Let me see

Dad please don't go. We are happy. We are perfect. We need you.

If you go, I will pack my bag, (my little red suitcase) and leave too.

Mom please say "sorry." Please make him stay. 

Don't ruin us.

If he goes, I will beg. I will try to go too because we all need to be together.

Forever.

It will tear me apart. Please don't fight. Please be my friends. You know me well, You know me best.

I need you two to stay and be my friends or else I will have no friends.

I don't want to lose our happiness. Mom and Dad should always be happy and together.

I will cry, cry, cry.

I was five, and it was the first time I had ever witnessed and mentally processed that my parents were fighting. It wasn't the end of the world, and it was perhaps not a huuuge fight...but it was my first memory of pain. It was a pain that made me fear my world was coming to an end.  A pain that set the tone and created a lie I would live by: I'm not worthy of love outside my parents...thus, I'm not worthy of love. 

We did this exercise in our study group today. We recreated our first memory of emotional pain and journaled from the perspective of that child.  We then coupled into pairs and read our stories over and over, uninterrupted until we could read them without being overwhelmed by our emotion.  

While this may seem self-indulgent, narcissistic, or even masochistic to some...it's not. Consider for a moment that it could be liberating. Because in actuality it was. Entertain the thought that you have lived a lie your whole life, blinded in a pattern of actions and reactions stemming from your first painful infantile memory.
 

The beauty lies in discovering that lie. In the way that we wipe our windshields when there is too much shit to drive safely, we must wipe away the lies we created to live authentically.  It's deep work, but it's totally worth it. 

I'm currently reading a book called "Women Who Run With The Wolves." It's filled with intercultural myths, fairytales, and stories to help women reconnect with their instinctual nature. 

"...La Que Sabe [The One Who Knows] had created women from a wrinkle

on the sole of her divine foot: This is why women are knowing creatures;

they are made, in essence, of the skin of the sole, which feels everything. This

idea that the skin of the foot is sentient had the ring of a truth, for an acculturated Kiche 

tribeswoman once told me that she'd worn her first pair of shoes when she was twenty

years old and was still not used to walking con los ojos vendados, [with blindfolds on her feet]."

If we don't do the work, if we don't delve deep into those memories, we might forever walk blindly. Blind to the fact that our intuition is telling us something, blind to the patterns we continually recreate in our lives, and blind to the lies we create at the beginning of our journey: I'm not worthy of love.

Find that inner child and grieve for her; hold her hand, tell her the truth, and be weary of the lie that does not allow you to see.

The Truth about Lies

"And then I turned 10. and this...here, this is when I started lying." gulp. I suddenly remembered to breath. It surprised me to feel the weight of this confession because it didn't feel that heavy when I wrote it the night before. Bridget had me create a timeline of my life - from birth to present day.  "It will serve you to see the patterns in your life so that you can begin to see what happens before and after the huge events." she said.

I have a hard time with trust. I don't trust boys, and often times I don't trust girls either. I've been cheated on before and it feels like a stab to the heart with a simultaneous kick to the gut. Just plain awful.  Since the cheating (circa 20 years old) I blamed my problems, behaviors, and beliefs on that doomed relationship. "Oh well you see, I went through your phone because my last boyfriend cheated," or "I can't trust you, I trusted my last boyfriend and look what happened," or even worse "you must be cheating, because your roommate is cheating." Regardless of  the circumstance, trust has been a continual battle for me.

I kept reading...

"And then I turned 18, and I cheated on my boyfriend, and then I turned 19 and I cheated on him again...and then I was about to cheat on him again, but we broke up."  Shit. I DO remember feeling the weight of that as I had written it on the timeline.  I had honestly forgotten about my cheating...for the longest time I had looked upon cheating with so much judgement and disgust, that I failed to recognize...I'm the person that introduced this to myself! I was the first cheater....

Then...the breakthrough. "Consider for a moment, that you don't trust yourself," Bridget said. Silence. I knew my heart needed some work...but I never thought I could've been the cause of my own heart break. In truth, I am.  And it started at age 10. When I began to betray the person I should've loved the most. When I began to lie to make friends in a new school, lie to ward off rejection, lie to get a boyfriend, lie lie lie.

So I see this timeline in front of me...and I see the patterns. Make a big transition, lie to make it comfortable - get hurt, lie to callous the heart - stay in a city that's eating away at my soul (and body), hmmm denial (fancy lying)!

I have amazing intuition but I betray it constantly.  "Don't second guess yourself," Rebecca constantly tells me. Love is Divine power.  LOVE and TRUST should radiate from within. How can I ever expect to trust anyone, if I don't trust myself?

I've made an oath to myself: no more lying...even the small stuff. Because whoever said "A white like never hurt anyone," is full of shit.  Lying is poisonous. It took 3 car accidents, one apartment break in, and a scary biopsy result for me to break free from denial and get honest with myself.

I have read this passage from 1 Corinthians several times, but it's really hitting home these days:

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 

⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  

⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

And p.s. if you get offended because I'm late to your party because I tell you that I was sitting in my underwear unable to pry myself away from a book - don't take it personally...I'm just not making up fancy lies anymore.

24 and Anorexic

24. 101lbs. 5'7".

Ridiculous, is what that is. But I wasn't ready to process that. I was at a go-see, looking down at the jeans I had just ripped. How the fuck am I going to walk out there and tell them that my fat-ass ripped these jeans? Not only would I clearly not book the job (= deducing points from my self worth), but now I had to walk out there and tell the client that I ripped their precious 500 dollar jeans (humiliation = extra deduction points). Coffee was all I had consumed that day, and I regretted even those 10 calories. It never occurred to me that maybe the jeans were made out of cheap fabric (as they usually are), or that millions of girls before me had tried them on (which was most certainly true), or that maybe my sharp bony deprived knee punctured the hole.

Those days are somewhat blurry now. I'm sure I went home and ate even less and worked out even harder. I hated my life, I'm sure I hated myself, and I was awful to most of my loved ones.  Every time I booked a job, or got a pay bump I was elated for about a couple hours, then I'd go back to wanting more, never stopping to acknowledge that I was enough.

My teacher Rebecca studied with Dharma Mittra a couple times and I love listening to her quote what he once told a whole workshop of yogis.

"Look at how beautiful and young you all are. 

You have a nice car, you have a nice house. 

You have beautiful children, you have a handsome husband. 

One day it will all be gone. 

Your husband, gone.

Your house, gone.

Your children, gone.

Your car, your job,  and your poses,

POOF - they will all be gone. 

And what will you do?"

Hah, I thought I had the third Chakra down. "No problems here lets keep moving - I know I will need help with the fourth." But when Rebecca asked if we subscribed to beauty being defined as 24 and anorexic...I hated to admit that I did. And that shit, in reality, I've been 24 and anorexic.

I want honor myself.  Honor my personal code of ethics, my emotions, my body, and my desires.  Even honor those scary moments I toyed with death.  The beauty of having been 24 and anorexic is that I realized...it's not all its made out to be. I still didn't fit into designer jeans and seriously who the fuck cared? Now, I don't recommend taking that path; its a very scary, lonely, and angry one. And it hurts a lot of people. 

I DO recommend telling yourself that you are enough. I'm working on it daily. I can't pike, but I'm awesome. I can't afford my own place, but I'm beautiful.  I'm choosing to go to Yoga Teacher training and that's not selfish, its brave. My body can no longer fit into size 0's, but I can arm balance my way through a yoga class, and frankly, that's just BADASS!

I'll be the mom, you be the dad.

When I was 4 I cried my eyes out through half of kindergarten.

When I had my first communion, I sobbed loudly through the entire mass.

When my parents dropped me off at Stanford, I cried the first two weeks straight.

"Be a big girl," I was constantly told, and I'm sure other women can relate. I had to be a big girl and give my pacifier up when I was barely a year old, I had to be a big girl and trade the diapers in if I wanted the barbie and disney princess underwear.  But even today, at 26, (going on 27 next week yay!).  I don't feel like a big girl. 

I'm engaged, and I'm terrified of getting married. Not because I don't want to spend the rest of my life with the man I'm crazy about...but because I have no clue what I'm getting myself into and because I'm realizing that it's not just a fun wedding/party.  It's a sacred right of passage. I have never taken the time to honor this before; to honor myself and let myself grieve losing a little bit of the past as I step into my future.

"You're playing house," Bridget said in my session today. Bridget is an amazing woman - a doula, a Shaman, an Ana Forrest Yoga Guardian...I mean...fucking incredible. Playing house was my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE thing to play when I was little. And I agree. I don't know why, but I know that I am.

The little girl in me is going crazy, and she's freaked out. I have no clue what I'm supposed to be like as a wife, as a grown woman, as a mother...etc. But as I'm learning to deal with the counterclockwise motion of my Navel Chakra, I'm going to start by honoring the past, and giving that lost little girl a voice to walk me through this next chapter of life.

So far I know she wants me to hold her hand, she wants a big sister, and she wants to be able to ask for help. The more I listen, the more she talks.

As we study the third and soon the fourth Chakra, I want to keep her voice alive. I need her, just as much as she needs me.  

Walk This Way

"Can you acknowledge that this right here is the beginning of your healing process?" Gabby said.

Such a profound and perfect statement...I was speechless.  I had just nervously admitted to our study group that I felt "stuck" in my navel Chakra, and that I didn't know how to begin to work on it...and I was also trying to choke back the tears that I knew wouldn't stop if I let them free.

This statement kept popping in my head as I sat in the waiting room today. This visit will make the 5th or 6th (I lost count) for this year alone.

Let me catch you up to date. I had cervical cell issues in 2008 which led to some minor surgery. I felt better for about a year, and then started experiencing all sorts of pain and discomfort at the beginning of 2010, which led to a series of medical examinations, painful biopsies, aka you name it I've probably done it to figure out my problems in the last couple of years.

I usually sit in that waiting room in a nervous cold sweat and a frustrating inability to sit still. My symptoms had taken a sabbatical for months, but unfortunately, they came back...with a vengeance.

I've been practicing Yoga for almost 10 years now. I still remember the yoga video my mom had bought from Sam's Club so I could improve my flexibility in Ballet. Then it was Bikram; it was Bikram twice a day everyday. I loved the workout aspect yoga offered but trust me as soon as a teacher went "hippy dippy" on me and mentioned the word "Chakras" or any other Sanskrit word that wasn't a pose I'd mentally check out in a heartbeat. "Fuck that" was my exact thought.

And then...its funny to me how life changes and you are in the perfect place to receive that very guidance that once seemed repulsive. I don't know if it's because of my 20 career path changes, or my relationship failures, or my eating disorders, or the decline of my health, but when Rebecca announced the Chakra Immersion Study group, I knew without a doubt I wanted part of that. BIG TIME.  We started in the Root with family tribalisms, and moved on to the Navel Chakra last week.

So, after two weeks I can admit that I know I'm a control freak, I know I have trust issues, I know I am competitive, and I know I am my own worst critic. But today I say "FUCK THAT."  Those are patterns I picked up along my 26 year (and counting) journey, but they do NOT define me.

Today I choose to unplug from that which does not serve me and I choose to no longer let my illnesses become my identity, and I trust that my community will hold me accountable.

It didn't bother me that my doctor ordered yet another procedure next week. It really didn't. In the past I would have broken down, cried, and called my poor mother....but I rest easy knowing that my healing process has already begun.

I prefer Faith over fear, and from now on, I choose to walk this way.