new beginnings, new tribe, pure love

The day came...

I never thought it would...

I graduated.  I am a certified yoga instructor.

And a new, reborn soul.

Where I had a gaping hole in my heart from people I thought were friends and I found out were not, situations that were like a blister that throbs, I now have a group that is kind, genuine, worthy of the love and trust I so genuinely give.  They are genuinely kind, authentic tribe members.  They personify friendship.  It's not a Machiavellian relationship or one of convenience.  They have seen the ugly cry, the open wounds.  And they still stand next to me.  And they are happy to have me stand next to them.

I heard words from each of them, many going through their own intense pain, that lifted me up and let me know that good and beautiful people still exist.  Authentic people, not the ones who recite scripts to the point that they don't know themselves anymore.

And so a new journey begins.  New souls in my space.  New career path of sorts.

How did I get so blessed?

To be accepted for yourself and held tight in all of your pain is the most beautiful and comforting thing of all.  I have been held but learned from these amazing souls as well.  Each has shared stories of pain and love that I understood as well.  We had a teacher that on the very first day reminded us that we are truly perfection and class is a space of no judgment...pure love.

Our graduation weekend was *yikes* teaching our own class, and then celebrations of varying kinds. Celebrating each other, laughing, hugging, tears, flowers, intention bracelets, pictures.

And then it was over on that bright sunny Sunday.  We graduated and were off to new horizons.

I hope not over, I miss these people.  Their laughter, their authenticity, the space to be ourselves and accepted as such.

So I guess I need to get my crazy self back over to the studio...

Or maybe we all meet next month at Chilkoot for wine...what do all you amazing new yogis think?

Namaste #yogatribe, here's to us!

For Unexpected Grace

I had a S*** year last year...  It was like a boulder rolling down a hill gathering force and strength to end the year in devastation of loss.  Loss in the death of a woman that was like a sister and it was so fast and so hard it was like a punch in the gut leaving us winded and gasping in pain.  Loss in a relationship that I thought was a valued friendship but instead can only be characterized as "the cover is not the book."  

But in a huge sigh of relief I started the year out on new pathways I had chosen and began working to put into place last fall.  I knew that I would be beginning my certification training for becoming a yoga instructor and then later this year/early next year, as a personal trainer.  This has been on my bucket list for some time and in the fall I made up my mind to start following this path.  I knew it was time to do something I had been wanting to do for the last 5 years.

The first full day of yoga training took place on the day of Sherry's funeral.  It was like working on something new and exciting with a huge hole in my heart.  She was so excited for me to start this and so supportive and it was exhilarating and debilitating at the same time...I missed her so much.  I knew I would not be able to go to Alabama for her memorial service so it was difficult at best.

Yoga is nothing like I thought based on my experience with it in classes.  I went into the practice thinking that I had positions I needed to  "perfect" because, like most people, I was better at some than others.  I knew there was the philosophy and anatomy to be learned.  I had no idea the impact it would have on me processing all of the grief.  The spiritual side that it opened up.

Truly, it is a moving meditation.  You need to let go and get out of your head and let your heart open up to what it truly is and can be.  But with that can be the opening of emotions that you don't expect.  Every class I found that keeping my tears in, swallowing the lump in my throat was a monumental effort.  Sometimes, as grief does, it came out sideways and I felt more like I was riding a broom than being a peaceful and focused yogini.  I drove home with tears.  I sat in the kitchen telling the hubs through sobs that I could not do this anymore.  It didn't feel good on any level.

But I kept going...

And then on our intensive weekend this month we did a meditation on Friday night intended to send healing and love to one another.  As much as I tried to focus on sending, all I could feel and think was that I was, once again, going to swallow it and cry on the way home.  It felt wonderful and horrible at the same time.  I was soaking up so much from others but I felt so guilty and selfish that I was struggling to send it to others.

Holy s*** was I ever going to get through this training?  My heart was like a ball and chain I drug behind me with every step.

The following day as we moved into the next section, our instructor started talking about the night before and asking how people felt.  The first person started to share and I sat with my arms wrapped tightly around my knees with my faced pressed into my legs looking over to watch the others.  With each person sharing, more tears fell until I felt like I would be cried dry by the end of the day.  How did I really have that much fluid in my tear ducts to keep flowing like that?  I felt like one gigantic open wound all over again.

And then the shift...

Our instructor asked if I was OK... I think she knew it was time to open the door...

Don't you love and hate that question all at the same time?  "Miss Sally gal are you OK?"

Well...yes and no.  Yes because I have finally decided to take my finger out of the dike and no because this feels like I will never be the same again.  But I was allowed the grace to tell people so there I went...

I told them all the gigantic effort it was to keep coming to class.  The swallowing the constant lump in my throat.  The fighting back tears at any moment when positions opened the emotions or learning how to teach yoga to trauma patients made me feel like one.   I told them of the profound grief of losing a dear friend of 20 years and the sadness of learning that one who I loved as a friend was nothing more than a fraud and turned on me with such enmity it left me in disbelief.  I told them, this is not what I thought my yoga path would be...

And then it was like a huge weight had been removed.  The grief was floating away like a feather on a breeze.  The disbelief of the friendship that was counterfeit and void of authenticity was in the rear view mirror.   The importance of those people in the room who were good and kind people was a soft place to fall.

My unexpected grace.

I think Sherry had something to do with that enormous wave of love and healing...  It was way overdue.

Shortly after that class I got an email from a fellow student that shared she had been through the same betrayal of a friendship of a co-worker also and she understood what I felt...and that I could count on her being my friend in this crazy mess called life.  Another student had told of her own experience with the same feelings while doing yoga and that she went through much of what I was feeling during a rough time in her own life.  And another reached out to get together for lunch to connect and talk about some of the things she understood I had been feeling.

And just like that, all that I had been struggling with in the depths of losing to death a member of the tribe I love so deeply, and finding that one never was truly a friend, I was presented with a group of people with incredible hearts.  People that I have only known a few months and who circled around me and became my soft place to fall.  They understood what this spiritual path can do for a soul, they get it.  And they stood by me with their kind hearts to offer the grace I needed to let out the pain, to bless it and let it go.  To remind me that I have wonderful people surrounding me with love and kind hearts.  They are real and they are a tribe I had not considered at the start.

But I am so grateful for their support.

And now I can laugh.  I can truly enjoy my yoga.

And if I find tears coming, I'm safe and they get it.  They know my loss to death has been so hard and they do not judge.  These months together transform us all in different ways.

And the first weekend in June we will graduate and damn... those trainings will be over and then what?

So Yoga Tribe, do we have reunions scheduled?

Namaste cool peeps, I am so grateful for you and the beautiful grace you afforded me to grow and let go.  I feel like a new humanoid and I feel like I have new wings.  Here's to a new path!

Grateful for a Dad who was my support and love

Grateful for a Dad who was my support and love

My Dad has been gone a little more than 13 years.  There was no one like him.  He loved me...no matter what.  He supported me...no matter what.  He never didn't like me and I miss his unconditional love, the father and daughter bond we had.

I think of him every single day but today I found out my gal pal Kim lost her Daddy last week.  And I thought of mine with Valentine's day coming this week.

My Dad was quiet and stoic.  An engineer by trade and career, he was very analytical and had a typical engineer's personality.  Her preferred to work with his hobby than to be in a group and was very introverted.  He said to my mother one time that if she did not understand his silence she most certainly would not understand his words.  Summed him up.

But he always let me know he was my ally no matter what.  He let me know, from his heart, that he was proud of me.  And sincerely meant it.

He never criticized my weight or my clothes or my appearance.  Never criticized my choice in dates (he probably should have...) never looked down on my career decisions or my path in life.

Dad was always the one behind the camera taking the pictures...out of the spotlight.  Never sought to be in front of it.  Kind of a metaphor...always behind the scene taking care of making us the center of his world.

He took me out in the country to catch butterflies for my collection.  He took me to learn to shoot trap.  He asked me to help him pick out his tuxedo for my wedding.  He taught me to embroider when I was in bed with a ruptured appendix and told me that Grandma had taught him when he was sick in bed for 3 weeks when he was 12.  He found Grandma's jewelry and gave me pieces of it for my birthday for our legacy.  I look just like her.  He loved that and it pulled on his heart too...I am her twin.

When Alzheimer's pushed him into a nursing home, we would sit for hours out on the patio and he would watch the jet trails in the sky, pointing to each one.  When he still had the ability to speak, he'd ask me where I thought "that one" was going.  When the disease robbed him of his speech, he would simply point excitedly and smile.   And now I watch for him in those jet trails as he visits me.  When we were in Ireland a couple of years ago, I got to shoot trap at a castle and there he was as I began, a jet trail across the sky in front of me.  And as I completed my session, he was there again with another to tell me he was sharing in my thrill.  I was moved to tears and could barely speak.  I had not shot trap in 30 years but hit more than half my birds...even the guide said he was impressed.  Thank you Daddy...

Dad never one time criticized me or belittled me.  He always told me that he supported me and if I found myself in a situation that was the result of a decision that was not the best that he would be there to help pull me out of the hole I found myself in.  And he did...

My Dad in our family was in the same boat as I was...neither one of us had a voice.  It was not a great place to be but we were in it together.  My mother was the one who ran the show.  Poor Dad was told what to do and when to do it and most especially HOW to do it.  One time she threw me out of the house on 4th of July because she didn't like who I was dating at the time and since I had been drinking I could not drive.  My girlfriend came to get me and let me stay there a couple of nights.  When I went back after the holiday weekend to get my car and things and drive back home to Chicago 3+ hours away, I asked Dad why he didn't stand up to her for me, he simply said "I love you so very much but I have to wake up and live with her."  I got it...  I navigated those waters too.  We were together in difficult times always.  And so we remained the two who were bonded in the voiceless prison but accepting of each other with an unconditional love that still survives ...

Each Valentine's Day he would get me a small heart-shaped box filled with various candies from Fannie May.  A couple of suckers, a couple of chocolates, a couple of other candies.  I loved and waited for that heart-shaped box and he never came home without it.  I miss it still.

My Daddy died at Christmas and a few weeks into January I went away to a teaching conference in Texas still with a heavy heart.  I arrived home to my wonderful husband picking me up at the airport and when we got into the house, he was bubbling over with excitement.  He said my Valentine's gift had arrived.  Now my husband is like a kid with presents and I told him that if this was a move to get his early it was not going to work.  He assured me it was not and asked me to get my glasses on to read something.  He opened a black velvet box that held a necklace with a circle on it that read DAD.  The hubs said, "your dad was your first valentine and this is your first Valentine's day without him.  I wanted to make sure you had him still."

And there it was...as I turned it over from the side that read DAD, there was my Daddy's thumbprint on a silver circle hanging on a chain.  For me to wear close to my heart.  My forever valentine with my other forever valentine presenting it to me.  I could not be more blessed.

I love you Daddy and I miss you so much.  So much...Thank you for your unconditional love.  The cardinals still nest in the arbor for you every spring and the jet trails are in the sky reminding me you're with me always.

Happy Valentine's day...I'm in good hands <3

Grateful for sweet Sherry...

There is that moment in the twilight sleep when you first wake in the morning...that split second of peace and bliss.

And if you've experienced loss of someone you love and the grief that accompanies the sudden loss of a person who was a part of your life that you valued so deeply, the moment following that sleepy blissful waking time is the razor sharp reality that it was not a dream.  The pain comes cutting through to open the wound in your heart once again.  It is real.

She is gone.  It was sudden to say the least.  She texted me that she was having emergency surgery.  She said Rob, her husband would text me when she was out.  I could feel the worry in the text and my heart pulled hard wanting to be there to hold her hand and hug her fear away.  I told her in the last text not to worry, all would be good.   I had just talked to her 12 days earlier for 2 hours...that's how we rolled.  Long, meaning-of-life conversations.  I told her that right before Thanksgiving I had started the ball rolling for 2 new career moves and was looking forward to the coming year and new pathways.  She talked about retiring in another year or so, she was tired of the long hours and travel.

We made plans to have the hubs and I go to see she and Rob in the spring...

And in the early morning dawning hours the day after surgery I got a message from Rob that she had moved to Heaven.  Just like that she was gone.  It has been a little more than 48 hours and I still cannot fathom that she is gone.  This does not feel real...

She was a light.  She was peace.  Being around her just filled you with love and laughter.  She was a southern girl with the most delightful drawl and I could listen to her sweet voice all day long.  Sh had a quick laugh and it was contagious when you'd hear it.  She had a smile that would light up the room.  Her eyes twinkled when she smiled and when she talked those eyes themselves smiled.

She had the most pure, generous, authentic loving heart.  A few years back, someone she considered a close friend did something pretty awful to her professionally.  She was so very hurt and yet she said that it would all work out in the end.  It set up her life for some pretty challenging times.  But she said it would all work out.  She never got angry, she did get sad that someone she valued did not value the relationship on the same level she did.  But she looked at it and said it was not meant to be and that maybe the relationship had run its course and she'd be OK with that.

She moved on to another job and then moved up to another, then moved up to another to become a valued executive in a firm in DC.  She was scary smart.  And an incredible business woman.  I admired her tremendously and often would shoot her a text or call her to bounce things off of her.   This little southern beauty with the ready laugh and the enormous loving heart was the total package.

And she was a loving wife, mother and Gigi (grandmother.)  She reconnected with her high school sweetheart later in life and the two of them were the pair that everyone looked at and loved seeing together.  Rob is her split-apart...a HUGE heart, a great laugh, and someone I could talk to all day long because he's so full of love and goodness.  She has two beautiful kids, a son and a daughter that emulate her goodness. A daughter-in-law that I met and instantly fell in love with because she too was love and laughter. And her grands...a grandson and granddaughter that are beautiful and sweet just like their Gigi.

She was my champagne buddy, she loved her bubbles.  She loved her margaritas too!  One birthday I bought her this silly sweater with champagne bottles and glasses embroidered all over it.  She loved it!  When she lived up here close to me, there were fun days spent across the river at a local outdoor spot with a bottle of bubbles sitting outside talking about the ways of the world and the direction of life.  She was just a few years older than I am, the southern member of my tribe that I spent long hours in conversation about deep and meaningful things that we both believed in and connected us deeply.

We never talked about this.  We never discussed this.  Sherry, we never, ever talked about you not being here.  I simply do not know how to process yet that I can't text her and ask her opinion about someone I am dealing with that is not a good person...Sherry I have this situation with this hypocritical jerk...what would you do?

A lifeline, a touchstone, love, peace, balance, heart.   She was an abundance of love.  And I guess God decided He needed her more and we would have to bond to each other in her absence.  We have done this and are trying to take care of each other...I'll see if Rob is ready to talk today or tomorrow.  I have connected with the kids.  And a friend of mine from high school who is much like Sherry in that she is love and laughter...she reached out and said that we need a phone date, she has been through this too.  And a local friend has reached out to me privately in messages to send her love and chat since we've both been busy and have not connected for too long.

Sherry we are so very empty and the hubs and I keep talking that we cannot believe this is true.  It was sudden, it was a freak thing that took you from us.  We sat last night and toasted you and talked about your beauty and love.  We are already making plans to get Rob out here to relax and visit with us.  I promise that we all will stay bonded and take care of each other.

But I am still in disbelief...

And it will never be the same, we miss you HERE so much.

Cheers sweet lady, this earthy world was a significantly better place with you in it and because you were in it.   Please come see me however you choose.  I miss your voice...my heart is in pieces.

I love you,
SalPal