Archive for March, 2009
Abundance & Prosperity
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
Everywhere I turn, the media is touting about these tough economic times. The words stimulus, recession, economic crisis, bailout, and financial strain have become commonplace in our daily language. Chances are, we all know someone, relatively close to us, who has recently been laid off, is struggling to avoid foreclosing on their home, or is looking into filing bankruptcy. Just off the top of my head, I run out of fingers counting friends and loved ones who have been impacted significantly (job loss, business closing, housing struggle) by the “economic downturn.”
Festus Umeojiego, the minister at Unity South Church in Bloomington, MN said last week in his lesson, “I don’t believe we are in a recession; I believe we are in a re-organization of our approach to abundance.” As the economy shifts and changes, so are our values surrounding money, and we are finding ourselves redefining prosperity and abundance. I can attest to this re-organization personally. Almost two years ago, I began to come to the realization that my yoga studio business was failing and would not recover. I investigated all possible options and determined that closing the business and filing personal bankruptcy was my only option. Throughout the process, I did and learned what most Americans are doing today. I took a good hard look at how I was spending my money and cut every corner possible. First, I quit shopping. Plain and simple, I didn’t set foot inside a store unless it was my local grocery store. Second, I took steps to reduce my bills such as dropping my landline telephone and reducing my cell phone minutes, turning down the heat in my house and turning off the air conditioner, consciously turning off lights and living by the sunlight more, cooking more and going out less, driving less and walking more. These simple steps then filtered into lifestyle changes that happened almost naturally. I found myself cleaning out my closets and giving away things I don’t use anymore, bringing my own cloth bags to the grocery store, habitually picking up litter on my daily morning walks, sitting and talking with my spouse more instead of turning to some external source of entertainment, and so many other things. I have met a lot of resistance and challenge in my own re-organization of my approach to abundance. I found that when I used language like “I can’t afford” or “I don’t have the money” I would get looks of pity, or feel pangs of scarcity and lack, which didn’t sit so well in my system. So, I change my approach and started saying things like “I don’t want” or “That’s not for me” or “I would prefer” thus claiming my situation as a choice rather than playing the victim of my failed business and bankruptcy. But then, the world around me didn’t seem to comprehend the shift I was making because my choices were not of the mainstream. Case in point, my internet service provider was confused by my choices. When I would call for tech support or service, they didn’t seem to understand that my internet service is not tied to a landline telephone number, or would try incessantly to sell me an upgrade to a cable television bundle, insisting that it would be cheaper. Sure, I could pay only $33/month for internet service if I added $66/month for cable television, but $45/month for just internet service was still less money out of my bank account each month. Instead of arguing with the sales rep about how much I would be saving, I finally just started telling them that I don’t have a television set. Somehow, that confused them more. Seems not owning a t.v. is synonomous to being an e.t. Another example is when I was at the checkout at my grocery store and I handed the bagger my reuseable bag, they insisted on wrapping my ice cream in a plastic bag inside my cloth bag. When I’d ask them to only use my bags, I’d get any number of rolled eyes, funny looks, or smart remarks. That was a year ago, but now that the rest of the world seems to be experiencing what I went through two years ago, I don’t get the resistance so much anymore. My ISP finally decided to assign a dummy phone number to my account and stopped soliciting me for upgrades, and the checkout baggers ask me before reaching for the plastic bags. My friends and family are asking me about how to clear the clutter in their own homes. In the meantime, I’m still living life post-bankruptcy: sans credit cards and loans, but also debt-free. What isn’t paid for via blips on a computer screen in the form of automatic transfers and internet bill-pay, I pay with cash, the old-fashioned greenbacks and coins. Somehow, having a wallet full of actual money instead of plastic representations has manifested into abundance in my life. And now, as I read words like stimulus package, bailout, economic downturn, financial crisis, and recession, I get just a little bit excited that someday soon, more of the world around me will realize the abundance that is created through simplifying life. Perhaps the best definition of abundance I have read recently came from the mouth of one of our nation’s first daughters, Malia Obama. In a very small passage in The Audacity of Hope, Obama quotes Malia when she was seven years old. She asked him, “Dad, are we rich?” He explained that although they were better off financially than some, they were not excessively wealthy. She replied, “Good, I don’t want to be rich. I want a simple life.” From the mouths of babes…abundance is found in simplicity, not wealth. This is what our shifting economy is teaching us. |
Body Wisdom - Wrists - Control vs. Teamwork
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
I love this image of hands holding wrists because it shows our interconnectedness so beautifully. We’ve all seen the images in movies of someone falling off a rooftop, and someone up above holding them by one hand. As soon as they get a grasp on the wrist, the person is pulled back to safety. Holding hands is an expression of endearment, but holding wrists is an expression of merging union, two hands becoming one arm, twice as long, twice as strong.
Fish Tacos with Pineapple Salsa
Monday, March 30th, 2009
The Power of Forty
Monday, March 30th, 2009
As a child growing up in Unity South Church in the late 1980s, I was always confused when my non-Unity friends spoke of giving something up for Lent. Most of them gave up the obvious candy or pop, some were challenged by their parents to give up fighting with their siblings, still others joked about giving up homework.
I never gave up anything.
Not that I didn’t pay attention in Sunday School. I knew that Lent was forty days (my friends had their countdowns). I knew that Noah spent forty days on the ark during the flood, Moses spent forty days on the Mount, Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness fasting and being tempted by Satan. I knew the stories.
I just couldn’t get myself to believe in a God that required me to suffer through floods, hunger, and temptations for forty days. It didn’t make sense to me.
Many years later, my yoga teacher published a book titled 40 Days to a Personal Revolution. He told me that “it takes twenty days to break old habits and twenty more days to solidify new habits.” So, I started the program in July, committing to six weeks of yoga practice, meditation, journaling, mindful eating, and self reflection, thinking that in forty days I’d know what habits I had broken and which I had solidified.
I never gave Lent or Easter a thought until the last day of the program when I realized that I had given something up for forty days. I had given up my fears, my anxieties, my angers, and my frustrations. Through forty days of wilderness on my yoga mat, I experienced my own sort of Lent in the summer, and I didn’t have to sacrifice my love of Snickers bars in the process! Finally, at 30 years old, I understood Lent.
So this year, as we near the end of the forty days of Lent, I can’t help but reflect on the power forty. They say “life begins at forty.” (I wouldn’t know, I’m not there yet). I do know this, that forty days of a commitment to anything results in a pretty powerful resurrection of something.
Adho Mukha Svanasana - Downward Facing Dog
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
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We all snicker when dogs smell each other’s butts, but they are not ashamed of their bodies. Us humans, on the other hand, tend to be a little shy about putting our bums in the sky, and thus hold back from a full stretch. It can take years of practice before one becomes fully comfortable in the full expression of down dog, and we may never get the naturalness of it that dogs have, but we can try. In holding down-dog pose, we pull in at the belly (third chakra) to open and extend through the heart (fourth chakra). Thus, we are working from our personal power (third chakra) to express through our love center (fourth chakra). At the same time, we are developing a solidarity to our identity, that we are unashamed of even our most vulnerable of spots. To add a bit of humor to the situation, all dogs know that everyone’s shit stinks, but they are more curious about how that smell is unique rather than “bad”. We can learn a thing or two from these pups. And so, I invite you to put your bum in the air, pull in your belly to be secure in your personal power, and open your heart the world. Besides, it just feels good!
Alignment
Modifications
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Body Wisdom - Low Back
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 In this time of economic recession, housing foreclosures, and employment instability, all the material things that symbolize support are exhibiting signs of shaky foundations. In the last month alone I have had three family members laid off from their seemingly “stable” jobs, two of my neighbors went into foreclosure, and my junk e-mail box is starting to fill with ads promising “ecomonic stimulus”. Although my job is stable, my mortgage is up to date, and externally I seem to not be impacted by the recession, I am surrounded by the energy of scarcity at e
very turn. So when my low back started to grumble at me a little more than usual in my yoga practice, I wasn’t surprised. It was my body’s reaction to the heavy weight of the emotions of fear, worry, anxiety and stress in the world around me.
One of the biggest health complaints in America is low back pain. More and more in my work in recent months, like myself, clients have complained of low back pain that often develops into shooting pains down the legs (sciatic nerve pain). One of the chief functions of the low back muscles is to provide support. The pain in our low backs (and that which radiates down our legs) is symbolic of the lack of foundation and the shaky structure in the world around us. Even if we are not directly affected by the financial woes of the recession, talk of the recession is everywhere, and chances are someone we know has been impacted in one way or another. Our bodies are speaking to the lack of foundation in our worlds.
The muscles of the low back connect to the muscles that wrap around the front of the hips and into the pelvis. The pelvis is often referred to as “the mother of all movement” because this is the point at which all movement of the lower body originates. It is from the hips that we step into and out of action. Thus, when our foundation is weak, we feel tentative in taking further steps, our movement is limited, and if we aren’t careful, we begin to feel crippled. Ironically, any physical therapist will tell you that what your back is craving more than anything is good healthy movement, more often than not, stretching, and usually in ways we aren’t accustomed to moving our muscles. Low back pain is simply our bodies telling us to stretch out of our cramped little boxes to view the world from a fresh new perspective.
What I remind each of my clients and prescribe as an antidote to this crippling pain is to refocus their attention away from the scarcity of the modern materialistic world onto a new perspective of the abundance of the spiritual world. Mother Earth is the ultimate provider, so by connecting with Her, we understand on a spiritual level all our needs are always met. This can be done by performing a number of grounding yoga poses (ragdoll, triangle pose, straddle forward fold, pyramid pose, chair pose) that reconnect our physical bodies with the nurturing love and support of Mother Earth below our feet. Furthermore, if we look at the ’scarcity’ consciousness in our world today as a lesson to let go of materialism, addictions, and hoarding attitudes we can then learn to appreciate the spiritual abundance of love, compassion, joy, and expression that holds no monetary value.
I’ll offer my own experience as an example. Two years ago I found myself in financial duress, like much of the world is experiencing now. I was forced to take a good hard look at my economic situation and really assess my fiscal priorities. Over the course of several months I learned to make some hard sacrifices including cutting off my cable television, my land-line telephone, cooking more vs. dining out, and shopping for new clothes in my own closet. At first it hurt. It hurt a lot. But over time, and I realized that many of the hardest sacrifices were labored decisions that had little to no impact on my daily life (I never used my landline phone anyway). I learned how to save money in small increments, to darn a sock (Grandma would’ve been proud of me that day), to cook my mother’s famous lasagna and make it last two weeks, and I remembered how to read a book cover to cover, just for fun. Oh yeah, I majored in Literature in college. Through reading, I rediscovered some of my most passionate affairs of my life, with Huckleberry Finn, Holden Caulfield, and why I’ve loved the color purple since high school (thank you Alice Walker). My world has since expanded to an abundance I could not have imagined three years ago. I no longer fret at the number of digits in front of the decimal point, but instead can count my blessings of love, joy, expression, imagination and spirit on the hundreds of thousands of branches of the trees I walk by everyday with my dog instead of spending money to watch a movie. Life is Good.
