Bryan Kest

Been thinking a lot since Bryan Kest workshop about the mind being the limitless and the body or the physical being such a limited tool.

A beautiful but limited tool. As a 35 year old woman, I want to stop putting so much importance on the way that I look. Scratch that, celebrate the way that I look but when it starts to go...let it go without letting go of  a lot of my self worth. Honestly, not that I'm overly vain...I think I'm your average run of the mill type of vain. I don't always wear make-up. I'm not a super crazed vain fanatic but we all like to look good, right?

How could you have more fun or fulfillment in your life if you spent less time worrying about what you looked like to others?

What will we do with our one beautiful and wild life? Crack it open and breathe into it?

*Side note: This was written over a year ago before the Bryan Kest trip I just recently took. So, obviously he made an impression. Had a wonderful experience in Tulum with Kest and the Kesters... and I would highly recommend going to one of his workshops if you are so inclined. Here are a few of the pics.

Me, Bryan and Jenny!

Random beautiful girl in the water.

Can you stand how beautiful this moment is? I didn't think so.

Three legged dog in Paradise.

Pretty unsuccessful at our practice, but very successful at sunbathing this day!

Beach Children.

Don't Flail the Asparagus.

You know that old saying, if you love something let it go... We may question, how do we know when to let go and when, well, not to?

I'm a big believer in letting go, not holding onto the stuff we shouldn't. My other blog that I hid from the world (why blog if you're going to keep it a secret? i don't know!) was entitled Getting to Letting Go. I find it interesting at this point that one of my blogs was about letting go and the other...(satisfy this hungriness) sounds to be about filling up. What a contrast. But isn't that life? Full of contrasts, full of all of it?

I read a passage from Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn in class tonight. I think it's worth repeating as I talk about letting go myself quite a bit. 

"The phrase "letting go" has to be high in the running for New Age cliche of the century. It is overused, abused daily. Yet it is such a powerful maneuver that it merits looking into, cliche or no. There is something vitally important to be learned from the practice of letting go. [...] It is a conscious decision to release with full acceptance into the stream of present moments as they are unfolding. To let go means to give up coercing, resisting, or struggling, in exchange for something more powerful and wholesome which comes out of allowing things to be as they are without getting caught up in your attraction to or rejection of them, in the intrinsic stickiness of wanting, of liking and disliking."

It's so easy for us to react to our likes and dislikes. We're born doing it. Give us apple pie in a jar as a baby and we smile. Give us asparagus in a jar and our arms start flailing and here comes the wail if you try that again. While it's obviously natural to have reactions, it's quite empowering to realize that they don't have to control you. When you take a beat, take two...you realize that this thing that is causing you such a ruckus is really (not usually) that big of a deal. I'm talking here about the smaller things that we constantly react to like being in the car with less capable drivers than yourself around :) (my number one space to spaz out) or having someone clearly be rude to you (my number two space to spaz). Why do we have to give it back to them, who gains from that? Us? I don't really think so. 

Clearly that is their stuff, not ours, right? If we realize that the stuff they're trying to give us is not actually ours...then it must be theirs. If they are carrying around this anger or sorrow or grief or jealousy or general malcontent (or horrible driving skills)... maybe we should give them our compassion instead of giving them back our anger, etc... 

Listen, I know this isn't easy shit to do! I just got a speeding ticket the other night and, for whatever reason, I  way overreacted. I was feeling off balance. I was tired, I had been driving for quite awhile and you would have thought that cop beat my dog in front of me while I watched.  I was so angry that I had to be like, wait, what is this about? So, yeah, I still get angry and sad and all of that. 

I had a teacher once talk about letting go as a leaf falling from a tree. The vision is so graceful, the gentle drift. The leaf doesn't scream and cry and kick and say "it's not fair, I'm not ready to fall! That tree let me go on purpose! It's always hated me!" No, that would be ridiculous. It accepts this moment and falls beautifully to the next and helps to fertilize the soil for the next year so more life can come from that process. 

Letting go means to me not controlling the outcome but staying present gracefully through what is. Not letting fear influence your every action. Because what is...is what should be. We can work towards something, but that doesn't guarantee it will happen. If we try and control the outcome and get something not fully true as a result, what good is that? I suppose it's all one big lesson anyway. But I really want to learn to accept and be with what is. That's real stuff. No temper tantrums, no flailing the asparagus in a jar against the wall. Just breathing and being with and being present. And learning. 

xo and namaste~ erin

A Walk with Spencer, First Days of Fall.

perfectly imperfect.

As a human being living on this one and only Earth, I do my best to try and figure it out. I do my best to be my best self. To not harm others, to live a good life and be of service to others. What I have found is that being your best self really means being authentic. Not abandoning yourself, crazy parts and all. I have heard and love the phrase "perfectly imperfect." Because we all are perfect, even with our imperfections. We are who we are right now or as I've also heard said, "This is it." Can we be okay with that?

Occasionally we're going to run across a snag in the road that makes us question ourselves or others. Occasionally, someone is not going to like us (crazy talk) or we aren't going to like them (even though we breathe through that judgement, or at least try). :)  

It's okay that our energies don't mesh with EVERYONE ELSE'S ON THE PLANET. I used to fret and worry and try so hard to put the right skin on. I would get very emotional if someone even thought that I was acting in a wrong way. Correction, if I THOUGHT someone thought...you can see where this can get exhausting. And I'm sure that many of you out there do this too.

A book that changed my life was Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth. If you live in this world of thinking about thoughts and worrying about what everyone else thinks but yourself...get it now. There are so many books out there but this one helped me immensely. 

Bottom line, we all have struggles, we all have heartaches. The only thing that gets us through is love and peace. Love of self. And of course love of others and love from others. Give it and make sure to accept it back. Peace in the form of peace of mind and acceptance (and maybe celebration) of this moment which translates out to peace in the world. Yoga and meditation work for me but find what works for you. I think yoga and meditation would work for everyone but if you're a rock climber and you find your zen there, that's cool too.

If you come across a person or situation and something happens that you don't think is perfect, see if you can just be with it without having to understand. My idealist mind wants to freak out writing that. But maybe we don't have to understand everything. What if we could just let go and be? As a teacher recently said to me, write out what it is and what you would like it to be and give it to the Universe. 

Peace, love and faith. I'm such a child of the 70's. ;)

xo and namaste ~ erin

No Linear Lines.

I dance with you within the glimmer
sparkle...and the light.
I drink you in the salted air
and feel you in the night.

I feel you in the night, my friend.
I feel you in the night.

From where you come,
I cannot say.
No evidence is near

But love itself
cannot define
No linear lines lain here.

No linear lines lain here, my friend.
No linear lines lain here.

http://www.rebellesociety.com/2013/08/17/no-linear-lines-poetry/

Ahimsa.

I am in Asheville. And today I saved a spider. I find this very interesting because it was the small jumpy kind that looks like it could bite. I've saved a spider once before but that time I knew I could pick it up (with a cup and piece of paper) and take it outside. Today, I just grabbed a piece of toilet paper...(this was in the bathroom) and laid it down in the sink so that it could climb out and go where it pleased. 

I'm getting weird. 

Seriously, that makes me laugh out loud but I now, later in the day, have no idea where the spider went and I seem to be just fine with it. Maybe it's one too many trips to countries that have no solid way to keep out what I feel should be out (such as lizards, cockroaches, cats with fleas, etc...such as I have encountered in Bali and Mexico in the last year) but I am starting to really practice ahimsa (nonviolence) with what I would normally refer to as "pests." 

Maybe it's all of this yoga philosophy I'm studying seeping down into my bones. Call me what you will, spider lover, hippy, whatever. I just couldn't kill it. I did recently give the okay to have a hornets nest exterminated that was right outside our window at home. So, I'm not some total bug angel or anything. However, that was only after I checked into having them sucked out and transported elsewhere. They only do that with honeybees, apparently. But after I okayed it, I felt horrible seeing their dead little bodies outside my window. What can one do? Hornets are apparently very nasty and angry little guys and I've already been attacked by a bee hive when I was 12.

So, I'll do what I can when I can. I can't imagine that I'm not on the road to vegetarianism with these types of actions. I hardly eat meat as it is...but when I do, I really enjoy it.  Who knows? 

Thoughts, comments on bug killing, vegetarianism or yoga? Feel free to leave them below.

xox~ Erin

My very crafty little spider friend blending into the shower curtain.

Be.

A year ago

I knew not

Who I was.

A year from now

God knows who 

I will be.

So grateful for 

the process 

bringing wisdom.

I pray for presence

to sit and
see and be.