Journey with Aly

Growing up with traumatic experiences…abuse…pain…confusion, many of us come to adopt, and to take in deeply, a belief that we do not “belong” in the world. We come to believe that a mistake was made somewhere, somehow—and we say to ourselves, “The mistake is me. I’m the mistake. I shouldn’t be here.”

I used to believe that my “worth” was the sum total of all the opinions about me floating around “out there” in the world. That’s what I thought I was. “They” were the balance sheet upon which was figured whether or not I was okay.

Let me ask you something that a mentor of mine once asked me. Does a tree worry about its “worth”? 

Does a tree appear to have a concern about whether it is an elm, or a pine, or a palm? Does a tree feel horrible shame because it is not producing oranges or walnuts? Does it feel “useless”? Does it feel “ugly” because it doesn’t flower the way a cherry or apple tree does in spring? Does a sequoia feel superior because it is so tall? Do all the other trees sigh and wish they were as strong as the “mighty” oak?  

Those ideas seem rather absurd, don’t they? Somehow only humans plague ourselves with these comparisons.

The rose blooms, gives off its perfume, and then slowly lets all its petals fall back to the earth, while the daffodils and tulips greet us freshly every spring with a bright “hello!”

A salmon is not a parrot and a parrot is not a dragonfly and a dragonfly is not a frog. And that’s all okay. Well, of course it is! In nature it all seems so obvious.

You are the same way, Beautiful One. Guess what…nature includes you. Life includes you.

You are as you are in this moment, and that’s all you ever need to be. You are not what you were yesterday and you can’t yet be what you’ll be tomorrow. You are always quite naturally and instinctively moving toward something. (You don’t have to make yourself crazy about that either. It’s already happening. The tree takes water into its roots, and it grows. It stretches toward the sun.) At the same time, for right now, you’re here. Look around. This is it and it’s perfect. In the eyes of whomever or whatever created all this, in the eyes of God, you are exactly where you need to be.

Take that in for a moment. You are exactly where you need to be. Not behind. Not ahead. Not off the path.

Whatever you are feeling, whatever is moving through, is allowed. Wherever you are in your life is allowed. You are not a mistake. (Of course not. Do you believe God makes mistakes?) What you are is a miracle.  

Thursday 29 December 2022

All is well. Always.

This is my world to imagine, to dream, and to create. It is as I feel it…as I see it. As within, so without. The world is as I am.

So what do I choose to create?

In my life, I choose to create a peaceful world by being at peace. I choose to create love by resting in Love…beauty by seeing beauty. I choose to be steadfast in trust. I trust the unfolding. I trust Life. I am surrounded and suffused in grace and blessing.

There is only Safety. It holds us all beyond the clatter and clamor and chaos. Beyond the noise. Beyond the fear, the terror…there is a Stillness that rests unmoved–unperturbed. A Spaciousness. An ever-presence that is somehow Love itself.

I choose to see the world, with all its experiences, as a gift and a miracle. The universe is impossible music. Something—from nothing at all. No damage, no harm, can truly come to this symphony. It merely plays. Somehow, I am the symphony as it plays.

I am The Way as I walk.

I have come here for all the juice of this experience. Expression. Emotion. Being alive.

“I didn’t come here of my own accord and I can’t leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.” ~ Rumi

And yet, somehow, I never leave home. I am never lost. There is only an experience of feeling lost—or has been—from time to time. A dream of separation.

As the poet said, “Wherever I am is called Here.”

Surprise, Arizona

Saturday 23 July 2022 4:11 PM

Breathing in…I am honing my voice.

Breathing out…I am loving my world.

Someone asked today what I am “up to.” What I do.

Sometimes I feel as if I don’t quite know. I felt a little lost in how to answer the question. What is it I’m doing, anyway?

Honing my voice. Loving my world. Every day, or at least most days, in every way I know how. I begin each morning with this affirmation as I sit down to my morning pages. Maybe I’m not doing that particularly well. Some days I’m tired or discouraged or anxious. But it’s a beginning. Honing my voice. Loving my world. Flying by the seat of my pants.

I am learning how to take risks, a little at a time. I am learning how to trust myself and how to be happy, a little at a time.

At the end of August, it will be a year since I joined a group coaching course called The Storytelling Academy and began writing a book telling my story. I have almost 25,000 words written. I feel as if it’s falling into place. “Patiently and persistently,” I remember Goengaji’s voice saying when I was sitting in a Vipassana course many years ago, learning and practicing Vipassana meditation. 

I suppose it’s the same thing with this…with everything. Patiently and persistently.

No one is telling me how and when to do things anymore, so at this point in my life, I am struggling now and again to find my way. I am becoming self-directed.

Patiently and persistently.

Two years ago, at the beginning of September, I completed a challenge a mentor gave me to “Tell my Story to 30 People in 30 Days”. What a wild ride. It was a gift to myself. I felt triumphant when I actually followed through and completed that challenge.

Just two months ago, at the end of May, I took on another challenge from another coach to tell my story in a video and put it up on my Facebook page. There were so many kind and supportive responses. Mostly, it was a burst of liberation.

In March of 2020, I was certified in Eben Pagan’s Virtual Coach Course.  I had completed the 90-day program and attended the Summit in Los Angeles with students from all over the world in February, just before Covid hit hard.

While I was in Florida, during the last half of 2021, I put together a website: coachingwithaly.com. Not much has been done with it so far. And lmost a year ago, I put up a video on Facebook introducing my website and my coaching practice. I put some work into the video and Jake filmed it. But I really didn’t do any follow-up. I have tended to shy away from marketing.

If I let myself, I could get frustrated and annoyed with myself about all these seemingly false starts or half starts. I could become frightened, thinking “I can’t do it.”

So this is what I’ve been doing: Trying to find my way into the new life that’s been waiting for me. Sometimes afraid to step forward. Sometimes unsure I know what to do. Looking for the light. Having sporadic bursts of courage. Mostly having fun, actually.

Sometimes the world feels too much with me. The “How am I going to make my life work?” The cacophony. The aimlessness…the wandering…seeming to go nowhere at all. Emptiness. Sameness. Fear.

The doubt.

All too much with me. Clinging like a damp humidity and sweat. Cumbersome. Becoming heavy.

Right now I need silence. I need the voices in my head to calm themselves. I need to breathe.

I need to hold my own heart in respect…in dignity and compassion. I need time with myself. I need time to honor the child and to allay her fears. She needs some of my tenderness. 

Big things are afoot. At least I would like there to be. I am dreaming there are. A book. A sea change. A new life. All sorts of possibilities.

A river moving toward the ocean.

I never saw myself here while I was growing up. I saw myself playing safe. Playing by the rules.

I don’t feel as if I’m playing by the rules anymore. I feel as if there are no rules. And it’s awkward. It’s unwieldy. I’m not sure what to do with that.

Somehow, it feels as if I were always destined to be here…dancing on this edge. The child in me was always stronger than I knew…than she knew. Magic. Resilient. She was a deep well of faith in a way she couldn’t see at the time. A deep well of persistent, unstoppable joy.

She brought me here. Her destiny brought me here.

Love. Grace. Connection to God brought me here…to this place where I am not sure what’s next, where I am pushing a bit to see what’s behind the next door…where my next answer is.

“You know…and you know that you know.” ~Julia Cameron

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.” ~Rilke

So here is this day, balanced between the two.

Just some random thoughts from my journaling this morning…

So many things I could focus on to write about…particular questions or themes or ideas. I suppose if I want to be a writer that might be a good idea–to have a point…someplace I’m going. With the book I am beginning to write, that’s certainly what I want. Somehow, here on these journal pages, I like to wander without an agenda…see where it takes me.

Certainly, on these pages, it isn’t about putting forth what I think I already know. It’s about seeing if maybe I can discover something new.

I want to live that way…as if my fingers are always on a keyboard…typing…or holding a pen letting the words pour forth in blue ink just as they will.

I know nothing. Something knows I don’t need to know anything. Whatever is known is beyond wrestling for answers. Whatever is known is not in my head—in the searching and the mental gymnastics.

Whatever is known is simply wide open and ever-present. It is Presence itself. It is in the wisdom contained in the way nature unfolds itself—the way it grows and blossoms and then lets itself fall away. 

There aren’t words there.

I have words in the form of thoughts—words used to tell a story and create meaning. This is the life of a human. It’s part of our make-up. It’s what we do and it’s part of our connection with that one creative power. At the same time, thoughts can have us mistake ourselves as separate from that one creative power.

The thoughts are not “my” thoughts—and they aren’t “knowledge”. They are flowing energy waves creating, creating, creating, arriving and leaving, ebbing and flowing like the ocean.

Intelligence somehow lives in the ocean…is the ocean–but the ocean appears to know nothing. Just as I know nothing.

As children, we didn’t care if we were coloring in the lines. We only cared that we were turning that black and white line art into something vibrant and alive as we watched the colors explode across the page; and we loved our pink frogs or our silver leafed trees against orange skies. We imagined other worlds.

We didn’t give a damn how anyone might think we looked when we moved our little bodies to music that touched our soul and made us giggle. That wasn’t even considered. We only wanted to dance to the beat of our little hearts.

And we didn’t have to be the best swimmer, or bike rider, or runner, or roller skater, or tree climber. As kids, we did those things because they were fun! We did them to feel the energy coursing through our bodies—the wind in our hair—the cool water against our skin on a hot day.

Then one day…

Well, I remember telling my little sister that if she wasn’t going to color in the lines she wasn’t allowed to color in my coloring book anymore.

Things change.

Things start becoming about results instead of the experience. They become about “achievement” and “doing it right.” 

They become about “perfection.”

I know, for myself, somewhere along the way I forgot to play. I forgot to give myself permission to experiment, to make mistakes…to learn…to improve. If I felt I couldn’t do something well right off the bat, I began not to even want to try. I began to compare myself to others.

As an adult, instead of enjoying the way the clay felt in my hands during a pottery-throwing class, I noticed myself envying people who were making more beautiful pieces than I. I wanted to be “a natural” at it and was filled with frustration when it wasn’t happening—instead of enjoying the process.

And I don’t think I’m the only one.

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” 

G.K. Chesterton

That little voice of perfectionism kills our creativity. It kills our genius and our childlike wonder. We start spending our time beating ourselves up and second guessing ourselves instead of reveling in our imaginations.

These days I am trying to be gentler with myself. I am trying to remember to give myself some grace. To smile more and give myself up to the waves of possibility again.

I’m hoping you’ll join me. Let yourself play with your dreams. Play with a set of drawing pencils while you listen to your favorite music. Go for a walk in nature. Pull down a recipe book from your kitchen shelf and try something you’ve never tried before. Spend some time at a  funky coffee house with a favorite pen and a notebook to write in. Whatever strikes your fancy and gets your creative juices flowing.

Yesterday, I found a little piece of writing I called “James and Bobo” among my Google Docs. Just something I was playing with…it turned out to be a children’s story.

It begins: 

“A boy loved a toy. 
When he squeezed it, it would murmur and open its eyes. And then it would giggle. It looked like a soft gray pterodactyl with blue wings.”

I wrote it about two years ago and didn’t think much about it again. When I looked at it yesterday, I thought: Maybe, just maybe, I need to do more of that.

I love sharing what I’m learning.

Yesterday I was listening to a half-hour Masterclass with Jamie Smart, author of Clarity and Results. This one was all about “Imposter Syndrome” 

Even if you haven’t heard the term, most people have had a taste of this experience. 

Have you ever heard the voices in your head saying: “Who am I to be doing this? Who cares what I say? Why should people listen to me? What do I know? It’s all a charade. I have no idea what I’m doing and people are certain to find out…” On and on and on it goes…

What Jamie Smart pointed out is that what we usually think of as “ourselves”, (“me”, “I”, “myself”) is a tangle of memories, circular thoughts, judgments, survival techniques, and all those limiting beliefs we’ve grown up and adopted. All that “stuff and baggage.”

We take these murky things that actually have no solid substance at all and paint a picture of “ourselves” with them in our heads.

I heard someone the other day call the voices in her head  “grooming tapes”. In her case, she was referring to the horrible, demeaning things an abuser would say to her to inculcate her into her abuse.

So of course we don’t trust ourselves! Why would we want to trust that? That bundle of anxiety and fear is completely untrustworthy. What Jamie Smart told us is that all that, in reality, is the Impostor. He says that “Impostor Syndrome is the idea that who you are is your ideas about yourself.

So…who can we trust? Or what can we trust?

I once sent a message telling a friend how nervous I was about a step I was about to take. Her quick two-word message back to me was “Trust Self.” (I don’t remember whether she capitalized that second word or not…but that’s how I see it in my head, right now.)

Trust Self. 

There is something beyond our “ideas” about ourselves. It lives in our breath, in our silence, in the simplicity of our being, in the naturalness of our authentic laugh. In our most graceful moments we can feel something resting way out beyond the tangle—something quiet and pure and absolutely not made-up. 

Some call it God or Allah or Jehovah or the Christ. Some call it Life or Nature. Some call it the Self…with that capital “S”, Some call it Awareness or Consciousness. Whatever we call it, we can trust the direct experience of that and our deep connection to that ever-flowing source of Creation. Always. 

Yesterday I was fretting about what I should do—to get ahead, to be productive, to make my life work. Today I am writing and posting this little piece. Why? Because that’s what feels good…and right…and organic…and delightful.

I read something by someone I admire yesterday about “showing our work.” (His name is Cole Schafer and he’s a writer and “ad-man”, as he calls himself.) What he said was that we might not be able to tout experience and credentials, but it can be just as important to “show our work.”–to show our steps and what we’re learning along the way. So, here goes…from my journaling this morning:

Friday 9 July 2021

Breathing in…I am honing my voice.

Breathing out…I am loving my world.

So…what is present this morning? Perhaps an even better question is–what would I like to create this morning?

I find my mind a little scattered with possibilities…it feels as if I am juggling things: ideas…desires…hopes…visions for the future…strategies.

Where do I actually want to go in my life?

I’ve been coaching a young woman lately to find her message–what she would say to the world if she “had the microphone”.

For me–I think I’ve found it: It’s that we…all of us…and for me, women in particular (only because I can understand and relate to them more easily right now)…that we can step out of the loneliness and isolation of shame. That we can come out of hiding and tell our truth. That we’re not alone in having been physically, emotionally and sexually abused. We’re not alone in having given up our power and our dreams…in having hidden ourselves away by making ourselves small.

I have been so envious of others’ creativity…their purpose…their drive…their dedication to something important to them–unwavering dedication.

There is a part of me that has been full of rage and resentment because of all this envy…angry that I still seem to be fumbling and flopping around with finding a direction. At sixty-three. So late. (“I’m late! I’m late! I’m late!”) 

What I realize when I stop to look is this:

My life has unfolded as it has, and it has been (for lack of a better word)–perfect. There has been no “wrongness” in it. There can’t be any wrongness in it.

The question is: What now?

So I breathe into the joy of curiosity and possibility. I breathe into my open heart. I breathe into self-compassion and the sensations of being in this body…and gratitude.

After all, I have broken into some freedom over these last years–well, I have always been free, but now I’m more aware of it–and sometimes freedom looks like this crazy edge.

Breathing in…I am honing my voice.

Breathing out…I am loving my world.

My world. This experience. This astounding life. These very particular challenges. This beautiful mess…and this amazing joy is my creation.

This hard won brink of a breakthrough…this edge…is my creation.

I seem to have no idea what I am doing. “When I stop struggling,I float. It’s the law.”

Sometimes I don’t like this woman very much who doesn’t seem to know what she’s doing. This woman who seems painfully slow to learn; who seems to flail about. Four and a half years on this journey…sixty-three years of my life…and still…

I get impatient with her—angry with her. And that is certainly part of the problem…when I do that; when I am beating her up, instead of loving her. 

Everything seems as if it is too big…too much…IMPOSSIBLE…when I am beating her up. When I am disgusted and ashamed.

I swear I am on the brink of a discovery. I’ve been calling it to myself for a long, long time. Or at least it feels like a long, long time.

Now is the time. My money fears…my clinginess to money…is even now leaving me. I declare it.

I feel it. I don’t know how this works…but I’ve been asking for a long time, albeit in ways I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand that THAT is what I have been doing: asking for a change in my relationship with money…with my ideas about what money means and abundance means and trust means.

Yes, please. I don’t know how…but I’m ready.

Take a breath right now, and take a break from obligation.

Take a break from having to prove yourself to the world; to anyone, even yourself.

In this moment, know that you are enough. It’s all enough, just as it is. 

That you are living, breathing, alive upon this earth…is enough.

You are worthy of your breath and you are worthy of your own love.

You are enough without striving, without forever efforting, without being “good” in the eyes of the nameless, faceless, nebulous “everyone”. (And who is that really but you, mirroring yourself back to yourself?) You are enough.

Rest for a moment from the world that tells you that you must always be on a quest to better yourself, to improve yourself. Rest a bit from the hamster wheel.

Breathe.

You can’t hear your own heart when your mind is going a-mile-a-minute.

Stop. Recognize the moment. Recognize how the world turns and the sun rises without you having to do a thing. You don’t have to work to exist, to breathe, to belong. You don’t have to work to take in your experience. The fact that you are here is a miracle.

This is your home., your true home; this Presence. Remember to enjoy it.

Remember to let your doing begin from a space of unvarnished existence and delight. Remember to let it come from a place of being glad to be alive.

Gratitude. Joy.

Dance. Blossom. Bloom. Naturally.