Be curious about love.
Open your mind and wonder about the nature of it.
What is it that elates us,
fills us with meaning and connection –
with people, and 
with Life Itself?
How does it move in the world? Appear? And in what forms?
That which makes our hearts full
and our bodies feel…
That which deeply enters us, changes us,
lifts us into new understandings
of what it means to be.
What we value.
What we cherish.
Contemplate love.
Turn your mind and wonder in that direction.
That’s what gently flows the energy that grows the unbounded,
belonging love for all things.
And which always includes ourselves.

~~ Love you, Christina

I’m not hurrying to get things done before I die. I am relaxing into every moment of aliveness.

To gobble it up like a binge, cramming as much in as possible before it goes away, has meant living in a state of lack. Which means no matter how much I cram in, there’s always the sense of never enough. And that has inevitably translated into a sense that I myself am not enough.

Everyone I’ve ever talked to about this can relate to having had a feeling of “there’s not enough,” or “I’m not enough.” I think it’s part of the human experience and the illusion of separation. More and more science backs up the truth we can all feel on some level –  that everything is connected and ultimately made of the same thing, and so ultimately everything is one life force expressing itself in many forms.  But in our day-to-day human experience, we feel separate. And lacking. We feel that we have to get what we need from someone or something “out there.“  And we mistakenly identify with the idea of lack.

I’m waking up out of that virtual reality. That false identity. I’m the fish finally experiencing the unfathomably abundant water all around it.  I’m the fish realizing it is a part of the vast ocean of unending, creative life force.  There is enough. I am enough. I am the Enoughness, expressed.  Everything is. You too. 

Awake to this Infinite Fullness, I’m amazed to see how many of my actions were driven from this sense of lack.  Now that I know there is enough, that I AM enough, I never have to cram food, rush to “get,” speed on the freeway, know the “right” answer, freak out over the exact wording, go against what feels right to me, pretend to be or feel something I’m not, try to manipulate myself or others, or attempt to control or convince anyone of anything, including myself.
 
Now that I know there is enough, I don’t have to do any of that anymore, because there is more than enough food, time, opportunity, safety, health, approval, money, love and belonging – right here where I am standing.  Or swimming, floating, basking……… 😉 We are such cute little fishies!  We are such a magnificent ocean.

I love the way that phrase feels. I love noticing how something feels and following that, rather than working hard to find “clever” words, actions, ways of doing.  Relax into trust.   Ahhhh the sensation of that in my body…

When I say the word relax, I feel myself let go a little bit. Almost like the word reminds me, “oh yeah. I was a little uptight, and I can actually sit back a bit. I can take a breath. I can soften the tension in my shoulders and back. I can shift into a more comfortable position. Oh yeah. I’ve come back to myself.”  All that kinds of gently rolls through me when I hear the word relax, remind myself to relax.

This morning, the calmness of relaxing is in a soft energy around me. Peaceful. Nothing to do. Nothing that needs to get done.  And I notice a curiosity about the feeling of relaxation.  There is even a little voice, a little message that is floating around me that whispers, “Watch the relaxation, and see what it does.”  It’s suggesting that I follow that feeling, be curious about it, and let the relaxed feeling flow how it wants to in my life.  It’s telling me that there is a freedom, a potential that is opening up around this feeling of relaxation.  Watch the relaxation and see what it does.  Like being carried on a wise, wide river of wellbeing. Then watching IT find the powerful, easy paths in my life.  My days. My precious, day-to-day, mundane, awe-invoking moments of aliveness.  Relaxing into the trust of all that……..

My Very Alive Beach Walk 🙂
Exquisiite Sand Drawings, Dolphins, Seals, Beautiful Heart-Connections
and Stepping Out of the Lie of My Thinking.
A few mornings ago, I was really caught up in some untrue thinking.  And it hurt. A lot. My mind was showing me lots of details and “evidence” about how I am on the “outside.”  It was telling me all about how “other people” have it figured out and are included in life and get to enjoy it. That somehow they are worthy of it, but not me.  You know. Those magical, blessed “other people.” We all have thoughts along these lines. The thoughts themselves are not a problem. Thoughts come and go. That’s what the brain does.  The suffering came from me believing the thoughts. 

Luckily, some part of me was still aware as the witnesser of the thoughts.  There was just enough space between me and the thoughts that I could remember that if it hurts, it’s bogus thinking. 

So rather than continue engaging with the false thoughts and evidence, trying to make myself feel better within the faulty reality of “the problem,” I turned my curiosity and attention to the “witness me.”  And to the moment.  The now.  I gave my attention to this aliveness that I am not only part of, but that I AM. 

I headed for the beach.  I breathed. I talked to myself in the car and admired and appreciated so many things. By the time I got to the beach, I was already feeling the freedom of stepping out of the stories of separation.  A magical morning proceeded to unfold! 

I walked on the beach, continuing to enjoy people, birds, waves… I walked with a smile  on my face that radiating from the inside. When I passed people they smiled too.  I noticed one woman in particular who had such an openness about her. We genuinely saw each other and I felt my heart expand in the few seconds and smiles as we passed each other. 

Towards the end of my walk, I came across some amazing LIFE magic!  Exquisite sand drawings!  Lotus, koi, palm trees, flowers, in mandalas that were so beautifully made! The drawings included these phrases in the design or placed nearby: 
You matter. 
You are amazing. 
Be a kind human.
And, yes, “Breathe. You are alive.”

Messages just for me. Yes, I AM alive. Right now!  No waiting to figure out how to get “in” to life.  And yes, I am learning to be a kind human – to myself too!

I went back to my car to get my phone to take pictures, and when I returned, the smiling woman I’d seen earlier was there.  And we had an amazing, heart-connected, conversation about our appreciation of life, including each other!  It brought us both to tears, we were so moved by the gift of the drawings, the gift of the blessings of life, and the gift of our encounter. 

When I retrieved my phone, there was a text from a dear person wanting some support. It worked out perfectly for her to come do a session with me on the beach!  While I was waiting for her to arrive, I did some qigong. Smiling and looking out at the ocean, basking in the amazing feeling of BEING ALIVE, I saw the magic of dolphins playing in the surf. When the woman arrived, during our session we saw a seal, too!  Then, when I arrived home, heart full and feeling so nourished by life, a neighbor had left another colored-in coloring page for me to find. This one saying “We All Belong.” 

Yes, me too. You too. We all belong. We are all part of life, and that never changes – even if we THINK it does and have a moment of believing that thought.  Breathe. You are alive. Right now. No “worthiness” to achieve.  No figuring out needed. 

You matter.
You are amazing.
Be a kind human – to yourself as much as to others.
Breathe. You are alive!

I give up. I give up trying to figure out the rules.  I give up trying to figure out what is “true.”  Which philosophy, which spiritual approach, which technique is “best?”  Which one will tell me THE way things work and what are the clear rules to follow that are “right?”  I give up.  I’m sick (literally) of having an inner state of frantic reaching for something “out there” that is going to make me safe.  I give up trying to know, trying to be right, trying to be “spiritual,” be “enlightened,” and even trying to be loved. 
 
I know that Life IS.  I know that Life is unstoppable. Life exists, and has an intelligence about it and it is LIFE that has given rise to all of it. ALL of it. All the expressions, all the possibilities. Human life is one blip in infinity, no matter how long we are present as a species. Life has been, life will be, always, eternally. Rolling on and on and on.  As galaxies, universes, INFINITE life forms, infinite ideas expressing.  Creation is bottomless, endless, the ceaseless fountain of expression.
 
I can’t know from my tiny blip of Christina what “the one right Truth” is.  There is none. Every moment gives rise to a new way of doing things that is appropriate for each new creation arising.  The “right” way of doing things depends on each life form, each moment of that life form, the needs and desires of that life form.  Creation can’t be stopped in its curious expansion, evolution, and CHANGE. 
 
I can’t know what The One Truth is, or even what Existence is and how it works.  I can’t know what my “purpose” is, or what I “should” be doing. 
 
What I CAN do is FEEL the Living Flood of Life that I am.
What I can do is feel the Living Flood of Life that I am.  I can feel that aliveness in me, as me. I can open myself to it and feel what is calling through me.  I give up reaching outside of myself for an intellectual answer, and I return to the home of Life inside me.  I feel my beingness.  I feel the alive, aware Life that animates all things. It has taken care of its Expression and Existence always. It can certainly live me perfectly too.  I can rest in that.  I can allow myself to give up the trying and BE. In that, I can feel in my body that I am intrinsically rooted, connected to All Life.  I am more than fed by it.  From most angles, and from a gut-sensing standpoint, I am indistinguishable from the Infinite Ocean Itself. 
 
Except I am also the miraculously unique form that Life has birthed along with all its infinite other unique creations.  Life has given rise to this totally inimitable, incomparable “me.”  I trust the Life that manages all things to “manage” me too.  I trust the Life that moves through me to call itself to the next action, next idea, next word……
 
And I can FEEL that call. As a relaxing, an opening, an ease in every moment. Even moments when I feel like having an angry tirade!  There is an ease in letting it be what it is without trying to fight it and make myself be something else.
 
So I give up. I surrender to the changing “rightness” of each moment. I let myself be and give up the idea that I need to improve or fix myself to be somehow better than Life has given rise to me. 
 
More and more of the classes I offer are centered in this trust in the aliveness. This trust in our ability to FEEL that life and align with it, allowing ourselves ease. Allowing ourselves to celebrate ourselves just as we are and free ourselves to relax and expand in natural directions.  We can feel our uniqueness and stop fighting it, letting the genius that we each are flow unhindered by our interference in trying to be good or right. 
 
The practices, thoughts, philosophies, and techniques I share in sessions and classes all serve that center of FEELING, trusting and aligning with that naturalness of what we are.  I hope you’ll join in for this next class I have scheduled on exploring the living truth that you are, and letting go of figuring out what “THE” truth is and what the rules of that truth are. It is my ongoing joy to spend time with you in this freeing, smile-inducing conversation about celebrating exactly what we are, in every changing moment!