Having it All

I recently attended a wedding of a dear friend of mine.  During the ceremony, the officiate read letters that the couple had written to each other.  The original plan was to read part of the letters to keep the ceremony short and then at the last minute, she chose to read the full letters.  In the end, that part of the ceremony was the most touching (I don’t think there was a dry eye in the audience).

Almost a year ago, I attended a women’s wellness retreat in Costa Rica with another dear friend of mine.  I was finishing a busy year of amazing travel and work – and it was a busy year.  Time is generally my greatest obstacle to retreat, and I treated myself to a week of relaxation and rejuvenation.  At one point in the retreat, I had an AHA! realization that I had an old belief system that I could have success and an amazing career OR an amazing relationship – not both.  In that moment, I realized I CAN have it all, and that became my mantra.  I thought it, I said it, I sang it over and over.  The experience was not unlike my affirmation that helped me heal from my autoimmune disease and led me to my work helping others find health.

At the end of the week, we did a practice that I love – we wrote letters to ourselves to be mailed back to us months later.  I have recently reread the letter over and over again and am amazed at how much of the letter has manifested for me this year. 

From the Jungle House, Costa Rica . . .

Dear Angela,

Remember who you are - beautiful, successful, accomplished, intelligent, and full of pleasure.  Remember sunset surfing and the continuous waves and sunset light sandwiched between ocean and dark clouds.  Remember your confidence especially regarding men this week.  You deserve and are capable of having it all.  Don’t settle for someone who can’t handle the depth of you.  Remember Jessica and Emily’s words about this.  You are worthy of someone handsome, kind, sexual, fun, passionate, wealthy, athletic who loves traveling and taking you on pleasurable trips and taking you to dinner and camping - who loves to cuddle and spend time at home.  A man who is supportive, rather than critical.  Who is very much a man.

Remember to allow yourself retreat at least once a year and your own travels.  Trust your instincts.  Love yourself.  Take care of yourself.  Remember what people see in you.  Remember what mom sees in you.  Remember the dream where she restructured your room and changed the sheets.  Remember the chocolate, naked swimming, Madonna dance party, laughing, peeing iguanas, yoga, smoothies with raw cacao and fresh coconut milk, the sand in your feet, pineapple ginger sorbet, new friends, conversations, the law of attraction, restorative yoga and cleansing rain, bikinis and feeling free, and dancing. 

Dance! 

Love, Angela

(P.S.  A month after I returned, I met the man in my letter.  I was able to break through an old belief system and have a year of “having it all.”  This year I’m co-leading the retreat in Costa Rica.

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Join our Women's Wellness Retreat November 6-13 in Nosara, Costa Rica!

I’ve had to “yin-ify” lately.  As some of you know, I’ve been working with a spiritual teacher called “concussion.”  Generally, my mode of operation is to use the power of my intellect to get through – and that has not been possible.  Every time, I think I have it figured out – how much is too much; I find a new challenge.  What I previously thought was true, I find is no longer, and a new reality or symptom is present or maybe I’m now aware because a louder one has dissipated.   Regardless, I am a stranger in a strange land.

Tibetan Buddhist monks have a beautiful metaphor that demonstrates how nothing is permanent and loss and change are inherent in our lives – Sand Mandalas.

“To bring home the impermanent nature of everything in our lives, Tibetan Buddhist monks create complex artistic creations out of colored sand and then destroy them.  Mandalas (Sanskrit for “circle”) are colorful designs that can symbolize different things – the human body, divine realms, or meditational deities.  They can symbolize specific aspects of the body, images for visualization, or entire universes.  In Tibetan Buddhist rituals, monks painstakingly assemble mandalas, arranging sand, grain by grain, in intricate, symmetrical designs.  As the monks make a mandala, lamas present spiritual teachings about specific meditational practices related to that mandala.  After a few days, while chanting solemnly, the monks sweep up the mandala into a pile of jumbled colored sand, which is then offered to a river or the sea.  The intricate universe of the mandala disappears and dissolves into a mixture of colored particles, leaving behind no trace of the design.  What was once an elaborate representation of the complexity and potential of our lives becomes a lesson in impermanence.

In many ways, these mandalas symbolize what happens to all of our relationships and experiences, and ultimately to all of our lives.   No matter how intricate, complex, or beautiful they are, all of our experiences are temporary.  There is nothing that exists that we cannot cherish and therefore grieve when it is lost.  In the practice of mindfulness and mindful activities, even each exhalation can teach us how universal loss and change are.  Each breath that we exhale is an ending, which is followed quickly by a new inhalation—a new beginning—and the cycle repeats over and over again.  Our lives depend on the cycle of loss and regeneration that is evident in our very breath.”

~excerpt from Grieving Mindfully by Sameet M. Kumar, PH.D.

As I review the blog I’ve just typed and adjusted the letter switches that have been happening since I hit my head, I take a deep inhale and exhale and realize this too shall pass and all abilities will return only to be lost again to something else some day?  I ask myself, can I breathe through the cycles of each moment?  Can I be present with what arises?  I take the time to do a short meditation.  OK, maybe I can.

I found this beautiful video that shows a sand mandala dissolution ceremony:

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Come create mandalas in the sand of Costa Rica . . .

Join our Women's Wellness Retreat November 6-13 in Nosara, Costa Rica!

How a Concussion Brought Me to the Present Moment

A few weeks ago, I received a concussion while tubing on Boulder Creek.   The result has been a practice in awareness.  I was forced to slow down, take one task at a time, and be completely in the moment.  I also practiced delegation, saying no, setting better boundaries, and taking a hard look at commitments.  Although I accomplished less, I fulfilled more commitments at 100%.  I had to better communicate how I was feeling in any given moment and what I could do.  In addition, I was enlightened to where a few of my achilles heels' of communication are.

I thought it might be interesting to watch the movie Momento.  Although, my experience is mild, I can relate to this quote from the movie:

"You can't bully someone into remembering.  The more pressure, the harder it gets."

This is true for learning, relationships, and our yoga practice.  The harder we try, the harder it gets.  My experience since the concussion is that the harder I tried to do something that was too much, the more my head hurt - instant feedback loop!  The more gentle I was with myself and clear what I had the energy for - the better I felt. 

The picture above was from a trip to Whole Foods.  Its interesting how after awareness practices we are more aware of the ordinary in our lives - the joy of a grocery shopping trip, sampling at the local vendor fair, and noticing my shadow on the pavement when I'm normally moving too fast toward the future to notice.  The yoga lesson:  slow down and be present.

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