The Year of the Snake

I recently found out we are in the Year of the Snake. The Year of the Snake is all about shedding layers. I've felt this powerful energy within and around me already. Falling in love in many ways is a process of shedding layers. When we first begin to fall in love, we delight in the merging of two souls when we feel an ease in conversation, sex, the entire co-existance of two beings. We are inspired and excited by what the other person brings. We are joined at the hip, so to speak. The honeymoon phase, my friend calls it. Then something happens - our first fight, one person suddenly wanting more space, feeling distant. Our hearts feel a tug and we want to retreat. This is when we are getting to the good stuff in my opinion. It's when we truly start to care for another that we want to pull back. It's when we are beginning to not only care for another person on a deeper level, but also to allow them to see us. They are no longer seeing just our BEST selves, they are also seeing us at our WORST. Fear steps in and if we aren't acknowledging our fear or talking about it with our partner, we retreat, and possibly end the relationship. We are too scared to proceed. We recognize that a great relationship is one where we will consistently be challenged to grow - or we accept that we are content with just staying as we are. Either way we are changing and growing even if it feels stagnant and boring and disconnected - we are certainly growing apart. If you look at it that way, you can choose to grow apart or grow together. I choose the growing together in my relationships and I have someone who is exploring the option of growing with me. I don't know if it's a choice one continually makes, daily, or monthly or yearly, or if it's a choice you just make at once, and then you commit to that choice no matter what shows up. I am learning as I go along. This period when I can feel the heart tugging and more truth coming out and more space occurring in the past would cause me to retreat. My partner recently told me he didn't like how I asked him to do things. I am a yoga teacher so I am used to directing students into poses. I am also a mother so I am used to directing my child. I am realizing I have a little too much of this energy. I am a born leader in many ways, a do-er, someone who gets shit done. I want it to happen, I make it happen. It's strength and fierceness I've had for a long long time. I think I've been afraid to let this go to bring in some more gentleness and ease because I'm afraid I'll crumble. I can see though, it's time. It's time to bring in more suggestion in my yoga classes, which I am doing, and why a strict alignment flow (though I love alignment!) is less of what I am into these days and I find myself into more free form movement, simple repetitive movements combined with breath so one can exist in the body. I find in my own practice I'm drawn to slower flows, more holds, more exploration. With my partner, rather than saying "I'm going to get the grocery bags, you'll get Julian's shoes, etc" I am asking and treating him as the equal human being he is. With my child, I am saying please as I ask him to do something and thank you when he does and treating him as the equal human being he is. I was at Target today and I didn't know but I picked the line where the woman was new and wasn't able to figure out how to print the receipt for the person in front of me. You could tell she wasn't that happy there, was frustrated and when it got to me, I asked her how she was doing. She didn't look me in the eye or acknowledge me at all, but I think I might have heard a fine. It didn't matter. It was simply me trying to bring some gentleness and ease to let her know, hey, I'm a human being just like you and I care how you are doing. I was recently talking to a yoga friend of mine about the changes going on at a studio and how I felt like perhaps more ego was coming into the studio. I realized after talking that it wasn't more ego. It was strong confident people who knew themselves, were comfortable in their skin, and not afraid to show it, to do their own thing. I feel that is where I am moving. My partner has mentioned things about me that challenge him. We talked about how this energy of mine that does challenge him can also be used to inspire him, and that it does. I find the same thing within him. The choice then becomes to be challenged or not. I recognize that I am at a point in my life where I am strong enough and secure enough within myself that I think I can go there. I can choose a relationship that challenges and ignites, that supports and nurtures at the same time. And still be myself. My partner is still choosing such a relationship too, but if he changes his mind, that's ok too. I would be sad and hurt because I am allowing myself to love, but I would know I haven't lost myself. I am still here. I feel very much like a vessel. An energetic being housed in this human body. I think I have always felt this way somewhat but a rational acknowledgment of it didn't happen until I became a mother. I always knew I wanted to be a mother. And a mother is a vessel. She grows and houses a child. Child and mother are separate yet joined which is how one can relate the ego to the SELF. I am here in this physical body yet when I am still and quiet I am energetically connected on a level that transcends this physical body. I have felt perhaps always but more strongly these days that I can see the best in people, and I can see their flaws too because I can see this in myself. I admit and am aware of it in myself. Thus I have this amazing gift to support and encourage and love all of those close to me. I can encourage and help to shine the best in them. It's such an awesome job, that's not a job! I used to get caught up in judging and fixing an individual before I was awake but now I can nurture and grow, because I've had this experience of being a vessel who nurtured and grew a child. I can reflect back to another the love that's within me and they can reflect back the love that's within them. Namaste - when I am in that place of love within me, and you are in that place of love within you, we are LOVE. Feeling and existing as a vessel more frees me up in many ways but it's also ungrounding. I think I can provide so much fire, energy, action that those close to me need a breather and even though I find myself most fueled by such relationships, I need a breather too. I need to write, and teach, and practice and inspire myself to continue on this path of exploration and ultimately manifestation. I can feel what yoga has been to me is changing and it's so much more than my physical practice. The practice that's most important to me is what's off the mat and that is going to allow me to do bigger and better things in this world. I am learning the ability to hold space while feeling this energetic feeling of being a vessel and that is where I will find a sense of being grounded in the moment. This connection to I am an energetic being having a human experience. I can connect to what I am doing in each moment with joy and ease. I can let go of all the story, the past the future - even if they are great stories like I've had recently in my life! I can trust the unknowing. I can fall into the mystery. I can embrace this nothingness. It's the shedding of layers. The shedding of layers so that you essentially become more fully YOU. You exist in a space separate yet connected to this human existence. It is the path I am on. I had a nice reminder today after almost two years. I started to get my period again. People immediately think - that sucks! You haven't had it for so long and now it's back. I was excited. This physical process that happens each month is a shedding of what is needed to create. On an energetic level it's the shedding of what keeps me from being a whole and complete woman. And on another level it reminds me that I am still here, I am still me, I still have the ability to create life again. Energetically I still have the ability to dream and create a life and do work that inspires and enriches me. Embrace this shedding of layers, whether it's the physical practice of menstruation, the physical shedding of layers from winter to spring, the shedding of layers around the jewel that is your heart, your radiance, your essence. It is what allows us to create, to live and love.

To be able to receive love

It's amazing how when you are doing the work alone you can feel so strong. Then you add another person into the mix, a new relationship and suddenly you falter. Old patterns and old triggers emerge. This is where I'm at these days. I'm lucky I connect on an intimate level with my new partner and we are able to communicate effectively most of the time. I am understanding a lot about myself and how I got to where I am today. It's true it takes two to make or break a relationship, but I am seeing my part in the failure of all my relationships along the way and it's quite painful. I'm a woman who desires love, who wants connection, who wants fulfilment and challenge, who wants to grow. I want this for myself and I want this in a relationship. The breakup from Julian's Dad and the almost 6 months I spent alone allowed me to see how I can achieve these things for myself. The new relationship I am in now is showing me how I keep these things from myself. I am an angry person. Am I as angry as I used to be? No. Do I express my anger in most situations? No. But do those dating me or getting to know me on an intimate level feel it? Yes. My life is blessed right now. I have all I could want and more. I have nothing to be angry about. Yet it's there, beneath the surface, just simmering. I want it to go desperately. I think it involves feeling and acknowledging pain. I have been doing this, I feel for quite some time. It seems there's more to feel, more places to go that scare me. I'm going there, not kicking and screaming, but not willingly either. I understand that not going there will keep me from the life I want, the happiness I want, the love I want. It will keep me in a pattern of relationships that end or relationships that aren't truly fulfilling. I can feel this is a huge wall within me. It is the wall that keeps me from receiving love. It is the wall that shuts down my creativity, my playfulness, my joy, my curiosity my wonder of life. Truly it's the wall that keeps me from being the amazing being I see in my son. I don't think I am alone in having it. I think there are many of us who if we were honest know it exists within us too. I've talked a lot about being vulnerable and courageous and I was getting there alone. The Universe presented me with many gifts this last year and into this new year - my son, and a relationship and love I've only dreamed of. Both of these things I didn't have to effort my way into - they were given. This shows me that intuitively on a deeper level I know these things to be mine. I just haven't accepted them on a mental logical rational level yet. So to get my mind to accept what my Self knows. I don't know the way. It's scary and frustrating. I believe the way involves feeling everything. Being honest. Being courageous. Being vulnerable. It involves stillness and quiet. It involves patience. It involves perhaps most importantly being kind to myself - and I mean truly being kind. I have seen some small examples of this. I remember I took the scale out of the bathroom when Julian's Dad and I broke up. I started doing more restorative yoga and yin practice. I'm cooking good food for myself and Julian and my partner. I've recently let Julian cry it out a bit with the help of my partner so I can sleep better at night (he sleeps now a good 8 to 10 hour stretch!) I've done many things I would feel guilty about but the guilt is about doing something positive for myself. I used to always think guilt was a sign of an action you've committed that was wrong but I'm starting to believe guilt could also very well be a sign of an action you are doing that's positive and needed for your own personal growth. Guilt these days to me feels part of the process of surrender. Perhaps it's a guilt for neglecting this inner child inside of me for so long. Guilt for having pushed her to be so strong because she had to. Guilt for not giving her break after all these years. Guilt for still forcing her to be so strong when there's no need anymore.