Good Fences Make Good Neighbors - AlAnon and Yoga

I remember that quote; "good fences make good neighbors",  from Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall" since reading that poem in school.   As a regular part of the curriculum we were asked to read and analyze it and I did my best.

This poem is complex and deep (as are all his works) and yet I never really understood this one beyond its surface when first presented with it in school. Young and literal, without much self knowledge or life experience, I had no idea why the teacher was so excited about this poem.  Wall, no wall, whats the difference? It is a low stone wall, a mere sketch of separation.  It falls down easily in hard weather and is maintained in its precarious state in the spring.  My understanding had no depth; I had life experiences but no perspective or context.  I did my anemic best.

As I ponder the line several decades later I now wonder about it as Frost did; "what are we walling in or walling out".  There is nothing observable - like cows to restrain- and yet we repair the wall. The wall is real, the wall is symbolic, the wall is emotional, the wall is social.  Sometimes you, and sometime me - maintain it to keep a semblance of wall between us. 

The wall can define and it can also protect.  Understanding the difference is crucial to know what the wall IS.  When considering "to whom I was like to give offense" one must INCLUDE ONESELF in the equation.

Trimming shrubbery in the yard the other day, coming up close to the neighbor's yard the line popped into my head.  This fence used to be a low iron railing and the elderly neighbor and I would chat.  She passed away, the house was sold and a new fence was built.  It is now a tall 'privacy fence" and I no longer know my neighbor.  I muse on that.

I also muse on boundaries and how I need them in relationships, in defining what is my business and what is not.  Having a clear sense of self, honoring and maintaining the actions associated with being a separate human being is important. It also teeters in confusion when I think about being part of the universal whole.  Being part of the universal whole, however, does not mean that your business is mine, what is yours in mine, that my choices are yours. 

The wall does not have to be large or wide or in complete repair. There is a healthy sense of self that is important to acknowledge and a healthy sense of YOU that needs to be acknowledged;  the wall is reassuring, the wall is a reminder.  That, even though "something there is that doesn't like a wall"; we and our neighbors maintain it together "and on a day we meet to walk the line" setting it up mutually once again.

My mat, your mat, my practice, your practice, my side of the street, yours, the manifestation of my ethics and your practice of yours;  all are separate.  Impact is mutual; expression is unique.

If I know where you stand and you know where I stand is it not more comforting? When my edges are blurred and meld with yours, move with yours, become dependent upon yours, the fences down, confusion and unhealthy interrelations can occur.

The wall is necessary until its purpose is understood. Once understood it can be considered to be useful or not useful.  Its use must first be known.  Then a choice can be made - to keep it in repair or to let it crumble away.

Read the poem and see what you think about it: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/mending-wall


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 now available in an ONLINE study course.  Scroll to the end of the page and sign up now http://www.yogarecovery.com/SOAR__tm__Cert_all.html

You may also take her ONLINE recovery infused yoga classes 
http://yogarecovery.studiolivetv.com/MemberRegistrationYR.aspx

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 

Freedom As The Result of Boundaries

When saying NO means saying YES

I am learning to have more boundaries.  I know, kind of late in the game to be acquiring this skill; better late than never.

Part of saying NO (thank you) is being able to weather the sting of turning someone down.  I have a wonderful, replete life filled with people I love, care about, and want to spend time with.  Some of the saying NO means I am choosing to be away from them.  This doesn't feel good, and I learn to live with the discomfort.  I am choosing to say "no" to one thing to say YES to another.  This feels selfish.  It is. I am learning to be SELF-ish.


I urge others to take time for themselves, to hold themselves sacred and dear.  I truly mean these words. In fact I have self care routines that can ground and prepare me for each day.  What I have been neglecting is to play.  To take classes myself, to do something where I don't have a specific defined outcome or productive result. Many things I do have an outcome: a meal, tidiness, a newsletter, an accounting report,  a class taught or a class given, a project completed.  I was craving NOTHING; meaning nothing productive, useful, or goal specific.

I needed clay.  I had to decline some wonderful friendship opportunities this past weekend. I had to say no to some otherwise really fun stuff.   I had to do this so I could sit down at the wheel with a few pounds of mud and make something for no reason.  I made pieces that I crunched up and put back into the clay bag, I made pieces that started out as one thing and became another.  I allowed myself to be a newcomer, a neophyte, a beginner and that took the (self induced) pressure off.  And the next day I needed to follow up; trim and decorate.  First time at the wheel in over a year.  I needed to do this just for myself and not for sale, a gift or to explain or teach.

Well,  I also needed a yoga class, particularly after that first day of throwing; my body was out of whack.  And rather than DO IT MYSELF; I was determined, in the name of self care, to lay down my mat in front of another teacher and to be cared for.  It was perfect.

By creating boundaries in my life I was able to find freedom: freedom to play, freedom to create and freedom to be a human BEing - rather than a human doing.  As the result of saying no AND saying yes I am refreshed.

The courage to change: from being an active addict and codependent to being a woman in recovery.  The courage to change: from a driven woman to one who can let go of the steering wheel: I wish each and everyone one of you the strength to say NO in order to say YES.

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 that she holds with her good friend Kent Bond E-RYT500. Find out more about her, her classes and the training at yogarecovery.com

Recovery Two Point "O"

Free Online Recovery Conference

September 28 through October 2, 2013

This second Online Recovery Conference starts SOON!   Join by signing up online before the first day: September 28th. I am so honored and excited to be part of this event.  There are participants and listening members from ALL OVER THE WORLD!

I am scheduled for Sunday, the 29th - the same day as Mastin Kip!  Tommy Rosen is a wonderful interviewer.  He is able to put the interviewee at ease and to keep the conversation alive and vibrant. 

Other presenters include Rolf Gates, Nikki Myers, Durga Leela, Gabor Matte,  Gabrielle Bernstein, Jai Uttal, Tommy himself, and a host of others.  Come for a little, stay for a while.  This is going to be an amazing event.  

Pass on this information to others so we can all gather together with the intention of wellness and keep the conversation about recovery - from all manner of processes and substances - alive.

Click here to sign up

Weekend of Recovery and Community

Many Paths One Destination 2013

This weekend was filled with companionship. It began with the Many Roads One Destination event on the 14th and on the 15th a play "Our Experience Has Taught Us", a play about how the 12 Traditions came to be.  What a rich and fabulous life I get to lead.

Speakers on Saturday the 14th told us about their experiences with the 12 Step programs and how they incorporated recovery into their daily lives. Step work, sweat lodges, sharing circles, heart stories, pain release, changes in perspective, and rising like a phoenix from the from the ashes of shame and guilt; there are many ways to embrace and manifest recovery.

The opening ceremony set the tone for the inclusiveness of the Many Paths One Destination event. Come next year and connect with so many facets of our recovery communities.

The next day hearts, minds and spirits were opened and enriched with a play in San Francisco. Amid many errors in organization and some confusion; the day set off on time and with three friends to see "Our Experience Has Taught Us" - a play (docu-play-amentary) about how the A.A. Traditions were crafted.  From the fire of discontent, through the annealing process of discussion, resistance and more discussion; over three years in the crafting the Traditions were created because "without them we would die".  Using extensive interviews, research, reading biographies, news articles and stories, Jackie B. created a poignant piece that brought the viewer right into the moment- to FEEL the critical importance of the traditions. There is a lot to consider, reflect upon, and be grateful for.   The growing pains of this "simple program" were graphically depicted so there was no doubt that this simplicity was hard won.

Made even more wonderful was the companionship of my peeps, a lovely lunch in a splendid San Francisco day, and seeing a friend on stage donating her many talents to this production.

There were discussions of the traditions of membership, the role of the individual group to the whole of the program as well as the functional purpose of anonymity.  See "Our Experience Has Taught Us" and consider the role of anonymity.  Compare and contrast it to the discussions in "The Anonymous People" and really open the floor to in depth conversations.