Setting Yourself Up

Let me tell you about my last couple of weeks.  I was insanely busy.  Yes, I know.  We are all busy.  But I was REALLY busy.  I had an out of town wedding to go to, a semester of teaching to prepare for, and tons of homework and studying to do for the yoga program I was enrolled in.  I was feeling stressed, rushed and a bit crazed...so much prep, so many deadlines....

And as soon as it all was over....

I got sick.  

Of course.

One minute I was feeling fine.  The next all I could think about was crawling into bed, my throat raw with what turns out to be, well, a bad cold.  That's it.  Not even something that will get me sympathy, but it stopped me in my tracks.

When I was a school teacher I always got sick during vacations.   As soon as I was done with my obligations my body would demand to rest.

You can set yourself up to be sick, 

or you can choose to stay well.   -Wayne Dyer

I set myself up to be sick.  I wasn't listening to my body- running like mad, not resting, not playing, only working, working, working....I was even drinking coffee, something I rarely do.  I fact, I was having a bit of a love affair with coffee- it was my hero, making it ok that I was shorting myself on sleep at night.  I was holding up ok, albeit a bit stressed, but I was getting things done.  

I do not support the argument that we manifest all of our illness.  There are pathogens, carcinogens, toxins, luck and heredity to consider.  But some illnesses we set ourselves up for.  By not listening to the body as it asks politely for rest, we make it shout louder for rest, until finally we have no choice but to rest.  

I write about balance because it is a hard thing to achieve.  And even as we move toward a lifestyle that feels healthy and balanced, challenges will keep arising. With each step we take comes an opportunity to adjust, learn, fall down....

Sometimes I fall down.  Sometimes I stay at the keyboard even though my fingers are hurting, sometimes I schedule more clients than I can happily work on in a day.  Sometimes I don't go to sleep when I know I need to.  And sometimes my body rebells and I end up having to cancel all my appointments and stay in bed for a few days.  

Right now my brain is jazzed to be writing.  I want to keep working on this piece, to develop it into something really fantastic, something that will help other people...I want to write and to write...

but, my body is craving this:

So,  I am going to listen to my body.  

I invite you to listen too.

Wishing you balance,

Nancy

My Traveling Altar

This weekend Shannon Halligan, L-CAT and I co-led a workshop called, "Awakening to Possibility With a Traveling Pocket Altar."  I became interested in the idea of identifying and inviting change into one's life when I attended a vision board workshop earlier in the year.  During that event, as I sat leafing through magazines, cutting and pasting my collage of things I wished for my future to hold, the idea to create my own workshop began to form.  The social setting of that early January gathering was fun and inspiring, for certain, however, I sensed that this idea of envisioning one's life could be carried further, that there was a rich potential for a workshop that was deeply reflective.   Discussing this with Shannon, she introduced the idea of creating a traveling altar which she described to me as a small decorated box filled with meaningful items that can fit in a pocket or bag, so that it can travel with you.  I loved the idea and suggested that a centering meditation and mindful movement session before creating the altars might lay fertile ground for ideas.  Thus, the idea for the workshop was born.


Yesterday's workshop was a relaxed, creative and inspiring morning of meditation, movement, dream making, art making and discussion.


But that isn't what I want to talk about.  We will offer this workshop again and I will talk it up then.  I will encourage you to come and will send you many invites.  You will be made well aware of why you should take this particular workshop.  And you should take this workshop.   But that isn't what I want to talk about.


What I want to talk about is MY traveling altar.  I had a bit of a vision of what I might want to include before hand.  One of my friends had introduced the idea of writing affirmations on her phone- things that she wanted in her life.  I loved the idea and copied it.  My smart phone has meaningful messages on the screens, reminders to practice gratitude along with reassurances and visions such as, "You have all the time you need," and "Decisions are made with ease."  At the workshop, I realized that my phone messages are a form of an altar- a collection of ideas that are important to me- ideas I place on high. 


I imagined my altar box to include objects that represented love, financial security, creative expression, yoga, a thriving massage practice- the things that I put on the vision board I had made earlier and on my telephone altar.  When I do finish filling my traveling altar, I am sure it will have ephemera that will represent all of that, but the altar box itself took on a direction that I didn't expect. 

I found myself thumbing through travel magazines, my fingers reaching for travel themed collage paper and cutting out maps.  And when I heard another woman read the phrase, "We are not in Kansas anymore," from a tin of movie themed magnetic words, I, the girl who grew up in Kansas, pounced on it.  My altoid box turned traveling altar is covered with a maps, passport stamps and images of postcards.  A traveling traveling altar!  Who knew that I had the travel bug?  Recently I renewed my passport, but I did so without any emotion or fantasy.  Passport renewal was just an item on my to do list; it seemed like just another something that had to be done.  During the workshop, however, the dream of world travel was awakened!  For so many years, money and circumstances have made travel unrealistic.  And even though I have no plan for world travel right now, what I have realized from my other envisioning projects, that once a seed has been planted, things do begin to shift and what might start off feeling like a crazy dream can slowly begin to feel very possible.

Other participants spoke of the same phenomenon- that their altars took on a different direction than they expected.   Since we took time to become fully present in our bodies before we started our creative work, it doesn't really surprise me.  The body is ripe with wisdom and when we tune inward and pay attention, we can reap the harvest.

Join us next time, why don't you?

Wishing you balance,

Nancy