A Year to Clear
Page 22
What is something you can do today to honor and embrace your wisdom and life experience that you have cultivated over the years?
(PS The phrase originally comes from a hymn written in 1813 by the Danish poet Adam Oehlenschläger: “Teach me, O forest, wither happy.” (Lær mig, o skov, at visne glad.) As best as I can tell, the “glad” adaptation—my favorite version—is Toni's.)
Explore
One thing I can do today that honors my wisdom and life experience . . .
How I feel about growing older . . .
Ways that Nature can support me in aging gracefully . . .
DAY 306
THE CHAIR POSE
I practice a style of yoga every day called Svaroopa (pronounced Swa-roo-pa). Based on a simple principle of “support equals release,” it uses supported poses to release core tensions in the body and mind to promote deep relaxation and letting go.
The chair pose (my name for it) has a very specific purpose: to lengthen the spine and open up the tight muscles around the tailbone that cause us to feel tight everywhere else. It is especially good after long stretches sitting at a computer, long waits in airport lounges or doctor's offices, or after a very long and stressful day. Here's how to do it:
Begin: Sit in a sturdy chair, preferably one with no arms.
Align: Make sure that your thighs are parallel to the floor and your shins are perpendicular. To achieve the right angles if you are tall, place a blanket under your hips; if you are short, place a blanket or two under your feet. (Note: Keeping the thighs, legs, and floor at precisely right angles to each other prevents undue stress on the knees, back, and neck.)
Position: Place both knees shoulder distance apart, with heels directly under your knees, and feet pointed slightly inward. Make sure your big toes make firm contact with the floor.
Adjust: Slide your butt all the way back in the chair and place your elbows on your knees. Let your hands dangle freely.
Move: Slowly drop your head and hang over your knees like a rag doll.
Tweak: Tuck your chin in slightly to allow your neck to lengthen; adjust your upper back to create a hollow between your shoulders.
Release: Direct your breath along your spine, releasing holding areas, and let go.
Finish: To come out of this pose, place your hands one at a time on your knees or on the side of the chair. Come up slowly, one vertebra at a time, with your head last.
Integrate: Allow your body to integrate the effects of the pose by sitting quietly for a few breaths.
Try this pose for a few minutes every day and watch how this simple practice carries over into all aspects of your clearing life.
Explore
What I notice in my body (and life) after doing the chair pose . . .
When I am completely supported, I feel . . .
DAY 307
FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS
There's a very funny YouTube video by Ryan Higa that opens with the statement “Thousands of people fall victim to FWP [first-world problems].” With fake-sad music playing in the background, it features a handful of despairing twenty-somethings agonizing over their first-world problems:
I'm starving . . . all I have is . . . leftovers . . .
Nobody cares about me. Nobody commented or “liked” my status . . .
Why does Apple keep making new iPhones? Now I have to get another one!
The point of this video of course is to show how silly and small-minded our concerns can be sometimes.
So next time you're feeling overwhelmed, put upon, or caught in a “poor me” spin cycle, you might consider reaching for one of Higas clever lifelines. If you're not too lost in your story, they will cut through the victim mentality and support release in a flash:
Here's a bridge; get over it.
Here's a straw; suck it up.
Here's a full cup; shut the full cup.
Isn't it nice to know that the universe has a way of delivering boundless (and humorous) options when we make room to receive them?
Is there anything that is bogging you down right now to which you could apply one of these lifelines? Do you recall a time when you had to “eat crow” and what it felt like?
If so, this would be an opportunity to bring compassionate awareness to any nudgy (or excruciating) discomfort that arises.
Explore
A situation that is bogging me down is . . .
Why it's easy (or not) for me to get over it . . .
Sucking it up feels . . .
DAY 308
CHECK IN—SUPPORTING REAL EASE
The focus this week was to experience the connection between support and ease. When we feel loved up, safe, and supported we are more inclined to let go—to melt into spaciousness.
In what ways do you feel more supported this week? How easy was it to ask for, give, and/or receive support? How easy is it to face a difficult truth?
Explore
Ways that I feel more supported this week . . .
It is safe for me to ask for and receive support because . . . (Name and feel the part of you that doesn't feel so safe.)
A difficult truth I am facing . . . (and ways to ease into it . . .)
WEEK 45
MARKING PROGRESS
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
—George Bernard Shaw
DAY 309
BEING WITH NOISE
In 2004 my family and I moved to Mexico for six months. We each had different reasons for going. For our middle school daughter (at the time) the plan was to learn a second language while her young brain could soak it up like a sponge; for my husband it was to take a well-earned hiatus from his consulting practice and write; for me it was a chance to return to the land where I was born and raised, explore the cobblestone streets of my past, and speak Spanish again.
Sound like fun? Well it was. For them.
What I didn't expect was the huge amount of sensory overload and emotional baggage that would come with this package deal. I had created space in my life to explore, all right—explore my resistances, my attachments, my fears.
The sheer noise outside our bedroom window was enough to make anyone go mad—the tortilla factory clanking out thousands of tortillas, rooftop dogs barking at everything that moved, and construction workers throwing boulders into a truck at four o'clock every morning were just the warm-up!
For the first six weeks, I was in such resistance over the noise that I ended up nearly paralyzed with back pain. My circuits were fried. I was miserable. I was depressed. What was I thinking? I chose this?!
I felt like a junkie going cold turkey in rehab.
As Carlos Castaneda reminds us, “We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.” After those first few weeks of channeling (and releasing) misery, I came to a new place within myself by practicing not identifying with all the noise.
Having a really good set of earplugs helped a lot, too.
Explore
A personal “dark night of the soul” experience I've had is . . .
I processed it by . . .
What it was like to visit a childhood home after spending years away . . .
I know I am not my story because . . .
DAY 310
HOW SPACIOUS CAN YOU BE?
There are the obvious external clues of clearing success, an emptier bookcase, more white space in your email inbox, a new love interest, a job offer. But what about the internal markers? How spacious, detached, and present can you truly be when the next family reunion rolls around? Or a child becomes seriously ill? Or you feel misunderstood or deceived by someone you care about?
Are you able to glide about your life without as much as a button getting pushed?
This is what we'll be exploring this week.
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Where I feel spacious most of the time . . .
Buttons that still get pushed in me . . .
(and what it feels like to admit that they get me . . .)
DAY 311
FOUR LEVELS OF AWARENESS—PART 1
In the absence of someone shouting a progress report at regular intervals, here is a helpful model for assessing how far you've come with clearing. It's adapted from a theory called the Four Stages of Learning, attributed to the psychologist Abraham Maslow and used to explain how people learn new skills. For our purposes I'm calling it the Four Levels of Awareness.
Imagine the arc of any life challenge, such as going through a divorce, being let go at work, facing the death of a loved one, and divide the ways one might process and experience it into these four levels of awareness. Think of them not as a measure of how well you're doing, but how well you're be-ing:
Level One: Unconscious Incompetence (no awareness)
Level Two: Conscious Incompetence
Level Three: Conscious Competence
Level Four: Unconscious Competence (pure presence)
Don't let these cheerless, heady words throw you off. To the Western mindset, it is difficult to shake off the idea of competency as a measure of something other than “doing.” Similarly, the word “unconscious” paired with “competence” at the fourth level can seem like a contradiction in terms.
This model is intended for no other purpose than to illustrate how we humans wake up, incrementally, to our true nature. The four levels indicate the spectrum of human consciousness, where zero awareness marks one end, and pure presence the other.
Tomorrow I'll explain each one in greater detail and show how they might apply to being more spacious and detached.
Explore
If I were to guess the level where I spend most of my waking hours, it would be . . . (PS This is not a test.)
What “be-ing” means to me . . .
DAY 312
FOUR LEVELS OF AWARENESS—PART 2
The Four Levels of Awareness model gives us a useful tool to mark our progress with clearing. Here's what each level of awareness means:
Level One: Unconscious Incompetence—complete turmoil, uncertainty, chaos. At level one you feel helpless and overwhelmed. All your survival mechanisms are activated, and any clearing you do triggers stress hormones and resisting behaviors. You have no strategies in place to manage the chaos, and if you do have them, you're too overwhelmed to put them to use. At this stage it feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Level Two: Conscious Incompetence—you begin to put one foot in front of the other. Your nervous system begins to settle down. You can see that the discomfort you are experiencing in your clearing is not who you are, yet you have no idea what to do about it. You are aware of your buttons getting pushed but have no resources, strategies, or practice tools in place to manage the bumpy weather when it comes up. It feels like there is a peephole of light at the end of the tunnel.
Level Three: Conscious Competence—competency. At level three you know what it feels like to let go (with intention, action, non-identification, and compassion), but it takes conscious effort to cultivate it. You recognize the places you hold on and know that you are not a victim of your circumstances. You feel a greater sense of ease and possibility and know that hope is possible. The tunnel is filling with light.
Level Four: Unconscious Competence—pure awareness, effortlessness, spacious detachment, mastery. At level four you are in the spacious zone: You are able to let go with an open heart without even thinking about it. You don't fix or judge. You take nothing personally. You accept things as they are. You laugh a lot. You vibrate clarity and attract people, places, and opportunities that are a vibrational match. You clear by just being a witnessing presence. At this level of awareness there is no tunnel; all is brilliant, shimmering light.
When you began this journey over three hundred days ago, where would you place yourself on the spectrum of awareness? And where do you find yourself spending most of the time now?
Respond to the following prompts in your journal to help you assess your progress.
Explore
Unconscious incompetence would describe the part of me that is still . . .
I know I'm at the level of conscious incompetence when . . .
The side of me that shows up as consciously competent in my life is . . .
Where I most excel and I consider myself masterful would be in . . .
DAY 313
CAN YOU ALLOW?
Here's a wonder question for you to consider today:
If you could let go completely of what's holding you back, would you do it?
Letting go. It could be that easy. If we allowed it.
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I can allow . . .
What is hard for me to allow . . .
DAY 314
MEANINGFUL MARBLES
On a scale of 1 to 10, how is your day going so far? Has it been memorable? Exciting? Meaningful?
On her blog Life by Me, Sophie Chiche describes a simple and elegant ritual she uses to evaluate, mark, and celebrate a life that has meaning. It involves a bowl of several thousand marbles to equal one a day for (a self-selecting) period of twenty-four years.
Chiche's daily practice is to take one marble out of the bowl and place it in another bowl if she feels that her day has been meaningful. If she does not feel connected to something that gave her meaning that day, the marble goes in the trash. She writes:
Tonight, I'll make a commitment to my friends that I'll attempt to live my life so that I move every marble to the other container and not to the trash.
Trash is for banana peels and yesterday's paper.
Meaning is for everyone. Meaning isn't just for birthdays. It's for every day.
I think this marble exercise could work quite nicely as a daily check-in and celebration of your baby-step progress in clearing and self-care. What do you think?
Explore
On a scale of 1 to 10, my day is going . . .
What I find meaningful in my life that I want to cultivate more of . . .
DAY 315
CHECK IN—MARKING PROGRESS
The focus this week was to apply some tools to help us assess how well we're “be-ing” (versus doing) in our journey of clearing and awakening.
What have you learned most about yourself this week? What are some of your biggest strengths with regards to letting go, and what continues to be challenging for you? How spacious and detached can you be when life throws you a curve ball?
(If you feel a little nudgy weather creeping in right now, here's your chance to breathe into it now. This is not a race and there is no finish line.)
Explore
When I began my clearing journey I was at level . . .
Now, I feel I'm at this level . . .
One thing I can do to expand my level of awareness is . . .
One of life's recent curve balls was . . . (and this is how I handled it . . .)
WEEK 46
BEING WITH LOSS
The [dove] that [remains] at home, never exposed to loss, innocent and secure, cannot know tenderness.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
DAY 316
THE EYE OF THE STORM
How do we allow a loss to simply be? To allow that things sometimes don't work out, make sense, or add up?
This wonder question was triggered a few years back when my beloved laptop crashed and I thought I had lost everything. Here's what I wrote that week:
I'm still in shock and recovery over the fact that my laptop crashed last week. All emails, all photos, and who knows what else. Gone.
It's not just a computer that has put me over the edge of unbearableness. I'm also still drying out and clearing the damage from a major flood in our basement, and consoling a majorly bummed-out daughter who didn't get into some of her top choice colleges . . .
I'm not complaining, mind you. If anything, I feel profoundly grateful. Next to the death of a loved one or a pet, or a Hurricane Katrina-type loss, these events are small potatoes. Our hous
e is still standing. I have my family and my health. Computers are replaceable.
I'm just allowing myself to breathe into the cumulative impact of what feels like a train wreck. To “stay with the initial tightening and not spin off,” as Pema Chödrön wisely advises in one of her quotes that I love so much.
What I'm sitting with is not the why-me-why-now. I've learned the hard way that those kinds of questions add no value.
What I'm wondering is: How is it possible to remain spacious and detached in the middle of a crisis—to be the “eye,” not the storm?
(. . . I just heard the word . . . “Breathe!”)
Here's how it played out in the end: My laptop made it through and I recovered everything; our basement is a hundred times better now (aka clearer); our daughter got into the perfect college, had four amazing years, and graduated with high honors.
Yes, I would say in the end it was: all good.
Explore
A crisis that I experienced in my past . . . (and how it turned out . . .)
What I know now as I look back on that moment . . .
DAY 317
IT'S NOT ABOUT GETTING RID OF
Clearing is not about getting rid of.