Wednesday is Trash Day

Wednesday is trash day.  It's a noisy morning.  Those trash trucks come rolling in about 7:00AM.  Everyone puts their garbage out on the curb for the whole world to see and the trash trucks take it away.

Perfect analogy for how I felt this morning.  If I could have loaded all my garbage on the curb, I don't think one truck could have hauled it off.  The hazardous materials truck with guys in hazmat suits would have shaken their heads and said, "I am not touching this stuff."

Last nights yoga class...amazing.  Powerful, sweaty, heart opening, celebrating with friends kind of class.
But sometimes, after the bliss of an amazing yoga class has worn off, I feel like crap.  Angry, vulnerable, frustrated, you name it. It's like all those things I don't let myself feel are playing hide and seek and after the fun is over they come out to tag me. All these emotions can be stored in our bodies.  Our hip joints, our shoulders, our solar plexus, all hold remnants of heartache, breakups, loss, grief.  We don't fully face things at the time and they get stored away.  So you  find yourself crying in pigeon pose and you don't know why or you find yourself getting angry the next day.

Same with meditation.  All kinds of garbage comes up  while I am chanting a mantra or trying to still my mind.  So I bring my focus back to my breath, to the words, to the way they reverberate in my body, but the mind keeps tip toeing off, sometimes stomping off into old memories, things that I have done wrong, thoughts of what an awful person I am.  Now where did that come from?

This morning I called myself a "failure"  at something.  Would I , in a million years, EVER think that of a friend or colleague?  Would I ever call someone that? The answer is no, in case you are wondering.
Luckily while walking my dog Chi Chi, a higher voice took over and said "Molly Ann (uh oh, I am in trouble), what are you thinking?  What is this word "Failure"?"

I watched two crows looking for worms.  One got something and the other,  nothing.  Did the one crow look at the other and say "Loser!  You failed to catch a worm!"? Maybe they did and I am giving them too much credit.
When a baby is learning to walk we don't chastise them for falling.   "Idiot!  What a failure! Why can't you walk? Dumb baby!"
(Sorry if i just brought up a painful childhood memory.)

Failure is a word, nothing more; a jumble of letters put together  to express what?  Failure: 1). falling short. 2). a weakening, a breakdown in the operation  3). not succeeding   4). becoming bankrupt.

I remember filing for bankruptcy.  It was a very challenging time in my life and I felt ashamed. "You can't make it on your own. At your age?  Shameful,  You should have a house by now and you can't even pay your bills."  Looking back it was a blessing, a relief.  I was given a second chance.  Not a failure after all.

 I guess, then we need to look at the word on the opposite end of the stick  and see what  "success"  means as well.  Success: 1). a favorable result  2). having gained wealth, fame etc. 3) a successful person

One person makes a lot of money and becomes famous yet is completely unhappy and lost in their personal life.  Another is blissfully happy most of the time for no apparent reason, yet doesn't own a house or a car..
Who is successful?

We are all askew here in the West.  We have lost our connection with our true selves, our inner light, the flow of the breath that is us.  All the outer trappings have become so important.  I think we are afraid to look inside, to ask ourselves why we are so hard on ourselves, to look at that dark stuff,  invite the shadow self to sit down over a cup of ginger tea and biscuits.

Of course, I have been meditating for enough time to look at this and not let the whole thing spiral into a pity party.  Poor me, I can't make a go of something.  Poor me, everyone else seems to be doing well at something and not me.
My path may be different.  I just don't know, right now, why things are happening the way they are.  I have set intentions of what I want to do and I know how this goes.  One thing doesn't work out so another can.  It's the old "one door closes so another can open".  Or as I have said before, "one door closes and a window opens so you can jump out."!  haha

But  that's what a leap of faith is.  You jump out the proverbial window not knowing if there is a handsome fireman under you with a safety net.  But there always is! (at least the net). It doesn't always mean that the first thing you try  works, but it will lead you to the next thing and the next and before you know it, you have a lot of experience and are enjoying the process of discovery.

A healer once said to me "We used to be explorers!  Adventurers! We used to discover things!  Now everyone wants to play it so safe.  I need a 401 K.  Oh, you need insurance.  You have to stay in that job for security.  What happened to our sense of adventure?"
So we don't take that job because we are afraid we can't do it.  .  We don't take dance lessons because we don't want to look stupid.  We don't talk to that fantastic person because we don't think we are good enough.

 There is no such thing as failure!  Let's take the word out of the dictionary.  We can go from "failsafe"  to "fain".

Or better yet.  Let's stop being so serious about the word and embrace it.  Go ahead make a big stinking "failure" of something and laugh at it!  HaHa!  Wasn't that great?  I just made a big fool of myself.  So what?
Yes, sometimes things don't work out.  But  think about it.  Look back and think about those times you thought you completely screwed something up.  Now some of those times were blessings, yes?  You would have never learned what you needed to learn to move on.  You would have been stuck doing something you hated.  You would have never grown.
And sometimes you just don't know for a while why something worked out the way it did. Just let it go.  It is past.  What can you do reworking it in your mind?  Isn't that a waste of time?  Learn a lesson, and move on.  It's called a "blesson".  I stole that word from a facebook post.  Funny, spell check on my computer doesn't yet recognize the word "facebook".  What a failure facebook must be!

So I can take my trash out, look at it and just let it go.  Not the recycling bin for this stuff.  Nope.  No landfill for this stuff.  This, I will release as the compost it is.  And something better will grow out of it.  Failure Shmailure!  I can't wait to see what comes next.

love you!