How to do this meditation:Sit with a tall straight spine.
Interlock the fingers and extend the ring fingers (see video). Place them at the top of your rib cage with the ring fingers pointing up 60 degrees. Begin by tuning in with Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo (three times). Inhale through your nose and as you exhale chant Ong. Long and full with your complete exhale. Do a minimum of five Ongs. Notice the sensation as the sound vibrates throughout your body! This is very calming. I do this a lot when I wake up in the middle of the night.
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 We are in a time. The “feels” are deep.
What I know is: grief is in the air. There is a collective energy of grief. Whether we are grieving for a single beloved person or the loss of seeing our friends and family or our workplace and all the characters that participate in our daily routine or schools not going back in person (our kids are experiencing it too) or many, many other scenarios. Grief is in the air. What I am noticing is that there is a layering of grief right now and it is global. We may be stacking two, three or more of these events that are causing grief. In psychology they speak of the stages of grief. These are helpful to identify what we are experiencing. In coaching I refer to this as looking, seeing and telling the truth. Being with it, allowing and acknowledging the loss is so important. Like a wave, the emotions, memories, sadness, a funny story, a realization, can wash over us, gaining strength and then subside. Just like a wave. You can apply this to any grief. Don’t compare your grief to others. Don’t minimize it. “Well, it’s only going to our favorite restaurant every Wednesday for a date night, it isn’t like someone died.” The loss, the missing, the sadness that that isn’t happening right now will get stronger and more pervasive if we don’t just allow ourselves time to acknowledge that missing feeling. The loss of what is, needs to be acknowledged. And what is exciting is that when we acknowledge it and allow ourselves to feel it, then what appears is what the real "missing" is all about. “I miss that weekly connection, just being out, together, in the world, for fun, no kids, just being together.” Then, staying with that, may lead to an idea. What if we recreate that date night as a picnic, make food to go or pick it up and explore different picnic places together each week? The ideas are limitless but we won’t come up with them if we deny that we are missing the event and how that is making us feel. Or minimizing it, “geez there are so many worse things going on in the world. I shouldn’t even be bummed about this.” That won’t lead anywhere except feeling worse, which will grow and down the rabbit hole we go!!! A friend of mine passed last weekend. It is deep and sad. I acknowledge that her presence is gone from the physical form. Just knowing I won’t “see” her in the way that I always have, the permanence of this is real and needs acknowledgment. It also allows for other thoughts and memories to come up, again like a wave. The wave of emotions and feelings, thoughts and ideas then it subsides. This can be exhausting depending on the intensity of the wave. Give yourself a break. Time. Space. A little ritual of self care to ride this wave. If you are feeling stuck with any of this. Please reach out to a friend, a psychologist or a coach. Someone to guide you through the waves. Sometimes we just need a helping hand. Grief is in the air. There is a world wide grieving for old ways of being, people passing on, the way we used to connect with people, new people, friends, family, at work, at the grocery store. Everything is being reborn, reinvented and rediscovered. And yet, we can allow ourselves a little time and space to “miss” these things. Next Tuesday Tidbit I will send a meditation to help with grief. We can use grief like fertilizer. Fertilizer for our ideas. As the ideas come through we can create joy and love even from the grief. Sending hugs and love to all. Thank you for being here. Thank you.  Here is some great news.
Awareness is proof you are growing and moving toward a life more fulfilled. As we work on new patterns that serve us and new ways of being that create different results in our lives, when a slip, back to an old pattern happens, boy is it obvious!!! This recently happened to me. I knew what I needed to do. I knew my answer and yet I threw it out to someone to “ask” what I should do. They not only didn’t support my idea, they negated it AND I went with that. It’s been years since I have done this. I didn’t recognize it at first but as a day or two went by and I got input on doing what I originally knew was the best thing in this situation I realized what I had done. Wow!!!! I was shocked and mad at myself. Hahahaah I really stepped into all the old patterns in one situation. The good news here was that I saw it, realized it, didn’t stay there long AND even celebrated myself for seeing what I had done. I flipped it. I am proud of myself for stopping that cycle and I am grateful that this happened to point out how the new way of being has been working so much better for me. I could have gone down the rabbit hole of beating myself up, not correcting the course, and on and on, ugh you know that vicious cycle! The key is seeing it and not staying there. This is the practice!! When we try to do something new or change our way of being, It takes repetition. Repetition to build the muscle to our new way of being. We have built the muscle, maybe for years, the “old” way. So learning to do things a new way takes repetition to re-teach our brain. This is why I am always talking about it as a practice. It isn’t one and done. Hey, I worked out today, now I will be in shape for the rest of my life. It is obviously a consistent and continuous practice to keep ourselves in good, physical shape. This, too, is true of our behavior. If we know that the way we are being isn’t serving us anymore we need to be patient with ourselves as we build that muscle through repetition and consistent and continuous practice. If we slide into an “old” way, observing it and noticing it means we are on the path. If we didn’t know when we weren’t doing it then we wouldn’t know we needed to get back on track. I know that sounds wacky but in the observation is the growth. It is sooooo obvious with our body but often we think we should just get it when it comes to our mind and actions, our patterns! Patience, perseverance and repetition! Kundalini yoga (the yoga of awareness, hence why it is so transformational), breath work, coaching, support, mindset work, etc….are all tools that help build this pattern-breaking-muscle. Stay the course and when you slip and SEE it!!! Celebrate!!!! You ARE getting it. Give yourself a high five, a pat on the back and acknowledge how far you have come and all your growth! And then keep on going. Keep up and keep on!!  Is it summer? Spring? Winter? Haven’t the kids been home already for months? Do you have vacation plans? No plans? Can you even make plans? Are you working? More? Less? Do you feel a little upside down?
Me too! One of my biggest personal learnings over the years has been to be nice to myself. It sounds simple and maybe even obvious and ridiculous but, man, have I been hard on myself. And during this unprecedented time it is more important than ever to drop that habit!! So, if you are still doing that, please let me encourage you to stop that now. Really!!!! We are all doing the best we can. You know that little video game that came out a long time ago where the little frog has to jump from log to log while he is moving and all the logs are also moving. Hahaahha right now I feel a bit like that. If you hesitate you miss the log and end up in the water and if you jump without getting into the rhythm of the logs you end up in the water too. If you get mad about ending up in the water then, for sure, you are going to be staying in the water. What it boils down to is the acceptance of the moment. That is all it is. We can’t control outside circumstances, when the logs come by, how fast they move etc. What we can control is how we react to them. THAT is what will affect our state of being. Covid has made this a great time to practice this. As we all have been home, together for months, with apparently no end in sight. We must be gentle to ourselves. When we are on a roll and a family issue arises and knocks us off the “log”. We step in and deal with it, be present to it, accept it and don’t beat ourselves up for being knocked off the log. When we are able to do this the recovery time to getting back on the log is soooo much faster. There is no emotional, energetic drag. We can just get back on track. Otherwise it is like dragging a bag of rocks with you. That is not fun or efficient. It is downright harmful. SO, GET UP. Come on, right now. Stand up, bend forward, reach your arm up high and bring it down and pat yourself on the back!!! I mean it. If it makes you laugh and feels silly then all the better. DO IT. Let me be the little voice inside your head that reminds you to be kind to yourself. NO matter what. Love you guys. Reach out if you need help. I am offering a free session so that you can explore coaching to see if it would help you. Reach out if you want to set up a time (it’s on the phone so location is not a problem). Happy Tuesday. |
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AuthorCourtney Gebhart, Life Coach, Kundalini Yoga teacher, and Human Being. Archives
January 2021
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