Today I Danced in the Rain

I am taking part in this new project on binduwiles.com called 21.5.800. Participants write 800 words per day for the 21 days and do yoga for 5 out of each 7 days. Since I have just begun doing Yoga again after taking a few years off and since I really need to get back to the daily writing routine I seem to never have managed to keep up, I think this is a fabulous project to partake in. For more information visit binduwiles.com.

Today I danced in the rain –  swirled and twirled through large, plush rain drops, held my face to the burgeoning sky, mouth wide open, and allowed its nourishment to cleanse me. It is something I have been visualizing in my mind’s eye for a while now. When I was a little girl growing up in Orlando, Florida, I used to play outside in the hurricanes. The rains were torrential and I would stand in the middle of the street letting the healing power of rain wash over me. I would disappear within the sheets of rain and blustery winds no longer the abused little girl but instead a rain goddess, a part of something bigger and more powerful than my tiny, broken spirit.

I wrote a poem about this experience entitled “Remnants of a Hurricane” and you can read it here: http://southeastreview.org/2009/bryant0420.php

As I navigate my way through the maze that is my past, the need to be cleansed by the rain has become greater and greater. I could see myself hands outstretched from my sides twirling like a ballerina, face to the sky, letting the diamond drops wash away the brokenness. Today as I was walking with my boys at the park it began to rain. Everyone in the park ran to take cover, but I continued to walk the trail. My oldest son complained about getting wet and ruining his clothes and his cell phone. My youngest son had a devilish grin on his face but was trying to conceal his excitement in order to stay in line with what his brother wanted. As they stood under the nearby shelter, I walked right past them and just kept going. Eventually they followed. By the time the rain began to pour down there was no shelter nearby. I stopped and let the rain drench my clothes, my hair, and my skin. I let the rain wash away the pain.

Why is it that we are so afraid to let go, to embrace our childlike wonder? Why do we say: I don’t want to get my hair wet? I don’t want my makeup to run? What if someone sees me twirling around dancing in the rain? What will they think? I don’t want my clothes to get wet? What other excuses do we use to keep ourselves adult and responsible and safely within the box adulthood has imprisoned us in?

I laughed with pure guilt-free joy for the first time in many years as the rain came down. I watched my youngest son dance and the smile on his face was priceless. He began puddle jumping, getting covered with mud and drenching his brand new shoes and socks, going back and re-attacking a puddle if he hadn’t landed just in the center for optimal splash. It was the most freeing experience I have had since childhood and judging from the look on his face, he too experienced a sense of complete freedom from rules and conformity.

I need more of these moments. More moments of letting go of the responsible adult. More moments of letting go of what other people might think of me. More moments of letting go of the limitations I have set for myself. I need more moments of making my visions come to life. I stood still and turned my face towards the sky, let the drops plunge onto my face feeling each small sting. Feeling. Rain. In the moment. There was nothing else there but me and the rain. I raised my hands to the sky and welcomed the cleansing, welcomed the freedom, welcomed the manifestation of a vision into reality. I was wholly in the moment and nothing else mattered. The pain that had been gripping me for two days washed away. The fears disappeared. For that moment I was completely free from the chains that have kept me bound and unable to move forward for so many years. They disintegrated from the weight of the rain.

I hope that you, too, will find the thing you most want to do, but are afraid to do and will as Nike says, JUST DO IT. I hope you won’t let the opinions of others stop you from fulfilling the vision you have for yourself. What is it that would be most freeing in this moment for you? Find a way to make it happen. Visualize it. Manifest it. Live it.

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Love and Yoga

I am taking part in this new project on binduwiles.com called 21.5.800. Participants write 800 words per day for the 21 days and do yoga for 5 out of each 7 days. Since I have just begun doing Yoga again after taking a few years off and since I really need to get back to the daily writing routine I seem to never have managed to keep up, I think this is a fabulous project to partake in. For more information visit binduwiles.com.

I don’t really feel like writing tonight, but I want to stay committed to this project and to my writing. Tonight I am struggling with the concept of love: old love, new love, and love that has been lost. I have been learning some very painful lessons about love over the past month, but instead of the pain shutting me down, it is opening me up. I have come to realize that it is my expectations of someone and their nonfulfillment of those expectations that is at the core of the pain I am feeling. How fair is that to them? I cannot blame anyone else for the pain that I am feeling because I am the one who created the perfect situation for pain to enter into my life. I am learning to let go of those that I love, not because they don’t meet my expectations, but because they and I are not on similar paths. I know what I want and instead of trying to mold myself or them to falsely create compatibility I am being honest with myself and them and then letting go. This is extraordinarily painful, but I cannot receive what I want if I have filled its space with what I don’t. So, for now I must fill this empty space with my own love and nurture it so that when that perfect person comes along I will be detached from the past, open, and ready to receive their love.

In my yoga practice today, I practiced loving myself in myriad ways. Here is my practice for the day:

I visualize my cells bouncing through my body, radiating pink with love. When I bend forward and open my back, I visualize it completely open and ready to receive love because my back where I cannot see is where I am most vulnerable. As I come into contact with each body part, I tell it that I love it. I love you, feet. I love you, legs. I love you, belly. I love you, arms. I love you beautiful mind. I repeat over and over “You are beautiful” – something I have always wanted to hear from someone else, but now realize must come from me. In mountain pose I visualize my core spinning ferociously – a tornado – clearing all the loose debris that has slid from my solid, stainless steel core that only truth can attach to. I imagine this debris of falsity moving through my legs and releasing strongly through the soles of my feet and into earth. As I lie in relaxation pose I imagine my entire body as jumping pink molecules of love. As I lie on the ground, I merge with the ground below me and we become one. I am only molecules of love merged with other molecules of love; there are no boundaries between us. I then visualize those that I love and have lost, those who are hurting, and those who need healing. I see them surrounding with pink healing light. I see them healed. I see them feeling the power of my love surrounding them. I see the hurt dissipate. It is through this process that I have learned to transcend the pain.

The other day I was sitting quietly and a few thoughts came to mind: 1) There is so much pain in the world. How can I ease the pain? and 2) Why do we hate each other so much? How do I contribute to this hate?

I realized that I cannot control others, but I can control myself. I can do my part to change the hatred in the world by changing myself. There is no more room within my body or my mind for hate.

These are my goals: to ease other’s pain and suffering however I can and to work toward eliminated hatred and hateful actions from myself and instead show love. Imagine for a moment the person who always receives nasty stares or is constantly targeted with hate or is so used to being hurt by others that they cannot help but pass that hurt to others. What if you were the only one to smile at them, you were the only one to show them love? How could that transform their life? I want to be the person who smiles, the person who shows love. I cannot control others’ actions. I cannot change others. I can only change myself. BUT, I can show love even to the most hateful of persons. That I have control of!

*The Yoga practice I use: Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss

Sorry I posted this late. This is the post for 6/11/10.

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For the Love of Too Many Things and a Yoga/Writing Project

So, I am taking part in this new project on binduwiles.com called 21.5.800. Starting today participants are to write 800 words per day for the next 21 days and do yoga for 5 out of each 7 days. Since I have just begun doing Yoga again after taking a few years off and since I really need to get back to the daily writing routine I seem to never have managed to keep up, I think this is a fabulous project to partake in. Go to binduwiles.com to learn more!

Where is my life leading me today? Well, in multiple directions. I am currently in graduate school earning a MFA in creative writing with a focus on creative nonfiction and a MA in mental health counseling. I have also recently applied to law school. The truth is, I want to earn all three of these degrees, but I am not sure if it is feasible. I love writing and I know that I will finish the MFA degree because I will only have three residencies left to complete. However, I need something more than writing. I need to go out in the community and take action. I used to think this innate drive within me was a curse and have been fighting it for years, trying to talk myself out of it. But, I have come to realize this is a calling and not one that everyone else gets and I need to take action. My dilemma is how best to serve others. As I continue with my mental health counseling classes during the summer while waiting to hear back about law school, I have come to realize just how much I love and value what I am learning. It is eye opening to say the least and gives me such a focused view on where the needs are for women and children, the population I most want to work with. Yet, I have this powerful drive to go to law school that I just cannot shake. I have ignored that, too. For two years I have tried to focus elsewhere and yet my heart just keeps returning to my love of law and what it used to (and hopefully one day will again) mean to the community and those who need its stability and access to the most. How do I choose? I would love to say that this is something that I have been deliberating over for just a short amount of time, but the truth is I have been trying to choose for the last several years and no one choice seems to satisfy me.

I was in a debate the other night with a friend about what needs to be done to constitute change in America, especially for those who are most in need. My friend believes that you have to start with the top echelon, remove the politicians that are self-serving and replace them with those who are truly seeking change rather than a power position which allows them to exploit. I see this need, but I don’t know how feasible it is to start at the top. If there is one thing I have learned it is that it is very difficult to change the beliefs/point of view of an adult. A child, however, is different. It is my belief that we should start with the children, providing them with programs and education that will allow them to become powerful agents for change as they grow older. How can we fill Congress with those politicians who are seeking to do the right thing when there just aren’t that many to elect? Once they are elected they are forced to shut up and assimilate and what they had idealistically thought they could accomplish is sidelined. Wouldn’t it be better to educate those who have yet to form self-serving opinions and ethics, i.e. children? Maybe in the future there will be a larger pool to choose from when we go to the polls.

I have an extraordinary love/hate relationship with politics. I, for a brief moment, considered earning a Ph.D. in American Politics, but quickly changed my mind because I am too passionate about the horribleness of our political system and I was not sure I could make it through the program without a nervous breakdown from sheer frustration. It was then that I realized I wanted to work at a grassroots level helping to empower those who feel powerless and providing necessary services to them whether that be counseling or legal in order to better their lives. I see the devastation at the lower echelons, the parts of society that the majority of people I know bitch about, but nobody wants to do anything to help change. I was, and in some ways still am, a member of the lower echelon. That is where I want to be affecting change. But, this still does not solve my dilemma. Maybe the decision from law school will determine which path I will take this next year, however, there is always next year…

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