Thursday, August 15, 2013

People like us



“People like us we’ve got to stick together, hold your head up, nothing lasts forever”.
Sung by Kelly Clarkson
Written by
Meghan Kabir, James Michael, Blair Daly


I just recently heard this song and felt an instant connection to the lyrics. I would imagine a lot of people do. It reminded me my childhood and how I really struggled to fit in. I felt lonely as a child. So lonely in fact that I became convinced that I must have been adopted. I felt my parents were aliens or at the very least I felt alienated from them. Over and over again I would search their bedroom looking for my adoption papers, never to find them. I would sit at the dinner table silently thinking “who are these people”?  I learned to adapt and deal with these feelings of isolation by faking things. I kind of lived like Dexter saying and doing what was right but secretly feeling like the words were empty and wondering what all the fuss was about.


 I think a lot of people feel like they don’t fit in at some point in their life, for me it was my younger years, but some people grow old feeling this way, or have a period in their life when this occurs, often it occurs during a job you really dislike. Just for the record, I no longer feel this way, I feel connected and loved and truly blessed by the many caring people I have in my life.
Maybe you are feeling this way now and if you are, you are not alone, countless people are feeling it too, but they are hiding it from you. People hide their disconnect in a variety of ways, many become overachievers, some give up, others accumulate things, some become difficult or angry people, others compensate by becoming caretakers to others, doing more for others then they do for themselves.
We hide from people because we don’t feel safe. Secretly we are afraid that people will find out we not perfect? Truthfully no one thinks you are perfect anyways, so giving up that illusion is a great step towards freedom, we see your faults and love you anyways.

 I am not naive I know we can’t truly let our walls down with everyone, but I think we need to step out from behind the walls, with some people.  I have a very small, very intimate circle of maybe 4 friends that I am completely open with, I love them, I know they love me and I feel safe in this love.  You need this too, friends who you can trust, who love you, who don’t see you as perfect but don’t really give a shit anyways. And as the song goes “people like us we’ve got to stick together”, so be that kind of friend back.

We all have a story, I have mine you have yours, and somewhere in this story we have  all experienced deep pain. An abusive childhood, the death of a parent(s) or loved ones, accidents that have left us dependent, spouses have cheated on us, the list goes on (insert your pain here). So with this in mind I think it’s important that we treat each other with greater compassion, in all situations, try to step into the other person’s shoes and look at life from their perspective. 

I know a man that hit his kids; he was an abusive father and husband. His words and fists caused great pain and damage to his family. No one could understand why this man was like this, by all outward experiences he was smart, handsome, and successful, yet he had this darkness within. Years later, he sought help and he shared with me his story. How, as child his angry father had beaten him, his siblings, and his mother. How, as a little boy he had hid in the barn for days without food, waiting for his father’s rage to subside. How he swore he would never do to his family what had happened to him, and the shame and sorrow he felt when he realized he had become his father. He lives to this day still trying to forgive himself; he is now a loving father and grandfather. He has not been forgiven by all he harmed and he lives with this knowledge. He also has seen the damage in his children, the seeds of darkness planted from one generation to the next. 

I know a woman who was a nun, left the convent, lived on the streets or Toronto, doing whatever it took to get by. Who today stands as an example of hope released from darkness, she helps others by sharing her story. There was a time when people walked over her, past her, and thought her worthless. Today she travels the world bringing rays of hope to others. These are stories of redemption but not everyone finds redemption in this life.
If I could be you, if you could be me
For just one hour
If we could find a way to get inside
Each other's mind
Elvis Presley

Where does yoga fit into all this? Each and every thing I have experienced has left an impression (samskara) on my subconscious mind these impressions cloud my thinking and often limit my life. I always compare samskaras to documents on your hard drive, you’ve deleted the file from the directory (conscious mind) and you think they are gone, but they are still there on your hard drive (subconscious mind) taking up space. So my past forms my current thinking. It’s so important then to look at the past examine it and then let it go. This happens during my consistent yoga and meditation practice, memories just float to the surface, and as they do I am able to see them, examine them, let them go, not judging them as good or bad, but rather seeing how they have affected my life.

While we can hate the actions of another person, it is best not to hate the person, hatred in the end is like an disease that eats away at us.
My wish for you is that if this is one of the times in your life that you are struggling, feeling alone, or just wondering if there is more to life, that you will realise you are not alone, we have all been there.

So I end this blog to a link to one of my favorite songs by the band Everlast, the song is called; What It’s Like. The song is full of coarse words so if this offends you don’t listen.

Friday, August 9, 2013

How do you eat an elephant ?




Life is messy, I am imperfect (so are you), and you know what? There is never going to be the perfect time to get started on making those changes, or setting those goals. Your mind (the ego) will always tell you to wait until this or that happens, to make changes, to begin to follow your dream.  Your “monkey mind” keeps inventing excuses as to why now, is not good a good time to make changes. So…once again to quote Nike, “just do it”. Your mind should serve you not vice versa. Just today I was telling my husband that it sometimes seems like more than half my thoughts make no sense, so I am constantly ignoring, overcoming and laughing at my random thoughts.


I love Robin Sharma, I read something he wrote almost every day. To quote Robin, change is messy, it can be chaos in the beginning, but eventually the changes you make today will become your future normal. 15 years ago I was a pack a day smoker and I didn’t exercise at all. Today I own a yoga and fitness studio and a day without some sort of exercise feels like something is missing.

Expect extreme chaos, doubt, feelings of insecurity, a sense of not being good enough, all of these will surface, but keep going, change is awesome. In my life I have felt, I was too old, too fat, not educated enough, not good enough, not attractive enough, not smart enough etc… I have worried that my past was too difficult to overcome and that I would never feel like more than a misfit in the crazy world. At times these thoughts seemed like insurmountable mountains, but they were not, each step I took showed me that these mirage like thoughts were not real. There is an old Indian proverb it goes something like this; how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. This proverb to me means that when something seems too large to overcome, you just need to take little bites at a time.

Change makes you stronger, gives you great insight into yourself and opens your mind to new ways of thinking. Change is expansive.  I know an organization that makes their employees change their positions within the company every 2 years, this must be chaos at times, but what it does is allow each employee to grow, empathize and ultimately creates a team environment where no one person has control.  Here is a quote I first read years ago, I use it sometimes when I feel doubt, or when I am making changes.
“It takes courage...to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.”
― Marianne Williamson, Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

I love this quote because change is self discovery and honest self knowledge is freedom. Inside all of us are these prison bars I will call fears, these fears seem so real to us but they are not real, they are simply self imposed bars that keep us from reaching our true potential.

What if I try and I fail, what will people think? What will happen to me?

I have failed often in my life; not reached a goal, not gotten a relationship I wanted. In my business not all my ideas have worked out. I was fired once, I have suffered depression and I have been divorced. Some of these were huge disappointments to me at the time. But looking back I can see them as door ways to freedom through self discovery.  I have often read that one of the keys to success is your ability to make fast decisions, good or bad, and then to move on from the ones that don’t work out. In others words, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep trying. If you had seen my epic fall last year in the Haliburton Forest trail race last September, you would have seen me, slip on the mud, land on my back, roll to my knees, look for blood and then keep going.

Last week I said to someone I was glad a serious of events occurred in my first marriage, because these events forced me to change. I could have stayed it that marriage, we didn’t fight very much, it was comfortable, but I wasn’t in love any more, truthfully I felt dread in that marriage, dread is an awful sensation that we are not meant to live with. Taking the risk of leaving my first marriage was super scary, I feared loss of income, loneliness, and I wondered if I was ever going to be married again. I wasn’t sure I would be able to take care of myself. But I took that leap into the unknown and today feel like I am married to my best friend. Just 2 weeks ago I was driving along Rossland Road and I saw my ex-husband walking along the street holding hands with his current wife. It made me so happy to see him obviously content, looking great with a woman that loves him.

About 20 years ago my older sister told me she wanted to go back to school to study theology. Both her and her husband went to bible college full time, while raising 2 young children, she graduated with honors and was class valedictorian, her house was sometimes messy, and it was hard at time. But today, she is senior minster in a church. She is gifted at what she does, and helps so many people. What if she had said not now, I am too busy, my kids are too young, I think I will wait. Maybe just maybe she would have missed her calling in life.

A woman I know lost about 100lbs; she was in her late 50’s at the time. Then she left a 35 year marriage, her husband was an alcoholic, she then moved in with her daughter, and went back to school full time to be a psychologist. She was easily 61 at the time she enrolled in school. Today she is happily remarried (to a great guy) and working in her chosen field. Some people thought she was insane. Who leaves a 35 year marriage for the unknown? She did, because deep down she listened to the quiet voice that told her that there was more to life than what she was experiencing. Was it easy? Hell no, it was messy and at times emotional but she took baby steps forward and followed her heart. Sometimes you just need to have faith and trust your intuition.

A lot of the time we are waiting for other people to change, thinking this will make us happy. This is a snow white complex, we think one day, someone will save us and we will then live happily ever after. Trust me, I have thought this way, if only my partner would do this or that, then I will be happy. But this disordered thinking, leads to bitterness and lack of responsibility for our lives. More and more these days I see how my destiny has a lot to do with the choices I make, blaming my misery on other people is a cop out. In my past I have blamed society, my parents, my husband, and even bosses for my discontent, then slowly I came to realize that the one common thread that all these people shared was me, I was the problem, my thinking was askew and needed to change.


This is one of the reasons I love yoga, it’s not about the postures, it’s about the quiet I find while I practice, often while doing yoga I get this sense of the strength, or I hear that quiet voice from within. My first yoga teacher used to say that you don’t do headstand to do head stand, you do headstand to gain the courage it takes to do headstand. Then one day you will find that you do something that needed greater courage then you normally have, and this courage came from your yoga practice. I have seen this to be true, yoga has given me courage, stripped away disordered thinking and given me a better sense of who I am. Today I feel like I am truly doing what I was meant to do, I no longer wonder why I am here. Long ago I accepted I was here to serve the universe in this capacity and I love it.

So I guess to conclude I am trying to say change doesn’t have to be big, it can be as simple as enrolling in that art class you have been thinking about, it can be hopping on a spin bike to start your weight loss journey or it can be getting up a little earlier each day to meditate. Small consistent changes are the key to great success. Years from now you will look back and see you have come so far.

With Love,
Sheree xo