Tending to a garden, not raising a barn

“My” Body’s knowledge

y sandraheron in Uncategorized [Edit]

This has been rumbling around for a while and it is time to let it out.  In a conversation with a colleague recently the lens with which I see and experience my child shifted.  I had spent each moment of her eleven years believing that what I was engaging in was a “barn-raising.”  You know, the “it takes a village”, it is going to be hard work and worth it, where is everybody, etc?  This colleague poked me about the use of the word raising and something sprouted within me.

This morning while meditating I can hear this same child singing in the shower.  I could not conjure up any image of a barn raising.   I did have  this beautiful image of a flower singing in the middle of a sun shower.

She does not need me to shape or mold her, just tend to the soil around her, remove the fences that I or someone else builds.   I am aware of the need for  lots of great nourishment that she craves for her spirit.  I have also learned to draw attention for her to consider her own fences for consideration and that my garden is my garden.

If you could see the land I live on you would know that the gardens are not restricted, they are noticed, enjoyed and respected.

Imagine as I make this shift with my child.  And I know this is all about me.   I do not need to be shaped, molded or trained.   I do need to “get into” the gardens of my choosing and experience “me” without the molding.

hmmmm…my life is good.

Coaching for Personal Evolution

My practice, Body Knowledge, is about teaching you how to lead your life from the intelligence of your body.  If you have been driving your life from  your intellect and feel that your are not living “fully alive”,  I invite you to consider a different paradigm.  The paradigm that lights me up as a coach is based on WEL-Systems® experiences.

When I  stand strong in the truth of my experience with my life, combine it with the empowering  information of quantum science and experience me within the profound safety of a coach or a program experience, my life changes.

My practice , this way of being, is about speaking my truth and walking with you as you unfold  yours.  It is about discovering that I am so much more than what I have been taught I am.

If you are looking for more and would like to experience your life differently, you can reach me through my contact link.

Sandra Heron  (M.Sc.,B.A.Sc., BodyMind Practitioner)

There isn’t anything happening here

More times than not now, in my life,  I am aware of when there is still a charge in my body related to whatever I am experiencing and when that charge has been dissolved.

This morning my experience with mySelf felt like it moved to a whole different level.  In a conversation with Marie, a lot was coming up.  I called with the intent to allow certain experiences that had been charging in me to come to the surface.

Just as the call was starting to wrap up, I related an experience I had, yesterday, that seemed pretty innocuous to me.

The story, I  was having lunch in a restaurant with my husband when an older lady fainted and hit her head. I started to relate how fascinating I found it to observe  each person react in a way that way meaningful for them.  I have always experienced myself as a consummate researcher and witnessing how people behave in this type of incident is pretty interesting, to me.  However, I was still curious why I mentioned the incident as I usually don’t talk about “story”, anymore.  Then it hit me.  It was a huge green dot moment to realize how this incident was charging in me.  Up came the rules and the judgment.  I did not like that  one man called 911 without the woman’s permission.  I was feeling judgment as to what was being done and what should have been done.    This quickly passed as I realized that what each person did was exactly right, for them. Then I got more curious as to what was the more in this experience.

The fascinating growth and eventual metabolization for me was in how comfortable I was in the observation state, with no awareness of what was coming up for me, in the moment.  No awareness as to what would be meaningful for me, in this moment, what were my needs.  Followed by my ability, as an adult to act on these needs.   Even now it almost feels too selfish to consider my needs in the moment when someone is running to call 911 and yet, this is how I get a life that works for me.  In the moment being so present to myself that I realize that even now, even in this moment, my “job” for myself is to be present to myself.

Interestingly, that when she fell,  everything that I was about was “make everything appear normal”, “do not embarrass”, “do not draw more attention”, “do not make a big deal”.  It was shockingly important for me to go on like normal. Make everything appear as normal.  These “abilities” were what I was known for in prior professionns.  At one College I worked at I was known as Queen of Death, people would call me if someone had been: raped, attempted suicide or anything else based on what was seen as “emotions”, teachers just wanted to teach.   I would take care of it, make it all go away.  I quit my last job, when after someone had been raped and I could not, one more time, make it all go away.  I was aware of what was the cost to the person I am sitting with and now I am also aware of what is the cost, to me.

I get real curious as to how this way of walking in my world became genius in my childhood.  In my childhood, we never discussed when big things happened.  If my father flew into a rage the night before, and then got up to make breakfast for everyone the next day, my mother would look pleadingly at us to just come to the table and eat.  I learned early that my role, my skills and abilities that were programmed young were to bring calmness to the situation.  This was exasberated that my brother, fourteen months older was firing off so big that no one had any energy to “deal” with me.   I learned young to just go on my merry way.  Being invisible worked for me.  Ignore, ignore, ignore, everything that is firing off in me was what was being pleaded for to stop.  My need to process was and is big.  “That happened.”  As I grew into an adult, I developed huge resentment when I was not noticed.  Why can’t people see the “star” in me.  This resentment, I now understand that it was not about performance.  As I let go of the strategies and delve into the life of my creation, the resentment is gone.  I built a life on seemingly effortlessly meeting everyones needs, invisibly and then resented when I was not noticed.  It is no wonder I was tired.  The performance life is gone, and with it my loneliness is going.  I feel the field around me.

I now have a new place to stand, when big things happen.  Rather than becoming a voyeur to my experience of what ever is going on.  I am not a fly on the wall that  invisibly anticipates everyone’s needs, I am all grown up now and I can check into what are my needs at the moment and know full well that I can meet me here.  Ta da!

For me, in this moment, it is simply another clear reminder of being in the moment and checking into my body to be aware of what is coming up in each moment rather than reacting with my intellect.  A moment like someone hitting their head and the paramedics coming is a rather big and vivid experience to remind me, to check in all day long.

I am very aware, in this moment, of missing out on me, if I check out when things happen.

I am excited about my future.

For me, I usually blog and then I get the more.

I look forward to the more.  In the words of someone whom I have spent so little time with and yet admire greatly,  I know that, “it is never %$%# over.”

Thanks for sharing in my journey to Self.

Sandy

My day is good

as long as I don’t engage with (fill in the blank – this can be anyone).  This strikes me as funny today.  I just came back from a long walk with my dog.  It is glorious out, here in Ottawa.  I live in a beautiful place just outside of the city, surrounded by forests, the streams are running, the grass is peaking up and I can even see evidence of the 200 tulip bulbs I planted last fall.

As I come into the house and start engaging my daughter with rules, “say thank you when I do something for you”, “empty the dishwasher before you go out to ride your bike”, I feel my irritation immediately go up.  She wants to be away from me and I want to be away from her.

So when someone calls and asks me how my day is going and the response in my head is, “great as long as I don’t engage with _____” , I smile, because I know, that what I just said was, I am great as long as I don’t engage with mySelf.  I find this funny as I know that I get this with other people in my life.  People at a safe distance like other people  in WEL-Systems experiences.  However, the real motherload for me is my partner and my daughter.  I am just engaging with myself.  Wow!  I love March break miracles.  This is my third one, and it is only Monday.

Oh, you want the more.  Okay I will share with you my other miracles, this March break.  I used to be the kind of mother who saw her main purpose in life to, “knock the socks of my daughter.”  So, I found it curious that  I was not booking a family vacation.  So, come Friday, our cat decides to leave this world and I hold her and experience her spirit leaving her body.  It was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.  Did I doubt myself in the last hour, yes, and I knew that the answer was not to run to the Vet and give her a needle, it was to hold her, keep her warm and tell her to do what she wanted.  I could never be a nurse and yet now I understand how one can care for someone who is passing. It was an honour.  I also know that I would not have left her in her final hours and got on a plane.  My body did not want me to buy a ticket, and I got to be present.

More, I am not so interested in doing the traditional March Break activities anymore.  When I “worked” the week in my pajamas was enticing.  No so much for me anymore.   For my daughter, it is.  So, she creates a cough and a sour throat, not the most wonderful things to have going on while sunny south.  So, we are going with the flow, she is playing with friends, I am doing what I want.  For now, writing here.  Can you imagine, everybody creates for ourSelves, everyone lives fully.

I love this expansive life.

Sandy

Speak and Grow

What a morning, what a conversation!

I am reaping the rewards from blogging yesterday.  In a conversation with Amy this morning, I got the more.  I love this about blogging.  I don’t seem to come to a conclusion, an answer that I want to share with the world or impart.  If I have a leaning to, “report on the weather”, I know that I am falling back to the left side of the line.  So, this morning what comes up for me is the metaphor of throwing up.  Yesterday I wrote about an experience that I was seeing as throwing up and expecting someone else to put “me” together for the world to see.

With the recent blogging of Naomi and Amy’s shared experience in the program room, what came up for me is the more in the, “throwing up.”  I get this distinction.  Not a throwing up on someone, a throwing up, a gutteral, physical reaction in the body that could not be ignored, so I throw it up to see it, look at it, own it for myself, so that I move more and more into who I am.

Throwing up at someone is a completely different experience.  I know that everything changes in my house when there is a charge in me, I can make it up and call it anger and my mouth fires off.  This is throwing up on someone.  When this energy comes up in my body, I  shut my mouth (not all the time), drop my shoulder and  you know the rest.  What?  I am woman, I have been kept small long enough, I must speak, yell, have my words heard and felt.  Nope, that in that moment, when the movement is so big, again playing with words here as we all know it is just energy, rage, fear, anger, pick a word.  And I know a greater distinction and that is when I am engaging with my child or an other adult.  This is huge.  So, own it don’t give it away.

This is a completely different way for me to look at my experience at developing my web page.  It is something that I own, throwing things up, allowing everything gutteral to come up and be expressed.  This is how I create.  It is normal for me.  If I own it.  Own every element, draw, paint, express, create space.

So, if a project I am playing with  is not flying along, you know, like my life, I now play with other aspects of propelling forward, and ask myself, what constrictions, which I got yesterday,  are only distractions are present.  Then it is a more full picture for me.  Not good, or bad, right or wrong, just a more full, expansive few of propelling forward.

I like this view of my world.

Constraints, real and imaginary

I woke up this morning very aware and appreciative of my awareness of  the rumblings in my body.

In a recent experience the metaphor of constraints came up. I have been playing with creating a web page.  This project, where the product is “me”, and not me as expert, has been somewhat challenging. Whenever the artist that I am working with puts constraints on the page, it falls apart, for him.  He asks me for more input on creating me to put out into cyberspace. You mean I just can’t throw it up on you, and pay you to produce my unfolding. This is information well worth paying attention to, for me.  I take time to wonder at how often I have gone to people outside of me or waited in the bleachers for someone to notice that I am star. The message I see is, “ I don’t know who I am, what do you see?”  Just let me get a good look in your sunglasses, maybe I can get a better idea by seeing my reflection from you.

I get that and there is something more.  I acknowledge now, in this moment, that I have never liked constraints; allow me to rumble here as there are two sides to this sword and I am realizing that the cut is pretty deep.

A constraint for me is anything that puts me in a box.  At this moment I have that energy of not being able to breathe, so I breathe as I want the more.  Constraints are just my reaction to energy moving through me.  If I put words to it, it is about, not that.  Fighting all my life to not have constraints is also the dance of,  if I am “not that” , then what.  Now I know that what I was taught, of who I am and  what I am, is not my view of the world.

Constraint is just another distraction. I am very distracted by noise, this is a survival instinct for me and it keeps me safe. I am on to something here.  If I am aware of noise, I can keep safe, however, what do I miss in my life by paying attention to the distraction instead of dropping into my body, breathing, follow the  impulse and getting on with the life and the world I want to create. Constriction is just another distraction. I can let that go now.

I want a visible place, a heterotopia of my creation, one which is me, and one in which I expand in good company.

It was genius for me to not put myself out into a world that I see as “unsafe” being who I am, to actually declare it.  It was safer to stay quiet about what I know. I have a strong desire to create a world and particularly families that are different. Tough to do without being visible.

If I don’t focus on the distractions: weight, fear of the cancer, the challenges of parenting, my web page not really being me and being big enough to start my practice,  then I will have to face creating a life.

Just creating another distraction or creating  “my life” a life worth living.

How many of us live feeling constraints (fighting ex, problems with my child, money, cancer, weight and imagining distractions as excuses for not “getting a life”

I’m done. Giddy up let’s go!

A thoroughbred in a racing stall

Not where I want to be and yet, that is how I am experiencing mySelf over the last few days.   This metaphor has strong visuals for me.  The stomping, the spurting, the spitting, the noise coming out of me.  Let me out, let me out.  As a child,  there would be reason to blame the gate keepers.  The person that put me in the gated stall.  As an adult there is no one to blame.  Who keeps me in this stall? Stall, okay that is cool, stall. Stalling, yes that is my experience with mySelf over the last few days or more.

I am loving walking with my clients, they light me up!  I showed up to do a program experience I am interested in.  That is life enhancing. Yet, this is not about work or clients for me, not about generating money.  I have a different perspective on money now, it has shifted to means.  Funny, I am getting this as I write, not doing something to get money to have the means to go to France.  Discovering by showing up that that is what I want.  I can’t even imagine saving for a rainy day as it is POURING NOW!

I am realizing that my experience with mySelf, is that the gate is open.  I stretch, maybe even go out and graze.  I love the grazing, the grass is so green, the sun feels good on my face, hey there are other people out here and some do not want to go back into the stall, some have decided they are just not going back in, some are being eagerly led back into the stall and then there is my experience with mySelf.  It is like there is a loud or not so loud noise and I feel fear and I gallop, no slow comfortable saunter, back into the stall and I slam and lock the door.

So…if there is nothing to get, nothing to analyse.  I am just going to keep going about my life taking a breath and stepping into what I want and SEEING what I discover.  Interesting.  Life, ALIVE, so far not always comfortable for me.  Being honest, actually having the words I am running inside my head coming out of my mouth.  So, when they do.  When they actually come out of my mouth.  The signal, metabolized and then rising out of my mouth.  What is so scary about that?  I don’t know.  More of me to discover.

I understand that I am worthy and can I really be eating dinner in France tomorrow night by my own means.   That I can be coaching from Greece.   Yes, I can, so why does being as big as my dreams scare me.  I don’t know.  I know that I am courageous to ask the questions.  I recognize this as courage.   I have always known that it isn’t about a job.

For me it is like I get on the stage and now I “show up” and even though I have evidence and the experience I am ashamed of how big my vision is.

Take a breath, get honest, breathe and step in….

Sandy

Propelling “my life” forward

Yesterday, a group of women gathered together to discuss, “Raising children for a life Worth Living.”  There was some discomfort (my presupposition) as it was realized that this conversation is about us.  There is nothing to fix, no special technique, wall or sticker chart.  Essentially, in my world, Super Nanny is wrong and you will have to get honest about your experience with yourSelf and with your experience with yourSelf with your child.  As always, I got more.  I paid attention and received more awareness of what my truth is.  To the women in the room, thank you.  Thank you for your willingness to breathe through whatever energy came up.

Children are the gift that just keep on giving.  In my world, they are.  As I get honest as to the way I was moving through my world when I was pregnant and the first few years of my child’s life, I get information and gain awareness that I can pay attention to as she moves through the world.  This is still a presupposition, yet it is one in which the information is less distorted and puts the focus on me.  As I become more aware of how the influences on my life formed my culturally conditioned beliefs, values and attitudes, what truths did I develop on everything that were just opinions and are not from my deep instinct and knowing  and I can dissolve that which does not propel my life forward as an adult.

My life changed yesterday, I became more.  My relationship with my daughter last night, felt more real.  I was present, she was present.  I can look her in the eyes.  Lucky me.  Thank you to each of you.

Cost, invest, pay, value

I am playing with this metaphor today.  I am noticing how differently I see the world  then when I ruled by the head and heart.   I pick up on my fear (tightness in my heart) to fully deloak, specifically with my extended family.  I am sitting with this, creating the space to let it rumble.   Let’s face it, many people came to this country so that their children would have better lives and very high in that struggle was/is a good education for the children.   Already as I write, I am realizing the amount invested, invested in education, invested in keeping secrets, particularly with my Aunts,  “the past is the past”, “we did our best”, “why drudge that up”.  I know this need in them, I always did , while at the same time I spent my childhood witnessing incredible agitation in their bodies, for years, and now disease settling into the most beautiful Godforces and I am moved.  For me, now it is simply telling the truth of my experience with mySelf moment to moment.

So…on that note, I am facilitating a program which I have titled, “raising children for a life worth living.” The details of this program are on this blog, just click the link, “raising children for a life worth living.” As I write this, I picture Linda and Lucy.  For me, today, it is Tanya, it is all right there, in the conversation.  I am so appreciative for the women who have come into my life who speak the truth of their experience with such honesty.  For me, it is like creating a culture of permission, this is the new normal, well sign me up for some of that.  It is not in the story, it is in the metabolization of the experience.  It is standing on the dotted line and looking out at me in this world and metabolizing as I go, and making it normal.

This is just what is up for me today.  I have found mySelf, lately,  saying, “I cost money.”  I had a life up until now that was based on protect and defend and my value, placed by me, was largely based on my ability to survive alone, making good money and providing for myself.  It was in realizing that I was raising my daughter as a really good traditional father or “provider” that my life opened up for more.  People, including me have invested a lot in me in the last year or so and I am appreciative in the only way I know how now, expansion.  I value me.  I value my time, I value what I know and I value you. I know something and now your fear and your hurt does not penetrate me as I own my own fire and now I can engage with you.  Your success and your expansion provide more room for me.   I value and by valuing me, I value you too.  Too cool!

My life, my joy, my excitement about “my life” is the evidence that I needed and/or was searching for.  Is it as simple as “yes” and “no”, yes it is and this way of giving up and letting the body lead continues to surprise and delight me, because when my body leads there is nothing to figure out or get.

Last night at an event for a club that our daughter belongs to, all the parents were invited to join in.  As our daughter asked us not to, I just sat with it.  Deep breaths and a willingness to sit with it.  Since I had time,  breathing away, it came to me what it was bringing up for me, rejection – all about me.  After when she asked if she upset me, I said that I was hurt and that it was all about me.  She said, I did not ask you not to join to hurt you.  I said, “I know, my reaction is all mine.” I did not tightened up, I waited for the body to stabilize.  In that moment the hurt dissolved and we went on to have a great evening.  There were no rules, no explosions, just  walking through our lives, awake.

What’s different

It is almost 4 in the morning and I am wide awake.  As I sit here, taking stock of the year, I feel profound appreciation.  Appreciation for my willingness to state my own truth within a safe and sacred environment so that I can grow beyond my culturally conditioned beliefs, values and attitudes.  This has been one of the keys, for me, in putting joy and aliveness  into my life.  The willingness to just put out there what my actual truth is, with my experience with my life, in each moment.  Sometimes I don’t even know what my truth (opinion) is until I allow it to rise up and come out of my mouth, and sometimes I am still shocked when I stop, breath and when and only when my body stabilizes, I move on.  With each moment that I am more willing, and more able to connect and engage meaningfully with mySelf and then engaging others meaningfully becomes more and more possible.

The key for me, in living a life worth living is the safety to speak even if I feel like I am talking “baby talk” so that I can take the leap of an adult when the connection is made.  The deep, fecund transformation.  I have let go, of what this means and how I am different, I just know that I am, and whatever the next four steps are down the road, does not matter,  just this one and my breathe, so that I expand.