Sneaking

It's a gorgeous Sunday morning and I'm up before anyone else.  I love this time of the day.  I still feel connected to the quiet place within myself.  It's my favorite time to write, to be, to reflect, to be with myself. 

As I check in with my belly today, I am aware of feeling unsure.  It's similar to being in a new place and culture and while you may be able to be visiting, you're really not quite sure of what it's all about.  Everything is quite unfamiliar and you don't know how to read the signposts yet or what they really mean.  I remember arriving in Greece years ago and having that experience.  There were no signposts with our typical English letters ; it was all in Greek letters and Greek words.  It was "all Greek to me.!"

That's somilar to how I am feeling in my belly today.  "It's all Greek to me."  I am not sure what the signposts are saying, much less directing me to.  Strange feeling.  I feel lost and quite clueless. 

Last night we had an adults' night out with my brother and sister-in-law and my father, who is in town visiting for a week.  I had been looking forward to this time together, but I slightly noticed that I wasn't fully in my body when we were eating dinner.  I wore these different glasses, and I swear that the precriptoin is wrong.  I get really spacey and headachey when I wear them.  So why do I wear them?  I wanted to wear something different last night, plus  I like how they look on me.  Never choose glasses just becuase they look good on you.  They have to be the right prescription too.    I ended up leaving and taking the bus home from the Creek Festival concert we went to after our meal.  I just didn't feel like myself at all.  All I wanted was to come home and go to sleep.

Which I did.  And I am noticing that I still feel a little funny and disconnected, like I unplugged something last night.  What got disconnected? 

What is the truth in my belly right now?

I am feeling very scared about all that I have to do for work right now.  We are launching a new monthly class in Own It Sister, and I am launching my WEALTHY Woman Workshop for the end of July.  With both of these, we are using a marketing launch system that requires a steep learning curve, lots of new opt-in pages, reminders, emails, Facebook tweets, and sales.  Sales.  Thank goodness that we are using the same system to market and launch, but today I have to do so much and I am terrified. 

I need to spend most of the day working on this, and I am really scared that it is not okay for me to work and do what I need to do.  It's bringing up that dynamic of sneaking again.  Somehow I have it that's it's not okay for me to work or do anything separate from the family.  If they're around, I have to be doing family stuff and be available to be with them.  It's one thing to clean the kitchen and do laundry, but it's another thing to be on my computer working.  So I sneak in here and work until I get caught. 

I know that this sounds really weird.  It feels weird to me too.  I want to just brush it off, deny it, not deal with it, but there is a dynamic here that I need to look at and see where else it plays out in my life.

There is this either/or thing going on inside of me.  Either I am doing what I am supposed to be doing or I am sneaking in doing and being what I truly want to do.  What I am supposed to be doing is externally defined - it's what I think that others think I should be doing.  It's what I should be doing.  On the other hand, what I truly want to do is about me, what I want, how I want to do it.  I can feel that this is selfish, unacceptable, not contributing to others, being separate, not being part of the larger group around me.  There's lot of judgement about my doing what I really want to do.

All of this creates a huge tension inside of me.  So I constantly do what others want and expect me to do, as my way of diffusing the tension, not having to stand up for myself and  have boundaries.  So I end up sneaking around, sneaking off to create and do what I want to create and do.

On top of all this, or perhaps more accurately, is my fear that I cannot do all this and that I can't learn what I need to do.  We are using a new email marketing system, and I have to learn a new system.  And then for my business I have signed up to use another system. Is this just crazy?  Sometimes I just want to pull out of the system I signed up for but I also think that there may be something to it that will totally support me to grow my business. 

My fears.  Tension over what I want to do and what I perceive everyone else - my family - wants me to do.  The steep learning curve.  Marketing.  Sales. 

So interesting that how I respond is to split.  I split from my family last night and came home by myself.  I was so happy to come home.

I get up early by myself so that I can write and feel connected to myself.

I sneak off into my office to work.

So this is what I am going to do today.  I am going to let my family know that I have to work for the morning at least.  It's similar to when my kids have homework.  I have to do my homework this morning.  I am going to do what I can, figure out what I can, and then ask for help and support when I need to.   So right now I am going to finish this blog, switch gears, get a delicious cup of chai, and get to work on that steep learning curve with the new email marketing program, and create a newsletter by the end of the morning.

Deep breath into my belly. I ask for its support to hold me and contain me as I dive into creating this morning from being in the open about what I am doing, and asking for what I need.  No sneaking around. 

I create this day from recognizing that I am perfect, whole and complete, and from this wholeness, I create and generate from clarity, focus, ease and grace.

Thank you.

Suseya!
Sahara

Hearth of our Soul

"A woman will always be dependent until she holds a purse of her own." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Not quite sure why I am starting with this quote today, but there must be a reason.  Let's explore what it is!  It seems to reflect some of my thoughts and questions over the past few days. 

Our bellies are a container for each of us from which we cultivate, generate, create and manifest.  I have an image of a woman stirring a big cauldron that is hanging over a hot fire in a big fireplace in the center of her home.  She is working hard but with ease and grace and she knows that her place is in the hearth.  As I wrote this, the feminist in me came up and said "WHAT?!"  But this is where we belong, in the HEARTH of our own bodies, tending to our souls and cultivating, stirring, manifesting what is WITHIN us to bring forth.  I love the word, HEARTH.  My dear friend Whitney, and business partner, showed me that within HEARTH is heart, art, earth, hear, and ear. Isnt't that wonderful? 


Our bellies are our hearth.  It is where we feel from and can connect with our instincts and our "art".  It is the home of our lower heart, our womb. our incubator of our children, our creative projects, our creativity.  It is the place in our bodies where we are most deeply connected with Earth, our home.  It is how we hear, listen to and honor our creative impulses.  It offers a different kind of hearing.  Our belly is an ear than listens on a non-audible level to the truth of our soul and the truth of our experience.  I am really connecting with our bellies as our hearth.  This is the hearth to which we must attend.  Our place is within our own hearth.


So how does this relate to the quote by Elizabeth Cady Stanton?  


A purse is a container in which we hold our wealth.  We use it to hold our money from which we pay for our purchases.  We use it to hold the money that we earn and receive.  The purse becomes the metaphor for our capacity and willingness to be financially independent.  However, the limitation of this perspective is that our wealth is only financial.  It becomes solely about the monetary and financial wealth, which for me is only one aspect of what our wealth truly is. 


A woman can become financially independent,with money and financial resources, holding her own purse.  But is this really all that a woman wants?  Is holding her own purse really what it's about for a woman?  While it certainly is important and not to be negated, is it the whole picture?  Or is it women just getting stuck in the masculine perspective, and once they've achieved it, wondering it this is what it's really all about.  A woman can certainly manifest like a man, and have the focus be the financial success.  She will have her purse, but is that really all she wants?


My sense is that women know that there is something more they want than to just hold their own purse.  Although, as I type that, wouldn't that be a wonderful place to start?  But I don't think that it is a separate issue.  I don't think that we get to say, "well, when I have financial success and security, then I will discover what is missing and create it."  That's the way we've been trying to do it.  That's still the masculine way of creating.  Wow.  It really is.  When I have my financial security, then I'll take the risk to create something different, to create what I really want to create.  It's the old "if, then" logical and rational way of doing things.  The masculine way.

Women are not hear to manifest like a man.  We are here to create like a woman.  And women know how to create.  We have been doing it for as long as we've been women.  We create from an activated seed in our belly.  We nurture, and hold our unborn child in our wombs until it is time to give birth.  Then we go through the process of birth for this child whom we unconditionally love and accept, even though we have very little, if no idea of who this child will be.  We give birth to the unknown.  We then tend to, take care of, feed, bathe and nurture our child, until it is able to take care of itself.  And we often do that time and time again.  

WE KNOW HOW TO CREATE, MANIFEST, CULTIVATE AND TEND TO OUR CREATIONS.

Those creations that come through us.  They are not actually "our" creations, but they come through us to be birthed and expressed into the world.  I am reminded of the quote by Kahlil Gibran:   

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

Our bellies are the hearth of our creations.  Our bellies are the heart - that's interesting.  I meant to write "hearth" there and I was interrupted.  Hmmm...our bellies are our heart.  I'm going to let that one ripple within me for a few breaths.

OUR BELLIES ARE THE HEART.  MY BELLY IS my HEART, my EAR, my ART, my EARTH.

It is the sacred space within our bodies that connects us to our soul, our soul's longings, or in Gibran's words, "Life's longing for itself." 

This brings me back to a woman holding her own purse.  Our true purse is not outside of ourselves and something that we hang on our arms for display.  Our true purse, source of our independence, power and passion is our belly, deep within us and not on public display.  The container, the chalice for our wealth then lies in our belly...

For a woman to be truly wealthy, in my view, she must create and manifest from her belly.  She gets to trust the impulses that arise deep from within her, without knowing what they will look like, where they will take her, and who she will become in the process.  We get to create, manifest, generate, cultivate like a woman.  We get to come back to who we truly are, to the heart within our beautiful feminine bodies, and create magnificently.  And in reclaiming ourselves and our hearth, we get to generate true wealth.  No longer will we create an empty experience of success, but we will manifest true wealth in the deepest, richest, most wealthy sense of the word.

Coming full circle:

"A woman will always be dependent until she honors the belly of her own."

or stated more positively,

"A woman is independent when she lives from the hearth of her soul."

Suseya, 
Sahara

Both/And

Kids finished school yesterday, and we're in the midst of a big transition most noticeably into our summer schedules.  Somehow I often feel like I am just getting on a role when school gets out.  How is that?  As I ask myself that question, I realize that it is because I love spring.  I feel the most creative, open and flowing during this season.  When I align with the seasons and plant seeds in the spring, both literally and metaphorically, they take root, grow strong, and flourish.  Right now, I feel as though I am planting many, many seeds.  The difference this year is that I actually have a container to plant the seeds and plants!

As I sat here and checked in with my body and my belly just before starting to write, I became aware of how my belly is truly starting to feel more contained.  It feels different.  It's not the same as it was.  Somehow, the feeling is familiar.  I know this feeling of a cohered belly.  It feels right.  Just like having the split became a familiar feeling, so too is a cohered belly.  There's actually something very reassuring about that.

Part of being able to grow and expand is being willing and able to contain and integrate the expansion.  In the past, I have felt like I have leaked out the expanded energy that has come into me, from attending workshops, reading great books, being loved, seen and/or acknowledged by another person.  I receive the knowledge, insight or love, and then I haven't been able to contain it, hold it or cultivate it.  I know that this is not an all or nothing situation because of course I have contained and cultivate some of what I have received or I would even be able to be here writing this blog.  Yet overall, I have felt like a leaky sieve that only contains the most obvious or poignant.

Now I am beginning to experience something different.  I feel as though I am receiving and containing, and as a result, I am also expanding.  The expansion feels different.  It's not just from the head up, expanding upward and outward.  The expansion is more of a 360 degree expansion with a deepening and lightening occurring at the same time.  This is embelliment.

I am having more fun with my new word - embelly.  It is a all encompassing word for me.  In one word, I can say it all.  Embelly. Embellied.  Embelliment.  Embellished.  To embelly oneself.  To feel embellied.  This is the evolution that is occurring for women.  We are coming home to our bellies, to our innate power, knowing, creativity, wisdom and love.  It is in the heart of our belly.  It is the heart of our womb.

I am just remembering something.

I have friends who are "spiritual" teachers and healers who say that our heart chakra is going to  become our base chakra, and that as we ascend and become more spiritual, we will open up and develop higher chakras than what we are currently aware of.  Our lower 3 chakras are essentially going to become useless and in a sense, dry up and wither away from unactivity.

I don't buy it.  I actually believe that is we give away our connection to these chakras - the first chakra being at the base of our spine near our perineum and our connection to the Earth and our groundedness, the 2nd chakra centered in our womb and the center for our sexuality and creativity,and the 3rd chakra, our power center and solar plexus, located above and behind our belly button - we give away our power, our creativity, our sexuality, and our groundedness and centeredness, both in our bodies and to Earth.  How could this be a good thing?

Why is being connected to our bodies and to Earth such a bad thing?

I just don't get it.  And there is also the part of me saying, "I'm not going to work this hard to heal the split in my body and become embellied only to give it all away and discard it."  Moreover, I have tried the disconnecting from my body path and to just float above it all, and quite honestly, it didn't work so well and it didn't feel so good.

All this love and light New Age-y stuff is just as polarized as the 3D thinking it's trying to get away from.  Crazy, eh?  I believe that it really is about the integration of good and bad, light and dark, heaven and earth.

Oh my gosh, here it is again.  The split.  Don't you see it?  I only just did...again.  People, even "spiritual" people, are operating out of the split paradigm.  Either something is light (which means good), or it's dark (which means bad).  Either it's God, or it's the devil.  This either/or mentality is everywhere and so pervasive that it has become the water we swim in.  We don't even realize that we're caught in a either/or paradigm and that when someone questions or challenges it, we might as well be calling out to the Emporer with no Clothes.

But I want to challenge this paradigm.  This is the paradigm that has embedded itself in my belly and revealed itself in the split.  I am so grateful for it, and I am committed to healing it.  Whatever inner and outer work I have to do to heal the split, I am so grateful for.  I am learning, growing and expanding so deeply right now.  I am stepping more and more firmly onto my path and why I am here.  And I would not, could not be stepping onto my sacred path without the split here to call on me, get my attention and show me the map to come home.

I am committed to the paradigm of integration, of both/and, and of compassion.  I am willing to see the gifts, lessons and blessings in all of life in all of its expressions, and I am willing to step out of blame, to release the shame, and integrate and celebrate all of who I am - in my belly, in my heart, and in my body.  What a gift and a joy it is to be in this body, to live this life, at this time, here on Earth.

We have to remember that we chose to be here in our bodies at this time.  We are part of all of the forces,
cosmic and personal cycles, planetary influences, and the mystical laws that are converging right now on every level of the universe, happening right here on Earth.  What an exciting time to be here.  Not without its challenges, disintegrations, and collapses, but we have to remember that it is all part of the birthing process of the New Earth, the new universal human and our future.


I know that I just shared all that without much context, but I am going to leave it at that for now.  Just know that we are each here as an essential part of a much greater whole and a must greater birthing process.  Each of us has the opportunity to heal the split within ourselves, to own our own magnifience, and to walk our sacred path.  What do you choose?


Suseya!
Sahara

A Beautiful Copper Cauldron

Yesterday I shared this blog site with Lynn, the PT with whom I am working to physically heal the split.  Someone actually read this blog!  I really am coming out of the closet now!  A few weeks ago I wouldn't have been ready for that, but I realize when I read Lynn's comment on yesterday's post, that I am actually okay with her both reading it and sharing it with others.  She has a fan page on Facebook all about healing the split that is designed more for postpartum women if you want to check it out.

Lynn loved the word EMBELLIED.  So do I!  It's a great word and I think that I am going to start a revolution.  No, an EVOLUTION!  Women around the globe becoming embellied.  You know, this is a radical notion and at the same time, it only brings us home to our wholeness.  It's full circle once again.  At some point way back when, we all were embellied.  It was our natural state of being.  Think back to paintings from the Renaissance.  Women didn't have flat little bellies.  They had beautiful round bellies.  Yet as I  write this, I don't think of Renaissance women being especially empowered.  I am imagining women in their bellies, fully in their bodies, connected to their passion, creativity, aliveness.  Their feet are rooted to the Earth, their arms and minds are connected to the stars, and their hearts are the open conduit for the wisdom and love to flow back and forth between the stars and Earth and then be expressed and shared with the world.

Embellied women are empowered women who love with an open heart, who create with an open heart, who move with an open heart, and who contribute with an open heart, and who have a very clear sense of who they are, what works and doesn't work for them, and where their boundaries are.  Embellied women are open, clear, strong, powerful, and mindful.

The picture of who and what an EMBELLIED woman is becomes clearer and clearer for me.

The seed has been planted, and it is going to become a strong and beautiful plant.

I must be becoming an EMBELLIED woman myself, otherwise this idea wouldn't have a place within me to take root.  Our bellies are like containers, the chalice.  The chalice is filled with the soil of the Earth.  It can be rich, soft, dark crumbly soil full of life and compost, or it can be dry, barren, hard, lifeless clay-like soil, or somewhere in between.   The beauty is that we can transform the soul - there is it again.  Every time I type the word "soil" I first type the word "soul."  Hmmm...seems to me that there must be a connection here.  What is the connection between "soil" and "soul"?

Perhaps the condition of the soil is created out of and determined by the connection to our soul.  When we are connected to our soul, we are willing to do the emotional work to till the soil and turn our fear, shame, anger, blame and guilt into compost for the soil.  As we clear out these negative emotions, we clear the connection to who we truly are and live more and more from our deep connection to ourselves and to Spirit/God/Source, whatever name works for you.  Then, there is light within the soil, sparks of divine light that feed the soil, illuminate our souls and shine out from within us and inform our daily actions, our interactions and our creations. 

I am having so much fun writing this, imagining this, feeling this within myself - feeling this in my belly!

As I lay in bed this morning waking up to write, I became aware of how my belly is feeling different.  I feel more cohered in my belly.  It doesn't feel so "leaky."  I keep seeing this beautiful copper cauldron in my belly.  It is hand hammered to create the beautiful round shape.  It is solid, yet open at the top.  The thickness of the copper is perfect.  Not too thick so that it was heavy and clunky.  Not too thin that it would be weak and ineffective.  Just the right thickness for the cauldron to do its job of containing, holding, protecting, and also then offering.  I just found a picture of a copper cauldron that I thought I would insert.

This is an embellied copper cauldron!  Is she beautiful? 

What is happening for me is that I am cultivating and creating in a new way, yet in a way that I always knew that I could.  I am focused and yet in the flow.  I am containing and holding all of the ideas and impulses of what I want to create, and I am moving and expressing these ideas.  I realized last night that before it has felt like I would have an idea and then it would leak right out of me, and before I could act on it, the energy to create it had dissipated or leaked out entirely.  Needless to say, this has been so frustrating and challenging.  I am, like every woman, whether or not we believe it about ourselvse, inherently creative and resourceful.  Yet the energy to create and manifest would leak out of my leaky belly.  Imagine a copper colander!  No wonder I haven't been able to create and manifest like I have wanted to and knew that I could.

I am recognizing that I really haven't needed to beat myself up over this.  Believe me, I have - many times, again and again and again.  Only to add to the shame and feeling less than that I had already stuffed into my belly.

Something is changing.  More than that, something is transforming within me, and within my belly.  From this place of fullness and beauty, and rich, fertile soil in my belly, I will share and offer the gifts of my soul, from my belly.  My beautiful, full, rich belly.

Here's to all women being EMBELLIED, empowered and embodied!  An evolution is happening.  Let's all be a part of it.

Suseya,
Sahara

Embellied

Something is happening.  I am now in my 5th week of doing the transverse exercises, and I noticed yesterday that I am pullling the splint (that I have been wearing every day( more tightly around my waist.  At first I thought that it must have stretched out, so I measured my waist last night.  I have lost 2 inches around my waist! WooHoo!  They said that this would happen, but honestly I didn't really believe it would happen for me.  Tentatively...cautiously...I think that I can say it has!  My belly size is still the same - I measured that as well.  It's okay, though.  The upper part of the split must be healing and my muscles are getting stronger.  The split is healing from the top down.  I have heard that when you heal, you heal the more recent "wounding" first and work your way back to the original wound.  For me, the split above my belly button feels more recent and as I connect in with it, it also feels less attached  to "stuff."   It is more recent and less uncumbered.  The part of the split around my belly button and below feels more sticky, old and attached to deep wounding.

I just remembered to just rub my belly and love it.  I couldn't do that several weeks ago.  Thank you.

I feel as though I am becoming "embellied."  It's a new word that I just made up.  How do you like it?  It's similar to "embodied" but is more than embodied.  To be embodied is to be "in body"; to be "embellied" is to be "in belly."  I am coming into my belly.  Stephen Levine talks about women having 2 hearts - the upper, "spiritual" heart, and the lower heart in one's belly, and how injury or wounding to one's lower heart can cause the upper heart to also shut down.  I am being impulsed to get his book, Healing Into Life and Death,  in which he discusses this, and also offers a wonderful "Opening the Heart of the Womb" meditation.  I had this book years ago and used this meditation.  I realize again that I have been on this path of healing my belly for many years now.  It is one of the core central themes, or threads, of my life.

I have often heard that our greatest gifts are borne out of our greatest challenges and deepest healing.  Even in the midst of this healing journey, I can recognize that healing the split is already informing what I am bringing forth to the world, and offering as my gift of healing and contribution. 

As I heal the split, I am developing WEALTHY Woman Coaching and Workshop that I will be offering for the first time this summer.  Becoming a WEALTHY woman includes being "embellied" - that we can contain and use our inherent and extrinsic wealth to generate and create our dreams and fulfill our divine purpose.  To be embellied means that we are deeply connected to what is true and authentic for us, what matters most to us, and that we are no longer willing to waste or leak our energy on people and projects that are not deeply connected to who we truly are.   We live from our bellies, connected to our hearts, and offer great love, healing and beauty into the world.  What we create is aligned with the greater good, and we are aligned with our soul's true purpose for being here right now, in this body, with these particular gifts and attributes.  We are WEALTHY Women, embellied.

I am an embellied WEALTHY woman now.

Suseya!
Sahara

Once in a Lifetime

Writing this blog about healing the split in my belly is as much about the split as it is about the healing.  Until now, I have kept the split a secret and I now realize that I have daily put energy into hiding and compensating for it.  Now I am taking that energy and using it to get up early and write about it and reveal myself, the split, and my healing journey. 

This daily act of writing then informs me about other areas of my life and my relationships as well as informs the relationships themselves.

Over the last few weeks, I have become aware of a dynamic of  "stealing" time and space for myself.  I get up at 4:30 in the morning so that I can write without being bothered, anyone else really having to know what I am  doing, and without having to set aside time during my already busy days.

I want to slip what I do and what I want under the radar.

Often I will slip into my office to do a little work when it's not "work" time.  "Oh, I just want to answer this email...I'll be right there...just a minute."

I steal time for myself by checking out on the kids and spacing out into my own little world.

Having sex with myself is a stolen moment, an unacknowledged experience.

Even my dreams and desire to return to the Camino feels like I am slipping it in, afraid to ask for what I really want.

This became so clear yesterday when my husband, Steve, and I were talking on an early morning hike.  I mentioned that a year ago I started walking the Camino.  I could feel my first steps out on to the Camino under my feet as I walked the trail up Sanitas Valley.  It felt so good.  That sharing opened up a conversation between us because Steve actually asked questions about the Camino and when I wanted to return.  I got to talk about my desire to walk the Celtic Caminoand lead a group of women on this pilgrimage.  I got to talk about my dilemma of walking just from Santiago to Toulouse (when I say "just, I don't mean to minimize it at all.  This leg is a 6 week pilgrimage.) or walking in one period of time all the way from Santiago to Rosslyn.  I felt sheepish even bringing this up.  None of this makes sense, it's so crazy, what am I even thinking.    Leaving the family for 6 weeks doesn't make sense, so how can leaving the family for 6 months be any better.

As we talked about all of this, 2 major turning points in the conversation occurred.  First is that I realized as I shared about none of this making sense that "that makes sense" is one of the places that I split off.  Remember my sharing about my dog Rupert and leaving him behind in England, and how it made so much sense to leave him there. "That makes sense" takes me out of my feelings and desires, even my knowing.  Only when my feelings, desires, and knowings make sense are they allowed, or reasonable, or worthy of having.  Everything has to make sense to be okay.

I remembered in that moment when my jaw locked open (talk about painful and scary!) during the movie "Stop Making Sense"  with the Talking Heads.  Yes, I am dating myself, and this would have been 1988 or so when we had a "Stop Making Sense" theme party with our closest friends.  Nothing made sense, from what we wore (Steve wore pearls) to how we presented the food (guacamole was put around the central container which contained the chips)!  We had so much fun.  Later in the evening, we watched the video, "Stop Making Sense" and during the song with the Tom-Tom Club (which was about sex) I yawned and somehow locked my jaw wide open.   I couldn't talk, I had a hard time swallowing, and it hurt like hell.  Despite our friend's massaging my jaw and being so sure that he could unhinge it, we ended up in the emergency room where the doctors were even quite challenged by this.  Plus they just didn't take Steve seriously at all.  After all, he was in his pearls!  Anyway, after much relaxing and praying on my part, the one doctor finally got my jaw unhinged with his thumbs by pushing down and back.  I had to relax so deeply.  I had to trust so deeply, just to release and allow my jaw to un-do itself.

And all of this during "Stop Making Sense."  There was the message 22 years ago. Sahara, stop making sense.  It's not about making sense.  If you live your life by making sense, your jaw will lock up.  Your life will lock up.  And you will not be following your heart, or your path.  It's just not about making sense.

It's about knowing what you deeply desire, trusting this, accepting this, and acting on it.  And in other words, it's about knowing yourself, loving yourself, trusting yourself, accepting yourself, and acting in accordance with yourself.

Yet all this time I have been trying to make sense of it all, of me, and all this time, I have been split off from who I truly am and what I truly want.

Out of this a-ha came the second turning point of the conversation.  Steve totally supports me in my dream and desire to walk the Celtic Camino and to lead a group of women on this pilgrimage.  He said that he knows this is who I am and that he loves me, accepts me and supports me.  It may not be convenient,  it may not make sense, and if this is something that I feel that I have to do, then of course he supports me.

What?

I even had to come back to this later in the day, "Just to clarify..."  He said that yes, I'm crazy.  Does he wish that I didn't want to do this?  Yes, of course.  Would he rather I didn't go away to walk?  Yes.  AND he also knows that this is who I am.  He knows that I am a bedouin.  He's the one who actually gave me the name "Sahara"  - which I realized is actually my soul name which I why I use it here.  So I like to think of it that he "reminded" me of my true name.  Do you know what a "bedouin" is?  A bedouin is a wanderer or nomad, often associated with the Sahara Desert.

I am a bedouin. Accepting this about myself has been one of the most difficult challenges. You are supposed to settle down, live in one house, have a mortgage, stay in one place.  Well, I spent a lot of my first years out of college traveling in Europe, living in England, and traveling around Australia.  When I got married and moved to Colorado, I couldn't just stay in one house. I have moved us 5 times in the 23 years we've lived here.  I've walked part of the El Camino de Santiago.

And now, I want to go back, for 6 months.  How can I do this?  I am a mother of 4 kids.  I have responsibilities here, children to raise.  Childen who need me.  I am married.  What am I thinking?  This is crazy.  This doesn't make sense...

No, it doesn't.  Not at all.

But then life doesn't make sense.  And what we truly desire doesn't go away, no matter how hard we push.

I do believe that what is in the highest good of one is in the highest good of all.  This may be a justification, but I also know it to be true for others, not just for myself.  So if walking the Celtic Camino is in my highest good, and is integral to my life's purpose, then perhaps it is also in the highest good of my children, my family, my marriage, and Steve.

Something shifted for me yesterday in receiving Steve's support.  I got that he really gets who I am and that he loves me.  Steve knows who I am, in my fullness.  He accepts me.  He knows that I am a bedouin, and he accepts this is about me.  I may not always be easy, but he knows that I am a package deal.  He said that we are here together to support each other be who we really are, to live our dreams, and to be our greatest selves.  We are not here to keep each other small and safe.  We both know that, but it can be so challenging in the midst of marriage, children, mortgages, security, etc. to remember that and to live by that.  We forget as we get caught up in the day to day management and logistics of life.  It becomes all about safety, security, finances, soccer games, and playing safe with each other.

Yesterday I got that I can come out of the closet with myself and my dreams.  I don't have to steal off and nurture my dreams somewhere else.  I can own them, nurture them and live them right here, within my marriage and my family.  I felt so loved and accepted yesterday.  I got that I don't have to hide with Steve.  I don't have to make sense with Steve.  He loves ME.  In turn, I then love and accept myself more deeply.

We talked of creating a new paradigm where we get to "walk" our dreams and be fully who we are, wherever that may take us, withing the love and support of our marriage.  We don't have to experience a separation or divorce to create a new life, to strike out on our path. We both can actually consciously choose it now because we know and honor what we want now, and honor our love and marriage now.  I don't want this to be the exception. I truly want our total love and acceptance of each other to become the new paradigm for marriage and relationship for everyone.  Perhaps yesterday's conversation can be a template within this new paradigm.

Thank you Steve.  

So often there is a catalyst to shakes us up, rocks the boat, and takes us out of the day-to-day grind and habits.  We can get so dulled by our habits that we can forget why we are truly are and what the purpose of our lives really are.  Not that our lives are bad.  So often they are good.  But are we living, being and doing what we are here to live, do and be?  Are we fulfilling our divine purpose?  Are we fully living into our divine mission?  So often we are fulfilling a part of it, such as raising our children.  But just as often, we are split off and disconnected from the "real" reason we are here.  We think that it is to be financially secure and stable.  We think that it is to raise our children to be good upstanding citizens.  We think that it is to have a beautiful house.

How funny, I can hear the words of the Talking Heads song, "Once in a Lifetime":

You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile.  You may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife.  You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?  Letting the days so by...

 Talk about synchronicity!

It's not that our lives are not about those things.  Of course children, finances, wonderful homes are important.  They can be part of what it is all about.  Part of it.  They are not all of it.  They are not the it.

What's your it?  What is your divine purpose, the sacred reason that you are here in this body, living this life, right now?

These are such important, vital questions.  As we live into the questions, we create our answers, with each choice and action that we take.  Our lives are the answer. 

For me, right now, in this moment, my courageous choice is to commit to walking the Celtic Camino in 2011 and to lead women who know that they are to walk this sacred path.  Together, one step at a time, we will heal the split within ourselves, within humanity, and for the Feminine, and for the Earth.

This is my Camina.

I am committing.  I am committed.  Ah Ho.

Deep breath.  Much gratitude.

Suseya!
Sahara

My Body

Last night I stayed up working until past midnight.  I rarely do that because I want to get to bed early so that I can get up early and write.  I am so grateful then when my dog, Molly, needs to go out at 5:30 in the morning because then I get up too.  Thank you Molly.  I am here writing at 6am on a beautiful summery Saturday morning, without having set the alarm and on only 5 hours of sleep.  Maybe I'll take a nap this afternoon!

As I went to bed, I had 2 more series of "diastasis rehab" exercises to do before I could go to sleep. I do 5 series of 100 contractions (pulling my engaged transverse muscle in as far back as I can go) daily, and usually I do 3 in the morning, and then 2 more as I go  to bed.  Doing these exercises on a daily committed basis is the fuel for this process of healing the split.  I first wrote that it is the catalyst.  That's not so.  My intention and aligning with my soul's path is the catalyst.  Doing the exercises is the fuel that feeds and keeps me engaged in this process. Otherwise, it would get lost in the busy-ness of my life and become just another good idea. 

You know, this is actually a very important point.  Engaging on the physical level is essential.  I am getting this as I write it.  For me, it is not enough to just think about it, feel it, comtemplate it.  I can do that, and I have done that many times.  Now I see how it has only taken me so far.  I typically have run out of fuel in the midst of the process, and I have been left with an incomplete skeleton.  Those bones end up in the closet of something else I intended to complete but didn't quite get to.  And then I have this incompletion weighing on me along with all the other incompletions, which makes the healing work heavier and harder.  I am caught in a vicious cycle of incompletion which is fed by more shame and self-blame, and as long as I attempt to complete and heal without engaging with my body in the physical realm, it's all just a good idea that isn't really such a good idea.

Round and round we go...

I have been split from my body.

I keep trying to heal and remember my wholeness without engaging my body and only through my mind, feelings and emotions.  The healing is in engaging and embracing my body, in loving and accepting my body, and allowing it to guide and show me. 

Just like it is doing right now.  Staying connected with my body through this process and continuing to do the exercises on a daily basis is both the fuel and the touchstone for healing the split.  I don't go away and forget about it.  I can't because every day I get up and do the contractions.  Every night I go to bed and do the contractions.  In fact, I had better do them right now.

I give thanks to my beautiful body, the perfect body for me, my soul's path, and my mission.  In this moment, I get that no other body could be mine.  It is this body that is my ally and companion on my journey.  It is created and structured perfectly for me, the lessons I need and get to learn, and for the mission I am here to fulfill.  From my feet, up my solid legs, into my strong hips and full belly, up through my torso with my loving heart, to my beautiful shoulders and arms, and up through my neck and head, this is my beautiful, perfect as it is, strong, able body.  I love it.  I love my body.  I accept it in its wholeness and perfection of what it is and how it looks, just how it is in this moment and every moment.  I realize that it has always been there every moment for me, every moment.

I give thanks.  I give deep, loving thanks.  I am so grateful and I am so blessed.

Suseya,
Sahara

Both/ And

My journey to heal the split is both intensely personal and universal at the same time. I see that essential to the human journey is the recognition of our split from Spirit/Source and to find our way to our wholeness, only to recognize that we were never separate anyway. The separation is only an illusion.

So, if it's just an illusion, why do I have to put all this energy and intention into healing something that's not there anyway? Why can't I just step back, or step up, and recall my wholeness right here and now? Why is the split still there like a gaping wound in my belly?

Marilyn Schlitz said in an article in "EnlightenNext" that "we're living in the legacy of the Renaissance and the political deal that was struck at the time, to separate science from the soul...It ultimately created a worldview that separates us from the world."

When I read these words, I knew that my journey home to wholeness in perfectly timed, or perhaps is actually happening, because on a collective level we are beginning to challenge this paradigm and open to the possibility that all is connected and that there is no separation. That science is actually a deeply spiritual practice and exploration, because as Schlitz says, science is "a deep engagement with the mystery of the unknown."

I truly believe that we are all moving from an "either/or" to a "both/and" paradigm. We are BOTH human AND divine; BOTH matter AND consciousness; BOTH masculine AND feminine; BOTH light AND dark; BOTH body AND spirit;BOTH material AND spiritual. This is the meaning of the symbol of the 6 pointed star - as above, so below; as within, so without.

These 2 polarities can actually integrate to create a whole that is more stable and comprehensive than either aspect on its own. 

I actually saw this symbol many times on my pilgrimages last summer.  I woke up this morning remembering that it was a year ago today that I left for Spain and embarked on my pilgrimages.   I am so grateful for these experiences and getting to go.   I know that it is because of those journey that I am here right now engaged in the journey of  "healing the split" and getting to write about it.

At Chartres Cathedral, there were red triangles embedded in the magnificent designs of these huge stained glass windows.  To me, these red triangles were symbols of the divine feminine woven into the more commonly accepted stories of the Church.  When I placed the red triangles with white triangles to form the 6 pointed star, I felt a completion or a sense of wholeness in my body, in my belly.

They say that symbols cut through the layers of our logical mind and speak to us on an archtypal and intuitive level.  They speak to the truth of who we are and allow these deep truths to resonate within our bodies, our cells and our minds.  Those symbols that are created out of sacred geometry can actually re-organize and re-align our neural pathways and re-connect our thoughts and ourselves with our divine nature, and with Source itself.

So take a good look at the 6 pointed star.

I include the following description from www.medwaycropcircle.co.uk to add to your own personal experience of the star.

When two opposing triangles pass through each other we find a beautiful star emerges at the halfway point. Whilst both triangles still retain their individuality, interlaced triangles are seen as a sacred marriage that geometrically produces half-a-dozen offspring. So in one sense we have to look upon the six-pointed star as a creation symbol. Offering a profound meaning for the consciousness of the planet this is a marriage that symbolises a perfect balance of truth. One triangle looks skyward whilst the other looks earthward…”as above, so below” – “as within, so without”.  

Although generally recognised as a symbol of Judaism and the Jewish identity, what’s generally known as “The Star of David” or “Solomon’s Seal”, goes back a lot further. Found within Indian temples that are thousands of years old it was employed as a mandala, but if we look back through ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs it was a sacred symbol that read as “Land of the Spirit”.

So interesting that it read as "Land of the Spirit" - there's Earth and Spirit together, in a co-active relationship.  This is the new paradigm, or perhaps, it's actually the original paradigm that we separated from.  We have had to experience our separateness so that we may come back and appreciate our wholeness.  We have needed the contrast to remember who we really are.  How else can we truly appreciate the truth of our being unless we forget?

La Camina is the journey to heal the split, in our bodies, in our humanness, so that we re-connect and re-align with our divinity.  To walk the pilgrimage of the Celtic Camino is to physicalize La Camina.  We will walk in the "Land of the Spirit" and to embody the 6 pointed star within our bellies. We walk to heal the split for ourselves, for women, for humanity, for Earth, and even for the galaxy.  We are all connected, and what we do for ourselves, we do for all.  The opposites are integrated together to create a magnificent form that honors its parts and at the same time, creates a symbol that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Suseya!
Sahara 

Rupert

Yesterday I got to experience “My Body as My Map.” 

I went to see my friend Allison, who offers trauma healing work, and the way in is through the body.  I feel like I got to zip up and heal a small section of the split yesterday with the work we did together.

I knew I wanted to work with healing the split with her.  We talked a little bit at the beginning, and then she assisted me to bring my awareness into my body, starting with my feet.  I got to really feel myself in my feet and sitting in my seat!

Allison asked  me to say "NO" and to just feel what happens in my body when I say "NO.  Nothing dramatic or big.  Just a simple, clear, firm "NO" and then to allow that to resonate within my body and especially in my belly.

Following the map of my body, I felt as though I was on a winding road that was taking me deep into the mountains along the valley floor.  It was lush and rich with foliage, and quite difficult to get through.  I became aware of my little girl, Katie, hiding in my uterus.  Her back was pressed up against the wall of my womb as she curled herself into a ball.  I had a strange awareness that she both wanted to be found, and at the same time, did not want to found at all.  She felt scared and all alone, and desperately wanted someone to love and hold her, yet wanted to stay and hidden at the same time. 

She was about 2 to 3 years old, and felt very sad.

When I was 2 ½ years old, we moved from England to America.  I left everything that was familiar to me, including and especially my black Lab dog, Rupert.  We had been buddies.  We were together a lot, going for walks with my parents, playing together in the front garden, sitting in the little wading pool together.  The story that often gets told is that I would help him with his bone.  When Rupert had gotten all of the marrow out of the middle of the bone that he could with his tongue, I would then help him.  I would stick my finger into the marrow, pull some out for him which he would lick off my finger.  Then I would stick my finger back in and lick off the marrow myself.  Some for him, some for me.  Yum!

We left him in England when we moved because we were only going to live in America for 18 months, and England requires a 6 month quarantine when you bring a dog into England.  My parents felt it would be better for him to stay with some friends and then we would get him when we returned home.  That made sense.

Except that we never returned to England to live. 

I never got to have Rupert as my dog again.  By the time my parents decided to stay over in America to live, he had bonded with his new family and so they never brought him over here.  That made sense.

I first grieved this deep loss when I was 28 years old, 26 years after we moved from England.  It took me that long to acknowledge that I had experienced a deep loss and separation.  Whenever we had talked about it growing up, my parents’ explanations always made sense.  There was no room or encouragement to feel and express my sadness and grief.  After all, leaving Rupert in England made so much sense. 

Two weeks after I cried and cried and cried over losing Rupert, my dear canine companion, Restless, a half black Lab/half Husky, came into my life.  It was as though I had to acknowledge and grieve the loss of Rupert for another dog to come into my life.  She was with us for over 15 years, and she was one of those special ones.  Pure love, pure joy.  I loved this dog and still miss her.  Now we have a wonderful dog named Molly, also a black Lab…of course!  She’s already 10 years old and is a love.  Pure lab who loves walks, to get wet, and to chase a ball at full speed on land or in the water!

What I really experienced yesterday was how I felt that I let Rupert down.  There was no way that I was going to leave him or allow him to get left behind.  We had a pact together.  I felt completely safe and completely loved and accepted for whom I was when I was with him.  I loved being with him.  I wasn’t going unless he was going too.

Problem was that I was only 2 ½ years old!  I couldn’t do what I said I would do for him.  I felt so powerless.  I felt so sad.  I felt so bad.  I let my buddy down and we never got to be together again. 

So here I was at 2 ½ and experienced my first split between what my soul wanted, and what my body and humanness could do.  I could not actualize what my soul desired and was committed to creating.

On top of that was the huge loss of leaving my dear friend and dog in England.

Only to come to a country where everything was so unfamiliar and foreign.  It even smelled different.  I could understand people but they spoke so funny and everything sounded and felt so harsh.  I just wanted to go home.  Home to Rupert.  Home to England.  Home. 

But of course, that didn’t make sense.  My parents were here.  They loved it here.  They wanted to stay and live here.  And here I am, at 51 years old, still living here.  I sound American.  I look American.  And yet, I am English in every cell of my being.

Last summer, on my pilgrimage, I got to spend 2 weeks in England.  My daughter and I arrived by the Chunnel train from Paris and got off in a little station down in Kent.  My aunt lives nearby but other than that, I have no ancestral or immediate connection to this area of the country.  However, when we stepped off the train and stepped onto English soil, I immediately felt “I am home.”  It felt crazy and I tried to push it away.  But the visceral feeling was undeniably, “I am home.”  Every moment we spent in England, especially up north where I was born, I felt at home.  I loved being there.  Crazy part is that I sound and look totally American.  I stand out there, but I feel at home. 

Here’s another aspect of the split:  I am English but look and sound American.  I live in the States, but feel at home in England. 

One of my deepest dreams is to live in England again.  I want to go home.  I want to be home.  I want to live in my home and dig my roots deep into the soil.  Perhaps part time, perhaps fulltime.  But this is one of those sacred and courageous dreams that doesn’t make sense and also that I have no idea about how to do it.  I want to go home and resonate with the soil, my history, my ancestory, my roots and re-claim that part of me that I left behind 49 years ago -that little girl who loved her dog.  The little girl ( I keep typing “gift” instead of “girl” – that happened 2 or 3 times now)  who loved and trusted with a big open heart and who knew that she could create and manifest what her soul desired. 

I feel like I got a piece of her back yesterday.  I feel her in me, not hiding out in my belly, but integrated more into who I am.  A small section of the split healed yesterday. 

I also know now that Rupert is okay and that he forgives me.  I didn’t so much let him down – I let myself down.  I also know on a soul level that Rupert and I had an agreement to go through this process together and that he would lovingly assist me to experience the split.  I came here to experience the split so that I could also experience the wholeness.  I agreed to the split, just as Rupert agreed to assist me to experience it.  He knew that it would be painful and leave a long scar, but he wanted to be sure that I experienced it with as much love as possible.  He also knew that he would be part of the healing and my returning home to wholeness. 

And here he is, walking La Camina with me, all these years later.  He didn’t know when I would walk La Camina, but he knew I would, and he has been patiently waiting for me to come home and for us to walk together again. 

Thank you, Rupert.  I love you.

Suseya!

Sahara 

My Body Is my Map

On May 21st of last year, 2 days from now, I left to fly to Spain to walk 170 kilometers of the El Camino de Santiago.  Almost a year to the day.  So this time last year, I was making the final preparations, walking, getting packed, and preparing myself to leave my family for an extended period of time.  How different it is this year!  Now I am on my own inner journey, following La Camina of my belly.

I wrote something down the other day that I believe Christiane said, "My body is my map."  There's something profound here that I want to explore. 

When I walked El Camino, we had little guide books that gave us each daily stage of the journey, in approximately 25 kilometers sections.  The author included an altitude map (so you'd know how much you were climbing and descending each day), each town along the way with albergues (pilgrim hostels) and hotels, restaurants, a few pictures, a description of this stage.  In essence, each stage was mapped out quite thoroughly for us.  You knew where you'd be going, what albergues to expect, how far it would be,what the terrain would be like, etc.

I love maps, looking at them, seeing how where I am relates to the information on the map and how what I am experiencing is reflected in the map, and how the map reflects what I am experiencing.

So where's my map for the La Camina?!

I would love for someone to say "Here's the map of La Camina.  Let the map show you the way to heal your belly.  Everyone's map is different, but this is a magical map that can show YOU how you are going to get from here to there.  If you follow this, you are going to be okay and get exactly where you want to go, and you're going to know where you are each step of the journey." 

Too bad that the Feminine just doesn't work in the same way!  She says, "You have your map.  You have always had your map.  You don't need a piece of paper.  You just need to be with yourself, honor yourself, listen to the wisdom of your body, and follow the paths revealed through your body." 

Sometimes that can just feel so difficult.  I want a map on a piece of paper that I can look at, decipher, know where I am going to go that day and how long it should take me to get there!

What do you mean honor myself?  How do I listen to the wisdom of my body?  Can't you just tell me what I need to know?

Can you relate to this?  Or am I the only one who wants to be handed a map?

I remember on the Camino Sue would encourage us to keep the maps in our backpacks and just follow the Camino.  She wanted us to experience it very directly without an intermediary to reflect or translate our experience in any way.  Whatever the Camino offers that day, we experience it.  That was so challenging for me to do.  I received comfort in knowing how much I would climb or descend that day, how far we would be walking, and what our final destination for that day would be - at least where we intended to get to.  Once I knew that, I could relax into and experience the journey. 

What would it be like to just experience the journey, without any expectations or any input into what that experience might look like?

As I breathe into that question,  I viscerally feel that it would look like La Camina, the feminine journey where you follow your heart and the impulses of your body, and receive its wisdom and guidance.  I wear a silver piece on my necklace that is the first symbol of Rumi or something like that.  It is a spiral that moves out of a straight vertical line behind it and that also has a curved top to it, somewhat like a small "r".  I wear this necklace just about everyday, and I wore it last year as I walked the Camino and journey up the Celtic Camino.  I also wore a shorter necklace with a pilgrim's silver scallop shell that my step-mother gave me for my 50th birthday.  Today I wear it with a tiny medallion of Green Man that I bought and received at Rossly Chapel in Scotland.

The feminine journey is a spiral that is always pulsating and moving.  You may think that you have learned that lesson or resolved that issue, only to experience it again at a different level.  Same area of the spiral, but on a different rung, closer to your core.  I like the vertical piece behind the spiral.  For me, it is my stake in the ground, my commitment to the journey.  It is the intersection of the spiral and the stake that magic happens and the journey begins.  Actually, where my journey begins.  It is the place where my commitment and intention cause a particular, unique  unfolding - where I intersect with the grand, divine feminine and create the map of my own journey.

This is why there is no external map.  There cannot be.  Each person's journey is unique and very personal.  So the only place one can access a guide and a map is within that which is most unique and personal to us and is also the truest and most authentic reflection of our soul - our body. 

Our bodies are our maps.  My body is my map.

So what does this mean and how do I access, and translate, my body?

What is it saying to me?  What does it want me to know?

Let's start with the obvious.  There is a split down the middle of my belly, and also, it is my belly that I am always aware of.  When I check in with my body, the first place I always go to is my belly.  It is my barometer for how I feel about myself.  If my belly feels at peace, then I am at peace.  If my belly is not bloated or big, then I feel acceptable and present myself more comfortably in to the world. 

What does this mean?  That I hold a lot of stuff in my belly and allow it to dictate to me how I feel about myself. 

I give a lot of power to my belly, don't I?

What if I decide to love, honor and accept myself no matter what?  What if I don't make it about my belly, but about me, the true self that is not my body?  My body is a reflection of my spirit and soul, not the other way around.  I am not my body.  My body is a vehicle for my soul.  I will go further to say that it is the perfect vehicle for my soul to fulfill my soul's contract and lessons for this lifetime.  I believe that.  I know that.  And still I can resist the lessons that my body offers me, and not want to look at the map of the journey that if offers!

The split in my body reflects the split within mySelf.  My body truly is the perfect reflection of me, for me. 

I am not sure where to go from here.  OK, I have this split.  Where does the map lead me to next? 

I am pulled inside, into the depths of my belly.  My body wants me to go the space behind the organs in my belly, to the quiet dark space that lies just inside my sacrum.  Is that word at all related to "sacred"?  Is there a sacred space within all of us?  It is a quiet space behind the "stuff" - the shame, muck and gunk. 

What does it want me to know?  That this is how all of my belly can feel - quiet, clean, peaceful.  It just is.  No drama, no story, no trauma.  It is calling on me to heal the shame, to bring light into my belly, to love and accept my belly just because it is my belly.  It's a paradox.  I am to love and accept my belly just because it is my belly, and at the same time, I to cleanse it and allow the light to shine back in.  I have to get that it's not about fixing anything that is wrong. Nothing is wrong.  There's nothing to fix.  The paradox lies in this - shining the light in a place that has gotten filled with darkness, and that is calling to be healed.  This is where I can get really confused.  But I have a glimpse into that I get to shine lots of love and light into my belly, and that is the seed for healing the shame.  It is not about removing something that shouldn't be there.  It is about offering love, love and more love no matter what my belly feels like or looks like.

This is a very fine line for me.  I get it; I don't get it.  My body just keeps asking that I return and continue to show up, and honor the map.

Susaya!
Sahara

Katie

My god, I am the first and only person who can do these exercises to strengthen the transverse and heal the split in my belly everyday, faithfully, for nearly 4 weeks and have a bigger belly.  My splint is getting too small.  My belly keeps getting bigger.  How weird is that.  And totally discouraging.  And frustrating.  And challenging.

I got to go for a short little walk yesterday while my daughter was getting her hair cut on one of my favorite trails, the Bobolink.  It has a great view of the Flatiron, it follows a creek and it is the most "woods"like of all the trails around.  Lots of deciduous trees.  Yesterday was especially beautiful - apple blossoms out in full bloom, the creek raging from all of the rain, the air thick with blossom scent.  I didn't walk far or fast.  I am very quiet these days, just wanting to take naps, sit quietly, walk slowly.  There was a spot down by the creek that called me to it, so I went and just sat by the creek, mezmerized by the sound of the water.

It feels like a part of me is resisting this whole plan to heal the split.  In sitting by the creek, I decided to ask and listen.  I actually received a very clear answer.  The part of me that is a little girl (that was interesting, I just typed "gift" before I re-typed in "girl") is freaking out.  She has no idea what I'm doing, feels like I'm ramming another decision down her throat, and is wondering what's going to happen to her.  As I felt her fear and insecurity, a lot came up for me.

I remembered that when I first moved here over 23 years ago, I took a journaling class that opened up my inner world.    I plunged into deep inner work.  I discovered that my Inner Child was hiding out and cowering in my belly, in my womb, actually.  I had put her there to both keep her safe and to keep out of sight.  She embodied my shame, and I was ashamed of her.  I was ashamed of my shame and wanted her out of sight, out of mind.

As I write this, I am remembering that during "pregnancy" ritual I did back in the summer of 1989, I committed to birthing this little girl I had stuffed into my belly; to bringing her out into the light to be a conscious part of my life, and to integrating her fully into who I was becoming.

I didn't do that.  I was actually pregnant with my son, and all of my focus and attention went to him, and then his sister, and then his brother, and then his youngest sister.  Here I am 20 years later, and she is still trying to get my attention.

Somehow I know I had better pay attention this time.

I have named her Katie, or Katherine.  This is my middle name, that is my mother's middle name, my grandmother's name, and even on further back.  It is also my oldest daughter's name.  There is a lineage of women in my family who have been separated and split off from their power and essence.  My intention is to complete that chain of separation.  The buck stops here.  I commit to healing the split, for all generations forwards and backwards, in all dimensions, in all times lines, forever.  And so it is.  Ah - Ho.

My split in my belly is the doorway and the invitation to this healing.  I accept its invitation.

Katie lives deep in my belly.  If I close my belly up, she is stuck deep inside forever.  She is terrified that I will seal her up, and never fulfill my promise to her from 21 years ago.

I have made her my shame.  She carries it, she holds it, she embodies it.  I want to like her, to accept her, to bring her out into the daylight, but how can I reveal her to anyone, much less myself?

Yesterday as I sat by the creek, I heard myself say to her, "Katie, you are not the shame.  You hold it, but you are not it.  Please know this."  I know this intellectually, and I had a glimpse into feeling it yesterday by the creek.  But truthfully, I relate to her as my shame, so no matter what I say I will do to bring her out, I never follow through on it. I have wanted her stuffed down inside of me, as far away from others seeing her as possible.

I am terrified of what she would reveal to the world...to me.

And now she is challenging and thwarting all my efforts and intentions to heal the split in my belly.

Of course.

Whenever I try and do something without her participation or agreement, she balks and throws massive resistance at me to divert me from my latest mission.  And she always wins.  I always get sidetracked and diverted.  It's like I get amnesia and forget what I am really up to.

I have to WORK WITH her on this one.  I cannot do this by myself.  I have to, no get to, reconcile with Katie and work with her to heal the split.  Otherwise, the split is still the split.  My relationship with her is part of the split.  To heal the split without healing and reconciling with Katie is a non sequitur.  It is not healing the split. It can only be a splint to pull the muscles together.  Funny that last night was the first night that I did not sleep with the splint on - I had to wash and dry it overnight.   Not wearing it has given me this opportunity to realize that I have really been trying to heal the split without her, and I can't.  It's impossible. 

I remember when my dog, Molly, gashed open her chest on a rock in a creek.  She had a big flap of skin that when pulled back revealed a gaping bloody wound.  We took her to the vet and got her stitched up.  She seemed like she was healing really well, until several weeks later, the wound burst back open, as if no healing had taken place at all during those few weeks.  When we took her back to the vet, he discovered a piece of grass inside of the wound.  It's that grass that gets inside and buries itself deeper and deeper into your skin, causing serious damage.  Molly's body was doing its best to push it back it, even if it meant re-opening the wound.  It was trying to get into her heart which was very close to this wound. 

I often think of this as a metaphor for the healing of my belly.  If I try to fix my belly with just exercises, stitches and splints, I will be locking in the shame that I have carried around for years, and it will fester and cause great damage.  It could actually make me very sick.  Or Katie will just push the split back open from the inside, bursting back open the "wound."

Right now, the shame can leak out so that it maintains a level of homeostasis.  Not too much, not too little...just enough to maintain a level of shame that I have become very used to, and that Katie has learned to live with.  She survives side-by-side with it, and actually has become very identified with it.  She is not the shame, but she has become very identified with it.  That's interesting.  I hadn't realized that before.  She is used to a certain level of it to justify her fears, staying small and hidden, and safe.

So it's not just me not asking her to come out.  It is just as much her wanting to stay safe and hidden.  Yet always with an open door, an open split, that she can come in and out of as she chooses.  So healing the split is closing the door on her, and not only takes away her ability to come out, but also takes away her choice to stay hidden.

Healing the split changes the dynamics of this game we've been playing and she doesn't like change and not being included in the game change.  And she will do whatever she has to do to resist and thwart the change - even make my belly really big and fat and more conspicuous.  Especially that, because she knows how terrified I am of a big, fat, conspicuous belly.  We are locked in a power play with each other.  So I had better pay attention to her, starting now.

Suseya!
Sahara

Bully - Victim - Savior Entanglement

Monday morning.  Spring has sprung, at least it had yesterday.  These days you just don't know if it is going to stick around.  There may be more snow by Thursday!  I was outside most of the day yesterday, pulling weeds in the flower garden and in the labyrinth, and then taking a late afternoon walk with a friend.  I love being outside like that.  It took a homeopathic dose of weeding on Saturday afternoon when it was still a little cool and cloudy to get it back in my bones how much I love to weed and get the soil under my fingernails.

I am painfully and shamefully aware of big my belly feels.  The more that I strengthen the transverse muscle around my torso, the bigger my belly gets.  Go figure that one.  I don't understand the energy of my belly anymore.  Before starting to heal the split with this protocol, I knew my belly.  Perhaps I didn't love it, but I knew it, how it responded to certain situations, people, dynamics.  Now, all I know is that it is getting bigger no matter what I eat or don't eat (I don't think it's about the eating but at least that's something that I can control!).  I am losing control of my belly.  Oh my god, that really scares me.  I am terrified that it is going to get really BIG, that I will look like my mother's body, and that I will not be able to hide.

I have known that I hide my belly, but this fear of it getting really big - and uglier and fat - is just about enough to undo everything.  I am seriously considering abandoning this whole protocol with strengthening the transverse muscle and just go and have the surgery where they liposuction as well.  The doctor can just suck the fat right out of my belly and hips and I will come out looking gorgeous with a flat belly.

Damn.  If only it were that simple. 

Because then it's only about how I look to others, and that is just more of the same.  The energy patterns would still be there, which means that the dynamic of the split would still exist and I would still feel the same way I do now, but a huge 18" scar across my lower abdomen.  The split/scar would now be horizontal instead of vertical.

I say that this is not about how I look.  I say that this in an internal process of healing.  I say that I want to heal from the inside out.  Why does this have to include a having a really big belly which then also translates into really big hips?  I am feeling more and more like a pear, and I DON'T LIKE LOOKING OR FEELING LIKE A PEAR.

I feel conspicuous, ugly, fat, out of shape, exposed.

That's interesting...I feel exposed.

Exposed about what?  That when people look at me they look at my belly and not at my eyes.  They don't see me - they see my belly.  And when they look at my belly, they are making up stories about me, who I am, and what's going on with me.  Is she pregnant?  What's wrong with her?  She looks really good except for her belly...what's going on that she has such a big belly?  Is she lazy?  Doesn't she exercise?  Doesn't she have enough kids? What is she doing pregnant at 50? Doesn't she know about Pilates?  or yoga?  Doesn't she know how to take care of herself?

These voices sound like the voices of my saboteurs, constantly on me for how my belly looks and feels.  So as I feel it getting larger and more exposed, they are all over me, berating me with the judgemental questions.
It would be so much easier to just go and have surgery than to deal with these mean and hateful voices.

Putting pieces together, I realize that when I am aware of my belly, what I am mostly experiencing are these inner negative, berating, sabotaging voices.  And as my belly's getting bigger, the voices are getting bigger, louder and meaner.  So I just want to cut them out...get rid of them forever.  I'm assuming here that these voices get cut off and cut out when I have surgery and that slicing opening my abdominal skin will allow and force these voices to leave me forever. 

But what if it doesn't?  What if I go through with the surgery and the inner saboteurs are still with me, judging every step of my recovery and how my belly looks?  Oh my god, that would suck.

What I am getting here is that the saboteurs play way too big of a role in my relationship with my belly.  It's like there's a third party that always gets in the way between me and my belly.  Even when I can feel loving and accepting of my belly, they get in there and berate me for it, showing me the list of all the reasons why I shouldn't.  They end up pulling me out of my love and acceptance and back into shame, fear and loathing.

This has been really good for me to see this dynamic with how I relate to my belly.  I am also seeing how our saboteurs create a 3-way relationship that triangulates us with whatever/whomever it is we are relating to.  They are masters at convincing and cajoling us into feeling fear, shame, separation, and judgement.  We end up becoming as judgemental as they are.  They are like bullies who want to control the whole deal.

I am caught in the bully-victim-savior entanglement in my relationship with my belly.  That's so weird.  It's like my belly is the victim, the saboteurs are the bullies, and I am the savior who wants to come in and fix everything.  If I can just do it right - the right exercises, the right protocol, the right diet, the right foods, the right clothes, the right cream for my skin...then everything will look alright.  I will be okay.  The bully will be placated, leave us alone and go away.

If I can just do it right, then everything will be okay.  When I am doing it right, then I am getting the results that I want - like a smaller belly with a smaller waistline and the split is gone down the middle.  And then all is good.  I am happy.  I am good.  I am okay.  I am a loveable, likeable person...and all is okay with the world.  My world.

When I am not doing it right, that means I am not getting the results that I expected, which means that I am doing it WRONG.  If I am doing it wrong, then I must be wrong...which means I am not good.  I am not okay.  There must be something wrong with me.  I am not a loveable, likeable person, and nothing is okay or good with my world, or the world.

This is a glimpse into my "either/or" world in a nutshell.  And it is all wrapped up in my belly.

Suseya!
Sahara

Hating My Belly/Loving My Belly

It's Sunday morning and actually beautiful and sunny outside, for the first time in days.  I've really been enjoying the cooler, cloudier weather.  It gives me permission to be more internal and quiet.  When I see the clear blue sky and the sunshine, I rev up and hear myself saying, "OK, what are we going to do today?  Where are we going to go?  What am I going to get done?"  I feel like a knight getting ready to charge off on a horse.  My masculine side becomes engaged and full of energy.  On the rainy days, my feminine side feels more held and nourished.  Hadn't quite realized it like that before.

I mentioned that I started my period the other day.  Yesterday was a full flow day.  I got out into the garden later in the day and weed part of the labyrinth that we have in our yard.  Doing that reconnected me with the Earth, the soil and the plants, as well as with the labyrinth.  I haven't walked it in months, like I got out of the habit or something.  The soil is so perfect for weeding right now, that I  just want to get back out there, and weed, and plant.  And then I think of all the things I have to do inside too. I all too often get caught inside when my soul longs to be outside on the soil.  This is the inside/outside split.  I mean to go outside and work in the flower beds, to create my vegetable beds, and to create a shady hosta bed, but I end up inside working, cleaning, picking up.  In seeing this, I make a promise to weed and tend to my garden a little bit every day - to take action in my garden every day, even if it's only to just weed one or two weeds at a time.  My feminine side then gets tended to a little bit every day.  Thank you.

After I wrote yesterday, awarenesses were just popping!  They were so amazing that I was sure I would remember them.  Hmmm....they seem to have slipped back down into the depths.  I am going to attempt to re-connect with them as I write.  I was standing in the shower (here we go, it's starting to come back to me) and I put my hands on my belly.  I realized in that moment that my belly is so beautiful and that its beauty is way more than what my belly is physically.  Even my body is much more than what my body is physically.  It may be the most physical aspect of me, but even so, my body is so much more than its physicality.  This is the paradox.

Let me explain it this way.  Always before when I have tried to love my belly, I would hold or rub my belly and attempt to just love and accept my belly, for how it looked and felt physically.  This would make it very difficult for me to love and accept because what I would see and feel is its size (too big), its texture (skin dimpled from stretch marks of pregnancies), its fullness (too full).  I focused only on its physical attributes.

Yesterday I somehow experienced a deepening in how I experience my belly.  I was aware of how it is willing to hold my shame; how it has been willing to receive the rejection and scorn that I have piled on it; that it has been willing and able to hold and birth my babies as they grew inside; that it has been willing to be the center of my attention and focus (both positively and negatively) for pretty much every day of my life; it has been willing to be the bane of my relationship with my body.

My belly has also been willing to be of the highest service to me and my path of growth, both spiritually and physically.    It has taken the brunt of my negative feelings about myself.  It has actually taken the brunt of everything.  It has been willing to hold the shame until I was ready to heal the it.  It has been willing to love me and hold me and be there for me, no matter what.

My belly has been the biggest ally for me, everyday.  And I made it the enemy.  It became something wrong and ugly, something to hide, to feel ashamed of, to fix.

In that second of awareness yesterday, I realized that my belly is so much more than what it appears to be physically.  And in that nanosecond, I fell in love my belly and accepted it for what and how it is.  Completely.  For that one second.

I now have the experience in me of fully loving, accepting and appreciating my belly.

For that second.

This morning, I woke up and all I can feel is how big my belly is, and how it feels bigger every morning, and how the exercises don't seem like they're doing anything, and that I must be the only person who is getting bigger from doing the exercises while everybody's else's bellies are getting smaller, and how am I supposed to love this, and what do you mean accept this ugly part of my body...I hate my belly.  The same old familiar thoughts and feelings, right back.

Yet, at the same time now, I can also remember and tap into the moment of experience yesterday when I fully embraced and deeply loved my belly.  It may have only been a moment, but I now have that moment.  I now know that my belly is not just my belly.  It is my ally and my biggest gift.

I actually chose to have this big, beautiful belly, split, wrinkles and all.  We're in this journey together.  I signed up to heal the split this lifetime.  This is my mission.  This is my challenge.  How else can I heal the split unless there is a split to be healed?  This is where it all starts to get a little circular!

The words from the goddess chant are in my mind right now.  "We are sisters on a journey, shining out as one. Remembering the ancient ones, the women and their wisdom...the women and their wisdom."

I am sisters with my belly, and together we get to heal the split.

Suseya!
Sahara

Scared Little Girl

I am up early to edit my book.  Looking forward to start my day writing.  As I write that, I realize that I love to write.  I am just owning that as I write it!  It feels good.  I also get that I process and connect in the process of writing.  Very often I do not realize what I am going to say until I write it.  Same as when I speak.  It is in the act of communicating that truth is expressed through me.  I have read that these are the characteristics of a "clairsentient" intuitive, and while I could relate to that through my speaking out loud, I am now more deeply understanding and owning this about myself as I write.

Today feels like a quiet day on the inner front.  I actually started my period yesterday.  I say actually because I am in perimenopause so I never know when or if I am going to get it.  It actually caught me by surprise.  Earlier in the week I had been feeling a little pre-menstrual in how I was eating and that I was very content to have a quiet day inside working up on my bed all day.  No need or desire to go outside, be visible or be active.  So, really -  I am not that surprised that I am bleeding.

I feel like I had my first real hot flash last night at dinner.  We were having a late and lazy dinner, hanging out and talking with our 16 year old daughter when all of a sudden I had to pull my hair off my neck, unbutton my sweater and create space between my body and my clothes!  I felt like I was a furnace and just oozing heat from the inside out. 

I am a perimenopausal woman who is healing the split in her belly and between her self and her Soul. 

Watch out!

Yesterday I went to talk with Christiane, a local wise woman who has created and offers a beautiful, rich, deep body of work called the Re-Wilding that requires courage to even consider .  And I am seriously considering it.  I have known Christiane through our children going to the same elementary schools, and recently came across her work when she was recommended to be on our radio show.  I was so moved by what she was doing so after our interview, I contacted her about working together.  One of the points that caught my attention was that so often, we are "ashamed of the shame."  When Christiane mentioned that, I felt the truth of it in my bones - actually in my belly. 

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, my shame is sheltered, hidden and kept safe in my belly, and I am so ashamed of my belly.  I am ashamed of my shame.  I have hidden my belly and what's inside of it for my whole life, even as a little girl.  Especially as a teenage girl.  I celebrated it during my pregnancies because now I actually had something in my belly that was beautiful and full of life and love and was not "me".  My belly's roundness and fullness was to celebrated, not hidden.  For 36 months of my life (out of total of 614 months so far) I got to celebrate my belly!  And then as soon as I gave birth, I felt ashamed of my belly again.  It was too big, too flabby, too ugly, the skin was too stretched, and the feeling of something dark, black, thick in my belly was back. 

I hear the saboteurs saying to me, "You are being so dramatic.  Just give it up already.  Get over yourself.  My god, girl - just who do you think you are?  Just get on with your life and stop all this drama."

And this is what I have done, time and time again - gotten on with my life and packaged up the feelings and the shame into a nice neat box with a pretty bow, and a smile on my face.  Actually, I have put the feelings and the shame deep into my belly, hidden away from anyone who might see it, hidden even from myself. 

Until it oozes out through the split.  I can't contain it.  It won't stay hidden and tucked away.  It comes out when I least expect it, when I least want it, at the most inopportune times.  It takes me out of what I was doing.  I leave. I don't return to the next class. I check out and become very vague about what I was doing or what I had committed to.  I return to feeling safe.

The split.  The portal of my belly.  It can feel like an open, gaping wound.  What is its role and its purpose?  It is like a crack in the bowl.  Nothing can be fully contained.  It allows that which is inside to leak out.  It allows that which is external to come in.  A feeling that it is so difficult to have boundaries and to say NO and to mean it.  To even know what I want to say no to.  A feeling that it takes so much will force to say no, to mean no, and to keep saying no.  All the doubts and concerns for saying no come in and I am often pulled out of my no, out of my clarity and conviction, and am convinced to say yes and I acquiese. 

When I birthed my babies, I hemmoraghed each time.  Here I had given birth at home naturally with no drugs and as soon as the baby was outside of my body, the contractions stopped and I bled out.  I lost all the power and energy that I had generated through giving birth.  It's like it just seeped out.  I couldn't contain or hold this energy to nourish me as a mother, as a woman.  I remember viscerally the feeling of the life force slipping out of me, and my not being able to contain it in any way . 

You know the line from Marianne Williamson's poem, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."  I know that this is true for me. And if it's true for me, I know that it must also be true for so many others.  What if we leak out our power and our true force out of this deep fear?

Back to the split.  It also serves as a leak so that I cannot contain my power, my strength and my true force.  Not only can I not keep that which is outside out, I also cannot keep that which is inside in.  Again, the image of a sieve comes up for me and the words, LEAKY BELLY. 

The plus side of all this may be that the shame doesn't get locked inside of me either.  Locked in, it could create disease.  Yet it gets to move around, ooze in, leak out, but maybe there has been a level of status quo with it because of the "sieve system."  Now that I am messing with system through my intention to heal the split and the transverse exercises, everything is getting heated up.  I am challenging the status quo.  I am literally getting heated up and getting hot flashes for the first time, and my period for the first time in over 3 months.  I just got this image of the shame being fuel for the fire of my transformation.  This just sparks so many thoughts and images that are converging.

I know that it takes heat to transform our cells and our DNA.  This is the value of fevers.  Our bodies heat up so that the fire can literally burn through our DNA and cause us to evolve.  What if my body is now heating up as I close the split because of a self-balancing mechanism in my body?  My body is operating out of a homeostasis that has learned how to handle the shame at a certain level.  If it gets too much, it will leak out through the split, or through bleeding (both after birth or during my monthly cycle), or it will burn it off through a fever or hot flashes.  My healing the split is challenging the homeostasis on all levels, so to regenerate balance, I get my period, I have a hot flash, and I initiate a relationship to heal the shame through deep, profound body centered work. 

What I am appreciating here is that my body is really supporting me to create health and balance.  Yes, there is shame in my body , but  that is not me or my body.  My body has learned how to keep it in check through the split.  My body actually split from the inside out.  I chose the split in order to survive the shame.  I split.  I chose to split in order to survive.  I can feel this truth reverberating in every cell of my being.  I chose the split.   I am responsible for the split because I didn't know how to handle or be with the shame.  I can feel this scared little girl inside of me who felt so alone, so ugly on the inside and that not knowing what to do or who to go to, she chose to split off from the pain and the shame. She was terrified.  And so she split.  The scared, ashamed little girl split off so that she could be the happy, good little girl who fit in and was loved. 

There have been quite a few moments of breathing and being with what I just wrote.  It's one of those moments where you know you have known this - where I have known that I have known this, and I have just re-claimed this knowing on a much deeper level of the spiral.  Also, that I have been attempting to heal this from the outside, but how I can heal something from the outside when I split from the inside out.  I can so appreciate that the physical process is such a wonderful catalyst for the inner work, but to focus only on the outer work leaves the same energy imprint  to split again, perhaps in a different way on a different level, but to split again all the same.

I keep coming back to La Camina.  This is my soul's journey - this is the way, the healing I came in to do.  I committed to heal the split on every level of my being, for myself and for all.  I feel as though I am creating a template for healing the split.  I am committed to healing the split on all levels, on all dimensions, on all timelines, in all worlds.  It is my soul's work.  It is my body's work.  It is what I came to do.  It is who I am.  Because what I know is true is that there is no split, no separation.  There is only the way, La Camina, to which we all return to take the next step forward, the next breath.

Thank you for being a witness to my journey.

Suseya!
Sahara