Fear of Joy

For anyone who knows me, I have a pretty high happiness threshold.  Meaning that my happiness manifests itself easily, quickly, and in a "squeal-out-loud" kind of bubbly glee.  So knowing this about myself and the childlike joy and awe I carry, I was surprised to discover this week that I also have a FEAR of joy.

I made this realization when I was going to work at the healing center I recently started working for.  There was the possibility that I was going to need to give up my Monday shift there for another type of work and I didn't notice how depressed (and stressed) that was making my body feel until a friend pointed it out.  Having someone else see that in me suddenly gave me the permission to feel how happy working at the center made me.  So, this Monday, while walking from the subway to the center, I intended to hold space for my happiness.  And it felt so INCREDIBLE to let the joy (and the subsequent gratitude) free flow and fill my entire body!  Bliss!

I feel like this is a great depiction of how my joy feels.  Yes!  Expansive, song-filled joy!

I think this goes back to one of the core mindset shifts I am working on right now: valuing myself.  I am worthy of this kind of happiness.  I am enough for this type of joy.  Old programs I am trying to let go of are the thoughts that work has to be hard and unpleasant and draining.  Sometimes there's a fear that if I allow myself to fully enjoy what I love, in terms of work, that somehow it will be taken away.  There's a scene in the Sex in the City movie (yes, I am a sucker for chick flicks….they make my happiness threshold barometer go: BOOOOOING!)  that relates to this: the character Charlotte is afraid to go running (despite being an avid, regular runner) after finding out that she's pregnant because everything is going so well in her life.  She feels so happy that she's afraid something bad is going to happen right around the corner because all of her other gals are going through some shitty stuff that she holds herself back from doing what she loves.  

Huh.  How bogus is that?!  (And yet, how many of us do this to ourselves, myself included?)  While bracing ourselves for the next hardship and struggle, we often forget to allow ourselves to fully revel in our joy and bliss.  Of course, life has it's ups and downs.  By focusing on future fears of the "downs", we negate our "ups".  Which returns us to the power of being in the moment (isn't the lesson always about being here NOW… so easy to say but hard to do!)  Being in this emotion.  This circumstance.  This moment.  This breath.  Now.  And now.  And now.  And then valuing ourselves.  Now.  Because we are enough right now as we are.

“When you see joy beside the agony, you have the keen vision of a soul warrior.”

— Danielle LaPorte

Point(s) to ponder: where are you right now?  What emotions are coming up for you?  What fills you with complete joy?  Do you allow yourself to own this joy?  If not, can you in this moment right now?  And now?  And now?

Light and love!!

#transformational tuesday

I was feeling a bit shy about posting a #transformationaltuesday post, as I have yet to do one.  But today, after my workout, as I lifted my arms to fix my hair, I checked out my biceps in the locker room mirror. And the progress I've made on them filled me with glee!  So much glee in fact, that I proceeded to do a little jig to the upbeat dance music playing in the club all by my lonesome in the empty locker room.  And in that moment of open hearted bliss, I whispered to myself:

"I love my body".

This has not always been the case.  My body and I have not always been on good terms.  For much of my life, I neglected her.  I abandoned her.  I have treated her poorly.  No more!  I have a new contract with her.  A contract of love, highest respect, appreciation, and great value.  Here's a little bit of my transformational journey thus far (because the journey is not done yet baby!):  

November 2009 & September 2014: Now, wearing black is a choice because I like how it makes me feel, not because I want to hide my glorious and curvy figure.

It was in the awkward stage of adolescence where I was still discovering the "womanly" changes of my body when I was diagnosed with diabetes, which began the process of steadily putting on weight.  It was subtle at first, as I was instructed to have granola bars and fruit snacks regularly to balance my insulin (not the most healthy recommendations I've received from doctors).  Then in college the weight gain became more noticeable as I was living on my own for the first time and in a rebel stage with my disease, not caring about my numbers and eating whatever I damn well pleased.  I wore a lot of black to hide my more….shall we say…. "voluptuous" figure.  I prided myself in working multiple jobs, ALWAYS being sleep deprived, and constantly being on the go.  I ate to deal with my emotions, to stay awake, and to treat myself.  Working in a grocery store also provided me with copious amounts of temptation as I would ring up a multitude of different foods, which led to fast, less-than-healthy options (like donut sunday rituals - I'm a sucker for those fried old fashioned ones!) for break time snacks. 

December 2006 - apologies for the blurriness. 

I'm not sure what flipped the trigger for me to start making changes.  Maybe it was getting a job in a chiropractic office where a world of alternative methods to healing opened up to me.  Most probably it was living without health insurance for many years and paying for my medical needs out of pocket (another topic of conversation for another blog post) that prompted me to start searching for any and all ways to "cure" myself.  The transformation started with food first as I started reading any material I could get my hands on that suggested diabetes could be cured by nutrition.  I experimented with every diet under the sun: only protein with no carbs, alkaline diet, vegetarian, juicing, detox cleanses, and raw vegan, just to name a few.  

A little weight room sass from August 2014.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my relationship with exercise was on again-off again (and heavy on the "off again" side).  It took time to build up the habit of making my gym-time a non-negotiable in my schedule and figuring out how to get there even when I felt like a slug.  Moving to NYC, I realized that there was no way in heck that I was going to do any sort of workout at home after a long day of work, so I purchased a gym membership and challenged myself to go twice a week at a minimum, tracking what I did in an excel spreadsheet, so I could see on paper what I'd accomplished.  I eventually started to crave sweat sessions and a consistent strength training program is one of the highlights of my life.  

With the help of my muscle building, finally after years of trial and error, I have fine-tuned a way of eating that works for me and doesn't make me feel like I'm depriving myself.  The key that made these important aspects fall into place was, this past year, I realized I needed to refocus my goals.  Instead of constantly thinking about "losing weight", which felt like a discouraging losing battle most of the time, I started to focus on GAINING STRENGTH in the weight room and FUELING my body with nutrients that gave me energy and didn't make me feel sluggish and bloated.  It became about feeling good, clean, and strong.  Not about beating up my body because I was bad or "not allowed" this and that.

A shout out of gratitude to my personal trainer (and brother!) - thank you for never giving up on me and for teaching me to never give up on myself. xoxo!

And whilst I was working on the food and exercise portion, the inner work became essential.  As I started listening more closely to what foods my body preferred and as I started becoming more grounded and present in my body during exercise, I realized I could no longer hide from the emotions I was bottling up, carrying around, and were literally weighing me down.  I believe we hold emotions in our bodies until we are ready to process them.  So sometimes it will be impossible to get rid of the weight until we release the hurts we are holding onto.  Our bodies are smart.  Trained for survival, they know it's safer to store emotions in fat tissue than let them wreck havoc on our organs.  So I sought out classes that would help me dive deep, books that would soothe and inspire, healers who would provide guidance, women circles for loving support, and my journals to hold all of my thoughts and reflections.  This is not an easy part of the journey.  Emotions can be messy, unpredictable, and painful.  But also very beautiful when they are allowed to do what they do best: be in motion!  In motion, they are truth touch stones. A compass for our body to tell us where we stand when we allow ourselves to feel them flow through our bodies.

This shift and transformation didn't happen for me overnight.  It has been (and will continue to be) tiny baby steps over time.  Clocking in the workouts and healthy meal choices.  The challenge of sitting with my feelings instead of eating them and then being okay with letting them go instead of bottling them up or holding on.  Getting honest with myself and what is truly important to me.  Listening to that tiny, soft, intuitive voice inside rather than the loud, obnoxious mind chatter.  Realizing and remembering that I love myself so much that I am going to take care of my body and soul to the very best of my ability.  Consistently.  Every day.  Because I am worth it.  Because I am enough.  And I have work to do here in this precious life of mine. 

September 2014

I haven't "cured" my diabetes, but I have found healing.  And I continue to heal, as I am discovering it is a lifelong process.  I feel at home in my body.  Not only am I slimmer, lighter, stronger in physical appearance, but I feel more grounded and vibrant in spirit.  I am living a life that feels authentic and whole.  I still have my ups and downs, of course, and times of anxiety, uncertainty, and discomfort, but I have a new tool box of resources that help support me. 

If you are going through or embarking out on a transformation of your own, I am here for you and rooting for your success!  I believe in you!  If I can do it, so can you.  Because you are worth it - you already are enough.  

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Message on my Mat

I read somewhere that when your muse visits you, you must drop everything and pay attention to her, because you don't know when she will be back in town again.  So here I am writing a blog post past the stroke of midnight.  Glorious Muse, let it be known that I am honoring your inspiration and you may visit me as often as you like!  

Tonight, whilst laying in a resting pose on my yoga mat after getting into my body with stretching and opening up places that felt a little dusty and cobb-webbed (oh hello hip-flexors!), I was told by my inner wisdom that I needed to give someone in my life a message: You are lovable.

As I let that sort of settle into my very present body and open heart center, I imagined myself telling this person the message.  And in that moment of resonance, I realized that the message was also one I needed to tell myself.  I am lovable.  Feeling that deep into the bones, muscles, and breath of my body, a few tears threatened to escape from my closed eyelids.  

On the way home on the subway, I wondered…. why is it so hard to love ourselves?  I've been on the quest to smother myself in self-love for some time now and, yet, hearing those words touch me so deeply it still brings tears to my eyes.  Perhaps for some people this is not a challenge.  Without getting into any philosophical or political debates with anyone (this convo is about LOVE, yo!), I believe most of the world's problems are due to lack of self-love.  Where did we do ourselves wrong, I wonder?  When we were born, we instinctually knew that we were precious.  We were golden.  But somewhere along the way, we forgot.

Awhile back, my siblings were going through boxes of old photos and found this one of me:

Throwback Thursday to Once Upon a Time…...

When they sent it to me, at first I didn't recognize myself (I actually thought it was my sister!) and then my second response was the desire to wrap this happy girl up in a bubble of protection, so that she wouldn't be hurt or experience pain or forget how to love herself.  For that little happy girl in the photograph is absolutely precious and golden.  And lovable.  (Look at that joy on her face!  I just want to smother her chubby cheeks in kisses!)  This also means that adult Helen is precious, golden, and lovable….right down to her core….  how on earth could I forget such Truth?!

I don't have answers to my pondering questions and I'm okay with that for tonight.  Tonight (or whenever you come across this post), my wish is for each of us to take a moment to love ourselves unconditionally for the lovable human beings we are.  Flaws and imperfections included.  Joys, wounds, pain, and all. 

I must reassure you, my self-love is more present than ever and growing each day with mindful practice.  Learning to come home to my body has made remembering this Truth easier.  But I still forget from time to time and so my prayer for tonight is this: 

I am lovable.
You are lovable.
We are all lovable. 

"We are stardust.
We are golden."  -Joni Mitchell, Woodstock  

Superpowers

Job searching can be such a demoralizing and soul sucking task sometimes, even if it's for just a part-time gig.  Scrolling through various job postings on Craigslist, I found myself on a bi-polar roller coaster ride ranging from… "Oh, I so do not want to be doing this kind of work for pennies an hour" to "How have I wasted the past years of my life?  I'm not qualified for ANYTHING!  How will I ever find work EVER AGAIN?!"  *cue dramatic hand gesture to forehead in "woe-is-me" fashion*

Feeling in a particular low point, bemoaning the fact that I wasn't truly jiving with my newest front desk gig I had recently started and the thought of going back to job searching made me flop myself down listlessly on the grass, a soul sista' friend challenged me to write a bio for myself to see on paper all the things I have done.  The next day, "randomly" (I say it with quotes, because there probably wasn't anything random about pulling the book off the shelf that I needed to read most in that very moment… but, alas, I digress…) I picked up Danielle LaPorte's Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful and Practical Guide to Creating Success On Your Own Terms that had been sitting on my shelf for months.  And BOOM.  Those two things (plus remembering I took that awesome picture posted below earlier that very week!) lit a fire under my ass to change my mindset.  My glorious light no longer has time for bullshit humility and insecurity that is serving no one, especially myself and the ways I can help the world around me!  It's time to reclaim my superpowers!  (I just said an "AMEN!" to myself whilst doing the raise-the-roof hand movement I remember so well from middle school.  Ha!)

"Your most valuable currency is what comes most naturally to you.  Cash in."
-Danielle LaPorte, The Fire Starter Sessions

BOOM.  Done and done!

"When you focus on building your natural strengths and doing what comes easiest to you, you gain a momentum in your life that feels efficient and exciting and hot.  Like, sexy kind of hot, and deeply nourishing kind of hot; like your heart on fire kind of hot.  The kind of hot we all want to feel.  Are you with me?"
-Danielle LaPorte, The Fire Starter Sessions

What are YOUR superpowers??  What activities make you feel really useful, alive, and strong?  What do you love to talk about for hours or read about just out of pure pleasure of learning more?  Maybe you're super crafty and create beautiful DIY home projects like nobody's business…. perhaps you can chat up strangers and become instant friends with the greatest of ease…. or can you tinker around with electronics and manuals, figuring out technological puzzles all on your own?  Or maybe your love for throwing parties and coordinating events are the talk of the town… or you enjoy creating delicious, homemade recipes from scratch that have your friends' mouths watering…. or you get a thrill from training your body and pushing yourself to complete a triathlon with flying colors…. perhaps your greatest strength is being an empathic listener to those aroud you...

Don't be shy!  I give you permission to brag about yourself and your gifts!  Forget about what other people might think!  Chances are they will think you are amazing and badass anyways.  This is about celebrating and honoring those unique skills and natural talents that bring so much joy and aliveness to your life.
 

"Jonathan Livingston Seagull…was no ordinary bird.  Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight - how to get from shore to food and back again.  For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating.  For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.  More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly."
-Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull
 

And now that you've shouted out proudly your superpowers…..(and if you haven't shouted them yet, now is the perfect moment to do so… it feels so good!)…. how present are they in your day to day?  Do you use them everyday?  And if not, is there a way you can start drawing on and acknowledging these more in your life?

Just to be clear, I'm not bashing the admirable virtue of humility.  I am also not advocating a puffed up "greater than thou" attitude either.  What I AM rooting for is the self-love to rise above our insecurities and the de-valuing of ourselves to share and celebrate our gifts with each other.  I believe that is how we make the world a better place.  Onward and upward Superheroes!

"You grow most in your areas of greatest strength.  You will improve most, be the most creative, be the most inquisitive, and bounce back the fastest in those areas where you have already shown some natural advantage over everyone else - your strengths.  This doesn't mean you should ignore your weaknesses.  It just means you'll grow most where you're already strong."
-Marcus Buckingham, Now, Discover Your Strengths