Shadow Dancing

Come join the dance


Here you will find the partner that has all the qualities you are looking for
Immediately, like magnets, you are drawn to each other
The lights go dim and the music begins
You sway to the music, you are twirled and whirled
As you hold each other close on the dance floor
Your bodies melt into one another
His scent, you breathe in as if it is life itself
You feel alive, elated.

You admire your partner’s charisma
His confidence and how he takes the lead
His talented footwork sweeps you off your feet
His sweet words fall gently on to your heart
So perfect, all of this, you want to hold on to it
You attach yourself to him to make it more real-like.

You put your treasure under lock and key to keep it safe
As if you were guarding your life
And you give him the key
Your dance partner, now the holder of the treasure you have found
You close your eyes, hypnotized by the music
You feel yourself floating away … floating into him
Attached as if one on the dance floor.

Then the music stops and the lights turn on
You begin to awaken from your trance-like state
You’re confused and feel lost
Things start looking different, feeling different
It appears empty, but you see shadows … like ghosts almost
It feels scary and dark, even in the light
What kind of dance was that?

It felt so good and now it feels so bad
You beg the music man to play another song
But nothing happens
It’s become very quiet except the noise in your head
Still spinning from the dance of your life
But now it sounds distorted
You beg the music man again, to play music like he did before
But only more distortion.

And where is your treasure? Where is your treasure?!
You no longer have access to it because you gave the key away
You look for the key in your partner but you can’t find it anymore
He’s the one that has it after all.

You continue to look to him for the key to your treasure
You try to hold on to him, pull him in close again … dance again
You need the treasure that he has
It is your life-line
You want answers
From him … from the music man … from anyone.

But no answers come from anyone or anyplace
Out there
Beaten, exhausted and ready to give up the fight
In your surrender, you begin to look for the key to your treasure
In a place you were certain it would never be found
Inside. Yourself.

It’s no longer so loud
You begin to hear the music again, but it’s not as distorted
There is clarity
Although fearful that you may be hypnotized again and fall
You remain somewhat doubtful, slowly
Step by step you move alone on the dance floor
The shadows begin to disappear one by one
Soon you realize that the gifts you thought belonged to another
Were really yours all along.



The shadow dance is now over.

Lies, Lies, Lies

It seems we lie to ourselves a lot, but it is the believing of those lies that get us into trouble. I am talking about our self beliefs. The ones we picked up in childhood and they just became a part of our identity, that we don’t even know they are not us. Many of the things we believe were taught to us as children or rooted in experiences we had as children. But those decisions to believe what we were told about ourselves or the perceptions that we concluded from difficult experiences were made by a child, yet we continue to believe them and play them out in our adult life.

We keep drawing to us people and/or experiences that prove these lies to be true. But all they are really proving is that we still believe our own lies about ourselves or the beliefs we have. For instance, if someone believes men cannot be trusted (likely they seen this in a primary adult relationship as they were growing up), they will continue to draw men to them who are not trustworthy, confirming their belief, which is actually the lie they have decided to believe.

Now this is not my case, but for me I have come to realize through some painful digging that I have a slew of lies that I still believe, without realizing that they were even there. And this is why we keep living out the lies, because many of us aren’t even aware of them, they are ingrained in us and we just automatically believe this is our personality. But they are LIES!

For me, and probably for most others, I became aware of mine….well acutely aware of mine, when I went through a painful experience and taking note of my reaction to it, which was just way over the top (internally so) and still lingers. It doesn’t fit the actual situation. That’s where I came to meet my lies in the light of day. They are mean and painful lies, but underneath it all I do know they were created from hurt and confusion. I had to ask: "What am I believing about myself that is causing me to feel this way, to react this way, to torment myself in this way?" And the answers were: “I am not good enough. I am not special enough. I am not worth fighting for. I am inferior. Others are better than me. My thoughts and feelings are wrong."

Wow! And I knew I already believed some of these things. I knew I have low self confidence and self doubt, that I have problems with asserting myself, but I NEVER knew I was believing all of these things about myself deep down. I thought I really liked myself, after all, I don’t get into abusive or degrading relationships (but I do get into relationships with weak and dysfunctional men), I don’t allow people to talk down to me, I have a pretty good self-image, I think I am fairly intelligent and funny and I am socialable, so it took a lot of digging to realize I had these beliefs about myself because on the surface it didn’t seem that way…and still doesn’t to the outside world. But I know, from looking at my life – past & present conditions – that I have believed these lies for almost my whole life!

If you take a really close and honest look at your life, especially the things that are not working, no matter what the story and reasons you build up around it, you will begin to see the lies you are believing. Your life will always mirror back to you what you feel about yourself. We draw in circumstances and people who will keep proving to us what we believe, whether it’s true or not. We can only see and experience what we believe to be true.

For me (as for most others), it is taking some time to stop believing the lies because, as mentioned, I have been believing them as truth my whole life, without even knowing I am believing anything at all as they are just ingrained in my psyche and became my personality and my behaviours.

I am still, however, looking externally and trying to collect outside proof to validate for me what I want to believe “that I am good enough, special, worthy…” but I keep finding “proof” of the lies, which just indicates that I am still believing the lies deep down and very much likely why I keep holding on to my “break up” story and needing to remind myself of who he is (dysfunctional and his choices have nothing to do with me) and checking to see if he is still with his new girlfriend because I want to use that as proof that my perceptions of him were correct and I am not worthless and unspecial and so on, but it continues to "confirm" my self defeating beliefs if I see that they are still together. Even though I know logically this proves absolutely nothing at all!!

And this is how I know that I am still believing MY LIES because if I realized they were just lies then I wouldn't need any external proof or validation of my worth....

The lies we tell ourselves hurt us the most.

Who is responsible?

I wrote this article for an online magazine: examiner.com

When our life isn’t working out the way we want it to, we often blame external things or other people. The relationship isn’t working because he is dysfunctional, your job isn’t recognizing your full potential, or you aren’t making enough money and can’t afford a vacation. And it’s because of this or because of that, this circumstance or that person. Although these may manifest as external problems, it is often emotions or thought patterns that hold us back.

We believe we are victims to circumstances and other people. That it is someone else’s or something else’s fault that we are not happy or getting what we want in life. Something out side of us is causing us to be unhappy or stuck. And even if you don’t think you are blaming someone or something else, you probably are if you are not taking 100% responsibility for what is going on in your life and for your unhappiness. Be careful not to blame others for who you have chosen to be or what you have chosen to believe about yourself.

Sure, maybe it is true that you are in a relationship with an emotionally unhealthy person or that your boss is a tyrant, but these are all choices you made. I am not saying they are good choices or bad choices or that they are right or wrong choices, I am saying that you and only you made the choice. Even how you reacted, perceived it, or perhaps, made it mean something about you, is your choosing.

Perhaps an unconscious choosing due to your own self-negative thoughts and self-beliefs, but it is your responsibility to clean these up … without judgment and blame towards yourself as well. Merely become aware of what they are, and then realize it is you who is choosing to continue to believe and act upon these thoughts and beliefs through your choices and through your reactions. They are 100% your thoughts and 100% your emotions, no one else is thinking or feeling for you.

Taking 100% responsibility for your life may sound difficult or scary but it can be very freeing too because you will know that you have the power to choose. Choose who you allow in your life, choose how you react to situations and choose how you perceive certain events. You can unlock from the shackles of blame and resentment and take your power back.

Ask yourself the following questions. If you were 100% responsible for yourself:
What would you do for yourself today?

What choices would you make?

What boundaries would you set?

What would you stop doing?

What or who would you let go of?

What would you open up to?

By being 100% responsible for your life, you learn to be able to respond to your own needs, build a sense of personal authority and save yourself because no one else is coming to rescue you.

Letting the Enemy In

I open the door wide and let them in.

Oh I try to blame others for it, spend my time analyzing the other person’s issues, how they hurt me, how I am the victim, but it is only I that let the enemy in. And I make the enemy stronger by repeating the same self-defeating thoughts and make the enemy stronger by continuing to believe these false self-beliefs. Beliefs created so long ago with an innocent child’s mind and sensitive heart.

Unskilled behaviours of the adults I looked up to, looked to for love, support and understanding and when it was dysfunctional, it created my sense of self, how I felt about myself and who I thought I was. And I realize I am still operating from that same place decades later! I am not who I think I am. These thoughts, these beliefs are what are creating the pain inside … nothing external. I am the one feeding the imaginary monster.

We let the enemy in when we are weak.
We let the enemy in every time we lie to ourselves and make excuses and justifications for our unhealthy or addictive behaviours.
We let the enemy in every time we listen to our negative thoughts and destructive self-beliefs and self criticism.
We let the enemy in when we try to control or manipulate a situation or person to feed our own unhealthy emotional needs.
We let the enemy in when we aren’t compassionate with ourselves and forgive our mistakes.
We let the enemy in when we don’t believe in ourselves and don’t trust ourselves.
We let the enemy in when we choose not to listen to our instincts, our feelings and our own inner knowing.

I have not been a good guard of my gateway to my heart and soul ... the gateway to inner peace … the gateway to my happiness.

Not taking care of ourselves, not taking responsibility for ourselves…we allow the enemy in. And when the enemy does get in we blame others, external things and allow it to beat ourselves up.

The real battle is inside. Not out there with something or someone else.

Lessons, Letting go and Love

Reflecting on 2009…

Lessons Learned

1.       I have codependency patterns in my intimate relationships

2.       I  take other people’s issues personally then create self-defeating stories

3.       I incorrectly base how I feel about myself by the  behaviours of others

4.       I have let unconscious wounds run my life

5.       I have come to realize my own worth

6.       I am not inferior to others

7.       I do have gifts and something to offer

8.       I can trust my own thoughts and feelings

9.       I am stronger and wiser than I think I am

10.   I can rescue myself

Letting go of:

1.       Self-pity

2.       Childhood and self-defeating patterns

3.       Victimization mentality

4.       Self-doubt

5.       Beating myself up

6.       Allowing my mind/demons to torment me

7.       Overanalyzing things and confusing myself

8.       Taking on other people’s issues as my own

9.       Low self-worth and lack of confidence

10.   My old self-concept

Love & gratitude for:

1.       Friends who have been there through difficult times and good times

2.       Family who have always been there for me

3.       My cats whom I learn so much about living peacefully from

4.       New friends in a new town who have been so warm and welcoming

5.       My good health

6.       Beautiful landscapes that surround me in my new home across country

7.       Writing from my heart in this blog and the words of encouragement from others

8.       Teaching yoga, which inspires me and allows me to inspire others

9.       My vulnerability and open heart

10.   The courage to face my demons/wounds

I hope to take all these lessons and love and step into 2010 lighter as I let go of all that was holding me down. Much love, happiness and peace to all in 2010!

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.”    T.S. Eliot

To Let Go Takes Love

As 2009 comes to a close, it's a good time to look in our hidden places where we carry our fears, our hurts, our resentments, our bitterness, our anger, and all our self-defeating beliefs and LET THEM GO! Clear out for 2010 and make some space for new possibilities and more love to come in and fill you up.

To Let Go Takes Love

To "let go" does not mean to stop caring;

it means I can't do it for someone else.

To "let go" is not to cut myself off;

it is the realization that I can't control another.

To "let go" is not to enable,

but to allow learning from natural consequences.

To "let go" is to admit powerlessness,

which means the outcome is not in my hands.

To "let go" is not to try to change or blame another;

it is to make the most of myself.

To "let go" is not to care for, but to care about.

To "let go" is not to "fix", but to be supportive.

To "let go" is not to judge,

but to allow another to be a human being.

To "let go" is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,

but to allow others to affect their own destinies.

To "let go" is not to be protective;

it is to permit another to face reality.

To "let go" is not to deny, but to accept.

To "let go" is not to nag, scold, or argue,

but instead to search out my own shortcomings and to correct them.

To "let go" is not to adjust everything to my desires,

but to take each day as it comes, and to cherish myself in it.

To "let go" is not to criticize and regulate anybody,

but to try to become what I dream I can be.

To "let go" is not to regret the past,

but to grow and to live for the future.

To "let go" is to fear less and to love more.

Author Unknown

One day, if you are lucky...

...you will be in pain.

Why do we hang on so long after someone is gone or something is done? We go over and over it in our heads, rehashing the conversations, what we said, what they said, what we should have said. Keeping the story alive. Giving the “sad” story more power than it had even to begin with. We feed the demons, feed the sadness, feed the pain, feed our own story that we created a long time ago about who we are. Or rather, who we believe we are. Our conditioned self, the role we played in our family, our patterns of behavior, our way of coping and surviving in our family structure. And we take these roles and wounds out into the world, projecting them everywhere and on to everyone, especially in our intimate relationships. 

Whether we want to admit or not, or whether we are even aware of it, most of us recreate our family patterns in our relationships. We approach love the same way we did as children, whether that is through shutting down, acting out, seeking constant approval or trying to be really good to prove our worth. We keep chasing that wound. Searching out there so we can feel good in here.

And it works for a while; all the same familiar patterns over and over again feels strangely comforting, feels like home, feels like what you know even if it isn’t healthy. 

But one day if you are lucky, you will hurt so much that you will no longer be able to bear the pain of living these old beliefs, behaving from your conditioned self and allowing that wounded child to steer the wheel that keeps you from the path of finding who you really are. Keeps you from owning your own power and from living from that space. The very space that will provide you with what you are seeking out there for: love…happiness. 

One day, if you are lucky, you will be cracked open so wide that you will need to look inside and from there the real you will begin to emerge.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday. A time I usually look back on the year and reflect. Reflect on where I have been and where I am now. I'll start by saying that this birthday is better than last year's. Last year I was in a place of pain and confusion as I just ended a relationship with someone I adored. It ended suddenly, no time for falling out of love or getting tired of the person or arguing or not getting along. I felt alone, abandoned and heartbroken.

But the break up ended up being a catalyst for me in finding me. Leading me on a long and painful journey of healing as I began to realize where I was deeply wounded. A year of coming face-to-face with my shadow. Old wounds I had been carrying around unconsciously for my whole life and definitely what drew this person, this relationship to me in the first place.

I am very aware that it is my own wounds and ego that keep me stuck and holding on and that he was merely a mirror of my deep inner wounds. Wounds needing to see the light of day and be questioned and analyzed. An old story that needs to stop being told to myself. And, oh, did this person fit perfectly into my story. The break up fit into my story of “not good enough, special enough” even better. Yet he never said these things to me, in fact he adored me. All he did was be who he is: emotionally dysfunctional, codependent, insecure, fearful, cowardly and stuck. I am the one that made it mean something about me.

So, I guess I could say in the past year, where I have been is Hell. In my own dark, self-created hell. Where my shadow, my wounds, my fears, my insecurities, my obsessions and my codependency dwell. In hiding, yet were the silent but deadly drivers of my life.

Over the past year, I lost my relationship, lost my job, got rid of my car and moved across country. And where I am now is in a new home, a new car, new friends and in a new job that I love – teaching yoga. I am in a much lighter place, perhaps not Heaven or a place of peace yet, but I have escaped the captivity of my personal demons. I have the key in my hand to unlock this cage, now I just need to figure out how to use the key.

My ex wrote a very heart wrenching, soulful song when he escaped his substance addiction years before we met, called “Happy Birthday to me, I think I’m finally free”. My birthday wish is to be free of the deep hurt this relationship brought about in me.

Looking forward to my new journey this year.

Teach Me

What does being a teacher mean? Does a teacher have to be better than or know more than their students? Are teachers wiser and smarter people? More advanced human beings?

Even as a yoga teacher I have struggled with that question at times wondering if I am “advanced” enough to teach when I still struggle with some more challenging poses that may come easier to others, even if I can teach them well. If a student can get into and stay in headstand better than I or balance upside down on their arms when I cannot, can I then still be their teacher?

Yes I can, I realized. I believe a teacher is someone who guides you to find your own potential, challenges you to grow and ultimately guides you into your own self.

And I believe there are two types of teachers in general: those that inspire you and build you up and those that discourage you and tear you down. But both serve the same purpose: to guide you to you. To who you really are, to your authentic self. Both push you to grow and challenge you to reach your potential and find your own power within.

We can love and look up to those people in our lives that have encouraged us, recognized our potential and made us feel good about ourselves and we can despise or resent those people in our lives that have hurt us, broke us down and had us feeling like shit about ourselves … yet they are both catalysts for the same thing... bringing you closer to you.

A true teacher gives us the gift of ourselves.

And most times it is the hardest teacher – the ones we resent or despise - and the most painful lessons – the ones that hurt and bring us to our knees - that leads us down the right path. Our own path. Our true path. The path that leads us deep into ourselves where our gold is ... just waiting to shine.

There’s a Buddhist proverb that goes: When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Know, that when you are going through difficult times that your teacher has indeed appeared. So pay attention, learn your lessons and you will be ready to claim your piece of gold.

Now I'm Gold

Happy New Me

Just as today, November 1st, marked the New Year for the Celts: the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new cycle, today also marks an end of one cycle and a beginning of a new one for me.

One year ago today, I ended a relationship I really didn’t want to come to an end, but something inside of me told me something was unhealthy. His extra close relationship with his ex, although healthy in some aspects, seemed really unhealthy and bizarre in other aspects. And I knew it, felt it all along…but I tried to ignore it or allow his dysfunctional logic to override my own thoughts and feelings. Upon hearing that his ex was now sleeping over, so he could help her recover from cosmetic plastic surgery was the last straw.

Amongst the many other situations that I won’t bore you with, this was the two by four I needed to be hit over the head with. This is codependency, an unhealthy attachment, a non-letting go. I should have known there was codependency at play here, so I told myself as self punishment, after all he was an alcoholic and drug abuser for 20 years of his life and all during his marriage. She stayed with him through drama, selfish behavior, violent lifestyle, lies and whatever else goes on in those types of relationships. A part of him I had never known, but only heard about from him. It was only when he became sober, that she fell out of love with him and in love with another heavy drinker for 4 years. Yet she and her ex, my ex, kept on carrying on like a happy little family, or maybe for the first time as it may not have been so during their 16 year marriage.

Now living a platonic marriage? They would even celebrate each other's birthdays together and Mother's Day, Father's Day with their son, but still.... where is the separation in this scenario? Besides not sleeping together anymore or having "romantic feelings". Is it not just a platonic marriage now but still a marriage like, bizarre, unhealthy thing? No?! She even had a key to his place! And all the while she was living with another man and leaving him at home for these ex-husband excursions! So why did I not listen to my first instincts? I was so confused with my own thoughts and feelings (still am to this day). I suppose because I cared for him so much I pushed away my inner knowing. I should have listened to myself in the first place, continued the self punishing voice.

And this day marked my own descent into codependency, obsessive behavior and my own inner addict. A year where all my own deep, dormant wounds came to wake and wreak havoc with my life. Self-pitying, self-doubting and self-loathing. Along this dark, long, winding road I learned a lot about myself at an even deeper level than I had already explored. I seem to be low on self-value, self-respect, self-worth, self-trust. Why? Where did this come from and how has this affected my life? All these questions were answered through painful bouts of sadness and loneliness and immense inner turmoil. Old wounds, old beliefs and subsequent old patterns were exposed.

Dragged out of the comfort of darkness kicking and screaming into the harsh light of day. No longer able to hide and subtly control my life from an undetected place from deep within. Wounds and beliefs and patterns that now had to answer to these questions because they had nowhere to go anymore; their shelter had been exposed and demolished. Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. I had to sit with them for a year, calm them, interrogate them and then embrace them and learn to love them.

So why did this happen? Why did this relationship, with this person whom I had such strong feelings for, such a pull towards and vice versa, end? Or happen at all? I conclude that it is because he had all the “right” qualities, wounds, dysfunctions to awaken my deep wounds. It was because he had some wonderful qualities that I adored and commonalities that we shared that drew me to him, but it turns out he had all the similar dysfunctional characteristics as the person who originally wounded me and lead me to create these false beliefs about myself in the first place ... so I learned through lots of deep, painful self-reflection.

And I realized I needed to be wounded in the same way so that I could process these dormant, life-stealing wounds with the awareness and wisdom of an adult mind. It’s like homeopathy; you need to be given the same poison such that a greater healing can occur. In retrospect, maybe I should thank my ex for setting me free … but I am not quite there in my healing yet. It is said that the people that hurt us the most are our greatest teachers.

My ex had all the key ingredients to unlock my self-created cage and set me free. Free of my wounds, free of my false self-beliefs, free of my self-created limitations.

Free to fly.

Let the New Year begin….

The Unveiling

Halloween is the time of year when we put on masks and go out and be something, someone different than we are.

Yet this annual event of becoming someone else by putting on a costume or mask, is something we subconsciously do every day of the year and perhaps a different mask many times a day depending on where we are, who we are with, the role we have assumed, etc. We often choose the mask that matches the mask of the person we’re trying to please. The masks we have chosen to wear in our varied experiences are a way to keep us safe, but hides our true self from others and ourselves.

And that is exactly what the Celts were doing on Hollows Eve … trying to hide their identity to keep themselves safe. Celts who lived 2000 years ago, celebrated the New Year on Nov. 1. This marked the end of the Summer and harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold Winter. The Celts believed that transitions, times when things change from one state to another, had magical properties.

They, thus, believed the night before New Years was a powerful time in which the veils between the two realms was thinned , allowing one to move between the two worlds with ease. October 31st they celebrated Samhain or Hallow’s Eve, when the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. Afraid the undead would harm them and cause trouble, the Celts left out food on their door steps to keep their homes safe from these ghosts.

And if the Celts people needed to venture out on this eve, they would dress up in costume and don masks in hopes of being mistaken for one of the ghosts' fellow spirits. Just as we do with the masks we wear every day. To hide our true identity, to keep ourselves safe, to fit in, and pretend to be something we are not.

Indeed October 31st - Halloween – is a magical and powerful time. A transitional time. A time to get in touch with our inner spirit, to observe ourselves more clearly as the veil of illusion is thinned. As the lines of our two worlds, our inner self and our outer selves (our own ghosts), are blurred. Opening up the realms so we can move with ease into deeper regions of ourselves and begin to remove the masks.

This Halloween I am going to be someone totally different than I, or anyone has ever been...

I am going to be me!

Happy Halloween!

When you are falling ... Let Go

This is what I learned in Yoga class tonight as I went into a pose I have went into successfully many times before – headstand.

I was getting up into my headstand at the top of my mat, my right leg was up and as I began to bring my left leg up in line with the right I started to lose a little balance, but that didn’t stop me, I kept going. I can do headstand! I’ll balance myself out as I keep going in this already unsturdy foundation, I thought. And as I started to sway more, the more I tried to get up into place. It wasn’t working, I was struggling and starting to fall out of it yet I continued to get into the “right” position rather than just go with it, to just fall. Go where I was going anyway. It would have been easier, less painful and certainly more graceful.

Wish I had this little piece of wisdom in my pocket about a year ago during a break up that caused me so much inner turmoil … I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let go of the pain of breaking up, couldn’t let go of my expectations of the relationship, couldn’t let go of why he couldn’t understand, couldn’t let go of analyzing him, analyzing the relationship, couldn’t let go of the love we shared, the words he said, couldn’t let go of the why’s. Why did he do this? Why did this happen? Why couldn’t it work out? Why? And the more I held on, rather tried to hang on, the more suffering it caused me. My mind, my ego had a grip on me so tight that it was squeezing the life out of me. Yet it was the trying to hold on that caused the inner turmoil, the pain, the suffering more so than the actual break up, the fall.

Then I fell … awkwardly. Not awkwardly in a humiliating sense (although I am sure humility would have served me here instead of my ego mind), but in a potentially physically harmful way. My left leg fell over to the one side and I came crashing down on the side of my heel, my other leg fell forward over my head and my neck twisted sideways, while my hands were still grasping to hold on! When I fell, I felt a little stunned but I also had this weird sensation … an exhilaration. I had felt, for a very brief moment, like I was flying. Then I landed ... not so gracefully.

So, instead of all this time spent thinking, doubting, questioning, trying to get it right; instead of all these mental acrobatics that wouldn’t change the outcome anyway, all I needed to do was let go. LET GO. Just let go and land. On the solid ground beneath me. A stable place. Then try again from this new landing place.

Try again. I recommend falling, in fact, because it is your chance to really experience freedom, but try to fall with grace. You do that by letting go.

It is from falling that I have started to learn how to fly.

Tides of Change

The change of the season can be felt in the air, with the days becoming shorter, the nights growing cooler and the waters turning colder. It is said change is a constant; something we can always count on. We often view change as good or bad, depending on our own wants, desires and perception of things. We tend to notice change more when it is something we don’t want, and then we have difficulty dealing with it … accepting it. We think it should be different or it’s not fair. We resist, sometimes even deny it’s happening at all.

As I resisted “unwanted” change in my life, I felt I was swept up by a cyclone, spinning me around, spinning me down into a dark well of stagnant water with walls so high I could not climb out of. Holding on, not wanting the change to take place (even though it already had). My mind gripping on ferociously to what was already gone, already done. My resistance and the not accepting what was, created a dam inside me; blocking the natural flow of the river, the flow of my life. Not letting anything in, not letting anything out. Being sucked down by the undertow.

It wasn’t until I let go, stopped resisting and accepted the change, that I found some peace, a glimpse of joy … the very things I was searching for in the first place. Though in an attempt to calm the raging rivers of emotions that change brings, I clung, resisted, not realizing it is just that which kept me from what I was seeking.

Perhaps we resist change because of the fear of the unknown and our primal need for security and safety. And sometimes it’s just easier to stay with our limitations and with what doesn’t work. To keep things the same. Keeping us in a state of inertia, yet one of familiarity and comfort, even if it isn’t ideal. But things will never stay the same no matter how hard we resist or stay in denial; we just prolong the struggle.

Just as we can’t stop the trees from growing, the flowers from dying or the rivers from flowing - all the natural beauty and wonders of nature - we can’t stop change. And when we can learn to accept change – “good” or “bad” – perhaps, then, we will be able to embrace the beauty and wonders within ourselves.

Between Mountains and Oceans

Power and Peace.

Solid and Malleable

Stable and Supple.

Strength and Surrender.

All that I have been trying to find in myself; find the balance between. The ebb and flow of our lives require a certain power to navigate the rough waters, not one of force or will, but an inner strength, strong and stable like the mountains; peaceful and surrendering like the ocean.

It is the majestic, omnipotence and serenity of these landscapes that brought me all across Canada to the West Coast. Hoping to receive inspiration as I breath in the air, taste the salt on my lips and soak in the mystical energies of these wonders through every pore of my body.

To possess what they emanate. As I navigate the landscapes of my life.