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.

This life – it’s so easy to just let it move along and things happen and before I notice it’s been way too long since I’ve written a blog post.

In the last few months I’ve struggled a lot with some heartbreak and attempting to find a solid idea of my identity and purpose.  I got a lot of advice from friends and family and my amazing therapist, but mostly it’s just a process that has to be gotten through, one way or another.  There have been many times over these weeks that I thought to myself that it wasn’t even the words and advice themselves that were the point, just the seeking out of solace and help, even just having something, anything to fill up the moments so that they were not so replete with pain.

And in the meantime I rearranged my house, started things afresh, wrote some music, got excited again about graduate school, did some A M A Z I N G yoga, connected with remarkable people, and did a kickass photo shoot with the inimitable and marvelous Jade Beall.

Another wonderful thing to come out of this time is the development of some new habits that are serving me well.  My beautiful friend and colleague recommended to me that I read some sort of spiritual writing every day.  She told me that she didn’t know where she would be if she hadn’t had that over the years, and as a result of cultivating the practice of reading at least one page of spiritual writing every day, I finished a book that had been languishing on my shelf for a few years and have since started another.

I pray for perspective, the kind that I have from pain that has long since passed.  I look at those pains now and see their wisdom and value.  I continue to work to develop the skill to sit with my pain and let it have its moment.  I work to sense and sit with the feeling of grasping I have for what I wish would somehow be and try to laugh at my hubris for believing somewhere in me that I know better than the vast universe how things ought to happen.

Meanwhile, there is this, for which I am grateful:  Namaste

So recently I injured myself while kickboxing, which is one of those things to which people say “Well, what did you expect?”  While I am not thrilled about being less able to do the physical activities I enjoy, I have been doing the best I can to remain curious and mindful about the experience of healing.

Many people I know consider an injury to be a really bad thing.  I notice there is a lot of drama surrounding being hurt, a sort of dark cloud that follows and surrounds not only the story of the injury but even hovers around the injury itself, and by extension the person with it.  The last time I hurt myself it brought a lot of fear and frustration.  I was terrified about my inability to keep doing my work, and disappointed in myself for having incurred the injury in the first place.

But.

The first lesson I learned from that injury happened while I was doing a massage.  The throbbing shooting pain in my back kept distracting me and I wanted to cry.  I remembered a book I had read, Healing Back Pain by Dr. John Sarno.  In the book essentially he said to decrease the focus on the pain.  So in that moment I spread my awareness out all over my body, giving equal attention to my feet, my hands, my neck, my belly, my face, as well as my back.  As soon as I did that the volume of the pain went from about an 8 to a 2 or 3.  I paid attention to my breath and to my client and my pain became just a small noise in the background.

So now I find myself with another injury, one which has its own particular brands of frustration.  Here’s how I’m using it in my favor:

1) Alignment – I am paying consistent attention to the placement of my body as I walk, work, practice, sleep, do chores, etc.  This helps because I know that by doing it I will not only keep my bones and muscles in good position throughout the healing process but also will not have to deal with having to undo any patterns that I establish while I’m injured by walking funny or limping or changing my weight placement.

2) Pain management – I used ibuprofen.  Yup.  I did it.  And it helped.  Oh did it help.  There’s no deep character flaw in occasionally taking pain medication if you have pain and it helps with it.  I think taking it consciously is what matters.

3) Fear – there is nothing like dealing with fear.  Pain helps me come right up close and personal with my fear.  I’m afraid I’m broken I’m afraid I will never be the same I’m afraid I won’t be able to do what I want I’m afraid I’ll get fat I’m afraid I won’t be able to work blah blah blah blah blah.  Thanks to yoga and meditation I am learning to greet more experiences with breath first.  Then I talk to my fear.  I let it have its moment.  I talk to my friends and support network about my fear.  I breathe more.  It passes.  I learn it’s not as big of a monster as it seems.

4) Self-care – this one is probably the hardest for me.  Like my mother I have this vision of myself as kind of invincible, that the things which bring other people down I can handle with grace and ease.  Ego much?  Nothing like a fracture to cure one of that fallacious thinking.  So I am NOT running and jumping and kicking, well at least not now after I tried it for a few days and things got worse.  I am soaking and wrapping and balming my foot, taking Cissus and comfrey and Omega-3’s and all my vitamins and dedicating my energy to healing myself.  What’s amazing is watching this truly miraculous process occur.  I know, I KNOW it feels like every day is an eternity, but in the grand scheme of things, we have these amazing bodies that heal themselves with comparatively minuscule input on our parts.  It is awesome, in the purest sense of the word.

What can your injuries teach you?  How can you respond differently in an injured state so that the injury doesn’t “cripple” you?  Feel free to let me know!

So I’m looking into getting back into a relationship that I have tried before, one that has not proven successful in the past.  It’s a relationship of convenience, one that satisfies an immediate need, but in the long run I have found that it leaves me frustrated and hurting.

Yes, I’m considering buying a Futon.

I have had a metal futon frame sitting in my back yard since I moved to my apartment 2 1/2 years ago.  It cries out for a mattress to sit upon it, but I have resisted as I’ve been using the second bedroom in my house as a massage room since I moved in.  I’m about to make the big girl move of getting massage space outside my house, giving me the possibility of a guest room/yoga room/arts and crafts room/meditation space for the first time since I’ve lived here in Tucson.  An actual guest room!  Where people can sleep and I don’t feel the need to donate my bed to the cause and couch it while I have company in town!

Big news in my world.

But the futon. The Futon.  It looks so convenient, all “Look at me, I can be a couch AND a bed.  I can take up only a little space when you don’t need me and easily pull out into a bed when you do…”  Siren song.

It could also say, “Look at me, I weigh a million pounds and can’t be lifted by less than three people because of the mattress (oh, the mattress!  invented by Satan’s minions!) and will have you cursing like a sailor every time you try to switch me from day to night as well as every time you bang your shin against my hard sharp corners when you take the laundry out!  Plus that aforementioned mattress?  About as comfy as sleeping on a park bench, but without that fresh outdoors feeling.”

Why am I even considering this move?  Haven’t I learned from the past?  What is it about them that keeps pulling me back in?

I know the answer – it’s about the flexibility.  With a futon I don’t have to designate the use of an entire extra room to the sole function of having a bed in it.  Essentially we’re talking about a fear of commitment, something that I have been accused (probably correctly so) of having many times in the past.

But I know that the reality of having that freedom, that flexibility, comes at its own price.  Basically it’s like having one of those tricky Friends With Benefits relationships.  Eventually the emotions come in – you want someone to spend quality time with, someone to kiss and tell the story of your day to, someone to go grocery shopping with, and yes, someone to help you move the f-ing futon.

I can see that what I’m looking at here is a decision, that while it feels as though I’ve already made it, beckons with the possibility of another choice, perhaps one in which I buckle down and commit to just having a damn bed in the guest room already.  Perhaps there are solutions I haven’t looked at yet.  Much like the relationship choices, or the food choices, or the workout choices, while the familiar path may seem to be the right one because it’s a known quantity, it also comes with the same results.  And we all know that making the same choices but expecting different results is one of the definitions of insanity.  So fie on you, futon.  You won’t get me again.

p.s. Don’t even get me started on air mattresses.

Namaste

So I don’t know if you ever have this experience, but I know I regularly go into battle with the part of me that loves to play the victim.  This facet of my personality gets very distraught when things don’t go her way and she makes up stories about the people around her that put her in a place of disempowerment.  Here’s an example:

“I put that job application in like a week ago and I haven’t heard back yet.  Why aren’t they calling me?  It’s probably because they read it and didn’t like the wording I picked for the short answer questions.  Maybe they just haven’t had time to look at it yet because there are so many people applying.  Why doesn’t anyone like me?  I just wish they would call.  If only they would call I would know one way or the other.  Guess I’ll just have to wait.  And wait. …  Ok, why haven’t they called now?”

This may not sound like any voices in your head, but I know this one really well.  And the thing about it is that it doesn’t matter what conversations I have with this voice, she just sits there inside my belly whining.  It feels like a whining kind of energy inside me, burning and insatiable.  And the stories I attach to this voice just feed it and make it more insistent.

In the last several years I have had a number of opportunities to contend with this voice and I have found a few protocols that work, so if it’s of any use to you, here’s what I’ve got:

1) Do something, anything, that absorbs my attention and preferably is something I enjoy.  For me this includes things like yoga, taking my dog for a walk, writing, reading, taking a bath, giving myself a pedicure, watching stand-up comedy, and the list goes on.

2) Continue to practice meditation on a regular (preferably daily) basis

3) Write down the thing that is bothering me on a piece of paper.  Say out loud, as many times as it takes for me to feel it, “I release it.  I release _________” Then burn it.

4) Recite a mantra that states how I wish to feel, or something that soothes me.  For example, Om Vishnave Swaha. Vishnu in the Hindu pantheon is the Preserver of the world, the bringer of harmony.  Invoking Vishnu reminds me that everything really is okay, even if it seems in the moment that it is not.

Reciting mantras can replace the broken record that is playing in your head with a different song, an intentional song, one that you have chosen consciously rather than unconsciously.

5) Attempt to remember that no matter what feeling I may be having, it will pass.  I might even say that out loud to myself as well, “This will pass.  Things will look different in the morning.”

6) Note once the situation has resolved itself what was actually the truth compared to what I thought was the truth in the story I made up in my head.  I find this can sometimes be useful when I come up against something similar in the future.

When I am in the grips of the voice, I feel like a moth throwing myself against a window trying to get the light on the other side to notice me.  I feel out of sorts and a sense of things just being wrong.  But writing this right now I realize that the light is not on the other side of a window at all, it’s reflected in the window FROM INSIDE ME.  If I turn inside and look for that light, the truth of my exquisite essence has the chance to reveal itself to me.  Thus the value of meditation.  Thus the value of each of these protocols, breaking the cycle of the voice inside, replacing it with a new statement, shifting the state of mind so that the heart can follow.

So this new year is one I feel really good about.  I’m coming into it fresh from an enlivening yoga intensive and a magical New Year’s Eve yoga class that Jaimie Perkunas and I led.  Throughout the month of December I have been feeling the potency of this shifting liminal time at the end of the year, where things are not so… predictable as they can sometimes be.  Lots of changes happened in the lives of my loved ones, lots of perspective shifts and delving questions and surprising answers came my way.

Today, this first day of 2013, has been a good day.  I worked myself just about as hard as I could physically, and had great talks with a friend from overseas and the best mom in the world.  (Not simultaneously) I found myself kind of sad during my mom’s and my conversation, feeling as though the goals and ideals that I had set for myself this year might not be as attainable as I had felt writing them, riding the wave of excitement and momentum gained throughout December.

Confidence, Affluence, Honesty, Purpose, Open to Love.  This is my mantra for 2013.

So what’s in my way?  It’s a story I’ve had in my head for a long long time.  It’s not a long story, only one line.  “Not for me.”  It has a lot of different notes, flavors, clever plot twists (impressive for a story with only three words) and sneaky ways of insinuating itself into the background of whatever meta-storyline is happening in my world at any given time.   It takes situations that have one lesson and changes it into something else.

For example, rather than seeing my no-longer marriage as an amazing process of gaining self-awareness, or an expression of earnest hope and love, I took Not For Me out of it, that I was somehow unfit for marriage, that the sort of happiness that other people seem to find in partnership?  Not for me.

I’m in this business course right now that is scaring me witless.  I am terrified that I will not live up to my own intentions, that the kind of success I see other people attaining through the process of developing and executing business plans, well, that’s Not For Me.  I’m fundamentally flawed and unfit in such a way that I will fail, and then where will I be?  My understanding is that this is a not unusual feeling to come up in this process, and the meditator/observer in me says in a calm voice, “Being in that sort of discomfort is an essential part of this process.  Stick with it.”

I am afraid to advocate for myself, being much more inclined to not cause a fuss when it comes to things like money and recognition.  I savor the sweet quiet of living in the background.  And yet I get frustrated seeing the successes of my friends and colleagues and in my mind think that kind of success is Not For Me.

So noticing this is step one.  My wise guru-mom suggests that I write about it, trace it back as far as I can go, because chances are that the originating event from which I took this lesson was in fact NOT ABOUT ME AT ALL, and quite likely one in which I had virtually no power or input.

What story(ies) do you have playing in the background of your monkey mind?  What plot do you use to fit the events into that occur in your life?  Is it one that makes you feel blessed or cursed?

I am not the only person to have encountered this, of course.  If you are interested, here are some articles:

http://headtrash.co.uk/blog/2012/10/17/clear-self-sabotage/

http://www.uncommonhelp.me/articles/stop-self-sabotage-behaviour/

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201109/self-sabotage-the-enemy-within

Are you willing to do this work?  I think I am.  Here we go.

So Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday, traditionally.  I hearken back to the year I spent inside my room throwing a temper tantrum while the rest of my family wore makeshift pilgrim hats and looked like they had a lot of fun, from the pictures.  That Thanksgiving and a couple of other get-togethers like it contributed to my years-long reputation as Family Holiday Ruiner, which took me a long time to shake.  As it is I live in Arizona, hundred of miles away from my nearest relatives, and thousands of miles from the ones with whom I have regularly spent holidays.

There is something about the coming together of family that makes my stomach start to churn, even if it’s not my own.  When I worked for a resort I always volunteered to work on Thanksgiving since other people seem to like it so much.  I have worked on getting to a different place with it, because what more beautiful sentiment to have on a holiday than gratitude for all the abundance around you and sharing that with others?

This year I unexpectedly ended up hosting Thanksgiving at my house, with my friends.  I have actually always wanted to have a Friends Thanksgiving.  Whether I want to or not, I find the addition of family members pushes me to second-guess myself and end up exhausted from trying to be… perfect?  Different?  Inoffensive?  Something like that.  This year I just relaxed into it.  I did the majority of my cooking the night before, slept in Thanksgiving morning, took a Power Yoga class at Session Yoga, (which made me feel not guilty ahead of time for any second helpings I might have as well as chill from the yoga) and then got home to finish cooking in a leisurely fashion before the people I love to be with came over.

I put Charlie Brown on hulu, sat back and let my friends take over the kitchen for a while, then amazingly we all fit at my little dining room table.  We each said what we were thankful for, we took our time enjoying our food, even got a little bit of a food high and got fits of the giggles.  It was … perfect.

I am thankful that I keep trying on this holiday.  I am thankful that I have wonderful friends who were willing to make it happen.  I am thankful to be coming up on a new year full of possibility.  I am thankful that I feel thankful.

Happy Post-Thanksgiving!

Love to you and yours.