This week’s reading is about reaching a hand out to the inner child and extending love and kindness and a listening heart to be there for whatever the child has to say when things feel sad, or angry, or fearful.  I have had a number of conversations with my inner child already and it’s been surprisingly okay so far.  What I mean by this is that there has actually been a conversation, and it’s been one that felt honest and real.  I won’t say that I necessarily feel like everything is better at the end of it, but again The Presence Process is not about feeling better as much as it is feeling consciously.

One thing I have noticed over the course of the last several weeks is that my attitude and approach toward children in general has shifted.  Anyone who knows me reasonably well knows that children have not historically been a source of warmth or joy or happiness for me.  Mostly I have found them to be annoying and difficult, taking away time and attention from things I would rather be doing, like hanging out with my friends or doing something I enjoy rather than what they enjoy.  In peering a little more closely at this I can see that this annoyance comes from a resentment that I have about not being allowed to do or say or have things that I wanted, probably back from when I was quite young.  Children aren’t annoying by nature.  They are just children, little unfiltered ego machines (and I don’t mean that in a cruel way) that ask for and grab for what they want because it is totally natural to do that.

It’s the should-ing and the acculturation that gets us to the point where we subvert and push down our wants and needs, in the name of a quieter and more civilized society. But in talking to my inner child and listening to her sadness and her fear and her anger I find that I feel empathy toward her rather than resentment.  I understand why she would feel sad that when she reaches out to a friend and isn’t met.  I understand why she feels scared when she’s left alone.  I understand why she feels angry when she isn’t allowed to have what she wants.

So how about that then?

There is a part of me that is pretty freaked out by the idea that I’m only *almost* halfway through this thing.  It’s been a lot of work and dedication so far and it’s bringing me right into the same room as the squirmy unpleasant things that I regularly do a lot to avoid.

On the other hand, during a long drive home last night, as I was sitting with some uncomfortable feelings, I heard a voice inside my head telling me that I couldn’t expect things to get any better if I did things the same way I have been doing them in the past.  So I pulled a couple of new tools out of the sack and tried them on for size.  One of them was vocal toning, using the power of sound vibration inside myself to shift my energy.  It worked pretty darn well I have to say.

Funny that it would take me this long to try it, given that singing is something I love so much.

Each time I say this week’s statement I hear “I Passionately Embrace My Innocence” and it makes me feel weird and pervy. Then this morning when I was meditating on this statement it turned into I Passionately Embrace My Emptiness, which changed it profoundly and led me down a different rabbit hole.  What would happen if I passionately embraced my emptiness, fawned and preened over it as I would a lover?

Thanks to this process I am trying new things, even the “solution” of not trying to solve the problem.

And we continue on.

Week 4 begins.

So far this process has been a bit gentler than I expected, but I won’t say that means it’s without its ups and downs.

The coming of autumn has bitten me pretty hard my entire life.  Even writing that sentence I see it as a story, one that I can choose to give power or not.  But as I look back historically I can feel that feeling of poignant tender sharp sadness that comes every year around September.  When I lived in Maine it meant the slide into months (upon months) of bitter cold, the kind of weather that slowly chipped away at my will, the will to even get out of bed, more or less go through my day.  Here in Arizona it’s supposed to be a time of celebration, cheering for the abatement of the relentless heat.

And yet I am sad.  Something about the angle of the light, it gets me right in my heart.

This week I taught a number of my yoga classes on the theme of  “Just because something feels unpleasant doesn’t necessarily mean there is anything wrong.”  Amazingly enough when I turned to the next pages of The Presence Process last night to guide me into Week 4, those words were presented almost verbatim as part of my material to go over and refer to for this coming week.

I feel positive about this, like something in me is organically unfolding into this process, like the process itself is organic. Unfamiliar perhaps, at least in a very somatic way – it feels uncomfortable in my body and my emotional self and my mind to just sit with discomfort and peer into it and explore its edges and facets and pitches and timbres and colors.

But today in my yoga practice – what a gift to be a student! – my lovely and strong teacher Stephani reminded us that perseverance through difficult things yields rewards.  And I was once again taken aback by the parallels between life and practice.  Warrior 2 is a hard pose.  It’s even harder when it’s held for a long time, with continual devotion to strong alignment.  Thighs burn, breath becomes labored, and the voice inside starts getting a little shrieky, saying “I can’t DO this anymore!!”  And then I rededicate myself to my breath, to my alignment, periodically even choosing a mantra to make it through (I am a fan of the Gayatri).

Why do I choose any different paths through other difficult things?  This sadness, these moments of want and fear that I’ve been noticing these last few weeks, I can remind myself that these moments are the same.  They are uncomfortable.  All I need to do is breathe, focus on my alignment (aligning myself with the statements, with the remembrance that working through difficult things with awareness and attention yields rewards) and remember this week’s statement:

I restore my inner balance with compassionate attention.

I attend to my feelings – I feel them.  I put a figurative hand on my back and say “I know, sweetie; I know it’s hard.  You are doing just fine and I love you. Keep it up.  Don’t give up.  It’s going to be okay.”  I breathe.

And the great thing from the reading this week is that it then says to just notice what happens.  It doesn’t say “And then you will feel better and everything will be rosy and happy.”  Actually it says that it might not feel better, but to not make feeling better your goal.  Just make being attentive and aware your goal.

Pain is not necessarily a bad thing.  Rid oneself of the judgments about pain and the resistance to it lessens and the doors fly open to receive the boundless wisdom that pain has to offer: insight and compassion and awareness.

I am in, for better or for worse, I am in.

Week 3.

Last week  I was actually somewhat surprised by how easily this process was going.  I felt grounded and generally happy, didn’t get thrown off by pretty much anything.  I was on the lookout for people or situations that would set me off in one way or another, make me angry, make me sad or defensive or scared.  I noticed very little if any of these.  The one or two things that happened I looked back at and tried to understand a bit better, and I’m still willing to work on them.

This week started off with exercises in learning how to “get the message” rather than react to the messenger.

I’m already in it.  What I am noticing is this ground-level basic anxiety, this undercurrent of fear.  Michael Brown asks us first to identify the feeling, then trace it back to the last time we felt it, and then keep going until we can find the first time we remember feeling it.  He says this may be somewhat difficult because likely the first time we felt the triggering deep-set feelings, we likely didn’t have words or thoughts that we could use to make sense of it, so we have to use our feeling body to get there.

What this allows us to do is notice that it is the FEELING we are after and its origins rather than the current shape that the feeling is taking our lives.  For example, I am feeling this fear. I remember the last time I felt this was when I had a suspicion that I was being left, that someone I cared for was backing away. I was afraid of being left alone.  This is a feeling I have had many times in my life.  It is cold and scary and sad.  And the thing is, I think most of us have had this feeling in our lives, and likely for each of us it is one of the major players in terms of deep feelings that originate from a time we were in the single digits of life – who hasn’t had that alone-in-the-grocery-store moment?  Or several?

But the thing is, without having healed that feeling, without having allowed it to have its moment and become integrated into ourselves as adults, it keeps playing out again and again, like a stuck record.

So for now I’m sitting in it.  And I’m doing my best to see it for what it is.

I can notice that whatever experience I am having, I don’t have to react to it from that place I was when I was a kid, afraid and panicking and reaching out and grasping for comfort that isn’t there, because ultimately the comfort doesn’t come from outside me.

Sometimes people aren’t there when we need them.  Sometimes people leave.  Sometimes people die when you are not ready. This is not inherently a bad thing.  It just is.  It’s just how life goes sometimes.  What we do with it is where the crux lies, where the really juicy stuff is.

I can respond consciously to this fear.  I can notice, oh look, I have this fear.  I am going to breathe now.  When can I remember this from before?  Oh yes, there it is.  I can see that.  I can see the path it’s wound through my life, popping up here and there and though it seems like it’s about this one particular situation at the moment, the only thing special about right now is that I HAVE MY EYES OPEN and I am willing to respond to this situation consciously.  Rather than going into the same old story of I’m not good enough, why does this always happen to me, blah blah boring blah.

Brown says that as we get more clued in to this process, we will be increasingly able to change our response in the moment, and more fully integrate these feelings so they don’t run the show.

I feel like I’m taking steps in that direction.

This is my second week of The Presence Process, a 10-week program designed to get people in touch with the emotional undercurrents of their behaviors and come into alignment with their inner presence.  The statement that I begin this week with is “I acknowledge my reflections in the world.”

First reading this, I found myself detached and a little confused because it sounded like psychobabble to me.  In reading the accompanying materials, it became much clearer.  By reflections, Michael Brown means the idea that we will be drawn to events and situations that reflect our unresolved emotional issues, because they are still  sensitive, and they want to come to closure.  So like a finely tuned mirror, we reflect more clearly those things which have yet to be integrated within ourselves.  The language that these things speak is that of emotions.  He argues that this is the case because as we grow in the world, before we have the ability to think logically and sift through situations with objectivity, we are essentially raw emotional beings.  That is the consistency of our experience.  In the process of transitioning into a more thought/behavior-based way of engaging with the world, most of us sublimate these raw emotions and are left with wounds that persist below the surface of all of the skills we learn to function in the world.

So when we have these emotional responses to people, situations, words, sounds, we are actually speaking that primal language to ourselves, and being invited to tend to and heal these wounds.

Sounds pretty deep and difficult to me.  But it turns out that really how it’s handled is through breath and consistent diligent attentiveness.  That’s all.  But it’s not easy.

As I sat this morning breathing and repeating to myself, “I acknowledge my reflections in the world.”, my dog kept running into the room, jumping onto the meditation cushion, thrusting a toy into my perfectly poised mudra-ed hand, doing his best to get my attention.

I couldn’t help but laugh.  He does this every morning, and I find that if I stick to my meditation and leave him be, he eventually calms down and lays next to me, often hypnotically chewing on a stuffed animal.

He IS my reflection in this world.  He is just like my mind, wanting attention, wanting to drag my attention away from this practice that threatens with the real possibility of living in the moment. And when I stay connected to my practice, he quiets down, just like my mind.

There are these moments during my morning practice where I have these waves of joy, waves of intense feeling, waves of being able to feel every bit of my skin, see colors behind my closed eyes that swell and soften with my inhales and exhales.  There are also these moments where this nagging feeling beckons from my belly.  My mind interprets it as “I need to go.  When is this going to be done?” I’ve been trying to just be more curious and amused about this feeling because I know it’s just like my puppy, trying to drag me away.

So today marks my embarking on The Presence Process, a 10-week program designed to pull you out of the stories of your past, out of the ego and into the moment.  In the moment there need be no judgments, for in the moment all is perfect as it is.  Pain means nothing because it has no reference point, nothing is better or worse than now.  There is just now.

Today’s statement is I Choose to Experience This Moment.

This morning I found myself feeling sad inside.  I recently had a series of interactions that felt like they had the blossoming potential of deeper connection and then it diffused, just went away.  I have been mourning it.  As I embedded the statement I Choose to Experience This Moment into my head, I asked myself, Am I really sad?  Or am I just holding on to the idea of sadness that has nothing to do with this moment now?  While I’d love to say that thought dispersed the sadness, it didn’t.  I still felt it.  I looked for it in my body, tried to frame it in words that didn’t have claws to them, color words and texture words.  While I’d love to say THAT dispersed the sadness, it didn’t.

What sticks in my head most about the sadness situation is that there has been no resolution.  Have you been on the receiving end of this before? Maybe you sent in a resume or a demo or a book draft to someone and just… never heard anything.  Maybe you met someone you felt connected to and had a big spark and then when you followed up there was just… nothing.  What is so hard is that I find myself making up all these stories about what happened.  “I shouldn’t have said this thing.” “I should have left it alone. I look like a stalker.” “Maybe his phone’s not working, maybe his car broke down, maybe his mom got sick.”

But mostly here’s how the story in my head goes: At an initial meeting I come across great and guys love me.  Then they get to know me and it goes away.  Because it’s too uncomfortable to just say that, they just drop contact entirely and I am left once again to ponder my deep essential unworthiness.

Sigh.

I am so tired of this story.

Maybe it’s because I grew up an only child without a father in the house, daughter of a figured-it-out-a-little-later-in-life lesbian.  Maybe it’s my karma, or astrology, or whatEVER.  But the story is there.  Deep essential flaw = no long-term love for Tanya.

I want to get rid of this story.  I want to root it out, find its persistent sneaky little tendrils and go General Sherman on that bitch.

I am hoping that The Presence Process helps me do this.  And also I found myself looking today as I sat with the discomfort of having no resolution that maybe in that there is a silver lining.  There is a skill to be gained in learning how to exist without a denouement.  Plenty of times we don’t get a chance to say goodbye.  We don’t get the “Aaaaaaaaand scene!” moment.

What’s funny is that also when I look back, I find that I have been the person who does this periodically.  I have dropped contact when I felt too much pressure, or too uncomfortable to just say the words, “I’m sorry but I don’t have space in my life for this right now.  I don’t feel connected to you in the way you seem to want and my needs are my priority.  I wish you luck and all the best.”

It hurts, yes.  But it’s honest.  There have been times I actually did have the wherewithal to say these words.  While they were difficult, I am glad I spared someone the pain of the empty chasm of not knowing.

Either way, I don’t have the power to make anyone do anything.  The only thing I can control is my own reaction to a situation.  So I am still sitting with this discomfort.  And I am choosing to experience this moment, with its simplicity and its complexity.

Aaaaaaaaand scene. 

I had one of those days this week where I felt like all the various workings of the universe came together to make me feel extra special.  I just finished recording in LA a week ago, the new cd which will be titled: Ca Sarvetaratra (And Everything Else).  As with the previous recording it went so easily, so swimmingly, it just amazed me.  My recording partner, Gabriel Mann, ever the adventurer, told me when we started that he watched the time we had set aside to record get smaller and smaller the closer it got to the dates, and that he had no idea how we were going to accomplish an entire album in what amounted to about 16 hours in the studio.  And yet he was still willing to do it – that’s the kind of friend I love to have.

So we did it.  The recording part is done, and indeed it did only take 16 hours, and it is incredible.  So many magical things occurred as part of the process, about which I won’t go into extensive detail, but suffice it to say this album is… shaktified.

I listened to some recordings on the way to LA about how we truly do create the world we live in, how each moment is our own creation, and noting how each of us are demigods of our own existence is worth doing.

I got home and have been playing bits and pieces of the recordings in various classes and the reception has been fantastic.  It’s so great to hear how the music affects other people.

I’ve made some new friends recently who are enriching my life so fully – they are of my tribe, the kind of folks who ask difficult and direct questions but with love in their hearts. I’ve reconnected with old friends who remind me of who I am, and of the fullness of one’s expression in this world.

I also got two emails this week from students telling me how grateful they were for my words and instruction in class – so good.

I’m in the process of applying to graduate school and hitting a few snags along the way, but from past experiences I am aware that the application process is a sticky one.  I am committing to persevere.

What’s been most interesting about these last few days is noting how my spirits can be so up when one of these wonderful things happen and then swing so significantly to other places, places of fear and insecurity, stagnancy, frustration, when something else happens.  I can remember feeling soft and full and even elated, and yet I can’t touch it when I have shifted.  I am considering these moments to be opportunities to try to handle things differently than I have in the past. “Maybe this time instead of reacting I’ll try to just breathe.  Maybe I’ll write.  Maybe I’ll meditate.  Maybe I’ll go to yoga.”  I don’t want to run away from the feeling, I want it to have its moment.  I’m just still learning how.

I haven’t hit on “the thing” yet, and I doubt that there is one thing anyway.  But I’d like to hope that noticing and trying different approaches may be part of the solution as it were.  It certainly beats doing things the same old way, the one that doesn’t work at all.

What are your mechanisms for dealing with mood shifts? Feel free to share: mantrassage@yahoo.com

I have kept very quiet this week in the wake of the Zimmerman trial verdict. I have read many a tweet, article, reaction, and analysis of what happened and why. I am a person who largely keeps my head in the sand regarding current events and world news, both recent and historic, because I find it makes me sad/anxious/defeated. I feel woefully uninformed and uneducated, unworthy of making any sort of statement regarding any of it, not out of fear that I will get lambasted (which I imagine I would, one way or another), but rather just because I don’t want to mouth off about something I really don’t understand. The simplicities and complexities abound in this situation, but for me it boils down to this:

Be Nice to Other People
Be Nice to Yourself
Always Look for Another Solution

About every 6 months or so, my mother has to talk me down from a ledge about yet another apocalypse fear. One time it was about the impending shortage of potable water, leading to societal breakdown and every man for himself, tribal warring and the return to might makes right. One time it was about the bees. One time it was about martial law overtaking our government, whether via foreign invasion or just simply too many angry people with guns deciding they’d had enough and just bulldozing what civility we have left. Here in Tucson we actually have a Laser Tag Zombie Apocalypse scenario set up in an old slaughterhouse!

This fear used to happen to me regularly, so much so that I was able for some time to set my yearly clock by it. I have several plans for how I might handle it, and several books in my cart on Amazon about how to survive in extreme situations, how to find and grow food, field medical techniques, etc. Note however that they are in the cart. I feel that this is important in that the fears have yet to take me so far that I sink my money and time into actually preparing for this.

The good news here is where the School Lunches come in. A friend of mine a few years ago posted on Facebook about some sort of change that had been made in the standard of school lunches where he lives that deeply affronted him, as he is a parent and cares greatly about the nutrition of his child. While I was on board with that in many ways, I also thought to myself: if something is not going to be provided for us, even under the current agreements upon which we’ve come to rely, it is then an option to get creative. Our power lies not just in our ability to protest and fight. It lies in our ability to bounce off that wall like a quarterback and find a different direction to reach our goals.

So someone or ones makes a decision that infringes upon my rights and access to the quality of life I enjoy, whether it’s Monsanto, a jury in Florida, a governor in Texas, my boss, Al Qaeda, or the HOA in my neighborhood. Often my initial reaction is to go ahead and keep doing whatever I want; screw them. I will fight to the death for what I believe is right. Then I take a breath. And sometimes many more breaths. Then I reflect on how that has worked for me in the past. (Hint: the opposite of well) So I start to get creative. What are some ways I can find access to that which brings me the greatest joy and does not cause harm to myself or other people? In the case of the school lunches, some thoughts I had were: start a community garden and grow food for the people in the neighborhood so everyone has access to healthy food. Or, even the 99 cent store has produce, even organic produce. Really. There is an organization here in Tucson that sells produce that grocery stores get rid of because it’s near to expiration (but not!) where they sell up to 60 pounds of food for $10.  Options abound.

Recently I was told that one of the options that I offer in my yoga classes is no longer going to be allowed for safety reasons. My initial response was to push back. I teach safely and safety! My students get empowered to do things they don’t believe they can, and I don’t want to take that away from them. One person gets hurt in all these years and the whole system changes? Screw that! I’m going to keep teaching the way I want to and just not tell anyone!

Then I took a breath and reflected on how that’s gone in the past. Again, the opposite of well. So I thought, what CAN I do? I can teach options that fall within the parameters laid out for me that still allow for empowerment. With regard to Trayvon Martin, I can continually be dedicated to rooting out the seeds of prejudice and judgment inside myself and act accordingly in the world. I can kindly and gently role model loving behavior. With regard to the apocalypse, I can live each moment fully with gratitude, and handle things as they come my way rather than living in fear of what my come to pass. Roberto Benigni’s character in Life is Beautiful, Viktor Frankl, Nelson Mandela, who found beauty and space in the most rigorous and limited of scenarios, demonstrate for us all that we always have power. No matter what. There is always a choice to treat others with kindness, treat ourselves with kindness, and continually look for creative ways to empower ourselves.  So that’s what I’m going to do.  And so it is.