#degraziaanderson – Page 6 – esterinaanderson.com

On Vagueness

Posted on 04/23/201801/03/2019 by Esterina Anderson

When an answer or story is vague, antennas should be tuning in because vagueness is often based in hiding something. There are some good reasons to hide something – like a surprise, staying out of drama, or even just dancing around an answer to the question about what you are doing a particular evening if you don’t know if the person asking was invited to the event you are going to.

More often than not though, vagueness is usually a warning sign to pay attention. If we pay attention we would know when to dig deeper. And if we really reallypaid attention; we might be able to even tell on a subtle level if there cause of vagueness is for a positive or negative reason. It’s not difficult, it just takes some awareness and tuning in.

Most of us want to believe what we would like in order to keep our worlds as we would like them to be. We ignore the vague nagging in our guts that is signaling something isn’t right. The answers that don’t add up but we don’t seem to have time to prod. The person we love and want to trust so we don’t question. The sales pitch that doesn’t quite sit right but the evidence to the contrary is showing all peaches and roses.

I’ve been duped many times in my life. When I look back at the lies I’ve been told or the hidden truths I’ve discovered, I know that at some point there was a very quiet alarm bell that I had ignored. In hindsight I recognize that I knew it, but at the time I wanted to believe what I wanted to believe. Sometimes it’s easier to keep going by ignoring the unpleasant. But it often makes things worse in the long run. Perhaps recognizing the feeling and asking just another question or two could really prevent future harm.

We could be saving battered women and children. Hearing a real cry for help from a depressed loved one. Finding out an employee isn’t really all he or she is cracked up to be after all. Learning that your spouse is an adulterer. Recognizing your child is using drugs. Unearthing who the real culprit is when you are in the midst of drama. Saving a trafficked human. Preventing a diploma getting into the hands of someone who hasn’t worked for it.

I know I’ve recognized the feeling before that arose out of vagueness. Have you felt that alarm bell too? Was it mostly good or bad? Do you wish you paid attention earlier? What could you have prevented?

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On a Song for Someone

Posted on 04/15/201801/03/2019 by Esterina Anderson

via Daily Prompt: Song

From
U2

The refrain of this song is used on both of U2’s most recent albums, Songs of Innocence (2014) and Songs of Experience (2017). It was called “A Song for Someone” on the 2014 album, and a “There is a Light” on the 2017 album. Both titles make sense, as the refrain uses both lines.

It’s a beautiful song that speaks to me in the way of communicating with our own soul, or that part of ourselves that is all knowing and sits quietly waiting for us to be wise enough to just listen to it. To do so, we need to be quiet and tune in.

If there is a light
You can’t always see
And there is a world
We can’t always be
If there is a dark
Now we shouldn’t doubt
And there is a light
Don’t let it go out…

‘Cause this is a song
A song for someone
Someone like me

I didn’t like this song other than this part the first several times I heard it. Daren and I went to see the Innocence + Experience Tour in 2015. When Bono announced this song I believe said he wrote it for an old friend back in Ireland. When the last album came out a few months ago, Daren and I were listening to it together in the car on the way to Long Island. There is a Lightcame on closer to the end of the album (13). As soon as the refrain started I began to sing along. It was much slower than the original, but a welcome surprise I didn’t expect – like an old friend who is who is an improved version of themselves.

Like most songs – they have meaning in the ear of the beholder. Most of (if not all) of U2 songs have a very spiritual meaning to me. I was listening to this song in my own car a few weeks later when I started to thinking about the light that is always inside of us. Our own special light that can never go out but we cannot always see or connect to it. The world is at a physical level, so it would make sense that if there is a world we can’t always be connected to our spiritual/non-physical selves. At the time I was also putting together a yoga workshop on Tao yoga and was completely absorbed and fascinated by the concept of opposites. The dark/light comparison lines just really made sense. To me the songs speak of the relationship our ego and mind have with our soul, or that part of ourselves that contains the divine.

On the Songs of Innocence album – the lyrics are more of the innocent mind set. Likely before hard falls that take place in life, but about one who realized this relationship to their higher self and is on the journey of discovery. I hear it almost as if the ego is talking to the higher self, as the higher self doesn’t have a voice of it’s own. The ego translates what it tells us in words, but the higher self is not speaking in words. Similar to the way the bible explains how our ancestors may have heard the voice of God without hearing actual words.

You got a face not spoiled by beauty
I have some scars from where I’ve been

Our higher self cannot be anything other than perfect, while our physical self is scarred with imperfection.

You’ve got eyes that can see right through me
You’re not afraid of anything they’ve seen

Our own spirit is all knowing and you can’t hide anything from it, as it knows everything about you including what you think. And whatever it is – it’s all ok, we are human so we cannot be perfect and we have the capacity for forgiveness.

You let me into a conversation
A conversation only we could make
You break and enter my imagination
Whatever’s in there
It’s yours to take

Only we can have conversation with ourselves, and whatever is imagined we can decide if we want it there by taking notice and changing our thoughts.

And I’m a long way
From your hill of Calvary
And I’m a long way
From where I was, where I need to be

The hill of Calvary is literally & figuratively far away, and while I’m on the path to freedom/actualization/peace/heaven [whatever you want to call it] and far from where I started, there is still a ways to go.

The song 13 (There is a light) seems to speak about someone who has almost given up on their higher self. It’s off the Songs of Experience album and seems to speak to one who has been a bit more hardened by the cruel world.

And if the terrors of the night
Come creeping into your days
And the world comes stealing children from your room
Guard your innocence
From hallucination
And know that darkness always gathers around the light

There are negative thoughts in your mind. You don’t want them there but they show up. The world stealing children from your room (you/your construct) means that your innocence has been compromised. The lyrics ask that you guard it from things that aren’t there which you may think up and not want there (hallucinate); but know that there is a light right there that this dark drifts to. At the point of darkness in your life it’s normal to drift to the spiritual (light).

When the wind screams and shouts
And the sea is a dragon’s tail
And the ship that stole your heart away
Sets sail

When all you’ve left is leaving
And all you got is grieving
And all you know is needing

All these things will happen. Your heart will be broken, life is going to be hard, and we seem to only know through our physical self the perpetual never-ending material wants that can never be satisfied.

I know the world is done
But you don’t have to be

It’s to hard to fight the pull of the physical world so don’t be too hard on yourself when you fail, as the desires of the flesh will always be there. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up.

I’ve got a question for the child in you before it leaves
Are you tough enough to be kind?
Do you know your heart has its own mind?
Darkness gathers around the lights

Before giving up on the beauty and innocence you once had, know it’s tougher to be kind in a world that will always let you down. A child like heart will give you that strength to keep kind. The heart has a mind of it’s own and that “mind” has the right/kind answer every time.

This is my own loving/Esterina take on these two songs. I feel they speak of our own song with our souls or spirits within us. We just need to open up and listen. The answers and strength are all there in a never ending well.

‘Cause this is a song for someone like me.

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On the Sound of Silence

Posted on 04/11/201801/03/2019 by Esterina Anderson

via Daily Prompt: Froth

When I first saw the word froth this morning as the daily blog prompt, images of cappuccinos and beer danced in my head. On the surface that is what I think of. Strangely, froth too is on the surface. Froth is mostly empty and provides little more than a fleeting pleasure to the tongue before it fades fairly quickly on its own. While it looks pleasant and inviting, it’s also hiding what is underneath.

When my husband Daren and I first moved into together with our four children, now well over 7 years ago; there was a noticeable difference between my two biological children and my two step-children. They had a lot to say and my two children and I did not. Often times when Daren and I were alone he shared that he felt uncomfortable with the silence and commented about how different it felt from being with his ex where there was non-stop chatter.

At first I felt motivated to talk more. The dinner table was usually dominated by Daren asking everyone questions with my two children providing short answers and my step-children providing very long detailed answers that dominated the rest of the meal. I tried to jump in and ask questions, but I felt very fake in doing so. When Daren would come home and ask how my day was I would say something along the line of ‘Good and how was yours?’ He would answer in detail about how wonderful the day was. Every day. To be honest I didn’t find this intriguing; I found it quite annoying.

It’s not a pleasant feeling to be annoyed with your spouse over a silly question about how the day was. I didn’t like myself for it and sort of felt embarrassed that I didn’t really care enough to hear about the wonderful day he had. Oddly he left out things that really mattered that would bug me or I needed to know– like that he drove to another state, had a paper published that he forwarded to his parents and kids but never thought to send it to me too, or that his ex asked him several days ago to switch an evening so the kids will be here tomorrow evening… and they need rides all over the state.

I was finding a lump in my throat when asked a question by my new family or when I even tried to consider a response. I started to become speechless. I never considered myself of my former family quiet by any stretch. I couldn’t quite put my finger on this. The blended family dinners were particularly of dis-ease. Daren would start to get desperate and go around the table with particular questions like what was your most favorite part of the day? My kids would look uncomfortable as his started talking. Eventually his children sensed this and became uncomfortable too. Everyone would clear their plates as soon as possible and ask to be excused no matter how many different attempts we made at having a conversation we could all enjoy.

I’m incredibly embarrassed to say that it took far longer than it should to even determine what the proverbial ‘bee in my bonnet’ was about the whole thing. It was almost two years later while listening to Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Sound of Silence’ that I really heard their lyrics for the first time. I became teary eyed- “People talking without speaking. People hearing without listening”. What was bothering me wasn’t the amount of the conversation, it was the content. Or should I say lack there of?

The content remained very much on the surface and was full of air – like froth. The kids would sit at our dinner table politely waiting their own turn. No one was listening to nor cared what anyone else was saying Perhaps my kids picked up on that first and kept their answers short to spare everyone else the details. His children didn’t see the signs that no one was really listening and kept going. It was froth. You got to only show what you want to. It either felt like strangers waiting online at the coffee shop trying to make small talk, or two previous competing colleagues meeting up to catch up and notate each and every accomplishment and good thing in their life since they last met.

I started to notice the same conversations all around me outside of my home too. Conversations wrought with wonderful, just wonderful days. Days filled with accomplishments and learning experiences. The ‘engaged’ listener would mechanically ask the ‘right’ inquiring questions with a curious, well planted look on their face; smiling on cue and sitting on the edge of their seat. The edge of seat sitting wasn’t due to the amazing story the engaged listener was ‘hearing’, they were at the edge of their seat putting together their own story of how wonderful everything is and their own accomplishments. It seems as if everyone was “one-upping” each other. After all is said and done, there is an invisible pat on each other’s back – both acknowledging one another’s greatness. From my own experience in these types of conversations for a moment both parties feel confident and good about themselves. But moments upon walking away they are filled with emptiness.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the complainers. The co-workers who consistently sit around with a scowl on their face having something to say about everyone’s every move. Little tiny molehills that would never even be thought about are turned into major catastrophes. Opinions and platitudes without substance are just spewed out like lava erupting from a volcano at periodic, random times.

The newfangled observation of conversations that always took place really started to trouble me. Although I participated in them myself from time-to-time, I had to really stop and think about how I must be perceived. Do I complain too much? Is anyone really interested in my stupid stories that might have gone on for too long? If I didn’t find a person interesting or I found them to be entirely too caught up in themselves, but I sat with them for a long time acting very interested – doing all the right things; looking them in the eye, asking the right questions, throwing my hair back and leaning in…. then perhaps they didn’t find me interesting either. What a concept! Me not interesting? My complaints not valid?? Then it hit me, or course not. We are all actors in a very lonely play. Doing what we are supposed to on stage, but not really connecting at any human level. If you were really paying attention to me; I was probably glancing at my watch, looking around the room to find a way out, and dropping all types of conversation enders. All until the conversation turned back to me of course. How engaging… not!

At home at least I thought I had a respite. A place to kick back, be real and stay away from the superficial banter of the real world. Prior to my new marriage; my children, ex-husband and I had plenty to say around the dinner table, but the content was different. We shared funny stories that happened that day, talked about something in the news or something that happened to someone we all knew, or chitchatted about things we all liked such as our pets. Sometimes there was a lesson or dinner manner correction, but it flowed all very naturally and with ease. In my new family I felt like I was on stage, having to watch every word. Sound happy so the kids don’t go back to their other parent with anything negative. Be cheerful and say the right things even when I was being called names and ignored. It was too much and too too too fake.

I started thinking entirely too much about conversations and communication. While I heard many details about Daren’s great days, the more he shared; the less I wanted to. I didn’t always have a great day. It was too much mental energy to keep up with him to rehash my ‘best of Esterina moments’ and amazing learning experiences. It’s not that I didn’t have any, it’s just that they didn’t fill me up or bring me pleasure to share. Yes, I want my partner to be proud of me and to be proud of my partner, but not in this way. Don’t get me wrong, we did have deep conversations too. Many evenings when both sets of kids were with their other parents, we shared some wine and sat for long hours after dinner having the most intellectually stimulating conversations. I just didn’t like what we did at dinner or after work.

The Sound of Silence resonated with me. These surface conversations that I noticed I was having or hearing all the time didn’t feel like anyone was really listening or cared. I didn’t connect with the other person through these dialogues. The topics stayed light and empty. I almost preferred the [How are you? Good and you? Good] types of exchanges because at the very least they weren’t pretending to be anything that they were not. People just hearing without listening. I was craving something more. I realized how lonely this is and desired deeply to connect with others.

I did talk with Daren about this occasionally. He didn’t understand and took it the wrong way. It was a bit of a source of contention. When I thought I discovered the meaning to The Sound of Silence, I played it in the car with Daren. When it was over I asked him what it meant to him. He honed in on the line “Silence like a cancer grows” and said he was happy that I could understand what he meant when he comments about how he felt uncomfortable with the silence. As the song states, it creates a cancer between people.

UGH…. That isn’t how I interpreted it. I became annoyed and said something to the effect of ‘that’s not what it means’. For me it meant that the emptiness of the conversation is the silence. People have so much more richer, deep, meaningful things to say than they communicate; but don’t share them (writing songs they never share). Perhaps people are to busy to connect so they talk about only the good stuff, but that feels very empty and phony to both the speaker and listener. If you always hear others talking about good stuff and posting social media images and messages about good stuff; then we never cut below the real surface of life to what we truly experience. It’s a construct, an ideal. A neon god that we are worshiping.

As a society we generally stay silent about things that matter. Simon and Garfunkel were pre-social media, but we’ve taken that to the online streets as well. Afraid that posting strong feelings about anything that could be perceived as controversial might paint ourselves in a negative light to someone else. So we hide our passions, we don’t act or behave as we really are from deep down in the heart, and we only share our surface facade. It leads to not fighting for social justice, animal rights, gay marriage – or anything that might bring us closer as a human race to acceptance and compassion.

The more we open up about what is really going on with us, share our failures in addition to our successes and stop giving ourselves and everyone else a trophy for mediocrity; perhaps the more willing we would be to put our beliefs on the line to fight for what matters to us deep down- picket, participate in a sit in, or even just write a passionate letter to a Congressman.

To revisit that day in the car, I said many of these things – only with a much hotter head and louder voice. Daren and I debated about what the lyrics meant, and didn’t even agree to disagree – we just disagreed. Not long ago we listened to the song again in the car. Daren, forgetting the entire previous conversation we had said afterwards – “Wow that is deep!”. I asked again what it meant to him. This time we had a very cerebral, respectful discussion and I felt a real connection to another human.

Presently Daren and I’s post work conversations are far more real and down to earth. Communication about important logistical matters has gotten better but there are occasional, annoying lapses. Our dinner table dynamic never did improve. It has remained an uncomfortable staple in our home for years. Every once in while we will have an enjoyable, participatory family discussion; but those are way too few and far between. At least I now know it’s the froth that bugs me. The knowing allows me to step back and not engage in what isn’t me.

It’s been years since Daren has said anything to me about silence. I don’t talk any more or less than I used to, but our norm as a couple has shifted. Although he may be annoyed with me for over sharing here in this blog, I am confident that he too now has little tolerance for empty blathering covered in froth and would actually prefer the sound of silence to it.

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

Fools, said I, you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence

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On Our Human Inchoate Brain

Posted on 04/07/201801/03/2019 by Esterina Anderson

Have you considered the possibility that our brains are quite inchoate?

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines inchoate as “being only partly in existence or operation”. Dictionary.com describes the word to mean “just begun and so not fully formed or developed; rudimentary”.

From as early back as I could remember, I was taught in school and church that humans are the most developed and intelligent creatures on earth. Through my Catholic elementary school training I had ‘learned’ that we [as humans] have dominion over the planet and all the creatures on it.

In fourth grade I learned about the solar system. Like many children in the 70’s and 80’s, I had to create a physical model of our planets. I was fascinated and longed to learn more. The church and my classes preached that we are here in God’s image. There is no other intelligent life, but that seemed like such a boring story to me.

My Catholic school did teach us about the Big Bang theory. They also taught creation. It didn’t make sense of course. No one including my parents questioned what I thought was this obvious conundrum. When I asked about it, my teachers or mom would seemingly make stuff up on the spot about how the bible’s or science’s exact numbers might be fuzzy, or that one day of creation described in the bible was actually millions of years.

Sometime around middle school in a science class I first heard that humans only use 10% of their brain. It was unclear if it was all we were capable of or all we only used. I was a disinterested pre-teen and though I wondered, wasn’t curious enough to raise my hand to ask.

One night in high school after a shift at my ice-cream scooping job, I lay under my covers with the telephone cord stretched tightly from my nightstand talking to the brother of one of my coworkers. He was a little older than me. We flirted a few times and he asked me for my number. I had a private phone line in my room, so I was able to talk with a fair amount of privacy. The phone line was a Christmas gift from my parents one year, and thinking about it now as I write; was likely a gift for all the members of my household.

We didn’t talk about anything scandalous, but privacy allowed my mind to wander and random thoughts to unearth themselves. Somehow the conversation led to the question of space and other intelligent life. I remember being totally engaged in this conversation and just expressing thoughts as they arose. Some of them were –

If dogs we know about dog whistles and dogs can hear things we can’t, what makes us think there are other things we can’t see or hear?
Does that apply to our sight too?
Are there things right next to us we can’t see?
We only know about the colors on the white light spectrum, what if there are more that we can’t see or haven’t invented instruments for?

I thought about this conversation many times over the course of my life and expanded upon it to many other thoughts and theories. While talking to others I sometimes found myself in a heated intellectual debate about science and what we know. Some argued that we would know if there were other things around us or other intelligent life. Others were held a very religious/Christian opinion that we are all that there is and are made in God’s likeness and image; stop asking questions. Others were more open minded and curious too when I presented some of the questions and theories I think about at random times.

Last night I was lounging on my sofa with my husband while streaming the latest Star Wars movie. Our dog Koji was hanging around on the floor, indolently below us. At some point in the earlier part of the movie (before we fell asleep), Koji got up, seemingly perturbed. He was standing in front of the TV in full solider mode. His tail was high, and the hair on and around it stood at full attention. He was partially growling and partially squeaking in fear. He stopped for a moment and cocked his head to the side while trying to figure out what he was seeing. He decided that there was no danger and came back to relax by our feet, this time with one ear open.

I couldn’t help but wonder what Koji thinks of this rectangular box that we sit on the couch and watch. It makes noises – sometimes there are dogs barking in the distance from this box, or a doorbell. When this happens he seems confused and will prance around the house barking, growling or squealing in semi-fear. He is completely incapable of understanding that we are watching something of interest. The idea of a story or even a book is completely out of the scope of his brain. We can’t explain it to him, and even if we could and he could understand the concept of a story; he doesn’t have the sensory eyes to even watch a movie or the ability to string words together in a book.

This brings my thoughts to us humans. If we truly did evolve from amoeba to monkeys to humans, and this took trillions of years; what brings anyone to believe for a nanosecond that humans will not continue to involve into something even more intelligent than ourselves? If we know through science that we are only using 10% of our brains, our brains are inchoate. Perhaps there are things right next to us we cannot see or understand in the same way Koji cannot understand the concept of the television.

I personally believe there is so much out there we just don’t know and cannot possibly know because we don’t have the sensory organs to perceive whatever it is. When I bring this up to others they seem scared at this thought and quickly dismiss it. I’m not sure why. The concept of making electricity existed long before we discovered how to manipulate and contain it for use. It would be silly to think there are others things we haven’t figured out how to contain and manipulate, and even more silly to think the limitations of our 5 senses are able to figure out everything the universe contains.

If we evolved from monkeys, we know they are limited. We are limited as well, because in my super crazy humble Esterina opinion, our brains are inchoate.

via Daily Prompt: Inchoate

DailyPost: Inchoate

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On The Monkey Mind vs Spirit

Posted on 04/06/201801/03/2019 by Esterina Anderson

We are born with nothing, even clothes. At the moment of death we might be donning some attire, and perhaps be clutching something –a person, animal or object (or all 3). But those physical remnants remain. We come into the world with nothing physical but the body. When we leave, we leave even the body behind. The only thing that goes is that light in our eyes, our spirit.

So why do we become attached to anything? Why do we spend that precious time between life and death hauling around stuff? Worrying about stuff? ‘Stuff’ being our cars, clothes, friends, jobs, or status. The only thing that really matters is the imprint we leave on the planet, created through our spirit. We can’t haul anything but our spirit out of this world, so why isn’t the spirit the main focus of living? Why are we focused on stuff?

I started yoga like many others for the physical practice. My first experience was with a VHS tape at home in my living room. “This is easy!” I thought. It must be because I’m flexible and was a dancer when I was young. I moved from position to position and sat there waiting to see what I would be told by the TV to do next. I ignored the cues to breath “Geez, I know how to breath” and ‘open up’ “Isn’t that what I’m doing?”. I was annoyed at the end when the suggestion was to lie on my back for several minutes. “What a waste of time!”

I went to actual classes a few times, but I didn’t quite understand it. I only did yoga at home because I heard it was good for you. I didn’t particularly enjoy it and I absolutely skipped the lying on your back part at the end.

Until one day I went to a class at a local chiropractic office that was offering free classes for a week. The classes all had different names. I couldn’t tell them apart and really didn’t care. The time I was able to get home from work and get my husband situated with the kids was far more important. I went to a class Monday and Tuesday. Same experience, but this time I had to lie in silence at the end. I really disliked that part. However, the Wednesday class was life altering. It was called “Love your body yoga”. Yoga was yoga to me. The postures all even seemed the same. But there was something different about this class. Perhaps the teacher’s voice or encouragement, I don’t know; it was too long ago now to remember. Somehow though, I was able to do the postures better. I listened to the cues to breath and expand in certain parts. I moved slowly, mindfully, and with grace. At the end I was looking forward to the lying meditation (known as savasana – pronounced “shavasana”). During savasana the teacher came around with an oil for our foreheads. When she gently put her hands on my temples I felt at such peace I almost wanted to cry. The smell was like light and citrusy, but like incense. The experience was so comforting. When I left class I kept touching my forehead and smelling the oil. I felt a sense of peace.

My practices at home became a little different after that, although I was never able to get into a good routine and reap the benefits of yoga. Years later on a whim I signed up for a local class at the Park & Rec. I knew yoga was good for me, I knew how to do it (I thought), and I wanted a steady place where I knew I wouldn’t be lazy and skip it.

The first class was amazing. I drove away with a sense of bliss. That night in bed when I turned over in the middle of the night I felt space in my body as well as an overall sense of harmony. I kept going and the benefits kept getting better and better. It wasn’t very long before I had my first cry on the mat while in pigeon (something I now know is quite common). Soon after that; the mind, body, spirit connection was undeniable. Where has this been all my life? Do other people know about it? Why isn’t this more well known??? Our spirit is the key to life.

I didn’t know it until long after I started yoga teacher training, but the word yoga means “to yoke”. Particularly; to yoke the mind, body, and spirit. I know there are many other ways to link the mind, body and spirit. Others have found the answers in various different ways, but have come to the same sense of yoking. Once you sense that connection to the mind, body, and spirit it’s difficult to go back to the material way of living because you know deep down that it doesn’t matter.

Yoga isn’t a magical cure that works all the time. In fact many times I move through a whole practice and never feel ‘settled’. The difference is that I know my mind, body and spirit are disconnected and that I do not like feeling that sense of separation. I know that giving into that separation by trying to fill the space between with stuff only leads to suffering and a sense of even more separation. I know this and most of the time cannot master it. But the time in between remembering where the sense of true peace comes from grows a tiny bit each day.

The time in between birth and death is our life. In that life we accumulate things. Physical things. We become attached to those things. We become attached to people. We become attached to happiness and think something is wrong when we are sad. We need to eat, sleep, and eliminate to order to function and stay healthy. To stay healthy through eating, sleeping and eliminating we need stuff. So we spend our lives from birth to death hauling around stuff. Stuff to eat, stuff to sleep, stuff to look good in the eyes of others. At any moment in time we are likely hauling stuff, whether it’s a wallet, purse, tube of lip balm, or like me – bags and bags of food, drink, or ‘stuff’ I might need.

I’m not proposing that we don’t have stuff. We absolutely need to haul around things from day to day, or house-to-house, or city-to-city in order to function and stay alive. The disconnect comes in two forms: 1) From taking more than you need. 2) Becoming attached to that stuff.

There are two ways to not take more than you need and/or become attached. 1) You can listen to authorities that preach this. 2) You can discover for yourself.

The problem with number 1 is that most of those who preach it and know it at a spirit level do not practice this. Our parents taught us not to take more than you need, but we then probably watched them eat, buy, shop, and generally consume more than they needed. We observed as they became attached to their jobs, cars, houses, other people, stories, the news, etc. The same went for teachers, preachers, friends, family… the society that shaped our thoughts growing up. The message was conflicted and if you are anything like me, didn’t even question the confliction.

Discovering this for yourself is a whole different ballgame. Once you realize that non-attachment and taking only what you need is the key to liberation, it’s hard not to incorporate it into your decisions. Before the discovery on your own, the hypocritical authoritative voice in your mind may have caused a sense of guilt; but the knowing it is not right through your very own voice is far more powerful.

Old habits are incredibly difficult to break. There is not a switch that goes off where one starts to make perfect decisions from here forth. In fact there is more debate, guilt and remorse over not making the right decision than ever.

Wikipedia describes the Monkey Mind as a Buddhist term meaning “unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable”. The monkey mind is the voice in the head that never stops talking. Like a monkey it cannot sit still. It jumps from thought-to-thought, worry-to-worry, new shiny object to new shiny object, without a care in the world. It is like a toddler that never grows up. It responds to the wiring in the brain that lights up “like” impulse. It likes stuff – food, taste, status, objects. Its concerns are all about ‘me, me, me’.

The spirit on the other hand is quiet and all knowing. It knows right from wrong. It will make the best, most loving, decision on behalf of the good of your body and the the world every time. The spirit doesn’t talk to you, but if you ask it – it will give the mind the right answer.

Here is where you learn that the habits formed in your physical brain wire faster and respond more quickly to your mind than what your spirit speaks to it. Your mind has been accustomed to ignoring that wise, quiet, but all knowing spirit within because that monkey chatter is so loud. We give into it as we might a toddler, just to quiet it down. It’s why yoking the mind, body and spirit are so important. Once they are all on the same page – there is no conflict. The right path is clear.

Even if you haven’t yet made the mind, body and spirit connection on your own or have no idea what I’m talking about and are curious –

Consider not hauling around so much stuff – whether it’s physical or emotional.
Become unattached, knowing that nothing ever lasts.
Take only what you need.

Know with practice and time, the space between remembering becomes greater and greater…. and with that comes a sense of peace.

DailyPost: Haul

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A Frigid New England Morning

Posted on 04/06/201801/03/2019 by Esterina Anderson

I take a deep breath on this frigid New England morning. The air feels cold and steely in my lungs, but at the same time incredibly refreshing compared to the re-circulated dry, warm air in the house just two feet behind me. I am barefoot on the small, colorful, and very wet welcome mat on my back deck. From inside it looked a bit warmer out, but one inhale tells a different story.

The thermometer reads 22 degrees Fahrenheit. Even though the air is cold and frigid, there are several signs that spring is on the way. The most exciting sign for me is the red buds on the trees that boarder our yard. Despite the cold, the trees are aware of the subtle shifts in the atmosphere and are preparing to put forth an abundance of greenery in just a few short weeks. While I’m looking out I can see signs of frost on the top of the barbeque cover, yet I hear birds singing and chirping in the air. That is not something I can say in February. Just the mere fact that the porch furniture was put out means there was a day warm enough not long ago that prompted us to ritualistically begin preparations for the warmer months.

In the evenings while laying in bed at night, I am able to hear the peeper frogs through my closed bedroom window. In the late spring and summer when we sleep with the windows open, we not only hear the peepers; but all types of crickets and woodsy life through the evening.

For months the ground has been receiving precipitation in the form of freezing rain and snow. But the ground was solid, even during some of the unusually warm 50 degree days in the past few months. Despite the cold, the extra sun is warming our ground to sufficiently keep a thaw as evidenced by my weight digging ever so slightly into the dirt. This I notice while walking the dog after dinner or while cutting across the lawn to grab the mail.

As I stand on the deck looking out, I feel a flutter of excitement in my chest. Summer is on the way. The cover on the grill will be perpetually removed as we spend many evenings cooking outside instead of in the kitchen. The deck furniture will constantly be moved, full or crumbs and stained with ketchup due to the many hours we move the chairs from the sun, pull a chair in closer to watch a movie together around a laptop, and eat almost every meal al fresco.

A look over the deck down to the yard below has my heart fluttering a bit more. We have a really large garden that is now empty down the hill in our sloped yard. Very soon the asparagus tips will start shooting out from the ground on the right side of the garden, just outside the wooden boarders but inside the fence where we planted them several years ago. The strawberries will soon follow. Every year those crazy strawberries try to invade the neighboring soil in the garden after a few weeks above ground, but each year we gently pull back the little green pointers that latch quite firmly into the dirt.

In the summertime the garden is brimming with all types of crops – kale, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, beets, squash, eggplant, peppers, green beans, herbs like basil, parsley, oregano, mint…. and more. Each year we try our hand at a few new seeds. One of the finer ways that I feel in touch with nature is preparing meals with ingredients that came from our garden.

There is a point every year where the yield is almost too much to keep up with. Especially the kale, spinach and lettuce. Almost daily I take a trip down the hill to pick the greens. Carefully cutting the leaves back to main stem keeps the greens producing all season, but it’s quite a time consuming task. The bugs are wild at that time of year. At least half of the time I will forget to slather on some bug repellent and get completely mobbed by whatever is out there. Often the sun is so hot that by the time I finish cutting back the greens, the ones I started to cut begin to wilt. Avoiding that wilt requires several trips back into the air-conditioned house where they will stay fresh until I have a chance to clean them. Getting back into the house is tricky business because my sandals, legs and behind are muddy, and I need to trek up the hill in the scorching sun. The trip doesn’t stop up the hill, I still need to climb steep steps of the deck. It really isn’t too far, but by the time I reach the back door I’m often panting from the exertion. A cool wave of cold air will hit me when I open the door to go in. Unlike the frigid air this morning when I opened the door (which felt like an unpleasant shock but very natural); the air-conditioned air in the summer feels pleasant, yet completely unnatural. I have to take off my shoes so as to not drag mud into the house. I need to almost creep into the house and try not to touch anything or shake the crops too much, as this will create all kinds of dirt and mess. After several trips to the garden to avoid wilting, it’s another several minutes to sometimes hours of processing the greens. They need to be soaked several for rounds, then spun and bagged. There is always more than we can ever eat; so our neighbors, co-workers and friends often become the unwilling, yet very thankful recipients of our labor.

I take a step back from the railing overlooking the hill. The deck feels cold and frigid under my bare feet with every step I take. As long as I don’t move, my feet seem to begin to warm up the peeling wood beneath them. My next thought wanders to the peeling wood. We need to paint it again. It needs to be painted or touched up annually, notwithstanding the promises on the labels of every deck paint we’ve ever tried with pictures of freshly painted decks that promise a 5-year guarantee. That is a chore to add to the to do list. As will be the weekly hassle of weeding in addition to the more than weekly imposition of mowing the lawn, weed wacking, cleaning up the mulch that looks plain awful after the lawn clippings or dog diggings. Ugh, not to mention the constant sweeping of the decks, walkway and sidewalk in front of our home. As I look around the yard my heart starts to flutter in anguish this time thinking about how much work the summer is. Why am I looking forward to it? The winter seems nice and simple as the upkeep of the home is only fractions of what the summer warrants when you have a large lawn and garden. I rather enjoy coming home in the dark at four in the afternoon, changing into comfy clothes and parking on the sofa with a good book by the fire for the evening. It feels wrong at this time of year at 6:45 pm to not be fully dressed. While the sun might be shining, it’s way to cold to enjoy the outdoors.

At the moment I’m cold and I have nothing on except my flimsy pajama pants and my daughter’s college sweatshirt, I make the crazy decision to walk down the steep stairs of the deck to take a look around the yard. There is the fire pit in the grass and Adirondack chairs that are sitting under the deck waiting their time to come out for the summer. We have a swing under the deck with an orange cushion and two pillows that is great for summer reading, but also a prime spot to be bitten by mosquitos. I start to walk around the house up the hill and remember how steep this is. I am reminded of the flower bed on the side of the house that is a whole lot of work to keep up as well. My heart starts to pound now as I am exerting energy up this little hill while my lungs are taking in the frigid cold. As I round the flower bed and step into my driveway I see the crocus’ that came up a few weeks ago in full bloom. They are the first of the flowers to come up. Their little green shoots are often seen in late February. Just a quick look at them makes my heart slow down just a little.

As I come up the walkway I see more crocus’ on the flowerbed to the other side of the house. They too are in full bloom. And right next to them are daffodils that are about to burst forth. Their yellow petals are closed, but any day now they will open up to their full beauty.

I smile internally. I love the flowers in the summer. I love to prune them back, clean up the mess around them, and bring many of them into the house. All summer we have fresh flowers around the house. Every single time I look at them I am awed by the sense of their beauty. It is one of my favorite things about summer. As is having the windows open at night. As are the fresh fruit pies I make, the salads we often eat, the fresh tomatoes… oh my.

All seasons are beautiful by their own right. When the days start to become shorter and the mornings in late August and early September chillier, I begin to dread the winter. I can’t conceive how it could be dark in the morning or in the evening. I can’t imagine not sitting out on the deck for meals and reading in the evenings by the light of tikki torches and sound of crickets. But as the days do start to shorten I thoroughly enjoy the colors of the trees, the browning of the flower beds and garden, and pulling out the sweaters and fuzzy boots. While there is a certain satisfaction and connection to nature from caring for the outside for several hours and then enjoying the view with a cool beverage, there is also a certain contentment with putting away the garden tools and lawn furniture for the winter and turning inwards.

I walk back into my home through the front door and feel the unnatural warm blast of air hit me while I wipe the dirt from my feet on the doormat, closing out the frigid morning behind me. I’m content. Nature is beautiful and I’m feeling completely grateful.

via Daily Prompt: Frigid

DailyPrompt for Frigid

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On the Wonder of: What’s wrong with me?

Posted on 04/04/201801/03/2019 by Esterina Anderson

Have you ever sat at work at your desk in front of your computer and felt completely immobilized? Perhaps staring at the screen, not being excited about one single thing that you should be working on? Conceivably like me you’ve procrastinated with just one more thing before you delve in. One last bathroom trip, one more cup of coffee, one last check of your personal phone sitting off to the side… for the 15^th time… in the past 5 minutes.

Maybe you’ve been so unmotivated while sitting at your desk you’ve taken to Google “motivation”, “new jobs”, “career changes”, “inspiration”… and alas you become desperate because nothing is lighting a spark, so you Google “depression” or “what’s wrong with me?”

I used to be motivated when I was younger. I was the most motivated, happy person I knew in real life if I was honest with myself and took a break from being so focused to notice that others around me didn’t exactly have the same spark in their eyes about the silliness and mundane work we were doing. At some point I started to feel my energy and motivation drain. It was depressing because that didn’t feel like me.

After Google searching any and all possible search words to unearth whatever could possibly be wrong with me, I slowly started to tap into a new reality. I began to wake up realize what a cog in the wheel I’d been. Just a little part of a big giant system churning out widgets at a rapid pace, more rapid than anyone could want them. When people were sick of their widgets and had one too many, advertising was invented to convince people that they should want and need more than they are satisfied with or they will not be happy or ‘successful’. So people kept working harder to churn out more widgets, only to buy more, only needing to work harder and longer to do so… only to be constantly chasing their own happiness and wondering what was wrong with them.

A quick Google search on my smart phone this afternoon revealed to me that butter was invented anywhere between 10,000 and a few hundred years ago. Just a small range, right? None-the-less, sometime, somewhere, at some point a distant time ago; a human being not too different from you or I sat churning butter at home thinking “I can’t wait to finish this churning, it’s SO monotonous.” The cream likely came from a cow just yards away on the farm, not but a few hours before. It’s likely the butter-maker fantasized about a device that could do this for them, so they could spend more time enjoying life. Perhaps the butter-maker didn’t over eat butter because he/she knew how much work went into it. Perhaps they didn’t really overeat anything at all because they understood how much effort went into getting the food before them period. If they didn’t hunt and gather it themselves, they knew they individual who had and likely exchanged their butter for it.

At some point in the past few hundred (or thousand) years, humanity’s inventions surpassed our common sense. We made machines to do just about everything we used to do, including butter churning. As a race we literally left our homesteads and went to work in factories to make things that people needed. The machines churned widgets out so fast, that we made what we needed fairly quickly. It should have stopped there – taking only what we needed. But we kept on churning it all out. It was monotonous. Perhaps even as monotonous as churning butter manually. The only way to get out of this precarious situation and move onto bigger and better things was to churn out widgets with more speed and adeptness than your co-workers around you, so you could instead supervise the line from the catwalk above. It probably was around that point in history that we stopped working together as a human race and started to compete in ways that were harmful to ourselves as a species. The shiny new line supervisor watching from above might have realized that it could feel quite lonely at the top. Perhaps he looked down at the line and missed the camaraderie and teamwork. However with that increase in pay and social status, he wasn’t about to say anything. He ‘made it’ after all. He should feel happy. But he doesn’t’. What’s wrong with him?

Just a mere few hundred years later we live in a world where we want for nothing yet face ridiculous cutthroat completion. So much so that our young children in elementary schools are on medications because the stress of having to ‘succeed’ is too much to handle; and there is so much stimulation coming at them from every angle, that they have difficulty focusing.

We are sitting at desks churning out reports no one reads, crunching numbers that can be manipulated so many ways they’ve become useless, and feeling superior for going through more emails than the guy next to us. We are pressured to keep up the sales numbers, sell-sell-sell, beat the competition, beat your neighbor, and keep improving upon all of this before your next performance review. To what end?

At least back in the manual butter churning days we felt connected to our food source, the earth that fed us, the animals the provided for us, our families and friends that we worked collaboratively with on a regular basis in exchange for life’s simplicities. There was a sense of purpose and belonging. One could see the fruit of their labor. Rarely did anyone take more than they needed. There was no need for speed and churning out widgets at a rapid pace to meet an invisible, unnecessary sales quota that felt completely empty to you after the pat on the back in front of your team… when you went back to your desk to stare at your computer and wonder why you aren’t happy.

There is nothing wrong with you. There is something wrong with society. We are so far removed from our food sources, our nature sources and simplicity that we have lost our connection and relevancy to the earth and to ourselves. We have little meaning & purpose. We feel bored and lonely. We get all the wrong messages from society to do more, be more, and compete more. We are too tired at the end of the day to spend quality time with family or friends, to volunteer in our community, to go to a town meeting, to fight for anything we care about.

We need to take our lives back. The butter churning days may have been monotonous, but at least it had purpose. At least the butter-maker directly benefited from what they were doing. At least society was working together for a common purpose and felt a part of something bigger than themselves. What is the purpose of what we are churning out now? Machines were invented so we can spend more time enjoying life. Why didn’t that happen?

Daily Prompt

via Daily Prompt: Churn

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Lexapro Journal (Continued)

Posted on 03/29/201801/03/2019 by Esterina Anderson

I’m writing this blog as an update to the Lexapro 100 day Journal one that I wrote back in 2016.

I don’t blog that often, but when I do check the statistics for the number of readers, I see that between 3 and 15 people each day read this article. It is the only article that picks up any traction after the first few days post publishing. I has received more hits recently, so I’m not sure if it show up higher on search engines; but in any case it’s amounted to a few thousand people who have at least opened it. Doesn’t mean they read it through though!

When I tried to go off Lexapro just a little over a year ago, I wrote another blog entitled Lexapro Rollercoaster. I haven’t written anything about it since. I’ve been approached by so many people (some I know well & others hardly at all) who have read my blogs. Folks have asked for advice, inquired how I’m doing, or wanted to share that they or someone they love has experienced the same thing. Because I see that a few thousand strangers have read some of this as well, I wanted to follow-up as Lexapro wasn’t my answer.

I didn’t particularly have a love affair with Lexapro. I started it in March 2016. It seemed at first to be to a miracle drug. After several months the side effects kicked in. Particularly they were the two I was most afraid of – decreased interest in sexual activities and weight gain. Initially I thought it was a fluke and both would pass. But as pounds kept adding on and I felt less and less inclined to indulge in carnal activities, I knew it was the medication.

In January 2017 I didn’t feel like I needed Lexapro any longer. I felt stable emotionally. My primary care provider talked me through tapering off. It was a little difficult because I felt physically sick, but that passed after a few days. A few days later I felt off kilter emotionally again. I went back on Lexapro the same way I went off, but this time I held the dose steady at 5mg to test out how that made me feel. I immediately felt better, as I had the first time I went on. At 5mg I didn’t have the unwanted side effects. Fortunately my BMI had always been on the low side, and even with all the weight gain I was still in a normal range. I didn’t lose any weight, but I didn’t gain more either. The other department I feared was also in check. But my moods weren’t steady. I could get hyped up at anxious about almost nothing, and angry at the drop of a hat. I felt off balance. Nowhere near as badly as I originally did, but not as great as I did at 15mg either.

I believed with some meditation and a deeper yoga practice I could keep taking 5mg, feel better and go off completely. I set a soft goal to go off Lexapro before the start of summer in June. But I didn’t deepen my yoga or meditation practices. I didn’t have time to, I was as busy as ever. Although I cut down my professional hours at work; I taught as much yoga as I could without being picky and I wasn’t even doing my own practice. My husband and I started renting out our second home in Branford and I was managing all the rentals and turnovers. Even though I changed the stressors in my life, I unknowingly added different ones back in.

In May that year I took a 50-hour training in domestic violence and sexual assault in order to teach yoga at safe houses in Connecticut. One evening during a presentation about PTSD, I realized with unbelievable clarity that the slide I was looking at described me perfectly. Until then I have prided myself for rising above being a childhood victim of domestic violence and putting it behind me. It wasn’t until that evening I realized I was indeed affected by my past. The ground slightly shifted beneath me, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

My emotions became more tumultuous after that. If I was more aware of myself I may have noticed Lexapro really wasn’t helping anymore. One evening in July I had the worst emotional breakdown I ever had. I knew I needed help in a different way. After a little research I filled out some FMLA paperwork and cleared my calendar so I could spend a month in intensive outpatient mental health treatment.

Under the care of the facility, I started to decrease my 5mg of Lexapro daily to once every other day until I went off completely. I felt great. I had no responsibilities during this month other than to care for myself. I journaled daily after my sessions. For the first time ever, I had the time and was willing to really think about how I feel, where my assumptions and habits formed, and how I got to be where I was mentally, physically and emotionally. I was able to sit and question whether or not I wanted to do those things or if they were just maladaptive habits I had from childhood. I made conscious, well-thought out decisions about what I wanted to do, what I wanted to keep in my life and what I wanted to let go.

I needed follow-up after the program with some type of regular treatment. I’ve gone to weekly couch talk therapy for years on an off and never found it helpful. With the advice from the program I just completed, I researched local therapists that specialized in the exercises we used that I found most helpful. I messaged a few by reaching out and providing a short background about myself. It was easy to discern who I might have a connection with through upfront written communication. I settled on someone local that I thought might work.

When I finally met my new therapist, before she asked me anything about myself; she explained some practices and tools she uses and why. She described the energy and meridian lines that run through our bodies and explained that most people start to question their lives after they meet their goals toward success (or the second half of life). She didn’t need to go on any further, I was sold. Energy, questioning life and it’s purpose, Pema Chodron quotes on the wall, a jiggle jar on the table, a semi-organized non-dusty dank/dark room… This is the therapist I was looking for and never knew it. Additionally, since I had just finished a month long intensive therapy treatment, I knew exactly what things I needed to work on and where they came from. For the first time I felt like I had clear therapy goals and found someone who spoke my language and could help me.

Around the same time I started therapy, I started a 9 month advanced yoga teacher training. This training wasn’t all that different from the standard 200 hour teacher training, but it was far more in depth. This time, having a new-found goal of self-care and making time for myself, I was actually deepening my own yoga practices. I also started a daily sadhana (spiritual practice).

I was only in the training a few weeks and saw my new therapist a handful of times before taking several weeks off for a trip I had previously planned with my husband. I was off medication and only using some new techniques and my sadhana practice to keep everything in check. It was going very well.

Once we returned from vacation I had to cancel my next therapy appointment. I got busy and fell back into the older routine of not making time for myself. After just a few days of skipping sadhana and not doing the therapy exercises, I was completely off balance. It took a full week of being back on the wagon before I felt like myself again. Two more weeks passed and I again made the decision to skip my practices for a few days because I became busy with the holidays. Again, not shortly after I felt incredibly unstable.

For a myriad of reasons I didn’t have a therapy appointment scheduled for several weeks. One day during work when I felt like I was completely unraveling, I called my PCP for an appointment to discuss anti-anxiety meds again. I received an appointment for me the next morning. I spent the evening online looking up various medications that I might ask about. I didn’t want to use Lexapro again and was fearful about gaining even more weight or losing that loving feeling again.

When my provider asked why I went off Lexapro, she asked me to consider Effexor (Venlafaxine). It’s not for everybody, but most patients don’t report weight gain or sexual side effects. I had nothing to lose.

The first evening I took Effexor I felt incredibly sick and disoriented. My husband said I looked and sounded drugged. The next morning I woke up feeling like I had a really terrible hangover. I was groggy, dizzy and nauseous. Sometime around dinner the next evening I didn’t feel dizzy if I wasn’t moving. I was able to eat. I was almost feeling normal by the time I was ready to take the next pill. The next pill brought the same side effects, but they were about half as bad as the evening before. The following day by lunchtime I felt as good as I did at dinner the previous evening. On the third morning I had some vertigo for just a few short hours. I have since experienced zero effects.

Exactly one week after beginning Effexor, I made a nice dinner for my husband and I. We enjoyed it with some wine. As we were cleaning up and getting ready to watch a movie, I was dancing around doing silly kicks and laughing. My husband said I looked and sounded really happy. To which I replied “You know what? I am!” He said it must be the wine. I laughed it off but thought about how we have wine often but I often don’t feel that way. I considered that it might be the meds. I hadn’t felt that good in a long, long time. Before I started “waking up”, having anxiety, questioning the second half of life, giving myself time to contemplate the trauma that I made myself too busy to think about…. I felt like my old self, minus all the stress.

The next day I realized I felt just as good. I felt good the day after that as well, and so forth for the next several weeks. Sometime in January I became busy again and starting skipping self-care. Like the previous experiences, I wasn’t myself. However, this time it took just two days of practice to feel good again. Then again two weeks later I skipped my self-care and practices three days in a row. Not surprisingly I fell right back into the hands of anxiety and stress. It was then I realized that I need to continue to make self-care a priority.

It’s been approximately 2 straight months since I have felt balanced without excessive anxiety. I continue to take Effexor, go to therapy and do the “work” and self-examination it takes to improve mental stability.

Thanks to the program I spent a month in last summer, yoga, and therapy – I’ve received the reinforced message that it is not only ok, but necessary to take care of yourself. I know some people take that too far, but for me taking it too far was never even close to an option. It was almost a necessary survival tactic to stay so busy that I would never have time to relive some of the trauma I was trying to avoid until my body was ready to process it. Instead of running from it, I’ve learned it’s not going to hurt me and sitting with it is the only way to get through it. Sitting with [dis]-ease has only become easier and helped me in all types of other areas of my life.

I still don’t have a magic answer for anyone looking for help. Lexapro was my start. I have my own personal combined strategy that is feasible and working for the time being. For anyone struggling with anxiety or depression – there is no magic pill. It has taken me two years to find something I can keep up with and works. I had to look to where it was coming from. For me that was a strain of PTSD. I had to figure out what works for my body. And I had to find a therapist that I really feels can understand the issues that I struggle with. I hope to sustain some level of sanity while I heal and deal with old issues that have plagued me. I truly am happy and feel more better and better each day. I trust there is something for everyone and it won’t look anything like what helps me. Like I said, unfortunately there really are no magic pills.

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On the Mysterious Secret of Slowing Down

Posted on 03/24/201801/03/2019 by Esterina Anderson

Last Sunday evening after dinner I was washing a pot. I was washing it very mindfully. I was noticing the feel of the warm, soapy water on my hands. I thought about how the pot was made and how I infused the homemade vegan chili in this large, heavy blue pot with love. Most importantly I was slowly and methodically removing the food that was stuck to the bottom of the pan. I thought back to a lesson I just cannot seem to always remember – “To go faster you must slow down”.

I led a fast paced adult life until about 2 years ago. So fast that I hardly had time to think. Washing a pot with food stuck to the bottom has always reminded me of this paradox; thanks to a visit from my mother a few years before she passed away. When my children were young and I was first married, we had little money, but I kept a really good home. I felt very on top of things. But I was rushed back then too. I was so rushed that I never really had time to deal with pots that ended up with years worth of stains on them. In late 2001 my mother came to visit with her new husband Boris. I had only just met him, and I know he made my mother very happy. He was from Venezuela. My mom talked so much about how laid back he was and how he got her to slow down, grow out her hair, and stop fussing so much with make up and keeping up the house. I made a big dinner when they came to visit, and afterward there were many pots and pans that needed cleaning. My mother and Boris came into the kitchen to help and stationed themselves at the sink; she on dish duty, he on drying duty. What seemed like only moments later while I was putting the leftover food into containers, I noticed Boris drying off one of the pots. What caught my eye about a particular pot that usually had brown and black soot on the bottom was that it was so shiny and clean. Years worth of food and cooking build up was gone! I asked my mother how she did that and so fast… she only smiled with a glint in her eye and said “Boris showed me how”. She never told me with words, but with her eyes she told me to slow down and go easy. The next time I had to clean a pot and ever since I’ve taken my time, used far less pressure than I ever would have and they have always come clean. Working in a rush and with too much pressure used more time and never yielded the same results. I never understood how, it’s just the way it works.

I learned this 17 years ago, but I still don’t always remember or practice this principle. Two years ago I slowed down immensely, truly savoring the small, day-to-day moments, and oddly enough I found myself to be happier, more at peace and with more time than I ever had. It’s not only time, but also about ‘less’. Doing less, trying less, having less… all equal less stress and more joy.

Last week I had the luxury of traveling with my husband and a group of amazing individuals from my yoga studio to a jungle sanctuary in Costa Rica. Getting to this sanctuary required two commercial flights, a puddle jumper plane, a 45 minute car ride, and then a 20 minute hike crossing a river four times. It was hot and humid; the type of humidity where you never dry off, even after a shower.

The only way on and off the sanctuary is a 20 minute-plus hike. On the last full day of the trip, my husband Daren and I ventured off the property to the sanctuary’s closest neighbor Nena, in pursuit of pure organic extra virgin coconut oil. It was a short walk over a bridge that overlooks the ocean to Nena’s house. For the previous two days, Daren & I opted to take some excursions off the property with our group. Both days were a little hectic and obscenely hot at times. I felt ambivalent all morning about whether or not we should take the walk down the hill to get this coconut oil, mainly because it was hot. For some reason I said I’d like to go but I wanted to walk slowly. So off we went to Nena’s house for coconut oil.

Daren and I really took our time. We stopped and looked at monkeys. We watched little birds. We passed our friend the white cow. When we left the property and crossed the street we stopped on the bridge. Actually, Daren on the bridge and called out to me “Babe, look at this view!”. Slightly annoyed, I stopped to look. I was initially feeling rushed, looked at my watch and started calculating how much time it would take to get to Nena’s, buy this coconut oil, trek back, “relax” at the pool, and then dash off to the next yoga class. However, when I turned my head to the left and saw the scene, my heart rate actually slowed down a bit. I couldn’t believe I was about to just walk by and miss this scene! I took it in. While standing there I couldn’t help but notice this insane harried American thought pattern and I pushed it completely away. When I stopped and didn’t worry about the time, I was able to remember that I was here in this beautiful place, at this beautiful moment, with my beautiful husband and a group of beautiful well-lit individuals. I stopped my physical, then mental body from the rush of insanity and fleeting thoughts to appreciate the view and the view of my husband appreciating the view.
We stood there a while in silence. I took a few pictures and resisted the urge to snap more. More is not better. More pictures, more talk, more activity… more, more, more… No, no, no… I know this, but I live in a world that tells me the opposite; so it’s easy to forget.
It was I who broke the silence after a long while. I had the profound realization that because we walked slowly we weren’t as hot as we were the rest of the trip. I intellectually knew that before we walked and even made that suggestion, but it was even more profound to experience that it worked. It dawned on me that every time I go anywhere where the weather is warm all the time, the locals move slowly. I heard other Americans and Canadians joking about how the natives live on “Costa Rican time”. I’ve heard the same joke in other places. All these Americans and Europeans thinking it’s so funny to crack jokes about how slow everyone moves, when really the joke is on us. What is wrong with us? We are the dummies sweating in the sun because we are rushing around like lunatics. It’s our culture that is uptight, wound up and stressed. What are we in a rush to do anyway? At that moment on the bridge I decided to put my watch in my pocket and let the day pass as it may. Strangely there seemed to be just the right amount of time for everything once I stopped worrying at all about it.

Daren with our friend the pretty white cow who was often on the path onto and off the sanctuary.

When we start to move too fast, we often do not see what we need to see. (Huffington Post 2015 – Why Going Slow Will Make You Go Faster). This applies to work, our lives with our families and friends, or achieving any of our goals. Maybe it’s not just what we need to see, but what will enhance our everyday experiences.

In the midst of this jungle last week we were surrounded by wildlife. It was beautiful, simple, exotic, intoxicating, and natural. This was a yoga group at a yogic sanctuary. Yogi’s might be more aware than most about the beauty of being conscious, but are no less human and subject to falling prey to being unconscious in a world that keeps dangling shiny temptations all around. One of my teachers deliberately did not go on one of the daily excursions on a day that every other single one of the group did. She said she did not want to feel rushed, and she sat watching monkeys for several hours that day instead. The message she took away is that the monkeys were there all along, providing the same level of awe and entertainment, but had one not taken the time to just stop and observe, it would have been missed.

The evening we returned to Connecticut from Costa Rica, Daren and I found ourselves on a line at a McDonald’s drive through on the way home from the airport at 11:45 at night. By that point in the day we had been up & en route home since 5:15am. We had only one square meal. We were tired, dirty and stressed. Hurry up and wait. We almost missed a connecting flight because Passport Control was a hot mess when we got back into the U.S. We were waiting on a very long car line at 11:45pm for an absolutely nutritiously poor meal (well Daren was waiting, I was looking forward to some soup at home). We were stressed. Daren was tapping at the wheel. I was mentally trying hard to not fall into the trap of ordering something greasy or feeling upset over the slow moving line, all while trying to stay cheerful so my husband could stay positive too. In my mind I was doing math again about the number of things I needed to do the next day to get ready for the week, wondering how I could fit them in. How much mail was there? Who is taking the dog to the vet Thursday? What should I pull out for dinner tomorrow? Should I go shopping? I needed to inventory the food situation at home first, right? With every thought I felt my blood pressure rising. And every time I noticed my breath becoming rapid and shallow or my heart racing, I made the conscious decision to breath deeply and live in the moment. That only lasts a few moments out here in the “real world” until the thoughts & heart start to race again. How could you explain this feeling to someone in the third world?

We may have been in the middle of the jungle, but the concrete jungle creates artificial stressors that make living life to the fullest impossible. It’s impossible because living life to the fullest was taught to me that one need to fit in as much “fun”, work, and activities that one possibly can. This means learning as much as you can, moving quickly, multi-tasking, making lots of money to do these amazing things (because heck they aren’t free!), AND providing these amazing experiences to our offspring. Making money means more rushing and more stress. For most, making money means sitting in a car or in some form of transportation for unfathomable periods of time each day, to do a job you hardly ever see the results of or feel connected to, for far too many hours each day. Then rushing home to activities and usually harried, unhealthy meals – if you are lucky with loved one(s). Weekends for the most are spent putting your living quarters back together from the rush of the busy week by cleaning, doing laundry, shopping, shuffling other humans around and spending “quality” time with other humans you are supposed to care for to keep your social life active and your role as a parent connected with your children. In between you must squeeze in the “fun” and “experiences” you are going out to make all that money for, but also it’s very important to exercise, meditate, perform self-care, visit the doctor-dentist-optometrist regularly, prepare healthy organic, locally grown ingredient-based meals at home and sleep enough hours per night just so you don’t get fat, stressed or sleep deprived. You know… so you can be happy and experience life to the fullest. Sounds insane to me!

The Harvard Business Review writes about how this slow to go fast paradox works in business as well. When we take the time to get things right, rather than plow ahead full bore, we are far more successful in meeting objectives (Harvard Business Review 2010 – Need Speed? Slow Down).
Physics teaches us that time is relative. Slowing down means time slows down with you. I can’t explain why this is, it’s just is. Another exquisite paradox is that it also helps you appreciate and truly experience more. Additionally life and experiences become less expensive, less material and far less stressful. This article is a bit more on the holistic side, but resonates with me because it talks about how when you work less you work better, find what really makes you happy, have the ability connect with others, and are able to savor life (Wholesome Living – 10 reasons why you should slow down to go faster).

The overall message for me is that slowing down = living life to the fullest. I keep forgetting, but the time between which I do is growing larger and larger. I hope that others who haven’t given it a whirl do! There’s nothing to lose but old, tired ideas of what it means to life our lives to the absolute fullest.

Sunrise one morning from the Tower at the Sanctuary

Sunset one evening on the beach of Santa Theresa Costa Rica

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On Giving Gifts that Heal this Holiday Season

Posted on 12/21/201701/03/2019 by Esterina Anderson

After food, shelter and clothing; true lasting joy and peace can ONLY come from within. No toy, car, phone, pet, room, house, grade, job, college, friend, significant other, anything… can ever bring true happiness. It sounds so cliché, but it’s true and sages have been saying it for thousands of years.

Advertisement and modern society tells us something different. A few gifts can help to bring this inner joy. This is my own concoction of gifts that can help bring forth that inner joy. The secret is that you have to be willing to give these gifts to both yourself and others.

Acceptance

Acceptance of what is.

When I was 15 I found a Yin Yang charm on the beach. I didn’t know what it was, but I liked it. I strung it along some fishing line with black beads I somehow had, and held it together with a safety pin as a clip. I wore it for years around my neck, like a thin choker that was popular in the early 90s. A few years later one evening at my church’s youth group, I sat across a boy who was in my circle of friends but I had never talked to very much. We both sat backwards on some chairs off to the side while our friends chatted and danced. At some point during the conversation he reached over to my neck and touched the Yin Yang. He asked me if I knew what the symbol meant. I didn’t. He explained. I loved it even more. We dated all through my senior year.

It is my favorite symbol because it says it all with a simple circle. The world is made up of opposites, and they always circle back to one another at their extreme. We can only understand an expression through the existence of its opposite (hot/cold, dark/light, happy/sad, health/disease, love/hate, summer/winter, life/death etc). These things all exist naturally, are a part of the universe we live in; they ALL belong, and we should expect them to show up. That means there is nothing wrong with disappointment, sadness, anger, something not working, or any “negative” expression or feeling. It should come as no more of a surprise as joy, love, things going as planned, or “positive” feelings. There is no fighting this natural, universal law, and expecting anything different only causes disappointment.

How does that translate into real life? When we aren’t happy it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with us. When someone is grumpy or annoyed (even if it’s with you), it doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with them or you. Pretending a negative feeling isn’t so, or trying to change an outcome or a mood is unnatural; not to mention completely exhausting.

Acceptance of what is doesn’t mean accepting nonsense in your life OR that it’s ok to make the same mistakes over and over. Accept, learn, & grow. That means changing what you have control over, letting go of what you can’t and having the wisdom to know the difference. Someone coined that long ago.

Let go

Let go of contempt and forgive.

Oh… so much easier than it sounds. Regret and lack of forgiveness can seriously block true inner happiness. Like a dam blocks the flow of water. This is true whether or not you are holding onto contempt for yourself or others.

Regret can be about anything that would represent ‘woulda’, ‘shoulda’, ‘coulda’. Lack of forgiveness for yourself is often about regret. Consider being compassionate with yourself and recognizing that you are human, but learn from the experience. Accept how it went and move on. If you don’t forgive yourself, you will often make the same mistakes over and over.

Lack of forgiveness towards others is often about being angry because another individual did not act in a way you wished them to. Consider accepting that it is about them, not you. and let it go. Holding onto contempt only stops you from being happy and wishing you could change a person you cannot.

Both forms of not forgiving will block you from being happy. Forgiveness is the greatest gift you can give yourself. It’s absolutely NOT about making the same mistakes over and over, or allowing certain behaviors in your life. Forgiveness is about acceptance of what is and not fighting against things you cannot change. Accept yourself, others, and the world for what it is. You don’t even have to let another person know you forgave them to feel the benefits of letting go. Whatever you might be holding on to with anger, regret, or contempt: give yourself the gift of letting it go. It’s freeing.

Not everyone is ready to forgive. If you can’t, at least wish that you could want to. And if you can’t even do that, at least wish that you were the type of person who could wish they could want to. But be honest and reflective of where you are: ready to forgive, wishing you were ready, or wishing you could wish you were ready to forgive. The sooner you are honest with your private self (you can’t really lie to your most private self), the sooner you will move on, come closer to forgiveness and the sooner you will set yourself free. But only you can do that.

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Give

Give gratitude. We are human and as simple as it is, it’s hard! There are thousands of quotes, articles, podcasts, movies, songs, apps etc that talk about how gratitude can change your life. And I can attest to it. Living in gratitude makes life miraculous and SOOOOoooooooo….. worth living.

Look around. Stop living in lack. I listened to a Podcast on the way home from work on Tuesday about Oneness. To sort of, kind of, steal the lines from the person giving the Podcast, she talked about how we live and focus on lack constantly. From the moment we open our eyes in the morning we live in lack. Before another thought enters our mind; more often than not we think we didn’t sleep enough, weren’t enough yesterday (didn’t exercise enough, ate the wrong things, drank too much, didn’t do enough), and that we don’t have enough time in the morning to get ready to start the day. This is before we even get out of bed! This is the story we tell ourselves throughout the day. We focus on all that isn’t rather than ALL that is. Giving gratitude and being grateful for what is doesn’t come naturally.

Most of us are healthy and have several functioning relationships in our lives. We have food, shelter and way too much clothing… in fact we feel confused about choices on what to eat and what to wear when we are lucky enough to have those choices to actually make! But we focus on what doesn’t fit, the people who have slighted us and who we don’t have a relationship with, the poor food choices we made, the fact that there is traffic, a bill we didn’t expect to come… and then we beat ourselves up then for not being thankful.

On how hard this is –

We are human. We are animals. In a totally unrelated, yet totally related story… I’m in a 300-hour yoga teacher training and there is a student who comes to many of the classes at my studio where I teach and train. He is in his 70’s, legally blind, and a retired psychologist. He is awesome. He will often stay behind after community classes that are open to the public and share some of his insights about yoga and the way the mind works. I’m going to share one of his stories. I will call him “Harry”.

Harry was involved in a study with chickens all not too long ago. Basically, they taught the chickens how to find a pellet in a maze. Before you read further, try to take a wild guess about how long it took the chickens to find the pellet in the maze. Flabbergasted? It’s normal! From the folks I’ve told this story to, they’ve all guessed between 2 and 50 times. I believe the answer was somewhere around 9.

Then Harry’s study changed something in the maze that required the chickens to adapt to a new pattern. The pellet came out in a slightly different way and the chickens had to learn that doing the same thing over and over didn’t work. How many times do you think it took them to determine the new pattern? Flabbergasted again? Again… it’s normal. Most of the people I’ve talked to and told this story to after learning it was 9 times guessed anywhere between 9 and 40. For all those folks I’ve told them it’s much, much higher and it would blow their mind moved their guess to between 50 and 500.

The actual answer is over 42,000 times. It’s mind-boggling. I would hate to be the person who counted that study! Harry told us about that study, and I share this study with you because it’s freeing to know that it’s very difficult to change patterns and the way our neurons fire and give us direction. There is nothing wrong with us if we can’t change a habit in a heartbeat. We aren’t failures, we are living creatures with wiring that makes it so. Again & again, not an excuse – but an opportunity to accept the nature of what is, forgive ourselves, and give gratitude that we have the mind power to change patterns since we have a little more thinking opportunity than chickens, and can be self-reflective.

It’s all good.

Closing Thoughts –

So be good to yourself and others. We are just frail little humans. We think materialism, acquiring more things, brings joy – but it doesn’t. Use this season, this beautiful solstice, to learn something new. Focus on acceptance of what is, letting go of the past, and being grateful. These are some of the most beautiful gifts we can give ourselves and one another.

As I stated at the beginning of this blog: true inner joy & peace can only come from within.

Happy Winter Solstice 2017.

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