To be heard, and not to be.

I run into this a lot.  I let my voice rise up from my heart, and it is not always received in the way I was hoping.

Oops.

Can you relate?  I practice speaking from my heart a lot.  I hope to be responsive, kind, sensitive, respectful, compassionate, courageous, truthful, Graceful.  However, practice is messy and I don't always nail it.  Once my words absorb, bounce off of, bore a hole into, or fly over the head of the receiver, then comes their response.  Sometimes their response is less a response and is more a reaction.  Kind of like, adding oil to a fire.  Sometimes it is disengagement. -Or over-engagement, silence, disregard, retraction.

So, I create a steadfast heart.  One that is prepared and open to whatever the response may be--even if the receiver completely mows over what I just said, without even acknowledging my voice.  More than likely this person isn't being heard somewhere in their life too.  And they don't know what to do with a Wholeheart.  I affirm them regardless if I have been affirmed!  -Because I know affirmation outside of me is not necessary for me to continue to live in Love.

In a recent interaction, I felt the person on the receiving end was plowing through my soul's efforts to place words on my experience, to offer connection and truth from a grounded place.  Speaking from the heart is just not always well-received.  Once someone told me, "People just don't always want to hear what you have to say."  Ouch.  As one of my teachers would name it, a core-wounded identity of mine, I suppose.  One thing, among many, I have learned from that statement is that one is always worth standing in their truth, and whether others are listening or not is irrelevant.  It is more about how we choose to speak up, and whether we can identify if speaking our truth is for everyone's awakening in that moment.

For this particular interaction, I knew I was choosing connection over ego (or my need to be heard). I had great compassion for the person on the other end, realizing they wanted the same thing as me, and just had a different kind of awareness around what it means to be heard.

I know I have people in my life who give me the space to say what I need to say and can go there.  I have journals, this blog, my art, meditation, my own self-love and listening...  If there is a pattern, habit or history that I am looking to rewrite, than I decide there will be another opportunity to have a meaningful conversation, or I can meet the "other person" where they are at in a different way.

In the end, it's about connection.  What connection means for me is that I can trust in my own heart to love and trust others, no matter their response.  Just as I am on my path, they are on their path and processing the world in their capacity.  I want to use words for healing and awakening.  And let silence or surrender do the same.

The Light of a Child's Heart

Get ready to fall in love.  Here's something my son said to me as he pushed along his balance bike on our family walk the other day:

"I'm playing this silly game Mamma.  I am chasing the sunset, trying to catch the light.  It's so silly though, because I don't need to chase the light, I can just reach down and pull it out of my heart!"

I just about swooned.

This is the child who has come to me.  THESE CHILDREN of mine.  -Of the Earth, of God, formed in an infinite crescendo of love.  -Made up of atoms, cells, and fairydust.  They sing straight into my heart.  They never read or analyzed a single yoga sutra, yet they understand so much more about yoga then I do.  They have this embedded consciosness that is woven into their natural state of Being.

It gets me thinking about this response someone once gave me when I said about our children, "They are our greatest teachers."  As if I had said something absurd, she scoffed , "Oh, I don't know about that!"  

If we are open to the world, everything, everyone in the world has something to teach us.  Children carry with them the most beautiful understanding of this without knowing.  Their understanding is in the felt sense.  Children are present, in the moment.   A wave, lapping at the shore, they are, "Now. Now.  Now."

Embedded consciousness.  My children "at work" in their natural state of Being.

Their understanding of the world comes from a different place than many of us.  some folks can't see or feel it.  Literally, children's brain waves function in a lower state the first few years that is akin to day-dreaming. Children are full of wonder, curiosity.  -Their identity is unconsious yet in many ways and their connection much bigger than they are.  They are so much closer to the essence of what Self really represents.  -Be it God, Science, innocence, mystery, Consciousness, creativity, potential.  In this way children are so highly evolved!  As adults, we are so hung up in the words, try to analyze/intellectualize.  How does one pull light out of their heart?  In many ways we are out of touch with our bodies and can't understand what something "drawn from our heart" might feel like.

So plug into your child, or your own inner child, the animals, plants you observe in Nature.  Tune in and listen.  -Let the children and the untainted lead the way.  May you be the shores of their infinite soul, to guide them.  Serve the little one inside of you, children, those who are unjaded, animals, Mother Earth.  Preserve their light, protect their wings, so that they might wake up one more adult to the Grace in their own heart and become one of their greatest teachers.

One of my greatest teachers.

Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free.

Today I walked along our country road with my two sons delivering homemade cookies to our neighbors.  My younger one delightfully kicked at the leaves, overjoyed at their crunch-crunch sound.  He'd pause, eyes full of wonder, to watch them sigh to the ground.  When we'd arrive at each neighbor's house, I would pull back as I listened to the earnestness from my older son, "We baked these cookies for you..." -Cheerful connection singing from his big heart, "They're REALLY good, I think you'll like them."

Watching my boys brought my attention to the whirling thoughts and overwhelm I was thinking earlier while we went about our morning, baking, reading, making small packages.  -My mind talking me out of the moment: "Will you do Christmas cards this year...the house is a mess, I have to clean it...let's just get these cookies done...I have to pick up some art supplies...when am I going to get to that yoga email?"  ??!!  And this is what I teach!  Stay present; breath; don't let the future (or the past) rule you.  Well, good thing I'm a human.  I have this great opportunity to keep practicing being a superhuman. ;)

I was just at a six-day teacher training, assisting my teacher.  Wow.  I knew it would be a lot, but I have had this nagging feeling in my heart whispering, "Your dharma is to serve big, guide folks along their yogic path.  Serve and guide your children, and SERVE THE HERD!  It's in you."  However, this broadens the terms of the latest contract of what I do:  Mother.  I snuggle; wipe bottoms; look at spiders; go to the planetarium; listen; pick up toys; read books about whales and the sun; have dinosaur puppet shows; play family; make art with pipe cleaners and glitter; go to the local library, Y, grocery store, playground; plan adventures; stay at home; bathe, feed, tuck in and sing to children.  I am happy, frustrated, tired, at peace, annoyed, present, in-a-thousand-places-at-once and I shoot for unconditional love (yet sometimes end up with conditions). 

Of course, there are other contracts I have negotiated with the Universe--yoga teacher, being one of them.  Lately I have been wanting to explore this contract, and at the same time, as I broaden the terms of "who I am" or better stated "what I do", I look at my children, growing up fast, and to be quite honest, I freak out.  Are they growing up too fast?  Or am I just not paying attention?  Is my dharma that imminent?  Or shall I just wait.  Yes, all of you on both sides, or somewhere in the middle can tell me, "Chill out."  And it's all true.  For the whale of self effort I put forth, there is an entire galaxy of surrender.

Keep it simple.  Many of us have the privilege of choosing how we fill our days, where we place our thoughts.  The rest is up to something bigger.  Let the sun seep in, the wind blow you around, the earth ground, the children inspire and teach us how to live in our hearts.  Remember that. 

To be free through the tantric point of view, is to live life fully.  Is to affirm all. -To ask the hard questions.  Choose to explore all the end points, rather than settling on one point.  Consider everything, rather than nothing.  Choose understanding and compassion, rather than judgement and shame.

I hope we can all remember we have the capacity to be simple, free.  We are humans with superhuman capacity.  Let's practice to remember this.