Nadine Fawell

Do you really understand what that means?

The amazing Kris sent me an email a while ago, talking about how she processed becoming a single woman again, and how, when she fully accepted that status, things just became easier for her. Now I have to tell you, I really don’t want to be single forever. It was not In The Plan.

But you know what? It might just be how things pan out. Who knows what the future holds? I just managed to feel, properly, this week, was the ok-ness of this moment. Because if I spend this moment lamenting my single-ness, I haven’t lived it in full celebration of Life, have I?

Here is the rub: on a deep level, I believe that without a lover, I am neither loved nor lovable. This clearly a ridiculous notion: I look around me and I see many many faces, the faces of those I love, and who love me. Sure, none of them are my lover, but that’s just one kind of love. There are many.

So, just as I am, I am loved. Just as you are, you are loved. No external circumstances need to change. Right now you are loved, I am loved. We are cared for, by the fact that we draw breath. We are special and perfect, because we draw breath. Like grains of sand on the ocean floor, each one necessary and perfect, each one an ineluctable part of the Whole.

What would change if we could really know this, in our bodies and hearts? I would like to be able to hold this knowledge all the time, but it slips and slithers away sometimes. That’s ok, I know where to find it.

On my yoga  mat

Walking in the sun

Behind my eyelids

In the skip of a child

It’s always there, waiting for me to wake up to it again. Waiting for you to wake up to it again.

The soham, the I Am,  that moves each one of us, beats our hearts, breathes us.

Ahhhh, the joy of these lists. I always feel so, um, happy, when I am done writing them. Gratitude and positivity really do breed more of the same.

So, here it is!

• The smell of fresh laundry. Yes, I know it’s getting a little repetitive, but then laundry is a rather repetitive task. A bit like life, really. Imagine we got grumpy about all the breaths we had to take!
• Clammy, humid, hot weather, punctuated by an afternoon thunderstorm. Reminds me of home
• Wearing dresses (and heels, of course)
• New dresses that are actually hand-me-downs or second-hand finds. The best kind of new!
• Afternoon naps
• Free Form Final Friday. How amazing that people are willing to show up, share a room with others, and do unsupervised yoga! And the dinner/party at Mecca Bah afterwards was such fun
• Planet Organic’s Detox Tea
• Chai tea with my housemates. Two of them make truly kick-ass chai. I am going to have to up my game and stop merely dunking tea bags
• New beginnings. Every day
• Disco music! Seriously, I mean disco music, Sister Sledge and the ilk
• Making up silly ‘cult’ names to call my friend, nearly splitting our sides laughing. And then getting an email from her signed off under her new name. Funniest thing of the week
• Lunches and coffees with friends
• Delicious french toast with maple syrup and strawberries
• Anticipation for a whole weekend of yoga this weekend
• And more anticipation for the  Cup Day holiday today – the whole city is in carnival mode for the entire week!
• Learning. Especially the learning I get from students who tell me about their practice, how it feels, what it is like for them to experience breathing or bandha in a certain way, whether they like to chant. Without this, I would not grow as a teacher
• Skyping with my family. They are half a world away and I still get to see them every week
• Doing the best I can. I messed up a bit this week, but you know what? It’s OK. And so am I
• Feeling rested and centred and well
• Being told, and then realising it to be true: I am in a better place than I was last week, last month, this time last year. My life is unfolding just as it should
• Tattoos. The right one, on the right person, is just H-O-T. There is something so primal about marking skin indelibly

Happy Spring Carnival, everyone! All other classes this week will run as normal.

So, I promised to post this – Teresa over at My Embodiment wrote this awesome piece for me, following an email discussion we’d had about how it’s not enough to simply know about the patterns of thinking you hold that may not be so useful, it’s not enough to work through things in your head or talk through things with a therapist. You have to get them out of your body, unwind. Then, you can begin to embody new habits, new samskaras, new patterns. Useful ones.

Yes, we will still go back to the old ones, like a stuck record playing over and over (Kerry wrote a great post about this). But here is the thing: once you start to bring new ways of being into your body, you bring them into your heart, and that, that my dears, is where the deepest intelligence lies. Not the head.

I find this to be particularly true for myself – regular readers will know this! I am a stuck record, but the tune is slowly changing. Yesssssss.

Opening to the New. Photo: Emma-Lou Griffin

So, without further ado, here is what Teresa, who is a psychotherapist, and soon-to-be yoga teacher, has to say on the topic of , um, embodiment.

I always have to remember to breathe.  It is amazing how often such a simple element of bodily functioning can be so difficult to do properly.  As a psychotherapist for trauma survivors I am constantly teaching my clients breathing and relaxation techniques but often with the frenetic pace at which I live my own life I just forget to breathe and release.  For me, that is where yoga comes into play.  It is a mind and body conversation with a focus on remembering to breathe and doing it in synchronicity with your body; it is a dance of breath and motion and it soothes my frenetic soul.  I realized from my own experience at learning to breathe through yoga the potential of this moving art to create a collaboration between mind and body, to calm and pacify, and to be truly healing.

My personal exploration of mind/body healing for self-care has grown into a professional passion for all manner of complimentary and holistic therapies for emotional trauma and overall mental health.  I believe that everything from animal assisted therapies to movement therapies to creative arts therapies has immense potential to help people heal.  These holistic treatment methods are just as the word holistic implies, treat the whole person: mind, body, emotions.   They have the ability to give a person a sense of empowerment for having created something and attunement to oneself wholly.  And gives people a chance to attend to ourselves by using self-soothing methods and creative approaches.  We, so often, forget to take care of ourselves and self-care is a vital element in every life, most especially those that had been touched by emotionally traumatic experiences.

People who have suffered trauma need to reconnect with their own self, inner landscape and outer physicality.  So often trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder leaves people detached: from their emotions, from their bodies, from their mind and memories.  Holistic treatment give back attention to self and in that a sense of wholeness that grows over time.  I think the possibilities for holistic healing and complimentary therapies is endless.  I hope more and more people, from therapists, to yoga teachers, to creative arts professionals, to medical professionals, all begin to explore this vast unending arena of resources and practice.

And if you want to know how you do your yoga so you feel the wisdom in your breath and bones, read Crescence’s advice. If you don’t have someone to sit with you and watch you breathe, it’s the next best thing.

Happy week to you all. Happy List coming, soon.

continuum by osvaldoeaf

According to Dictionary.com, a continuum is:

a continuous extent, series, or whole.

Which brings me to this amazing missive from Kathleen, which I received in reply to my last post:

Hi Nadine..I am a lot like you in this, a ‘little bit obsessive’..but over the years I’ve learned ways of being more ‘balanced’ between the two extremes of whatever I am obsessing about. I think the key to finding this balance was, for me, the realisation that ON is really the other side of OFF, like looking in a mirror and seeing yourself – it is YOU but in reverse, the same but different.  Like light and dark, joy and sorrow, chaos and calm – each needs the other in order to exist.  Light is NOT Dark, Joy is NOT sorrow, Chaos is NOT calm.  And right in the middle is truth, eternity, pure bliss.  I found that when I was able to embrace both extremes I found my life settled into a state of flow and ease that I hadn’t felt before. It’s a state of non-judgement, oneness and open-minded understanding – it’s hard to put into words, perhaps because words by their very nature are labels/ judgements/ conditions…and the state where we find peace and bliss is one of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.
Hope this helps somehow.

That’s exactly what I have been trying to articulate. Some of the time, I feel the flow of Life, its circularity, and how there is neither a beginning nor and end, because all deaths hold the seeds of birth, and all births hold the seeds of death. But not always. These are the times I turn away from the unconditional love, yuj, yoga, that is inherent in being here now. Just drawing breath is an act of yoga, of union, with our life force. And the force that keeps us alive is one of love. Why else would it want us alive?

So this is item one on this week’s Happy list: that there will always be someone to remind me of this. My friend Emma reminded me again this morning. She said: It is your soul’s learning to know that Love is in everyone, not just One. Wise woman, that.

Other things that made me happy this week:

• Sitting in the sun reading Sing, and Don’t Cry
• The smell of sun-dried laundry (yes, the sun shone all weekend!)
• Skyping with my mother, bad reception notwithstanding
• Strong asana practice to pull me out of my head
• Sleep
• Friends
• Lovely lovely housemates, sources of great girly items, moral support, clothes, and fun
• That bad situation last week? Never happened. Another one did, but not the one I feared. There is a lesson in that
• Finding out I was right about something (a horrible suspicion, come to pass) but not in quite the way I thought. The situation is never as bad as you think, and people are generally just doing the best they can. There is a lesson in that, too
• Doing things I have never done before, and never thought I would do. Adventure and fun!

Have a lovely week!

One of the aspects of my personality that causes me the greatest discomfort is my tendency to extremes. I am either on or off. I don’t have a middle setting.

Examples:

• I can drink alcohol, enough to get mildly silly (about a glass and a half) but after that I just get sick. That hasn’t happened since I was a teenager, and for many many years I was teetotal.
• I had a period of a good five years where I did no exercise and ate crisps on the couch. Now, I rarely miss a day of asana practice, and walk about ten kilometres on top of that. On, or off.
• I am an incredibly loyal friend and will do anything for those I love. Until they betray me. Then, they may as well be dead to me. I am still working on this: I can forgive people who have hurt me, but seldom manage to include them in my life again.
• Again with relationships: if I love you, I really love you, in a slightly obsessive way. If I don’t, I probably don’t feel anything at all for you.

I wish I could be sort-of on, or have the door half-open, so to speak, and I have been working on a path of greater moderation for quite some time now, but I seem to be wired in an obsessive compulsive kind of way. The lovely Kerry suggested at my kinesiology session with her yesterday that it’s not necessarily a fault to be this way, but rather, part of my learning in this life. And, as she pointed out, even though I don’t know how to be other, the light of awareness brings change, the same as when we watch our breath.

Any thoughts? Suggestions?

Coffee made with Love by d1andonlykar1

This week, it’s not about the weather. Boo hiss. No sunshine for us Victorians. But I have plenty, plenty to be happy about:

• Coffee, especially good coffee. I had two cups this morning, very good coffee, followed by freshly squeezed orange juice. Much needed after the kind of disrupted night’s sleep I had. The city is really starting to go wild for Spring Carnival
• Speaking of Spring Carnival, I am going to the races again, yay!
• And I have An Outfit already, provided and styled by my uber-stylish housemate. I would never have thought to wear it, but I think it’s going to look awesome. Photos to come
• Eating cheese and atchar sandwiches. Atchar is called Mango Pickle here, probably why I couldn’t find it before my friend Anna pointed out the error of my ways. It tastes like home
• Staying in, watching TV, while someone else goes out to get noodles for me. Just because they want to
• Going to that delicious, sweaty, yoga workshop run my lovely friend Emma at Moksha Yoga
• Teaching an intimate workshop on Saturday afternoon. I really enjoyed it, I hope the people who came did too!
• Seven weeks now till I meet Mark Whitwell again in Fiji!
• Tori in just a few weeks!
• Having enough self-awareness to see all sorts of old patterns coming up, and being able to (mostly) choose not to go there again. It is truly amazing, the stories I can tell myself in my head. None of them true, all of them very convenient to protect me from vulnerability and moving forward. But I see the little beasties now
• Italian doughnuts and almond biscuits from Fatto a Mano on Gertude Street. Mmmmm
• Being surrounded by people I like and trust,and who like me. I cannot overstate how this has improved my sense of wellbeing
• Having a posse all lined up to help me face a difficult situation that’s coming next week. I am Not Looking Forward to It. But I have people, and they will help me
• Meeting people who read this blog! I know people do, I have the stats thingy to tell me so, but I often think it’s just my mom and my friends clicking over and over to make me feel better about my efforts. Turns out there are a few others out there too! Thanks, you guys
• Learning all sorts of interesting things about myself and my body from this lady. It’s very empowering to have the kind of knowledge she teaches

It’s been a weekend of yoga yoga yoga for me. A great weekend! I went to Emma’s Jivamukti Yoga Night on Friday. At the beginning of the class, she asked where we would be if this was our last night alive. Where you would be and who would you be with?

Hmmm. Well, a thought immediately sprang to mind. I would be there, with that person. Not here, where I am, not with the people I am with. Of course. That was the purpose of the question.

Later on in the practice, and it was a three hour practice, Emma asked again, and I realised that I was happy to be there, with the people who were in the room with me. Present. Here. Now. That’s all there is.

I wonder why we need so much reminding? Well, I do, anyway.

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, & demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long & its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people & grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food & for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one & no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools & robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep & pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song & die like a hero going home.” — Tecumseh

I found the above quote at GalaDarling. I do love her blog so very much.