Transcending Shame, Embracing Love

I have been teaching for a little over seven months now. The most incredible thing about this, besides how fast time has passed, is how teaching continues to be a humbling daily devotional practice and a mirror for journey I walk outside the studio room. Being a teacher, in any sense of the word, means first and foremost that you never stop being a student, and I've found that my lessons come from everywhere. Some days are harder than others; those days usually become the most beautiful. That's why I truly value my moments of doubt, because the days where all I can do is pray are the days that profound transformation can happen and divine love can come in.

Some things that have come up a lot of me lately are shame and fear. This journey is not all sunshine and rainbows; I discover thick layers of darkness, too. My lesson has been to explore that with love and curiosity, and begin to understand where those feelings come from. It's only through understanding and SEEING that I can pull back another layer. Literally transcending shame, and embracing love. While I'm not necessarily being specific I know and I trust that you know what I'm talking about when I talk about shame. It can be anything. It can be something we’ve said, something we’ve done (or not done). It can be your body; are you comfortable in your skin? It is something that is very present in our lives, in our relationships, maybe even our relationship with the universe/nature/Spirit/God/whatever sense of Bigness or Moreness you grapple with.

There's a saying that goes: Shame stops being shame when it is no longer a secret. Maybe it's a secret we keep from ourselves. Maybe it's a skeleton in that closet that we're afraid to look at. So the invitation, not the requirement, but the invitation, is to greet the shame, understand where it comes from, and maybe, just maybe, begin to let it go.

I am going to go out on a limb here (and you are welcome to walk out with me or not): we are holy Beings. So here’s my question: if you truly, 100% believed that every single day, how would you live your life? What relationships would you foster, which would you let go of? What job would you seek? What daily habits would you set into place to care for the soul's vessel, the body, your mind, and your heart?

I know my day-to-day life would look very different if I truly believed and trusted this. How we treat ourselves is just as important as how we treat others. If we neglect to meet our needs, we betray ourselves; and we betray ourselves on a daily basis. That's it. We've harmed a human Being; it's just the human being we looking at in the mirror.

I say this not as a judgment, not as the pointing finger that says “shame on you!” because where would that leave us? We haven't gone anywhere. If we continue to feel afraid and ashamed of looking in the mirror to see our brokenness, we delay healing. We delay forgiveness. I cannot find forgiveness for my self-betrayal from you; and truly, we cannot find it anywhere we look. We will not find it with our family. We will not find it in our partners—pieces of it, surely, because that is a part of the healing process, but not all of it. Not that total release, that freedom.

Why is it so hard to find forgiveness? Maybe we don't believe we deserve it; part of me must not believe, because I have not forgiven myself. What happens when we forgive? We let go of the past. We may remember it, we may honor it, but we've moved on. It is no longer a part of us in this moment. We have replaced it with something new.

So why? I really want it for you, I believe you deserve it, I believe you deserve freedom and love. I believe that the best way for you to serve this world is to be creative, vibrant, and unashamedly beautiful. Where is that desire for myself? Why is it so hard to find?

There is nothing TO find. We cannot find what we already have. The issue is not that we have betrayed Anyone or Anything, but that we believe we have. We believe wholeheartedly in our brokenness. We believe in our shame, in our guilt, we believe in being small. Why do we believe this?

Well, it could be a lot of things, and only you can begin to unveil it for yourself. One possibility is this: we inherit a lot of stuff from our family and most of it is not material.

Recently I realized my pattern of avoiding anger was not something unique to me and my life. My fear of conflict and seeing it through with love was a family pattern. I saw it in my generation, my parents' generation, my grandparents' generation. So here is a marvelous opportunity! I can choose to continue the family path; that is certainly an option. Or, I can choose to transcend it. I can choose not to claim it as my own. When I feel anger, I can state what's on my heart without shame or fear of rejection, set my boundaries, and do this all with love.

Sometimes we inherit a sense of brokenness, of shame for who we are, from our family. It may not be conscious, it may not be intentional, but we are born into this huge mansion full of stuff, thoughts, feelings, assumptions that are not ours. But again, this is not a blame game. Blame does nothing but displace shame; it’s like taking the stuff from that mansion and having a garage sale to pass off the stuff we chose to own onto someone else. Can we choose another route: this brokenness stops with me.

This has been my daily prayer lately, and I share it with you to allow you take in what you resonates with you and leave behind what doesn’t:

“I see the face of brokenness that I have lived with for many years. I see that face around my mother's eyes, around my grandfather's crooked smile. I create a life from grace and love. I do not seek forgiveness, because I am forgiveness. I do not seek love, because I am love. I choose to release the shamed heart, freeing both it and myself. I am a child of Love, created from pure intention. In my essence I am whole, because if I break I do not break apart, but I break open. May this be my legacy.”

Looking in the Mirror

I'm willing to bet we all deal with family drama on a regular basis. If “Family” had a middle name, I think “Conflict” might be it. That's just the nature of any relationship, whether it be with ourselves, with our partners, or with family. Tension tugs, it's just what it does.

My family, at least a section of it, has a history, a karma, of walking on eggshells around each other. The funny thing is, we are a group of very strong-willed, passionate, intense individuals, but once together, the number of bit tongues and closed lips is astonishing.

This isn't to say that we have to be intentionally hurtful. But I believe that speaking from the heart sometimes creates discomfort for others, and that is not our burden(karma) to bear. May we be aware and take responsibility for our actions, but not take responsibility for another's REaction. While we impress upon each other like a dance of give and take, there is very little we can ever truly control.

Here is what has been on my heart: How do we respond when we feel trodden on?

That feeling is very real, and can be very powerful and lasting if allowed to linger. Victimhood, shame, guilt, unsafe, trapped, violated. Yes, violated.

Violation occurs when we let it occur, and let's be honest, it occurs sometimes. Is it your fault? No. What responsibility can you take from the rubble to better understand yourself, and ah! Better understand the other person? The Other. Also known as, the Mirror to your own Heart.

We can think of it like magnets. What happens when the same polar end of two magnets attempt to come into contact? There are a couple choices: continue to try and mash the ends together or turn, change direction. Change your point of view. Ultimately that does not have to change any decisions you make, but the intention may start to shift from anger to compassion.

I offered myself a piece of advice after my first heartbreak years ago that has served me well: if something creates a strong reaction in you, give it 24 hours. Time and time again, the anger fades from my soul, and leaves a beautiful product: clarity. Anger is a lightening strike. Sudden, vivid, untamed, and it leaves an imprint: something is not right. Whether that suffering is caused by the situation, or the perspective is something only by the individual can answer.

After the reaction, what is your response? This question is one to ask at any moment, when alone, or with family, or with friends. Whether we inflict harsh judgment on ourselves, or on others, it still tears a hole in the fabric of a Human Being. Can we be both firm and loving?

Yes.

As kids we fought and argued, and as adults we are as different as they come, but with memories like these, and love like this, we are mirrors for each other of the most beautiful kind. 

From the ground up

The cold bug I caught last week brought up a lot of things for me. Just as the pile of tissues continued to grow, so did the feelings and the mental jumping jacks my brain seemed hell-bent on performing.

I remember one afternoon during my first retail job, I started getting a migraine. With blind spots, incapacitating pain, plus nausea, there was no way I could start my shift. After I was safe to drive my boss told me to go home, and call if it got better and I could come back to work. So distraught, and overwhelmed with guilt at the thought of letting my boss down (ie, not working my shift), as soon as I was clear of the back door I burst into tears and cried the entire way home.

While I have grown out of some of that fear and guilt mongering, I find it is a lesson that continues to pop up for me, and I suspect I’m not the only one. How many of us tell ourselves in no uncertain terms: “I can’t afford to get sick right now?”

But here’s the deal; sometimes we can’t afford NOT to get sick. At some point down the road our bodies will get tired of being ignored, and force the emergency brake. We learn our lessons like simple arithmetic; until we figure out that 2 + 2 does not equal 15, the question continues to show up.

I realized how ridiculous it is that we have to commit to a vacation or get sick in order to rest and not feel guilty for it. And even then, as in my case, sometimes we still feel guilty for things we have no control over. Even after that realization, old habits die hard. Nearing the end of my week of illness all the old stuff came rushing back to meet me, and just like my 17-year-old self, I found myself sobbing uncontrollably out of guilt and a fear of disappointing others.

Part of the gift of breaking down is what comes after. We are required to rebuild in a new image. Each time I meet my yoga mat is no different; I may have certain expectations of what I should be able to accomplish, but in those instances I inevitably must do less, or more than I planned on. Anything we build starts the same way: from the ground up.

Shoes

"One moment face flat on the ground reminded me that these hands were made for pushing strings and feeling thunder in my bones. So if lightening strikes me, what did I expect?"

Upon the completion of my very first teacher training, ever, I was raw. My spirit dragged me kicking and screaming into unfamiliar territory, dropped me on my ass, pointed to a distant mountain and said: "Well, off you go!"

At first I thought myself a warrior, when in reality I felt more like a fierce, stubborn child playing dress up. The act was a way to protect myself; with so much going on within me, I was a wailing kettle: under pressure, scrambling to escape. But teaching yoga required that I show up anyway and go through; my experiences were my strengths. I had heard the calling, and I had responded. There was no turning around.

In truth, there is always a part of us that fully believes that we can accomplish anything. The beautiful moments I've been a witness to, the inspiring spirit that reverberates in my soul and in yours, the mistakes, it is all so worth it. My hope is that we continue to believe that we are courageous, beautiful, and stronger than we ever thought possible.

When the starting gun fired, I spent the first few miles tripping over my own shoelaces. There were three options: keep tripping, tie my damn shoelaces, or kick off the shoes to feel the earth beneath my feet to truly know, connect, and feel.

I chose to go barefoot.

With Love,
Tasia

A Letter to Ourselves

You’ve been wandering for quite a while now. You know it, I know it. The path through the forest seems to be taking a suspiciously circular formation; you think this because this seems an awful lot like the same mud hole you got stuck in last time.

I know what you’re thinking. What you’re feeling. You have become intimate friends with the self-deprecating gears grinding away in your skull. And by friends I mean, of course, sworn enemies attached at the hip.

You’ve come to the point where you’ve collapsed on your ass in the middle of a strange, cold wilderness, thrown up your hands and declared, “What the hell am I doing here? Why?” I know you have done and said these things, my love. I know because I was there with you, by your side and in your heart. Thinking you were alone, you were frightened and ashamed, putting on a proud, brave face whenever passersby came near, intent on their own twisting paths.

Amidst the wilderness, you felt your body had become an even more terrifying place, a war zone. Alien and uncomfortable, what should have been your home, your safe and sacred place, was nothing more than a reminder of all the mistakes, and all the left turns you made when the simpler path was to the right. And even in that moment, knowing clear and well, you turned left yet again.

“I am lost!” you sobbed, pounding your fists into dirt, into stone, “I am lost, I am lost!”

Stripped bare of all external defenses, you have guarded your heart well, finding it better to carry the heavy wall than to let it drop and leave the burden behind. Stronger this wall became, and heavier, until you were forced to slowly drag it behind you, pulling and straining, forgetting not only where you were going but why you were headed there. Frustrated, it was this moment your knees buckled under all the pressure, and the self-loathing you created.

But here is the beginning of your story, and the moment you open your eyes to gaze around at the wilderness you found yourself so hopelessly lost in. In the moment you realized how lost you truly were, you also discovered you knew exactly where you were. There was no other place you could have been, as you found yourself: dirty, exhausted, broken, disillusioned, and utterly, and completely REAL.

Suspending our disbelief

I have a confession to make.

I am a fantasy nerd.

Let me explain. I grew up on Tolkien’s world; before I was a teenager I’d read all three installments of The Lord of the Rings, became the typical obsessed fan girl of all three films (the extended edition, if you please), and before that, Grimm fairytales (and their Disney interpretations), Sailor Moon, magic, fairies, and warlocks littered my life with fantastic stories and fanciful imaginings.

I suspect the majority of us remember a time in our childhoods when we imagined and enacted incredible adventures. The possibilities literally were endless, as was my capability to suspend my disbelief. Who cares how it’s possible? What matters is that it IS possible, and gosh darn it, I’m going to have fun with it! I could be anything, and anyone, let my imagination transform my bedroom into a mining town from California’s Gold Rush and play a plucky girl named Kate, making a name for herself, and finding gold for her mother back home.

There are two major branches of storytelling that we as human beings most commonly come across, or weave ourselves. Stories used to escape reality, and those used as metaphors for reality. Sometimes the line between the two is so blurred they become one and the same, but it all depends on two things: what was your intention, and what was the result? Stories have the power to either draw us away from whom we really are, or pull us closer and closer until we break through our conceptions and assumptions and take one bounding leap into what is Possible.

As children we are masters of imagination, make believe, and fairytales. At some point most of us stop believing in the fairytales and stop believing we are something special. We stop believing in ourselves. The fairytales we weaved as children were merely metaphors of our soul’s desire to fly. All the characters and demons were aspects of our lives and ourselves; the epic quest to slay the dragon and save the princess? What happened when I found out that the princess and the dragon were one and the same; my enemies turned out to be my greatest teachers!

When we stop believing in fairytales, when we stop believing in ourselves is when our story, our fairytale, really begins, because it's the hero/heroine's journey towards redemption, rediscovering who they are and how beautiful and precious their light is. Your life is the biggest, most elaborate, most fantastic fairytale there is, and ever will be, period. Your quests are real, the magic is real, the romance is real, and the journey towards self-discovery and love is so very, very tangible and real. YOU are the hero, YOU are the heroine whose destiny and duty it is to BE on that path, and wherever you are in your story, you are just getting to the best part.

The Cocoon

My year began with rip-roaring speed, pummeled with family health emergencies, death, and the inevitable dating dramas (despite our best of intentions). Even the warmer, drier temperatures this winter seem to signal the acceleration into spring. Either that, or I'm just crazy thinking that it's March or April outside.

All of this is to say that we are not even two weeks into the new year (and only a hair shy of three weeks since the solstice), and already I'm feeling a huge push towards reawakening. We've all heard the cliché: it is always the darkest before the dawn. I would challenge a rewording of this: it is often the darkest before we choose to strike the match and light the candle what was in our hand the whole time. Because it is through feeling, and feeling alone, that we remember the flame. The ache that pulls us towards recalling that there is no other way BUT to shine. And it is good.

It is SO good.

There is a very real risk in numbing, or stopping our reactions prematurely under the guise of equanimity. Let me be more specific: it is counter productive to try to rush and achieve equanimity because I think I need to be there. That is ego, because, bless her heart, my ego finds certain strong emotions, like anger, to be terrifying. My intention for the next few months is to come out of the winter cocoon as a raw and trembling being. We've all played the game, some of us more convincingly so than others, of keeping a calm face and disregarding what we feel as a way to protect ourselves. And there's no judgment to be found here, it's a survival mechanism in most cases. Instead of shedding the cocoon entirely to expose our naked, delicate (yet astoundingly resilient) selves, we punch out holes to stick our head, arms, and legs through and proclaim: “Well, I'm out!”

We are out in a way, certainly, but if that becomes the norm, the numbness becomes the norm, too. The Good Enough. The Look How Stoic and Calm I Can Be.

Newsflash: we are not statues. The last time I checked, we were very fleshy and squishy. The squeezing ache in your chest is your heart struggling to break open again, not an attempt to hold itself together using old, fraying stitches. There are many wounds in this world, just wanting to be heard.

There is nothing more lovely, nothing, no where, no when, that is more beautiful than a Being as it Is. So even as life rushes at us, demanding to be broken open, may we continue to weep, to laugh, to feel anger, and love so hard we almost shatter, taking care of ourselves along the way. If there's anything I pray for, it is that I wake up tomorrow still able to cry.

Be well, in all your stages of transformation. You are Good, Holy, and Beautiful where you are.

Namaste, lovelies!