Tag Archives: happiness

Thoughts on Love

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CAM00414We make the basic assumptions that the heart is associated with love and love is associated with happiness and happiness is the goal of life.

Does love come from our heart or from our soul? Does happiness derive from love or peace? Does the word love only mean one thing? Is true love an emotion or a state of being?

The heart is like a box, which already contains endless, bottomless love, we just shut it. Simply. We don’t need to open it to allow love in; we need to open it to live in the love that is already there. Like a tuning fork resonating with the existing tone and vibrating along with it amplifying the sound. The sound is always there; our ability to vibrate at the same frequency is not.

I think many of us fear we have too much love to give and it can be misinterpreted, misused, or taken advantage of. Letting the love out leaves us unprotected, vulnerable, imperiled. These are all constructs of what love is, related to emotions and expectations and the idea that we are giving part of ourselves away when we love. We are becoming “less than” in the hopes that another person will fill the void and make us “more than” when we are a twosome.

Is this love?

If love is an all-encompassing thing, an energy, it cannot be given or taken away or lessened or increased. It just is. Romantic love is one way to channel it. Like a tributary of a massive river filled with the same water flowing in a certain direction. True love is unconditional but romantic love is rarely without conditions, said or unsaid. Are all “loves” the same thing? Do we just misunderstand its true nature? Is love in our heads?

Why does my heart well up, grow, and expand thinking about my child? How does he perceive love?

Lifeline to Sanity

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Indian lock & key

People need people.

We are social animals. We surround ourselves with every type of human interaction. But along with this need and joy in communion also comes friction, disharmony, and hurt. Navigating those interactions with peace is where the practice comes in.

For me that practice is yoga and within that philosophy that practice is the four locks and four keys.

  • The four locks are people who are: happy, unhappy, virtuous, and wicked. There are four keys to open those locks and retain a peaceful interaction.
  • The four keys are: being friendly toward the happy (happy for their happiness), having compassion for the unhappy, joy for the virtuous (celebrating someone’s achievement), and equanimity toward the wicked (disregard, disengagement from those being hurtful).

Being a parent means those keys can get rusty. Having the energy and patience to be our best self is sometimes impossible. But remembering the practice is there and trying to follow it when possible is a step on the long path back to a more peaceful life.

I have wonderful spontaneous conversations with total strangers all the time in NYC. Recently while trying to get my 3-year-old to a class, after a grumpy morning from waking up at 5:45am, he fell asleep in the stroller on the way and would not be woken. This meant I had to carry him down and up 6 flights of subway stairs. Luckily a woman offered to help and we commiserated over the “tyrannical threes” or our “threenagers” (I just heard that term for the first time). And I didn’t feel so alone all of a sudden. We could laugh at the frustrations and smile in understanding. A helping hand and kind word went a long way.

And letting my son sleep was not only needed for him, but for myself as well – a quiet moment absent of whining, screaming, “its not fair”, and incessant demands and questions coupled with tackling me, jumping on me, pushing me, sitting on my head (his favorite), climbing on me, and stepping on me.

He’s loving the word “why” right now:

“You can’t go outside without shoes.”

“Why?”

“Because your feet will get dirty.”

“Why?”

“Because the ground is made of earth.”

“Why?”

“Because we live on Earth.”

“Why?”

“Because it is the perfect distance from the sun to be inhabitable by humans.”

“Oh.”

Patience is the lifeline to sanity.

What is patience? Detaching from the outcome of something. Removing expectations. Allowing what is, to be what is. Letting life unfold without attempting to control the timing or timeline. Listening. Waiting. Breathing.

Patience is having faith things will eventually be better.

Think Happy | Be Happy

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THINK HAPPY

BE HAPPY

A t-shirt on a young girl shouted at me in bold, bright letters. I forgot that sometimes the answer is so simple.

“The…true you reflects in the mind which is your mirror… If the mind has a lot of waves like the surface of a lake, you will be seeing a distorted reflection.”

-Thinking negative thoughts distorts your natural peace.

“To see the true reflection, see that the water is clean and calm and without any ripples.” (Swami Satchidananda, Book 1 Sutra 3*)

-To feel our true self, our self at peace, we must remove disturbing thoughts.

Think Peace

Be Peace

How?

I have had many negative thoughts this year in particular and at times have felt I hit bottom. I keep waiting to not feel crushed, but have realized that I myself am keeping myself down by allowing – feeding on – negative thoughts. Now I try to be vigilantly conscious of their appearance and with great struggle stop a thought and replace it with something else.

I remind myself that negativity only hurts me. The world doesn’t change – only my experience of it can change.

I remind myself to nurture gratitude and list a few things I am grateful for in my head.

I remind myself to replace a negative with a positive (or at least a neutral).

I remind myself to breathe.

Frustrated the other day because my 3-year-old refused to listen to me (as is perfectly normal for his age and an everyday occurrence) – I laid on my bed and covered my face with a pillow. He clambered in after me asking what was wrong. “Mommy, take a deep breath.” After I complied, I told him I felt better.

I guess he does listen…

* Quotes from Satchidanada, Swami, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali/translation and commentary by Swami Satchidananda, Integral Yoga Publications, Yogaville, 1990.

Happy times

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“I feel happy and they all feel happy being there, so they make me happy and I make them happy. We just spend a little happy time together, that’s all.”1 That’s how Swami Satchidananda describes giving a dharma talk, sharing yoga, and essentially – what yoga is. Happy times.

Last week I subbed a Restorative Yoga class. Teaching restored my own energy, my sense of self, my connection with the Divine. The most beautiful thing about teaching for me is feeling peace and joy resonating from the students. That’s the whole point to me. And in turn I receive and emit that energy as well.

While teaching may seem like giving (and it is) I get so much in return that I’m thankful for the opportunity to serve even when it feels like I have nothing more to give. Teaching nourishes me, lets me practice, and reconnects me to what is important.

As a mom my priority is always my son but lately I’ve been running on empty. The years of sacrifice and giving have drained me and even my son recognizes that I’m not the same person. “I have two mommies, is the other one coming tomorrow?” He may mean something completely different in his 2 ¾ year old mind – but it breaks my heart anyway.

I took the time this weekend to be alone, to be quiet, to be slow. I smelled the newly sprung flowers, lay in the sunshine and stared up at puffy clouds forming and reforming in the bright blue sky above. Those moments, while short in the big picture, melted away long held tension. I felt like me for a moment again.

I watched bees discover blossoms and nestle inside. Bees take nectar for themselves and in turn give pollen and help create more flowers, more nectar, and more life. Taking enough to keep yourself going is necessary when it prepares you to have more to give. Sometimes we forget that we need to take sometimes, we need to take care of ourselves in order to take care of others, we need some nectar to sweeten our lives in order to create more sweetness in the world.

Yoga gives me a little happy time to remember that sweetness.

1 Satchidananda, Swami, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali/translation and commentary by Swami Satchidananda, Integral Yoga Publications, Yogaville, 1990. Book 1 Sutra 15