Somewhere along this journey -
i can’t be so sure when or when it’s happened, but i have simply lost the ability to receive without feeling guilty.
“WTF self is wrong with you self?”
Seriously – if anyone gives me a small tinge of anything, i spend the next week expressing my gratitude, and that is surely annoying and exhausting. i suppose it stems from my own insecurity of always feeling for being taken for granted. IDK – we are all misunderstood to a point, even among those that know us best, we somehow seem to feel there especially most lonely. For what if what they expect of me is not what they should have been expecting?
I can start to become better at this human art of acceptance, especially of myself, and today i learned it’s not impossible.
We all have our UPS and our DOWNS in LIFE, in order for explicit happiness one must know devastating sadness in order to appreciate the Ying and Yang of this Earthly sphere we call life . . . so, of course there are some days when i wake up and feel “hum drum” or “oh bother” or “simply alone” . . . and then that is when i turn to nobody. For i am the pillar of strength i have created upon my own expectation and so i demand this of myself daily when the alarm clock goes off so annoyingly. I laugh at the Disney version of Cinderella, you know the original . . . her first line of the future princess of possibility, when the church bells awake her is, “What KILL JOY!!!!,” yet she still gets up in her rags and dances with her mice, as i open my tool box of simplicities i have depended on to have gotten me to here, in this point of my life . . . wherever that may be. When i am sad i do not lean on anyone in my immediate life, i simply turn to the arts . . . i fall in love again or for the first time with an album, i study someones biography until i feel i too share their story, i read Bowkowski and Shakespeare and Hemingway and i indulge in Jim Morrison’s poetry, i go running (i sometimes won’t even go to the gym or to my yoga studio because i know there i will fake the opposite, when really inside i need to learn how to own honestly up to what it is inside me i feel), i cut my hair, i watch black and white movies, i social media stalk my crushes, i dance with my little hood rat doggie . . . and lastly, before i step out the door . . . i not only tell anyone i feel empty inside of me, i rummage through my laundry (dirty or clean) and i dig out my favorite destined tee shirt of the day . . . my favorite tee shirts always make me happy. And i tend to dress in bright colors when i feel the most opposite. Silly what a simple shade of yellow and a smile can hide from reality.
When in doubt, wear yellow and smile i told myself this morning . . . and so i did and
When i looked down today as i left my house i saw BOWIE written in lightening bolts and stars, aren’t we all just stardust anyways??? Each day we are born again to an empty canvas, it is simply what we paint our empty canvas with today that makes our unmistakable tomorrow, there aren’t any coincidences except what is earned . . . realization of this or not, it’s just truth. i firmly do believe we are all born to the product of what we are supposed to create. Bowie makes me think of not being afraid to be my own person . . . he also makes me remember Jim Henson and all that is beautiful within the imagination . . . The Labrinyth, when i was little was such a pivotal movie to me, as almost the story of Alice and Wonderland is currently . . .and both scare me equally. Just because i see my map of life differently than the majority does not necessarily mean i am going to lose a baby responsibility to Ziggy Stardust and some tripped out muppets in a rabbit hole i go searching for and accidentally fall down it . . .
I went running after a dream, as i do everyday, for a specific reason. I don’t know what that reason is yet, but i know it has one . . . i HOPE>
We all lose our muchness at one point or another . .. and well, today when i was driving to work with my new haircut and my favorite now old tee shirt that i have cut and re-sewed about one batrillion times . . . i just wanted to be happy. . . and, I didn’t want to be happy for me, i wanted to be happy for my YogaWorks students, i wanted to be happy for my family, i wanted to be happy for the World, for all of this = i wanted . . . to be Happy TRULY.
I put on my Jake Bugg CD i made myself and jammed to it all the way over the hill to Studio City from the WeHo Hills and as i parked, put on deodorant, studied my both swollen and bruised knees that were so bloody from tripping on my face earlier in the day – when i was swinging my new hair cut singing to Diana Ross carrying my lil best homie doggie to something that made her super happy – i ate the curb and humility and all that comes along with it. In this moment i changed my pants in order to give the wounds a fresh fabric to adheise to . . . i shook out my ponytail and walked into teach with a smile, some spunk, and laughter – for if in the least, i don’t want to just motivate my students, i want to make them better for their own self-loving acceptance, i want to inspire them beyond perpetual belief, i want to also make them laugh and BE HAPPY and to accept who they are proudly (regardless of immediate disbelief), and to feel AUTHENTICALLY all the generosity of Beauty our World has to give . . .
I suppose the fable is true . . . we teach best what we most need to learn, and so this is why i will forever teach. Not so much for myself, don’t construe that, but rather for the simple understanding of how challenging something so seemingly accessible can be in achieving . . . i.e.) HAPPINESS.
Every single one of my students today were regulars, amazing how the Universe works – gifting the comfort of familiarity among the constant new and unfamiliar.
Selena was already there and set up, as was Mein . . . then came in Heather. They all noticed my hair and loved it, WOW . . . by this time i had forgotten it . . . i was more worried that my knees were bleeding through my pants seams – the small things of life going un-noticed . .. Gawddd Dayummm it how beautiful they made me feel when they least realized it. Maybe it was here, in this moment – that the students teach the TEACH.
Selena has the most beautiful hair and so we chatted about that for a while, Mien and i were then laughing about how my hair looks a little like her husbands, which actually made me truly realize the new haircut i gave myself was a replica of my Dad’s haircut in the 70′s and then Heather said she thought she ought to cut her own hair too . . . inspired by my lone unacceptance of style i worked the last year in creating – i changed it. Sometimes in life don’t we work for something so long to realize it’s not what we wanted . . . sure long hippie middle parted hair looks great on Jesus, but for me – once i got to it, for no reason at all, i changed it; inspired by my Acting Coach Anthony Montes and his assignment – i cut my own hair over the weekend because what is so great in finding what we want from ourselves if we can’t let go of it . . . .
Rebecca walked in and then Valerie, all of these beautiful woman i admire and yet they come to learn from me, they must know how much i learn from them. Valerie and i chatted briefly about her Momma aspirations, Rebecca settled in and told me what muscles she desired to work on specifically and in doing so – this outburst of physical allows her the escape from reality . . . so simple it is, that in movement we forget why we have all come here . . . then the adorable couple enters, bringing in a simple masculinity to a room of confusions.
Mien in that moment walked away and come back up to me with a gift . . . a t-shirt of hers i admired last week . . . The Beatles, but in Southpark form and that she bought in England doe only 5 lbs . .. she claimed it too big for herself, but all i remember when she was wearing it, how beautiful she looked, yet i humbly accepted this gift and . . . all i felt was not worthy and guilty. How do i accept this gift that made me inside feel nothing but happiness . .. i went and took off my favorite 30 seconds ago raggy Bowie hardly put together tank and put on her gift . . . i can wear Bowie on another tomorrow, for now in my new favorite t-shirt i felt elevated.
So – to simply put my day . . . i now realize, my biggest efforts in finding happiness found themselves but letting others in, among friendship, and the honest laughter of this journey found itself, which what happens. When you dare to step out into the world unsure of your purpose, so simply one can be reminded when not looking for it that there is more to life than trying, there is understanding, there is acceptance in being and learning how to wear it . . . i still have the nail polish on that Mein’s Momma gave me two weeks ago when she realized my nails needed loving . . .
There is family everywhere among us if we let it in and that is the journey . . . the beauty in this world is not in finding how to make it pleasant, it is in doing it un-alone and by accepting what is given to us in times we know we need nothing but the ability to learn how to accept the unexpected.
Let what comes, come;
Let what goes, go . . .
I am not sure where this stream of unconsciousness is going to lead to, but i now look forward to tomorrow and for Mein – i thank YOU for giving me my new favorite tee-shirt . . . something so simple, that can never be replaced. For along with it comes the memory of the moment you gave me love when i was not sure i knew love . . . in a World we all NEVER FULLY know, what is to become of it . . . anyways.
click here for 10 second video of the blog spot actually happening in the moment it was happening: New Tshirt HappineSS
#OneLOVE
