Moving...to the past

So today I started my boxes. Everything old and un-usfull to the garbage, the good, the nice, the practical to the box.
Sounds good, but it is not so easy to get rid of memories. I started in my daughter's room...and suddenly we were in the notebooks from her first grade, in the poesy from the forth grade, in the class pictures from kindergarten...de we really NEED it? Is is really USUFUL?  It does not look like this, but it looks like important emotional attachment. I was observing her to get in ecstasy reading her assignments and grades and of course, she wanted to keep it all.

From my "yogi" perspective, I was just about to tell her...but when you will read again all this? For what it is important to get all those memories? Why we are moving around the world so many "boxes of our live"?

Then I found it...one picture in the paper frame from Barcelona's aquarium, where we are going religiously every year since the children are born...tree of them, nicely dressed, with combed hair, we are all smiling in the shark head...and I got it.

We keep those beautiful memories to remember how it WAS...to be grateful and appreciate how it IS.  The way to the future can lead trough the past... 

Diary of Fat Ass

That's it. I get on my balance because finally we changed the batteries. It works now, after 2 months.
I was not disappointed; the numbers look really scary. Wasn't I supposed to LOOSE the weight recently???

I watched myself in the mirror. In the face, for sure, I did not loose, neither put on. My chest is same flat as always, Pamela Anderson is not really watching me back. Waist look more less ok. Hm. Now, here we go. Look at this...little hip problem. Yes, I m feeling this acute pain in my left hip, but is that about weight? Let s turn little bit...AHA moment. I think those kg on the top are actually on the bottom...precisely on my buttock.

After years of struggling with ideal weight and ideal image, accompanied by poor self love and even kind of body-hate, I just had this little moment of LIGHT:

WE are how we FEEL . And I just feel well, happy, balanced, and full of life. And the muffin top, in whichever the part of the body is? Welcome. Because the truth is, I don t feel FAT. I feel SEXY. Time to change, time to be women! Get the nuance, girls?;)

Vocabulary

Today lesson no.2:
new words. I m not sure if it is thanks to sexual education at school or just "coincidence", but today I learnt 2 new words. True jewels to add to my english vocabulary:

(1.)Hickey: I heard it while having casual conversation with one mom. I asked my daughter (14). She explaned quite well, then she add: Google it. It seems to be sentence of the L air de temps...
So I did:


How Do You Give a Hickey?
What you do is put your mouth against the side of their neck, in a kissing shape. You leave your mouth slightly open in the middle, like you're saying the letter "O". Now you suck in! You suck the skin into your mouth, in essence hurting it, and causing the blood vessels to break. This turns that circular area bright red. It doesn't take long, maybe 30 seconds.

If you really aren't good at suction, you can nibble with your teeth. But that is really a last resort, because now you're not giving them a hickey. Now you're just gnawing their skin to make it red.

Yes, giving a hickey hurts the person you're doing it to. You're breaking their blood vessels! But to some, a hickey is a temporary mark of love. Sort of like a red tattoo that fades naturally after a few days. It says "This girl (or guy) trusted me enough to let me damage their throat, one of the most sensitive parts of the human body". 
source: http://www.romanceclass.com/miscr/howto/hickey.asp


Ok. One more to go. While another casual conversation with my daughter I listen: No, it was not sex, it was "fingering."(2)

Hm. I did not ask. I went directly to Google, more less to make sure that my imagination is not sick:

Fingering is the manual manipulation of the clitoris, vulva, vagina, or anus for the purpose of sexual arousal and stimulation. It may constitute the entire sexual encounter or it may be part of mutual masturbation, foreplay or other sexual activities. To "finger oneself" is to masturbate in this manner. It is analogous to a handjob, the manual stimulation of the penis. These activities provide sexual pleasure, whether or not used as non-penetrative or penetrative intercourse.

Vaginal fingering is legally and medically called "digital penetration of the vagina", and may involve one or more fingers.

source:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingering_(sexual_act)




I like idea of "digital penetration". Somehow it remind me "digital citizenship", the great project of school being leader in computer and informatics skills. But the kids start with computer in kindergarten, maybe way to soon...but now, fingering in middle school, I would like to say WAY TOO SOON TOO...but I will not. Because this is what happen. The world is spinning faster, information is circulating faster, and if the kids are digital citizens since age of 3, then I should accept that they do many other digital activities later on...


Looking for my next english lessons! Uf.

Don't smoke... F*** safe

So today my 12 years old came from school. He was in the principal's office. His t-shirt was judged inappropriate.

I m wondering why. Because of the gun? Or cigarette? Or both? The message is clear: Smoking kills. Knowing how many adolescents already smoke, it seems to me good reminder.


Now, the same day, means today, my daughter (14) had her "usual" t -shirt that she is wearing over and over again since august, maybe longer.

For some strange reason, my daughter was never in the principal office for inappropriate dress code. Maybe I m from old school. Maybe I don t understand the new trendy education. Or I am just embarrassing mother. What I understand from today lesson, is:

Don't smoke IS NOT OK.

Rock hard and F*** safe IS OK.

Did I get it wrong?

Day of Unconditional Love

Some days are just different of others. We keep them in our conscious and later on in our unconscious Mind. And sometimes still better, we keep them in our Heart. Shift happens.

I had such a day yesterday.
While driving with my youngest son and hubby to school, some nervousness raised up  and unpleasant exchanges started in the car. The observer was telling me: Stop it, stop it, but somehow I just could not. Poison get out of my system and I was in judgmental non-accepting mood. While waiting for my students to get together, I get to the basic:" Love is not an emotion, it is a decision. " Also, I remembered that we are all different ...and I did the decision that I LOVE whatever happen.

As usual, I started my class with my "blabla", oh yes, Annet will love this one. So I opened randomly the book of Buddhist wisdom and...the quotation was:

REAL LOVE
Real love is not based on attachment.

LOVE DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE
The kind of love we advocate is the love you can have even for someone who has done harm to you. This kind of love is to be extended to all living beings , and it can be extended to all living beings.

Ah, from 160 pages i opened the book on those...and I get the message. We spent the class in opening of our hearts to the love, unconditional love.
What is so specific about UNCONDITIONAL love? You can believe or not, but when I checked my email in the car after  yoga class, the message that popped out was :

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE by DIVYAA KUMAR
Paradoxically what we view as the penultimate love, Unconditional Love, does not refer to emotion as much as to a state of neutrality; its not about feelings but non judgment-it is best viewed thru the universal principle of free will- Creators Unconditional loving allowance for all within Creation! Thus unconditional love is not an unrealistic ideal about needing to feel the emotion we call ‘love’ towards everyone- t is simply a state of complete allowance -a complete all-embracing acceptance of everyone/everything - of all their qualities, desires, fears, life events – of their blueprints whatever they may be!


I could not describe it better. For me, Unconditional Love is the Universal love, above of the personal feeling, it is most about acceptance of what IS, how it IS, without judgment. for alls and all.
Why spend so much energy on judging others? What is that trigger us in the behavior of others so much that we freely agree to give the time (limited) of our life to create the negative energy and judge them? Is it not the projection of our own fears and feelings of being inadequate that push us to step on others?


JUDGMENT is first obstacle to Unconditional love, and it is coming from the lack of self-love. If we don t love ourselves, we will judge and put down others to feel better about us. Do you have always criticizing friend? So next time you listen to her while criticizing, pay attention if she is not just describing her own fears how she COULD be!


The second obstacle is TAKING THINGS PERSONALLY. Did you ever ask yourself: why this happen to me? Why always me? How he can do this to me? Oh yes, then you are taking things personally. But is it sure that He (she)  did THIS to you? And what is exactly THIS? Do you know for sure that he meant to hurt you? 
Simple example of perception: my husband is making me the TO-DO-LISTs. I take it personally as expression of his lack of trust to my abilities to handle the things on my own.  My self esteem is in free fall every time I open his email with the new "adjustment". My ego scream: I m not your secretary! Grrrr!
His perception: I will make it easy to my wife. I should her how I care. I show her how I love her and our children and how secure I m able to make us. 


In my perception, it is all about me ( "I"). In his perception it is all about him ("I")...so which "I" is really on stake??? ;)


So let s go back to the basics. I just have remember that it is not all about me, and be aware when I am in my own insecurity and my own fear. Then I can t really love unconditionally. But the shift is amazing. If I am aware enough to recognize the ego-mind play, I can immediately drop the fear, and stay in the "neutrality" as mention Divyaa's article. And from the state of neutrality, which is nothing else then Balance, I can reach easily Love. Unconditional or just Love, it does not really matter. The Balance, Peace and Harmony do!


Yesterday so , my all day just continued in the overwhelming sensation of Love. Because if we pay attention, we will find out that the only obstacle to it is ourselves.  I was observing, with loving attention, how one piece after other of my protective wall is falling down trough the all day. I watched not the huge demonstrations of love in Bollywood/Hollywood style, but the sweetness of simple things. Take a meal together, do the shopping, talk, be silent, watch the movie...listen with loving attention. Be silent.
I realized on my very own the Rumi's quote that was dancing all afternoon in my head:


Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

It feels good, it feels free, it feels sweet. It feels big, bigger and huge. And I feel lucky to be able to explore it. Step by step.

Privacy

So I did this amazing experience with one  friend. She is fervor defender of privacy on line, so no posting pictures of kids from school. No matter that I have entire albums of my kids playing school basketball, from Family fun day, or from Saisa swimming. At the moment I put the picture from school yoga, there is problem. The sad is, that she did not tell it to me. We could talk about. We could have some nice exchange. And I could even do some nice reflexion on Should we share or keep it private?

Somehow it seems to be difficult for some people to act frankly and straight. They claim privacy but actually it is more about secrecy and behind the back. It does not prevent to accurate claim of privacy on the net, but it would have much more impact if done clearly and with conviction. Get publicly FOR privacy.

Now, how it comes that same person claiming privacy on net does not respect privacy in real life? One week ago I realized how she made my private life public...without me knowing it. No problem, I m living public life and I m not hiding crispy details from my last 40 years. I may not to say all, but  I m not lying about my life neither, as I consider that liar need too good memory!

 However it feel weird this contradiction: real life can be gossipily public, but let s protect privacy on the net!

It show me just clear lesson: Live what you preach. Respect in others what you want for yourself. Stand up for your convictions.

And you, where are you ? Standing or hiding?

Stress management

So since few weeks I m working on workshop about stress management. Last saturday I decided and announced home that I need calm afternoon to start to write. Somehow my quiet writing time turned out to be true stressed management practice. Daniel came from soccer training with 2 friends, one supposedly staying for sleep over. Noemie invited after her theatre practice 3 friends to make cookies in the afternoon, one staying for sleep over. As I was also expecting friends arriving in the night from Europe, family of 4, and my father is visiting, the house seemed little overcrowded. But at the end we made it: 15 people during the day, 12 for sleep over. YES!

As I was writing all symptoms of stress, I was observing my reaction second day in Waterstone club, when I was trying to handle 2 different cars, 3 languages, and many different desires of ones and the others. The cherry on the cake was Daniel, my 12y old, leaving for the pain- ball with a new driver, his phone switched off, driver answering me he is NOT with my son, and I spent one hour of chasing the trace of my son somewhere in the 20 billions crowded city...Olwyn, not only you amazed me that you are reading this blog, but you also handled all this situation and thanks for Daniel!

So yes, I was at home, Sunday evening,  hysterical, screaming on people, barging on my loved ones, and writing about stress management. Over and over again I reminded myself that I can relax, and I can let the body to have a rest, and I have to step back from the situation and just observe it. And over and over again my hands were cold, my head was screaming, I felt dry mouth, palpitation, restlessness and NO breathing. Breath, girl, breath.

After another stressing Monday (meetings at school), and somehow exhausting night with my daughter sick just the night of her birthday,today I finished my stress management papers , I sent them to the printer, and I opened my email. I had 3 emails from my son insulting me because I dared to take away his computer time and electronics games and asked him to make up his math homework. I found also one more email from math teacher, not the pleasant one. When arrived at school, my vision get impaired, my head was spinning, and the inner feeling was: Did I drunk the bottle of vodka without knowing???

I wanted to handle the situation, I wanted to pretend I m fine, I wanted to make beautiful birthday to my daughter with the 14 white roses I brought for her, and wanted to do gentle stress management workshop with my friends in the evening. And I observed myself, with dizziness, and I felt that it is probably the moment to let go of my projects of perfect day for my great daughter and still greatest family and just surrender to the evidence that I pushed to far, too long, too blind. And I went to the nursery, take a nap, and woke up with my 3 kids watching on me, with my dad, with roses and helping me down of the bed. One took flowers, one took my bad, and one took me, and we went out of the school, in the nice sunny day of Mumbai.
Looks like happy end. But it is not. Elie just continued with demands...of my time, of my phone, of my attention. Others screamed on him to stop it. He screamed on them to let him alone (easy in the car). And I watched it again. Kind of heat coming from the solar plexus to the brain. Sweating. The breath is not shallow, the breath is inexistent. The belly start to feel with little cramp. Stomach is floating like before vomit. Eyes are not able to focus. Chest is becoming heavy and there is kind of pain in the middle while you try to catch the breath. Your ears can not support any noise anymore. You can not support anybody anymore and any new demand anyway...

The first sentence and definition of stress on my papers is:


ANY SITUATION WHICH PUTS EXTRA DEMANDS ON US IS CALLED STRESS.

I feel like the last 3 days, I had my great deal of practice of my teaching. And after all this I confirm: move your body, sleep, watch your diet, whatever books and adds and magazines say. But if there is one thing to do absolutely, it is

BREEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATH.

And if you feel any sympathy with my writing above, please start to breath RIGHT NOW:):):)


PS: The stress management workshop of tonight...cancelled. I decided to stay home and breath...