Archive for the ‘Owning Surrender’ Category

Mojo Monday Exercise: Connect Body and Mind Through Sign Dancing

Monday, March 15th, 2010

We’ve all heard about the mind/body connection, that thinking a certain way can affect your body. You can visualize your cancer cells getting eaten up, and it works!  But did you know it also works the other way around?  That you can move your body in a way that affects your mind?  Yoga is a great example of this, but there are other movements that can help heal your mind.  Today, we’re going to try Sign Dancing.

How I Discovered Sign Dancing

I learned this Sign Dance from Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and a woman I deeply admire. In my opinion, Rachel is a living saint.  She works at Commonweal in Bolinas, CA, running retreats for people with cancer and founding The Healer’s Art, a curriculum now taught in most medical schools that teaches medical schools to connect, with their patients and themselves. She’s also single-handedly trying to heal the wounded physicians that make up our broken health care system. Amazing woman- really. Uber Pink Goddess status.

Rachel says she uses this Sign Dance whenever she needs to open her heart.  You can try this simple exercise whenever you’re feeling closed off after a challenging work experience or after a fight with a family member. When you’ve just received bad news or when are just having a really mojo-less day. Try it! You might be surprised by the power of this dance.  Rachel says she does it in public restrooms when she needs to, but she recommends against doing it in public. People might look at you funny, if you do, but come on!  Who cares?  This dance is based on American Sign Language, so theoretically, if you do it in public and someone knows sign language, they can you’re your dance.  Come on, let’s sign dance!

Step 1: Find a place you can move around and state your intention for the sign dance.  Maybe it’s “I’m going to open my heart.”  Or maybe it’s “I’d like to forgive my boss.”  Whatever it is- say it.

Step 2: Clasp your hands over her heart and say, “Love.”

Step 3: Sweep your arms out front in a semi-circle and touch your shoulders with your index fingers, and say, “Yourself.”

Step 4: Bring your crossed hands to your heart again, and say “Love” again.

Step 5: Throw your arms up in the air, flinging your arms to the side and looking to the sky, saying “All!”

Step 6: Moving your left hand into the shape of an “L,” hold the L above your heart, and then fling your arm out as if scattering seeds and say, “Let Go.”

Step 7: Sweep both outstretched arms from left to right, saying, “Move on.”

Step 8: Make a C with your left hand and hold it parallel to the ground.  Then lift your right hand through your left hand, as if it is a sprout growing out of a flower pot.  When your right hand reaches the top, extends your fingers all the way out like a beautiful blossom and say, “And Grow.”

Step 9: Moving your left hand around your face in a semi-circle to the right, say, “In Beauty.”

Step 10: Sweep your hand straight across your face and say, “And Wisdom.”

Step 11: Bending all the way over into a yoga forward bend, hold your thumbs together with your fingers outstretched and lift your hands all the way from the ground up to shoulder height and say, “Feel.”

Step 12: Flexing your biceps like Popeye, say “Strong,” shaking your fists to reinforce it.

Step 13: Step your right foot to the side and put your hands on your shoulders before saying, “Stand.”  Then fling your arms all the way out and look up to the heavens, saying “Tall.”

Step 14: Altogether, it goes like this.  “Love yourself.  Love all.  Let go and move on, in beauty and wisdom.  Feel strong.  Stand tall.”  Do it ten times, until you’ve got it down.  Now Sign Dance like you mean it!

How do you feel, Pinkies? I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling all open-hearted.  If nothing else, you probably laughed and feel a little goofy, and you gotta love that!

How was that for you? Can you think of some occasions when that might come in handy?  Post your comments and let’s chat about it. And keep Sign Dancing!

Letting go and moving on,

Lissa

Owning Emotions: The Compulsion to Comfort

Friday, March 12th, 2010

cry

Who doesn’t love a good cry?

Turns out a lot of people don’t. Of course, there are safe spaces where we can own our tears … workshops, retreats, support groups, the Pink Posse. But there is still much of the world where the sight of someone crying will send an entire room into a silent panic.

You’ve been there. You’re sitting at a meeting table at work, or standing in line at a store, or hanging out at home. You are fatigued, frustrated, moved, or overwhelmed. You surrender to your emotions. Tears begin to flow.

Suddenly, everyone else in the room stops breathing. They look away. Talk amongst themselves. Pretend it’s not happening. Or worse yet …

They tell you to stop.

“Don’t cry,” they say, out of a desire to comfort and support you. And as loving as the gesture may be, it is not about you feeling better … it’s about them feeling better. Your tears make them uncomfortable. Stop. They say. Don’t cry.

Why? What is it about crying that freaks people out? Where in our evolution did it stop being okay to have our feelings? These of course are rhetorical questions, age-old and contemplated and theorized to death. And really, the “why” isn’t important. What is important is to own our feelings, and make it okay for others to own theirs.

Aliveness ≠ joy

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the past year is that being fully alive doesn’t mean being happy all the time. To be human is to have the full gambit of experiences and emotions. Kind of like the seasons, cycling through times that are more challenging to get to the bright spots makes life richer and, dare I say, a bit more fun.

Plus, the only way past any experience is through it – not around it. If we stifle tears, rage, grief, sorrow, or even joy – it’s going to lurk, distract us, even make us sick – until we acknowledge and HAVE the emotion. If we grew up this way (many of us did), there is so much stored in our bodies and psyches, affecting us in ways of which we’re not even aware. How much easier would this be if we simply gave ourselves and others permission to let out whatever’s going to come anyway?

Holding space

As part of our commitment to seeing each other with magical eyes, next time you’re in the company of someone who’s having some emotion – no matter where or when or how “appropriate” or not it is – I invite you to simply hold space for them. Don’t try to comfort them, tell them it will be okay, suggest that they stop crying, or even pass them a tissue. But don’t turn away or pretend like it’s not happening, either. Simply be there. Depending on who it is, a hug might be welcome, or a held hand. Let your intuition tell you what is needed.

How does that feel, Pinkies, to know that it’s actually not your responsibility to make anyone feel “better?” That being the kind and loving spirit you already are is enough – more than enough? How much more space might you hold, knowing that you don’t have to manically run around inside that space trying to make everything okay?

Letting you do your thing (and loving you all the more for it),
Joy

A Pink God’s Pleap off the Corporate Cliff

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Dearest Pinkies, please welcome Pink God Ryan Rigoli, founder of (and blogger at) rigolicoaching.com. Ryan works with solo entrepreneurs and organizational leaders to build heart-centered businesses that inspire change in the people and communities they wish to serve.  He specializes in helping them to create a unique, personal brand that aligns their core essence with their life’s work. Ry’s here today to talk about his own, major, life-transforming Pleap, and the wisdom he’s gleaned along the way. Bravo, Ryan, and thank you for inspiring us all.

*****

The Matrix

It was about three years ago and I was exhausted.   I had recently come back from a trip to Australia.  My intention was to spend time with a good friend and rejuvenate.  The spending time with a good friend part was great.  The rejuvenation part didn’t last long.

My vacation buzz quickly wore off and before long I was back at work. I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. I had just been moved to a newly formed team at Yahoo!, where I worked, and what we were tasked to do was starting to feel like trying to move entire mountains with a pinky. I was getting burned out after years of trying to ‘move the needle’ and putting everything I had into high priority projects at the company.

I found myself dreaming about my next vacation.  Peru, Iceland, India…where to go next?  Only I wasn’t there.  I was here, smack dab in the middle of the matrix working harder than ever before, and simply pushing on through to the next vacation.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

The feeling in my gut was screaming:  “Are you nuts?”  But I wouldn’t listen. I was too scared to make a change, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know what to do next anyway.  It was just too fuzzy of a plan to make a move.

Claustrophobia

One night I woke up around 3am and felt the walls closing in on me.  I had to rush to my patio to catch my breath. Still feeling enclosed, I ran out of my building and onto the street.  I sat on the sidewalk and started to catch my breath.  I knew right then that this was the beginning of the end for me in this kind of life.

When you start feeling claustrophobic in a 1200-square-ft. loft with 30 foot ceilings, then you know something’s wrong.  My body was telling me it was time for a change or it would shut down.  I liked my body and I also enjoyed being on this planet, so I decided to listen for the first time in a very long time to see what it had to say.

After a few minutes some images came to me.  I envisioned what it would be like in five years at the age of 40 – working in the same company and with the same two-hour round-trip commute.  Only this time I imagined being an SVP of Marketing, the role I had always been striving for.  That claustrophobic feeling immediately started to come back.  And there it was.  The path I was headed down made me feel more and more compressed, less fully alive, and, frankly, physically ill.  And the funny part about all of it was this:  I’d created this world for myself.  Not because I had to, but because I thought I would be happy and fulfilled. I felt that if I just pushed a little bit more, I’d be totally secure and free of all financial worries.

Practically speaking, of course, staying on with my company was somewhat of a known quantity.  And, if not there, then another similar company.  Another couple of years and I would have had the chance to become a VP making even more money and in charge of an even larger team.  I imagined what that felt like and observed the sensations in my body at the very thought of it.  First, the nausea (spitting up what I knew would poison my soul), then the claustrophobia (feeling trapped on a path that wasn’t for me), and finally a feeling of sadness and helplessness (my anger at myself turned inwards that I wasn’t owning my freedom to choose).

Exploring the Unknown

Quitting and maybe even traveling abroad, on the other hand, was a complete unknown and scary, but again I observed my feelings and physical reactions — lightness (freedom to reinvent myself) and nervous yet energetic excitement (the prospects of new people, new passions and new adventures).

That was enough for me.  A week later I handed in my resignation and started planning an extended trip through Latin America, many of the experiences of which I captured in my travel blog.

And it was from that day onward that I started a three-year journey into the unknown. Travels through remote lands, ‘successes’ and ‘failures’ of new businesses and relationships, universal mysteries revealed, even more questions and mysteries surfaced, moments of complete confusion and fear, times of absolute clarity and peace.

Would I trade any of it?  Never.  The most challenging three years of my life were the ones during which I felt most fully alive.

The Free-Fall

Anyone who goes through a process of breaking free of their own version of the matrix may have a different set of circumstances but the emotional experience is often the same.  Right before it starts and the black hole of opportunity opens, there’s a sense that there’s something more.  There’s a feeling of longing for something that you just can’t put your finger on.  There’s a terrified feeling of the unknown and questions about how you’re going to manage without all of the answers laid out right in front of you.  There’s exhilaration at the thought of freedom — the freedom to be who you really are and to live that fully whatever that may be.

And then one day you take the leap off a cliff only to realize that you’re falling without an end point.  It just keeps going.  Ever changing.  Ever moving.  The exhilaration, the fear, the joy, the anger, the sadness, all rolled up into one big leap of faith into the giant unknown.

And it’s that jump for me that led to an extraordinary journey that continues to this day.  Yes, when I returned, I took adventurous leaps in my travels, new businesses and relationships, but the real jump was inward.  And with that came a process of remembering who I really am.  ‘Self-remembering’ was not just a set of words anymore but a deep feeling of who I am as a Spirit in this body.  Of what I’m here to do and be.  Of how I’m here for others.   And a new and completely unexpected version of that continues to unfold.

A Grand Mystery

This kind of path is a different one than before.  Although there’s a time for planning and goal-setting, there’s a different quality to the experience.  A recognition perhaps that no matter how many goals we set, or plans we make, there’s still a grand mystery to it all.  Maybe we’re not meant to completely understand everything or know how every intention we set out will turn out.  Maybe it’s more about how we respond and awaken to the mysteries that unfold right in front of us rather than to the actual content or outcome that we originally expected.

Perhaps it’s really about the type of person we become along the way.  It’s about the capacities we cultivate in ourselves to speak our truth with strength and dignity but also with compassion and discernment vs. blame and judgment towards others with a different view.  Maybe it’s a holding of our intentions with a powerful, energetic, focused presence but also with a kind of gentleness, or lightness, for how the outcome will really appear to us in the end.   Perhaps it’s about a sense of openness about what wants to emerge from deep within…something much bigger than ourselves.  It is life expressing itself through us.  And it’s the very art of surrendering and then allowing that brings forth this new creation into the world.

Maybe it’s really a journey about how we treat others under the most trying of circumstances.  And, of course, how we treat ourselves even with all of the mistakes we make, the shame or guilt we feel, the broken promises we’ve made along the way.   Perhaps it’s, ultimately, about how much love and kindness we can show ourselves in the midst of it all.

The Sacred Journey

There’s a painting in my house that says:  “Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.”  As people on a spiritual path, we are all on a sacred journey that takes an extra-ordinary amount of faith and trust in ourselves.  We are on a personal journey of healing and through our presence we create a space for the healing of those all around us. For our clients, our friends, our families, our communities, our partners.

Whatever our path may be, creating social change through personal transformation is no easy calling.  It takes patience, diligence and immense kindness towards ourselves to explore the truth behind who we really are and work with others to do the same.  Our work does not come with a rule book or a set of predefined answers but simply with the presence of our hearts and the support of others to help us move forward.

ryanI want to thank you for doing what you do and for the very presence that you bring into the world.

I will do my best to support you in this journey.

Blessings,
Ryan

Owning Loss, Honoring Lessons, Remembering Life

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Dearest Pinkies, it is our honor to re-introduce to you Nancy Slonim Aronie, our teacher, hero, and friend. It was at Nancy’s workshop at Esalen that Joy and I met two years ago. This is a woman who was Owning Pink before either of us was even born. Ever-present in Nancy’s inspiring anecdotes at the soul of the workshop was her son, Dan. Dan passed away a few weeks ago, and Nancy wrote a eulogy that captures him so well, we couldn’t not share it with you.  Most of all, her writing demonstrates the incredible power of love, the capacity of the heart, and the eternal nature of the spirit- how Pink is that?  Thank you, Pinkies, for helping us hold space for and honor Nancy, Dan, and the Aronie family.

****

There were so many Dan Aronies. And on January 29th at 1:21 in the morning on the fullest brightest moon of the whole year, one month after his 38th birthday, with his brother and his father present , we lost them all.

You might have known the little guy with dark eyes and long hair (which his grandmother always begged me to cut  – “he looks like a street urchin!”) and ribs that stuck out (“people will think you don’t feed him!”), who followed his big brother Josh everywhere, who could be found juggling with his father on Lucy Vincent Beach or hitching rides with the likes of Harrison Ford.

Or you might have known the little fisherman always on the jetty at dawn or late at night  (while his mother … me … worried about whether he had eaten his snack and was in the middle of a diabetic reaction, had fallen over and was at the bottom of the ocean. Dan was diagnosed with diabetes at 9 months old and became a rebel about an hour later.

You might have known the inventive, creative survivor Dan who taught his fellow young diabetics how to cheat on their urine tests: “don’t put any drops of pee in the beeker. They wont know the difference and the results will set you free. Think chocolate.”

Maybe the guy you knew was the angry contrary funny Dan, the Dan who drove his boat too fast, rolled two cars, skied recklessly, loved girls wholeheartedly, played his violin passionately (not always accurately). That Dan lasted for most of his young adult life. You might have known him at Bard College when he was starring in View from the Bridge or driving his motorcycle down 9G when he was supposed to be studying for exams.

Or maybe you were there when he was diagnosed with MS at 22 and the anger turned white hot.

But for many of you here on the Vineyard, you most likely knew him in his early stages of losing his “abilities to do anything!!!!!” (his words, screamed often). When he couldn’t hold a cue stick anymore, couldn’t make the steps in the Ritz , when he could no longer drive, when his short-term memory started going, when his speech started slurring, a new Dan was emerging.

If you had been a visiting nurse you might have been met with a tirade of 4 letter words (so now let us thank you for every loving moment you spent with Dan). You may have seen him through two brain surgeries that didn’t work, one open-heart surgery that did. You may have noticed a softening, an accepting, a surrendering. For those of us close to that Dan, he became a Teacher. We got to see how a person changes, actually takes lemons, squeezes the life out of them, cuts away the rotten parts and turns out the sweetest tartest most delicious lemonade ever thought possible.

I once asked Dan, “can you say why you stopped being angry?” His answer was so simple but so profound. He said, “I noticed that being angry didn’t help anything.” Hello.

When Dan’s bedsores prevented him from getting up and out and he became bedridden, he never complained. He got even funnier if such a thing is possible. One night I stood at the end of his bed and I, said “Good night o king of kings,” and I did an exaggerated bow. And then I said, “Good night o lord of lords,” and I bowed again. And without skipping a beat he said, “Good night o fruit of loops.”

One day I arrived to the ubiquitous ambulances that knew 111 Leonard Circle by heart (and let me now thank every paramedic who ever crossed his threshold!). I raced in to find Dan already strapped on the gurney, I leaned in to see how bad it was. I said, “Danzer how are you, baby boy? And when he tried to say something, Alison, the caregiver of the century, raised the oxygen mask and Dan, barely conscious, sang “A three hour tour” from Gilligan’s Island – one of the mantras he repeated to describe his life.

Four months ago, Dan got his third bout of pneumonia and was air lifted to Mass General where he was in the intensive care unit for four weeks. He was intubated and communicated with only his eyebrows and his dancing eyes. He had a tracheotomy and a feeding tube. He was transferred to rehab in Salem where he spent another four weeks not really recuperating, but when he was stable they let him come home. And this community and the love and the energy and the support poured in, and it looked as if the Miracle Man was going to beat the odds again. He managed to fight two fevers on his own and he was looking stronger and stronger and healthier and healthier.

But then he got another fever. And this one brought him down. Five days before he died, a dear friend said, ”Dan on a scale from 1 to 10, where are you?” Mind you, he couldn’t talk, but with his signature grin and his twinkling eyes, he mouthed “ELEVEN!”

That’s the Dan he became. A solid 11. And to quote Dan himself… not too shabby.

Thank you, Nancy, for sharing the story of this incredible human and the journey you went on together. Remember, Pinkies, you don’t need to wait until someone dies to honor their life. Nancy did this with Dan every day by sharing him with her workshops, and later with the world through the documentary they made about him. Have you considered writing a eulogy for someone who is still around — or someone who left a long time ago to whom you didn’t say goodbye the way you would now? Let us know your thoughts, and again, thank you for helping us honor this special Pinkie in our lives.

Honoring all the angels – on earth and beyond …
Lissa and Joy

Everything is a Risk: Which Leap of Faith Will You Take?

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Beloved Pinkies, please welcome back Tama Kieves, author of This Time I Dance: Creating the Work You Love and a Pink Goddess through and through.  She speaks today about risk … or to put it in Pink terms, taking a Pleap (Pink leap of faith). Enjoy, and many thanks as always to Tama!

*****

There is no safe life. Where did we get the idea that life was supposed to be safe? What of joy and consequence has ever been safe? Giving birth to a child? Taking a road trip? Kissing that handsome, winsome stranger? Give yourself over to risk. Risk is the only friend you have. Risk is the one who will make your blood flow red. You don’t want a safe life. You want a life that is so full of juice, joy and meaning, that nothing threatens you– because you’ve already won the prize.

You Can’t Avoid It

Besides, there is no risk free life. You only get to decide which risk is worth it to you, because everything is a risk. Staying tight like a bud is a risk. Staying inside in your bed is a risk. Taking the subway is a risk. Staying in a marriage or job that crushes your soul, though cruises along– as always– is a risk. There is no opting out in this life. You only get to choose which risk you’ll take.  Here’s what I’d suggest. Bet on the sure thing. Bet on love. Spend your life on faith. Take the road that makes you stronger. Going after things you want, whether or not you get them, makes you stronger. Yeah, baby, take that in.

Darkness Looms & Danger Lurks

There will always be a choice between immediate safety and ultimate safety. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Years ago, I went hiking with a boyfriend, somewhere in Oregon. We had ourselves a slap-happy time by the ocean at the end of the trail. Too much of a time. The sun began evaporating from the sky. It was a time of year that still turned very cold.

We were dressed lightly with no provisions, as we hadn’t intended to hike this far. Knowing we needed to get back to the car, we walked back quickly on the dimming trail. But half way out of the forest, we heard an unusual knocking noise. A tribe of birds squawked and fluttered away. They left a hollowness in their wake. Something didn’t feel right.

The creepy noise continued. “Maybe it’s a moose,” said Nick eagerly, looking around. I walked up ahead and peered into the trees. I saw darkness behind them. Then that darkness took shape, the shape of a bear. Now, for the record, I am not the type of woman that looks at a bear in fascination, even at a zoo. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, for God’s sake. On my best day, I am still probably more comfortable pressed up against a thousand sweaty strangers in a disco than witnessing wildlife in a forest. And at this moment, honest to God, I’d really rather have been clubbed and mugged.  I instinctively walked backwards on the trail, and then ran further back until I could breathe. Nick followed me. “It’s a bear,” I said to him, terror and adrenaline lighting up my senses.

Then the negotiations began. We had to walk back past the bear to get out of the woods. We had to walk by the bear. If we walked the other way, nightfall would set in, bringing its wet ocean breath of cold and death by hypothermia. We were already beginning to shiver. I imagined being mauled. Hypothermia sounded nice, just going numb forever. I really wanted to avoid that bear. It was a dark black beast that I could not predict or control and it could confront me whether I was ready or not. But then if we avoided that possibility, we were facing the guarantee of a slow, insidious death.

Life Is Worth Saving, But It May Require Some Discomfort

Believe me the symbolic choice here was not lost on me. I had only recently left my prestigious legal career to dare my crazy dreams of becoming a writer. I had left the “safe position” because I knew it was numbing and annihilating my heart minute by minute. The comfort of that paycheck and validation was seducing me into a stupor in which I abandoned my will and lapsed into a menacing indifference about my own life. It was the hypothermia of having my heart go cold. But in that scenario, I had decided to fight to save my own life. I chose the terror of choosing my desires. I faced the immediate risk of not knowing how things would work out. I felt naked in the world. But I also knew I at least had a chance of something working out. My job had been “safe” in worldly terms, but I knew I had not one shred of hope of living my true life while there. It wasn’t savage death. But it was certain death.

Walk Towards Your Deepest Fear

It hit me then that I would have to walk in the direction of my fear. I would have to walk towards the bear. If I walked by the bear, I might make it to total freedom. It held the only possibility of what I really wanted. I’d at least have a chance at life. But I’d have to walk by the bear. I’d have to risk unbearable (no pun intended) uncertainty.

I’ll cut to the chase. I lived. We walked by the bear, slowly, praying silently to ourselves and to the God you pull out of your back pocket when you hope there is a God and you hope he has instant messaging. We surrendered to the vulnerability of our Big Chance and the purity of our instincts. Then we ran like hell and, if memory serves, I kissed that rental car’s thin tin sides. That night we ate at a local diner and I told the waitress about the bear and how happy I was to be alive. She gave us French fries on the house. I have never tasted better French fries. I know they were ordinary and probably too salty. But I was alive and everything tasted beautiful to me.

Walk By The Bear- Just Do It

I suggest you walk by the bear. What is your bear in life? What leaves you bare? What action or direction calls to you right now? Where do you at least have the best chance of getting something that you desire? The need for certainty costs too much. There is no certainty. But there is the strength of moving in the right direction.

I want to leave you with two great quotes by two different men that embraced inspired, creative lives. I also want to leave you with my love and my faith in you. You will make your right choice in your right time. There will always be a bear. And there will always be that within you that can bear anything, on its way to magnificence.

“Every moment of one’s existence, one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.” Norman Mailer

“Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.” Alan Alda

Love and blessings,
Tama

©Copyright 2010 Tama J. Kieves. All rights reserved.
www.AwakeningArtistry.com