A little food for thought...

Things, both good and bad show up in our life as they are supposed to. They show up with the divine timing of the universe and when something unfavorable shows up it may be a way for us to go deeper. To look at things differently, to be more real. The real point is that every moment is valuable. That people will always come and go. That this body, this earth, these material things around us are not permanent. We must cherish every person, good or bad in our life to give us the lessons that we need. The information that we need to take with us on our journey. To thank them. To hug them and tell them we love them when they leave, because we never know when we may see them again. If we can just let go of the pain in our hearts. If we can just get real with ourselves and see how precious this life really is, then we can begin to see the love that is at the very depth of everyone.

If we can just take our own sledgehammers to our own walls, knock them down and start over. Start at the beginning. When there were no walls to begin with. I am sick of my walls. I am sick and tired of working so hard on pushing everyone away. It is a lot of work. It is so much easier to just be yourself. To just be loving and open. It hurts less. It changes others more and allows them to be more open. I am tired of walls. I am tired of sledgehammers. I am tired of only seeing cracks of sunlight peeking in, when I want the whole sun to shine upon me and those around me. A crack of sunlight can change darkness into morning, but the light of the whole sun can wake up a planet. It is time to start waking up. It is time to stop just letting the cracks of sun in and start allowing it all to shine through. I am tired. I want to wake up. I want others to wake up around me. I feel like no matter how much sleep I get I am still tired. Like I am in an eternal dream world where life is a bit dead around me. People walking like zombies in their sleep induced states, not fully aware of what they are doing to each other, to the planet to their own psyches. This is the dream. This is what we need to wake up from.

So today we begin again. We open our eyes maybe for the first time ever and see the world and its inhabitants as they really are. We see the divine in everything and we acknowledge that. We are a little softer, a little sweeter, with a little less stress in our bodies. We treat each other with a little more kindness, knowing we are all the same, we all hold the same light within us. Today we begin again. Today we wake up.

Our inner self talk...

Tonight while doing an exercise that I learned in my yoga training called inquiry I came to some interesting realizations. First off, inquiry involves another person sitting with you and asking you two questions, giving you time to respond and talk as long as you want. The first question is "what are you experiencing right now" the second is "how does it feel to acknowledge that." So you sit and get quiet with yourself and really tune inwardly about how you are feeling right at that moment. The other person does not engage with you they just hold space for how you are feeling. It is a great way to see how quickly our emotions change and how they pass, one into the other and that is happening all day everyday. Sometimes we can let ourselves get so caught up in an emotion that it consumes us and can bring us down. Inquiry really shows you how quickly that can pass and that you can begin to become the witness to your thoughts and emotions and watch them come and go without judgement.

While I was doing my inquiry tonight, I at one point was feeling very proud of myself for accomplishing my 500 hour yoga teacher training and for really having come a long way in a short amount of time considering all the struggles I had been through in the last year and a half.

I presented a workshop on Saturday about the feminine energy and I thought it went really well and opened a lot of doors for people. So while explaining all of this in my inquiry process, this inner voice said quit talking about yourself so much, get off your high horse. I paused for a moment and then continued to talk about myself and to be ok with that. It is so crucial to acknowledge our hard work in our lives and how far we have come. For me this was really important for two reasons, one I don't give myself enough outward credit, really speaking it out and letting myself hear how far I have come. Secondly, it was interesting to hear my own inner critic saying stop talking about yourself, listen to how boastful you sound. It was interesting to hear that after all the work I have done on myself. We are our own harshest critic, so knowing that that will always be there it is important to acknowledge and then decide whether or not we are going to listen to it. I chose not to and continued talking about myself. But it is almost scary to hear how judgmental we can be of ourselves. Even of just speaking nicely out loud about ourselves. For me this was a huge revelation.

Also, we did some art this evening in my group that I put together. My roommate led the art project and encouraged us to just let the painting flow and not think of what you are doing or trying to control it in any way. I heard my inner critic again saying this looks silly, etc. But the minute I let all of that go something beautiful came on the page.

So letting go of our perceptions of how we think things should look like or be. Knowing that is just the inner critic thinking it knows better, knows what we need or want. That is really just our ego, afraid of us letting go. Knowing that when we let go the magic happens. Something more powerful, more creative takes over and the ego is no longer in control. Something bigger is moving our paintbrush, playing our instrument, or writing a great piece of work. Something profound and beautiful comes out of that and we feel it on a much deeper level and others experience our work on deeper levels. That is when you can really say that creative work moved me. So it is time to stop listening to that inner critic and start letting go and giving into the present moment. Giving into the magic of what is. Acknowledge what the inner critic has to say, mentally say thank you for your concern, but today I am going to do this instead of listen to you. Begin to see how your activities change, how your self talk changes and how life seems a little more free. Letting go of control, letting go to what is, being more authentic and less how you think you should be. It is a beautiful way to be.

Love and light,

Erin

Aug. 30, 2010

What is it that we fear most?

I have been pondering a lot of things lately. I have a dear friend that always tells me, what do you want Erin? What do you really want? I said I want private yoga clients. She said why? Because, that way I will have consistent money coming in and will be able to live my life and go travel. Why, she asked. Because I want to travel. After some serious questions, we finally got to what it is that I really want...to be free, to have that freedom some people I know have, to just go live in another country for a bit, experience a new way of life. My roommate tells me it is in my blood to travel, I believe her. My body aches for it, I feel so alive when I travel. I did not even realize it, but I had a fear of being trapped, or stuck. I thought that by figuring out that I want private yoga clients that that would help me achieve my final goal, of being able to travel. But ultimately what I wanted was to be able to travel around the world doing what I love. Consequently I have not been getting any private yoga clients, why because my fear was getting in the way. Energy flows where attention goes. So my attention, whether I was aware of it or not, was going to my fear of being trapped. Of being stuck in one place, unable to afford to travel and do what I love to do most. Which would ultimately would have been what might have happened, had I not gotten clear about it. Once I got clear and realized what was happening, I changed where my energy was going. Now I focus more on what I really want and the rest will follow. It is about getting clear of what it is that we really want and stripping away the things we think that we think will get us to what we really want.

Energy flows where attention goes. Getting clear and focusing on what we really want will begin to change everything. As we continue to get really clear inside, the outside will just automatically change. It is just a law of nature really.

Love and Light,

Erin

Stop Living in What if and Start Living in What IS!

The land of what ifs can trap us. It is constantly asking questions like well if I do this then what if this happens, or what if that happens? What is that doing, it is keeping us in our minds, trying to piece everything together and not really living in the moment. When we are sitting there mulling over every possible outcome we are not really in the moment of just being with what is. We are truly missing out. Besides we can always ask the question what if we die tomorrow? If you are really going to live in the land of what if then you need to ask yourself that question. That is a reality, we could die tomorrow, so why ponder every possible outcome under the sun for your current situation? Stop living in what if. It is a trap. It is your mind trying to control every situation. Instead when you feel yourself going there, pondering every reason to not do something, stop and tune into your heart. Get quiet and listen to what your heart wants. It is trying to tell you something, but the incessant mind chatter is blocking that out. There is no what if, there is only what is. Listen to your heart, get out of your mind. You will feel more peace and joy when you do.

Love and Light,

Erin

July 19, 2010

Getting Back to Love

I talked with my Grandma today. I have to admit she has always been one of my role models. Such a loving and giving person to everyone. Her heart is always open and she is a really good representation of how if you give, you receive in so many ways. But the key is giving without expecting. She told me how this past December they had a huge blizzard in Iowa, where she lives. She lives out in the country where there are not many houses around. A man got his car stuck and needed a place to stay through the night, because the storm was very severe. My grandma took him in, not sure what she was getting herself into, but knowing that if she, or anyone in her family was in the same condition, she would hope someone else would do the same thing. The man turned out to be very nice and wanted to repay her, she simply said no, but you can donate any money that you would give to me to our local library. He did and wrote a very nice letter saying that he would pass on the opportunity to help someone else in any way that he could. One act of kindness that causes a chain reaction and makes us open our hearts and our doors to someone in need. I am reminded, as of course we need to be careful in doing so, that giving in such a way and having faith that you will be ok, is such an act of surrender and love. Being open and surrendering to what is, (good or bad) is really the only way to live. We have to do so in order to move forward, to get unstuck, to live in a way that we never have before.

I am reminded of how I can surrender more in my life and get back to love. Love, not just in a relationship sense, but love in all aspects of life. Living in love with Everything...your drive to work, doing the dishes, talking on the phone, your job, cleaning your house, etc. It just pays off in the end (not to mention on your health) to be open and in love with everything, even the bad stuff. It is all here to help us along our path and to move us in the direction that we were born to go.

I ask that you do me a favor, as Valentine's Day is quickly approaching. Instead of getting mad at something, or someone that you usually get mad at, just let it go. Just smile, or even laugh at the situation and move on. Just see how the situation works out if you do that. Just let it go with love. And then turn around and use that love to do something nice for someone that you do not know. See how that makes them feel. Because as we give more love out into the world, we will get more love in return. Let's make every day a Love Day.

Feb. 11, 2010