If I Asked You To Name All the Things You Love...

Cory looks up, to the camera, hand on heart. The words “If I asked you to name all the things you love, how long would it take for you to name yourself?” are in the top right of the image. Photo credit: Natosha Via

Happy Valentine's Day!

I've been thinking about the words in the image above for a few days now:

If I asked you to name all the things you love, how long would it take for you to name yourself? *

If you're like me, the answer is... I don't know how long it would take...depends on the day, hour, minute. I am practicing the art of self-love and self-compassion. It is, like so many things I write, talk, and teach about, a creative practice, an ongoing experiment.

A week ago I was in the third Zoom session of a class to learn a sequence of yoga moves. Before the class, I had had another Zoom meeting, then rushed out to run an errand, and rushed back home for the class. I was wearing jeans that were a little too tight, not ideal for a yoga class, but didn't have time to change if I wanted to arrive on time.

As we started the class with meditation, my mind was still rushing. I noticed my too tight pants. I was a little hungry. I hoped that my cats would come near me for a pet as I saw a few other people's cats do on the screen. I felt the cold air around me in my old and breezy house, as well as the heat of my nearby space heater that I couldn't get positioned quite right. You can probably guess that this was not my most focused meditation.

We finished the meditation and were invited to ask questions about the practice. This was when my bad student tape kicked in. I hadn't watched the previous week's recording and though I had practiced the sequence, I hadn't done so daily as we were encouraged to do. There was no way in hell I was going to admit these grave transgressions. If I didn't ask questions, no one would know just how bad of a student I was.

After a few people asked questions, there was new content teaching and then it was time to practice. I had made it through the first part without anyone finding me out!

Except that this week before doing the sequence we were going to start with the optional prostrations.

Oh, s**t. I had never done the prostrations. I could only guess that they'd been taught in the second class, so since I hadn't watched the recording yet, I hadn't learned them. Maybe I could figure them out by trying to watch while we were moving through them.

Other people's cameras were not positioned in a way that I could see the whole flow of the prostration. I was caught, fully visible on camera, being recorded in my fumbling! I tried to fake my way through and was relieved when we finished and were moving to the safe territory of the familiar sequence.

Then twice as we were going through each part of the sequence, someone helping the primary teacher offered a couple of posture corrections. The person made general statements, not directed at any one person, but I was certain she was talking to me. Caught again!

We finished the sequence and went into a closing meditation. Finally, in those last minutes of class I calmed down, sank into my body, and felt relieved that I had made it through my epic failure.

I write this story now with a smile on my face. On Wednesday I talked to my friend who teaches the class. She said that though she was trying to keep an eye on everyone (I think there are 12 of us), she hadn't noticed that I was struggling. I laughed as I told her that that meant I had done my fake-out well, because I hadn't wanted anyone to see I didn't know what I was doing!

Though that class experience wasn't my favorite, I am incredibly grateful to have had that hour of discomfort. It reminded me of the vulnerability of being a student, of learning something new, and opened my heart wider to the people I work with and how they (some of you) might feel sometimes because an old tape starts playing about the kind of student or person they (you?) are. It reminded me that the best place to start, the only place we can start, is right where we are. It reminded me that the best way to learn is not by pretending that we know something we don't, but by asking questions.

My friend's care when we spoke a couple of days after the class reminded me that I don't have to be the perfect student (whatever that even means) for someone to love me. I don't have to be the perfect anything for someone to love me or for me to love myself. I also know that I want to keep learning, keeping one foot on the ground of humility and placing the other in the sea of self-compassion.

With these things in mind I choose today to name myself, to put myself high on the list of what I love, who I love. My wish for you on this Valentine's Day is that you, too, name yourself as a beloved, placing yourself high on your love list.

*I only noticed my typo (D missing in “would”) after publishing this. I decided to leave it, a choice to love myself even when I misspell a word.)
~~~

If you are a woman, one way you might put yourself high on your love list is by joining Reimagining ME:Mindful Explorations, which starts a week from tomorrow- Tuesday 2/22/22! At its core the program encourages us to practice connecting with ourselves, both with humility and the deepest of self-compassion, to re-member who we are - unique, beautiful, irreplaceable beings in a web of Interbeing with one another. This program brings together practices of Compassionate Communication, creativity, and body awareness. I was going to close the registration today, but am keeping it open. If you're not quite sure and want to try a session before committing, you can register for the first session a la carte.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, Autumn Equinox Musings

This morning all of a sudden it felt like fall, cool temperatures, a crispness to the air absent just one day before. Convenient, since today is the Autumn Equinox, the first day of fall.

A dear friend and I seem to find each other on these days of transition- the new year, a birthday, solstice, equinox. Tonight she will come to my house and together we will usher in the autumn season of release and harvest. Our time together is always sacred. I expect tonight will bring delight, opening, depth, and the relief of being seeing and loved in the fullness and complexities, the strengths and limitations, of who we are.

As I write, a song that just found me, Amos Lee’s Worry No More is playing on repeat. I heard it the first time just a few days ago as I prepared to create a heart sketch for a friend whose practice is to receive a heart sketch each season. When I heard the song that day, I knew it was for her. I didn’t know why, but trusted it to be true.

The chorus is “Worry no more, oooh, worry no more, there’s an open door for you.”

Today I know the song is for me. Before sitting down to write, I started listening to it, singing and jumping around, arms hanging loosely, flailing as loose-hanging things being tossed about do. I felt the rhythm in my whole body. When the song ended, I started it again. Listening, singing, jumping, arms flailing. I laughed from the joy of releasing long-held energy stuffed in my body to the point of pain. Stress, tension, grief, anger, frustration, some of which I’ve accumulated and held in my body for days, weeks, months, maybe longer, I let go with much less effort than it’s taken to hold it all in. I feel lighter.

As I write, my body now still, I continue to play the song over and over. I feel an openness in my heart space.

The last few months have not been easy. Family members have had significant health issues. I have experienced loss and disappointment. I’ve had difficult and delicate conversations and held space for others while together we experience the expansion and constriction of hope as COVID has adapted and made its way through more bodies, more hospitals, more communities, more countries- more sickness, more death. The expansion and constriction of hope as all the -isms have adapted and made their way through more bodies, more communities, more countries- more harm, more death. So many people are suffering as systems fail, as needed resources are available only to some and inaccessible to too many others. So many people, whether materially resourced or not, are finding themselves exhausted, holding stress, tension, grief, anger, and frustration because we are still in the middle of global crisis. Space, time, and safety to move through it all seems, and for some actually is, out of reach.

I see the world changing around me, through me, within me. I feel the changes inside my being. I get glimpses of clarity. I spend a lot of time in Unknowing. We are in a time of Unknowing.

I am grateful because I have access to people and resources who help me stay grounded in ungrounding times. I’ve been trying to use what I have to do the inner work of growth and self-care and contribute the outer work of tending and caring for others. Sometimes I meet my lofty aspirations toward love and care. Many times I fall short.

What feels beautiful is that I am learning to take the falling short less personally. I am letting go of the judgments that tell me my worth is based on if that class happens or is cancelled, if I say the right thing at the right time or not, if that man wants to date me or just thinks I’m a “great lady” he wants to be friends with (side note: I do not like being called a “lady” by men; there is a sense of diminishment or weakness to the word; the word “woman” feels much stronger and more embodied). I am rooting and growing into the reality, true of me and you, that our worth and enough-ness is bound only to the fact that we exist. This felt reality is beginning to bare fruit within and through me. It feels both exciting and steadying through the Unknowing.

Autumn is a time of release and a time of harvest. A time of ch-ch-ch-ch-changes within the ongoing cycles of change (I’m also linking here to Mercedes Sosa’s song Todo Cambia, which means “everything changes”; it’s beautiful in melody and lyrics).

Letting go is not always easy or comfortable. If you’d seen me yesterday, you’d have witnessed me holding tight to ideas ready to be released. I wasn’t quite ready to let go. Today I dance and shake them off.

Waiting for the ripening of what’s been growing may bring both impatience and excitement. Yesterday I wanted to rush through the pain of growth and expansion. Today I open myself to the slow ripening. I feel the anticipation of knowing more fully what is growing inside me. I wonder what will ultimately come from me that will nourish not just me, but also be fruit to share with others. I trust that it’s already happening. I can feel it. Do you?

In honor of this day signifying the turn toward release and harvest, I invite you, too, to notice what is happening in and around you:

• How do you experience autumn?

• What are you shedding or do you want to shed?

• Are there things you are scared, hesitant, or not ready to release?

• What is ripening within you?

• What is bearing fruit in or around you?

In an hour or so my friend will arrive. I will offer an open heart-door for her and she for me. In our hours together we will release worry, even if only momentarily. We will honor the changes: mourn what is to be mourned and celebrate what is to be celebrated. I wish you an equally blessed transition to autumn.

Commitment

A week ago at about the time I am starting to write this post, I was lying on the ground by a lake, looking up at a sky so unpolluted by human-made light that I could see the Milky Way and constellations whose names I’ve long forgotten.  I breathed in fresh air and listened to the night sounds that tonight enter my home through blissfully open windows.

A week ago I was at camp. Camp GLP (Good Life Project), a once-a-year weekend camp for adults, filled with many of the great things summer camp offered when we were younger: beautiful land, a lake and a pool, games, songs around a bonfire while toasting marshmallows, a talent show, and most importantly, a kind of joy that sometimes we forget to live into as adults. On multiple occasions when all 380 or so campers were gathered together, we danced. We Danced!

A week ago this night, there was a dance party.  Exhausted from the day and the previous night’s not-great sleep (the “comfort” of the beds was another indication that we were really at camp), I had decided not to go.

I was in my cabin talking to a bunkmate, when I heard the start of a song – Suavemente, bésame, Que yo quiero sentir tus labios – a song that compelled me to say to my bunkmate with an urgency that surprised me, “I have to go dance.”

Besándome otra vez – I slipped on my flip flops and jogged to the party to make sure I didn’t miss the song. I was not disappointed.

Suavemente, bésame
Que yo quiero sentir tus labios
Besándome otra vez

Once upon a time, I used to dance to it every weekend and I even sang it when I was in a Latin band. Last weekend, after the song ended, I stayed and danced with no one in particular for a while before eventually heading back to my cabin, where I slept maybe just a little bit better than the previous night.

Our camp days started (if we chose) with meditation. Despite being tired, I got up for it every morning. The first morning I stayed for yoga afterwards. The next two I chose to walk around the lake, sometimes taking off my flip flops to let my feet feel cool dew on soft grass. 

One afternoon, I attended a meet-up that included another guided meditation (bonus!).  What dominated the images in my mind were not so much pictures, but colors – red-oranges, browns, white, olive green mixed with just a hint of pink. I tried to make note of the colors, their nuances and changes. At one point in the meditation, we were guided to meet our future self, who would give us a gift. This image, not simply colors, was clear: she gave me a small box that contained a bracelet made of rusty-orange stones and clear quartz.

Later I talked to the meditation guide and told her about the question I had brought into the meditation and the images I had seen. She suggested that the message was about commitment… to myself.

I have thought a lot about that since camp. I thought I did a decent job of committing to myself, following the path I know is meant for me, when it’s straight (rarely), with its curves, in its switchbacks.

Before I went to camp, I had reached out to a couple of people who I knew I needed to speak to in order to feel at peace. One of the people I’ve seen. I had no specific words to say, no agenda but to talk and to listen to whatever might surface in the moment. The conversation flowed naturally and easily. Without asking a question, I received the answer I needed. The other person I haven’t seen, and without any assurance that I would any time soon, I sent an email with words, precise and careful, that I needed to let go. Both were acts of self-liberation, commitment to the voice within.

In one of the camp workshops about project planning (more interesting than it might sound!), the speaker talked about the importance of displacement and asked, “What needs to go in order to make room for your project?”

As I am currently getting ready to lead a delegation abroad, whose preparation and execution require a lot of time and energy, I have twice said “no” this week to events I had planned to attend. One night I spent the newly freed time sending emails and doing other delegation work. The other night I  spent most of the time walking the bridge and soaking in beautiful weather and a lovely sunset. While the first night may seem to have been more valuable than the second in terms of preparation, both were necessary for me to be able to feel ready - logistically and energetically.

 As I talked to a friend today who has been going through a rough time (“I’ve aged ten years in the last 6 weeks”), cognizant of my own renewed commitment, I asked, “What are you doing for self-care?”

After silence was the first answer, “That was the reminder I needed,” was the spoken reply.

In order to get through those times that sap our energy, that can age us months in a single day, we have to make a commitment to ourselves, even if a small one.

In order to get through life with any sense of joy and peace, we have to make this same commitment, probably over and over again, as so many things or people attempt, wittingly or unwittingly, to steer us away from our center. 

We have to recognize that our most significant relationship is the one with ourselves – it’s the only relationship we have from birth to death, at all times, in all places. The way we honor that relationship ripples out into the way we honor any other one.

A new camp friend wrote about her experience standing on stage at the talent show reading a most powerful poem she had written. She described the experience as liberating and healing. As someone who was in that room, I can say that hearing and seeing her honest and deep truth was liberating and healing for more than just her. She had committed to herself.

And so I invite you, if you haven’t already done so, to commit to yourself. Not onlyto yourself, not to self-indulgence that shrinks you instead of growing you. But first to yourself, the kind of self-commitment that expands your being, enabling you to be more of who you are. Enabling you to breathe deeply. Enabling you to accept yourself, and thereby, to accept others. Enabling you to live into the abundance that is you and recognize the same in every other person.