Ramblings

Nothing fancy, just me and my thoughts.

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My sister is here visiting. It is amazing and so much fun to just be in each other’s company. Oh, how I’ve missed her. She is away for the day and I can’t help but feel this overwhelming emotion of loneliness. Like a dark cloud in my periphery that I’ve been ignoring is finally making its way in line of my sunshine. I miss my momma. I miss my home. I miss the life I chose to leave in hopes of adventuring the world and beginning on a new path into the unknown. Well, here ya go. 
I am out at the park. It’s a disaster from the events being held here. People have strewn trash everywhere. From beer bottle caps to starburst wrappers, innumerable plastics and metals and papers litter the ground. So I begin to pick it all up. I know they have staff to do this stuff but it is my responsibility. If only the rest of the world felt that same weight of responsibility…

  

So I cry and I clean, and I sniffle and hold back the tears and pick up the waste of humanity. I can’t help but cry. I know I can’t feel sorry for myself, after all, it was a huge, conscious decision to trek the country and plant ourselves 3,000 miles away from the people and places I’ve called home for almost my entire life. Between sniffles I remind myself that this phase is temporary and a little uncomfortability will teach me something that will become a precious and valuable addition to the pocket of ‘lessons learned’ that I have collected over my short life. The sting of this time will fade and not having a community or social routines to fall on will give way to intentions set and eventually will manifest into the life I love and need to thrive. With people. With people that I will come to know and love. Coming here, to California was step one. Now, it’s time to stop living in my cave which I’ve happily embraced and emerge into the new community in which I’ve planted my life. Soon my roots will take to the soil and my life will begin to adapt and grow here. I’ll make friends. 

  

I am picky, I know. I am too picky probably with the people that I fill my limited, precious time with. My standards are so high that I’m afraid. I’m afraid that I won’t meet anyone who will be worthy to spend my time with. That’s shallow thinking, I know, but I find that people my age are so young in their minds. I connect better with the older generations. People who have traveled the world and seen things. People who have lived hard lives and come out on the other side with a zest that the younger generations are lacking in. Especially out here. Everyone has grown up in money. They’ve never lived a hard day in their life. I can’t relate to that.

  

 

I know they exist…or do they? Young women who don’t just want to party every single night? People who want to connect on a higher level instead of droning out on drugs or alcohol and filling their lives with the drama of who they’re fucking or who they wanna fuck or stupid friends that did this or said that and, “how dare they?” Save it. I’m over it. It’s not like every conversation needs to be weighted or serious or heavy but I like to live my life more along the lines of what Eleanor Roosevelt says, 

“Great minds discuss ideas;

Average minds discuss events;

Small minds discuss people.”

There’s just better things to engage about in my opinion. The worlds events, why poverty exists, the duality of “good and evil,” does good and evil actually exist, why we do the things we do, why we engage in the habits we engage in, what lies just beyond the surface of this world that we interact with daily? These ideas fascinate me. Where do I find those people? I need to get out more. I need to seek them out. I am so introverted. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to find them. I’m so stubborn. I want to interact on my own schedule and on my own timeline. I don’t want to give more than I get, which is something that I easily slip into because the world relentlessly takes and takes all it can and when you ask for something in return it turns its back laughing. These are the exact reasons why making friends has never come easily to me. Ever. Surface relationships are simple and easy. But real friends, real people I can count on and also want to give my all for, it is a rare thing in my life. I can truly count on one hand those people that I trust and love. Without compromising what you love and what you need to thrive as a being, how? How do you have real friendships? It seems so obscure to me. I miss the ones I’ve already made, the ones I’ve already invested so much of my heart and soul in. 

  
I miss my daily routines with the people I love in the places familiar to me. The places that are welcoming and warm. Where people know me and greet me and can’t wait to engage because they’ve heard my name around town or have attended one of my yoga classes. I miss going to my favorite secret places. Mica Beach. Ugh. My heart aches right now. A real physical pain in my chest of longing for some kind of familiar comfort. Even through the tears I can hear the fight between my mind and heart. The logic and emotion are at battle somewhere deep within and immediately after each despairing idea comes a hopeful and logical response. I will build a new life. It will be as beloved as the one I had on the east coast and I’ll be growing my horizons as much as I’m growing in every other way. I will stay in touch with the ones I love, the ones that matter most to me. I will not let go of the places I’ve been. I’ll even be able to add new people and places to my life. Because that’s what we do. We change and we move and we adapt and I’ve always wanted this and I knew all along the way that it wouldn’t be easy. But you go anyway and you learn and you grow and you expand. 
So now it’s time to step out and create a community and start emerging from this hide-out that I’ve become so comfortable in. In the midst of such change I’ve created this little chrysalis of comfort and now it’s time to start breaking out of it and becoming a little more uncomfortable. Isn’t that kinda what life is about? Being uncomfortable and growing to make that uncomfortable place home? Seeing a challenge and rising to meet it? Expanding in every way? Well, that’s life to me. 

  
Who knows what the future holds, who knows where I’ll end up and what beautiful souls and lessons I’ll have collected along the way. I embrace this time. I recognize it as painful and I’m not ashamed to cry and to feel every ounce of it. That’s how it changes me, that’s how it affects me, that’s how I know where to plant my foot for the next step. With awareness and mindful of every aspect of where I’ve been and where I’m going. So I guess we will just see. This moment though, this moment is perfect. And maybe a little bit difficult, but perfect nonetheless, I am alive and healthy and I understand. I get it. The simple beauty to the entire thing. Life. And I love it so damn much. 

  

The Kind of Legacy I Want to Leave…

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will not be well documented in the history books of our time.

It will not be talked about by scholars or revolutionaries. 

It will not sweep the world by social media with a movement of sorts.

The kind of legacy I want to leave will be silently carried in the hearts of the people I interacted with during my lifetime. 

It will be spoken one-on-one in words of kindness and little jingles and mantras that remind us of true love and beauty.

It will be remembered by few but it will spread fast in peoples own words of the truths we spoke about and believed in. 

The kind of legacy I want to leave will be small but it will be mighty and real as hell. 

1,000 Steps

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Yesterday was one of the greatest days. I could actually say that about every single day. That magic is captured in our perspective on life. But yesterday was truly something special. 

Sometimes the days here are long and empty, sometimes the days here are active and busy, sometimes the days here are unbearably lonely and sometimes they are so full of connection and love I can’t do anything but smile and sigh. Some days are foggy and unclear, I stumble around wondering why? What is the purpose of it all? How can I make a difference in this world? How can I leave a legacy that’s radiating with love and kindness? Some days I get it completely, at the core of my being, I understand exactly what life is about and why we are here. It is so simple. There is no purpose. This moment is the purpose. It’s light and easy and so so blissful. 

Every day I am faced with some hint of our mortality. I don’t see it as morbid, I see it as a mediation. When you face your mortality often you realize that this moment is all that exists and what was yesterday doesn’t matter anymore, let it go. What will be tomorrow and if you’ll even be around to see it doesn’t matter, let it go. All that we have is right now. This moment is where the magic of life dwells. If we spend our lives practicing being in this moment, making the most of it, sensing all that lies within it instead of wishing it away or letting it pass by while we are somewhere else in our minds entirely, I believe we actually live a longer life. Time is relative and there is clear science on that, I want this short life to seem like it lasts forever and that ability is in our awareness of every moment. I want to drink in every single second as if this life were the most rare, beloved nectar of the gods and I’m lucky enough to have a sip. After all, that is the truth. 

  

Yesterday I was deciding what to do with my day…how could I make the most of it, how could I let it stand out as something special. I am an adventurer at heart but sometimes need a little kick to get me off the beaten trail. So I decided to be bold and find a new beach to explore, I’ve been wanting to find some awesome drift wood to whiddle and play with and my regular beach is getting extremely busy coming up on tourist season. So I googled because I needed a plan and found this amazing little beach called 1,000 Steps. It’s right off of the Pacific Coast Highway and I hesitate to mention the name because I want it for myself but I realize not many people read this so I think I’m mostly safe. I stumbled down the 200 or so steps and once the canopy opens up you’re met with the most stunning vision of the endless ocean. It is breathtaking. Little beach houses litter the cliffs of the rocky coastline, it is a sight to see. 

  

I set up right next to the waves. They had actually made a little sandy cliff and so I sat right on top of it, safe from the incoming waves but still right on top of the water. I started doing yoga after a long period of silent reverence. Something about the rythmic sound of waves crashing on the rocks and the ocean mist kissing my skin always makes me want to move and dance at the waters edge. A prayer of gratitude. How could I be so lucky? Does everyone feel this way? 

As soon as I dropped from my first handstand a gentleman appeared out of no where and what began as a conversation about flexibility and movement soon turned into one of the most fulfilling and awesome conversations I have had in quite some time. We connected so fluidly. Conversation came easily as one subject rolled into the next just as the waves in the background rolled in and out of one another, backed by an entire sea of life and experience eager for connection with the shore. 

 

Our heart actually emits an electrical energy, it reaches out into the world interacting with all that comes near. I have a very clear relationship with that energy and I can feel the true nature of others. Sometimes it’s cloudy and I have a hard time diciphering and sometimes it’s clear as day what the intentions of an individual are. Sometimes I’m clouded by charm or outward displays of kindness and I’ll question the relationship that I have with my gut, but more often than not I am right on par with my intuition and what I feel during an interaction with another. In hindsight I am most always right. 

Usually I am guarded when men come up to me on the beach, I am not naive. I am eager to interact with others and the inner god that we all house but I know what the world is after. Easy, shallow connection hoping that they can stay guarded and broken without having to reveal their wounds. Seeking acceptance and love while choosing to offer only the most appealing parts of themselves, skirting around anything real and yet hoping a real connection just magically appears. But this interaction was so different. A real interaction with a real human being. Not looking for anything beyond what it was. I felt so good. We chatted for hours watching the waves and speaking about life, all the kinds of things I love to talk about, all the things that reach beyond the monotony of our daily humdrum lives. When it was time to part I gave him a stone from my satchel, amethyst. To raise the frequency, to carry with him or to set in his home as a cleansing and pure reminder of the goodness that exists in the world. To remind him of true connection to a real being and to remind him to offer that to the world wherever he goes. 

I came home buzzing with good energy to my love whom was also buzzing with good energy. We laughed about our fridge being barren and our wallets being empty. We danced to folksy music and made a plan that would carry us through the rest of the week. Broke as hell but happier than ever!! We live in our favorite place, we are together and we are so damn grateful for everything in this life and even though we may not have furniture yet, ultimately, nothing else really matters in this world. We took a nice long walk in the dark to the grocery store with our last twenty bucks and when we came home we made a yummy healthy dinner together vowing that we wouldn’t let the leftovers go to waste. I’ve never been happier and sometimes when the days are long and lonely or my love is away and traveling and that loneliness is amplified that simple fact begins to get foggy. But right around the corner of every single moment I find clarity again. I find connection to the whole again. Whether it’s in the grass of my favorite park looking out onto the mountains which I longed to be in my view for years, or whether it is out at the beach with my bum in the sand looking out at the endless ocean. Whether it’s playing at my craft table creating art and expressing what’s inside or doing yoga or even in the dancing dinner moments with my love, I find that fullness again. I seek it and it is always there to fill my heart up with goodness. The circumstances may not be royal but the perspective is clear. We create our reality and happiness is something we create in our mindset of the happenings of our life. They can mean nothing or they can mean everything.  

 

Journal entry~April 4, 2014 (one year ago)

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I feel like I am in a little place of peace right now in my life. No, I don’t know anything. Where we are going. Why we do the things that we do. Why our perspective is the way it is and how it got there. Every single person is so different from the other. Every single, individual being is unique. I’ve been telling my little yoga/mindful movement group about this very concept. Not necessarily about our perspective on life which is compiled of years and years of unique experiences and interactions and people that help to contribute to that completely individual perspective of the universe in its entirety.

~”It’s as if you had a light, covered with a black ball, and in this ball were pinholes, and each pinhole is an aperture through which the light comes out. So in that way every one of us is actually a pin hole, through which the fundamental light—that is the existence itself—looks out.” -Alan Watts ~

Rather, we have been talking about the physical idea of uniqueness in our bodies. Yes, we can use an anatomy book as a guide for the general structure of our body. We can learn the connection points and muscle functions but when it comes down to it we are a completely unique physical form. We are an organic material grown in the womb of another organic being whose choices and actions and even the stress they’re under have a significant impact on how that organic material is formed. The foods we eat and the way we interact with our own body impact the way our systems function and perform. The tumbles and falls we’ve experienced in our lifetime rearrange the structure of our physical form. Our unique gait and repetitive motions cause muscle imbalances. A million unique factors all combine beautifully throughout the course of our lives to create a completely unique and one-of-a-kind organically grown being! So ultimately, my practice is my own, it is also one-of-a-kind. No one else’s practice will look like mine. There is no, “it’s supposed to look like this,” or “it’s supposed to feel like this.” My warrior pose is mine and mine alone and only I can discover what that means to me by going on the journey, by deciding to practice and understand what warrior means to me, what it feels like in my own joints and in my own skin and ultimately, I’m my own life. As long as we can hold a position or a variation thereof, using whatever tools we need to, to be “comfortable and stable,” as the Yoga Sutras claim, then we are right, we are doing yoga!

Warriors.

Warriors.

All of this can be a direct metaphor for life I think, as I always think, haha. “Yoga” and “life” are interchangeable as words for me on a daily basis, as well as “position/posture” and “opinion.” We are all on this path to bliss. We are all trying to find what makes us happiest every single day. Who am I to judge what that looks like for an individual? Who am I to say that their posture or position or opinion should look or be this way, should be the same as mine? It’s true, some outlooks on life help to catapult us into productivity, learning and growth. Some outlooks on life tend to keep us still, stagnating in the waters of monotony, but all paths and journeys are seeking the same peak of enlightenment at the top of the mountain of life. Some people will make very small, struggled steps, spiraling around a tightly wound path up the mountain that exhausts them and they may even die trying to reach their bliss without ever truly finding it while some take this direct path to the top, expelling minimal effort to get there and they seem to get there long before the crowd does. Just as our physical, organically grown form is unique to each individual, so is our path or journey of life. It takes into account every piece of advice we’ve ever heard and taken to heart. It takes into account every time someone spoke words of encouragement, inspiring us to own our reality and it takes into account every time someone spoke hurtful words, slighting us and making us question what it’s all about and doubt whether we are good enough to continue on. Our path takes into account every time we’ve tumbled and fell along the way or been tripped up by an obstacle. Our path takes into account every input that creates a perspective and outlook on this world but I believe all paths are seeking the top of that mountain where we can stand up and say, “I made it,” “I get it,” “this is what it’s all about,” “this is the point to it all.”

The path is clear.

The path is clear.

I think I am on a good path with a good perspective. It is my own. It is beloved to me. It teaches me and guides me and yet I also have the power to guide it, changing course when I feel like I’m walking in circles. Ultimately, I adore this life. I am eager to learn all I can within this short venture of existence and I am hit in the heart every day with the reality of our very mortality as a human being. Even though that sounds morbid, it encourages me to bless every single day with actual presence. Nothing good lasts forever and I don’t believe we would find the sacredness of life if we were eternal. Of course, for me, I believe our collective consciousness goes on but we won’t be aware of it…just as we weren’t aware of our individuality before we were born…nor do I think it will matter, we return to this pool of love that is everything, all the time, everywhere. This background fabric of existence that fuels it all. I find it hard not to worship it all. Every single thing. Every single being I come into contact with. Every single green signal of life…the trees, the grass, flowers and all my beloved plants, my pets, the radiant Sun, the glorious Moon. I worship the universe. It is my god!

I worship it all!

I worship it all!

I am so thankful to have been born in this age, the age of knowledge, the age of science. We have a beautiful grasp and understanding of the complexity of the stars and the universe and a basic knowledge of how the fundamentals work. We can observe and see the physical laws that govern our world and yet we are still so far from knowing even a smidgen of the entirety that is our existence. It is meant to be that way. Elusive. Keeping us forever searching for answers. As we reach out into the void of nothingness it is being created right at our fingertips for us to grab hold and digest but there is always more to be known. We can never fully have it. It is like a beautiful woman…you catch a waft of her scent and a glimmer of her eyes before she slips behind a corner just out of reach. You seek her out around the corner but only catch a glimpse of her gown and flowing hair as she is off again, beckoning you to follow. You seek and seek and only ever get a small taste of her wondrous nature, lusting for more but you can never know the fullness of her touch. You’ll never fully be able to lock onto her, to grab her up and kiss her. Again, she is gone. So you seek. On a perpetual journey of seeking the universe and all that she has to offer. Both inward and outward she is boundless and unable to be contained. Many are too fearful to journey on anyway, in spite of knowing the simple truth that we will never fully know her but craving the excitement of the hunt and pressing on anyway. Few are brave enough to follow her endlessly into the vast darkness, always on the frontier of what is known and marching on with determination into the unknown. Sustained by the thrill of what small amount she is willing to reveal of herself and driven by sheer, dumb, bull headed stubbornness. I know for me personally, I just cannot get enough!

Up & Down, In & Out

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We live in this very small plane of view. It is necessary for survival. We live in this tiny little bubble where we are constantly dealing with the people and happenings right within our sight, right within our grip. Outward and inward, upward and downward, infinity exists but we stay here. There is so much magic beyond the limited range of our individual perspective.

Every thing you see has a world of its own. An entire existence that we are unaware of. A droplet of water that we see colliding into a bigger body of water actually has its own intricate dance that we miss out on. It bounces and settles on the puddle because of its surface tension and then bursts and again, bounces and settles on the surface of the puddle. Smaller and smaller the droplet becomes until it is absorbed by the puddle in its entirety. We miss out on that dance because we don’t look closely enough, we never ask why? How? But if we can slow down, we can see that that insignificant droplet of water occupies an entire world of its own. A single cell that we perceive to be part of our whole, part of the body of a person or an animal or a plant has, in its own world, an entire metabolizing system. It has its own individual beings with jobs and to do lists in order to maintain its life. That cell is completely unaware that it is part of a whole. That cell, or even a leaf or a bug is its own circuitry of a life. If we slow down, if we look just a little closer we can see that there is an infinite world of being that happens just beyond our awareness.

Water droplet.

Water droplet.

The stars and galaxies move at their own timeless pace, they dance and collide and that dance lasts millions of years. Their lives last wildly longer than any human could ever wish to be around to see it play out. There is a whole world bigger than us and we are so limited in our minds and occupied with our own existence, that we forget. Our world extends infinitely upward into the universe, where stars are exploding into and out of being, spewing their rich guts outward into the space around them. Dust and rock and matter collide and collect and begin to orbit the larger pieces, each carrying its own gravitational pull and attracting to one another just as human beings do here on earth. A metaphor for our lives and yet we are blind to its steady truths. As those stars and astral beings live out their lives in a beautiful dance, we sit here, unaware of their timeless beauty and wonder why our lives seem so meaningless. But if we can slow down, if we look just a little closer we can see that there is an infinite world of being that happens just beyond our awareness.

jpl.nasa.gov

Cassiopeia A as captured by Hubble.

Outward from us a whole universe stretches, beyond our own lives where other beings walk around constantly and we collide with them but we never really know them. We live in our small personal universe where the full existence of another can’t possibly penetrate. Even the love of your life you only experience as a reflection of your own understanding of their life and the stories they’ll allow you to see. The idea we carry of another is so limited and shallow, only ever seeing their opinions and views, their outlook of this life in the light of how we would respond or absorb the happenings and goings on of our own world. The people you thought you knew the most are in reality exactly and only ever what they share with you, and even then it is only through the veil of our own understanding of the world that we see them. Remarkable. Ultimately, the people in our lives are but a mirror, reflecting back to us our own depth and grasp of this world. If we see others as shallow it is truly because we must be shallow, if we see others as unloving, it is truly because we must be unloving. But if we slow down, if we look just a little closer we can see that there is an infinite world of being in another that happens just beyond our awareness.

My love and I on Laguna Beach.

My love and I on Laguna Beach.

Sadly, the same applies to our own depths. We stay on this surface of our being, an infinite bath of never ending inward depth that we could never fully explore. Most people are afraid of what they’ll find. Most people are hurt or betrayed by their own thoughts and conclusions of themselves and others and life in general. I honor those who are willing to go on the introspective mission to know ones self. They are the brave souls that press forward even when it may sting. Insecurities are revealed and patterns are uncovered. What we do with that knowledge is where true courage shines. If we can radiate that authenticity even when it isn’t accepted, if we can fight for understanding and allow others to go on that journey with us, do we not live a fuller life? If we can slow down, if we look just a little closer we can see that there is an infinite world of being within ourselves that happens just beyond our awareness.

Introspection by Patrick Desmet

Introspection by Patrick Desmet

My respect lies with those who decide to understand this simple fact. Maybe we can never explore the entire universe, upward and downward, inward and outward, but damn if I won’t try. I’ll ask and ask and ask endlessly till my dying day. Seeking and searching for the knowledge I need to support my next step of understanding and growth. Stretching beyond my small bubble of view, reaching out into the void, constantly living on the frontier of discovery into a universe of which I crave to know every nook and cranny. I crave to know and interact with others that gather this same purpose of life. My soul longs to collide and dance with other beings who ask these questions too, who have this same insatiable lust for depth and discovery. I seek and search for those beings that are not afraid of the dark. Those loves that are willing to explore the scary unknown, of others, of themselves, of the world around them, sharing their findings all along the way. I crave to explore the inward and outward, the upward and downward of all that lies beyond our very small world view and perspectives. I long to live out of a higher dimension than most of this world seems to live. So I share, so I talk and talk and unfold that which lies before me. Unraveling the ball of mystery and wonder of this stunning and beloved universe. If we can slow down, if we look just a little closer we can see that there is an infinite world of being that happens just beyond our awareness.

Out beyond that tiny bubble of our everyday awareness there is so much love, so much connection. I’ll meet you there.

Value Authenticity

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A note to your younger self

I saw this as I was scrolling through the internet and immediately it impressed me. What would I say to my younger self? I think it would obviously be different based on the time in my life when the question was asked for sure but for now, and maybe mostly because it is extremely relevant to my here and now…I would say,

“Amanda my dear, value authenticity.”

Okay so that is technically five words but you know what I mean. Ugh! If only I had learned this earlier in life. But that was not my journey, for me it has been a long and arduous process of even understanding what authenticity looks like. Being authentic means being true to you.

Lately, everywhere I turn someone is giving me their input and advice for my life. “You should do online classes,” “You should record your yoga classes and sell them,” “You should make custom jewelry orders for people,” “You should live here or there when you get to California,” and so on. When you are on the cusp of a huge adventure like this, uprooting your whole life, the life you’ve spent all your years to craft and create to move across the country, people want to share in it with you. It is bold, it is brave and people want to help. Not only do they want to share their own experience but simply enough they are going to miss you and want to stay connected. They want you to be successful, they want to see you go out into the world and do well. It is endearing and so so cherished and it is also a bit overwhelming. 

As a Libra through and through I have this built in urge to make everyone happy. The practice for me is brushing up against that comfort zone and advocating for myself and my own dreams. What do I want? I have to keep remembering to be authentic to myself and the deeply rooted passions and purpose for my own life journey. I have to remember that I have a message to share with the world and getting it out there will only work if I can follow my own path to make it happen. No other person in this world has lived inside my mind and heart other than myself, no other person knows how to effectively activate my soul to accomplish such hearty dreams. I think that if anyone knows best how to handle the upcoming challenges of this adventure it is my own self. And this goes hand in hand with the idea that we are our own god. We create our own reality and we are the magic of forward motion in our own life goals and dreams.

Lands End, northern California

Lands End, northern California

Of course I am open to every single suggestion and every input. People have so much experience and I want to know every single tip and trick that can be shared! I just don’t want to feel overwhelmed with this idea that every suggestion needs to be fulfilled. There is just no way we can please everyone. I can see so clearly that these suggestions, although unintended are meant to fill a want or desire of the person saying them. This person thinks I should live in this little town but that is for them, for their dream, where they want to live one day. Maybe that town isn’t a bike ride from the Pacific ocean (an absolute must for me), or maybe it isn’t within the price range we have in mind that will allow me to maintain my dream of being unemployed by an establishment. 

That person wants a custom piece of jewelry but I know that I just don’t work well like that. The jewelry I create is for the outlet of everything inside of me…it is an urge to create, to impress the world with my own imprint…I mean I have to share it because I love to share beauty in any way and I want people to have a piece of my art of course but the act of creating a piece of art, whatever it may be is never really for the public, it is for the artist. If I start the custom order thing, even just for the challenge and to learn, then that will take over my art (because of the type of people pleaser that I am at heart) and there will be no room for creating my own ideas and exploring the medium. I can also see how this could be a fear holding me back but truly I have no desire to create custom jewelry for people so no…it is not a fear holding me back.

Everyone wants me to get my yoga up online for classes and connection and while that makes my heart swell so big with acceptance and love it also scares me. Although this is an actual dream of mine and I am working on the foundational steps to be able to launch the idea, it just is not ripe yet. I don’t want to rush to get a shotty version of what I do have in mind up just because I am moving in under a month and people will have to find new yoga classes to attend or new routines to establish. That is not my concern. I like working with people in the flesh. I like to connect to people in real life, looking into their eyes and having conversations and seeing their face respond. I like teaching a physical practice to physical bodies in a physical space…how can I succeed in those things in California with the beautiful souls there too if I am worried about editing a video for the good souls back east? It is just not true to me at the moment. I have been in this place teaching yoga for the past two years and if these people aren’t making the effort to be in class for the short amount of time that I have left here then why would I stress about technology and my lack of fluidity with it to make the effort to put up an online class? Especially when my own practice is getting shuffled around because of all the other obligations popping up around every corner. It just would not be fair to myself. I love these people to beautiful vibrant life and their presence and support in my life is completely irreplaceable but the truth is, I just cannot make everyone happy. 

“Are you willing to put personal integrity above a promise to another? Are you willing to be authentic even if it means being vulnerable?” -Rhonda Britten

Whatever it is, do I have the awareness to see those things coming at me? Can I have the grace to take them in stride for what they are, a kind gesture of love and support without feeling overwhelmed and obligated to meet every one of those expectations? Can I make myself happy and allow that brightness to draw people together, ultimately being the catalyst for their dreams and my own? Can I root down into the being that I am naturally and learn to manipulate the inputs and outputs to facilitate the being that I want to be? I guess we shall see…it is a life practice.

So, my dear Amanda, value authenticity.

What would your note be to your younger self?

The Gods That We Are

/ amandatisdel / Leave a comment

I cried today in yoga for the first time in my life. I met God. I’ve experienced this same emotion before many many times…during a run, in the quiet of a still moment, watching the brilliant Sun set over the Pacific, or anywhere else for that matter (literally every time this moves me), standing at the peak of a mountain looking out on the world, certain interactions with certain people. Even in asana but never this intensely. Inhale up to a flat back, exhale and step your left foot back to a lunge, inhale your arms up and out, coming into your Warrior II. A flutter of the heart and a tingly nose. Then, without warning, tears and immediately I am one with all that is. The energy in the room syncs up and we ride this breath through our poses. I feel powerful, I feel strong, I am a warrior. I control my world. I am God.

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As a yoga instructor I’ve heard numerous stories of people becoming overwhelmed with emotion and crying in Savasana or some other pose. Yoga has a way of doing that, it is a dislocation of the mind from the body. We tell the mind to get out of the way so that we can tune in with the flow of something bigger. By shutting down our chatty brain, for once we can just be. Tears come to people in that space because the heart is working out their life dramas. People are fully inhabiting and connecting to their bodies and souls in ways that they never have before. People are finding the humm of the universe pulsing within their own skin. It is magic! It is OM. It is God. And yoga is one of many ways to worship that God. 

Like the catch of your breath when you see this in real life--like actually SEE it, that's worship.

Like the catch of your breath when you see this in real life–like actually SEE it, that’s worship.

I have had the privilege of being able to come to that place often, tapping into the flow of just being, riding the wave of my breath. Not only in yoga but in many many moments sprinkled throughout my day and my life. It is my purpose, to share that magic. To remind people that we’ve always carried the ability to call upon it at will. Only we’ve forgotten, we’ve gotten busy. But it is there, it remains a power that we possess but rarely activate. To me, God isn’t some all-powerful man in the sky guiding our worlds, it is me, it is the very being that dwells within my skin. It is you. It is all that is and ever was, everywhere, all the time. The underlying frequency of the Universe. It is LOVE!

The Bible says God is love. And although I don’t identify with a specific religion, I think the Bible is right about this. But I think we’ve interpreted it slightly backwards for so long. Love is God. Literally, love. Is. God. A God to be sought after and discovered. I believe there are two core emotions, love and fear. Two sides of the same coin (so technically one emotion), built in as natural responses (think gut feeling) to the input of our lives and we are constantly operating out of one of those emotions. Neither is right or wrong, it just is. The only true sin is unawareness of the power that we each have to actively embody either love or fear. The only true sin is allowing emotion in either form take over your whole being leaving you inept to respond to situations or people in a healthy way for your own mind, being and overall happiness. Acting out of fear moves you in one direction in your life and acting out of love moves you in another. No one can decide what is right for you, only you can decide what kind of person you want to be in this world. But it is your responsibility to decide to engage, to actively choose how to live every single moment.

You are a unique being, I am a unique being. No other person in the world has ever or will ever have the exact compilation of atoms or thoughts or beliefs or experiences or interactions that I have had in my life. No other being will have my specific outlook on this Universe. 

“We have been educated to use our minds in a certain way. A way that ignores or screams out the fact that every one of us is an aperture through which the whole cosmos looks out. It’s as if you had a light covered with a black ball and in this ball were pinholes, and each pinhole is an aperture through which the light comes out. So in that way every one of us is actually a pinhole through which the fundamental light, that is the existence itself, looks out. Only the game we are playing is not to know this.” -Alan Watts

To me this means that where I am coming from in my life is completely unique…the decisions and actions I take in my world can only be judged through my own self…by my own God. (Obviously, if you’re breaking the law or harming others this doesn’t fly in society and it is definitely not bringing you closer to love. I hope this is implied.) Only you can choose what path to travel. As for me, I choose love. It just feels better. I want to learn how to have unconditional love for every single being. 

“It’s impossible to feel true unconditional love for any single person, until you can feel it for every single person. After all, what differentiates them, except conditions?” -Mike Dooly

Can we allow people the freedom they deserve to be authentically them in any given moment? Even if we don’t agree with them or don’t approve of their actions. Can we see them as the God that they are? This precious, one of a kind expression of the Universe in human form…worthy to be worshipped, worthy to be acknowledged and loved? If not, then why? I think it is simple, ego. When we think that our opinion matters more than someone else’s or when we think that we deserve more space in this Universe than another being, that is the ego. That is fear. It’s okay, just notice and redefine who you want to be and what kind of impression you want to leave in this world. As well as extending this freedom to let others be authentically them, can we also learn how to take that same freedom for ourselves when we need it without caring how we are viewed by others? Freely moving through this life at your own pace, on your own terms, on your own journey in your own time? 

This stopped me in my tracks.

/ amandatisdel

I always think, “I’m not ready for that,” it doesn’t matter what the “that” is…I know I’m not ready for it. But if there is one thing to believe in it’s that by facing it anyway, we get ready fast. Then, once we’ve faced it, we recognize not only that we had what we needed within us all along, but that by practicing facing those scary things, we are conditioning our minds, bodies and hearts to be ready for anything always.