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The ABC’s of Self-Love: R is for Release

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This post is part of The ABCs of Fierce Love, by Stratejoy. When Molly suggested I write about Release, I knew exactly what wanted to be written. I’m honored to be one of 26 writers sharing wisdom about fierce love. 

Release of the Doves

First, a story…

Over the first ten days of February, I attended a silent retreat with Adyashanti, an American-born teacher of awakening. For each full day, along with 231 other people, I was silent. We meditated much of each day. This isn’t the first time I’ve done a silent retreat, but it is the longest one I’ve done…and it was the most profound.

Adya shared with us that the Divine is constantly and continually revealing itself to us in every moment. And everything it reveals to us is exactly what we need, when we need it, for our liberation…liberation from our own minds.

There were many ups and downs during these days. Just like in life, there were moments when I was confused as hell, moments when profound insights would come, and moments when nothing much seemed to be happening at all.

One moment in particular, though, speaks to the word release. I was sitting in the dining room drinking my chai, nibbling on my breakfast, and staring out a window that overlooked a green meadow and the pacific ocean. It was a beautiful morning.  I’d just finished the morning meditation, but nothing in particular was up for me. I was feeling very open.

Suddenly soft tears began to fall as I felt what seemed to be gentle waves begin to wash over me. At first, I felt some resistance to what was happening, but then my eyes instinctively closed as these waves grew stronger and caused me to turn within. The waves became deeper, and so I drew even more deeply inside, letting go into the waves. These were waves of love….sweet, silent, pulsing waves of love. It was as if an ocean of love was rhythmically washing over me, just as waves kiss the shore.

I’ve never been loved so deeply, so softly, so generously, so undeniably. Love washed over me, into me, around me and through me. I was immersed in an ocean of love…all in the midst of a silent yet bustling dining hall. This beautiful moment lasted close to 45 minutes, and at the end I knew I had been released into love.

It was a two-way love affair. The more I trusted what was being offered, the more I began to open to this love. The beloved loving the lover. The lover basking in the beloved’s love.

What keeps us bound up from this love?

Now, I imagine many of you have experienced what I did in some form. You don’t have to be silent or at a retreat or even thinking of love to experience such love. There is not necessarily any rhyme or reason to how, why or when such experiences show up.

We are always being loved. The divine is always offering itself up to you. Always. Always showing itself. Always revealing itself.

Which brings me to release, and you, and the Divine.

If this is so, what keeps us from knowing this love?

What keeps us from releasing ourselves into this great love?

While on the surface our reasons may seem different and unique, I imagine at the root they are pretty much the same. I know for me, what kept me from knowing this love as an experience were my deepest fears that who and what I am was somehow other than this divine love…that my basic nature was not love, that it was somehow broken, dark and not worthy of this divine love.

I imagine somewhere deep inside, you have similar fears.

Just for a moment, imagine this…

Imagine being set free, completely and utterly free to be you: the you you know you really are; the you you hear calling to you, the you your rational mind can’t begin to fathom exists.

When I ask you this, does it cause tears to fall and your heart to quiver? Or, perhaps there is an immediate response inside that this doesn’t pertain to you?

I know that so many of us are kept in bondage by beliefs and fears that who and what we really are is somehow not enough or okay or … fill in the blank. I also know that there is a deep instinctive drive to wake up to who we are. As the years of our lives pass by, this drive to wake up becomes stronger, while the bondage becomes more painful.

The drive you feel inside to reveal and release yourself is a natural, sacred, organic drive to heal into wholeness, to be the soul you truly are, to live a life of truth. The drive you feel inside is to know this Love, this sacred Love, as who and what you are.

No matter what, you are Loved

No matter what has happened to you in your life, your innocence and basic goodness have not been, and cannot be, diminished. 

No matter how your body has been treated, by you or by others, you are loved.

You are beautiful because the core of who you are is beauty itself.

All of you is loved, even those parts of yourself you’ve told yourself could never be loved. You are loved in your softness and your hardness. You are loved in your shyness and your ferocity. You are loved in all the ways you are.

Even if it feels like it will, your heart will not break if you feel all that you’ve feared feeling. The bindings that have grown around your heart will break, causing your heart to break open…and that is a good, good thing. This love that abides in all that is will open your heart. All you have to do is say, “Yes”.

What keeps the real you bound? Whatever it is, it is no match for Love.

What would it take to release you? Again, it is love.

Love such as this is always, always being given to you. You need not fear it, because that’s what the real you is… you are love. You are fierce love. You are soft love. You are the truth at the heart of love.

Longing

I’m not saying it will be easy. It has not been easy for me. Not one bit. It takes a burning desire to know this love. It takes a willingness to feel all that you have not wanted to feel.

The thing is, we are wired for this. It is only our minds, and the products of all of our minds, that constantly tell us differently. But, we are wired for this.

You don’t have to believe in God. You don’t have to believe in a doctrine. In fact, let go of any beliefs you have. Let go of how you think it should and will be.

Your doorway in is your longing…the longing to know love, to be loved, to be love; a longing to return home, a longing to no longer hide yourself.

Touch into your longing. Touch into your knowing. Touch into your own heart.

Reach out to the Divine and ask for what you long for.

Open to the realization that you can trust… in life, in love, in yourself so that you may receive what the Divine is offering.

This is self love: Self loving self.

Release is just a ‘Yes’ away.

 ::

You can find out more about Molly’s ‘The ABC’s of Self Love Blog Crawl + Treasure Hunt’ here.

image by massdistraction AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved

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Cycles. Seasons. Rhythms. Life.

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Pink Flowering Plums

“I can’t stop pointing to the beauty.” ~ Rumi

I went for a walk yesterday. As I turned a corner on my usual route, I was stopped by the beauty blazing before me: a flowering plum in full bloom. I didn’t expect to see a tree in full bloom. Winter is still here.

I looked closely at this tree: soft, tender flower flesh budding directly out of hard, seemingly rigid gray branches; clusters of blossoms blooming together, some barely nubs, others completely open and ready to fall; each moving to its own rhythm, even though they are all danced by the force that is the tree’s true nature.

I realized, once again, how much is happening, under the surface, away from our eyes and senses. This tree is always transforming, growing, shedding, dying, and being reborn.

Cycles. Seasons. Rhythms. Life.

And, I realized how, when I am focused on things, I can miss what is happening right in front of me.

Just like the flowering plum, so much is happening within me, away from eyes and senses. We are always moving in cycles, seasons and rhythms, shedding layers, buds opening, leaves falling.

I’m leaving today for a ten-day silent retreat. I’ve craved the silence. And, while in my head the retreat begins today and I’ve been busy getting things done so I can be away, under the surface part of me is already there, already moving within. Even as I’ve busied myself getting ready, part of me is already slowing down. This isn’t visible to anyone else, and surprisingly, just barely to me. In hindsight, I see how things are getting stirred up inside, telling me that on some level my psyche knows what’s coming.

Sitting in silence for many days brings much of your stuff up to the surface where it can be seen, and if you’re willing to sit with patience and compassion, liberated.

So much of what we believe is real and true is simply illusion. I’ve found that sitting in meditation, or dancing, which is my moving meditation, allows me to see through the imagined stories that have me believing the conditioning we swim in.

As Eckhart Tolle says, “‎~ If you can recognize illusion as illusion…it dissolves.

In seeing the flowering plum, I woke up out of the illusion that spring is far off, that life is static, that death is simply death. I remembered that life is erotic.

Life is a stream of change happening in both visible and invisible ways. We are each moving to our own rhythm, while we are danced by the force that is our true nature.

And, you?

What is happening within you that is just barely beginning to show itself, just beginning to bud?

What is dying during this winter within?

How is the erotic nature of life moving within you?

How is this nature whispering to you to move?

What is life asking of you?

::

While I am silent, this blog will be silent.

I’ll see you in ten days.

Pink Flowering Plums by Karl S Johnson | Some rights reserved

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Are You Breathing?

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::

I am in class, on the dance floor. Stacey, the teacher, begins to weave her magic and invites us to, “Move from the breath.” I instantly breath more deeply. How simple yet powerful is the reminder to breath.

I move.

And, I move.

And, as I move from the breath my movement deepens, my body opens, a simple joy makes itself known.

The breath carries me into the wave: a wave of rhythm, a wave of pleasure, a wave of release, a wave of not knowing…

My body begins to feel like liquid – liquid breath, liquid love, liquid life – and then I soften, open and receive. I receive everything I need to keep moving, for as long as the Spirit moves me.

::

It isn’t always so simple…or at least I tell myself that is so. But if I’ve learned one thing from dancing the 5Rhythms, it is to always come back to the breath.

When life feels hard, come back to the breath.

When I don’t know anything at all, come back to the breath.

When I’m scared shitless, come back to the breath.

When I’m ungrounded, spinning, and caught in one of those circles of drama, come back to the breath.

When I’m joyously alive and feeling on top of the world, come back to the breath.

When I hate what is happening, come back to the breath.

When I’m flowing, come back to the breath.

When I am mad as hell, come back to the breath.

When I have no idea what to do next, come back to the breath.

Whenever, whatever, wherever, whomever, however… come back to the breath.

I’ve found breathing is a supremely sensuous experience.

I am breathing.

I am moving.

I am dancing.

I am alive…and for this, I am grateful.

::

Photo by bloody marty mix on Flickr | Some rights reserved

5Rhythms is the work of Gabrielle Roth.

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Bright Eyes and Deep Peace Welcome 2012

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Light upon Light

It is the first day of 2012,

a year, according to many, which is supposed to be an auspicous year. Who knows. Today is only the first day, in fact here in my city, it is only the 6th hour of the first day.

Yesterday was New Year’s Eve. It was a beautiful and difficult day. I am single now and spending much time alone. It’s right to be doing so, and at the same time, in some ways it is painful to be alone. I love to be in relationship. I miss it. And, it is not yet time to be with someone new.

I am finding new places within myself. Chunks of old gunk are falling away, not without some deep work, but then nothing worth doing is necessarily easy.

Getting a download from God?

I wanted to spend some of the day at church, so I headed out to Grace Cathedral. If you are not familiar with it, Grace is a gorgeous cathedral that sits on the top of one of the most beautiful hills in San Francisco.

I had wanted to bathe myself in a beautiful service. I’m not a religious person, but I am wholly in love with the sacred. Most of my worship time is with trees and flowers, on the dance floor, or with my grandchildren and children, but today my heart longed for a traditional service. Well, it wasn’t to be.

According to Grace’s website, on a normal Saturday, there is always a 3:00 service. There was no mention that New Year’s Even was different, so when I arrived I was disappointed. Rather than the usual schedule, the plan was to show the Hunchback of Notre Dame in the church at 7:00 and 10:00, accompanied by live organ music. I did stumble into the organist’s practice time, which proved to be magical unto itself.

So, I sat and listened. I wandered around the church and looked, really looked, at the art within. There are some amazing pieces of art that I’ll share with you in future writings.

As I wandered,

tears welled up from someplace deep within me. Much of my past week has been spent in tears. For whatever reason, this deep processing and letting go has coincided with the last days of 2011. The tears just come, so I stay with them. I’m learning to, as Nisargadatta wrote:

“Investigate yourself and love the investigation and you will solve not only your own problems but also the problems of humanity.”

While I’m not so sure I’m solving humanity’s problems, I know I can only follow the long slender thread that continues to call me within. It’s not that I can always stay with the thread. I find my ways to escape. And, I am always brought back to where I left off, if I’m willing to listen and feel. It’s not like I am doing anything, but listening to my heart, to this pull to investigate the places that don’t feel true.

I decided to walk home from the church, so I headed out as dusk fell, and as dusk fell the tears fell, too. So many tears. Walking along the busy streets of the city on New Year’s Eve with alligator tears streaming down was probably a sight, but in reality they were quiet tears. There was a deep unnamed sadness, a well of something that had been there for eons.

Words rose up,

words from a past long ago. Words that had been stuck, pushed down within. As I voiced the words aloud, and held it all within the silence that holds everything, I heard words from the deep silence, words that liberated, not because they were flowery prosaic, but because they were simple in their truth.

“No, they did not love you as they should have, they loved you as they could.”

And then the tears were gone. These were tears that had flowed for years, but I had never gotten to a place where I could just let them be, just let them fall, without trying to fix or get rid of. I finally simply let them come, while I followed the thread of what was shown.

An old, old deep longing was released. A longing to know a love that could not be given from those who could not give it. And as the tears ended, suddenly my eyes were bright. They felt as if a veil had been lifted from them. And along with the brightness, I felt peace, a deep peace.

I know we as a species are flirting with catastrophe. I also know what will liberate us is love. I know how angry I have been with what’s happening in the world, and I’ve not known what to do about it. And, I’ve felt oddly guilty spending time processing deeply because it isn’t a doing, not in the ways most of us would believe we need to be in action.

Yet, what better course could we chart for ourselves than to discover the well within of silent deep abiding love. In one way or another, we all got mixed up about what love is. We’ve looked out there to fill the hole inside. We’ve looked to others, or to things, to get the love, when it has always surrounded us, has filled us, had been silently waiting for us to turn inward.

I want to be able to hold it all in love,

all of what is here in the world. Not just the beautiful, the easy, the happy and the joyous, but all of it, even that which feels the most difficult to love, which in reality has been myself.

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Light All Around

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Light

Today is Christmas.

Merry Christmas, dear one.

We’ve just celebrated Solstice, the beginning of the return of the light, and this morning the sunrise over the city is brilliantly painted with glorious colors of existence.

Last night I attended a late-night service at the Swedenborgian church. Much of the service was focused on the birth of Jesus, celebrating this day as a birthday, not only for Jesus, but for us all.

I was wonderfully surprised when the pastor spoke words from multiple faiths, including words from Krishna and about Buddha. And then we spoke this prayer:

“O God, place light in my heart, light in my tongue, light in my hearing, light in my sight, light behind me, light in front of me, light on my right, light on my left, light above me and light below me; place light in my nerves, in my flesh, in my blood, in my hair and in my skin; place light in my soul and make light abundant for me; make me light and grant me light.”

(which is very close to one attributed to Muhammad).

And then there is this Navajo prayer, which I find evokes the same feeling in me:

“Beauty is before me, and beauty behind me, above me and below me, hovers the beautiful. I am surrounded by it, I am immersed in it. In my youth, I am aware of it, and in old age I shall walk quietly the beautiful trail. In beauty it is begun. In beauty it is ended.”

Light, love, beauty… all words that point to something that no word could begin to capture…

At the end of the service we each lit our candle and carried them outside back into the world. It was moving.

I felt the thread of Oneness of all religions, the love and the light.

Perhaps some might feel this mixing of religions to be upsetting. Perhaps, though, this coming together of ways of seeing God and ourselves is exactly right-timing.

Isn’t the realization of our Oneness what we must come to know to survive?

Isn’t the very-real lived experience of the love and light we truly are what will help us to lay down our separateness?

Isn’t that what we all really want? To be loved. To be loved simply as we are. To know the light within us, and the light that surrounds us, as our true nature.

May you know the great love that you are.

May you be filled with the Light of this great love.

May you radiate this Light, simply as an expression of your true nature.

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A Mystery to be Loved

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‎

“So the darkness shall be the light,
And the stillness the dance.”

~ T.S. Eliot
{}
Tonight I danced.
We began in darkness, and ended with light.
We began with flow, and ended in stillness.
–
Life is cyclical.
Life is rhythmic.
Life is mysterious.
–
Perhaps the unknown can be opened to as a mystery to be loved,
not a problem to be solved or a demon to be feared.
{}

Happy Solstice!

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Teleclass: Exploring Womanhood & the Rising Sacred Feminine

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“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.” ~ Audre Lorde

Hello beautiful!

I wanted to share something exciting with you.

I’m going to be holding a teleclass for Sherold Barr’s Women Heal the World community titled,

“Exploring the Realm of Womanhood & the Rising Sacred Feminine.”

Tuesday, November 29

5-6PM Pacific / 8-9PM Eastern

Cost: $25 Donation to Kiva.org

On the call, we’ll explore the rising of the sacred feminine principle and awakening to the sacredness of womanhood. Sound interesting? I hope so. It’s what I feel compelled to speak and share.

I met Sherold online and then spent some time in person with her at the World Domination Summit last June in Portland. Sherold is a dynamic woman doing wonderful healing work in the world. We’ve had some wonderful engaging conversations like this one…

I sense our conversation next Tuesday is going to be the same.

If you can’t make the call, no worries. The teleclass will be recorded and you will receive and MP3 audio recording.

Consider joining Women Heal the World. There is no cost to do so, and you’ll be connected to women around the world who want to Make Peace, not War.

I’d love to have you join us on Tuesday! See you there.

::

Follow these steps to make your $25 Donation to Kiva.org and join the call:

1) Click here: Kiva Lending Team: Women Heal the World

2) Click “JOIN TEAM” or login if you’re already on the team

3) Click “FIND A LOAN” (there are options on the left side to narrow your search)

4) Choose who YOU want to loan $25 to and click “LEND $25“and then click “CHECK OUT”

5) You will notice a $3.75 “Optional Donation to Kiva’s Operation Costs.” You may click on “EDIT” and change or remove that amount if you like.

6) Final Step! Please email donation confirmation to: sarah@sheroldbarr.com

When you donate to Kiva.org, you are helping a woman somewhere in the world step out of poverty.

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Seeing in Silence

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Hamoa Beach, Hana, Maui

“Let your eyes remain empty of interpretation and the seeing will occur in silence.” – Mooji

When the eyes caress, just as a lover takes in the one being loved, an immediacy is known.

::

I had a very personal and profound experience a few months ago about seeing, really seeing. And, hearing too. This experience took place in Hana, at Hamoa Beach.

I wrote about for an upcoming book, but this experience wanted to be shared sooner. I couldn’t think of a better place to share it than on Teresa Deak‘s new site, Given to Gratitude. So I have.

I’d love for you to click on over to Teresa’s site and read these words, “So Much is Given“.

I’d love to know what you feel…

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The Coaching Blueprint, Kate Courageous & Me

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Happy Friday!

Today’s the last day of September. It’s hard for me to believe we are three quarters of the way through 2011.

And, on this last day of September, you’ll find me over at Your Courageous Life with Kate Courageous (Swoboda), a woman and friend I am so grateful to know.

Kate interviewed me for her brand new, soon-to-be-released product, The Coaching Blueprint, and today she’s released a short portion of our interview. I’d love for you to stop by her place to check it out. It was a joy to be interviewed by her. In turn, I interviewed her and that interview will be released next week.

The Coaching Blueprint is nothing short of brilliant. For all of you coaches, and other professionals that provide a similar service, The Coaching Blueprint will be your guide to set up your practice the way it needs to be for you…for who you are as a person, as a coach or provider, and as a business owner.

How I wish I’d had The Coaching Blueprint when I was just beginning.

Kate has included interviews with other great coaches, too, such as Tanya Geisler, Jamie Ridler, Dyana Valentine, Michael Bungay Stanier, Pam Slim, Tara Sophia Mohr, Tara Gentile, Jennifer Lee and Michelle Ward. Also, Intuitive Counselor Bridget Pilloud shares how she’s differentiated her practice from Coaching and counselor Steve Bearman talks about the experience of training other people to become Coaches and counselors.

I am an affiliate for The Coaching Blueprint. If you’d like to purchase it through me, there’s an affiliate link to your right. If you’d like to purchase it directly from Kate, you’ll find a link on her site.

Have a beautiful weekend.

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And Then It Is Gone

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What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time; it is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. ~ Crowfoot, chief of the Siksika First Nation (1830-1890)

I read this and I hear the words, “and then it is gone.”.

I feel the beauty inherent in each of these ephemeral experiences. I catch a glimpse of the times in my life when I haven’t tried to hang on and I notice the freedom I felt when that happened.

I love to take photographs and what captures my eye, more often than not, are these fleeting images of life as it splays itself out – the rose in sumptuous blossom, the full moon at its peak, a whole-body smile flashing through my grandson.

And then I notice how many times in my life, which would be most of them, that I try to hang on to this beauty.

Life is fleeting, ephemeral. I know this. And, dang it if I don’t try to hang on to the ephemeral…seeing that written in words makes it so clearly painful to do so.

flash…

breath…

fleeting…

all words that show us clearly that life isn’t anything solid or real.

and, yet…

Hanging on to the fleeting is impossible…it falls through our grasp.

And this is where suffering happens…

Life doesn’t need to be fixed or saved.

Life is sacred. Perhaps it only needs to be seen, witnessed, loved.

Perhaps instead of taking, holding on, grasping, I can learn to give back, to appreciate, to honor, to acknowledge, to witness…

What might it take for us to remember the sacredness of this life, to witness it as such, to bow down to its fleeting nature?

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