Compassion isn’t necessarily something that just happens inside as a feeling, but is something that also moves us into action. Compassion isn’t a state, it’s a practice.

To pay attention to in a world that pushes us to seek ways to shut out the noise isn’t easy. Too much media and information about just about everything clogs anyones tolerance for thinking and feeling and thats the world we live in today, no matter who you are. Our to do list is often long and the on going messages in of the world pushing us to trudge ahead and just handle it is real. It can be hard to add one more thing. These last years living through worldwide sickness seems to have drained out compassion and empathy. Burn out is real. My secret to share with you, is that the practice of compassion is the key to “too much”.

Compassion directed into our own hearts and spirits isn’t as easy that we might like to think it is. Being aware of compassion for ourselves and building a relationship with it does take time and effort. It takes thinking and feeling in a world that pushes us to shut off the noise.

Many of you know that I facilitate yoga regularly and for so many people after a long day of information and have to’s, many just want to shut down and follow whatever the instructor says without having to think or feel during class. I one hundred and ten percent get that.

The practice of yoga is about feeling and thinking. When we are unable to show up within our selves and feel – it’s ok. Did I trick you there? Did you think I was going to say it’s not ok or give some other direction? We can’t be on all the time. Observing and noticing in the moment that we don’t have space to feel right now is ok. Actually, it’s a break through. This observation of ourselves is the building of compassion for ourselves and then ultimately others.

Compassion is awareness without a label. It is surrendering to what is and knowing that this is where we are right now in life – in this moment mind, body and spirit. We do not have to change anything, just notice.

But what if we want to change? Maybe we don’t necessarily want to be exactly where we are right now. Maybe the awareness of where we are is uncomfortable. The key to change and real self care is through noticing where or who we are right now.

Noticing all of the things our unabashed ego tells us we like about ourselves and all of the things we find out we don’t like about ourselves along with all of the down right weirdness that each and every one of us all uniquely possess is the key to living a compassionate life. The real gift is to see where we are and possibly how we feel about ourselves and within ourselves – without judgement, without a good or bad label. To really care for ourselves and meet ourselves where we are right now in the present moment – to attune to that moment is living compassionately. This present moment experience can open the door to personal change if we decide we want it.

Do you see the action in compassion? Awarness of where we are right now is action. We don’t have to change anything or we can choose to move in a different direction. The gift of awareness is that we get to decide where we go from the present. This simple awareness opens the door to real change in our lives. We might decide to change the time we practice yoga so we can be more attuned to our inner landscape or maybe we decide to take a physical break today as we’ve noticed that exhaustion has creeped in to our lives and though compassion for ourselves, we’ve given ourselves permission to rest. Perhaps we then decide seek ways to heal that exhaustion that we are finding in ourselves ultimately making our lives that much better. That is all compassion.

Self compassion is the key to opening the door to feeling gut deep for another person and thus giving of ourselves through service to another. Not just thinking that we should have compassion or hate what someone else is going through but being able to take action to help care for someone else and their suffering. When we can be compassionate within our own selves first, it radiates into our outer world. Burnout fades and we can live fully, freely and in service not just to ourselves but to others as well.

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Mornings are a beautiful time, it’s by far my most favorite part of the day – breathing in the new light of the day and starting anew. I love the dew, the bird song, and the vibrant colors of the rising sun. My internal clock is one that rises early to greet the day.

It can be easy to waste my morning on social media or doing “what must be done” instead of taking time and space to welcome a new life. Everyday is new, everyday I get to choose how I want to live, what I want to do, and how I show up for others. It is easy to move into another day on autopilot going along for the ride instead of living an intentional purposeful life. We have choices about how we live. That said, Not all days are the same.

Some days are easier than others and that’s ok. Not everyday day feels wonderful, it’s ok to have harder days too. We can still have gratitude within struggle. We can be sad, angry or resentful – all feelings are important or “good”. These are the days where it can become harder to meet the morning. Some days the mornings and evenings meld together as we are just making it through what is happening around us. Hard days don’t last forever and eventually form into different days. Sometimes it takes weeks or years but life will become different.

Change is an ineventable part of life. What and how we think changes over time just as how we feel changes. The people who surround us will change as well move in and out of our lives. Sometimes we purposefully change and sometimes the universe changes things for us. Either way, change is there and so are we.

Many of us strive for a “better life”. It seems to be within our culture to focus on finding something better – material, physical, spiritual, or emotional. However, we might just be missing the real, unfiltered, hard, glorious life that we do have as we search for more.

Living in the light isn’t about only feeling or having good around us. Living in the light is also about accepting the dark or even walking into it when needed. Perhaps we need to face our own darkness to grow and heal or maybe it’s to sit beside another until life becomes different for them. There is no light without dark. It’s about how we embrace it and walk through it that matters.

Can we leave room within ourselves for the amazing awe inspiring experiences of life along with the ones that feel as though they are crushing our soul? This is what it is to fully be alive. To feel. To choose light. To choose life. To choose love.

I’ve heard that healthy boundaries are understanding where you end and someone else begins. Yet, don’t the guru’s say we’re all interconnected – all one? Perhaps it doesn’t have to be one or the other… life doesn’t have to be so black and white. Can we allow in a shade of gray? And if so, what might that look like?

Connection and real meaningful relationships are a cornerstone in our lives. It’s our relationships that mark our happiness and health in this life. The rub is that relationships can also be the most painful areas as well. Life is messy and I’m incredibly grateful for it. Pain is hard and it can be a motivator. It’s easy to build walls to protect our hearts. To try and dull out the pain. When we deny ourselves opportunities for our heart to grow, to open, and to expand into more because we are afraid of pain – we lose. Maybe that looks like pushing away a friend or a loved one or maybe it looks like turning away from others when we’re hurting. That eternal aloneness. That isn’t a boundary, but a protection mechanism put in place due to fear. Fear of pain. Not boundries, not love.

I’m a helper. I whole Headly believe that service is joy. However, when I get exhausted mental and physically perhaps I’m no longer helping for the right reasons. That’s my first red flag that something isn’t quite right. My intentions are so very important. Why am I helping? Am I in a place of selfless service or am I trying to get something? Am I trying to fill a need or an empty void within me? Am I trying to elude conflict or want someone to perceive me as good? Maybe this looks like me saying yes or no all the time. I could completely overwhelm myself or doing things I don’t want really want to do because “I should” or I could have “boundries” that aren’t really boundries and say no all of time so I don’t have to be apart of or connect with others. Once again, not boundaries, not love. This is all about our own about motives and intentions, not the behavior of others.

I can easily mask something and call it a “ boundary”. This unconscious deception harms me and those close to me. When I unpeel the layers, these actions are based in wanting to get something – to not feel pain, to feel good or important, it’s called manipulation – not a boundary, not love.

Boundaries are meant to help us navigate a real sense of ourselves. They are the limits we set with others around their behavior tword us. Manipulation and control is about trying to get people to do what you want them to do – Where as boundries make it safe for us to be ourselves. Boundries are healthy and important! It’s our boundries or those invisible lines that tell others how they can treat you. Your feelings, needs and responsibilities are yours and you are important. Boundries are not a bad thing. In fact, it’s how we are able to have real deep meaning relationships with people who genuinely care and love us. Boundries are not just for the haters. Boundries are the invisible lines of deep love for ourselves and others. In fact, I think it’s those blurry gray invisible lines called boundries that really truly connect us all.

If you’re looking for peace and happiness, you’re not alone. Many of us seek “feel good” emotions that bring a sense of serenity and okayness into our lives. However the actions that bring about the “feel Good” feelings can actually bring less peace and more negativity in the long run. Many of us unconsciously choose to live in a certain way, with certain behaviors so that we can find goodness or happiness in our lives. Many times these actions are given the label of coping.

Taking a hot bubble bath, going for a run, eating ice cream Sundays, sleeping, watching show after show – season after season, scrolling through social media mindlessly multiple times a day, compulsively purchasing through Amazon etc etc …….these can be all coping mechanisms “to get through” feelings that we don’t want to feel. By the way, there is nothing wrong with being healthy! Eating nutritious food, exercise, and rest are all important for our mental, emotional and physical selves. The key is – why we are doing what we are doing? Are we trying to leave a feeling behind? There is always the argument that some coping methods are better than others, but the real deal is that trying to escape the dark cloud or lump in our throat just doesn’t work. The lump and cloud stay within us because we have business to attend to. The unfinished business of actually feeling.

To feel is to be alive. It might take some awareness to really allow ourselves to stop and pause for a moment so that we can feel. Just taking a moment to acknowledge a feeling can help us stop the protection mechanism of escape and move us toward befriending our emotions, whatever they are. Befriending our pain, sadness, anger etc can change our lives in a dramatic way. It can change what we do, how we think, and bring in a much needed sense of peace.

There is a deep sense of peace found within our souls. It’s not a surface fleeting feeling that we need to strive for. Through feeling what is real within ourselves, that deep peace can start to emerge within us. It’s there. Underneath all of the ice cream sundays and bubble baths. We just need to stop digging for serenity and actually feel. Once we stop digging, and face whatever it is that we are feeling – a sense of wholeness and serenity can make its way into our lives.

Facing what we are actually feeling takes courage. It isn’t easy to surrender to what is. Life isn’t always fun or always happy. Finding acceptance around that allows us to connect deeper to ourselves. A connection that isn’t constantly trying to drown out the “noise” of what we are really feeling and instead is a source of acceptance and calm.

Don’t get me wrong, I love bubble baths and will still take some. In all honesty, I could probably use a little less of the icecream Sundays….. But that’s not the point here – It’s the why. Why am I doing what I’m doing, that’s what matters.

The next time feelings arise, you’re invited to stop, pause and feel within yourself. Aknowedge it’s existence. Maybe you write about it or share it with a trusted friend. Perhaps it leaves for a while and then comes back. Feel it again. It’s the only way to really move on – to be able to really truly let it go. It might take awhile or a long while, we may need some time and space. That’s the nature of the deep peace and inner sense of serenity that comes with feeling. At some point, even when it feels like it will never change, the sadness or the anger that is present can have an underling sense of peace.

No matter who you are or how you decided to live, the last several years have been harder, somewhat darker ones. My household needed to be careful of illness with my youngest waiting for and then finally having open heart surgery. I had the unwanted experience of understanding what it means to think about and care for your community members deep in my bones. I have to say the stress of the surgery and the loss of being regularly physically close to those outside my immediate family was extra hard. While I had some good days along with many lessons and spiritual growth….. I’ve also had many angry days, sad days, irritations that would build for what felt like no reason, days where I couldn’t stand what others had to say and just didn’t want to hear it. Quite frankly my tolerance was at an all time low and I felt like I was just trying to survive what was happening. I’m glad those days have past, yet the world around me seems to have that same irritation- that one you just can’t reach along with a much less than usual tolarance level when it comes to others.

Many of us had some emotional pain during those times. It’s not easy to live in a world where sickness and death is being talked about regularly or is close to you and the people you love the most. Those experiences don’t just disappear because the world has started to move on. It is so very easy to bring all that hardness with us as we move into our now more “regular” lives.

When I look around, I find that want is really important for people is that they feel loved and know that they matter. Who we are matters, what we think matters, and what we have to say matters. What we don’t know about others lives and what we naturally assume at first glance matters too. It is so very important for people to really be seen and heard. Some years ago I was engaged in an extensive yoga studies program that showed me a moment that I could be compassionate for another in struggle. At the time, in a room full of women, a man made what came off as a harsher comment around something the female instructor said. What I understood is that the comment came from his own experience and pain. However, after the comment he was regularly shut down when trying to speak and unable to say anything. During a small group setting when he was being shut down again, I let the group know that I would like to hear what he had to say and after thanked him for his voice. Relief filled him and you could see that he really just needed to be heard, he mattered. After that segment of training was over he told me how much he appreciated being in the training with me. This little story is an example of spreading warmth and compassion to someone else who is struggling. We all have our own experiences, not the same experiences. We all have our own realities, not the same realities.

While I believe there are some evil people out there, most of the people around me have good well meaning hearts and genuinely care about others. We all do things that we wish we wouldn’t during times of struggle. We all have times where it is harder to live by what is important to us. We don’t really know what someone else’s lived experience is.

Small things can really build up! That’s been my experience anyway. The rudeness from the cashier, the driver is in a hurry, the person who parked and inch off of the front of my car. These small irritations can build and build inside of us. Yesterday, I walked out from picking up food and the person infront of me was practically on my bumper. I started to feel mad until I was able to laugh at my myself for being so angry over something that definately wasn’t big. I can choose how I respond in this world to what is happening around me. I can choose to be apart of the intolerant negativity or not. I also have to remember that not everyone is like me and everyone has their own life happening that I know nothing about. I can try to make this world a better place to live for those walking amoung me by finding compassion and warmth in my heart for them and their struggle. Many of us already hurt, none of us need more pain or negativity as we navigate this journey of life.

So I ask you, How can you bring warmth and compassion in this new world of ours?

Side Note: Mental health matters, it is ok to seek help when you are struggling. Let’s normalize mental health care!

Change is inevitable and is part of life as time moves forward. However, what might happen if we make changes on purpose and with purpose? How do you intend to live today? Who do you intend to be or not be?

Intention is an important part of change. Defining where you want to go or where you want to be and then intentionally moving in that direction – maybe it’s with your thoughts, your actions or both.

Forging our own path and starting to live intentionally also includes a true self honesty where we can take a look at our present reality and ask ourselves what we are happy with… what do we want to keep, what would we like to change? Perhaps even allowing for some space of not being exactly sure who we want to be or where we want to go.

There is also the question of who will I become if I make changes and start to live with intention? What will I lose? Change can be hard and might feel risky or scary. There can be a real sense of safety in staying the same. Uncounsiously not growing or moving forward in life to stay safe. The thing is, safety comes from within instead of what is happening on the outside of us. Personal safety comes from the relationship that we have with ourselves – mind, body and soul. The relationship that we have with ourselves can and will change. Caring for or loving yourself might sound like a hippy yoga thing, however, learning how to or continuing to care for and love ourselves right here and right now is an important aspect of forging our own paths no matter who you are.

Change can sometimes feel like you are taking two steps forward and one step back. Falling into old habits comes more easily than moving in a new direction and can embed in our lives and bodies so that when we are not present or aware we resume to those old ways of being. It’s like living on auto pilot. Living with intention includes discipline and a present moment awareness.

So what does this have to do with yoga? Embodiment bring us into the present moment and into a place of awareness – of what is happening inside of us and outside of us. It allows us create a relationship with our whole being and bring in the experience of feeling safe and predictable within ourselves. We can learn to make choices based on our present moment experience and can find resilience and flexibility mind body and spirit. Many times the intentions we set practicing yoga on the mat, move off of the mat with us into our daily lives. For instance we might start to feel more balanced emotionally and see choices in our lives that we’ve never noticed before. Or possibly we start to pause and move into action instead of reacticing to a situation. Or perhaps we find ourselevs noticing what we need and take the necessary steps for self care.

Personally, many changes are moving toward me right now and I get to have a choice in how I want to live. There is something so empowering about creating your own intended path instead of just letting life lead you. Here is something I know for sure…. It is important to create your own path in this life, to gain personal empowerment while following your purpose, and to forge forward into new adventures.

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How can we function with in the world and walk in a good way when we are not connected or friendly to ourselves? How can we have integrity, kindness, and open heartedness when we are unable to practice these principles with ourselves? Connecting with ourselves mind, body and spirit is a crutial step in the recovery process. In fact when we are not connected with our bodies we can struggle to really grasp how we are feeling, what we might need to do next, and how to live with integrity.

Embodiment is an important part of recovery. Yet, many times we can go to great lengths to leave ourselves behind. We might zone out during workouts to get through it, push through physical pain like it isn’t there, or maybe we are completely dehabilitated and find ourselves sleeping the time away. Perhaps we are engrossed in book after book, podcast after podcast, or scrolling social media just to unconsciously get away from ourselves and our lives. Many of us have lived a seporate life from our body in order to not feel – emotionally or physically – and to survive our pasts, our realities and our lives.

Taking time and space in recovery to move into embodied wholeness instead of living with a fragment of who we are is a process. We might first experience noticing that we have a body and start to feel sensations within our body. Next through experiencing a felt sense of our body, we might start to tolerate feeling and connecting to our body. Lastly, we might start to befriend ourselves and bodies through a regular connection or practice. Having real emodied experiences matters.

You might practice embodiment through trauma sensitive Yoga or weight lifting class. Maybe you find your self drawn to Thai Chi or another movement practice that involves noticing and feeling your body along with building a secure and safe connection to it. Sometimes sitting in meditation without movement can be hard as our minds have more space to run and intrusive thought have more time to move in. Sitting meditation is a wonderful practice, however it’s very important to find what works for you. Remember what works for you now might change over time or maybe you need to find something else that works at a later time and that is ok. Change is good.

You can read about the 5 benefits of embodiment in my next blog!

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Yoga Focused Recovery is online. There are hatha yoga classes designed for those suffering from addiction or alcoholism. These trauma informed sessions will start in April, here is more info if you think that process might work for you.

https://openviewyoga.com/class-offerings