Filling the cup

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Alana

Photo by Dennis Skley, via Flickr's Creative Commons License

This past weekend I’d planned to start a “40 Days of Giving” adventure leading up to my 40th birthday on March 15th. Then I realized that even though I loved the idea of it, adding it to my daily life at this point felt terrible. I let it go, with only a twinge of disappointment. At one point I was planning to organize an Empty Bowls event here in Ventura as a way of celebrating my birthday. Again, I loved the idea of it – building community, raising money and awareness about food insecurity, having the opportunity to plan a fun, meaningful event. But when I listened deeply to my body, the thought of it made me physically exhausted. I filed it away for another day and decided to go low-key for my birthday. After all, if I wasn’t going to make some grand gesture of giving, I probably shouldn’t do much at all. I invited three couples that I adore to a small dinner party, which sounded lovely and made me incredibly sad.

I want a party. I want to celebrate. Not only is it my word for the year but I’m excited to be turning 40 and I want to begin this decade in the style I hope will carry me through. Celebration. Abundance. Play. Community. I want a new dress to show off the body that is 60 pounds lighter and feels great. I want to be surrounded by people I love to spend time with, talking and laughing and watching the sun set over the ocean. I want to feel full and happy and like my cup is overflowing.

Right there is the key.

I’d heard the expression Serve from the overflow and could pay it lip service, but I didn’t fully get it. One day when I was pregnant with Ben, during those miraculous two months when I wasn’t bleeding and thought I’d make it through the pregnancy in one piece, I listened to an interview with Lisa Nichols. I could sense her energy vibrating over the phone line and I finally understood, on a visceral level, what was meant. Taking it from a mental concept to something I could feel in my body was a radical move. Then Ben died, life upended and I was adrift. Somehow in my grief process, I allowed myself to fill my cup more than I ever had as an adult, learning slowly and painfully, that to take care of myself was also taking care of others, particularly my family.

Despite my new-found skills, something hasn’t felt quite right recently and I’ve been struggling to figure it out. The other day, in a flash of insight, I understood. I saw an image of a cup and saucer, white with simple curved lines, the liquid inside beginning to drip and splash over the edges. As I looked more closely, I saw that it was splashing unevenly and when I glanced in, there was a yawning white space at the back. My liquid was lopsided.

“But…but…” I sputtered to myself, “I meditate every day and I do yoga and I hike and have wonderful friends and I sit by the ocean when I need to and I’m trying to get to bed earlier…”

“Yes, this is true,” I heard my wise, intuitive voice answer, “but you’ve been wanting to paint, and you haven’t. You’ve been needing a massage and you haven’t scheduled one. Your self-care is out of balance and you still don’t feel totally worthy of receiving what you deserve.”

Worthy of receiving. I wonder how many of us struggle with that?

I made a list of all the ways I can take care of myself, no matter how impractical or expensive or small. It’s long -  more than three pages in my journal. A lot of it I incorporate into my life already but there are a few key areas where I see, very clearly, that I am not honoring my needs. Those areas are the hole in my cup. They are also the places where I still feel shame, where I continue to play small. My friend Christa wrote a beautiful post the other day about the shift in her life and her creativity, about not giving up, about creating space for ourselves. It is then, when we’ve breathed life into our dreams, when we’ve said I am important enough to…, that our cups really fill. It seems to me that it’s when we are able to give ourselves what we need to feel alive, to feel good more often than we are in pain, that we begin to recognize our inherent worthiness.

Every now and then when I’m feeling sad, Ada will do a little song and dance in an attempt to cheer me up. While she never fails to make me smile, I always let her know that it is not her job to take care of me. It’s not her daddy’s job to take care of me. It’s my job and mine alone. My hope is that it won’t take her half a lifetime to learn that lesson. I want to model self-care in such a way that it becomes as natural to her as breathing. I don’t do it perfectly, I don’t always do it gracefully, but I am learning to be the caretaker of my own soul.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a birthday party to plan.

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2012′s mini-manifesto

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Alana

The last few years, in addition to choosing a word that encapsulates my intention for the year, I’ve written a little manifesto for myself. Things I want to hold at the forefront of my mind. Words I want to look at, and live by, every day. Last year I shared what I’d written and was overwhelmed by the feedback. When I wrote 2012′s, I meant for it to stay private. Then I read it out loud to a circle of friends and strangers at the year’s first full moon and realized that as is it is my wish for myself, it’s my wish for all of us. (One of these days I’ll make it pretty and downloadable.)

Celebrate

Let joy flow into and through you. Celebrate everything. Pause in the midst of life and breathe in the beauty and the muck. Dig deep and find the gold. Explore celebration. Live celebration. Let your life be a dance with joy.

Full Permission

You have full permission to be your brilliant, messy, gorgeous, imperfect self. All day. Every day. Don’t ask anymore. Take it in both hands and run. Be yourself with wild abandon, even in your quietest moments. Love yourself with your whole heart.

Focus

Find your priorities and focus. Let everything else go. Follow the joy. Follow the passion. Narrower, go deeper. Fill your mind, heart and belly with what sustains you. Learn to say no, with love.

Shine

This is the year of letting your light blaze into the world. Be your own sun, moon and stars. Be the map to your inner night sky. Be the map you live by. Play big. Play with integrity. Dance by the light of your inner fire and SHINE.

Embody Love

This is your life’s work. You are love, now live it. Breathe it in, and out. Fill your cells. Fill the world. Walk, as love, into your life, so that everyone who enters your orbit knows that they too are loved, and are Love.

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Soaring

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Alana

Last week we were at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. It’s a small museum and very kid-friendly. They have a little planetarium, an outdoor play space with a stream, pumps and buckets for kids to play with, bamboo poles to build creative shelters. Out front they have a 72-foot skeleton of a blue whale. The bones are from three young male whales, one that was beached in 1980 and two others that washed ashore in 2007. A friend of ours helped butcher one of the latter. He was asked because he’s had no sense of smell since being hit by a truck on his motorcycle years ago and having almost his entire body rebuilt. It is incredible to stand in the belly of that whale and marvel at its size.

The museum has a number of raptors that have been wounded and can’t be released back into the wild. They are out in the sun every afternoon for visitors to get close to and ask questions about. We’d seen several of them on prior visits but this time there was a young falcon that caught my eye. She was stunning. The young man taking care of her told us her story – she’d been shot in the wing in Los Angeles, rescued, cared for and then she found a permanent home at the museum. Every few minutes she would spread her wings in an attempt to fly. My heart ached as I watched her. With a deep sadness in his eyes, her keeper said that most of the birds quickly give up and no longer reach for flight, but not her. She kept trying, refusing to accept the loop on her leg as permanent.

I’ve thought often about that beautiful bird with the intelligent eyes in the last week, about her attempts to break free from her situation, about the long years she can live in captivity and if there will ever come a day when she too gives up the dream. I thought of the human spirit. Of how we can be shot, beaten, raped, imprisoned and still, our spirits can soar. I read recently about a group of women in Congo who have lived through incomprehensible horror and are working to create positive change in their country. The world is full of such stories (if you’re not familiar with any, I recommend reading Half The Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn). The world is also full of people who feel broken, beaten down, defeated, people who are so deeply wounded they only know how to wound others, people who have given up. I believe it is still possible for those people to fly. I believe we are all meant to be beacons of light, though perhaps not in this lifetime.

My friend who was hit by the truck essentially died after the accident and was brought back to life. He describes the experience as akin to taking off a lead jacket and soaring. He had young children at the time and wasn’t ready to go, but he says it was so beautiful that he came back with no fear of death. He will often seek out people who’ve lost loved ones in tragic ways and share his experience with them if they are open to hearing it. He, and others with similar experiences offer us the hope that if the brilliance of our spirits cannot prevail here in our physical bodies, it will shine again when we leave.

It seems to me though, that the goal of this life is to be our unique, luminous selves. To be ourselves, with full awareness and acceptance of our quirks and challenges, our imperfections, and at the same time to hold the vision of living as the best version of who we dream we can be. That might mean a resolution to not lose our temper for a year. It might mean embracing our Nerd Thug Swagger while vowing to speak our truth more often. It might mean creating a beautiful space to honor our creative souls or a site that aims to support and empower women entrepreneurs who are finding their way on the web. It might mean simply getting through the day in one piece with a life that has been completely altered by the ravages of cancer. The goal is not comparison (I am here, I should be there), nor is it perfection (impossible). It is to turn our faces in the direction of trust and take baby steps toward the belief that we are where we are meant to be, that we are who we are meant to be and that we are worthy of our own love.

Wondering how to do that? I’ll be exploring that in a subsequent post. A simple question to ask yourself in any moment is, What would Trust (or Love) do in this situation? Even if you find yourself unable to act on the answer, or if no answer comes, the act of asking the question will help take you out of your habitual patterns.

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Celebration

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Alana

2010 was the year life showed me I had no conscious control. It was the year I learned to allow, to take my hands off the wheel and realize I was in the passenger seat, despite the map in my hands. It was the most painful year of my life. For 2011 I chose the word ease to signify my hopes and dreams, my vision for the 365 days to follow. I wanted life to be easier and I wanted to handle it better. It was the second hardest year of my life. 2011 came bearing great gifts and big challenges. These last two years catapulted me into growth, into change, into myself. I’ve been reluctant to admit how hard it’s been. When I do, tears spring instantly to my eyes. As the final days of December ticked by, I felt a loosening, as though my torso had been wrapped in a harness I wasn’t aware I was wearing. It was a physical sensation, accompanied by the most beautiful feeling of lightness. It moved me deeper into trust, and into the knowing that I am loved and all is well.

I wasn’t going to choose a word for 2012. Nothing came to mind anytime I tried. It felt forced, something I should do. I’m cutting should and try out of my vocabulary so I let it go. Just before Christmas, as we entered our final deep relaxation, or savasana, in yoga my teacher invited us to either relax as usual, or imagine contacting our higher self to see what she had to say. As I drifted into that lovely space of inner connection that has become familiar over the last year, images flooded my mind and then came the word, celebrate. It hung, crystalline, inside me and my entire being breathed, yes. It encompasses joy, gratitude, lightness and play and in my mind at least, takes them a step beyond. This is the energy I want to take into 2012. This is my word.

We’ve started to get acquainted over the past week and a half, celebrate and I. I’ve realized I don’t know much about it. The first associated thoughts that come to mind are have a party and have a drink, as those have been my celebration go-to’s as an adult. I don’t  drink much alcohol anymore and I’m not about to throw a party every day, so my exploration begins with the following questions:

What does “celebrate” mean to me? (i.e. what counts as a celebration?)

What and how do I want to celebrate?

What is mindful celebration?

What happens when the thought of celebration makes me want to hurl dishes at the wall?

I wondered too, about focusing on celebration here, where my writing as been so much about grief, as well as the fullness and beauty of life. Are they incongruent, celebration and loss? We threw a birthday party for Ada eleven days after Ben died because it was vitally important to me, but is that wise? I was reminded of Brene Brown’s wonderful TEDx talk where she says that the research shows we can’t numb emotions selectively. If we numb grief, we numb joy. If we close ourselves off to vulnerability, we close ourselves off to connection and love. We flat line. The world becomes shades of gray. My willingness to stay present with my grief has allowed me to grow in ways I never could have imagined. My ability to sit in the muck when I needed to has given me a greater capacity for joy, for gratitude, for living with an open heart. It’s also made me even more keenly aware of my brain’s negative bias (a human trait) and my tendency to dismiss my successes as I stay focused on my desires and what’s still to come.

Looking back on 2011, I am amazed at what I accomplished while still being immersed in my own grief process. I made huge dreams come true. I’m done dismissing them. I want to celebrate everything – from the little moments with my daughter that break my heart wide open with an aching joy, to the hard-to-miss moments like my 40th birthday, a long-awaited vacation, and career visions turned reality. In the spirit of spontaneity, I launched “Celebration School” on Facebook and Twitter (hash tag is #celebrationschool). It will start out as a daily post and tweet about celebration and who knows where it will go. I will revisit it periodically here on the blog as I answer the above questions and more. I invite you, no matter what’s happening in your life, to add a little more celebration. If that feels impossible, then I encourage you gently to turn your face in the direction of joy.

May 2012 bring us all ease, healing, light and full permission to be who we are. Shine brightly this year. Celebrate the imperfect, beautiful fullness of all that you are.

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TEDx Talk

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Alana

Life keeps laughing at me, but it’s okay because I’m laughing along.

After my big declaration in yesterday’s post, I woke up this morning to a deluge of emails and Facebook posts letting me know the TEDxOjaiWomen talks are finally up on the TED site. So for those of you who’ve asked, here it is.

If it resonates at all, please share it. The more we can stay present with grief, the more open our conversation can be around it, the better off we all are.

Check out the other TEDxOjaiWomen speakers: Dyana Valentine, Instigator (I’m Not Sorry), Kira Ryder, Yogini (Slip Into Something More Comfortable), Colleen Wainwright, The Communicatrix (Are You Sure It’s Impossible?) akka b, Poet (Permission to Play), Gloria M. Miele, PhD, Business Consultant (What I’ve Learned Being a Girl Scout), and Alison Ivy, Money DeMystifier (The Gift of Money Know-How).

***

On another note, I’ve been meaning to share Raising Roses with you all too. I’ve written before about my friend Roos in Amsterdam (or Rose, to translate her name). Her husband Kenji has acute lymphoblastic leukemia and is fighting for his life after a double cord blood transplant. Though they are lucky to live in a country with socialized health care, some of his new cocktail of drugs is not covered. Roos will have to return to work soon, but right now she is full-time mama, wife and caregiver. Zen author and teacher Karen Maezen Miller (whose words have also helped me navigate the last 18 months) launched Raising Roses in order to help defray some of their costs. There are hundreds of worthy causes that could use our money, particularly at this time of year. If Roos and Kenji’s journey touches your heart, please consider supporting them as well. You can do so here.

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Heeding the call

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Alana

Doing the dishes the other night, I chuckled as I realized how far I’ve come from the December I’d imagined. The holiday cards that arrived in their shiny yellow boxes right after Thanksgiving have yet to be finished. The “25 days of giving” has turned into 3 or 4. The homemade gifts still need to be, well, made.

I’ve decided to be okay with all of it.

The last few weeks have brought a resurgence of grief. Perhaps it’s from stepping into the holiday season. Perhaps it was preparing for the TEDx talk that pulled so many memories to the surface. Perhaps it was simply time to peel another layer of scarring away and expose a deeper wound to the sun. My writing right now is about a part of my life that is not ready to be shared. My focus is being pulled inward. Soft voices are urging me to give myself space to do this deep, healing work.

I am choosing to listen.

This space will be quiet for the next two and a half weeks. I am going on a social media fast: no blogging, no tweeting, no Facebook. I’ll check my email twice a day instead of compulsively every time I see a green flashing light on my phone. The hours feel precious and my soul is calling out to be nurtured and fed. I feel trepidation – a wondering about what I will miss – but it is time.

With a heart full of gratitude and love, I wish you deep peace and exquisite joy this holiday season. Take good care of your hearts and in the quiet moments, notice if there is something your soul is calling out for. Perhaps it is time to listen.

I’ll see you in the new year.

My friend Kristin Noelle has released a wonderful e-book called Unspiking the Holiday Punch. It is full of her lovely illustrations and contains seven gentle practices to help you navigate the emotional minefield of the holidays. If you are someone who struggles when spending time with family (as much as you love them), I highly recommend this simple, loving and wise little book.

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The practice of ease

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Alana

In December of 2010, I chose the word I wanted to represent the coming year, this year. I chose ease.

Early in 2011 I realized that what I had hoped for was not ease, but easy. A year that would allow me to coast through, waving and blowing kisses like a Disney princess in her nightly parade. Here is what I wrote then:

“Easy wouldn’t have kept me growing, wouldn’t have forced the healing, wouldn’t have pushed me harder and farther than I thought I wanted to go. Easy could have been handed to me on a silver platter and I would have enjoyed it immensely, but ease is up to me. Ease will take me from seed to flower, because it’s about my level of trust, my faith in myself and the world around me. Ease is about sleeping peacefully with earthquake and tsunami predictions and an ocean 100 yards from my bed. Ease is trusting that I will wake up in the morning when the anxiety I don’t even know that I’m feeling is pounding in my chest. Ease is knowing that if I don’t wake up, those who love me will be okay. Ease is focusing on the weight lost and the health gained, not the ache in my neck and the numbers still to go. Ease is living with gratitude for all that I have been given, when I’m being pounded by grief and swallowed whole by anger. Ease is letting go of the story that has held me together and held me back, without having a new one to tell.”

I began to step into the word. It became a touchstone, like the rubber band on a reformed smoker’s wrist that she snaps to get through the craving. I would find myself whispering it, wondering about it, praying for it. Ease became a practice, another way of entering into the present moment and letting go of my fear, my attachments, my beliefs. Like the word trust, it has become a mantra, a reminder to let go and enjoy the lessons, however painful they might be.

As I sit at the cusp of another year, attempting to wrap my head around the magnitude of the changes brought by the last two, I want to choose a new word, bring in a new energy, slip into something a little more comfortable than what’s surrounded me recently. But I can’t. Or rather I could, but I am ready to admit I have no idea what’s coming, despite my big dreams and intense visions. I have a feeling it’s going to be epic. I plan to put on a little lip gloss and enjoy the ride.

What word sums up 2011 for you? Is there one that encapsulates your dreams for 2012? I’d love to know.

 

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An anniversary

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Alana

One morning last week, Ada woke up with her characteristically bright eyes and sweet smile and I immediately asked her for a hug. She threw herself at me and I held her tight, reveling in the feel of her still small, warm body in my arms. She asked me for a hug (who am I to argue with that logic?), then her daddy. Her next logical step was to exchange a round of kisses and she moved my hair out of the way to press her lips into my cheek. Laying down and sighing contentedly she thought for a moment. Then, with the look on her face that tells us something is coming – something she’s quite proud of and we might or might not find appealing, she announced that she had a “great idea”.

Let’s kiss baby Benjamin.

Oh, I responded, not quite knowing what else to say.

She sat up, leaned forward and kissed my chest, right over my heart. Then her daddy’s. Then it was our turn to kiss hers.

16 months after his death, Benjamin’s big sister gave him his first kiss. And broke open my still-healing heart.

Today – November 25 – is the first anniversary of Benjamin’s due date. Though due date’s are really “anytime-either-side-of dates” when you’re having a live child, they are another emotional minefield to cross when all you have is a memory. As we head off to spend the day making Christmas crafts with friends, I am feeling incredibly blessed and more than a little bit sad.

I love you Benjamin. I miss you and I am so very, very grateful for your presence in our lives.

 

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The Practice of Self-Care

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Alana

I wrote recently about being in a time of fallow, and being conflicted about it. I’ve felt a sense of urgency since the retreat ended to capitalize on the momentum of the guide coming out, and the retreat being such a success. My ego has been demanding that I spend more time on Twitter/post more frequently/madly cross things off my to-do list. My heart has been whispering for me to sleep, do yoga, allow the time and space for the massive growth that is happening in my life.

There is a shift coming for me. I am on the edge of something that’s going to turn the internal fires up a thousand degrees. I don’t know how long it will take to arrive, or what it will look like when it appears. I’ve been trying to force it. I’ve been taking time to go inward while still expecting myself to show up in unsustainable ways. Every time I read the words of Danielle LaPorte, Alex Franzen, Jen Louden, Goddess Leonie, and Dyana Valentine, (to name just a few), my eyes widen, my thoughts race and I want to leap into action. There’s so much I want to DO. I’ve been resisting the voice inside that is telling me to slow down. To let go. To trust.

The revelation that has come this past week is that inspired action and slowing down aren’t mutually exclusive if I let go of the thought that I need to be there now. I can get more sleep and spread the word about the pregnancy loss support group I’m starting. I can meditate and journal and answer my emails. But I can only do this if I truly let go and trust that there is time.

I am giving myself permission to be where I am, permission to relax and follow where my heart leads. I don’t know if it’s the most effective way to be an entrepreneur but I do know it’s the only sustainable, joyful way to be me. I trust that the time of fallow will be followed by a time of planting, then harvesting. I am not looking for balance, something I believe is unattainable the way we talk about it in our society, with our life pie charts and working parent guilt. I am seeking the joy that comes from honoring self and serving others, from deep connection with my inner and outer worlds, from valuing my heart, my instincts, my intuition as much as I value my mind and the teachings of those I admire.

I am refining my practice of self-care. And it is a practice. There is no there, no ideal way to be, no way to know when I’ve achieved the long-desired perfection of knowing how to take care of myself. Right now it is clear that my body needs more sleep and consistent exercise. My spirit needs daily yoga and meditation. I need to write in order to feel fulfilled. I’m listening to those deep calls of the soul and taking the time to act on them, even when it feels impossible. And I am forgiving myself when I fall down, when I stay up too late, when I miss a day of yoga because I’ve got a cold and my body wants simply to rest.

The practice of self-care is a practice of love.

For a moment today, take the time to get quiet, and listen to your deepest, most knowing self. What practice does it want you to start?

Then choose whether or not to listen. No blame. No guilt. Only love.

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A prayer for today

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Alana

It is okay to be gentle with yourself.

It is okay to treat yourself with the tenderness usually reserved for a newborn child.

It is okay to set the day’s intentions gently aside and look for solace, for comfort, for peace, for a taste of joy.

It is okay to be raw, even when the grief is old.

It is okay to lay down, to stop, to rest.

With deep love for your wounded heart and compassion for your humanity,

Tell yourself,

Believe yourself,

It is okay.

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