Soaring in circles, without ever landing

Forget anything I've ever written about life being busy before. A regular stay at Club-Med compared to life right now!

The job change may be to blame, but changing jobs was a conscious choice I made in an effort to create a better life for me and my family. Implementing change alone, however, will not decide the outcome of that change. It's what I bring to the table in terms of intention, attitude, and strategy that will ultimately determine whether I succeed or fail (or end up somewhere in between).

Time is of essence. It's my currency. I read somewhere recently that time represents modern man's poverty. At least it feels that way. The true challenge (I think) lies in finding the delicate balance between work and play as well being able to recognize the difference between rejuvenating rest and ineffective idleness. So I'm feeling the heat because I really don't want to screw this up. I find myself constantly searching for inspiration and guidance, in books, blogs, and practice. Yet, I can't seem to attain that sense of gut-felt confirmation that what I'm doing is right. Naturally I'm being way too categorical if I limit myself to only two alternatives: right or wrong. Seems pretty adolescent. Still it would be such a comfort if I felt that there was some kind of order to my plans.

For that to happen, then I guess I need a plan, huh? A vision. A future goal that won't overshadow my need to be here and now, experiencing the present. Now if I could only find the time... Where should I get started? Instead of grounding myself I seem to be flying around in circles.

Maybe I should just google "secret to life's riddle" instead...

Picture from Google

Small lessons

Just as I wrote in my last entry, the difficulty I have in taking initiative (in combination with being incredible talented at procrastinating), leaves me in desperate need of finding ways to get myself going. Yesterday, for example, I had rolled out my mat to do a 90-minute "flow" practice, yet I found myself, or rather my-ego-self, doing the old put-it-off-two-step: Aren't you too tired today? You don't want to overdo it. You know you're hormonal, and it's already late; you could easily do it tomorrow instead... Wouldn't that be better???

I'm so sick of arguing with myself. So instead I offered a compromise: Why don't you at least TRY doing some yoga and see how it goes? Not even my stubborn ego could argue with that! So I started, and it went spendidly. For once, it felt good the entire time; I felt energized. Before I knew it, 90 minutes had passed. Perhaps someday my intellect will understand that my doing yoga is hardly a chore and that it gives more than it takes.

The fact that I managed to persuade myself so easily to do the right thing has largely in part to do with a blog I just recently started following: The Happiness Project. My sister had told me about it, and immediately I knew that this was what I needed. It gives me practical how-to tips so that I learn how to tackle my demons, thereby helping become the person I want to be.

Take this entry where the message was in fact the point of making it easy to do the right thing. By giving words to not only solutions, but rather to the small patterns that we lock ourselves in like hamster wheels, you know, things that drain of us energy without getting us anywhere, suddenly my eyes are at least a tad bit more opened. I feel as though I'm being offered keys to unlock the door to a mind shift.

As I was driving through the farm landscape of Southern Sweden this week, everywhere I looked there were acres of blooming raps, blossoming fruit trees, and scores of birches with their baby, lightgreen leaves. It was breathtaking. Earlier years, the taking of my breath was more like a tightening of my chest, as I knew that this was only temporary, that winter would eventually take it all away, how could I make this moment last even longer? So basically, I tainted the experience by fretting over the inevitablility of change. This year, I saw the same spectacular beauty and thought to myself, "I'm so happy to be a part of this moment."

And that's exactly what I felt, if only for a brief few seconds: Happiness.

Who IS she?!

The best line from the best movie ever, delivered by Sally (Meg Ryan) in "When Harry Met Sally". Said with an overtly corrosive combination of distaste and disbelief, and with emphasis on the middle word, "IS", those three small words have forever been etched into my memory.

And suitably enough, that particular line comes to mind when I see my tired reflection in the mirror. There is no word that I am more tired of than the word T-I-R-E-D. I am always tired. When I think about it, I have been tired for as long as I can remember. Not only is it the cross I exhaustingly bear, it's an enemy I must confront every single day. And since that means me fighting myself on a daily basis, let's just say the the tired side has a pretty sizeable home-field advantage. And since it reigns over such a large portion of my very being, while at the same time creating my greatest obstacle, I can't help but wonder what part of my existence this being is?

This condition controls my primary instincts, so whenever I embark on a project, I must always first muster up enough energy to overcome the urge to just lay back, put it off, and zone out. Even as a child, I was a good student, but incapable of applying myself. Basically, I got by. As an adult I find it difficult to even do the things I enjoy most because of this ogre that resides within me. This is why I chose to become an instructor: that way I wouldn't have to bargain with myself every single time I needed/wanted to work out. And I love working out!

Even this morning, after having slept soundly through the night, I woke up wanting to meditate, LONGING to meditate. The voices inside me began immediately with their plea-bargaining. Just ten more minutes. You have all day to do it. Why not do it tonight? Your husband is probably going to come in before you're done. Or else you know the kids are going to wake up and start running around. You don't want to wear yourself out. Pace yourself...

Who ARE you, annoying, debilitating voices? Why must you torment me like demons with nothing better to do? On all other planes I see myself making efforts that lead to progress, but with you, I am getting nowhere, no matter how hard I try to bridle the beast.

A passionate a-ha moment

This week I had the opportunity to yoga for Ulla Lundgren, certified Anusara Yoga Instructor. It is awesome to be given the chance to learn from those that have dedicated their lives to the art and philosophy of yoga. In comparison I can barely call myself a novice. I'm more of a dabbler, gathering thoughts and ideas where I come across them, and then returning to my ordinary life comprised of family, home, and work.

So when Ulla introduced her theme, icha shakti, asking us what we were passionate about, I was temporarily stumped. Icha shakti is the power of will or desire. It's what drives us towards the direction of becoming God. In other areas of yogic philosophy one is taught to strip oneself of desire in order to create true non-attachment. But this is different. This wasn't about hot and heavy romantic passion. Nor was it about eternal access to bottomless tubs of Ben & Jerry's. It was about connecting to the deeply rooted love within us in order to use its power to ignite and propel us in our practice.

Which is easy, I suppose, if you have a clear picture of what you truly love. So much of my energy goes towards "getting through the day" or "going through the motions" on a daily basis that I initially had no clear idea as to what the heck I was doing there. Because if you're not passionate about your practice, really, then what's the point?

Anyhow, two images came to me. The first was a cloudlike fog (OK, I know that fog is per definition cloudlike, but this was more like the clouds you fly through with an airplane than London-when-you-know-Jack-the-Ripper-is-on-the-loose fog). And in the fog resided peace in its purest form. That's my secret dream - to be able to attain that sense of peace in meditation, something I sense that I am really, really far from at the moment. The other image was my children. Yes, I love my husband, but I think there's an additional aspect of unconditional surrender in the way I love my children that engulfs my entire being. It renders me powerless while at the same time empowering me to the point that I could walk through fire for them.

There's probably a lot more there that I should be more attuned to, but this is what carried me throught the next 2½ hours of matwork. The highlight of my evening, aside from getting my insight tickled, was me actually doing a handstand-split against the wall. That made me feel like a kid again.