Resolve to Love and Forgive

 

Many years ago I was on that treadmill of creating lists of things I would do differently ("on your marks, get set, GO!") in the New Year.  There would be some magic difference in my ability to control my eating, spending, or what have you after midnight December 31.  So the obligatory list would be made, gym memberships would be purchased, the requested workout clothes received as Christmas gifts would be laid out and ready for my body toning enterprises.   I was ready for the first run out the door on January First.   Planning to eat for health, I ate the last of the holiday cookies and chocolates as I selected recipes for the new year out of magazines and news papers: the food columns themselves having taken a lean turn after the indulgences of Thanksgiving and other holiday offerings.  Promising to live within my budget I reviewed ads for what bargains I could find in the post holiday sales.  After several years of dissapointments and broken committments I dropped the resolution process all together.

While I didn't think I was perfect, I was tired of falling short of expectations and being part of the joke that resolutions had become.  In addition, the things I truly wish to resolve, or to continue to practice, have little to do with money, weight, or the physical trappings of life. My resolutions are balanced between "A Day At A Time" and setting intentions for living (a decidedly future looking activity.) Balanced between my current step and the path before me, I make resolutions daily.  The sankalpa, or resolution, is of an enduring nature, a quality that I struggle with but wish to enhance and encourage in myself.

Rather than look at what I may want to accomplish I am looking at how I will get there.  Today I will forgive myself for mistakes; leaving more room for the successes to flourish. Today I will take care of myself when I am not well, using the skills I have learned to promote healing in body, mind and spirit.  Today I rejoice in the times I have taken right action.  Today I will practice the discipline of follow through AND congratulate myself for tasks completed. Today I will Love Myself, as I am before all that is to come, and I will Love Myself in spite of all that has come before. I am lovable.

2014 is my year to inhabit my very BEing.

Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RTY500 is the author of "Yoga and the Twelve Step Path", a leader of Y12SR classes, and the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse) a teacher certification training she holds with her good friend Kent Bond E-RYT500. Find out more about her, her classes and the training at www.yogarecovery.com

You Are Amazing

Guest blogger Jean Campbell from the Transformational Power of Yoga telesummit team shared this post with me.  I feel uplifted each time I read it.

Today I am open

Open to possibilities

Open to love

Open to change

Open to success

Open to laughter

Open to miracles

Open to appreciation

Open to seeing myself as the truly amazing person that I am!

- Katie Sullivan

This post is from Jean Campbell at Jean's Yoga for All

Jean is a lifelong student of yoga and teaches Vinyasa Flow yoga classes in Vemont.

If you would like to join in her free upcoming online series

21 Yoga Poses in 21 Days - Click here:
eepurl.com/JSw3f

Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RYT500 is the author of "Yoga and the Twelve Step Path", a leader of Y12SR classes, and the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse); a teacher certification training that she holds with her good friend Kent Bond E-RYT500. Find out more about her, her classes and the SOAR(tm) training at yogarecovery.com 

Being Guided Home

I have vivid dreams. Many are just sequences and stories- others are events and may be entertaining.  Some of them, however,  provide insight and guidance.  These I make an effort to remember.  This was true the other night.

Many nights ago I had been having dreams about my death.  I no longer find these frightening; I have come to realize they are about change and not my final "transition".  I know change is coming,  I have thought about my actions and activities and know that a shift and realignment is due.  I am uncomfortable so the dreams help me work it out.

Last night's dream was about encouragement and grace, bravery and being guided. 

Last night I dreamed about being in a small boat, like a canoe or a kayak.  I was on my knees gazing towards shore.  I was in the ocean, in a bay, not just any bay, but the bay outside the harbor in Lisbon, Portugal.     

 (Note that Lisbon is a sister city to San Francisco, also with 7 hills and a bridge by the designer of the Golden Gate.)


I was paddling in from the ocean toward land - but I had no paddles; I was using my cupped hands.  There was a passenger in the boat but I could not see him or her behind me, I was just aware of their presence.  Even without the aid of the paddles I was able to make headway kneeling in my boat, paddling with my hands.


The fog was rolling in.  Within minutes my sight of the city was completely obscured. I had no idea where to head.  I was frightened but not panicked.  My conscious brain was surprised by this reaction while my dreaming brain accepted it.  (This bifurcation of dream and "conscious mind" thoughts happen often in my "message" dreams.)


The forwarder I went, the more lost I became.  When I was on the verge of leaving dismay and finding fear I looked deep into the fog and there in the fog were projected numbers - the latitude and longitude of my location.  I just had to keep moving in the direction of the appropriate latitude and longitude of my DESTINATION and I would be guided home.

Like a clock that projects the time on the wall or ceiling, this guidance was projected in the fog which prevented me from seeing land, making the fog the perfect screen for the perfect pathway to lead me home. While in real life I don't know these map references for any town, city, or neighborhood, in my dream the meaning of the numbers and the ability to understand them became mine.

My resolve as I paddled into shore and delivered my passenger safely was to go back, using my special skill, the vision to see this guidance, to help others who struggled to find the harbor.

And then I woke up.  I woke up and woke up.  I know what my change is about and I know without a doubt that if I don't panic if I look carefully, I will find signs, signals, and support to get me where I am meant to be.  I need to get there under my own steam, the use of my hands when paddling. I may have extra weight (perhaps the "old me" in the back of the boat?)  I may feel on the verge of fear but if I look up and around I will find just what I need to see to help me home. 

www.yogarecovery.com

Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RYT500 is the author of "Yoga and the Twelve Step Path", a leader of Y12SR classes, and the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse); a teacher certification training that she holds with her good friend Kent Bond E-RYT500. 

Find out more about her, her classes and the SOAR(tm) training at yogarecovery.com