Watching the sunrise is such an awe-inspiring experience. I hope you enjoy this and are inspired to walk into the world today with your heart leading the way!
After a life-shifting trip, I am missing the beautiful sunrises and sunsets on the Nile, so got up before dawn and moseyed myself down to the beach to catch this beautiful site. I am allowing the sun, Ra, to warm my heart and soul. I wish the same for all of you!
The Autumnal Equinox officially arrives at 2:50 am on Saturday. It’s on the 23rd in 2023. I love numbers and the number 23 is a path to find your divine passion. Follow you passion to the end and make your life count for all its worth!
A friend, Christina, reminds me to ask myself this question: What am I willing to take action on that I feel passionate about? I love that and am doing just that! How about you?
And what in the world does this picture have to do with the equinox? It’s a time of harvest and my husband’s nephew was married last weekend. We ate this wonderful meal which felt like a true southern harvest! It was made and served by Brother’s N Arms BBQ – a group of vets continuing to serve in a new way! They continue to follow their passion of service and we were so grateful to enjoy every bite! Little do they know, they also inspired me to take action!
Vitus, a yoga instructor on ibod, formerly known as Beach Body, mentioned some words of wisdom during his recorded class. I can’t say I know exactly what he said , but the gist of it was this: When we come into balance, we have to work through the unbalance, which feels uncomfortable. As I stood on one foot, feeling the unbalance and the balance within my physical self, I thought about how this idea is also true in my emotional self.
I often hear this thought of ‘unbalance’ as the shadow self. We work through the shadow parts of us to come into balance. Doing that work is indeed uncomfortable. I feel like there is another big shift coming my way and I’ve had this inner knowledge for some time now. I don’t have any idea what it may be, or what it will feel like on the other side of it, but I do get the intuitive nudge that getting there is going to be more than uncomfortable. I think there’s something I really need to accept about myself that I haven’t quite done yet and it’s something I don’t either like, or want to admit. Even thinking about what it might be makes my stomach tumble over and over like a dryer spinning a clump of wet laundry.
Do I want to clean this dirty laundry of mine? Indeed I do, but the thought of whatever I will have to do to see the light makes me a my belly do flip-flops. I generally don’t get the jitters about life happenings overall. Well, perhaps the time I was in an airplane circling higher and higher, waiting to get to the exact altitude for climbing out on the wing to jump back down to earth would qualify….ha! That was a bit more than nerves, and in the end and even as I climbed out onto the wing, harnessed to a professional parachuter, the nerves were quickly replaced with exhilaration, then joy, then awe. It was worth it all!
So I know that whatever this is coming down the road of life, it will be worth it all. But as I imagine it now, it feels like it’s going to be, at the very least, uncomfortable. I see a lot of tears and shame and forgiveness for myself. It may all happen gradually, like a balloon being blown up one deep breath at a time, or it may occur all at once, as a loud POP! I shall see, and in the end it will be what it will be and I know that it will be for my growth, my greatest good, as well as benefit all others that I may affect.
I am ready for the unbalance, although a nail-biting feeling bubbles up from my core when I think about it. I am as prepared as I can be and know that my loving family and friends will support me if I need them. I will also support me, nurture the child within, console the teen inside, and counsel the adult I am now. I love knowing that the child, teen and adult will all come out with freshly cleaned clothing, smelling like lilacs or fresh air, or something sweet and earthy. We’ll all be wearing our brightly laundered clothing, ready to take the next steps along the path of balancing the emotional and the physical self that I am.
Thank you Vitus, for an outstanding yoga class and an even deeper, thought-provoking, comment! I wonder what tomorrow’s yoga class will bring….
This thought came to me today as I was on the beach searching for shells….”a balance between busy and be…busy and bee…like the busy bee that I seem to be and how it is often a challenge to find the balance between being busy busy busy and just allowing myself to be.
I realized about six weeks ago that I had become busy in my life again…and I thought I was happily busy. I love doing all that I am doing – running my own tutoring and mindfulness business for youth and adults, writing, creating materials, spending time with my family and friends….but there was something amiss once again…and I couldn’t see it right away. I kept hearing my friends saying that I was busy…and a little bell chimed in the back of my mind….I heard it clearly..it was a faint ding, somewhere far off in a world I thought I’d left behind.
As a public school educator and short-term building administrator, I lived my life for my profession, saw it as my identity, my livelihood, my existence, and purpose in this lifetime. After thirty years in brick and mortar schools that had changed so much, I finally realized it was time to change my outlook on my purpose, and see how that might unfold. I was blessed to be able to take a year of leave from work to make some decisions about my future and realized that education is my purpose, but it was in need of a different container.
Now that it’s been two and half years of creating my own business and working part-time with younger students, I find myself busy, busy,busy again, and have lost the time to just be. I have lost the time to be with my friends for longer periods of time than between 12:30 and 2:30 or just hang out for an entire day with my husband. I have lost the time to just be with me…in the woods, on the beach, on a trail, exploring the unknown and creating with colors and objects, and doing all the other things I love to do.
I am grateful for the times I have been sitting in meditation again and have had the presence of mind to turn my mind off and let my body feel. Within those times of feeling, words come…and specific ones at that. I was able to hear that it was okay to cut back at my part time teaching job and eventually to pass it on to someone else. I only have a few more weeks of this busy bee time, but am reminding myself to find ways to “be” in each day as I wait for the extra time in my days as I move forward. I stop and sit, look around at the beauty I see outside. I walk in the grass in my bare feet, look longer into my husband’s eyes, stretch my body….
I am surprised at how much “I know” and how much I do that is unknown, seeing myself creep back into the behaviors of a workaholic that I used to be. I thought I’d “moved past that” but am reminded that the old adage “old habits die hard” is a force on its own. As I move forward, I strive to make my life a true balance between “busy and be.” My jodibees – a hive of learning will continue to be a success and I’m sure even more so as I allow myself the times to be. I look forward to this next chapter of my life and hope I can help others continue to find this balance as well.
