I will be travelling to Europe with my father in a few weeks. We both love to travel and it will be a trip that revisits places very dear to both of us. My dad is now 82 and traveling together is a precious and, like everything else, time-limited. These sorts of events get me thinking about a lot of different things but the prospect of this trip has got me thinking about one question in particular, what is the most loving act?

Many people see loving acts as giving gifts or cards, others see it as taking over a chore that someone else hates with a passion. To me, the most loving act is to deeply accept others, and yourself.  It means really letting everyone be who and what they are. It means stop expecting them to be different than they are. No more getting caught up in ‘he should do this,’ or ‘why won’t she be like this.’

Trying to change someone, even just wishing they would change, is not in alignment with love. It doesn’t mean taking whatever that person dishes out like a doormat. It means letting go of the expectations that others should be what you wish them to be.

I love my father a great deal but often had trouble accepting the fact that he could be very charming and engaging with people outside his immediate family but not particularly sensitive to the people within his family. For instance, I expected him to want to go to the beach with us or hang out with the grandkids more. And he just didn’t.

It finally dawned on me. Peace with my father lay with me, and it was within reach.  It just meant changing my expectations. In fact, I realized that if stopped expecting him to be different than who he is, I could accept that this is how my father chooses to live in the world.

Once I made the decision to see and accept him for who he is, just as he is, our relationship completely changed. There was a new levity to it. The stickiness of my expectations dropped away and we were free to relate on a more authentic level. We can now connect on a level that acknowledges both our sameness and our differences with mutual acceptance.

Deeply accepting a person, including yourself, exactly as they are in any given moment without criticism or judgment is the most truly loving act you can do for anyone. It says to that person, “I see you”, and that is really all anyone wants.

My mother, Mavis McGhee, was a woman of spirit with a generous heart. She knew more about unconditional love than anyone have ever known. As an executive assistant, she spent her life serving others. Sometimes her needs got lost in the shuffle of giving to others. Yet, she did not complain or blame others. She was an inspiration to me.

After she was diagnosed with Glioblastoma Multiforme Tumors (brain cancer), it was clear that her time with us was shortened more than any of us wanted. A few weeks after the diagnosis, when she was lying in bed listening to the sound of the ocean lapping the shore from hers and my dad’s home in Cape Canaveral, Florida, she told me how much she loved the sound of the ocean. It felt soothing to her.

She once told me that listening to the waves felt like Eternity whispering to her. On this particular visit, she told me that she thought that the secret to happiness was learning to tell the difference between that which is Eternal and that which is temporary. At the time, I was reading, Sri Shankara’s, Crest Jewel of Discrimination – Viveka Chudamani. Shankara tells us that contentment lies in “learning to discriminate between that which is Eternal and that which is temporary. My mother was a southern daughter of Pentecostal Holiness minister whose only introduction to eastern thought was through me. Yet, she knew Truth.

Even before I started the first grade, Mom recognized in me a deep spiritual yearning and gave me the space to explore my spiritual leanings. As an adult she supported and loved me no matter where my path took me. She believed in me and believed in living from a space of serving and loving others. She loved cooking for those she loved, pouring her affection into every meal. Sadly, I didn’t inherit this gift. It skipped me and flowed to my sister and brother and her granddaughters.

Nonetheless, her support and faith in me gave me the courage and strength to lean into where my heart was taking me. She encouraged me to follow my heart, as that would lead me to how I could best love and serve others. She was right. I miss her to this day. She was released from her body on April 24, 1996 shortly after noon. That year it was Secretary’s Day. Mom also had a sense of humor.

I wish I could share with her where my heart has taken me. For the past several months, I’ve been working on a project, Abhimukti Yoga Coaching ~ A Coaches Training Program for Yoga Teachers. This journey has been infused with love as I’ve leaned into listening to the whisper of the Eternal. I am thrilled to share this work with others and wanted to include my mom.

So, to you Mom, I dedicate this day. Though I wanted the website for this project to be completed much sooner, I somehow think you played a little role in this and I thank you, for it gave me this moment to share with you. Though website got finished last week (thanks to the good works of my assistants, Janel  and Chris Buffaloe), I chose this day to announce, April 24, 2012. I love you with all my heart, Mom.

I hope you will all visit my new website and share with others, Abhimukti Yoga Coaching. 

I also want to invite you to reach out to your mom, whether in the next room or in your heart’s memories. Remember and thank her. She gave you life.

Think of the qualities you associate with a warrior. I think of ferocity of determination, one pointedness in attention, and definite strength. Now think of the yogic quality of ahimsa. Ahimsa is one of the yamas (restraints) in Patanjali’s sutras. It is usually translated as nonviolence or non-harming. It means that we won’t hurt other people, animals, or plants. On the outside, it seems contradictory to pursue nonviolence with a warrior mindset. Nonetheless, I don’t believe it is possible to do it otherwise.

Yogis often think of ahimsa as being a passive thing; we vow not to do these things and so the activity is in restraint, holding back. However, I believe an essential component of ahimsa is active. It’s active self reflection. This means garnering the humility to look deeply into yourself and discover where the seeds of violence lay. Are there seeds of violence in your thoughts? Words? Deeds?

Ironically, productive self-reflection seems to begin with empathy, empathy both for yourself and for others. Taking the point of view of that part of you that feels wounded somehow can help you cultivate kindness towards yourself. While taking another’s point of view activates a deeper understanding and affection for the other — making it easier to see where the seeds of violence tarnish that understanding.

Ahimsa is taking 100% of the responsibility for uncovering and releasing the harm in thoughts, words, and deeds. To look at yourself with honesty takes an incredible strength; a strength that becomes a kind of ruthlessness as you move from getting caught up in blaming others for your situations to doggedly pursuing those places in thoughts, words and deeds where you fall short of being the magnificent creature you know yourself to be, that being you know you can be – beneath the fears and the feelings of unworthiness. Approaching ahimsa like a warrior means engaging with yourself with kind fearlessness.

If self reflection and engagement are one half of ahimsa, compassion is the other. It takes fearlessness to look at yourself honestly and have compassion for yourself. Try this: step in front of a mirror and notice if you can love and accept what you see there. Are you berating yourself for getting older or gaining weight or are you kind to yourself and doing what needs to be done to take of yourself? Being compassionate outwardly starts with being compassionate inwardly. We have all met people who behave lovingly to everyone else but shred themselves the moment attention turns inward.

We have all met a true warrior at some point in our lives. Someone so at ease internally that most things that irritate most people are barely noticed. These true warriors are compassionate as well as ruthless. They can adopt the awareness that they are in charge of their thoughts, words, and deeds. And when they are unsuccessful at practicing ahimsa they don’t get caught up in blame or shame or regret.

They use that moment as an opportunity to dive deeper into themselves and learn more about their own thoughts and predicaments. Blame and shame are dead end streets in this process. Neither yields anything of value. It is empowering to know that you can do something about the state you find yourself in. You can ferret out these seeds of inner violence and discard them. Begin with ruthless kindness and ruthless self-reflection.

Thanks to lululemon photostream for the lovely photograph!

I went to see my daughters for an all too brief visit not long ago. This trip landed smack dab in the middle of several stressors that aren’t part of my usual routines; the car was having trouble, house repairs from storm damage were underway and some critters that were supposed to live outside were making their homes in my home. I was ready for a little break from all the doing and chaos.

I prefer a state of peace and steadiness in my life. Most of us do. We like things to run smoothly and, even if things get a little bumpy, we feel good when we can manage all of the balls in the air and still feel calm. In fact, we subconsciously use these states: calm, peace, patience, as reference points in our lives.

These reference points are places within us where we seem to land in a kind of home base. States that make us feel most like ourselves. But chaos (internal or external) can have detrimental effects to our inner state.  We can handle everything up to a point and then that last straw comes down and we react.

My last straw that weekend came in the form of a padlock on a gate. We were staying in a cabin at a state park and had made sure to ask if the gate would be locked when we came back late that night. We were assured that the gate would be open. But when we returned that evening by all appearances the gate was locked.

I jiggled it and worked with it and tried to use our cabin key on it; all to no avail. All of the tension that had been building in the last few weeks spilled over. I felt like just sitting down in the dark by the gate and having a good cry. I felt alone, even though my sweet husband was with me. Instead, David and I drove to the lodge to find it closed with no emergency numbers posted anywhere. Finally, a state park trooper drove by and told us how to get in. The gate hadn’t actually been locked. The padlock was a decoy.

Later, when I settled in to relax (on a bed with scratchy sheets over a plastic mattress pad), I started to wonder about patience. If I had had patience as more of a reference point, would I have been able to see that the lock wasn’t really a lock? Would I have been able to step back a little further and take one more breath before getting worked up about it? I am generally very patient with people. That weekend, I realized that I’m it so patient with things, especially if I’m tired and stressed.

At some point in each of our lives, probably more often than we like to admit to ourselves, we have too much going on. I know I’m not the only one who occasionally overcrowds her schedule. Few of us are immune to an overcrowded schedule and stressors of modern life; most of us have times of feeling overwhelmed.

A dear teacher of mine has said, “Everything happens for the best.” Sometimes I need to expand my idea of what “the best” is. We all have access to internal resources; strength, patience, faith, ease of being. Cultivating these states allows us to more easily find them when we need them and find that place of assured knowing that this, whatever that ‘this’ is, is for the best.

But at some point, we will still break. Emotional static will fill our vision and we will not be able to see very far at all. But having compassion for ourselves; compassion for those places within us that are overwhelmed and resisting what is, dissipates that tension. We may not be able to always be at peace, or have infinite patience, but if we are compassionate with ourselves when we are not, if we can hold ourselves in kindness when we are frustrated then we can start to cultivate that sweet state of home base and find that state more readily, whether the gate seems to be locked or not.

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Liberation. It’s a word that often gets tossed out as the goal of yoga or the goal of meditation. Liberation. Though it sounds enchanting and is delightful on the tongue, it can seem so unattainable and so intimidating that some turn away from liberation as a real goal, or don’t give it much thought.  You go to a yoga class, enjoy the practice and leave behind the real promise and goal of yoga.  Maybe you believe that you don’t have it in you to do what you think is required. Or maybe, you think that even if you tried, liberation is probably not yours, not in this lifetime.

Maybe you are someone who thinks of liberation as something that happens to you. You are liberated by some force of Consciousness. It’s not in your hands. Yet, you are the only one with the power to turn towards and express liberation in your life. It’s really no wonder that there’s intimidation and lack of clarity about liberation as the definition itself can be varied and vague.  Some texts explain liberation as freedom from  karma and others define liberation as freedom from samsara, the cycle of birth and death.

I tend to think of liberation as being more of a continuum rather than one big event. I believe that there are shades of liberation. We work toward it as we work toward any goal, realizing that really, the goal and the path are one. In this way, I see liberation as both the journey and the destination.

One of the guiding definitions of liberation for me is the freedom to choose. I can freely choose my thoughts, words, and deeds. Further, the only real point of freedom for any of us is freedom in the present moment. AND, our only real sphere of influence for choosing in the present moment  is the choices we make in thought, word and deed. There we have freedom.  In our thoughts, words and deeds, we can begin turning towards liberation.

Yet, many of us don’t use that freedom well.  We are deeply influenced by unconscious chitta, mind-stuff, impressions that stores our memories, habits and patterns.  In this way, our reactions tend to be more unconscious than conscious. Even when we do bring our unconscious impressions to the conscious mind, the thoughts and opinions can still be so centered in ego that our responses are driven by compulsion rather than true freedom.

This alignment with the ego causes pain. Pain, in this sense, is the ego dutifully playing its role, veiling our truest Essence, the truth about others and the nature of Life. Pain is inevitable in life. Pain comes even to the most ascended human beings. Yet, that very pain is golden.  For within that pain and the healing release of that pain we can find freedom – freedom from unconsciously choosing what that pain would lead us to choose.  Pain holds a golden key for us and it’s what we do with pain that tells us whether we are turning towards liberation or if we are aligned and identified with the ego.

Pain is a great teacher. Pain tells us where our unconscious stuff is getting triggered. Maybe you are like many who run away from pain or try to protect yourself from it, an impossible feat, really. But if you lean into the pain, with the right support, if you allow pain to reveal those places
where you are thinking, speaking or doing from chitta rather than from Heart, pain can give you an expanded awareness that grants you more room. Room to be and room to choose. Space begins to open up around your stuff, those unconscious impulses, and in that spaciousness, you can choose more freely from an expanded awareness.

Your choices become more conscious. Essentially, I believe one shade of liberation is being free of the unconscious and compulsive choices of the ego. In this way, you begin to cultivate a life lived from pure awareness. Consciously choosing your thoughts, words, and deeds comes not from ego but from the spaciousness of your deepest Essence, the Divine living in you, through you, as you. And liberation becomes something you do, something you turn towards.

Another yoga rock star, John Friend, has fallen, see this NY TImes Article.  The unfortunate truth about people in power is that they sometimes abuse that power.  Initially, these abuses of power are not typically grand.  They are small betrayals that can lead up to big abuses if left unchecked.  And we, as students and teachers are all vulnerable when we ignore those small betrayals, when we trust our teachers more than ourselves.

Adoration of teachers and projection of your own best selves onto them leaves you vulnerable to their charisma and charm.  When a teacher accepts this adoration without checking his ego with his shoes, they are vulnerable to lose much of the merit they’ve gained. 

As a licensed clinical social worker and a long time yogini, I think it is imperative that yoga teachers with large followings work closely with a trusted yoga coach, someone who knows the territory of Oneness and territory of power.  Moreover, yoga students are well served to stay awake to themselves, by attending to those little niggling thoughts, “something’s not right.”  Here, too, a yoga coach can help the student find the balance between self respect and other respect along with the courage to speak up.

The other tragedy at play here on the national yoga stage is our collective horrified reaction.  Of course, what has happened with Anusara is tragic.  However, another tenet of yoga is to use the tension on the mat to increase awareness and experience greater release.  The tensions rippling through the yoga world now invite a deeper awareness and a greater release, off the mat.  We can use this current drama in our journey towards Oneness by contemplating this drama and discovering where we feel hooked.

The work of a yoga coach is to use such tensions and help themselves and their clients enter a deeper awareness and release tensions.  Rather than excoriating yet another fallen star, yoga students and teachers are better served by looking into what aspect of this tragedy draws their attention.  And, from there discover the hidden treasure that will illumine the gold in their heart.  Perhaps it’s compassion.  Perhaps it’s courage.  Perhaps it’s commitment.

“There is no limit to what a man can do so long as he does not care a straw who gets the credit for it.”

Charles Edward Montague

Humility is a quality I admire in other people. It’s acurious quirk of humanity that we think being humble means pretending that we are not. For true humility is grounded in a deep sense of our own self worth, a self worth based not on someone else’s valuation of our qualities or skills, but based upon our felt sense knowledge of our Essence.

Like discipline, humility may not seem as readily accessible to some of us as it is to others. But humility may be found, cultivated and encouraged in all of us. One of the simplest ways to start is to notice when you feel the tug to take credit for something. We all like to be praised for our work but sometimes that praise doesn’t come or, if it comes, can feel disappointing in some way. Noticing those times, and our reactions to them, can be the first step in realizing that it doesn’t matter if the praise comes or not.

Oftentimes in relationships we can get caught up in the mundane aspects of our shared lives and we forget that each human is a universe
expressed in and of themselves. We want credit for who did the dishes and who took out the trash and on and on. We want attention. We forget that we are more than our deeds and more than our opinions.

But what happens when we let go of our need to prove our own worth? What can we accomplish for and with each other if it does not matter
what feedback comes next, or who gets the credit?  To be humble requires deep and attentive listening. We must be curious and be present, without preconceived ideas, without the need to rebut, without the compulsion to defend. To be humble necessitates the willingness to be wrong. And to be all of these things, to be truly humble one must recognize the depth and worth of one’s own soul and spirit. One must be able to see connections and similarities rather than differences and dissociation.

Being humble allows us to be present for each other in ways that allow the other to be seen truly and deeply and it allows us the space and
freedom to be who we are, without show or pretence and without the need to blame or feel blamed. It’s liberating.  We can be open authentically, and we can allow whatever comes to flow through and with us rather than holding on as if trying to convince another that yes, we
really are worth something. We already know.

When I was old enough to realize that my family of origin was slightly more damaged than was functional I made a vow to myself. I swore that I would be the last person in our genetic line to deal with life the way my parents and the generations before them had. And I have spent the better part of the last 15 years (the vow came well before my ability to do anything about it) pursuing ways to heal.

At first, it was a lot of sit down and talk therapy. It was validating and for the longest time that may have been the only thing to which I could respond. But gradually, I got bored. This in itself was huge because I am one of those people who can spin a story in three seconds flat and I knew that to get bored with story meant that I was ready for the next level.

For the longest time, I thought that dealing with issues meant just that, dealing with the issue. Talking it over, thinking it out, wearing it (and myself) down like a stone in a current. I thought it took effort and pain and often reliving emotions. And while all of this can be cathartic, for me, it never really seemed to help me go beyond that issue. I would deal with my anger over something and then the next day or week I would be dealing with that same anger over that same issue.

So when Melanie told me that Spiritual Technology and PEAT work were nothing like that, I was skeptical and intrigued. Could I really be done with an issue in a session of this work and not be triggered by it again? As if I had packed it in a suitcase and left it by the side of my road?

My answer is yes. When I left her office after my first PEAT session, I noticed right away that colors seemed brighter and lines sharper. It seemed as though a film had been lifted away from my eyes. So I tested it.

The issue Melanie had been helping me integrate was one of letting go of an old relationship. It was an issue that still held a lot of my energy and I wanted to finally be done with it. So I thought of him. And I thought of him when we were happy and when we hated each other. And it was like watching a movie.
The good, the bad, and the in-between all simply were. I didn’t feel angry or bitter where I had before over certain memories; nor did I feel that sadness that came with feeling as though I had lost the good stuff.

It was not a process of years of talking and dealing. It was a thirty minute session where I closed my eyes and breathed. Melanie led me through a series of questions and answers until we reached the intention I had placed at the beginning: peace.

thanks to Ed Bolden for the photo

Goal setting is huge in our culture. We are a future and accomplishment oriented society and many of us live only to see the next day’s task completed. But what happens when something gets in the way?

How do you react when an obstacle is placed in your path to your goal? Do you throw up your hands? Wait? Study? Laugh? Give up completely?

Many of us want to give up because we have misread what an obstacle actually is. Maybe we believe it is trying to tell us that the goal is not worthwhile or that we are fundamentally lacking what we need to achieve our goals. But what if obstacles are merely unopened doors to stimulate rather than intimidate us?

Any goal, so long as it is a goal that is meaningful to you, is a worthwhile goal. Further, none of us lack anything we need to carry out our work. Let’s run past this one more time, none of us lack anything to carry our our work. What if we remembered that, especially when encountering some obstacles.

 These ideas may take getting used to. It is inevitable that when we set a goal some resistance is going to show up. That is part of the play of Consciousness. We have our ideas and our timelines for how our lives should go. Rarely do things go as planned.

The trick is to have a goal so valuable to you that you are willing to take another look at the obstacles thrown at you and use them as learning opportunities instead of some kind of cosmic message to leave the field. We could reframe obstacles, not as yes or no answers to questions we’ve posed, but as questions posed to us: What is your next best step now? What would help you here? Where can you go for support? Where can you look more deeply to discover what is most valuable about this experience?

Obstacles are purely opportunities to probe deeper into our own consciousness. Do we need to let go of some piece or our goal? Has another part become more important? What do I need to learn about myself? What qualities within myself do I need to cultivate in order to truly be fulfilled here?

We have all the tools we need but, like muscles, some of our qualities may need some strengthening before we are able to continue. We can break down our big dream into smaller chunks of a goal so that, instead of becoming overwhelmed by the vastness of it all, we can take the next best step. And the one after that, and the next one after that.

For me, in my own personal goal setting, I like to stay inspired and flexible. Find stories that inspire you to keep going. Though, know that sometimes the goal could change completely in a split second. For instance, instead of winning the race, the goal might, in an instant, transform into finishing the race. Because, sometimes, “giving up” becomes the goal. And there’s the real trick knowing when to give up and when to persist.

We human beings are dynamic creatures and our relationships are vibrant expressions of that dynamism. But problems can often arise, especially in long term relationships, when we fall into the habit of thinking we know – thinking we know what our partner thinks, will say, or will do in a given situation. We turn our mates and even ourselves into static, one-dimensional images instead of allowing the full range of our potential to be expressed in each moment.
It’s easy, in our current culture especially, to fall into this trap of substituting the part we think we know for the whole that is there. We are constantly inundated with information we often don’t need and barely have time to process. It can be comforting to feel we have one person we really know, even if that person is ourself.
However, we can also suffocate under that “knowing.” We can feel imprisoned by our own assessment of our personality and potential and we can make anyone with whom we are in relationship feel trapped by what they are “supposed” to be. Have you ever surprised yourself or someone else and heard the words “you don’t do that”?
Staying curious about the people in your life – yourself, your partner, your parents, your children and your friends – allows them to express every aspect of who and what they are as they change and grow. It gives them (and you!) the freedom to explore themselves and explore their relationship to you.
In general most of us want to keep an active curiosity. We’ve heard it’s good for our brains to learn something new every once in a while. But it can be a little frightening to dismantle the images and ideas we have of one another and it can produce anxiety in some people to have those images dismantled.
The best ways that I have found to keep a long term relationship alive and thriving is to wed active curiosity about myself and the other person with an active awareness – compassionate awareness that takes practices the wisdom from Vasistha’s Yoga in my conversations. This means remembering the Four Gatekeepers of Speech and asking myself before I speak: is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? And is this the right moment to say it?
But what happens when only one partner becomes interested in something? How do you respond? It can feel distancing to be “left out” of a piece of your partner’s life. My choice is to become interested because they are. This means paying attention and asking questions, staying curious rather than assuming that I know.
How do you stay curious in your relationships? How do you respond when it feels a partner or friend could be moving beyond what you share together? How do you keep your relationship to yourself open and dynamic?