Shine On!

"If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves."
--Thomas Edison

Tomorrow I will be 13 weeks out of knee surgery for an ACL repair.  I have had my 12-week checkup; my amazing doctor, my surgeon's PA, has declared that I am "out of the protection phase" and that my knee is stable.  In physical therapy, I've graduated to ladder drills along with the five-billion squats and lunges that are standard for this stage of recovery.  Overall, I am making progress.

Post PT icing - and a moment to reflect. 

I went through a slump a week or so ago, though. It's easy to fit in your PT when you're not really moving anywhere, and when the ability to bend your knee closely hinges on whether or not you've done your exercises.  Once I graduated to squats, that dependence on exercise wasn't as closely felt - though believe me, I know exercises are still very necessary.  It's just that I got to a point where I was back at work, bustin' out 10,000 + steps a day on the old pedometer and feeling a lot freer - and a lot less frustrated - in avoiding my exercises.

The problem with all of that was that there were certain times where my knee would hyper-extend.  Those times would remind me that I really needed to do my squats.  So at week 12, I found myself recommitted to my exercises.  And at week 13 I feel a lot stronger.

I still can't jump.  I can hop, but it really doesn't look like hopping; it's more of a strange half pounce that takes a lot to coordinate.  I'm not that great with my balance - I never was - and there's still pain in my knee.  After all, it's only week 13.  But after doing my physical therapy, and after feeling like I did a lot of work but yet still feeling down about it, I was given a great reminder: "Be proud of your accomplishments."

And that really struck me.  It's been a week for me of reframing, of taking my perspective and trying to shift it.  Sometimes I do things just to do them, or get through them, and I don't really take the time to honor and respect the work I've done.  13 weeks ago my knee was cut open and a hole was put into it.  I'd say hopping, right now, is a pretty big deal.

Accomplishments are important to acknowledge.  When I graduated high school, I went to work for a daycare that served kids with special needs, ages 0-21.  There I worked with toddlers who had a range of disabilities; one particular kiddo was delayed in her ability to speak or even feed herself.  Every day, staff would prepare her meal and carefully feed her snack and lunch, surrounded by the eight other students we were supporting, teaching and re-teaching her how to hold a spoon and hold her cup.  And every day we would repeat the process.

Until one day.  The adults in the room were engaged in something; I don't quite remember what (this was in 1997) - perhaps it was serving the other students lunch, perhaps someone had dumped their milk, perhaps we were dismissing a student for the day.  Either way, this particular student wasn't being fed while the milk sat on her tray, in a sippy-cup, in front of her.  Before we had the chance to complete whatever activity we were engaged in, we heard a shriek.  We turned to find our kiddo, with a smile as huge as the sun, holding her cup and drinking heavily out of it. 

I will never forget that smile.  I will never forget that moment.  It's a moment that I've held onto as an example of how sometimes it takes a lot of time, and a lot of work, but eventually - eventually - you get a result.  I remember how I felt - so very proud of her - and how happy she was to experience that success.  I hold that moment as a key moment to help me through days and weeks of teaching - sometimes the same thing over and over and over and over - until the kids get it.  And when the kids get it, oh, what a feeling!

So why am I not applying that same sense of pride to myself?  It's easy to feel that pride when we see it manifested in work outside of ourselves.  Some of us build buildings, some treat clients, some teach students how to read.  And when it comes together - oh, what a feeling!  Many people I know are so good - so skilled - at taking care of other people. But when it comes to ourselves?

Not so much.

And I think that being proud of our own accomplishments is part of that.  I know for me, being proud of my accomplishments is important.  It's part of self care, and self love.  Being proud is so often equated with being greedy or selfish.  I think often people avoid healthy pride because we are so afraid that we might tip the scale.  I was part of a church group for a long time that warned, so often, of not being "prideful."  No way was I going to let my ego get out of hand!  I know that I, personally, internalized the idea, putting an end to any celebration of my own accomplishments.

love is the way to do it!

It's a part of my own self-care that I've been working to get back. It's important to be proud. It's important to celebrate.  And it's important to look at where I've been, and smile, and say "Yeah, I did that.  And it's awesome." I deserve it.  You deserve it.  That's what self-love is all about. I'd do it for a friend; make sure they celebrated a promotion or enjoyed an accomplishment.  It's important to be a friend to ourselves, too.  It's a great message for me today. 

So yeah, graduating to hopping is a pretty big deal!  It looks weird sometimes, but I'm pretty proud of that - and all of the physical, emotional, and spiritual work I'm putting in!  There's a long road to go, but the road has been pretty long already, and in life there are always roads to travel.

What are you proud of?  What's making your smile shine? How much better will it be when we can all take care of ourselves, have pride in what we do, feel confidence, and smile like the sun!

My High Point

I've been thinking about waking up the blog for a while.  Today is as good of a day as any - a better one perhaps, because I just spent time talking with a colleague about my day and that talk really changed my perspective on it.

I'm a person who tries to be positive - I try to assume the best, work with people's strengths, and send love and positivity out into the world when I can.  Being a teacher of students with behavioral disorders makes this particularly important for my own health and well-being.  But there are days - days like today - that can be a little rough.  Some are rougher than others, and today wasn't by any means the worst  (then we get into cops and manifestation meetings), but it was rough.  Maybe it's the cold that's beginning to creep in, maybe it's the time shift that is so close, but those personal things combined with students who struggled with listening, following directions, and their own frustrations (think a lot of tears, some yelling, and yes, a broken window), led to a day a little tougher than most.

So I drove home trying to think of a way to manage my stress.  It's not overwhelming, but it's definitely something I have to keep on top of, especially since lately I'm recovering from ACL reconstruction and can't run and jump and play as Tigger-like as I typically do.  (Tiggers in knee-braces are less bouncy).  So I thought about jump starting the blog.  The initial title of this post was "Today Another Window Broke" and I was going to try to write my way out of my funk.  But then, a colleague called, one who I've missed working with very much, and after describing to me her day, and the experiences she had tutoring a mutual student, she asked me the following question:

"What was the high point of your day?"

And it took me a minute to answer.  Not because there weren't high points, but just because sometimes it takes a moment, especially when our mental-needle is playing a song on the "God, I'm frustrated!" record groove of thought, to shift over to another vinyl.

The high point of my day?  I helped a student who was so frustrated with his own behavior that he was crying see what he was doing to himself in a different way.  We'd tried group games this morning - the students had to take a rope; they were led to a tree to tie a knot.  He'd immediately jumped in, with less then perfect social skills, trying to take over the group of 10+ students and be the leader.  It didn't work out well for him.  He became frustrated, and carried the frustration from that 10-15 minute game (which we will play again tomorrow) throughout his day, until he ended up blowing two other classes, yelling at staff, and having to be removed.  We talked, one he had calmed down, and he said "I tried to reverse it, and I couldn't!"  He was forlorn. I asked him to come with me to the sink.

I told him, "The sink is you.  The water is your behavior."  Turning the sink on slightly, I told him, "Sometimes, we turn behavior on." He looked at the stream of water.  I told him then, "Sometimes, behavior gets turned on too strongly."  I turned the water on full blast. 

I looked at him, and said "Reverse it."

He turned the water off, and I corrected him.  "You turned it off.  Reverse it."

He looked at me quizzically and then played along, getting his hands wet in an attempt to put the water back in the faucet.  "You can't reverse it," he said.  We talked about how once it's done, it's done.  You can't take back what you do.  The only way to go forward is to deal with what you start.

The water was filling up a small bucket underneath the sink.  I asked him, what could he do about his behavior.  He followed my thinking, and quickly answered "I can turn my behavior off." 

He proceeded to turn the water off.  I affirmed his action, then pointed out the bucket, noting that his 'behavior' had filled it up.  I asked him to stretch out his arm, and placed the small bucket on his outstretched hand.   I asked him "If you hold onto the bucket, how does it feel"

"It's heavy" he replied.

I told him to pretend that was his behavior from the games this morning.  And then, because he didn't turn his behavior "off" in multiple classes, I filled the bucket more and put it back on his hand.  I asked him "How does it feel now, that there's more in there?"

"It's heavier!  And it's hurting my arm."  He put down the bucket.

I asked him, when we have problem behavior, what is our choice?  He looked at me for a moment, and he said "We can hold onto it."

"Which makes it  heavier.  Or...."  I was hoping he would see what I saw.

"We can let it go."  He smiled. 

I'm describing the interaction in much more detail; in real-life, it took about five minutes.  I'm grateful the idea landed in my lap, because I think it helped him understand a little of what he was doing; holding onto his problem behavior and his perceived - or real - "failures" and not taking the opportunity to regroup, reset, and change. 

I'd have forgotten this moment if my colleague hadn't have asked me about my high point.  I'd have let the day wash away, remembering only the adrenaline of hasty walkie-talkie calls and ruminating over why I couldn't get one kid to care about his homework or another to stop falling asleep in class.

There are high points.  Beautiful, amazing, high points that may just seem like part of the day to day, a product of "what we do," but that really matter in the long run.  What we do matters.  Sometimes forever, sometimes just for a moment, but either way it makes the world a better place. 

What was your high point today?

The Universe is Full of Love

There is so much love in the world.

I am convinced.  And it really hasn't taken a lot of work to convince me.  It's only really taken a moment and a shift in vibration and something like a little light turning on - maybe around me, maybe inside me - that links in and connects and just resonates.  Not like a gong and not like a lighthouse or a lantern but a resonance, a vibration, just this change in feeling and the thickness of the air, like moving into the beauty and shadow of the tress in the forest and feeling the moisture on your skin.

Like fireflies.

And it's funny, because I recognize that there is a part of me that thinks that love should be more work.  That it's something that I have to generate from inside me and that is received from some invisible engine inside someone else.  And what I realize now is that love - while sometimes love does come from inside a person, one for another - it's also something that's universal and tangible and real, as real as molecules and electrons and the cells in our body, and we are just swimming in it every day.

It's all around us.  The world is full of so much love.

And to me, that's why our words affect the vibration of water.  And that's why our words affect the growth of plants.  And that's why our touch and our presence and our thoughts and what we project into the world matter so much.

It's an extension of "what we think, we become."

But it's more than that.

It's our words and our thought and our touch and our presence activating those molecules, and each molecule activating another molecule, and another, and another, and another, until all of those love molecules and electrons that are swimming around us connect and touch and light up.

Like fireflies at dusk in June.

And all of a sudden the universe is lit up.  And you realize that love is all around.

And there's a chain that just keeps going.

Until the whole thickness of the air changes and you realize that love really is all around.  We're swimming in it, in all these molecules of love. The universe is full of love, just there to touch and be a part of.

Just say yes, and one little light brightens.  One little firefly that's been there all along.  One yes to love and the veil falls away and the great expanse of all that's possible in this vast and loving universe brightens. 

It's right there next to you.  One breath to start a chain reaction of love and firelight. 

Time

Happy Sunday, everyone.  As winter approaches, I find myself once again turning to writing as a way to express my thoughts.  Summer seems to be the active time for me; I don't sit down for a moment, except maybe for a nap and a glass of tea, then I'm off again to the next adventure. Fall is a time of fighting - which I am getting better at accepting, and not arguing with.  And winter... well, I am accepting winter as the "resting time."  Which I suppose it is. 

Tonight, I had the pleasure of having friends arrive unexpectedly.  I can still feel their smiles and warmth, even though they've gone home.  I suppose that is one of the great pleasures of this season; to feel not only the warmth of a furnace or the joy of a gift, but to have time to sit across from a friend knitting and watch what is being created, or sit and listen as another friend makes magic in the kitchen, and just enjoy the time. 

That is the warmth and the gift of this season for me, at this moment.  Time.

Love and blessings, friends.  May you have all the time you need and wish for.
XOXO

An Ocean Inside of Me

Yesterday, I went snorkeling for the first time.  I had bought a inexpensive mask and snorkel at a local surf shop, Cinnamon Rainbows, and was delighted when an opportunity to try them out presented itself.  The weather in New Hampshire lately has been hot and humid; a trip to the beach was most welcome!  Even with a headache, I was eager to cool off in the water and try out my new gear!

Fortunately for me, a friend who is rather dolphin-like came to the ocean with me.  She showed me how to attach the snorkel to my mask so that I wouldn't just suck up sea water, and she let me test-drive her dear husband's flippers.  I felt adventurous as I flippered backwards into the ocean, headache and all... I was longing for the cool Atlantic water and hoping it would cool my entire body.  I was also looking forward to seeing some things under the water.

Thus began my wrestling match with the ocean.

I entered the water and put my face down, the waves rolling into the beach.  I had difficulty breathing through the snorkel at first; mouth breathing is not instinctive, especially with one's face under the water.  My mind took a moment to protest - "No!  Underwater!  No breathing!" and I was momentarily startled by the strength of my instincts.  It took a moment to convince my mind that it was okay, that I was volunteering for this process.  I began to breathe.  In through my mouth, out through my mouth.

A wave rolled over me.  I felt tossed, and seawater sloshed into my snorkel.  I swallowed it, and quickly found my flippered footing, poking my head above the water.  My goggles were foggy, and I couldn't see.  I pulled them off of my eyes, snorkel still in my mouth, and felt the salt sting.  Another wave crashed over me, and pushed me backwards.  I lost my footing in the flippers and bobbed along, uncontrolled.  It took a moment, and I finally gained footing again, a bit tossed but in a good mood.

I pulled my goggles down again, took a breath and tried again to snorkel.  My initial instincts were quieted faster, and I was able to float along and breathe.  This time, I found myself bobbing with the waves.  The sand flowed with the water in front of me; all I saw was the green of the ocean with the brilliant silver sparkles of sand in front of me.  A bit disoriented, I found myself feeling pushed along by the ocean, up and down, up and down.  The rocking began to settle into my stomach and I felt it rocking - up and down, up and down.  I tried to find direction and paddle with the flippers, making a little headway.  A wave rolled over me and I bobbed out of the water.

Disoriented and a little seasick, I found my footing again, raised my goggles, and looked around.  My friend was gracefully exploring the waves, flowing along with the rhythm of the ocean.  I rallied myself and recommitted to the process.  I wanted to try diving under the waves instead of letting them whack against me.

Diving was a success, for the most part.  Though the flippers were unfamiliar, they did help me swim in a unique way, making me feel almost mermaid like.  I bobbed along, trying to snorkel with foggy goggles, disoriented by the sand and the green water and the waves but enjoying the cool ocean.  As I bobbed along, I realized that I was slightly seasick.  I bobbed more, snorkeled more, and swallowed more sea water.  Tossed and rolled by the waves, I was having fun, but increasingly getting more seasick.

I threw up seawater.  It felt like the ocean was trying to become part of me, and that I was somehow working to integrate the ocean inside of me.  As if I was going through some sort of reset at the cellular level.  We are all made of water and salt and at a cellular level; as a Midwestern girl, I am familiar with river water and lake water; ocean water is an entirely different thing, a different vibration and energy.  It almost felt like, by filling my body with seawater and creating an ocean inside of me, the ocean was laying claim to me and the water inside of me in an entirely different way.

I finished my day at the beach sitting in the surf, experiencing the waves crash against me while wearing my goggles.  Seasick and wobbly, I made my way with my friend back to the car to change clothes and continue on with the evening. 

Since yesterday, I feel like I am integrating the ocean inside of me.  My stomach wouldn't allow me to eat much at dinner, and even today I have been treading lightly, trying to prevent further upset as the ocean works through me, at a cellular level.

I'm not really sure what it means to have the ocean inside of me, but I do feel like an introduction is happening, that the water in my cells that are made from Midwestern soil, from spaces that were once ancient ocean, is greeting now the ocean that connects the world, the ocean I unwittingly and unintentionally swallowed, the ocean that wrestled me yesterday and introduced me to new and wonderful and powerful aspects of itself.

Much gratitude to the ocean, to the sunny day, to my Dolphin-esque Sea-swimming friend. I learned a lot on a physical, cellular level yesterday.  Though I was in a process, I felt safe - I'm a good swimmer, and I could touch the bottom, and though disoriented was aware enough to take care of myself.  Even so, I was in a process!  I can't wait to swim in the ocean again!!!

A Reminder of Me

I wanted to write briefly about an encounter with nature and spirit that I had over the weekend.  As some may know, I am pursuing Elder Initiation and it is a big step on my spiritual path. It's taken a lot of work and energy to get to the point of following this next step, and I am still working through a lot of emotions surrounding it in order to better manifest my goals.

This last weekend, I committed myself to supporting others in their shamanic work.  The work will span many months, and this work will progress through many of the elements.  This particular weekend we were set to move through the element of fire.  I have to say, I wasn't feeling very fiery.  I was feeling overwhelmed and a bit stressed because of all the prep work I needed to do and couldn't really wrap my head around for Elder Initiation. 

I arrived at the land where the work would be held, and did my check in.  There are many sacred spaces on the land.  I spent time checking in and greeting many of these spaces, from spaces dedicated to ancestors to a space meant to connect to the earth mother.  I was going to finish by checking in with a space dedicated to nature and the spirit of nature, but was instead guided - seemingly by the nature spirit - to take a short walk.  The phrase "Go out back first" rang in my head.

On my walk I greeted several more important spaces. I felt the wind blow, the sun shine on my back, and the grass and sticks underfoot.  My heart was beginning to lighten and release the stress.  I stopped to connect to the earth, and look around.  I heard clearly in my head, "Now, what do you see?"  I smiled to myself, because around me I had seen all things green and growing and full of life - I looked around to find descriptors for this experience, and immediately turned to see a snake moving through the leaves.

It was as if the snake was the true answer to the question that had been presented to me.   "Now, what do you see?"  I saw a serpent. 

I have seen very few "wild" snakes in my life.  While initially unnerved by them, I have found that I enjoy and respect them and I have built a relationship with the spirit of the snake that has been vital to me in my healing work - healing of myself and in my work facilitating work for others.  I consider the snake to be a power animal - it has great meaning to me and has visited me and led me on many shamanic journeys.  It also has taken on the role of my internal predator - symbolizing the part of me that is my inner destroyer, the piece of me that can sabotage my own healing processes - and in knowing that it is my internal predator it has allowed me to work to overcome self-predation and move into a mode of manifesting and creating.

To turn around at that time, with the voice in my head asking "what do you see?"  - it was an amazing experience.  I stood and watched the black and gold garter snake for some time as it wove in and out of the leaves, ducking and diving under.  I watched it for several minutes - it had a very aware and instructive presence, yet an independent feel to it as well - and as it crawled away I turned and returned to the site on the land dedicated to the spirit of nature. 

It was a short experience in time and space.  Spiritually, it was a huge confirmation for me.  In all the work, in all the stress, it is easy sometimes to loose sight of my goals.  But I am my biggest predator, and within me I have the power to manifest and create my destiny.  I am grateful for the spirit of nature and for the spirit of the snake - I have been reminded of my own power and strength.

My New Tattoo

Today I got a new tattoo.  It's the first tattoo I've had done since college, and though I knew that I wanted this particular image as a tattoo, I hadn't planned on getting it done today.  Even so, my adventurous friend had decided that she wanted to get a tattoo she had been thinking of TODAY, and since I was there and the timing seemed right, I decided to get mine done.  I'm really glad I did.

The first tattoo I got in college was the kanji symbol for bear.  I knew all of the reasons very concretely for getting the tattoo - my dad called me "Sarah Bear," I loved bears, I felt connected to them as a totem animal, and I loved the story of Artemis and her association with the bear.  I decided to get the kanji symbol because I was very heavily participating in martial arts at the time, and the kanji expressed my feeling of respect for and love of the korean and other asian cultures.  All of those things - the meaning, the reasons - have stayed firm in my mind for the last many years (5 or 7, maybe?).  I love my bear kanji tattoo, and it speaks a lot about me then and me today. 

This new tattoo also says a lot.  There are a lot of reasons for it - reasons that I am still integrating.  Like the first tattoo, I feel like the reasons for getting this tattoo and the meaning of the symbol I have chosen mean a lot for me right now, and will mean a lot for me in the future.  While the symbol has deep meaning for me, I find that the process of getting this tattoo today also is taking on meaning.  It is different - felt different - is feeling different - then when I got my first tattoo.  Both processes were important.  But while the first was planned and plotted, this second process, though intentional, was not so scripted. 

As I mentioned, my friend decided that today was the day she wanted her tattoo.  I knew I wanted my tattoo done, but wasn't sure about the exact form it should manifest as - I knew the symbol I wanted but didn't have a drawing or an image of it to share with the tattoo artist.  That it manifested in that way, itself, seemes pretty amazing to me - thorugh attempts at sketching the image and then a search of the internet, I was able to find the image that spoke to me, that represented what I see as an iconic form of the symbol in question.  (I'm deliberately not sharing what my tattoo is of.... for now, i'm processing and loving it, just me <3). 

Then, just like that, we were off to the tattoo "parlor" - We went to Hobos in Portsmouth, NH.  Three guys (at least) were there working - there was a man on the table getting ink on his leg, and I stood behind the counter as my friend went to get her work done.  I remember feeling very nervous.  I was committed to this, I wanted this tattoo, but it all seeemed so fast.  I definitely had the feeling of being in a process of manifestation - that somehow things had lined up today for this to happen.  It was not plotted and planned but it was definitely something i feel like I was meant to do today.  But it wasn't just about the symbol.

To me, the symbol I chose means a lot - in part because, in one aspect, it is symbolic of healing.  I knew from the first thought of this tattoo that it had to go on my chest, underneath my collar bone on the left side, near my shoulder.  That is where, exactly, I felt like it should be.  I wasn't sure why, but I think part of the location has to do and had to do with what happened today, what I feel is still happening.

The tattoo artist (Tony Sellers - awesome guy) made the transfer and put the disinfectant gel on my skin. Something felt very familiar about it.  He pressed with his left hand and provided counter pressure on my back, on the opposite side of my shoulder, with his right.  He effectively squeezed my shoulder between his hands.  It felt very familiar, and sent me directly to thinking about my shoulder surgery I had several years ago. 

I have 2 scars on my left shoulder - one in front and one in back - from a labrum repair i underwent about 3 years ago.  It is my understanding that the scars are from where they had to put tools and an arthroscopic camera into my body and the shoulder joint to see and repair my injury.  I've seen a you-tube video of this process - there is some force used when inserting the camera. 

The thoughts of my shoulder surgery quickly passed.  I sat in the seat and leaned back - Tony began to ink my shoulder.  It was painful - very painful - I felt like a scalpel was cutting my skin in the pattern of the symbol I had asked to have tattooed on my body.  I began to try to breathe - I felt like I needed to breathe very slowly, very deeply - Tony was telling me to breathe.  I began to pass out.

Clearly, I wasn't doing that great of a job of breathing.  I've gone through the process of passing out 3-4 times now.  I hate the process of passing out.  It sucks.  I'm also so reluctant to loose control of my body that I fight it tooth and nail, so I've never really gotten to the point of fully loosing consciousness.  Sometimes i think, in retrospect, "why don't you just fuck it and loose consciousness - it might feel better" - but something in my always holds on tooth and nail and I can't just let it go.  So, instead, I go through the whole process of passing out but never really loose consciousness. 

It usually starts with a wiggly feeling in my legs, followed by sweating and a feeling of heat all over my body.  Then, I go cold - cold all over, and my ears get echoey and the room gets echoey and my vision tunnels and my head starts to hurt and ring and wobble internally.  Usually, on the way back out of the process, I feel like I want to barf.  It's all a horrible, horrible feeling.  And it happened today, as I was getting my tattoo done, this tattoo related to lots of things but related to healing as well.

I had mentioned to my friend my intention to breathe more - that I wanted help in breathing & grounding - before beginning this process today.  As it turns out, it was my lack of breath that put my body into a place where I nearly lost consciousness.  But when finishing the tattoo, and then leaving the studio, the thought came to me that I felt like I had a re-birth.  A reset. Something bodily had changed, had released, had altered on a molecular level.  That the process of passing out was necessary for some reason.  I'm not sure of the reason, I just feel like it did something somewhere in my body that was important.

Which is where I think of my shoulder surgery again.  When I had my shoulder surgery, they put a nerve block in my neck.  It blocked some major nerves to my body.  I remember, in recovery, not being able to feel my shoulder but also not being able to speak certain vowel sounds and form certain words for quite some time.  I also remember feeling that I was, in some way, drowning, because the nerve block had blocked the nerve to the left side of my diaphragm.  Being asthmatic already, it was an unnerving thing.  I was worried and scared and in recovery and i couldn't speak the way I wanted to and I couldn't breathe with the entirety of my ability.  Back then I knew if felt crappy, and awful, and as I recall I also went through a process similar to the process today... my legs got wiggly... I got hot, and then I got cold, and then I felt like I was going to throw up.  It was from the anesthesia, the drugs they had given me.  At the time, a Reiki master was working on my post-surgically, and I just couldn't handle the energy and the feeling of it all.  It was a horrible, horrible feeling.

Today, I think it was something my body remembered.  The feeling of the disinfectant, the squeeze of the tattoo artist as he pressed my shoulder between his hands, the process of passing out, the inability to breathe and regulate my breath, the nausea... though my brain quickly forgot thoughts of my shoulder surgery, my body has obviously not.  And while this tattoo has nothing to do with my shoulder surgery, I think the process and the tattoo has everything to do with my shoulder surgery at the same time.

As a believer in the power of somato-emotional release, I am amazed at how the body holds on to and processes input, information, joy, and trauma.  My body has often been a silent, ignored ally in my life's work and processes, absorbing and processing and protecting me and storing it all away with my brain just moving on and on and on.  Lately, I have come to recognize how much my body takes on - how much past pain can be stored there without my knowing, past trauma that still impacts the way my body operates today.  I've worked a lot with a more recent injury to my wrist, with some of the major life pains, but haven't really spent the time to go back and process through the shoulder surgery.  I am so grateful for my body, for it's openness and responsive nature, that today it took the opportunity to bring to my attention some things it was holding on to, and to hopefully take that opportunity to reset and release.  I am grateful that I have had the ability to connect my body and mind, so that now my body has a greater voice and my mind isn't the only one running the show.  I am so grateful for the process of somato-emotional release, that has allowed me to understand me, and how my body is a valued and treasured ally in the walk of my life, and that it truly absorbs so much and that our pain and injuries can be healed and resolved and lessened through the processing and release of these pains and trauma.  I am grateful for the teachers and fellow travellers in my life. I am grateful for my amazing physical therapist, who has been an extraordinary guide and facilitator for my brain and body as they merge together and work to become a cohesive working unit.

The body - my body - is not just something I live in - it is a part of me.  It is me. 

So while I love my new tattoo and I am looking forward to my life with it, I am also so grateful for the healing the process of getting the tatttoo created in my life.  It is amazing what the universe creates for us and makes available to us.  I'm sure that, in my life with this new tattoo, this new aspect of me that I have hilighted with blood and ink, even more will be expressed and understood.  I look forward to the journey and am so grateful for the process that has framed it. 

Love and blessings - Namaste.