Author Archives: MaryAnn Reynolds

About MaryAnn Reynolds

I practice advanced bodywork in Austin, TX, specializing in Craniosacral Biodynamics and TMJ Relief.

Guest post: Opinions Are, by Carin Channing

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Note: I am opening up my blog to occasional guest posts from other bloggers. This first one is from Carin Channing, who blogs at Stay Open: Spiritual and Self-Care Space.

I get the sense of dragging myself forward from the chest or the gut into some unknown where I think I should be arriving.

I read this tonight:

“My judgments, my ego-tripping, my attempts to plan and to know what the future holds or to try to drive the future in any way — all futile and hung up on a desperate mind, clinging to an image of importance that simply cannot stand against the field of a quiet mind.”

I wrote it a few months ago on the Be Here Now blog.

It continues to be relevant. Especially about the attempts to plan and to know what the future holds. I really know nothing about anything. I write about stuff, but it’s playing. It’s creating if I’m not thinking about it and it’s just coming out my fingers. So. The image of importance. There’s this thing that thinks there is such a thing as good/bad. And it’s a noisy voice, and not only is it noisy within, but also in the supposed without – that is, that which appears outside of us. The straddling of the two worlds, said a friend to me, is the hell you are in.

The world where there’s right/wrong. This pulls on me. Wants my attention. Wants to hold my head under water.

Today the Text Support message that I sent out said:

“The overall ‘why’ doesn’t matter. How would you know anyway? All you need to know, and will always know, is the next right thing to do. Even if it’s do nothing.”

And as I sit here and type and mess around a little on the internet, I keep feeling these pulls (as mentioned above). The thoughts are about 1) eating, 2) exercising, 3) taking a bath. The pull keeps telling me which one I’ll do when and justifying its existence by asserting that there’s a should out there somewhere about the order of things and about anything else beyond sitting here typing.

I exercised every day no matter what for two years. Even if I just did a little movement or stretching, it counted. Some months ago I let it slip and now, well, I exercise when I do. And what I’m faced with, what’s left, is this massive judgment, insisting that something other than the natural flow of the moment is what’s necessary and somehow even morally correct.

I remain healthy and am not stagnant. A shifting occurred. Nothing occurred. All of that is past. All of everything is past except the exhale I’m doing right now and the gnat that is flying across my field of vision and the heat of the laptop under the heels of my hands.

What is it that I don’t trust?

See? The two worlds. Being guided by the mind, or simply being guided.

Not like either is right or wrong. {giggling now} It’s just that opinions are. Look, there goes one now.

To continue the conversation with Carin, please also visit Stay Open: Spiritual and Self-Care Space. Become a fan of Stay Open Facebook Page. Submit questions to (submit questions to carina@nowstayopen.com).

Santa as guru: Santaji

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Somewhat related to my previous post, click here to read the article 6 Lessons Santa Teaches Better Than Any Guru, by Ed & Deb Shapiro, published in elephantjournal.

Excerpt:

4. He has great psychic powers: flies in the sky with reindeer, descends chimneys without getting covered in soot, goes by many names and forms, and is extraordinarily elusive. Has anyone actually ever seen him? The lesson here is that we can all do more than we think we can, and we don’t need to be applauded. We can practice random acts of kindness quietly, simply, without bringing attention to ourselves.

Still liking Santa, and standing up for your heart’s desires

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What a wonderful, busy time of year this is! Many of us have holidays from school and work. We celebrate the winter solstice — the longest night of the year gives birth to the returning of the light. This year the full moon and a total lunar eclipse marked the turn. Whatever solstice means to you, triple it!

Then there’s Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Festivus. We gather with those we love and care about to celebrate our faith and traditions in good cheer.

Then New Year’s, Eve and Day. Have you gotten your calendars yet?

December is a month of bustle, socializing, celebrating, feasting, shopping, partying, getting out into the world. It goes by so quickly. January is quieter, colder, more still, more stay-at-home, more introspective, and is the longest month, in my opinion.

I dub December the extrovert’s favorite month, while January is beloved by introverts.

I love this end-of-year time, the days of Solstice and the New Year and all the days in between, as a time to wrap up the old year and let visions of my future self dance in my head as I prepare for a new year.

I once celebrated Christmas as the major holiday of the year, when I was a child, and later when I had a child living at home. The excitement of Christmas morning, presents under the tree — that rocked!

I still like Santa a lot. My friends Alec and Karan have a Santa figurine that captured my attention this year. It looks like  an intricately branched piece of light gray driftwood with Santa’s face and beard appearing on one side. It’s surprising — Santa as wood spirit. This Santa isn’t jolly or merry, he’s peaceful and content. He comes from nature, not Madison Avenue.

Seeing their driftwood Santa helped me clarify that today I perceive Santa as a spirit of winter, a wise and wintry man, the epitome of generosity and kindness to children — a far cry from my childhood idea of Santa as one whom I could ask for whatever I wanted, with an understanding that he would bring it, if only I was worthy.

Of course, I always got stuff (good little girls like me often mistook compliance for worthiness). There was the build-up and the inevitable let-down. Too much excitement segued into something like a sugar crash by the afternoon of Christmas day, complete with tears. Rebalancing.

I understand now that in the way of the child, I was encouraged to mistake my heart’s desires for material goods, a far inferior substitute. In allowing that substitution, I also unknowingly devalued my own worthiness. Worthiness is not compliance. Worthiness is standing up for your heart’s desire. Those heart’s desires could not be wrapped in a package and tied with a bow. Indeed, often the heart’s desires cannot be articulated, only felt, as yearning.

In the way of the adult, it is the experience of desiring, even more than receiving, that defines us humans so deeply. To experience one’s heart desiring is to experience one’s worthiness.

Does the object of desire really even matter that much? Yes, when you are in the clutches of desiring! No, it’s that feeling of expansion in the heart center, that reaching out of one’s energy to include that someone or something else, that dream of something bigger, that matters.

Enjoy it all! The desiring, the receiving, the gratitude, the letting go, the not receiving, the disappointment, the moving on, the emptiness between desires, the new desire.

The child in me has matured through expectation, hope, delight,disappointment, skepticism, cynicism, to perhaps a faith in something inside all of us. Heart’s desires. For peace in the world and in our own beings. For love to give and to receive. For awareness of life’s gifts and brevity. For this moment here with you.

Best wishes of the season from me to you!

Shifting from alpha to theta waves in meditation

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I sat this morning, and toward the end of the 30 minutes, I felt a definite shift. You regular readers know I’m interested in brain waves. I think this was a shift from alpha to theta!

(One of my desires for 2011 is that between selling my house soon and starting at AOMA in July, I can acquaint myself with my brain wave states using a neurofeedback machine. I’d like to be able to relate my subjective experience to objective feedback and write about it.)

It’s important to be clear that even though I’m writing about shifting brain wave states, a shift is not just mental (i.e., experienced inside my brain). Shifts occur in my energetic body-mind. Brain wave biofeedback uses electrodes on one’s head, and perhaps that is the best place on the body to place electrodes to get a good reading, but shifts affect the entire body-mind-energy system.

It was like this: I began sitting. Immediately I gave my physical body more attention. (Before, monkey mind — and my feet — were wandering through the house with the loose intention of sitting before breakfast, and my feet found their way to my meditation corner.)

The attention to my physical body began to trigger little blossomings in my energy body. (Over the course of this year, I’ve become habituated to sitting. Like Pavlov’s dog, sit me down on a zafu, and certain things happen.)

I check in with my whole body, noticing stiffness in part of my back. It begins to relax. I breath prana into it for deeper relaxation.

I tell myself:

Let my whole body embrace my breath. Let me make it welcome. Let me receive it fully and let it go fully.

Pause, then big spontaneous inhalation, with my breath being fully and completely welcomed and embraced. Ah.

I think:

Hmm, maybe I should blog about this sometime.

Then for a while, I focus my attention on the energy field around my head. Just noticing my halo! Crown chakra, third eye chakra, throat chakra all open and clear.

I direct my attention to my heart center. This morning it feels quiet and open.

I begin remembering bits of Peg Syverson’s dharma talk at Appamada Zendo yesterday about the nature of wanting.

Our energy field expands to include that which we desire. We become attached; the attachment becomes part of who we are.

From wanting, suffering may (or may not) arise.

There is nothing wrong or bad about wanting!

I evaluate my own thoughts and think:

Hmm. Wanting and attachment. Mental note to self: explore this in a future blog post! But first, listen to Peg’s dharma talk again online.

That Peg is so brilliant.

And then:

Oh, thinking mind! Come back to the present, to my body.

Now where was I? Ah, yes, my belly.

Attention moves to belly. Mmm. Feel pleasant sensations between ribs and pelvis. Feel nice round heavy juicy energy in second chakra. Mmmm. Feel my tailbone, sitz bones, flesh, the root chakra area open and expand, heavy against the zafu.

I think:

I used to not experience much root chakra energy. It has returned in full force. I feel happy about this.

Now I merge awareness of my head, chest, and belly centers together to experience whole body awareness.

Ah. There it is. Deep inhale, deep exhale. I’m there.

Attention moves within the field of my whole body. News of difference moves it. A pain (contraction) here, a blossoming (expansion) there, neutral awareness of my wholeness.

This goes on for some time. I feel pleasantly relaxed and alert and centered.

Then I notice the shift.

It’s as if my body and mind have become heavier. My mind has definitely calmed. My body feels more still as well. It’s as if my vibrations are oscillating more slowly and congruently.

I feel more passive, more surrendered to the moment. I experience less of a need to be on top of things, to be in control, to do anything, really. It’s as if my ego has stepped away.

I don’t feel tired, but this is similar to feeling pleasantly fatigued. No effort. Quiet heavy bliss.

Then the timer chimes and I come out of it. I think:

Hmm. Maybe it takes 25 minutes to reach this state. I’m going to set my timer for longer and find out.

Experiencing loss on a larger scale

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To recap where I left off, I lost my keys on Saturday. I shifted states to find them, first shifting from being upset to playing with Trickster, and also shifting time perception from mainland time to island time. I shifted behavior from frantic, frustrated searching to tossing a ball from hand to hand with eyes looking up.

I then followed an impulse that showed me where my keys were. Problem solved.

On Sunday, I returned from the workshop to discover a bigger loss. My house had been burglarized while I was away, and the thieves took my laptop, wifi router, cable modem, and computer accessories, my DVD/VCR player, my old flute, and (I discovered today) a sports watch.

Other human beings entered my personal living space and took things that belonged to me! It’s Friday, and I still feel a little bit of outrage about that.

Yet I recognize that losing keys, and losing stuff, are minor losses compared to losing one’s health, loved ones, a home or livelihood with no replacement, life. Perspective is important.

They were thoughtless about it, too. For instance, they took the remote to the TV but not the big 27″ Sony TV — too big and heavy. They took the cable modem that I lease from my ISP — useless without an ISP enabling it, and it has an ID. They took the cable to my digital camera, which was dangling out of a USB port — no good to anyone without a camera and software. Stupid, you know?

Mostly they grabbed things that were easy to pawn. I reported it to the police, and they’ll be on the lookout for the items for which I had a serial number.

That’s a lot of inconvenience. Luckily, I have good homeowner’s insurance, albeit with a $500 deductible. I’ll be filling out forms soon and eventually get a check to buy replacements with. But I didn’t have anything backed up, a serious error on my part. I’d been meaning to do that but didn’t have a clear idea of which method to use, so I procrastinated. Now I know — external hard drive, kept separately.

I wanted to spend Sunday night away from home, due to feeling discomfort in my own home, but didn’t. I’d already been away Saturday night, and I missed my kitty Mango. He was my first clue that something was amiss. I had asked my daughter to let him in Saturday night because of the cold. When I pulled into the driveway on Sunday, he was outside. The burglars must have let him out.

Monday morning, I smudged my house with palo santo (fragrant holy wood), brought to me recently from Peru, to clear the negative energy. Moving on through this experience, shifting states.

The burglar of my imagination is a young man between 17 and 21 whose frontal lobes are not finished developing, who therefore lacks the ability to foresee consequences. His ability to empathize with others is also lacking. I imagine, but do not know, that he will eventually get caught and spend time in prison. Not many people who engage in this kind of behavior turn their lives around before going to prison. It would take exceptional awareness of consequences and strong intent to change one’s path. It could happen, though. Those frontal lobes will kick in at some point.

I feel sad and disappointed that humans behave like this and that someone did this to me. It’s personal, yet I know it happens to a lot of people. It’s not the first time I’ve had things taken. Last year in Maui, thieves broke into the car and took my large duffel bag crammed full of stuff.

Because I was on Maui, how upset could I be? Who wants to ruin a perfectly blissful vacation getting bent out of shape over some stuff? I was on Maui, with friends. Perspective.

There’s also recognizing the reality of economic disparity. People judge themselves to be poor or rich in comparison to others and have stories about that. I don’t actually know that I am poorer or richer than these burglars. I am a freelance yoga teacher at present. They probably are freelance burglars, who wouldn’t do this if they had a job.

Like the Kathy Bates character in Fried Green Tomatoes, I’m older and have good insurance!

On a different note, I have seriously been downsizing my possessions, taking stuff to Goodwill, selling it to Half Price Books and on Craigslist, and giving it away. My house has become clean, spare, and spacious, and I like that.

This burglary was an extension of downsizing energy, even though it came from someone else liberating me from my stuff. I’ve decided to donate the remoteless TV to Goodwill and go without. I can watch DVDs, movies, and TV shows on my replacement laptop (and will get a backup system at the same time). I’ll rebuild iTunes and can recreate documents as needed.

So. It’s not something I’m moping about. I secured the window and use the alarm consistently. Just one of those things, a more serious contraction than losing the keys, but still, a momentary blip in the big picture.

Universe, if you’re listening, please hold off on the downsizing and boundary violations for a bit, okay?

How to lose and find something with equanimity

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This past Saturday morning, I prepared to go to a weekend workshop, Harmonics of Healing, with Tom Best and Steve Daniel. (Tom is my long-time NLP trainer, whom I now assist at trainings, and Steve is a didgeridoo player and sound healer extraordinaire.) Held at the Tree of Life Sanctuary in Radiance south of Austin, I was planning to sleep over and packing my sleeping bag, ice chest, and the various items I’d need over the weekend.

I got everything loaded in my car. Ready to leave, I reached in my shoulder bag for my keys — and they weren’t there.

Searched bag. Searched front seat, floor, sides of passenger seat, all around driver’s seat. Checked ground between front door and car.

No keys.

Thought maybe I’d left them inside the house, now locked. Climbed in through a window and searched. No keys.

Perhaps because I was on my way to a workshop/retreat, I began observing myself. I realized that every time I lose something, it’s as if I’ve never lost anything before. I seethe with impatience and frustration and arrogance.

How dare those keys go missing right when I’m ready to leave?

Just that bit of self-awareness helped me slow down and realize that I’ve lost things many times before. This is not a new experience.  There is something familiar about this. The Native American tradition gave us Trickster. When items go missing, it’s Trickster, playing games.

My keys are hiding from me! How cute! How precocious of them! What a surprise!

From this perspective, losing my keys became very, very funny! I called Katie and told her my keys were hiding from me, and that I didn’t know when I’d be there. I was smiling as I called.

I also noticed that I had switched from mainland time to island time. Trickster feeds off pomposity and arrogance and loves to make people look like buffoons. Getting present instead of racing ahead mentally to the next thing is one of the best things to do.

I remembered a technique for lessening anxiety called Mind Juggling, and that is to toss a ball from hand to hand with my eyes gazing up. The activity and eye direction change one’s state. I got out a tennis ball and began tossing it from hand to hand, gazing up to where the wall meets the ceiling.

After a bit, I got an impulse to bring in some yoga props from the back seat of my car. I’d been intending to do that for a while. Why not now?

As I was removing yoga blocks, from the corner of my eye, I saw my keys on the ledge behind the seat. Just where I’d set them when I had loaded the car, cramming the ice chest in.

I had completely filtered that out from my memory.

Ahhhh. Game over. I win. Thank you, Trickster, for your lessons and the stretching I develop to meet the moment.

Keys in hand, I locked the house and went to my workshop/retreat, which was lovely.

When I got home Sunday evening, I unloaded the car and put things away. I made myself a cup of tea and was ready to sit down and check email.

Guess what? No laptop. And no keyboard, mouse, carrying case, DVD/VCR player, antique flute.

My house had been burglarized.

Stay tuned for more about loss.

More on following deep impulses

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Almost as punctuation to my post earlier today, I read Bindu Wiles’ own blog post today, entitled Following Your Gut. Click the link to view the magical photo.

Bindu has been nominated as a finalist for the Blogisattva awards for excellence in English-language Buddhist blogging. She’s nominated in the category of best engage-the-world blogging. Check her out.

Here’s the quote:

“Joy and growth come from following our deepest impulses, however foolish they may seem to some, or dangerous, or even though the apparent outcome may be defeat. ”    – A.J. Muste

The three centers of intelligence: working with my gut, heart, and head

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Have you ever noticed that sometimes life seems fairly uneventful, day after day being more of the same?

And then there are those times when a lot of shifts, planned and unplanned, occur?

It’s as if you aren’t even consciously looking for new doors to open. (The unconscious is something else, always working for you, always aware, and it will get your attention when necessary.)

Then you decide to open a new door, and other new doors open unexpectedly.

Yesterday I got a voice mail from my realtor that a buyer may make an offer on my house today and a cable TV show, Sell This House, is interested in the possibility of staging my house, which could increase the value and definitely help the house sell.

Rich choices, huh?

I have never seen this show! I’m looking for someone with cable TV so I can watch it on Saturday morning before agreeing to anything.

And then there’s this: For a long time (actually for most of my adult life), I had a job, and it was my source of income.

Then I became a yoga teacher, which added another source of income.

Here lately, I’ve been selling stuff on Craigslist, stuff that I don’t want to take with me into my downsized, radically simplified life. There’s another (temporary) source of income.

I also recently studied with a Reiki master. I would love to do Reiki treatments on others when I’m ready, and that could also bring in income — although an inner voice tells me to offer Reiki on a donation basis until I hear otherwise, and to do Reiki on myself for 21 days before offering it to others.

In my first week of not being employed (having had a clear NO response to continuing to work where I worked), I’ve felt insecure and looked at classified ads for jobs.

I learned that I have a strong NO response to doing anything technical or long-term and a strong YES response to working with healing, health, food, and writing. Healthy grocery stores, garden centers, supplements, and so on. Even if part-time, temporary, seasonal!

It has been said that we humans have three centers of intelligence in our bodies: our heads, hearts, and guts.

These YES and NO responses come from my gut and not my brain.

NO is a definite contraction, a feeling/sensation close to fear, in my gut/second chakra/hara/dan tien.

YES is an expansion in my heart center.

My head center questions, witnesses, records, informs, integrates. It’s the least powerful center at this time in my life, which is strange.

I have mostly been a head- and heart-oriented person. Having my gut tell me what to do — and override my head — is new. Sometimes my head and heart disagree with my gut, and I experience inner conflict.

Gut feelings are strong and not to be overridden, I have learned.

Sometimes it feels as if I am being steered in a certain direction, and that I don’t have a lot of choice about it. I can just “let go and let God.” I can fight and struggle with it, or I can surrender.

I can only have faith that whatever is steering me is the Universe leading me to my highest purpose. I don’t know right now. That’s the kind of clarity that’s much easier to find in hindsight!

I need a true break from work, even though it is good to learn about the job market. All my centers are okay with this.

And I realized yesterday that instead of one, I may have several income streams all helping to support me financially, all doing things I love to do anyway.

How sweet is that!

I’d love to hear from you about using your head, heart, and gut centers. Which one predominates, and how has this changed?

Sukha and dukkha, expansion and contraction

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Sukha is a Sanskrit and Pali word often translated as “ease,” “happiness,” “pleasure,” or “bliss.”

In yoga, sukhasana is the Sanskrit for “easy pose,” which is simple cross-legged sitting.

Dukkha is a Sanskrit and Pali word often translated as “suffering.” The First Noble Truth of Buddhism: Life is suffering. Life is dukkha.

Wikipedia provides these meanings. Note the range, from mere discomfort to misery and anguish:

suffering, pain, discontent, unsatisfactoriness, unhappiness, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and frustration

Wikipedia’s entry on dukkha includes this on the etymology of the word:

Sargeant, et. al. (2009: p. 303) provides the etymology of the Sanskrit words sukha and dukkha:

It is perhaps amusing to note the etymology of the words sukha (pleasure, comfort, bliss) and dukkha (misery, unhappiness, pain). The ancient Aryans who brought the Sanskrit language to India were a nomadic, horse- and cattle-breeding people who travelled in horse- or ox-drawn vehicles. Su and dus are prefixes indicating good or bad. The word kha, in later Sanskrit meaning “sky,” “ether,” or “space,” was originally the word for “hole,” particularly an axle hole of one of the Aryan’s vehicles. Thus sukha … meant, originally, “having a good axle hole,” while dukkha meant “having a poor axle hole,” leading to discomfort.

Good space, bad space. Pleasure, pain. Sweetness, stress. Sukha, dukkha.

How about this word pair? Expansion, contraction.

These terms get the concept across in a less judgmental way, and they are keys to your energy map. Does something expand or contract you? Is your mind or heart expanding or contracting? Big mind, small mind, big heart, small heart. Expansion, contraction.

Works for me.

Grounding, facing fear, Reiki with cats

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Fear

I woke up today and decided to give myself Reiki before I even got out of bed.

This transition from a full-time serious stressful but secure job to a state of limbo — and eventual return to school to study integrative medicine — has included some moments of feeling fear in my gut.

So much is uncertain — when will my house sell? Will I get what I’m asking? Should I go back to work, and if so, when, doing what, working full-time or part-time, or cobbling together several different income streams? Will my plans to buy a vintage trailer to make my new home come to fruition?

That feeling of fear in my gut is old conditioning. I am aware of the situation. There is no emergency. I don’t enjoy the feeling, and I don’t get that it’s helping me in any way.

I intend to explore my fear. Instead of tapping it away, I can inquire within:

  • What am I thinking when it arises?
  • What unconscious beliefs am I holding that I can bring to light, review, and consciously decide to keep, modify, or put up on the dusty shelf in the Museum of Old Beliefs?
  • Can I sponsor a dialog to build empathy, communication, and congruency between my head, heart, and gut?
  • Can I dive into the fear with awareness?
  • Can I breathe into it?
  • Can I go beneath it to discover the essence?

Reiki

Back to doing Reiki in bed. My cat kept wanting to lie on me, like he just couldn’t get close enough. I did Reiki on him first.

My preparation for the session (see yesterday’s post) really energized my feet. I did my session, noticing that my body received energy from my hands strongly at my second chakra, the location of fear, the center of gut intelligence.

Being Grounded

Then I got up, made tea, sat down at the computer, and read an email from Bill Hornback:

Please tell me what “grounded” means to you – I’m doing a little research project for work, where they don’t understand this concept. Thanks!

I emailed Bill this:

Bill–

Grounding used to be a more intellectual concept for me that meant someone was practical, i.e., grounded in reality instead of head up in the clouds.
Now I get that those are metaphors for an actual state of existence.
My acupuncturist gave me some foot exercises to open up the meridians in my feet (so many start or end in the feet), and after a few days, I felt like I was walking around with big balls of light/energy on my feet, like huge houseshoes! I FEEL the energetic connection between my feet and the earth. It’s like magnetism. It’s like every step I take, I’m dancing with the planet.
Hope this helps. I’m blogging about this today!
Mary Ann Reynolds
Yoga Teacher and NLP Coach
512-507-4184
blog: zafureport.wordpress.com
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~ Howard Thurman

My current wisdom is that I need to take some precious, precious time to work on myself. Doing Reiki self-treatments at this time is pure genius, if I do say so myself.

The work will come, and I will clearly recognize the work that’s right for me, and I will be truly ready to greet it when it does.

The house will sell to loving new owners at good value for us both.

I will land on my feet in a new smaller abode to make my home.

And all will be well, and all will be well, and all will be well.