Internal chaos & things I wish I had known

If only I had known…

• when I was an embarrassed teenager that I would look back on my line dancing days with a smile and wish I remembered how to dance ‘God bless Texas’.
• when I was a young[er] radical that my like would appear oh-so-conservative a decade later.
• that shaving was such a pain in the ass. I probably wouldn’t have started shaving my legs so young.

• when my baby was tiny how fast he would grow. I might have taken more photos or documented the first 2 years a little better.
• when I began working full-time how little I really needed to live on. I almost weep when I think of the designer clothes I bought and wore once.
• that I would never use my high school photography, biology or chemistry knowledge again.
• that preaching, raising my voice or standing on my soap-box wouldn’t actually make any difference at all. It would have more for a less abrasive youth.
• that breathing was the only thing required to push through most fears.
• sometimes integrity means saying nothing. And sometimes compassion is ruthless.
• that a tidy desk is the sign of a tidy mind and that that just isn’t my style. ‘One must have chaos within oneself, to give birth to a dancing star.’ – Nietzsche

What do you wish you had known earlier?

*Photo credit

Making room at the table

Standing in the ruins of gender roles, nuclear families and male dominance I am experiencing a backflip that I never would have anticipated. I am a woman. I am a feminist. I am a mother of a son. I love my husband. I have been vocal and active in women’s issues since I was old enough to participate, much younger than many would have liked. Injustice irks me. I have a stubborn, and at times irrational, belief that the world should be fair, equitable, respectful, even and just. This was the fuel in my feminist fire.

Now 20 years later I am faced with the repercussions of a movement I have wholeheartedly supported since I was 6. The changes feminism & affirmative action yielded (increased rights for women, increased participation in the workforce, autonomy over their bodies, a belief that they can be anything they want to be) are positive and necessary but they aren’t the only consequences. Gender roles are crumbling and the traditional patriarchal power of the male is diminishing our men are lost and looked over or lashing out at women in insidious or overtly violent ways.

Since the 1980′s when women’s liberation started gaining exponential ground a few other things have been charging along aside it. Violence against women has increased since the 1980′s and no one has a clear indication as to why. The media’s generic ideal of beauty has steadily become less and less attainable while it has become more expensive and more painful to achieve. Popular culture has adopted a soft core porn sensibility and pornography has become more extreme casting women in scenes where they are sexually abused, unfulfilled and humiliated. Marriage is on the decline, perhaps because women feel less obligated to play their part, but perhaps because more women are tertiary educated and successful and thus find it difficult to find a suitable mate.

Why is it harder to find a suitable mate? This is my major concern as a mother of a son; as women have made giant leaps forward our men seem to be floundering. Boys are left in the dust by girls is all levels of education from primary through to tertiary. Statistically men were hit harder in the GFC than women and of the industries set to boom in the coming decades most of them employ a vast majority of women. Whilst women are more likely to become depressed than men, men are less likely to seek help and more likely to suicide as a result. Parents are, for the first time in history beginning to prefer girl babies than sons.

So whilst women still have ways to go to reach equality, I think all of our children would be better served if we looked to create a bright and equal future for girls and boys. Because the rights of one group should never come at the cost of another. If we haven’t learned this, then history has taught us nothing and we are no better than sexists and the bigots that fought to preserve the good life for white men alone. I have every intention of teaching my son how to respect a woman, how to appreciate her for what she is and not how she compares to props in porn videos, to listen to what she says and to acknowledge her boundaries. I will also be teaching him how wonderful he is in his own right, how to work, live, love and compete with his equals (male and female), how to ask for help when he needs it and to not accept injustice on the basis of gender.

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Crowdsourcing the universe

There is a critical difference, and quite a gulf, between identifying something and processing something. The former is utterly useless unless followed up by the latter.

Identification is something we all do, to varying degrees, in every single little aspect of our lives. One of the first things we learn to do as a child is to identify people, objects, places, actions. As we grow, our understanding deepens and we learn to identify the unseen; emotions, the intangible, types of objects, sequences of actions, relationships between people. Personal development takes it further; we learn to identify our ego, our shadow, our embodied archetypes, our chakras, our blockages, our issues, our personality types, our agreements. We immerse ourselves in information; ways to identify what is happening in us, around us.

Information on what to do with our vast knowledge of the plethora of information available? That is a little thin. Infuriatingly, what little information exists around processing our information and taking meaningful action is invariably vague. (Can you hear that little frustrated growl in the back of my throat?) My pet hate, my most detested state, is the overwhelm of finding myself in the middle of a veritable pile of information and lables with nothing to go on other than my heart, my instinct, or my gut. Don’t get me wrong – my intuition is invaluable – but ladies, please tell me you don’t live on intuition alone?

I need mentors, processes, experts, a nudge in the right direction, suggestions (even if I immediately disregard them). I don’t need the answer, because I will invariably buck the trend and go my own way anyhow. What I need to know is how others experience it, what they did (and do now) and how it went. I need to know what the research said, what the sages propose, what history shows. My intuition will tell me, which path is the best one for me. I just need to create her a map of sorts, to crowdsource the universal consciousness and give her some options. What a waste of human potential if we recreate the wheel every single time. My intuition is a pilot, she flies this damn thing, she isn’t the engineer that builds it.

So a call out to all the philosophers, practitioners, experts, researchers; we know the experience is different for everybody and we promise not to ‘hang you’ if your method doesn’t suit us. But please, please, please have the balls to publish the process as well as the label. The world will be a better place for it, if only because I will rant less.

I shall believe

Please excuse my recent absence. Things have been kind of crazy. That special kind of crazy that happens just before momentum begins. Well, we finally have momentum, and in some ways I credit my #21.5.800 journey for that. The movement is on a long-term project though and it will probably take a few months to solidify, so forgive me too for not sharing the details here now.

The place I am in at the moment is an interesting one. I haven’t been here before, but I have done this before. I have begun projects. I have made commitments. I am a planner by nature. If you need planning or nurturing, I’m your girl. I have just never undertaken it from this perspective before.

Normally a happy Rae (thats what my friends call me, Rae, and if your reading this I guess you’re a friend now. Right?) in the past was busy with a happy dance. Usually a staccato, groovy happy dance. Not a flowing belly dance. Not that I am a great dancer either way. Happy Rae of the past would do a lot of bouncing on the spot, some running on tippy toes, lots of running around, going to meet people , in general lots of doing. My best friend describes me as excitable if that gives you a clearer picture.

Currently I am happy. Very, very, very, happy actually and yet I have no urge to bounce.

I have not bounced, run on tippy toes or rushed to organise get-togethers. I have a pervading sense of stillness. I have grown quiet. I have become calm. I am acutely, almost painfully, aware of the balance of all things. I have grown more tender and more compassionate. My happiness has made me more generous of heart. On a profound level I feel more connected and a greater urge to give. Even to myself.

I have grown gentler and softer. I have bypassed the rigidity of excitement and the expectation that accompanies good news. I am hopeful. I am open. I am unguarded. I have slowed down. Despite my joy and hope I am also in touch with the sadness and loss of life. I am not experiencing sadness in my life right now, but it exists none the less. And I feel it.

Sheryl Crow’s I shall believe is one of my all time favourite songs. It speaks of sadness, hope and healing. In it I see the transition from the anguish of loss to the bliss of returning to glory. That place between anguish and bliss, of neither but aware of both; this seems to be my new home. The place of mindful compassion and faith is where I find myself now.

Where are you?

Empty

Awesome as it [enlightenment] may seem, it is without actual substance and is ultimately empty. Emptiness as a spiritual goal, however, does not inspire transformational zeal in people. — Ajahn Sumano Bhikkhu

I haven’t reached enlightenment, yet. Working on it though.

Right now I do feel empty, in more ways than one. Sigh.

Emptiness offers itself up to be filled, lets hope I am full soon. For now, I am making friends with the space, staring into the void, accepting the emptiness & trying hard not to feel hollow.

There isn’t much to write about emptiness. Perhaps my next experience will be more exciting.

Final thoughts

A few weeks back I was searching. I had written in my journal that I was looking for something. In the past when I needed a guide they appeared before I realised how important they were. Now, I am acutely aware of my need for a guide AND the absence of one. So, either my guide is dragging their feet or they aren’t coming. My money is on the fact that I am on my own this time.

*Sigh*

Doing the work has never bothered me. Facing uncomfortable truths, making friends with what terrifies me, learning to love what I judge, this I can do. But do it alone? Do it without a mentor or a process? Help!

I know why I am on my own this time too, part of this leg of my journey is about trusting myself, my inner compass and the resources I have within.  Knowing this wouldn’t stop me clinging to a teacher if there was one near by. So the universe stepped in and helped me out; no guides, only guidelines. Guidelines in the most unexpected way.

As I was wrestling with the realisation that my journey henceforth was guided by my heart alone I discovered Bindu Wiles and her stroke of inspiration 21.5.800. At the time I didn’t recognise it for what it was, I made the commitment on the spot thinking it would fill in the gap until I figured out my next step. What  I discovered was a direct line to my heart (my guide), a structure and a huge community of like-minded souls to act as inspiration and cheer leaders. I found, in large part, what I had been looking for.

My thoughts on the journey are in their infancy, probably too misty and unformed yet to be coherent. But I have another 10 days to go, so I’ll work on clarifying them. I do know I feel different. I feel clearer. I feel less lost. I feel hopeful. I feel inspired. I feel like something is coming. I feel like the cogs of the universe have begun to turn. I feel relieved. I feel excited. I feel blessed. I feel centered.

Bulletproof

‘I’ll never let you sweep me off my feet’ - Bulletproof, La Roux

I love old movies. Especially film noir. The femme fatales, like their compatriots in other films of the era always fell in love, but unlike the other heroines (Audrey, Marilyn) they fell despite themselves. These women didn’t want to fall in love.

Actually the femme fatales (my favourite of which was Rita Hayworth) actively tried not to fall in love. They schemed, they evaded, they manipulated, they two timed, they played men off one another, they emotionally withdrew. The whole time, despite themselves, they wanted a man (a good man) to sweep them off their feet. They wanted a man to pass their tests, to see through their false bravado, to love them more than they loved themselves, to love them into who they could be.

There is a lot me can learn from these women, and I am not just referring to their elegance, grace, wit, beauty and class. They teach us also what it looks like when a woman falls on her own sword in love. It isn’t pretty. They usually ended up dead, in jail, in an awful marriage or miserably alone. Before I continue please let me clarify; a woman’s worth isn’t in her marriageability. Single is not a fate worse than death for a woman. My point is these women ran from, denied and fought what they really wanted and symbolically they ended up dead.

These women wanted Love with a capital ’L’. They wanted to be swept off their feet. They wanted a love that would deliver them from their confusion and fear so viscous it had teeth and ate them whole. We do that a LOT don’t we? We are so terrified of what we really want that we make ourselves impermeable, we try to become bulletproof and repel it. It is safer that way, or is it?

In the words of my favourite Femme Fatal, The Lady from Shanghai Elsa ‘I’m not what you think I am, I just try to be like that.’

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The real deal with support

Support; to bear the weight of, endure, withstand, strengthen, provide for.

To elicit support there first must be something to bear/endure/provide for.

This is logical. It makes perfect sense. So why do we resist this so much? (Or is it just me?)

When the going gets tough, instead of reaching out or crying out, I get out my game face. Those who know me know my game face is more like the smile on a china doll. Painted, perfect, unmoving and utterly fake. There is a reason that when things get tough you want to melt down. There are a few reasons, in fact. Melting down is a way of letting out what is going on inside. The tears or tantrum release the internal pressure. Melting down is also a call to action to those around you. It shows them the gap, between where you are and where you want to be.

I am not suggesting that we collapse into hysterics in a store, or completely drop the ball at work. To be supported, there must be something to support, some strife, some emotional turmoil, some difficulty, some effort. Perhaps it is time, in the sanctuary of our inner circle, to drop the act. Give it up. Quit hiding your pain, fear and need. Give others the opportunity to rise to meet you where you are.

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Desire is desirable

There is a secret to human nature that we all work with, but few can clearly articulate. Desire never stops. You will never be so satisfied with everything that the thoughts and desires end. We are designed to expand. We expand by desire.

Our taste buds will always crave  sweet, salty and sour. Our skin desires touch, warmth, delicate textures. Our eyes will always desire to look upon beauty. We will never stop desiring the smell of delicious food cooking, flowers blooming, the earthy salty smells of the forest and ocean. We will forever desire the tunes of music, the divine orchestra that is nature sounds, the sound of the words ‘I love you’ or more powerfully still moans of a lover.

Desire is desirable. Desire is desirable in a lover, in a spiritual seeker, in a child. Desire drives us forth in everything we do.

Desire has a bad name these days though. Chocolate biscuits alone will make some break out in a cold sweat, they are so used to denying their desire. Others who indulge their desires give desire an equally bad reputation. To make it worse society deems some desires inappropriate. Or appropriate for some and not others. Religion confuses the matter to make things worse, some (well most) seem to have an anti-desire stance. Other tout the transformational power of our desires. (I like to listen and learn from these folk.)

Desire alone is not an issue. Unchecked, misunderstood desire and attachment to what we desire, is what drives us mental. The logistics of handling your desires so as they don’t become destructive forces in your life is the tricky part. Blind desire will rarely produce more than a disappointing burst of pleasure. Blind desire produces disappointment and more blind desire.

‘We cannot hope to attain our goal of universal and complete happiness by systematically making ourselves more and more miserable.’ – Lama Yeshe

Delving into the depths of my desire, eyes wide open, heart soft and compassionate, with honed awareness seems to be the only sane thing to do. So bring on the chocolate cake, ocean breezes and amazing nights of passion!

What I know for sure:

• Desire is endless
• Desire is powerful
• Denied desire can feel like a cage
• Suppressed desire can be dangerous
• Desire mindfully lived can be so beautiful it breaks you apart
• You will never control what it is you desire. You can witness it, indulge it, deny it but not choose it.
• All desire is equal. Whether you desire a partner or chocolate – desire is desire.

Desire is desirable.

I would love to hear what you desire. What are you longing for, yearning for deeply? World peace? The best ever lemon tart? The partner of your dreams?

The Mat

My long time mentor and friend once explained the role of discipline to me in growth. For the longest time I believed discipline was something that I sorely lacked. I was never a sporty person so sports practice was never a part of my schedule. I didn’t play an instrument, so I missed out on scales and drills. I was a singer (once upon a time) but I never considered my rehearsals a discipline because I loved to sing. I was a study geek in high school, I was genuinely disappointed if I didn’t get an A. But I felt compelled (for the most part) to study, because giving less than 100% felt like letting everybody down.

I was a strict vegetarian for many years and I avoided all caffeine, alcohol and drugs (prescription and elicit) for 3 years. This was what I considered my only discipline. I felt that my moods and fluxes made me flighty and inconsistent and that I was too rebellious to toe the line. I believed that military discipline in all its unyielding precision was the only real discipline and hoped against hope that by hanging out with military men (3 of my best friends at this stage were serving in the army) I would learn to respect discipline though osmosis.

As wonderful as military men are (and they are, I married one of them, though he is no longer in the Army) they did teach me one thing; military discipline is something that cannot be sustained constantly. The stricter the discipline in their day the harder they ‘let loose’ in their down time. I am still in awe of the air of discipline and order that permeates their world, but I now know that discipline need not be nailed down and policed. Discipline is essentially commitment in action.

My mentor, a wonderfully wise woman who has been a yoga teacher (amongst other things) for more years than I have lived, described discipline to me as ‘returning to the [yoga] mat’. Her definition of discipline (which I have happily appropriated) is continuing to return to your practice, whatever that may be, time and time again. Endlessly and reliably returning to the mat rain, hail or shine, with your exhaustion, grief or joy. It doesn’t matter how you show up, so long as you do.

My practice is varied. My commitment is to my highest self. I return daily to compassion, to honouring my desires and giving of myself in loving service [Bakti] every single day without fail. Sometimes I show up whining, others joyfully, sometimes I show up in pain. Every day without fail I say ‘yes’ to my son when I want to say ‘no’, every day without fail I honour my desires with a relaxed cup of tea, chocolate or a candle-lit shower. Every day without fail I seek to learn more of who I am and to show love to the world. It took me more than a decade of practice to realise that this, this is my discipline and it requires I toe no line but that of my own heart.

I would love to hear about your discipline.

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On Fear

Fear is too often misunderstood. Fear is an emotion; A signal to ourselves that we have insufficient information or resources to keep us safe and sane. Fear asks us to take action.

The irony I find with fear is that, when it comes to the Big questions, we fear both options:

• We fear our worthlessness & we fear our worth
• We fear our powerlessness & we fear our true capacity
• We fear our failure & we fear our success
• We fear not getting what we most want & we are utterly terrified of getting it (or is that just me?)
• We fear never truly being loved & we fear what it takes to be in that loving relationship
• We fear never finding ourselves & fear we won’t like what we find when we do

At the moment I tend to relax into my fear, to get to know it. I sit with it and try to understand what action the fear wants me to take. The anatomy of fear, has always been the path to my best decisions in the past. Sometimes fear only needs you to acknowledge that you don’t have control over the outcome and to remind you that you are going to be o.k. regardless of if the shit hits the fan or if it all turns out golden.

My mantras at the moment fluctuate between “I can hold space for whatever comes” and “I am the love that holds it all“. Fear is just another natural part of myself that I am growing to love. Until then I will just make space for it at my table.

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Not my usual thing, but it’s ‘unspoken’ so I’ll say it…

Ok ladies, it is time to talk about your pelvic floor. Before you freak and go all ‘but I’m not a mother!?#!’ on me listen to this:

Your gorgeous stiletto heels &/or your beautiful babies will be the reason you are using Tenna pads at 50.

Yup you heard me right. Your shoes, those beautiful peep toes and pumps can cause a weakened pelvic floor. This takes ‘bladder weakness’ from the Mum category and places it firmly in the woman category. So unless you want to be avoiding running, laughing, heels and all kinds of fun womanly things listen up. And the answer is NOT ‘do pelvic floor contractions to the point of exhaustion‘ like so many books prescribe.

Your pelvic floor is a sling of muscles between your sacrum (pointy end of your spine) and your pubis synthesis (the part that just aches for no reason in pregnancy) the front center of your pelvic bones. It should be like a trampoline; taught, but not tight to the point of toughness. Think of it like a man’s guns (yeah that got your attention); you want to see the muscle ripple when he picks something up, and you want the muscle to yield and feel softish to the touch. You don’t want him to feel like a brick wall and look like an ape.

Now for this trampoline pelvic floor to happen you need both ends of the muscle to be working in different directions. Think of a hammock. You know the lovely things that you lay in on a tropical holiday sipping a pina colida? Well that hammock is tied to two strong coconut trees, right? Right. Fortunately you don’t have coconut trees in your nether regions, so you need to rely on strong muscles acting on bone. In this case the answer is a strong pelvic floor, achieved through a reasonable number of kegels and strong glutes, achieved through squats.

So, ditch the guilt that you aren’t doing your quota of PC contractions and do some PC contractions in a squat. You can find the pictures about how to squat properly here and the video that explains everything (IS safe for work) and isn’t freaky at all here.

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