Aligning with the Path of Healing and Sneaky Pete

I think it’s human nature to fall off the path. I teach all of the time about the tools of direction and protection that I’ve learned through the practices of yoga. Moving the body to move the energy of the body, pranayama, meditation, prayer but I find myself easily drawn away from those practices when I need them most.

When I struggle, I allow myself to get overcome by the confusion and pain. In some ways, for a bit, I wallow in that sorrow and hopelessness. I truly do anything that pushes away the suffering, anger, irritation, confusion, and fear that comes in waves and can sometimes seem to crash my spirit.

I gravitate towards my old habits of denying, regretting, resisting. I try to distract myself with anything and everything around me.
What can make this go away so I don’t have to deal with it?
I fall into reaching outside myself. I shop, I drink, I eat lots of chocolate and binge watch tv shows, I fall away from meditation and moving my body.
Nothing is wrong with any of these things if you aren’t using them to constantly escape your life.

Recently I’ve been watching Sneaky Pete. It’s a show about a con artist who lies for a living. He is a master manipulator and is always morphing himself into the exact character he needs to be for the moment he is in.

After letting myself escape into the life of Pete I realized that what we practice daily becomes who we are. I would watch show after show and then I would literally feel like I was solving crimes at night when I was walking my dog Biscuit. My eyes darting around looking for clues as I try to size up the situation and people I would pass on the street. I would come home and say to my husband ‘Did you see the red car parked down the street? It’s been there for 4 days something is going on and the neighbor Liz I haven’t seen her in a week. I think she’s been kidnapped.’
I started understanding what my mind focuses on daily is powerful. It becomes how I see the world. There’s that saying if you have hell in your mind, you will see hell everywhere. If you have heaven in your mind, you will see heaven everywhere. Oftentimes I feel the world is coming at me.

But what if it it is always coming through me?

What If the things I choose to participate in every moment of my life creates the world around me and how I participate in it?

And if so, how do I align with what I believe in, even as everything around me feels out of control?

How do I find my way back to the path of healing?

Aligning the breath, body, and spirit is something I fully believe in. When I am able to align my inner space I am able to navigate the outer world with more intention, more awareness.

So why is it when I feel out of control and overwhelmed I look outside myself? By now I know my healing is not going to arrive on my doorstep in a package from amazon. I won’t find in a bottle of wine, eating a chocolate bar, on a tv show, from the number of likes I get on social media. It is in me to heal me, it’s not outside of me.

I always feel resistant to the experiences in my life but I’m starting to realize they are necessary shifts to really live my life. I was recently listening to a podcast where Oprah Winfrey was referencing Elkhart Tolle. She said ‘How do you know you are suppose to be experiencing any certain thing at a certain moment? Because you are experiencing it. If it’s happening it’s suppose to be happening. How you manage that is understanding there is nothing showing up that isn’t suppose to teach you something about your own personal life. Meaning there is no experience that you can have that isn’t there to strengthen and elevate you in some way. Therefore, you can use every thing you experience to take you to higher ground.”

This is so comforting to me. So maybe everything that is presented to me; the loss, the unexpected news, the sickness, the broken heart, the way life isn’t showing up the way I thought it would – is here for me, not against me, and is preparing me -growing me, healing me, shifting me into my fullest potential even when it feels impossible.

I have the opportunity through these practices  to accept all that life has to offer.
Yes, I can.
Yes, I will stay with this.
Yes, I am woven in intention.
Yes, it matters.
Yes I do believe.

Then I can move from distraction or denial into a path of being open and willing.

It takes courage to step into what is unfolding before us, especially when it isn’t what we want. But we have to let go of trying to control or avoid the hard things. We can’t grasp and we can’t deny. If we just learn to not hold on so tight, if we loosen the grip on our fears and desires maybe then we are carried through life by love, deepened in intention. And just like that we find ourselves back on the path allowing this precious life to align and pour through us in ways we never imagined possible.