Breathe in, and feel your lungs filling. Breathe out, and relax.
Be with your whole body all the way through the inhale, and the exhale.
–a mindfulness reminder from chill-app.com
Tag: joy
Nose breathing ends fight or flight. #justbreathe
Exhale one deep breath, like a pressure-release valve.
Feel the tension inside diminishing as you let off steam.
–a mindfulness reminder from chill-app.com
Hot town summer
Is this a poem?
So far from what I can tell.
This is the sizzling
summer of the hot and the buggy.
(Who you calling buggy?)
It’s been…
Muggy.
Yuggee.
I mean yucky.
Okay so.
Let it go.
Imagine snow?
Live in possibility.
I am the possibility of Jo’ie de Vivre
(Francaise for joy in life thanks France for that)
July 14, 2012
Nancy in New York
on
Bastille Day.
Small gifts
Today Mark and I went to Memorial Sloan- Kettering Cancer Center. It’s his follow-up after an 8 week state of siege over his kidney function. He was in renal failure and needed an emergency procedure over the Passover-Easter holidays. Amazingly his cancer is holding steady. Which is a relief. I am grateful to Dr. Schwartz for whatever he does on Mark’s behalf. Liposarcoma is a scary card to have drawn.
I overheard one woman in the waiting area say two things one was,” hey I can still get up and walk and look at the sky, so that is something to be joyful about.”
The other was a quote from Woody Allen, ” We are all going to die, it’s just that I prefer not to be there when it happens.”
I interviewed Mark the other day in Long Beach about summer coming.
Holy Shift! Kundalini to the rescue
Shift Happens!Sometimes in big piles.
John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.” (As it happens he is not the first but probably the most famous to say that and boy is it true)
About two years ago shifts happened all over my life. On the very same day (March 12, 2008) my handsome vibrant husband Mark was diagnosed with a rare very- difficult- to -treat cancer and my mother died.
No joke all on the same day.
And then about a month later, my beautiful german shepherd Lucy was diagnosed with a rare untreatable cancer and we had to put her down or she would just bleed to death.
It was like an earthquake in my life without all the destruction and debris, except for one thing, I practice Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan at Divine Yoga in Rockville Centre, NY. My teacher, Arlene Lucas brought me through this so that I could be in a place of grace and calm rather than upset, fear and worry.
Really what is the point? Who is it for? The person in distress does not need my upset do they?
What Kundalini yoga gives me is a technology to clear out fear, anger pain, blame and upset. It helps me to be a wizard and warrior in my life no matter what is happening.
Forget positive thinking this yoga works on the a cellular level that actually has helped me to stay sane, stay loving, compassionate and peaceful without even trying. Sometimes I blow it but mostly I am free from the madness that this storm that came swirling into my life could possibly cause. And believe you me a friend or two thought I was a cold, unfeeling bitch ( a few still do) because I am not running around wringing my hands.
Who exactly does that help? If I want to be there for my husband it’s up to me to hold the space of loving kindness for him. Coming from a place of “I am so worried” makes it all about me, no?
And by the way I do cry. After my yoga class I get into my car and sit there for a few minutes and cry just like Holly Hunter in Broadcast News. And then, poof, like magic I am free to be the best me I can be for my handsome generous husband who has always been there for me.
Shift does indeed happen. Just glad it’s not really an earthquake.
So how do you get some of that energy?
If you are in NY or coming for a visit come to Divine Yoga in Rockville Centre. We have had visitors from near and far including Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles.
And special note: there is a Wednesday class called “Living with Cancer” with all proceeds going to the American Cancer Society. If you live on Long Island or know someone there who is fighting cancer or you are a caregiver who needs some TLC, go to this class. It is an hour of restoration and healing and yogi tea.