Riding the dragon in a wavy dress and power

Riding the dragon in a wavy dress and power

Give her permission,

Have the power

In her wavy dress,

to hold the reins

Of a mighty dragon

Defying the wind

With a sword

Commanding with the heart made from fire.

 

Only when the dragon would lay down

On soft and nurturing soil

Under tree fern leaves reflecting little waterdrops,

She would lay down with him, calm,

Earth wind metal and fire

Finally at rest.

 

B.C.

Relaxing into wonder

Relaxing into wonder

The flickering sounds of the fire in stillness

burning away the willfulness

floating On the holy river  

like drop of water in the ocean

 

One falling into the One,

echoing the encounter,

Spreading stillness in the circles.

One falling into One.

 

The silence of potential,

What I feel

 is unclear,

can my experience turn into exponential?

feeling  Unity within

the connection becomes real.

 

I know I am here,

My body can dance out

This  mess

Unknown to my words to express.

 

The dissonance between things

sways with the lightness of being

what more am I seeing

further from limitation blinded before by believing.

 

On the bar codes of consciousness

Falling like drops from the sky

I surrender my resistance, my control, my illusions

 

Less judgement – more trust

With open arms embracing a stranger

To feel welcomed

Body reassured

Relaxing into wonder.

 

Loving with opened eyes

Laughing with opened chest

Embracing with joyful heart.

Realizations

Realizations

As a gift to myself to my upcoming birthday I have asked my friend Claire who runs a writing temple,  a kahuna therapist and lover of poetry to guide me through some inspiration for new writing.

We went to a beautiful garden (the photo above Claire took) and this is the writing from this day:

 

 

REALIZATIONS…

 

The family came picking up chestnuts and the girl picked one up and said: look what I have found! The chestnut opened and there was both a spiky shell and the fruit inside.

 

One tree leaning towards other, the other ones branches reaching to the one next, yet it is very clear they are two of them, shaping the window of possibility and openness.

 

The bridge, soft and rounded fence,

Gently resting in front.

Thank you for the warning, it may come handy some day, but today is not the day.

 

That day came when she realized she was lit,

That with being lit, she is living her purpose.

Together with the flame, the candle gave light where they were placed.

The flame needed the candle to rest there burning, the candle needed the flame to give light.

 

(B.C. 04.09.2024)

 

Get familiar with your saboteurs – improve wellbeing and relationships

Get familiar with your saboteurs -

improve wellbeing and relationships

In the program 9 steps for inner peace the second triad in the model is named Allowing your wants. 

In allowing your wants we are looking into liberating yourself, which literally means how to get out of the prison of “shoulds”, guilt and shame.

These ideas and emotional blocks often prevent the clarity around what are actually our true heart desires. They are the protectors of fears, that we have developed sometime along our path in the life.  They are the “I can’t”, “What will people think” sort of thoughts. They are the addictions, jealousy, bitterness, underlying issues of “ I don’t deserve to be happy”, “ not enough” syndrome kind of sources of behavior.

Part of this path of liberation is to get familiar with your saboteurs and develop more sage power. This concept of saboteur and sage was developed by Shirzad Chamine

Positive intelligence. He has identified one master saboteur and named it The judge.

When you work through The judge and various variations of it towards self, others and situations, it is helpful to identify the energy of this judge, the look and how it steals your perspective from your higher wisdom.

Besides Shirzad concept, there is also another aspect of saboteur, that holds a different energy that is also useful to get familiar with. The name of this one is The Brat. (Dora and Angelo Frasco, Healing course). You recognize the brat by quite immature, childish, sulking, walking away, avoiding, “not dealing with the issue in a mature way” kind of energy.

Both the judge and the brat would paint out an image of reality that seems so believable, but there is underlying fear and the choice you would be making for your behavior and decisions would be based on fear.

In a book Breaking free Overcoming Self sabotage (Linda Ellis Eastman and contributing authors) the following chapters give a great insight into what are we working through when we decide to develop more sage capacity in ourself and move more into our original essence. The chapters are:  How to built healthy self esteem&stand up to your internal saboteur; Negative self-talk; Stop with the cruel words; Sabotage: the consequence of fear;  De-clutter your mind; I am enough; learning to love yourself.

How do we work with these aspects of ourselves that are kind of protecting us, and yet it is not a protection that would serve our highest. Every time you manage to catch the saboteur, it is like overcoming a threshold  guardian in a video game, which if you do manage to catch it and act from your wisdom, it is your entrance to level 2, to celebration, to more alignment.

Here are 7 tips that support you  to break free from your self-sabotage :

  • Keeping yourself in contact with your body and presence in now with mindfulness breaks – setting a healthy clean body and clarity of mind
  • Getting familiar with your judge and brat – energy and appearance
  • Celebrating little steps of changing your course of thoughts
  • Practicing lovingkidness and self compassion and compassion for others
  • Intentionally reestablishing connection with your essence and self-worth
  • Allowing time to sit with yourself and inquiry without being scattered and restless
  • Having courage to articulate your decisions with kindness to others

Noticing your attitude when meditating: combining discipline and enjoyment

Noticing your attitude when meditating: combining discipline and enjoyment

It has been a fun month. Some challenges in between and lots to be grateful for. Above all I was resting more, sleeping longer, allowing more space. Summer in Europe, winter in South Africa.

I was exploring how can I be devoted to the journey of chosen self-development with finding my own way of keeping the promises to myself and not being rigid about it, or forceful.

I know that daily meditation practice is part of my daily hygiene to collect myself, ground, center in my heart, remind myself on the intention. And that knowing has just naturally became part of me. However,  at one point though I observed that it has moved from the energy of Love to energy of Duty, which brought in somewhat mechanic feeling.

With that I gave myself permission to let go a bit, what happens if I allow myself to sleep a little longer, when would I actually feel from inside to sit down for my practice?

I think I just really needed the rest and some relaxation. In this month I posed a question what is a way that there is some discipline and also enjoyment?

The result was a feeling of deeper settling in my heart, a certain relaxed open spaciousness in my heart space and breath. It felt good and nourishing.

I am curious now to explore further with autumn routines and kids starting school again, where is this practice going to find its place again somewhat organically, aligned with my overall intention of gentle, appropriate, to my Highest. With sobriety, openness and curiosity I will explore the unknown, follow the true heart feeling and observe.

Finding Flow: A Lifelong Exploration of Movement and Joy

Finding Flow: A Lifelong Exploration of Movement and Joy

We had a living room big enough to put the couch cushions on the floor, music on the old gramophone, and let my body move, jump, roll, do whatever it felt to the music. And the end effect? I felt uplifted, joyful and great.

Don’t the majority of us, as children, actually have this natural movement and creativity inside of us, that as soon as we have the opportunity, we would use it to move?

Well, at least my childhood was full of that joyful movement. It wasn’t movement with agenda, to be fit, to keep in shape, to get my daily exercise regime in. No words like “I should, I need to” came to my mind to do it. It was just a natural part of being and expression.

I was about six years old when we moved to the house with that living room, with enough space that offered me space to move. Soon it became one of my favorite go-tos.

When I was a bit older, I found a yoga book on my mother’s bookshelf. It was a black and white book with the foundations of hatha yoga, guiding through the basic asanas, and of course  a couple of sequences with sun salutations. So I used that as my guidance for a while, making the asanas, knowing as well that one of my mom’s practices in the morning before work was a sun salutation. I am not sure if now, at the age of 85, she still has it as her morning routine, but at that time, and still now in my mind, she was an inspiring role model.

The accessibility of that white and black yoga book on the shelf was enough to keep me playing with the asanas. Trying them out, and enjoying it with curiosity. Looking back, a proper yoga teacher would probably realign my poses and bring my attention to something to improve, yet I feel grateful and happy for that experience focused just on the freedom of exploration.

In grade 1, I was introduced to rhythmic movement. The teacher encouraged us to do some group movement, and I remember more stiffness in my body, which was new to me. This experience of how being in the group (and getting older) kicked in new feelings of self-judgement that automatically restricted the flow of movement of my body. Mistakes were something in movement with a group and that fear of getting lost in my body and forgetting the next steps was keeping me somewhat stiff.

I kept this movement as part of my life, experienced different ways of dancing, from group jazz ballet, modern ballet, ballroom dancing, cheerleading in high school, back to modern ballet, and fitness.

In my twenties, I filled in as a group fitness trainer for a while. Then, I assembled a small dance group called “Vivere”, which means “to Live” and choreographed a routine, which we performed on stage, and which received great feedback from the audience.

I also joined an Academy of fitness and aerobics show team. This was a group of health and movement enthusiasts that performed as promotors of movement, healthy body and Academy of fitness and aerobics. Even though we had many trainings, the main feeling I experienced was joy – the joy of cocreating choreographies, the joy of a well-functioning body and connecting to the body, and the joy produced by the music and the company of others.

When I started my first serious job, I put my focus on that, let go of the show team and found a great yoga teacher with Saturday classes. For a while, those morning Saturday yoga practices my sister and I attended, followed by a social morning coffee , became the movement of the week I was really looking forward to. A feeling of joy and aliveness was in my body again!

When I became pregnant with my first son, pilates was my main go-to for supporting my body and mind* – incorporating the breath, feeling the effects of small mindful movements related to the engagement of some muscles, and disassociating the habitual ways of engaging some others. I have learned to shift my focus of attention and became more intentional about what parts of my body I am using and how.

Later on, in my thirties, when I was already running my own company as a life coach, I took salsa classes and those group classes brought a lot of sparkle in my life. One evening a week, it was my happy movement moment. This attraction to salsa wasn’t limited in my life to just the once a week dancing. My friends and I used to go to concerts and music events with salsa musicians and dance. I cherish the memory of when my husband and I travelled to Cuba and danced salsa with the locals. I don’t quite understand where this salsa passion comes from, but I concluded that amidst my thoughts and focus, salsa gave space to my emotions to express in more dramatic, yet still confined space.

When we moved to South Africa, I found a yoga studio and dance studio, and for a while I had an opportunity to practise more of both. My favorite yoga practice then was Yin Yoga, a practice where with closed eyes you let go of comparisons with others and tune into your body.

It is also one of the practices that is sometimes called restorative. It is learning how in doing less, and opening to gravity, you are actually doing a lot by not doing.

It was after sitting quietly after one of the sessions that I experienced what I would describe for me the most profound spiritual experience in my meditative practice. The feeling, if I access it now was not the hyped up happiness and outgoingness as I would have known from other more hyped up practices, it was the inside, more peaceful deep joy of feeling deep connection within.

One of the practices where you explore how in stillness of being and movement, where you experience the connection between body and earth, tension and release, is tai chi. The repetition of practice and attention to little nuances and feeling also makes it very humbling and requires quite some patience. And the effect is very grounded, stable presence and recognizing of pushing forward or learning to let go to move forward. It allows you many mindful observations as well of the personality patterns in life and how to work on it. It also produces a lot of heat in the body and builds strength in the legs with relaxed shoulders and top.

In the journey with mindfulness meditation and coaching it is a very aligned practice that nourishes and offers me growth on many levels.

Nowadays when I work with the clients it’s beautiful to have an experience with a wide array of movement practices. Some of practices that ignite that cardio, or some where there is space more to step into being with your body, learning to slow down an be with yourself and body.

Ideally finding some balance, flow and including both with ease and joy into the weekly routines.

Exploring mindfulness: navigating emotions and feeling with poetry

Exploring Mindfulness: Navigating Emotions and Feelings Through Poetry

This week’s theme is linked to feelings and emotions. The mindfulness of emotions and feelings is one of the foundations of mindfulness practice, therefore one of the essential practices and talks. Working with emotions and feelings requires patience and fine tuning into realizing what is a clean feeling, what is interpretation, what is emotion – reaction to something and what is that saying to us, what are we doing with it.

In relation to this topic I am sharing this month one of the past observations and writings with respect to a strong feeling or emotion and how does it feel to be with it.

TO SEE MORE

 

Slowly I have learned

That this what I feel

is not the whole of me.

A part that in that moment took over the rest

So strong that all other parts

Hid away behind the bushes and the rocks

Timidly observed this giant

Taking over the stage,

Forgetting it is not alone.

 Even my soul in the moment of this coup

Could buy into this illusion

And forget that what is looking at Is just a finger on the hand,

Pointing so vigorously that It feels like sea sick with gaze caught up in mesmerizing movement.

 You are an important finger, and so is the one next to you.

With deep breath I land back in my heart, my center,

With another I stand in the middle of my head,

I hold the third to notice more.

 Soon there is much more to see,

In my humbleness I smile to the change.

 

The wind blows, the silence comes

It’s gone a moment later.

Did you catch it? Did you hold it? Did you let it go?

 

Using breath as the anchor amidst of it all

Using breath as the anchor amidst of it all

Can you recall from one of the movies a plane scene, when a character would reach for a paper bag and start to breathe deeply in an out of the bag to calm down?

Situations where people can get into a reaction of hyperventilating, freezing and holding? A reaction in breath, due to an external event on which we are reacting.

It feels there is not space for thinking, so whatever has been integrated in your capacity to respond, is already there, or it isn’t. There is an element of surprise, the strong unexpected external event brings up something in you. Often in that reaction there is the truth of what is it in you.

In some practices of leadership embodiment (Wendy Palmer) that trigger is practiced in a  group. When you are spontaneously walking with someone, are you holding the hand tight, is there fear there of letting them go? When someone is in front of you and pulls your hands, do you move back, forward, freeze or able to stay in your centre? Those are couple of reactions that are prevalent when our body is provoked by external swift event.

It’s kind of all that you have been practicing for, accumulated, will it be awakened and seamlessly put into behavior.

This unexpected can be different things in our environment:  big storm, floods, lots of confusing communication, all of a sudden finding yourself in deep waters after having past trauma of drowning in a shallow one, a big wave coming, after experiencing how it is being underneath and feeling it’s holding you down, in a moment not knowing will I get a chance to breathe again?

Imagine that all the fear of not having enough time is gone. That you have the capacity to wait and hold your breath or breathe to the capacity that you are able to until you breathe again in full, in flow, relaxed? That makes a major difference. A lense that there is space and time and relaxing into it with Trust, makes a difference between a panic and going under or trusting the moment.

Create more space for trust and be free

Create more space for trust and be free

There are couple of great journals out there that can support your personal growth. My favorite journaling experiences were: Brene Brown, The gift of imperfection,  and Glennon Doyle Untamed.  

In my experience finding a good friend with whom you can share a journey can be a fun way that also supports you to express in words and have inner discipline to gain clarity. When you get together for sharing, either on a walk or coffee, lunch, this becomes a nice social activity, where you also have a safe space to be listened to and for you to listen to another person and through listening other perspective widen yours.

Currently I am with Michael Singer’s Untethered soul, Practices to journey beyond yourself,  and my journaling partner is a fellow coach and a close friend.

Compared to the other experience this journey includes a lot of mindfulness practices (which I can recognize from the course for Mindfulness meditation teachers) and a bit less artistic then the previous two. Saying that though I still need to remind myself how actually mindful practices bring me to a present moment, to connection with my body and breath, how I do manage to become aware more what is a thought and how to come into the stillness of my being. It is there I find more peace, love and freedom. This can sound a bit like a hippy, at least that is my judgement. However with being grounded in everyday life, family, work and practices this becomes more a way of inner being with a lot of sober seeing the truth, the mix of feelings and emotions and the ability to skillfully hold it  all.

I am choosing one part from the Journaling practices that I find useful (M.Singer, p. 160)

“You think about your psychological well-being all the time. That constant, anxious inner talk is a form of suffering.

 Have you noticed how many personal thoughts are going on all the time. The next time you notice fearful thoughts, pause for a moment. Ask yourself if you want to be that person or do you want to be free?”

Choose what you love

Choose what you love

This is a poem that I share with my clients as a simple example of how we can find something about our body that we love and appreciate. Often I hear women pick up and focus on the parts of their body that they don’t like or they would change and fix. This is an invitation  to find and focus on the positive at least as equally as our mind can be pulled into negative. 

Choose what you love

I love my hands, the elegance, how they feel and how they look when they are touching clay, most of all from my body, I love my hands. 

I love my limbs, they are long and athletic. 

I love the soles of my feet. 

I love my ribs and how they expand. 

I love my liver and kidneys. 

I love the inner perfection of aligned working together. 

I love my honesty and willingness to learn. 

I love my heart and willingness to look into it, even though I often feel afraid and confused. 

And sometimes I just feel oh my not again, why do I want to look into how I feel time and time again. I rebel. 

Then reminding myself to stay with, look deeper, see more. (B.Cukjati)