Something very interesting is happening within my practice right now… I say ‘practice’, what is a practice? what is yoga? what is self-care? Yoga, self-care and personal practice for me these days is how I live, how I love myself and others, how I carve out time to reflect and feel things truthfully. This does include yoga poses, intuitive movement, meditation, exercise, breath-work, journaling, freewriting, reflecting, resting, study, emotional freedom technique, challenging what my norms have been in the past, working with others to support me in what my goals are in business, health, personal growth, happiness…a mixture of tools that support the many layers of life.
My ‘practise’ has become a path of asking why and receiving the answer with acceptance and love. It is a process of experiencing something, fully, with every layer of myself, being curious of what arises and seeing - whatever my understanding, my interpretation or my emotional response of it - as being valid and helpful and interesting… gold dust in assisting to move forward with a little more clarity and lightness in my step.
I have created a sequence of these many techniques as daily as family life makes possible… my 5am practice has had my glamorous 4 year old assistant accompanying me a few days this last week. And yes, I found that hard to not get a bit annoyed sometimes. Thoughts of “how much earlier can I get up to get some time to myself right now!”. But, what also arose was a beautiful thing… my daughter quietly colouring next to me while I did my workout, journaled, she understood when I explained “Now these next 15 minutes, I’m going to be doing my meditation, so if your questions can wait until the little bell sounds, I’d be really grateful. You can come and sit with me, on me, give me a cuddle at any point, but if I can keep the room as quiet as possible it helps me to feel calm” and do you know what, she only went and totally honoured that. Yes my focus dipped in and out of her, and calm, and “Jesus what’s the time, she’s going to get hungry for breakfast any minute” and “well isn’t this gorgeous time spent together”
And it was. It was beautiful. Glorious even. This pocket of time we spent in each others company, enabling each other to simply be. It was life. Normal everyday life.
This leads me beautifully on to what I have been unable to, until this past week, put my finger exactly on what I was needing, that I wasn’t quite connecting to from my practice/routine of self-care/whatever we wish to call this… and it was a deeper spiritual connection. Yes, my practice until now has elements of this, but it now requires a deeper commitment here. I can see that now.
In October, I lost my Nonna, amazing 99 year old beauty of a woman. Her passing, of which I was present for, was a beautiful one. A dignified, love-filled, incredible, affirming one. But in seeing her final breath it arose, firstly about a month of complete exhaustion, also an indescribable pride of my family and the love that is held there, the love that was able to support such an incredible passing… but also, and very significantly, it arose a conflict of understanding of the vastness and everyday-ness of love, life and death. But in these last few weeks, am I now really happily sitting within this space of these two seemingly polar qualities.
Life-changing, powerful, complex, earth rattling…versus…simple, grounding, comforting, dare I say it..normal. If we can see these not as conflicts, but a reflection instead of everything in existence. It can be comforting and, certainly for me, an incredible place to sit and reflect. To be in a place of both revery and calm acceptance.
The vastness of and everyday-ness of death…the ending of a physical life, a bond to loved ones around you, to your body, to your personality, your fingerprint and every step you’ve taken, your connection to a vastness of everyone who has come before you and will after you, your lineage, your imprint on the universe… and yet, someone dies every second. Your passing is inevitable and necessary for the cycle of time and nature.
Our passing may leave a great imprint on someone else to an extent that may change the way they live their life until they die. But after being witness to this life-altering moment, then what is left is a body, a shell, a no longer them, no longer being in the company of anyone at all. It’s a funny old thing.
The vastness of love of course, what can be achieved by it, what mountains it can move… And yet, the everyday-ness of it all…the extra honey you put on your child’s toast, the expectation that it is always there, it keeps dynamics tied or not, starts fires of disagreements and more often than not puts them back out again. We can take it for granted until a moment in time where we see it in all its rawness and power when it’s needed most.
Lately, though, this vast polarity of qualities has deeply comforting for me. Its begun to help me place myself in time and space in a new way… I can see possibility, limitlessness and an opportunity to learn from accepting my existence within this framework…whatever it is - the universe? the source? divine energy? god?…mmmm that’s one that Im not ready to resonate with. Perhaps, its association of being used within organised religion, where God, mostly being seen as male, sometimes being perceived as something higher than us mere mortals, something that might show us “what for” if we make a mistake.
Whatever “this” is, it’s something greater than any of us separately, but we are a part of it and its greatness. I feel incredible comfort and excitement in the infinite possibility life has to offer here right now. This moment, this breath, a touch, a breeze, a word, a sensation… it is all both vast and has great potential to change our perspective of literally everything! And yet, its incredible everyday-ness… of a breath, of the sensation of clothes on my skin, the taste of food that I am so grateful to have. With this gift of insight, I can see that every moment is an opportunity to be in great spaces of gratitude, acceptance, revery, celebration, love and I feel most importantly…a space in which life’s potential has no limits, as long as we don’t pose our own perceived limits upon it.
In 2020, my intention is to commit more time to reflect deeper into this spiritual inquiry, so that I might FEEL it more, as opposed to simply understanding it intellectually. To feel it both in everyday-ness of the school run, of a conversation, of a moment…and in the life rattling moments that challenge it all. That is a place where I wish to be.