On Loving Yourself and Embracing Your Personal Brand - Right Now

Several weeks ago, I gave a presentation to a local job search support group on “How to Discover and Market Your Personal Brand.”  If you are interested in viewing it, you can do so here: How to Discover and Market Your Personal Brand.

As I was putting together this presentation, I noticed myself feeling some anxiety about putting myself and my brand out there – I felt like somehow it was premature to discuss my brand while I still consider myself a work in progress.  Authenticity is important to me and important to branding – and I didn’t want to somehow misrepresent that I'm some expert who has it all together when I don’t - I'm just as imperfect as everyone else.  There was an inclination to assume that I should wait to present who I am and what my key strengths and contributions are until I have everything 100% figured out – until I have finally “made it.”

Similarly, on the dating front, many of you know that I am currently focusing on trying to stay single and celibate and get really comfortable with myself – before I re-open myself to love and enter the dating pool once again.  At times, I find myself making a list of all of the things I need to do before I will someday be prepared to meet my next life partner – e.g. I want to cultivate a regular meditation practice, figure out which hobbies are most important to me, develop a regular cleaning / housework routine, figure which qualities I am really looking for in a mate, and grow saavy and confident at knowing and speaking my truth so that I can address conflict in a timely manner.  That is a lot of accomplish before I am “ready” for love!

Have any of you ever made lists like these in your life?  For example, are any of you waiting until you do “X” (make partner, buy a house, finish your degree) before you have kids?  Are you any of you waiting to do “Y” until you propose or get married?  Are any of you waiting to get to “Z” before you have the courage to open your own business or branch off into your dream career? 

I bet you have…we all have ways of robbing ourselves of the present moment, of delaying gratitude, of withholding love from ourselves until we achieve our inner critic’s demands… but what if you have already arrived?  What if all we ever really have is right now?  If you knew that this was going to be the last week of your life - how much would you or I care about all of the things on our list?   Would we be ready to set aside our excuses and pursue our dreams later - or right now?  Would we be ready for love later – or right now? 

This afternoon, I attended a Young Adult Dharma Council Retreat with Howard Cohn on love and how we open and close ourselves to expressing and receiving it.  As part of the retreat, we worked with the idea of lovingkindness – giving love and kindness to others and ourselves.  For many of us, giving love to ourselves is the hardest part.

As part of my healing and growth process, I’ve been loosely following the 12 steps, and several of those steps deal with making amends to others you have harmed in your life with your dysfunctional behaviors.  Through recent reflection, I have determined that my conflict avoidance, disorganization, and discomfort with being alone have allowed me to bring harm to several individuals in my life – mainly ex-partners and old friends.   This past week, I wrote them emails to apologize for what I have done and say my peace.  While I wouldn’t say doing that was easy, it actually felt fairly natural for me to do so once I put my mind to it. 

The harder thing for me to do is make amends to myself – to forgive myself, quit being so hard on myself, quit holding myself to such a high standard – particularly when I am focusing on all of the negative patterns that I have brought to my life so far!  Bringing love and care to myself is less easy to do – my perfectionist and people pleasing tendencies run deep and get in the way of truly honoring and appreciating me – accepting and loving myself just for who I am – right now – no improvements necessary.

This afternoon at the retreat we learned a new lovingkindness technique that worked really well for me.  Howard (or Howie as they like to call him) told us that when we are having difficulty feeling lovingkindness towards ourselves in meditation to instead picture people in our live who love and support us unconditionally or times in our life when we have felt loved and supported unconditionally and bring those feelings and images to mind.  For example, picture those people giving you a big warm hug or caressing you or gently showering their love and attention upon you.   In my case, I pictured my mom and dad, my good friends here and across the country, and my Biodanza circle, and I immediately felt a dramatic positive change in my constitution.

We then had the opportunity to draw a picture to capture those feelings or one of those experiences that we brought to mind, and I drew the following picture of our Biodanza circle from class:

We then had the opportunity to share our picture and our feelings with a partner and later the class at large – and I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders and true feeling of connection – to the people I had pictured in my reflection and my drawing as well as the people in the class with me and the world at large. 

Someone asked the teacher why it is so much harder for us to love and care for others rather than ourselves, and he said that he heard of a recent Harvard Researcher Amy Cuddy who has found that people evaluate other people based on how warm and kind they are while they evaluate themselves by how competent they are (the article/blog that I believe he was referencing is linked here: Matter Over Mind).  

If you changed the game and focused on how warm and kind you are rather than how competent you are, how would things change?  It might not change your entire life but it certainly might change your experience of the present – which is all we really have in the end.

On my journey of self-discovery, I am learning that the destination is less important the myriad of stops and experiences along the way.  If we rush hell-bent to get to the end of the journey, we’ll miss the magic and wonder – the turns and twists up and down and along the way.  What is that saying?  Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans?

I’ll close for now with one of my other favorite sets of voiceover quotes from Grey’s Anatomy episodes.  These ones are from Episode 5.23 – the season finale of Season Five when Meredith Grey's fellow intern George dies and the life of her fellow intern Izzie hangs in the balance – an episode that brought me to tears the first time I saw it – and one that brought home to me just how special everyone in my life – near and far – are to me – and how precious every moment is.  For those of you who know me personally – thank you for the moments we have shared together and the way that you have changed my life for the better by being in it.

Opening:

Doctors spend a lot of time focused on the future. Planning it. Working toward it. But at some point, you start to realize, your life is happening now, not after med school, not after residency, right now. This is it, it’s here. Blink, and you’ll miss it. 

Closing:

Did you say it? I love you? I don’t ever want to live without you. You changed my life… did you say it? Make a plan. Set a goal. Work towards it. But every now and then, look around. Drink it in. ‘Cause this is it. It might all be gone tomorrow.

I lied - one last thing - I’ve included the link to a song which I’ve been listening to lately which really brings these sentiments for me to mind  – “Everything, All at Once” by Correatown.  It’s less panic-inducing then the voiceovers; more peaceful – it sets my mind at ease while reminding me what's important.  You can listen to it via YouTube below: 

On Love, Breakups, and the Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

- Reinhold Niebuhr

The Serenity Prayer.  Widely adopted by all forms of twelve step programs for good reason – these are powerful words.

I emailed my ex today to share with him that in the end although I broke up with him initially to get out of the bad situation that our relationship had caused for me, I have come to realize that just don’t love him enough to be his life partner; that I was not fundamentally ready to make a choice about who to love him (or anyone) when I met him because I was not (and am not) yet fully comfortable with being by myself.  

I did this in part to apologize and make amends for causing him so much pain by not coming to this conclusion earlier and breaking up with him before our relationship went as far as it did.  I did this because I see him making efforts to change and seeming like he’s trying to win me back, and I wanted to clear my conscience – to clear up any misconception, let him know that I encourage his efforts to heal himself but that ultimately he should not be doing them with the expectation of us getting back together. 

I wanted (and still do want) to help him begin the process of moving on as soon as possible so that he can someday be with someone who will love him back fully in the way that he deserves.   And – if I were to admit it deep down – I did it to try and free both of us – to clear the air and say my peace so we could both go our separate ways without any entanglements still holding us together.

After sharing all of this with him, I reiterated that I do not think we should have contact with one another – that I won’t ask him to stop emailing me or coming to meditation if he finds those things helpful, but that I won’t respond to his messages out of the care and concern to try and give him (and us both) space to heal.

Of course, nothing is as easy as it seems.

In his response back to me, he challenged my message to him on several key grounds:

1.    I can’t “make up my mind” that he is not the right partner for me because we each only exist in the present and he is changing moment by moment – i.e. he is not the same person who I was in a relationship with and will continue to be different each time that we interact.

2.    He believes that my commitment to “unloving” him and avoiding him is just as reactionary as my original efforts to make myself love him were while we were together.

3.    He makes no promises to avoid me or not say hello to me at events where we both happen to be in attendance although he commits to not to be disrespectful or abusive.  He plans to continue using groups that I frequent and practices that I follow in his healing path. 
 

????

 

Now what?  Luckily I was already on the way to a meditation group when I read his email, and I had an opportunity to reflect on the whole mess during our sitting and even our dharma talk – which as it turned out was on the fact that we cannot control (many of) our experiences – only our attitude and reaction to them.   How appropriate – and wonderfully beneficial that I was able to be there for that talk.  

I can’t overemphasize the value of turning yourself over to helpful practices when you are in distress – get yourself to the gym or sit down to meditate or listen to music – whatever it is that works for you.  Whatever hint of wisdom is in your body – follow it and get yourself there.

-----

Anyway, when you break up with someone, you receive lots of advice from friends, therapists, family, loved ones – to maintain your resolve, give you and your partner space to heal, stay out of contact, be consistent in your messaging, etc..  

Obviously if you are in a physically abusive situation and you are being stalked or assaulted, you need to do everything that you can to get out of that situation – get a restraining order, pack up and move to Nova Scotia, join the Witness Protection Program, etc.  

But what do you do if things aren’t quite that simple?  What do you do if it’s just awkward and harder to heal around your ex – not downright abusive or confrontational?  What do you do if you are each trying to heal yourselves and keep bumping into one another on that path?

Sigh.

I have to admit – in many ways, my ex is right. 

None of us can predict the future – and we only live in the present – so I really can’t say with absolute certainty what role he and I will play in each other’s lives going forward – I can only observe what exists moment to moment. 

I believe in my heart that we are not meant to be romantic partners, but I need to let go of the need to control my experience and trust God’s will – or in dharma talk – trust what will unfold in each moment.  I know that right now I don’t love him as I believe one should love someone they are going to spend the rest of their life with.   For now, I am doing my best to be vocal and upfront about what is in my heart.

But, I also believe that I need to do more personal growth work before I will be ready to make a conscious choice about a life partner.  So - I would be negating the power of the teachings that I am choosing to follow if I didn’t admit that I have no idea what will be in my heart and my gut when that time comes.  Given that, anything is possible – who knows? - maybe I will end up partnered up with Arnold Schwarzenegger in a year now that he seems to be available.

Finally – I don’t really have grounds for a restraining order, so barring moving to Nova Scotia or going out of my way to avoid my ex – taking me away from activities that I love – I can’t really stop him from coming to Meditation or Biodanza or coming up and saying hello to me when our paths cross.  Nor would I really want to stop him from continuing to grow and discover activities that I believe are very worthwhile.

Sigh…

Which returns me to the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

- Reinhold Niebuhr

So, I’ve pretty much summed up what I can’t control in this situation – so given the above prayer, what can I control?

1.    I can control whether or not I initiate contact with him or personally invite him to any activities.

2.    I can control whether or not I respond to any contact and whether I accept or gracefully decline any invitations or requests that he makes.  I can also take as much time as I would like to respond back with an answer – I do not have to immediately respond to a request if I am not ready to do so.

3.    I can control (or at least do my best to control) my reaction towards him when we happen to come into contact with one another – to try and avoid letting hindrances cloud my thoughts.  I can maintain the spirit of loving-kindness that I have towards him and focus on being mindful and open to whatever comes up for me moment by moment when he is there – to notice what I am experiencing in my body and mind.

4.    I can continue to support his efforts to heal and bring more peace into his life – I can accept and see the changes that he is making and continue to cheer him on in his efforts from wherever I am – I can see him as he truly is in each moment.

5.    I can continue to strengthen my solar plexus chakra and clear seeing chakra (third eye) so as to know my truth and speak my truth when we are together – that will help to neutralize any attempts to control or manipulate me.

6.    I can involve my intuition and my gut in all decisions from here on.  I can ensure that I not enter a relationship with anyone (him included) unless both of those two things are fully on board.   When I truly listen to my intuition and my gut, they never lead me astray.

7.    I can continue to develop my independence and grow more comfortable each day with being alone so that I will never again make a decision about a relationship based on dependency or a desire to be rescued.

8.    I can continue to prioritize having healing, wholesome positive events and people in my life – whether or not he happens to also be there when I am at those events and around those people.

9.    I can consistently prioritize getting a sufficient amount of sleep, eating healthily, and exercising regularly so that I will be at my very best in every interaction in my life.

10. Finally – as was mentioned in the dharma talk tonight – I can control my attitude towards whatever life throws at me – I can make a conscious effort to be fully present in each moment and not get off track with thoughts about the past or the future – after all, all we have is the present.   I can see every person as a teacher and every experience as a clue and do my best to learn from each moment as they come.

In the end, ultimately, we cannot fully control the environment in which we do our healing any more than we can control anything else in our life.  

A speaker at our SF Insight Sangha a few weeks told a story of a Buddhist who went on retreat in Asia thinking that he was going to this peaceful site up in the mountains to get away from the Western world where it was going to be beautiful and serene and he was going to sit in silence and meditate.  Much to his chagrin, the whole retreat center was under construction – so every day there were hammers clanging and bulldozers going and lots of real love chaos to contend with.   So much for meditating in peace and quiet, right?

When life happens and things don’t go the way that you planned or want to arrange them to be, what do you do? 

Sigh.

All we can do is fall back on these very powerful words…

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

- Reinhold Niebuhr

On Doubt, Anxiety, and Life's Great Adventure

This evening at our weekly SF Insight Meditation and Dharma Talk, I met some really nice new people and accessed some powerful insights related to doubt, anxiety, and life's great adventure, which I would like to share on this blog.   

Several weeks ago, while in the midst of moving out of the apartment that I shared with my boyfriend, I attended our weekly sangha meeting and listened to a talk that Eugene Cash gave on Doubt.   In that talk, Eugene mentioned that as with the other hindrances (Desire, Aversion, Restlessness, and Sloth/Torpor), if you pay mindful attention to them as they emerge in your mind and body and simply accept that they are there with you, something happens – they lose their hold on you and become less powerful.  

Since that talk, I have had many opportunities over the past few weeks to have doubts about these new steps that I am taking in my life – I’ve wondered if I could really pack up all of my stuff and move it across town; I’ve wondered if I can really end a relationship that has been a big part of my life for the past 2 years; I’ve wondered it was appropriate to sign a one-year lease and stay here in San Francisco for another 12 months; I've wondered if I could leave behind our cat;  I’ve wondered if I could really handle living alone – you name it, I’ve encountered doubt about it in the past few weeks. 

These experiences have provided me with a golden opportunity to really study and explore doubt as it manifests in my life – and what I’ve discovered is just what Eugene shared.  As I’ve been able to observe and label moments when I've been doubting or worrying by just saying, “Oh, right, there’s doubt,” the charge in the doubt itself has released, and I’ve been able to sit with the feeling much more easily and let it pass on its own time.  Try it yourself – see if it works for you as well.  Identifying and labeling a feeling or hindrance can been a very useful tool.

I also discovered something else very meaningful for me just as we sat for tonight’s talk.   I started to reflect on the more wholesome and solitary lifestyle that I’ve adopted in recent weeks and started to wonder if I would really be able to sustain it in the same fashion for weeks…months…years…at a time.  In other words, will I eventually get to a point where I feel lonely for human connection, for friends, for partners and not be able to find them?  Will I eventually tire of meditation and yoga and reflection and yearn for more fun activities and parties in my life (again, assuming that for some reason I wouldn't be able to find them at that point)?  Have I bitten off more than I can chew with these new steps in my life?

I started to observe my mind running off like a runaway train on this trail of worry and doubt…and all of a sudden,  I heard a voice saying…whoa…wait a minute…don’t get ahead of yourself – just focus on the present.  It was probably Eugene’s voice…or the voice of one of the guest teachers that we’ve had recently or my Awakening Joy teacher, James Baraz.  Either way, I suddenly remembered to focus only on the present – i.e. how am I doing right now?  What am I experiencing right now – and can I handle it in this moment?   This is a very powerful technique – and stopped this runaway train of thoughts right in its tracks.   After all, none of us knows what is going to happen in the future – all we have to handle in any given moment is right now – because that is all we have.  Moment by moment, as I observe my experience and ask myself if I can handle it, I am discovering the self-affirming truth that, “Yes, I can!” 

This just reminded me of the movie What About Bob from a few years back where Bill Murray was a patient of a psychiatrist with significant anxiety and obsessive compulsiveness about everything in daily life – and his psychiatrist kept telling him, “Baby steps, just take baby steps,” and this worked really well for him – i.e. baby steps out to the lobby, baby steps to the elevator, baby steps out the door…you get the picture.  It sounds simple and funny – but it actually works.  

The next time you feel overwhelmed and frightened and think that you can’t possibly handle what life is handing you…e.g. you’re going through a relationship breakup, you just lost your job, you just lost a loved one…and the grief and worry seems too much to bear – try this technique – and just focus on the present, just focus on what you can handle “right now” – and then handle the next moment when it arises…and so on.   Just sit with the feelings as they arise in the moment and don’t worry what you are going to do an hour from now, or two days from now, or a month from now…just focus on what you are thinking and feeling right now and get through this moment.

Not only is this focus on the present a useful technique for dealing with difficulties, it also illuminates the fact that life truly is a big adventure – i.e. we never know what possibilities the future holds.  The moment or opportunity that you have been waiting for your whole life could literally be right around the bend – and the tragedy that you thought might be your life’s ruin may in retrospect turn out to be your greatest gift.  

There’s a great chapter on this in Pema Chodron’s book When Life Falls Apart – I actually think that is the title of the chapter itself.  She tells about a Chinese family who were devastated when their only son fell off a horse and was severely injured – until a few weeks later the village went to war and all of the young and healthy men were sent to go fight.  Their son's injury turned out to be their greatest gift because it allowed him to stay home and care for them.  The point is - we just don’t know what’s going to happen – and if you can develop a curiosity about each moment as it unfolds, life can be such a rich, fun experience - full of wonder and surprises, good and bad. 

The last thing which really spoke to me tonight and also in a few other experiences this past weekend is the idea that life is not a race to the finish or an exercise regimen to be mastered.  Rather the opportunity is simply to go deeper and experience more of the fullness of each given moment.   In Ajaraj Yoga class, the objective of more advanced practice is not to perfect the sequence of asanas but rather to go deeper into the felt experience of them – to really sink into the physical, emotional, and spiritual energy that emerges as you do them.  In Buddhism, the point is not the be the “Good Buddhist,” the teacher’s pet, or the perfect meditator – rather it is to approach every moment with mindfulness, experiment with the teachings in your life, and see what is true in your direct experience.  

I even went to a talk today on female sexuality today in which the speaker shared that her definition of female orgasm has nothing explicitly to do with climax – rather it is for women to lose themselves in sensation and experience every feeling that emerges in a moment of connection with another - sounds familiar, right?   Biodanza hits on this as well with the idea of vivencia – or the vividly felt experience – the point of Biodanza is not to do the moves right or be the perfect partner – rather, it is to experience life fully – to let our words fall away (for most of the class) and be present for the adventure that unfolds in class each week – moment by moment.  There is some definite synergy between these different activities – and I am excited to see what possibilities emerge as I continue to center my life on them!

To close for this evening, I want to share a quote / voiceover from Grey’s Anatomy (Episode 5.21, courtesy of the Know Thyself blog) spoken by Izzie after her unexpected marriage to Alex Karev when she is supposedly dying of cancer, which really speaks to me about the serendipitous nature of life:

Opening:

(Izzie) You never know the biggest day of your life is going to be the biggest. The days you think are going to be big ones, they’re never as big as you make them out to be in your head. It’s the regular days. The ones that start out normal. Those are the days that end up being the biggest. And today was the wedding. It was beautiful. Perfect.

Closing:

(Izzie) You never know the biggest day of your life is the biggest day. Not until its happening. You don’t recognize the biggest day of your life. Not until you’re right in the middle of it. The day you commit to something or someone… The day you get your heart broken. The day you meet your soul mate. The day you realize there’s not enough time… because you want to live forever. Those are the biggest days.  The perfect days. 

_____

As I am discovering more and more these days, life is an adventure – full of ups and downs and unexpected turns – Enjoy It!

The Physics of the Quest - on Life's Lessons and Opportunities

Ten years ago today, my ex-husband and I went on a day hike together and transitioned from being friends to having a romantic connection.  We later counted that day as our dating anniversary and went through numerous trials and tribulations together during our years of dating, marriage, separation, and eventually divorce.  

Ten years later, I had a pivotal lunch today with a colleague who will be heading up our new Advising Center on campus and feel a sense of wonder and excitement about the direction that my life is now taking as a divorced, single woman – our upcoming transition into this new center may turn out to be exactly the opportunity and turning point for which I have been yearning.  Ten years ago, today signified an important beginning in my life, and I have a feeling that later on I will look back and reflect that today signified an important beginning in my life as well - the start of a wonderful new working relationship.

This past week, I have been reflecting on the many different perspectives through which we as individuals can view our lives.  A seemingly small event or introduction can someday turn out to have a much larger significance.  And, even an entire relationship can later be seen as part of a much larger arc.

This past weekend, as I re-read Finding the Right One After Divorce: Avoiding the 13 Common Mistakes People Make in Remarriage (by Edward Tauber and Jim Smoke), I saw clearly for the first time how my lack of healing from my divorce and my overall developmental needs contributed to my getting into and staying in a difficult relationship with my ex-boyfriend.  Because I am still mastering the art of being alone, I have been going through life continually looking for someone to rescue and take care of me – my mother, my ex-husband, my transitional partner, and now my ex-boyfriend.  I have not had the necessary foundation to form a healthy, non-codependent relationship.  I have also not fully developed my discernment and confidence to vocalize my needs – to fully assert my solar plexus and third eye chakras – thus, as I mentioned in previous entries, I have been staying in situations that are not right for too long in order to avoid rejecting others or hurting people’s feelings.

None of this makes me a bad person – and I am not the only person in the world who has developmental tasks or challenges that they need to address along their life journey towards self-actualization.  My observation is that some people encounter obstacles early in life and use it as an opportunity to grow – if they are lucky like me, someone or something in their life stands in their way and they are able to extract lessons from it.  Other people manage to go through their early life on autopilot and encounter their difficulties in mid-life – when something finally triggers them to start examining their life, their relationships, and their behaviors.  

Almost everyone whom I’ve met in Biodanza or meditation seems to have been drawn to that path by encountering one of the basic realities of life – suffering, impermanence, or disappointment – through the death of a parent or child, divorce, coming to grips with aging, health problems, etc.   We can choose to be angry and hateful about these turn of events, but I like to think of these realities as blessings and opportunities – to see the truth, clarify who we are, and grow.   When I look at my life as a larger journey, I do not regret a single experience – because they have all helped to shape the person who I am today and the person whom I am slowly but surely becoming.

These ideas have clear applications for career development work as well.  When I graduated from college, I accepted a job offer at Procter & Gamble and went to work for them in their market research department.  As a high achieving student with multiple majors, minors and certificates, a top notch GPA, and a successful internship under my belt, I figured that I could do no wrong – and I had very little idea of what my true preferences and talents were.  I had taken numerous career assessments and flat-lined most of them – for example, my Myers Briggs test results put me right in the middle on every attribute except the E-I dimension – I knew I was extraverted, but that was about it.  I had earned a Bachelor’s degree in both Psychology and Economics and had earned 5’s on the AP Calculus, Microeconomics, and History exams in high school – i.e. I was able to succeed at just about any topic in school if I applied my full effort and mental acumen towards it.

It wasn’t until I got into my full-time role at P&G with a highly detail-oriented, STJ (Sensing, Thinking, Judging) manager and started to fail miserably at my job that my true preferences emerged.  I recall sitting in a meeting with our senior manager and having her tell me, “Kimberly, I see the issue here – you strongly prefer F (Feeling) and P (Perceiving) and everyone else here strongly prefers T (Thinking) and J (Judging)."  To my strongly STJ colleagues, my speaking and writing patterns seemed highly disorganized, scattered, and off-topic and my desire to make a difference and serve others rather than make money and increase profits did not make sense to them.  That manager saw my inner strengths and potential and ultimately helped me to transition from that job at Procter & Gamble into an unprecedented opportunity to be an outplacement client through Right Management Associates (for which I will forever be grateful).  

Still, the important lesson that I learned there – and emphasize with students and clients – is that it was through failure and making mistakes that I was finally able to see clearly who I am – an educator and motivator who prefers ENFP (Extroverted, Intuition, Feeling, and Perceiving).  Sometimes we have to fall down in order to pick ourselves up and get ourselves on the path that we were supposed to be on in the first place – towards our true calling(s), towards our life partner(s), towards the experiences that are waiting for us to discover.

Over Christmas break this past year, I watched the movie version of the book Eat, Pray, Love with my parents and was really inspired by the quote / voiceover that Julie Roberts shares at the end of the movie.  As I continue on my current path through life, I feel this quote really fits with what I’ve discovering about life – and what I’ve attempted to capture in this post.  If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I encourage you to take time to do so!

"...I've come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call  'The Physics of The Quest'" - a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws gravity or momentum. 

And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: 

If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and 

if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and 

if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and 

if you are prepared - most of all - to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself...

...then the truth will not be withheld from you.  Or so I've come to believe."

On the Middle Way - Love, Detachment, and a Few Chakras Mixed In

This evening, I tried Dynamic Chakra Dance Meditation with Eka Joti at the Hanuman Center for the first time – a movement-oriented exploration of the seven key chakras of the body and beyond – the Base/Root (Strength) chakra,  the Sacral (Sensual) chakra, the Solar Plexus (Power) chakra, the Heart (Tenderness) chakra, the Throat (Playful) chakra, the Third Eye (Concentration) chakra, and the Crown (Fullness) chakra.   Basically, we spent the evening free form dancing to music and experiencing each of those seven themes fully in the body – I really enjoyed it.   It took me back to being in elementary school and coming home on Friday nights to put on records and dance in my basement.

As we moved through the heart center, Eka had us send out love and tenderness to someone in our life, and I found myself dedicating the practice to my ex-boyfriend, as I have dedicated many similar practices in the past few weeks – yoga classes, metta (Lovingkindness) meditations, etc.  Despite my absolute certainty and conviction that leaving him and moving on to the next phase of my life is what I need to do, I still feel a great deal of love for him and want the best for him – the thought of him suffering or feeling pain makes me feel sad.  

My hope is that this transition will continue to inspire him to grow and change as he seems to be doing.  Once that has happened, my hope is that someday he will meet someone new who will love him with the intensity and deep passion that he deserves and desires.  I also hope that he will first grow comfortable being by himself alone as I am attempting to do (be comfortable by myself) on my own growth path. 

It is difficult for me to hold that tenderness and care for him in my heart while also holding the resolve and strength that is needed to keep us apart and maintain our separation.   In the Dynamic Chakra Takra class, we avoided holding more than one chakra at the same time – making sure to finish one chakra and be still before moving on to the next.   Yet, real life sometimes asks to hold more than one chakra or emotion-state at one time – even conflicting states.

In When Life Falls Apart, Pema Chodron talks a lot about the “Middle Way” - about not hardening into any one state. She encourages us to stay with the chaos rather than hardening into resentment, anger, righteousness, etc.  There is also much talk in Buddhism about sending love out to everyone in the world, even your enemies or people with whom you have difficult relationships – wishing that they too can experience the healing and peace that you are having in the moment.  

The challenge for me right now is to aspire to send my LovingKindness and goodwill out to him from afar while not getting hooked back in and losing the important ground that I have gained by moving on and gaining freedom from our relationship.  I can love him while detaching myself from him in order to ensure that my needs for security, space, and serenity are met and continue to be met from now on.  I need to maintain my strength and be rooted in my truth (i.e. that he is not the life partner for me) without sacrificing my vulnerability and compassion and relying a “staff” of rigidity to hold me on my path.  

Centering Life Around Activities That Bring Me Joy (by Saying No!)

In How We Choose to Be Happy, Rick Foster & Greg Hicks studied happy people all around the world and noticed that the people they interviewed all spent time identifying activities that make them happy and then centered their lives around those activities.  Since finding the courage to break up with my boyfriend and move out of our shared apartment two weeks ago, I have been taking steps to do just that – to focus my life on activities and pursuits that bring me joy.  Some of these activities include Biodanza, meditation, dance, yoga, watching Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice, going to my Awakening Joy class, reading, and studying career development.  I am increasingly realizing that they do not include happy hours, wine tastings, bar meetups, watching Mystery Science Theater, “singles” events, and taking doctoral courses just because I think that I “should.”  The jury is still out on where bicycling, board games, skiing, and cooking fall into the mix.

Making these kinds of choices is not easy to do because it sometimes requires saying “No” and turning down invitations from other people – something that I am not ordinarily very good at.  I tend to be a “go with the flow” kind of person and will generally say yes and try to enjoy just about any activity – especially if the person inviting me is determined and really prods me to do so.  I agree that compromise is an important quality and a necessary component of every relationship, but I think that I have underdeveloped my discretion over the years, and I think it will be crucial for me to tap into my intuition and improve at voicing my truth(s) in order to successfully move into the next phase of my life – simply going with the flow is not by itself going to get me where I want to go.

I had an opportunity to practice this skill this week when I received materials for the 120-hour Career Development Facilitator course that I am going to be taking this summer and realized that it is going to be a lot more work than I initially realized.  As I looked through the box of books and the syllabus, I came to the conclusion that something (and perhaps even more than that) was going to need to go in order to make room for this course, which is very important to me and very much in line with my intentions.  With swift, “Joan of Arc” type certainty, I realized that the doctoral course on Ethical Organizations which I was signed up to take this June was not on a topic that compels my interest, would take valuable time away in my evenings and weekends from studying and happiness activities, and was really only on my list of “to dos” because I felt that I “should” be taking at least one course this summer towards the Ed.D. program in Organization & Leadership which I am still on the fence about.  With a strength and conviction that I do not often exhibit, I went online and dropped the course the next day and wrote an email to the teacher and advisor explaining my reasoning – note – not asking for permission as I might usually do.

Reflecting on dropping this course and breaking up with my boyfriend has helped me to recognize an important truth about myself.  I don’t suffer from a lack of intuition – I’m just hesitant to listen to my intuition when it means having to say no or introduce conflict into a situation.  When something is right – such as the new apartment that I just picked out or the first Biodanza class that went to last November – I know it deep down in every fiber of my being.  My forehead is smooth, I feel rooted in the ground, I feel an “Ahhh” sense of relief, and I know with certainty that it is right and I want it in my life.  When something is a good fit for me, my intuition works just fine – I am not a commitment phobic person – and I generally speak up to say “Yes” and welcome whatever it is into my life.  The harder thing for me is knowing when to say “No, Thank You” and walk away.  Increasingly, I am learning that when I find myself working hard to convince myself that something is right, thinking that I “should” be accepting something, trying to force something to stay a part of my life which no longer fits – for me, that means it is not for me – and it is time to move on.  Perhaps for me, “maybe” really means – No!

My First Posting

Greetings!

This blog is intended to share my personal and career development journey so that others interested in self improvement or on their own personal journeys may benefit from my experiences.  

Currently, I serve as Retention and Matriculation Advisor at the University of San Francisco, a position that I have held for almost 4 years.  Over the course of the next year, I would like to move into the next phase of my career and transition towards a job that is more directly related to Career Development - or at least the intersection of Academic Advising and Career Development.  My long term goal is to someday be the Director of an Academic and Career Advising Center - or possibly to be self-employed as a Career Development Coach.

On a personal note, I have a growing interest in spiritual and life practices that can enhance my intuition and lead me to more authentic, balanced choices in my life.  I am attempting to develop a regular meditation practice, have developed a passion for Biodanza, and have been utilizing a hypnotherapist and acupuncturist throughout the past year or so - these are just a few examples of things that I have tried in recent years!  I would like to explore these and other similar modalities more deeply and see what influence they have on my career development and my overall life journey. 

In this blog, I will do my best to give updates and reflections regarding my adventures and share useful resources that I encounter which my be beneficial for my followers as well!