mixed-state
{a list} {pieces of a whole}
1. My daughter comes home for a weekend and we celebrate her birthday. Twenty-one. It’s a really good weekend with my three. Good food, good conversations (even the one that is hard), gifts, silly games, extra walks, extra laundry (worth it), flowers, nothing-special moments which are special.
2. I take a yoga workshop which offers aha moments as well as validation. There’s discussion around absorbing knowledge from trusted teachers/mentors and then living into it... playing with, experiencing, feeling resonance for oneself. We discuss how not everything we’re taught, or everything we take in, is set in stone (and be clear on this: we take in a lot these days, courtesy of the internet and social media and a 24/7 news cycle). Sometimes people get things wrong. Sometimes new information replaces old ideas. Sometimes a shift in language makes all the difference. In the workshop, we explore something most of us are taught in yoga teacher training (and which is ubiquitous these days), something that has always felt a little off for me. The workshop offers validation in trusting my intuition and experience. My biggest takeaway: don’t dismiss your experience because it’s different from everyone else’s. (even a mentor’s) (and really, everyone should be read as “everyone”)
3. The workshop leads to renewed reflections on life as a giant web of people, places, experiences, and energies. Everything is connected. Everything informs, supports, sometimes challenges, enriches everything else. There’s much about this world and this life that I'll never understand, and so the idea (the reality) of Life interweaving-interconnecting-interlacing (and thus, supporting) is comforting to me. We are not so different, you and me and we. We gather the pieces of our lives in different ways and on different timelines and under different circumstances (with different mindsets, different values, different philosophies) but, really, we’re not so different from one another. We’re all stitching our stories together as we move along. We come from love, we are love. Love, love, love.
4. The weather is back and forth, up and down. Cold, then (too) warm, then back to cold, so much wind. When I talk about things being interconnected, I include the weather. The morning drizzle mirrors my internal state as much as the sunny, blue sky as much as the blustery wind. The weather has been a mix of everything lately, even late-season snow (though fleeting). I, too, am a mix of everything... lately, still, as ever. I try to step into this, embrace this mixed-state beingness. I don’t know any other way to be. Do you??
5. I practice what I preach, though I’m not preaching, am only sharing the truth and beauty of my experiences with you... you, whose heart is open; you, whose being expands with every breath (literal and metaphorical); you, who is shaped by every interaction with anyone and anything. And so: I set the timer and prop my body with pillows and blankets, rest in silence. I put the phone down, say no to the podcasts and videos, say no, thanks to anything extra. And when I breathe, I notice the way my ribcage expands in all directions. Did you know that 60% of the lungs rest in the back of the body? (it’s true) And so I breathe 360°. I rest. I do nothing. (though resting is something powerful) And once rested, I try to live 360° by which I mean not filtering Life as good/bad, pretty/ugly, right/wrong, left/right (which is someone else’s metric anyway); by which I mean turning in all directions with a soft, strong heart and with as clear a view as possible; by which I mean gently spiraling out and in, in and out, then resting center.
You do not just wake up and become the butterfly. Growth is a process.
~ Rupi Kaur ~