I should be "further along" in relationships and thinking I should be that way is an "inauthenticity" or is unconscious thinking. I think all sorts of things, I have lots of beliefs about my life and about how it's not going the way that it should. And again, I've got lots of areas that work and where I'm not bothered. But that's not what this post is about.

So when I get present to where I really am, thanks to that area of unconsciousness that allows me to see myself, I can just be there. (In the Landmark Education it would be to be authentic about an inauthenticity.) Maybe have a cry, maybe just look around, but notice that I wish things were different, that I have expectations of things being other than they are, and just that, the noticing of where I am frees me up. And when I look at where I am, in this case in the area of relationships, and I see that I feel like I'm not as skilled as I think I should be, I just see a place where I'm adding suffering that I don't have to. I see that that's how I feel, that I'm holding myself to expectations of things that are not how they are, and poof! the suffering disappears and I feel freed up.

It doesn't usually last. To blast the mountain out of the way I'm going to have to use many sticks of dynamite, but it's a process of chipping away at it. Sometimes the blast is the final one and the thing disappears, the obstacle is removed. But usually it's a gradual hammering away at the thing. And it feels good to blast a bit of unconsciousness away for a bit. Because the thing about being present is it's the same no matter what the circumstances are. So being present in a place where I feel lousy feels just as good as being present in an area where I feel good. Present is present. It's how good times can happen even in the midst of normally lousy external circumstances.

The other thing about being exactly where you are, no matter where that is, is it's very attractive to other people. When you can just simply be where you are, and really own the place you're in without blame or judgement or self-criticism, other people find it nice to be around.There's something so refreshing about being with somebody who just is where they are, especially if it's a place that normally is associated with misery or doubt. When someone is awake in their own discomfort, we trust them, we like them, we want to be in that place too.

So this morning I had some moments of feeling unconscious and small and I was able to see it, see what I was doing to myself and how I didn't need to do that and poof! it passed and I feel my power is restored and I'm back to balance. For now! Balance will need to be restored again, but for this time right now, I am present and good with myself in an area that I tend to judge myself about. What a nice break.

Meaning Making Machines

On some level we're all meaning making machines. We all take things that have happened and we make them mean something. This is all in the Landmark Forum, by the way. Something happens (or we think it's going to happen) and then we make it mean something. That's just what we do. Sometimes we make it mean the same thing as a whole bunch of other people and then we have a "culture." But really, there's no meaning in anything. We put it there. It's just what we do.

And when something happens that we like and we make it mean something good, there's not usually a problem. It's when we take something that happened in the past (or something that's going to happen) and we give it a meaning that doesn't work for us that is where it gets interesting. Often the thing that happens and the meaning we give it have no relationship at all. So we can get all bent out of shape because of how our parents treated us or our bosses or life, and then we go on and think we're not enough or we're not capable, or we're not going to get what we want, and feel bad and go unconscious. Then we're not really present to what's happening at all, but we're stuck in our pattern of making meaning that's not true or good, and we're not being with who's in front of us.

We're not going to stop doing it. But if we can notice when we are doing it, we can snap out of it, come back to being present and then get on with things until it happens again.

Teaching Yoga is a Present

Teaching yoga is a great way to stay present. It's its own practice, just like being in the mat in the poses is a practice, leading a group in yoga practice is a practice too.

When I'm teaching I'm often get distracted but I have to come right back to the present moment or else I'd fall off the edge. So even though I can go off in my mind a little bit, it's only a very little bit or else I couldn't carry the class. The work that it takes to keep coming back, to know which side we're on, which pose we're doing, what time it is, and all of that, keeps me focused on the present moment. And that is such a gift. Having a practice that brings me present is my present!

Some Future Moment

I watched my mind try and hurry up my meditation this morning, like it often does, and I laughed. It's trying to get out of this moment, like there's some future moment that's going to be better than this moment. Like, "hurry up and finish meditating so you can hurry up and get to yoga so you can have that class be over so you can go out, so then you can blah blah blah."

What a joke! It makes me laugh. I'm old enough to know what the future moment looks like. You know what it looks like? It looks exactly like being in this moment! This one. Not some future one. When the future moment does finally get here and then occurs, it occurs just like this with some other moment further out in the future calling it out of being where it is. Too funny. It always looks like this. THIS.

It's such a trick. If you are closely connected to NOW, to how things are right this minute, you'll soon discover that it is ALWAYS like that. Depending on the altitude of your orbit it may occur as different levels, and that's a reality too, but if you're really in the body, with your breath, being totally present, then the moment is simply and always the moment. Imagining a certain kind of future can help determine your mood in the present moment, sort of like the view you've got out your window, but when the future moment arrives, it is the present. Just like this. There's no escaping it.

Can't live in the future, can only live now. Can't live in the past, can only be here. Circumstances change, people change, things happen, but when closely examined and felt, it's always like THIS. No better, no worse. There's no better moment. This is as good as it gets :)

Novembrrr is Hard

I haven't posted in a while not because I don't have anything to say but because November seems to be a hard month and doing anything is extra-difficult. I can look back at Novembers past and see that there has been a pattern of rough times in this month. The tan on my feet of my sandals has finally worn off. Christmas is looming and all the details that go with that are starting to creep in. The days are very short. (I've been calling them "cute" in class.) Winter is about to begin. These are of course, just circumstances and don't necessarily mean anything. Lots of people have a great time in November. I'm just noticing that often in November I am more melancholic and tired.

I hear voices in my head, mostly it's my own voice, reminding me to breathe into sensations and lengthen my breath. I review my classes to myself so I can shift how I'm being and have a great day instead of waiting for the day to be over so I can go to bed again. It's up and down.

My trainer's like, "where's positive-thinking, energetic Jamine?" I feel grumpy and pessimistic and sore and have little motivation to do much. But I Keep On because I have things scheduled and slowing down and doing nothing is not an option I'm giving myself.

I escape to vacation websites and book fantasy trips in my head. "What if we went away next weekend?" "How about just you and me go away over Christmas?" "Let's pack up and rent out the house and just travel like I used to." And then the voice comes in, "Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote a book that sums it all up, 'Wherever You Go, There You Are,' so don't move so fast into a new situation." So I close my eyes, imagine myself anyplace I want to be, realize it won't really matter and being where I am is the best place. Talking myself down from the tree and coming down to reality.

So this is when I need to use those teachings I've got more frequently. It's when things are hard that all of that stuff comes in really handy. When things are going well, who cares? I'm glad I've got a big toolbox of stuff to help me out in Novembrrrr.