Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs

I have been feeling more of a connection to things around me lately. My energy levels have ebbed and flowed, and my classes have felt heavy and painful to slog through or easy and light and exactly what I meant them to be. I've been extremely aware of these shifts and changes. This awareness also affords me the opportunity to reflect on the bigger picture. Physical issues that have been more or less of an issue for me in recent months, I now realize, almost perfectly correspond to stresses in my life that I allowed to take root and affect my body. I'll elaborate later, probably not in great detail, but I am finding that my second chakra (swadhisthana) has been way out of balance. At varying points in my life this has affected my back, my digestion, and my creativity, along with other things. I have been reading Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss, which is an amazing read. Her insights have been so valuable to me. I meet with a student once a week who has some fairly significant physical issues and I read excerpts from this book as part of our lesson last week and the words really resonated with her. I think people need to be validated in ways that empower them. It's not enough to say that someone is justified in finding themselves at a disadvantage. That does not help anyone heal. What does heal is giving people the tools to make their situation better. Myss' book gives us specific tools for recognizing the power we give away willingly, and the means to reclaim that power. I am finding that an amazing resource now, at this time in my life. I feel so fortunate to be able to say that I know myself well enough to understand when it's time to engage in deeper self-study and when to back off. We can't be immersed fully all the time... the intensity would burn us alive. However, accepting the information we're given and being able to put it in a meaningful order can open us up to the possibility of renewal, if we let it.

{Oh, and on another front, but definitely related... I hurt my back really bad on Thursday morning. It was so painful and scary I was emotional all that night, thinking I had really hurt myself, but I got up, called the chiropractor, got in early, and as the day progressed, felt better and better.

My afternoon client session (the one mentioned above) went so well, I felt buoyed enough by our session and went to the Nissan dealership and traded in my old car for a new one. I had been planning on doing this for a while but hadn't gotten the nerve to do it. The new one has so much lumbar support and rides really easy on my back-- not to mention it sits up higher and the storage is fully accessible (it's a small SUV but it gets mileage very close to that of my old car) so it's much better for my day to day needs. I know a car cannot make you happy, but this one is so wonderful I think I might be a little in love! Is that terrible? I really only went to the dealership to get an estimate on my trade-in and look at possible cars to buy... but... I felt ready, what can I say... and bargained myself a pretty good deal.}

Okay, I am headed to bed now. I have been putting off writing two papers for my 500 hour training and need to get rest so I can get up and bang them out.

Here's a quote from Caroline Myss:

"We are all living history books. Our bodies contain our histories-- every chapter, line, and verse of every event and relationship in our lives. As our lives unfold, our biological health becomes a living, breathing biographical statement that conveys our strengths, weaknesses, hopes, and fears."

Namaste.