Author: Jean

I have had to dig deep just to get myself seated here in front of this keyboard.I have felt a pull, a longing, a need to get here, mixed with a dull guilt and sense of failed obligation. I have stayed away because I have felt heavy and sluggish, with words and ideas caught in my throat. I have been stifled.

I want to be creative, active, vital. I want to feel like my days are worthwhile and productive.I want to be a value added being on this planet. I want to give. I want to give something special so I can rest back into the assurance of worthiness, a feeling that I have contributed something useful to the conversation. I know that is selfish, but I am trying to get it out and get real.

I have had so much swirling in and out of my brain these last few challenging weeks, that in the end I have not uttered a single confounded word here. I am simply too congested with it all. I am blocked up. I am so full that I got nothing. I am at an impasse to expression. The words are tangled and tied up. I am reaching in and coming up empty handed.

I have wanted to withdraw, and with cooler weather settling in, I find myself compelled to cocoon in a soft shell of blankets with steaming cups of tea and a mountain of novels. Sweet escape.

The name of this blog is “The Magnificent Mess” and lately I have been keenly aware of and immersed in the mess. I can’t quite get a clear view of the magnificence. It is not that I am depressed, well maybe I am a little, but I truly do have a deep felt sense of gratitude down to my very bones and in the bottom of my beating heart for how truly blessed my life is.

I feel all the blessings I have been gifted with and I in turn want to be a blessing. I aspire to be good, kind and clear. I wish to rise to the occasion of this life. I look to find somewhere in the far reaches of my mind or in the depths of my soul, somewhere in me, the words, actions or images to convey the beautiful, breathtaking, sweet and deep aching I feel for this sacred life, for this amazing, terrifying, dizzying, spinning ride we are on, together.

I want to feel a hand holding mine, and another and another. I long to get back my sense of solidarity and connection with myself. I sense it is my own hand I am reaching for , my own hand that I need.

I am considering what is so tragic or awful about having nothing. I have nothing very eloquent, poetic, impressive or brilliant to say. I just don’t have it in this moment, and so what? What if I never write another word again after this? What about just letting it go? I could drop this persona of writer like a pebble into a pond and watch it ripple into stillness, and what? I consider resting into the value of my divine worth and the love that I am.

Even if I have nothing to offer now I am still breathing, feeling and evolving. Even telling you about nothing is something.

Nothing to say is something to say.
It may not be interesting or engaging, but I remember my mantra now, “I have nothing to prove.”
Nothing.

I am going to get a cup of tea, a blanket or three, and a good read. For now that’s all I’ve got.

 

Contentment is an actual yogic practice called santosha. On face value it seems perhaps simplistic or like an easy practice compared to vigorous sun salutations or challenging balances and inversions, but I come to this practice over and over and I assure you it is profoundly challenging and requires absolute focus and discipline.

For example a week ago right now I was in paradise, pool side with a beautiful beach on the near horizon, the sun was lighting up a brilliant ceiling of clear blue with just the right amount of fluffy clouds, my kids were happy and getting along, Stephen and I were sipping fresh coconut water and rum right out of the coconut and contentment had its warm soft arms wrapped around me, so easy to be there.

A few days later I am back in Shanghai sick as a dog, sick kids as well and they miss going on a week long school trip and instead are home with me, add in a typhoon with pouring rain, high wind and a cloud cover that made the day dull and dark. Where did my sweet contentment go? It seems like those fluffy clouds; elusive, thin, vaporous. That is the contentment of grasping and clinging to external phenomenon and the opposing aversion to others.

Desire and aversion create suffering and loss of contentment.

Santosha or yogic contentment comes from within and is independent of the weather out there. The weather of our ever changing life circumstance, the endless waves, rising and falling, up and down leaves us always temporarily happy and then discontentment shows up again and we descend into craving, looking for the next fix. The syndrome of,  if only I had….. or when I am or when I accomplish…..then I will be happy. That contentment for most of us is never enough. When we get what we want it’s luster fades quickly and we are searching again, or the vacation ends and there is life waiting.

So to be in a practice of santosha we have to go in. We have to take time to sit with ourselves and dive into the world we hold within our hearts and souls. Only there will we find true peace and happiness and a better way to be with all the changing weather and waves of life.

I find myself so drawn to this practice and I notice that either directly or indirectly I write about this consistently.

I am doing my own very challenging work here. We all want happiness, love and safety, but the truth is the only one who can give that to us is ourselves, and isn’t it amazing that it is there waiting for us, calling out to us, inviting us home. There is a door in each of our hearts that opens to a great temple of love and light, when we slow down long enough to breathe deeply, feel fully, awaken internally it is as close as a heartbeat, a sacred drum calling us to the dance, the ecstatic dance of the true self.

        

“I am learning so much right now, about myself, about holding happiness and struggle both at the same time. I am learning about acting and letting go in synchrony. Wow.”


The quote above was a recent Facebook post of mine. Quite a few people liked or commented on this and a few asked to me to teach them about this, so I decided to elaborate and get specific.

At the very heart of this powerful learning is struggle. I am struggling. The center-point of that struggle is a complex and tangled web of beliefs and questions about myself, my worth, and also about power and control.

I have circumstances in my life, as we all do, over which I have no power or control. Does that make me powerless? I have had moments where I have felt that it does, moments where I just want to lie down and give up, moments where I feel I am too afraid or weak to handle the challenges of my life. I have felt small and lost. I have questioned my value and worth.

The particulars of this experience or story are not as important as the feeling of it, the energy or loss of energy. The particulars are the “story” that is unique to me, the feelings and energies are essentially human. You have probably felt this way too, in some way at some time, maybe right now.

For the sake of understanding the learning I am in,  I will share some of the details of my current struggle, the story.  I live in China with my family, as my husband is on a work assignment here, meaning a new culture, new environment, a big learning curve. We have three children here with us, two of them are teenagers. Do I need to say more? Probably not, but I will. I am also teaching yoga at a studio. The environment and mindset are so foreign to the yoga world I have been in and I am swimming against the current.

My son, Mason, has ADD and a computer addiction, besides being a teenage boy.  I know. I am up against it with him. His grades are not so good, but worse are his attitude and bold disrespect right now. He is angry because his father and I have set some strong boundaries around school and computer use. He is railing against it. My other two, girls, almost 13 and 8, are also finding bumps and struggles in this new life in China. I love them all so much. It hurts me intensely to know they are and will have to go through their own trials and tribulations in this life. My mother instinct wants to fiercely protect them even from themselves. I thirst for a power and control that are impossible to have.

The yoga culture here is, again, a circumstance which I am operating under. It is what it is and I am who I am.  Many of the “beginning” students here have far surpassed my asana abilities, and deeper practices or spiritual practices are somewhere way in the background. I feel a bit like Alice down the rabbit hole, out of place, awkward and unsure.

It (the struggle) seems to be coming at me from all sides and I have found myself feeling paralyzed and breathless at times. Point to the exit sign, I want to run away!! I have felt this so deeply and agonizingly.Then, eventually, a breath comes and my wise and true self with whom I am reconnecting through yoga helps me to remember; pause and be. Be with it, open to it fully, let go. 

The despair, the loss of empowerment, the depth of the struggle live not in these details, the story, but how I am choosing to relate to it. I cannot control all these events and circumstances, I most certainly cannot control other people. I can control myself and myself alone. Even amid struggle there is this beautiful possibility of happiness and contentment. To hold happiness and struggle together, to allow them to coexist is such a powerful action. True happiness does not come from control of the external world it comes from a deep connection in the inner world. I feel this when I accept all parts of myself and trust my heart, trust life, trust grace. I pause into my sacred breath and feel abundance and gratitude for all I have and even these struggles, they are surely wise teachers helping me to evolve, helping others to do the same as well.

 I would do my children a deep disservice if I protected them from all hardship, from their mistakes and heartbreaks. I would cheat them in so may ways and on every level. I know that when I listen to my own life.

I would cheat the yoga community here if I tried to fit in, if I did not show up and offer my teaching in its unique expression. If I tried to do that I would really be lost. 

I do not have this mastered in any way. I have moments of success and many moments of forgetting. I am a student of this life, learning lessons as they come, finding more acceptance as it goes. In this way I can be in the action of my life, engaging with all the people and events, but in the moment not clinging to those actions or an expected result. I still become reactive, afraid, angry, more often than I would like, but I am understanding it more. I am learning about these aspects of myself and integrating and harmonizing my light and shadow sides slowly, diligently.

Yoga is about union, wholeness and completion. We are all yogis, maybe some don’t use that terminology, but we are all seekers of this union, this deep knowing of ourselves. Yes, to marry that which seems so deeply separated over and over until illusion is stripped away and all is revealed as perfect and harmonious, life flowing from source. Happiness in the midst of struggle, action enjoined with surrender. The essence of life being love.

My children need to be who they are and I most powerfully guide them by loving them. I do the best I can as a mother and then I let go, the love is constant, the circumstances ever changing.

I show up in my teaching with what I have in my body, mind and spirit in that moment. It is an offering that I need not cling to or depend on for my sense of self. I act and surrender.

My own yoga teacher is currently focused on the concept of deliberate faith. I know that there can be no faith without surrender, no lasting happiness without letting go. To let go and step forward into the unknown deliberately and repeatedly is the fire of transformational practice, the light it creates is love. These serve as my guideposts, my pathway, and so I carry on.

“I am a pilgrim on the path of love.” ~ Swami Kriplau

           

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

     This week, on Friday, at 2:00 Shanghai time to be exact, I will officially begin my part time teaching gig at Y+, the biggest yoga studio in Shanghai. Exciting? Yes. Terrifying? A bit.

This studio has three locations, it is fancy, high gloss, big city yoga, way out of my comfort zone. It’s clientele is predominantly super bendy Chinese women in their twenties, versus me, a not so bendy 42 year old woman and mother of three, further still from my comfort zone. The yoga culture here is all about the body, achievement oriented, far from spiritual, all about sweat and doing the next more advanced pose, a universe away from my comfort zone.

There is that quote, maybe you have heard it, “Your life begins where your comfort zone ends.” I am about to step into a whole lotta life! This is that yoga of “bearing the consequences of being who you are”. From the get go I had a choice, to try to fit in and mold myself as best I could to blend into these surroundings, or I could dare to be me and accept whatever outcome that provided.

When the studio manager interviewed me a few months ago, I was very transparent and conscientious in making sure she completely understood where I stand on yoga practice, as well as what strengths and gifts I bring to the table and what I don’t. I talked about being a yoga educator and not just a one dimensional asana leader. I talked about a yoga that everyone can practice, and populations who need yoga and are not being served by the current yoga culture. I admitted that after all these years of practice I can not do a handstand and probably never will, but that my spirit and life force are exponentially stronger, and I know myself more with each day of practice. At the end of this lengthy interview I wasn’t sure where I stood, but I knew I had been completely authentic, honest and true. The studio manager said she wanted to set up an audition class. I agreed, heart pounding.

She billed my audition class as “gentle flow” and it would be open to all studio members. Leading up to the class she asked me if it would really be gentle? Even on the day of the class she asked me if it would be very gentle and if she would get very sweaty? I told her it would be gentle and definitely not very sweaty. I had planned a flow, very Kripalu in style, compassionately working and opening the whole body with a focus on self inquiry and awareness of all aspects of being, and, of course, a lot of breath!

As I led the class I could sense many of the students were unfamiliar with such a gentleness in the movements and this emphasis on feeling and inner focus. I stood firmly on what I have learned from my teachers and my practice, be true to myself, have faith in my path, when in doubt, breathe. Really, in no uncertain terms, it was dare to be me or just not show up at all. I can’t will my body into being other than what it is. I can model acceptance though, I trust that shift will happen.  

“The feedback from the class was mixed.” I was told in a subsequent meeting. “Many of the students loved it and appreciated this style of yoga. Those who rated the class lower,” the studio manager explained, “did so because they thought it was not hard enough, not intense enough.” I said to her, “But it was listed as a gentle class.” “Yes,” she replied, “and that is where, like you, I see a problem.”

The fact is that people here, at least the people I have seen on the yoga mat, have a resistance to being gentle or doing less, and perhaps that is born out of a lack of understanding of yoga, and also, perhaps, a true reflection of the fast paced life and demanding mindset of people here in China. (Not so different from the culture I left back in the states.)

I wondered now whether the studio would want to hire me? I had dared to be myself, to show up and teach from my place of authenticity, and offer something that goes against the grain here. I almost had to pinch myself when the studio manager said, “We need you here. We want to sign you on as a regular teacher at the studio.”

In just a few days, I will once again show up, heart pounding, returning to my inhalation and exhalation, faith unfolding, as well as mats.  I will dare to be me, nothing more, nothing less.  I will teach from my heart and let it be an offering. I will take this chance, step out of my comfort zone and dive deeper into living, and I know deep down that by doing so, I will certainly help others to do so as well.  Wish me well.

    

      
  

“Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”  ~ Plato

  I am outraged over the Miley incident!

  I am outraged first of all that the media, and the population at large seems to care more about this, spend more time thinking about this, posting more about this, than actual travesties, actual injustices, actual real world problems, to the point that here I am too posting about this!

Honestly I usually dismiss this sort of nonsense, superficial, completely vapid gossip news crap. It is maddening that we can be more concerned with what will happen next with the Kardashians than the fact that wars are being fought, blood is being shed, children are suffering and dying. Wake up!!

So why do I care about Miley? What has happened in the aftermath of Miley’s performance says volumes more about us than it does about her. I have read post after berating post, each one more vicious than the last, defiling her in far worse ways than anything that she did on stage.

When I watched the video clip on YouTube to see what all the fuss was about I saw a confused, awkward, struggling young girl. I saw struggle. I saw a girl like any other at that age trying to find herself, to express her new and yet not fully formed womanhood and sexuality. I saw her trying to do what she thought would be cool, attention getting, provocative. It should be noted as well, that she did not create that performance all by herself. Why is no one pissed at the TV executives, MTV, and no one is lashing out at Robin Thicke. Robin Thicke’s  music video closely resembles what Miley did on stage, and the song is about drugs and sex.

Honestly, when I saw the video I wanted to reach through the screen and pull Miley into my arms and hold her like the child she still is and tell her that she is so beautiful and loved, and just hold her.

All anybody wants is love and acceptance and here is a girl who was thrust into the spotlight as a child, put under the pressures of such a life, exposed to all it’s darkness as well it’s shining lights and we are shocked once again at this outcome?

Many of the women and men who are now ripping her apart in the most shaming and cruel ways possible, were probably singing along and dancing in their family rooms with their own little girls to the latest Hannah Montana CD.  Miley is not Hannah though, and Miley was sure to grow up just like our little girls. Our little girls will go through these same turmoils of adolescence, they too will make mistakes and have moments of poor judgment. They too might explore behaviors and activities that we can only pray they will have the wits and self esteem to avoid. The only difference is that Miley has the added dimension of celebrity, and a stage to advertise it on, which clearly, she did not choose all on her own.

My point here is where is the compassion?

The deluge of angry, debasing and down right nasty articles and posts makes me wonder not what is wrong with her, but what is wrong with us? Are we really this callous and uncaring, full of only judgment and self righteousness?

It becomes clear to me that there is little regard for her as a person. She may have made an object of herself, and she is clearly looking for something, but we have perpetuated that objectification further with a complete lack of sensitivity and a failure to see the humanity in what she did. We don’t want her to rise above this and become a healthy, self respecting woman, if we did we would help her. If we wanted that for her we would say, “Honey, that was not the best choice, but it will be OK. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone. You are still loved and precious and dear. Learn from the mistake, but don’t let it define you. You can start over, you can begin again. Tomorrow is a new day.”

I for one want her to know that, I hope someone tells her. I hope someone shows her not by cutting her down but by building her up. I wish for more kindness and tenderness in her world and in the whole world. I want that for Miley, myself, my children, and all the daughters and sons, for every being.

“Be kind whenever possible, it is always possible.” ~ Dalai Lama

Now those are words to live by. Love, peace, and harmony.

      

    Shame: a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety

  My son Mason is 14 years old. He is the oldest of my children that I gave birth to. He has an adopted sister who is now 23 years old, her name is Meg. He also has two younger sisters, Avery, 12 years old, and Harper, who is 8. I can honestly say, as can most every parent, that I have done the best I could, with what resources and energy I have had available from day to day, and circumstance to circumstance. I have loved my children intensely and sometimes that is messy! There have been times when I have looked back and wanted to do moments over because my reactions to a behavior or event were less about any wrong doing on their part, and more about my old wounds and stories, my self judging and shame spilling over onto them.

This is what I will refer to as “the usual shame”. I got this terminology from one of my teachers while on retreat. She was talking about some of her recent life events and became tearful. The rest of the group clearly wanted to comfort her and she said, “Oh don’t worry, it’s just the usual shame.” When she said this we all started to laugh, and she did too. We laughed because we all knew exactly what she was talking about, and she brought us into togetherness with that expression. Her words like arms pulling us close to each other in deep human understanding.

Later as I thought about those words “the usual shame”, I was brought back to an event that had happened just a week earlier.

I was with my kids in Milwaukee visiting my sister and her family. I went to high school in Milwaukee, and so I still have some friends from school who live there as well. I made arrangements to meet up with a couple of those friends, one single and one married with two kids. We decided to do a picnic dinner in a park and my sister and her family came along as well.

Now my sister has three boys, 7 years old or younger. Jack, the eldest, is 7 and is on the autism spectrum. Jack is a delightful kid, funny and smart, but he can’t tolerate certain certain things and struggles in some social situations.

When we arrived at the park the kids headed off to the playground and the grown ups sat down to chat. The kids would play a bit and then come around to hang with us and have some food. Mason was playing quite happily with Jack over on the playground.

At one point I look over, and I see Mason struggling to carry Jack, as Jack cried and flailed. Mason was eventually able to deliver Jack into my sisters arms, and she took Jack off to the side to comfort him. Mason made his way to the table where I was sitting with my friends and a few of the kids.

I asked him what had happened to Jack?  He said that two little girls had been teasing Jack and chasing him, and that both he and Jack had asked them to stop because it was making Jack uncomfortable and upset, but the girls would not stop so Jack had picked up a rock and thrown it at them. The girls rushed off and told their mother.

Mason then described how the mother came after Jack and began to scold him. Mason said he told the mother to leave Jack alone, that it was not his fault, and that he has Aspergers and he can’t be blamed. Her daughters wouldn’t stop teasing even when they asked them to stop.

I felt so proud of Mason as he told of his heroic defense of his little cousin. I found myself thinking  about how good of a mother I am, and how impressed my friends must be.

Then Mason said, in front of my friends and their children, “Mom, that lady was an asshole!” I felt a bolt of horrified shock run through me, and my girlfriend’s husbands’ eyes grew wide. I said, “Mason that is not appropriate language, and there are little kids here!” So he said, “OK, she was a butthole then!”

( I did not laugh at this at the time, believe me, but I do now, and so can you.)

I looked at the shocked father sitting across from me, and I felt the usual shame pouring through me, a wave of defeat and self deprecation, and an impulse to punish Mason for this wrong doing. I apologized to the dad that Mason had used bad language in front of his little ones, but added, “He is a 14 year old boy.” The father replied, “And does that make it OK?”  I meekly said, “No, it doesn’t.”

Just after that it was time to go, we all packed up and went on our way. My mind was still reeling and tumbling with guilt and hurt, but it shifted away from needing to make Mason wrong, and I saw how this feeling was coming from a well of old wounds and pains, the usual shame, it was really about me, me being flawed, me being a failure, me not making the grade.

By the time we got back to my sister’s house I had decided that Mason deserved that badge of heroism despite his slip of the tongue, which only showed how fiercely he felt about defending his cousin. I saw the goodness in him, his strength, and how he was stepping into being a man, and a great one at that. A great man defends those weaker or smaller than himself, even in the face of authority.

How often do we punish our children, not because they are really doing something “wrong”, but because they are bringing up pieces of old baggage and touching old wounds that send our egos howling? How often do we punish them for being completely appropriate for children, but the environment, as well as social dictates and pressures are harsh and unforgiving? How often is it really about us as parents and our own fragile self images versus a real behavior issue? I am not saying children should not be disciplined. I am saying perhaps a closer inspection of where the impulse to punish or correct is coming from, and how we as parents choose to implement it, is needed.

In this instance I saw through “the usual shame”, which made me reactive, and incited a punitive impulse toward my son, and I arrived at a new place of love and tenderness. I saw the “right” of my son, his right to act, to express, his right to be fierce and bold, demonstrative. Honestly there was nothing to fix. I had a brief talk with him about using expletives in public, and especially around little ones, but I also told him how very proud I was of what he had done for Jack, and how special it is to be a person who stands up for others.

I think, wow, what a world we would create if we had a new paradigm of parenting free of “the usual shame”! What if we could all gather together in love and honesty, have that laugh and cry, be in a deeper human understanding together? What if the parents re parented themselves and shifted out of oppressive strictness and into compassionate awareness?

We could create a new generation of someday grownups, future leaders, innovators and parents living beyond the legacy of “the usual shame”. I know that new paradigm is generations in the making at best. I know I won’t always succeed in being so mindful, and I will try to be much more self forgiving in those moments too. Awareness is where it starts, love is what it is.  

            

 My kids and I went back to the USA for summer vacation. Initially we were quite busy and I was off to Kripalu for ten days and the kids visited my parents in Tennessee during that time. I joined them in Tennessee for a few days and then we went home to Connecticut.

We went home not just to our town, but to our house which we have been able to keep despite our move to China. Our furniture and everything was all there, it was almost like we had never left, and summer was shining through the windows and singing in the woods.

When I had considered these weeks we would have in Connecticut I envisioned them busy with social outings and activities; the kids off on meet ups with friends and me doing much the same. Some of that did happen, but not as much as I had imagined. Their friends, and mine, were busy in camps or at work, or away on vacations. That had always been our summer too, kids in camp, me teaching yoga, and time away.

The weather was brutally hot for those weeks in Connecticut and no air conditioning in the house. I had my three kids with me all day every day. This was something I had not had in years, well ever in reality. Me, by myself (Stephen was still in China working), with the kids, and no schedule or structure of any kind.

The first couple days I felt a bit agitated and quite a bit anxious. My mind was filled with logistical question marks, some valid and some ridiculous.

“What will we do all day?” ” How will we keep cool?” ” How will I cope with the kids fighting if it is all day?” “How will I keep up with household stuff? ” Where is my ME time going to come in?” “Will I break down and just fail?”

These and many more worries and considerations stuck into my mind, but then there was a shift. As I have found so many times the key to transformation is to stay. Stay the course, moment by moment and breathe. Breathe, relax, feel, watch, allow; the wave system of my Kripalu yoga tradition, so simple and so powerful with applications that reach far beyond my yoga mat and right into the nitty gritty of my life.

Stay, feel it, breathe. I did this and after a day or two something marvelous happened. I rediscovered my children. My love and adoration for them grew new and beautiful blossoms. I realized that THESE are my favorite people. Who else would I want to spend weeks of spacious, free for all, “what do we do next?”, time with?

It was still a bumpy ride with crabby moments, fighting episodes, grumbles and complaints on all our parts, but it was splendid and rich. I feel like I got to know my kids even better and more importantly they got to know me, the total me.

After a few weeks Stephen came back from China, and we traveled to Milwaukee and had time with even more family and it was brilliant, especially reuniting with our older adopted daughter Meg. We had not seen her in years and she is now 23, in a stable relationship and expecting a son. So I guess that makes me grandma to be, blessings abound, miracles do happen. We are family and sometimes we are far away geographically, emotionally or needing some time to grow and learn. It is not neat and tidy, but it is beautiful.  We see each other, and with those closest to us, we are our best, and sometimes our worst selves. 

That is bliss, being perfectly ourselves in the best company. That company that might call us out on our ugly moments, or pitfalls, with whom we sometimes come into the deepest conflict and suffer the greatest heartaches, but always knowing that in the end they will love and adore us just the same, and we will love them right back.

The gift of my summer was that I stayed. I weathered the worries and moments of conflict, and in that I found love truly does conquer all.                 

“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.”
― Lao Tzu

 I am recently back from my summer away in the USA, and back in Shanghai, China.

 Just before leaving the states, I had the blessing to go on retreat with my yoga family, The Acharyas, and our beloved teachers, Vidya and Devarshi. We did a lot of deep soul work together, as we usually do. Many things were shared, felt, and miracles requested for transformation and awakening.

My personal work was about continuing to step through a door that has become more and more known and clear to me, a door to more vulnerability and authenticity. Some of the work I see for myself on that path is a shift in my warrior nature, moving on from a struggling, protective warrior and a victim identity, to a loving spiritual warrior, fully empowered from the deep wells of heart and soul.

There is also a crucial component of acknowledging and embracing a new life mantra, “I have nothing to prove.”

I have found as I inspect much of my life and my patterns, I have invested an enormous amount of energy in proving my worth to both others and myself. This has caused a mindset, and internal culture of perfectionism and strictness in my life. That mindset has kept me from softening into myself, from fully enjoying the gift of my beingness, and has kept walls of defense in place. On the other hand, it also has gifts of discipline, resilience, stamina and strength to offer when it is in balance with open-heartedness, self esteem and that good ol’ yogic non attachment to results.

As I come back to my blog now, I will hold an intention to write wide open, to make this a vessel for that miracle of truth and vulnerability, transparency, and guided by my mantra of “nothing to prove”. I will write to know myself and for you to know me, maybe we will find some awakening together.

As I headed out for my morning run today I had it in my mind that I would be running four miles. It is extremely hot and humid here in Shanghai right now, and even at 7:30 the heat was staggering. My run consisted of running around the block I live on, one block equalling one mile.

By mile two I was dripping with sweat and my body was protesting, but I was enjoying the idea of getting cleaned out, sweaty detox, a purification ritual. Mile three brought more intense sun and I emptied of energy and resolve. Sister strict showed up, that’s what I will call my strict mind, and she started to throw all her judging and berating at me, because I was ready to quit at three miles and call it a day. Then it dawned on me I was overlooking another option for myself, compromise.

It did not have to be all or nothing! It should be obvious, but for someone like me, not so much. I chose a different approach. I did the last mile as a run walk, guided by my intelligent body. I ran slow until my breath and felt sensation prompted a shift to walking. The last mile was perfection. I allowed it to be just right every step of the way.  I let go of expectation and opened to the wisdom in me, beyond the story, and beyond shoulds and coulds.

Would it have been equally OK if I had stopped at three miles? As I reflect on the shift that happened, I find much more spaciousness existing in me for all alternatives. I can trust myself, I open my inner hearing, I listen to my life. I listen to my life and the right path is revealed.

And the journey continues…..            

  Summer is spacious and yet I have been away from my blog. I have been busy with other endeavors and sharing one computer with a 14 year old boy, that will kill writing for sure!!

This post is short and sweet and is only happening because the lazy bones teen is sleeping in.

Here is a video created by the yoga studio I have signed on with to teach in Shanghai. It is a video of scenes from a Let Your Yoga Dance Workshop I held there on June 1st. I think it is beautiful and shows the power of dance across cultures, bridging gaps. Dance brings us together!!

I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ChiXDdG6hg&feature=youtu.be

 I am packed and ready to return back home for the summer after four months in my new life in China. I have volumes to say about what I have experienced so far, but time is short and that flight leaves soon and so I will give it to you today in a nutshell and lots of revisiting and detailing will come later.

What I have learned about China so far is that everything I thought I knew before coming here was a half truth at best. China is evolving, growing, shifting and the complexity of life and society here is mind boggling. China’s history is rich and deep and its people have had to be resilient throughout the ages. They have traditions that put family and community first and above the individual aspiration. The cities here are booming and Shanghai is the largest city in the world by population. This city is cutting edge and modern, full of seas of skyscrapers and luxury shopping, but it is also home to many rural migrants who have come to the city to work and improve life for their family. So the city is full of intersections between old and new, glamour and grit, luxury and poverty.

I have not even made it out of the city and into the country yet. Future adventures.    

 My family and I moved into an area of Shanghai called Jinqiao, but we tend to refer to it as “the bubble”. The bubble is safe, familiar in many ways, it is full of expats from all different places, and it is in China, but it is not China. It has hints and flavours of China to be sure but it is a watered down and highly westernized version.

In my first months here I began to explore both inside and outside the bubble and I sensed the different personas and intricacies of the city and the people. I became keenly aware that in my neighborhood I was not seeing the “real” China, only catching short glimpses or subtle hints. These hints come in the forms of rickshaws pulling any variety of items, the corner turtle vendor I pass most days on my runs, noticing that someone is actually living in the animal stalls behind the fence down the street from my cushy gated villa community and touring the migrant village just a few miles away from my house but hidden down the alley ways and out of sight.



Futuristic skyscrapers in Pudong Shanghai

Vegetable vendor in the migrant village

The city is rich and luxurious and that is not a status reserved just for the foreigners, there are many Chinese from the city who are prospering and very wealthy, but the masses, the working poor and the migrant population are the sweat and tears of this blossoming abundance and modern flair.

I don’t think I am anywhere near really understanding this city much less this country. Everyday I see something new or astounding. I know so much more is waiting to be revealed. The real China is many faces, millions of stories, it is ancestors and history, family and future. The real China is full of people just like us trying to make the best life possible for themselves and their children.