In 2019, I didn’t go on any retreats. I meditated less than a handful of times. My yoga mat didn’t see the light of day. I did CPR one shift in the hospital rather than on an almost weekly basis and my Pediatric Advanced Life Support Certification temporarily expired after having been active for years. Ego said: ‘you’re failing as a nurse because for the 6 years you’ve been doing this you’ve never let a certification expire.’ I felt shame and anxiety around that for months.
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My climbing harness and rope collected dust. I didn’t summit any peaks or backpack miles into the forest. The tires on my mountain bike went flat. My running shoes didn’t get laced on my feet. I didn’t dabble in the kitchen with food and recipes or herbal concoctions like I used to love doing.
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What I did do is cross the bridge from maiden to mother. I kept another human alive not through doing chest compressions but through taking in enough calories so that my body would produce breastmilk.
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I survived domestic abuse/violence, legal proceedings that felt like they would never end, and a neurological disease that hijacked every organ in my body, including my brain.
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I learned countless lessons… lessons that prior to this last year, I began doubting would ever finally ‘click’ as I found myself complacent in a partnership and lifestyle that had become familiar but weren’t instrumental to my evolution as a human, mother, sister, daughter, and woman. Many of my choices and go-getter mentality were hurting me and having a subtle adverse ripple effect on those around me.
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I found the key to the lock on the door that was the entrance to the garden that existed in me all along – a garden overflowing with the treasures of self-love, perseverance, compassion, understanding, and humility. What were once buds became full-grown flowers.
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***And a big take-away for me was this: Being spiritual doesn’t mean going to yearly retreats. It doesn’t mean hosting/attending a yoga teacher training. It doesn’t mean invoking your kundalini energy centers and going to workshops about tantric love-making.
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It doesn’t mean sitting in goddess or women’s circles or attending full moon ceremonies where you write your intentions on pieces of paper under moonlight and burn them.
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It doesn’t have to do with how many crystals are on your windowsill, or that you sit on a cushion and pay attention to your breath for a certain period of time every day.
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It doesn’t mean monastic levels of renunciation or eternal celibacy.
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It doesn’t mean that you bypass what is real and alive in your life with positive affirmations and a false persona that always appears unphased because you’re caught in the mindset of: ‘that happened – oh well – I just need to let go and move on with my life.’ Meanwhile you choose to distract yourself with more bullshit and pick a poison whether it be porn, food, drugs, alcohol, or even incessant ‘doing’ such as exercise and becoming a workaholic.
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I truly don’t care about how much time you spend doing asanas, how many ‘likes’ you received on your new profile picture of you doing a headstand, summiting a 14er, sending a 5.13 trad route, or how you have contrived a picture perfect relationship with your partner that you are so skilled at flaunting on social media but what happens behind the walls of your home is a different story. ((This isn’t to say I don’t support others, myself included, in sharing the bits and pieces of their lives they are excited about, including accomplishments – I just strongly value rawness and humility.))
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What I really care about is what type of actions you take in the world… in your day to day… who you are behind the scenes of all… that. Who are you underneath the different hats you wear?
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BEING SPIRITUAL MEANS BEING REAL.
–> True spirituality washes over us like a wave that can’t be quelled when we are going about our ordinary, everyday tasks and projects.
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You may think you have experienced it, as I once thought, and maybe you truly have, but I hadn’t fully tasted the wholeness of Spirit invading every cell in my body until I was face to face with death and experiencing immense physical and emotional pain. Until everything I thought mattered and placed stock in was ripped away from me all at once.
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Only then was the spiritual warrior born from deep within my core… only then did I start shifting in major ways. Then the lightbulb came on and the ‘a-ha’ moments became the full tapestry of my existence. Not just now and then, but all-the-damn-time.
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It means getting in touch with every single aspect of ourselves ~ both pleasant and painful. It means watering your houseplants and returning your shopping cart.
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It means making eye contact with the cashier who bags your food at the grocery store.
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It means saying ‘no’ when you feel it and not succumbing to people pleasing.
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It means recognizing every time you get out of your car and pump gas that you have an awareness around what it took for that resource to be provided and how it affects the world as a whole.
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It means not needing to be right and honoring diversity. It means being present with what is in front of you as it comes up. It means letting go of perfection.
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It means listening, really listening… it means being IN the world and potentially raising a family and doing the dishes and folding the laundry with love… while also admitting when we are tired and need help.
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It means saying out loud to yourself and your colleagues, “I’m jealous of that person. Actually, there’s this side of me that’s really controlling… it affected me when that person made that choice – maybe not because it was wrong, but because of where I am still stuck. I have work to do on myself still.”
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It means actively engaging with the world rather than trying to transcend it or get ahead of it.
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It means setting boundaries and communicating them effectively.
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It means acknowledging and FEELING that while you are energy and atoms and all that ethereal stuff, you are also a human being having a physical experience in a world that is both twisted and beautiful.
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And in-case anyone hasn’t told you this lately, including yourself… You are enough. Always.