clues, steadiness, seeking

Thinking about PT aka physical therapy,
currently mostly taking the form of morning rituals —
connecting to my body through
touch-sensation-strength-stretch-balance-breath

PT is a huge component of my current mission aka
Operation Get To The Pt!

Some days PT just solves things for me,
it gets me out of bed and out of low-level anxiety,
it focuses me because if I don’t focus then I fall on my face,
at the very least my efforts to not-fall make me focus on
what is truly important:
feeling the ground

steadiness

PT is steadying, even when I fall,
it is steadying, maybe even especially when I fall

A breath for steadiness,
a breath for falling,
a breath for the steadiness of it is safe to try

falling

I have this rule that I get an extra ten thousand sparklepoints every time I fall on my face, because falling means I tried something, and trying is brave: I took myself off-balance to find my edges and re-acquaint myself with center, I am brave and wild, good job for falling, good job being human and falling, this is how we learn to not fear the fall…

magic

Anyway, PT is magic, quite often it is,
but some days I expect PT to do this magic for me and then it doesn’t,
and I feel sad, but this is because I am forgetting something important

And this is true for all things that are magic,
for example yoga + writing + wishing wishes,
it is also true for love:

yes to intention, yes to anticipation
no to expectation and obligation

(because part of the mystery of mystery
is welcoming the mystery)

not my job

Anything can be transformative, we can bring anything to a practice,
receptive, ready to breathe
ready to let what needs to be transformed transform,
we just can’t expect the practice/place/person to do the work for us
because sometimes it will and sometimes it won’t
but that’s not its job

(because that is not a fair thing to ask
and because expectations kill spark)

(and yes, I just said that the job of a magical thing is not to do the magic,
I know, it’s a paradox, the magic will happen when we agree to be surprised)

feelings that feel too big

The other morning I woke up in rage-panic which is
a very specific emotional sensation/experience and one
I did not even know about before this heartbreak devastation situation

It is so overwhelming,
not only the feelings that crash through me in huge waves, but also
this unsettling encounter with an entirely new feeling to feel

like discovering a new color that was not there before,
simultaneous awe for the newness, along with distress
because this form of new is so unpleasant

Ah yes, welcome to this huge spectrum of feeling,
welcome to being human, I definitely feel
more human than I have ever felt before,
and I can understand (in my mind) that this is beautiful and important,
and at the same time, it does not feel good

I don’t even know if rage-panic can be described

Oh maybe something about the disorienting terror of slow-motion shattering,
combining with aching loneliness and an immediacy of reactiveness,
an overwhelming intensity-of-desire to lash out,
to set everything on fire

And yes, I feel vulnerable and wild in this whirling unwinding,
in the devastation, yes, this is the fear of my own storm,
my own destructive nature,
what it might do

furnishings

Like Rumi, I invite this big feeling in to destroy my house and I do this for many reasons including:

a) hey guess what it will cause more destruction outside than in
b) it has more power when I fear it than when I make space for it
c) hello, temporary aspect of the human experience
d) these furnishings needed to go anyway
e) to drain something of its power, you go inside of it
f) nothing can destroy me / nothing can destroy me, I danced with the destroyer
g) the job of this house is to reconfigure a thousand times a day anyway, everything is temporary, yet sanctuary and shelter and refuge are mine always, it is easier to remember this when I don’t give any emotion the power of having power by fighting with it, I have the power and so I invite it in

I throw a party for rage-panic and give it a decoy house to dismantle, and I join in the disruption and destruction, yes, let us dance up a storm and smash everything, scream-wail our heart-pain, I do this and I use PT to feel the ground and to practice losing my balance but finding my steadiness

back to the pt

Sometimes PT helps a lot and sometimes a bit less

And, also

MY HEART HURTS

This is just a thing that is mostly true right now
and this is not something PT can help with

I mean, of course it can help,
by giving me a form and structure for loving myself,
just like yoga or skipping stones,
really that’s what yoga is —
a form or a collection/experimentation of forms for being conscious about
the space we inhabit so we can take care of ourselves with love (!)

getting to the pt does help

It is just not enough to think, okay I will do PT and ta da all will be fine

Sometimes it will be fine, sometimes it will be not-fine

And, either way, we are slowly steadily healing

there you go, the distilled yoga of life, right here

{Sometimes it will be fine, sometimes it will be not-fine.}

{p.s. And then later it will be fine again
but trusting this is the hard part
so a thousand points to me for practicing trust}

whispered

These are things I whisper to myself in the morning
the yoga of getting through november etc

I danced with the destroyer

and I am okay

memory

yesterday, while in shavasana at the yoga studio I almost never go to,
I heard/received a something, a transmission of clarity,
in the form of words resonating in my body, ….

YOU DANCED WITH THE DESTROYER AND NOW YOU ARE SURPRISED WHEN EVERYTHING IS BEING DESTROYED, YOU INVITED IN THIS BEAUTIFUL DESTRUCTION FOR NEW BUILDING SO THANK IT AND ADMIRE IT AND APPRECIATE ALL THAT YOU INVITED IN

I mean, it is true, I danced with shiva himself,
dancing the dance of anger and the dance of joy,
we danced the wild edges of destruction,
we were the storm and the eye of the storm, how many people can say that,
really how can anything surprise me anymore

(and now we train)

the next day

Training is 97% trust in the next day, holding the faith that whatever it will bring or hold will be useful in the greater trajectory, that what we seeded today counts

the next day, again

The next day I went back, that is,
back to the same yoga studio I supposedly don’t go to,
and discovered a huge painting on the wall behind me which I’d never noticed:
Shiva, dancing

Train, trust, breathe, rest, receptive heart, look for clues

what do I know about strength training?

The paradox that is not a paradox:

Repetition is everything but changing it up is everything
and haha guess what, time off is transformational,
oh and by the way,
what got you here won’t get you there but also
practicing one thing with steadiness and trust
[wax on wax off]
will get you somewhere
that will amaze you (!)
but if you try to get there instead of being with the One Thing,
it gets harder

A heart-sigh for all this,
for practice and trust,
and the superpower of What Am I Wrong About….

what do I know about my heart

A home for me
refuge and sanctuary
always whole even when [perceptions of shattering]
powerful
resilient
self-renewing
echoing & reverberating
home of wishes and self-generating superpowers
hearth
warmth
joy-and-sorrow, anything can be a door,
my heart is always heart-shaped because
love-source is mine always
and love-source takes the shape of me
I breathe love and am filled
filling up

I breathe to my blindspot
heart, show me more heart

a heart-shaped x

I went to the cafe where she always hands me a plain white mug to fill,
but she gave me a heart-shaped mug covered in tiny hearts,
she said “it works like normal”

I must look like someone who can’t stop crying
because things like this keep happening

And yet

That was a week ago but today I felt peaceful
and I surprised myself by asking for the heart-mug
and she said of course of course always

yesterday

Yesterday I asked [what do I know about my heart]

Yesterday I lifted my glass To The Illustrious Travelers, and then
decided to investigate more what it means to live in this category,
who am I when I see myself as an Illustrious Traveler

Yesterday I stopped hating someone who hurt me,
or maybe that is not true,
I wouldn’t say that I am all the way to not-hating,
but maybe now it is less about hating,
and something is new
something is opening
something is clear(er)
something is letting in more light
under the stars

today

Today I went to yoga and the theme was
LET US PAY ATTENTION TO OUR ACTUAL PHYSICAL HEARTS
which is kind of incredible,
an entire hour focused on my yesterday-question of
[what do I know about my heart]
aka dedicated time for the pursuit of
following up on what we seeded

I learned from the teacher, who is also
my personal hero in the category of let’s geek out hard on anatomy,
that the heart actually moves around quite a bit,
and we can FEEL IT AS IT TRAVELS
yes it travels
my heart, it turns out,
is also an Illustrious Traveler

more

More to explore here, always,
this is the nature of exploration

I am noticing a welling up of
[Appreciation & Thankfulness]
for how clues lead me to clues
and questions lead to questioning
and receptivity to feeling heart space opens heart space,
we seed with our words

illustrious / lustre / listening / love

Today my heart does not hurt
this is new
I am listening
maybe tomorrow it will hurt again,
and I will keep listening,
this is part of my itinerary in my illustrious travels
of being someone who loves
and who glows

Breathing for this now

Invitation for companionship and play

This post does not have an ending,
haha I never got to the point, but that is part of the point
my PT joke is still hilarious to me,
anyway usual comment zen applies

You are invited to share !!!!!! about what is here,
or anything sparked for you while reading

Safe space for creative exploration asks us to let go of care-taking and advice-giving

It’s always okay to comment under a made-up name, for play or Safety First

Here’s how we meet each other: with kindness and appreciation and awe