Listen for the joyful noise!

Listen for the joyful noise that is coming from your own heart! It's there, it really is. Anytime that we feel confused in our lives, we can take a moment to breathe and feel inside for the heart perspective. "What is my heart saying?" is the most useful question I will ever ask myself at any given moment. All inspiration comes from our own hearts, and it always feels light, like love, solution, playful humor and compassion.

The most important and powerful goal I feel that I wish for everyone is for all of us to be able to hear our own heart and to trust what we hear. If we are going to err, it is far far better to err on the side of trusting our own inner guidance, always. And the beautiful thing about that is that when we own that, fully own it, then we understand that we cannot know what is best for others, right? Funny how that works. ;-) <3

I promise you, it really is true that no other person can hear what is best for you, or anyone who is listening in their own heart. So get in there and start to figure out what is in your own heart, it may not be easy, but it is the key to everything. There are many awesome teachers out there that can help, I bet if you look around and listen for the joyful noise in your own heart, you will find just the right ones for you!

Love Is Always The Answer

I edit my posts, comments, etc., quite often and sometimes I even delete them entirely. I do this because I try to make sure that the things that I am putting out to the world are coming from love, from my heart, from an inspired place. I grew up with a spiritual teacher that taught me that intention is everything and that love is the highest intention, as well as the most effective way through… everything. So, when I come across something that feels like a 'problem’ I try to stay in my heart and to look for solutions. When I see things that I just really don't like, I try to simply hide them without judgement. Love accepts everything, light and dark, equally, that is the nature of love, obviously. For me personally, staying in my heart and in an inspired place means keeping my focus on the things that shine, keeping the company of people who hold love and inspiration as their intention, and not indulging my ego’s whims.

That being said, I believe that everyone's path is perfect for them, I genuinely do, I’m not just saying that. We are all beautiful works of art in a state of perpetual transformation and transformation requires cycles of both creation and destruction. Because of that, none of us can know what is best for another. It is on each one of us to feel our way through this crazy life and to either listen to our hearts, or not, if that is where we are at. I was taught at an early age that everything happens for the best, and that’s how I choose to see the world, through the eyes of faith. That choice has always worked well for me, perhaps if it hadn’t I might not feel as I do, hard to say. My choices are only what I feel are best for me though, not anyone else, unless they feel it for themselves.

I believe in all of this because it's what I learned from my spiritual teacher from an early age, but also because it is what I have observed in my life and the lives of many other people that I know as well. Holding this understanding, for me, requires being comfortable with contrast, and owning how invaluable it is, and always has been, to my own process of transformation. All of the challenges in my life help me to become more and more resilient and I value resilience pretty highly. Also, all of my experiences have made me who I am today, and I actually do love my perfectly imperfect self. I am not always successful at keeping myself aligned with my heart, and that is actually a good thing too because it keeps me humble… well hopefully! Ha ha ha.

The Thing About Love & Respect...

When you work on loving and respecting yourself, you concern yourself less and less with what other people think or do. You begin to realize that the thoughts and actions of others are only letting you know when you are listening from your heart. Your heart will only ever inspire you to love yourself and others more, it will only speak to you with a positive voice. The heart speaks from love, from lightness of being, from kind and playful humor. When I listen to the joyful noise I am hearing my heart's voice, this I know for myself for dang sure. Huzzah! ;-)

And, of course, when you work on loving and respecting yourself, you genuinely hope for everyone to do the same. When you work on loving and respecting yourself your ability to feel compassion for others grows and as that compassion grows it is like a big bubble that melts animosity for others, even those that you do not understand at all. Agenda no longer feels good, only inspiration does. Appreciation starts to feel more and more delicious to your soul, and of course, you will begin to notice more and more people in your life treating you with love and respect. That's how it works, just like happiness, it's an inside job.

Go look in a mirror and think of someone that you love very very much, someone that inspires and gives you a feeling of joy. When you have connected with those wonderful feelings, then look into your own beautiful eyes and say I love you to your own sweet self. There are many ways to work on loving and respecting yourself more, this is just one simple easy way to start shifting the inner momentum. It takes bravery for some. Try it, especially if it sounds ridiculous and feels embarrassing, in fact... just try it and see if you notice any shift at all. 

Contemplating Kindness

Kindness seems to be a bit of a theme this week, I love it. I feel like this meme from Byron Katie generally sums up my feelings about it but I felt like adding my two cents anyway, as I often do, ha ha ha. MwwwaaAH!

To me, kindness is really just love, and like abundance, love always wants to share itself. When you make love a life goal, beginning with loving and accepting yourself, and working towards living more and more in your heart, kindness is a bi-product of that work. I especially feel like a champion of love when I feel genuine kindness towards someone who has felt like a challenge in my life. For me, understanding that love and happiness always want to share themselves makes it easier to see a challenging person with love. Happy people wish for everyone to feel happy. People who feel loved, want everyone to feel loved. When I remember this, it becomes easier not to take unkindness personally, and to work towards meeting it with kindness.

Kindness to me isn't necessarily about taking care of others, physically or emotionally, it can be, but sometimes it's just about trying to see the best in people whether you like them or not. It can mean having compassion and accepting people wherever they are at, sometimes from afar, and wishing for the best for them. Sometimes it means keeping one's mouth zipped and staying the hell away from them, ha ha ha. I am always working on speaking from my heart, and with honesty, but also with discretion around what I choose to say, or not say... pausing and asking myself is this useful? Am I pushing an agenda or speaking from my heart?

Sometimes, for me, kindness really is about keeping a healthy boundary. If I feel that my presence, actions or words are not wanted or valued, or if I feel taken advantage of, or any kind of resentment, it's best to step away, clean my own internal shit up and then assess whether to talk it out or if it's best to simply offer love and light from afar. Kindness without boundaries, or showing kindness towards others at the expense of kindness to our own sweet self, well that is really just codependence, which I have found does not often end well, lol.

What is kind in any given situation really depends on the individual situation in that moment but, imho, genuine kindness always comes from the heart, it feels like inspiration, and it gives space to whoever needs it. Love, love and more love to all y'all.

I Love Love!

One of my favorite people in the world announced her engagement today. We don't talk often but that doesn't change a relationship based in true love. She is a woman who I have walked through some incredible things with, we have seen each others' awesomeness and not so awesomeness, ha ha ha! Our journey flashed before my eyes, as well as parts of her journey before we met too, and tears of joy just started streaming down my face and then a lost it. I just felt the most incredible joy and a sense of relief as well as inspiration! She and I have actively worked on loving and accepting ourselves, together and apart, for many years now. The most difficult and the best work anyone can do, in my opinion, is to go deeper and deeper into accepting and loving their own sweet self. The whole package, shiny and not, of course. ;-)

Awhile back I started seeing photos of her and her fiancé and I knew immediately that something was different, her happiness was wholehearted and she looked utterly at peace. I could see that she was loved and that she felt it! I was so happy and excited to see more... all the photos were like delicious chocolates for the heart. This person that I love SO much, this person who has loved me SO much was like a flower blooming and blooming again! It was so incredible to see! So wonderful and inspiring! 

So when I read that she was engaged in my notifications, well, I just lost it, ha ha ha! An explosion of joy and inspiration! True love does exist, people. It exists between friends and in romantic relationships, and sometimes even with relative strangers, and it is absolutely awesome and wonderful! Since it does, why not strive to make ourselves ready for such love by working our asses off at loving ourselves. If that is what it takes to have it, to have that incredible ever blooming happiness combined with an inner peace that is even calming just to look at, isn't it worth it? I believe in love. I believe in choosing it at all costs, in fact. It is possible, it really is... but it begins at home, in our own hearts. So get in there!

Congratulations and gratitude to my beautiful friend and her beautiful man, and love to all.

The Essence of Yoga and Divine Grace

My third trip to India was in my mid twenties, I had my twenty fifth birthday not long after arriving. My dad and I took the trip together and were pretty much best buds. I was teaching hatha yoga at that time, I was in great shape and pretty much loving life in general. One day my teacher spoke about gratitude as a spiritual practice. She said that if you even just said thank you, just for everything, once a day that it would transform your life. Her words really touched me and I decided to try it. Saying thank you to her was as natural as breathing for me, because she had given me, and my family too, so much. So that same day when I walked up to see her, I bowed as is the custom, and as I placed my forehead at her feet I quietly said thank you.

I did this every day for two weeks, and every day I would go to a particular chant with my dad afterwards. It was a very joyful fun chant, one of my favorites. On the fourteenth day, I was in that chant singing loud and proud ;-) when suddenly everything burst into golden light! I'm not kidding, it was like a joyful explosion! I grabbed my dad's arm and told him, "Dad! Everything is golden! Everyone is golden! It's incredible! Are you seeing this?" He laughed and said no, he wasn't, but he was clearly loving my reaction. I was laughing and so happy, so free and so full of love and joy! The golden light faded but I spent about two weeks feeling like I was walking on clouds! It was so beautiful!

Not long after that I remember going to see my teacher to ask her about something. Growing up I had always felt free to ask her anything. I feel so incredibly blessed to have had her in my life in this way. I've always been a very independent thinker and doer too. I don't tend to join group decisions or be swayed by peer pressure. But growing up with my teacher, I had experienced the depth of her vision and understanding many times. I knew to the core of my being that every single thing she told me was absolutely the most valuable and useful thing for me to hear and follow, in that moment. I knew from experience that if she gave me an instruction and I followed it, it would take me where I wanted to go. Even if I didn't know where I wanted to go, she always did, and she would light the way for me. I did not have this feeling or trust in anyone else, ha ha ha. My dad would get a good chuckle from that, if he were still in a body. Perhaps he is anyway. :-)

So, anyway, I went to ask her advice about... something, and she looked me square in the eyes and said, "Now it is time for you to go to your inner guru for your answers." Then she pointed at a hat that was in a pile next to the girl seated next to her and the girl handed me the hat. It was a rather comically large, beautifully crafted and quite fashionable, straw hat with a long pink crepe scarf wrapped around it and flowing down the back. It looked just like something from Alice in Wonderland, which turned out to be a bit prophetic, in my opinion. At that time I was surprised and a bit disappointed that she did not want to offer me advice, but I absolutely loved my new cool hat! I didn't understand until much later, quite recently in fact, how unusual and important that moment and her words were. 

I moved to New York City not long after that, and started working as an assistant fashion stylist. The funny thing about that is that I had said many times that I never wanted to live in New York City. I had spent a month there when I was eighteen and visited many times, it wasn't that I didn't enjoy the city. I just felt it was absolutely not for me. Then as my third stay in India was coming to a close, I simply knew that New York was my next home. I could not have given a reason, and I don't think anyone ever asked for one. I loved living there too, I was there for six years. 

About two or three years later I contemplated offering private hatha yoga lessons to make some extra cash. I wrote to my teacher, asking about this felt appropriate because I had become a hatha yoga teacher by her grace and at her behest, in fact. I received a letter back that seemed really strange at the time. It said that I had permission to teach yoga now and at any time in the future, not hatha yoga mind you just yoga. I am paraphrasing because I haven't read that letter in a couple of years, but that was the gist. I had very specifically asked about teaching hatha yoga, which is a series of postures that prepare a body for meditation and other spiritual practice. Yoga, however, is a much broader term on one hand and a much more finite term on the other. If you click on the quote below, it will take you to the page where I found it.

“The essence of yoga is to reach oneness with God.” - Pattabhi Jois

Many past moments fall together like puzzle pieces when I look back now. I have been walking towards this work for most of my life, perhaps all of it. Going to my inner gurus for answers, that is what I do now on a regular basis. Although now my inner gurus, or guides as I now call them, are pretty good at making themselves heard whether I'm trying to hear them or not. It sounds totally nuts, and it sometimes feels that way too. But I have had too many confirmations, I have heard too many weird crazy things come out of my own mouth that were totally new to me. Things that I did NOT want to say sometimes. Things I would try not to say, come out of my mouth and I am thinking, "Oh my GOD, zip your lip, girl!" From time to time I have resisted saying whatever it is that I am hearing. I've tried not to say it but it's as though the information is trying to push it's way out of me and finally I just have to let it out. Every time that has happened, it has been the perfect thing to say, and it's always ended with my client thanking me for the work. 

I've heard other people speak of this experience, of feeling information or words pushed out of them, and it felt so relieving to know I'm not the only one, ha ha ha. That good old corroborative evidence! I've questioned my sanity at various times in my life for a variety of reasons, I suppose it's par for the course, and perhaps questioning my sanity is one of the ways that I hold onto it. That being said, I absolutely love what I do, I absolutely love it when I am able to help people find their own powerful internal connection to Divine Grace, in whatever way that works for them. I am often surprised at the amazing creative ways that connection shows up for people. That connection inspires my clients and helps them to let go of old patterns and to allow new possibilities they would not have thought existed. It's magical it really is, and it is ridiculously fun too. What could be better than that?