Gwynn Raimondi, MA

Love is not a victory march

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And love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
~Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah

The last year plus has been traumatic for our world politically and culturally, and because of this, also for many of us personally. We have seen some of our worst fears of what would happen with Republican run Executive and Legislative branches here in the United States. We have seen so much put back forty or more years in time, so much more that has been attempted to be put back. With each hit it feels like we are sinking deeper and deeper in a dystopian novel.

And.

Last year saw #metoo. And this year #timesup.  We see more and more women coming forward and some of the men who perpetrated sex crimes actually having consequences for their actions. I have been witness to more and more people becoming aware of the social injustices in the world, acknowledging their own internalized biases, compliance, and complicity, and doing the work to make change both within themselves and out in the world.

This shifting in our culture and within ourselves has been about love.

Unearthing what love actually means.

That love is a verb.

That love is not always gentle.

That love can be fiery, fierce, loud.

That love can be both protective and can push us outside of our comfort zones.

That love and justice can and should go hand in hand. And in that mix there needs to also be compassion and boundaries.

I believe that on any given day in any given moment all of us are doing the best we can with the tools we have.

This best we can may not be good enough. This best we can may actually be harmful to ourselves or to others. Other’s don’t have to accept our “best we can”. And in order for me to have hope in humanity, I do still believe we are each trying our best to be the best humans we know how to be.

And.

It is also true that sometimes the “best” others can do is something we need to say a firm NO to. And this No can, and in my opinion should, come from a place of deep love. Love for ourselves as well as love for the other person. And perhaps love for all humanity.

The #metoo movement that has caught fire in the last couple of years is a statement of this kind of love. A love comprised of clearly stating this is where I end and you begin and you don’t get to cross this line without my permission. A love comprised of compassion for ourselves and the traumas we have experienced at the hands of (mostly) men. A love comprised of empathy for others with similar experiences and especially for those who are able to speak up and out.

It is a love that seeks more than justice. It is a love that seeks our humanity.

We are at the dawn of a new epoch of human history. We have perhaps been at this dawn for the last hundred or so years. We have seen cultural “norms” slowly, sometimes painfully slowly, shift. We have seen the emancipation of slaves, the suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, all in the last 150 years. This is after, literally, millennia of slavery, and the de-humanizing of women, persons of color, queer folks, the poor, and anyone who is not a white, heterosexual, middle class (or “better”), CIS, male.

One hundred fifty years is barely a drop in the bucket when you look back three to six thousand years.

The shifting of our culture feels slow. And it is taking multiple generations. And will likely take multiple more before we live in a world where racism, misogyny, ablism, and homophobia are quaint things of past.

And.

With each movement, more movements are born. With each small shift there is a ripple effect.

And those ripples are getting larger. And stronger.

And the more we do this work of shifting ourselves and our world, the more we see the importance of doing this work with love made of justice, compassion, empathy, and boundaries.

Love is not always gentle. In fact, I believe love can actually be rather rude. Love shows up when we set our own boundaries and love shows up when we respect and honor the boundaries another person has set for themselves, whether we like those boundaries or not.

Love is willing to be uncomfortable. To sit in the discomfort of unraveling our own familial and cultural training. To sit in the discomfort of unraveling the trauma that lives within us and sorting what is ours, what is our ancestors, and what has absolutely nothing to do with us or our lineage. To sit in the discomfort of sometimes being wrong and causing harm and doing the work to make amends. To sit in the discomfort of acceptance that we are not always in control, and that sometimes honoring the boundaries of another person can be personally and emotionally painful (not harmful, painful) for us.

Love is fierce. And can be filled with rage. Love can be loud and bold and demanding.

Love is sometimes gentle too. And can be quiet. Love is supportive, always. Love is in the giving and receiving. To ourselves and to others. Always and in all ways.

Love is not a bully. It is not used as a weapon to cause harm or manipulate and impose unrealistic expectations.

Love is a comrade. It is a tool we can use to deconstruct our oppressive culture. It is a tool we can use to create a new world where there is justice and safeness and the embracing of differences.

Love is speaking and listening and hearing. Love is respecting and honoring.

The Christian bible states in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 ::

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

I can agree with most of this. And, I do believe that love is not blind, that while it doesn’t keep score and it does trust, it is always smart and aware and knows who and when to trust and when not. Love is not gullible.

Love has been a tool for change within myself for most of my life and in particular I have leaned on love this year. Love for my Self. The love of friends and family. Love as a verb. Love as a lesson. Love as a breathing, shifting, thing that both has torn me apart and put me back together.

May we all use love as a tool for destruction of our own old harmful patterns and ways and for creation of new ways of being which invite ourselves and others to live in compassion, empathy, justice, and truth.

/../

This essay originally written in December 2017 for the subscribers of my newsletter.  I edited it a bit for publication here.  If you’d like to subscribe to my weekly love letters you can fill out the form on this page.

Dreaming of the future, the past, & the now

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Beneath the twinkle lights, I find myself staring out into the fog that has enveloped our fairy forest. The chilly coziness of this grey blanket brings a smile upon my face as I dream of my future that is quickly becoming my now.

I dream of women gathered together, around a campfire on an ocean beach. Howling, laughing, crying. Hugging, holding. Seeing each other’s strength in their vulnerability to share and shed and be and unbecome and become. Being witness to the evolution and transformation of each beautiful soul in those moments of community, grace, and sisterhood.

My dream shifts to couples sitting together, around a short coffee table alter, a fire burning in the background. They are holding each other, hands, shoulders. Tears fall and laughter rings. Repair, reconnection, returning to their foundations. Seeing each other again as they see the other couples in the room. Witnessing their common threads of trials and pain and knowing on the path to healing they are not alone.

My smile broadens as the images of children playing, connecting, sharing comes into my vision. Mothers and fathers in circle together with each other, with their children and without. Days together of joy, connection, seeing and finding new ways to be together, to cope with the ever changing way of being in their particular family. Beauty as understanding comes forward and villages are built. Connection, support, chosen family.

As I sit here at my desk, my smile broadens. I am humbled to know these dreams are being birthed now, both in my internship and guide work allowing me to do the work my heart is called to do: Connecting, healing, circling, transforming.

And as I sit and think of my future, I see so clearly the now that is forming: the women who are gathering and circling with me now in my programs; who are called to quest and circle with each other, allowing me to guide them along this step of their journeys. I feel a deep gratitude for this work and these women. I find myself in awe of them and me: the long journeys we have all been on, together and not, each of us transforming ourselves and each other along the way.

I see my own transformation in this work, this work that fulfills me and changes me and allows me to give to the world as others have given to me. I see my own trust, lost and found, in my own soul and body as it expands and comes more fully into being. I feel myself, my own raw stories, and I know that I am softer and stronger and that these two things are not opposites but necessary compliments of each other. I feel my own juicy center bubble up and feel that knowing smile as I look back and forward and feel the very essence of the now.

There is more to any story we have, and for my own stories, the digging deep, the unearthing and then the exploration, the examination, the questioning and asking has all come both naturally and as though pulling teeth without anesthetic. I know my own metamorphic pains and I am witness to the pains of others, as they go through their own fires and rise from the ashes, shedding what isn’t theirs and becoming more themselves than before.

As Shedding Shoulds comes to a close this week and my focus turns to Being and Unbecoming, I am feeling nostalgic of this circle of life and transformation. I think of the layers and depths and spirals we all travel through and down and on and feel the community of growth and expansion and rebellion. I see, in each circle that gathers, a bit more of the status quo worn away and a new way of being and living and loving emerging.

And that’s what happens when we circle and it is why I do this work: we change ourselves, yes; we change each other, for sure; and whether we see it or not, we are changing the world to be a place of softness and strength, of beauty and awe and most importantly, love.

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Tranquil

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Sitting in the quiet of the morning, before the babes and husband have awoken, I find my breath. Multicolored twinkle lights glowing above my head and reflecting in the slider door, I look outside to our fairy forest, the first bits of light allowing it to be seen through the dense fog.

I feel tired, annoyed in this moment. These are the only quiet moments in my day and they are all to brief. Already I hear my girl starting to stir and I feel my body clench knowing at any moment she will enter my sanctuary and I will need to be mom, warm and loving, inviting.

It is not that I do not want to invite her into my quiet circle. I love the bubble of love and life that she and I create, that we have. Our secrets whispered, our bonds strengthened. It is that I feel I am losing me in this process of being a mother of two. Her brother more demanding than she ever was as an infant and not allowing any space for me (or her) to exist outside of him. Naps I am chained to his side, unable to do anything more than lay there, which brings its own set of frustrations into our world twice a day.

Try as I might to “take advantage” of that quiet time he demands and enforces I feel trapped, claustrophobic. I want to escape. I want quiet and tranquility on my own terms, not his. I want to have control of my being and not feel so imprisoned.  They say, hell I say, to savor these moments as they will pass too quickly, yet in the day to day I cannot wait for this phase to pass, for me to be able to get up to pee without him yowling and screaming awake.

I have no quiet, no rest, except in these first moments of the day. And they are not long enough. I crave to have the quiet stretch further out, so I can ease into life. No chattering, not cries. No need to feed any other body than my own. How in these moments I long for the days I didn’t appreciate before the babies came.

Yet even in that desperate longing I know I wouldn’t go back, even if I could. Despite the loss of a me I once knew and loved, they have truly given me life. They probe me and encourage me and expand me in ways I could have never imagined before them. And while I crave for solitude and tranquility in this moment, I would not have it at the loss of the chaos and noise that is my life now. I know, even though I protest and resist and whine, that these few moments in the morning will be enough for now, enough to recharge, to allow me to be. It is the time for the words to flow and my brain and soul and body to come into the world.

And soon enough this time will be gone too and the morning writing will be replaced by morning snuggles as my husband’s work schedule changes again. My quiet won’t come until the end of the day, when I am tired and words don’t always flow as easily. And this phase will pass too, as each before it did. I will find time for my words and for my family and for me in the constant ebb and flow that is our life.

This will pass too

Inspired by a prompt from Corinne Cunningham‘s Writing Naturally : Winter online workshop.

Mindfulness, Schmindfulness – Part Deux

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There’s been a lot about mindfulness in the media over the last month or so. The most recent piece receiving attention being the TIME magazine article by Kate Pickert. Both PsychCentral‘s Mindful Parenting writer Carla Naumberg and the Huffington Post‘s Religion writer Joanna Piacenza have responded, not really to the article, but rather to the cover art chosen to represent the article and mindfulness in general.

I’ve also been sorting out my thoughts on this “Mindfulness Revolution” and how it is portrayed in the media. In my most recent Mindful Connections newsletter I shared some of those thoughts (which I consider to be Mindfulness, Schmindfulness – Part One). This one issue of my newsletter has received such a response from my readers that it has become crystal clear I should share these thoughts with a larger audience.

It feels like the whole world has declared 2014 the year of Mindful Living (The Huffington Post; Get Up and Do Something; NewCo; and various bloggers, including this one, just to name a few). At first this excited me. Ah, finally! I thought. The world is being turned on to mindfulness, a practice that has literally changed my life and how I view it. I envisioned the masses slowing down, putting down their devices, connecting in real time with the real people right in front of them, be those people children, romantic partners, work colleagues or friends. I saw a baby utopia starting to incubate and felt how the masses would step into this other way of living, of connecting and all would be beautiful.

Yeah, I’m a dreamer.

However, with every new article and blog post I became more and more disenchanted, frustrated and frankly bored with how mindfulness is being portrayed to and understood by the general public.

I appreciate the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn and his wife Myla in taking that initial step to separate mindfulness from Buddhist practice. No longer did one need to be a devout Buddhist to practice mindfulness: anyone could do it and receive the benefits of the meditations and exercises. The Kabat-Zinns opened the door for every person, regardless of religious affiliation, race, economic status or gender, to experience mindfulness and to bring more joy and peace and connection into his or her life.

And yet, when one does a Google search of mindfulness, we see image after image of serene scenes; yoga and meditation poses; young, physically fit and white women (rarely men are pictured); or images of Buddhist nuns and/or monks. Everything (and everyone) pictured is calm, at-peace and has this inner-I-am-totally-at-ease-and-peace-with-everything glow. There is no laughter, no chaos, no joy, no reality depicted.

And frankly that pisses me off.

A message is being sent as to what Mindfulness should look like; what your life, if you are doing your mindfulness practice right, will look like. I’m not good with shoulds. Or have-tos. Or thou-shalts. I react strongly to unrealistic expectations or homogeneous pictures of “if you did it right, everything would look like this.”

Mindfulness started to take on a sheen that is actually the opposite of what a mindfulness practice actually is about. Suddenly we could judge each other and ourselves on a scale of how mindful we are (or aren’t) and there are failure marks.

One of the tenets of mindfulness is non-judgement of the moment, of ourselves, of others.  Oops.  Guess the mass media missed that part.

Suddenly there’s a standard (serene, physically fit, never yelling, always calm, never reacting to anything) that is being put out there. A very unrealistic and not-based-in-reality standard.

Life is busy and messy and because of this, people who practice mindfulness can also appear busy and messy. We yell. We get excited. We laugh loudly. We dance and bring up high energies.  We rest and produce more subdued energies. We yell at drivers who cut us off on the freeway. We get mad at our loved ones, friends, bosses, the world. Sometimes we hit things or throw things out of frustration.

We feel. We feel our anger, we don’t stuff it down. We experience it. We feel our joy, we don’t cling to it, we savor it in the moment. More often than not we can catch ourselves from yelling at our kids or partner or friends and take in deep slow breaths, find center for a minute and then analyze what is really going on, what is really being triggered here. It’s a practice. There is no perfect. It is a continuum that we as practitioners slide up and down.

As I said in my newsletter:

My goal for my mindfulness practice is not to have that “inner-I’m-totally-at-peace-with-everything glow.” No. The goal of my mindfulness practice is to enjoy life. My life. To connect to the people I love. To experience laughter and spontaneity and connection. To be true to Me, whoever I am in whatever moment. To be fully me, now. And that may mean swearing like a sailor at the person who cut me off on the freeway. It may mean turning off my laptop and having a tickle fight with my girl. It may mean taking lots of breaths and checking in with my body or maybe it means going and punching the crap out of a pillow or punching bag. It may mean creating art, or having a spontaneous dance party in our living room, or going for a walk, or kissing my husband just because, or going on a date with one of my best friends because we need some grown up time away from the kids.

My mindfulness practice may sometimes look calm and peaceful. And sometimes it won’t at all. And that’s the way I want it.

Because I want to experience all of life. I want to be present for it. I want ME to be present for it. Not some “model of mindfulness” rather the true me right now.

This is what mindfulness has brought into my life. Yes, I do actually have a sense of inner-peace I didn’t have several years ago. Yes, sometimes people even tell me I glow. But my life does not look like an undisturbed lake nor does it look like a woman calmly and serenely meditating on the shore of said lake. And I believe the same is true for most of those who practice mindfulness, living in the real world. There are days of rushing out the door to appointments or classes or work. There are quiet moments of watching and smiling and feeling at peace. There chaotic moments of interacting and smiling and feeling totally connected to the people we are with and to the world. And there are moments when we have to search for our ground, our center, our breath. And frankly there are moments when even if we need to search for these things, we don’t.

Because we are all human.

Mindfulness, for me, is about connection. Connection to my self and understanding how my body, mind and emotions react to the world. Connection to the people in my life and being present and interacting with them in real-time, without electronic distractions. Connection to my greater community and the world, developing a deeper understanding of the experiences of others.

Mindfulness is a lot less about sitting on a meditation pillow and being all “ooooohhhhhmmmmmmm” and a lot more about having a dance party with my with girl or a long talk at the end of the day with my husband about nothing in particular.

And yes, actually I do meditate and practice yoga. And yes, those practices are a fundamental piece of guiding me to be more centered and grounded; to being able to be more present. And yet those practices take up less than an hour of my entire day (on the days I actually do them); they are not what my whole life looks (or even actually feels) like.

I would love to hear your thoughts on what mindfulness means to you. Email me or comment below.

 

 

 

A Blessing for Us All

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May we find peace, calm and presence within the chaos of life.

May we savor this moment, right now.

May we feel the sand gently cutting into the bottoms of our feet as the salt water washes the tops.

May we find our community, our village, our tribe. May our lives be filled with Our People, connecting deeply, finding both support and loving challenge, for growth, for blossoming.

May we each have lots of ink on our skin, declaring who we were and who we are.

May the Softness envelope us, wrapping us each in our own cocoon of security and love.

May we be overfilled with the softness, so that it pours out of us, into the world, rounding the rough edges of all we meet.

May we have candle light and slow, lingering kisses.

May we have bubbles and giggles and lit up eyes all around.

May we release and find sweet forgiveness.

May we express the Divine within.

May we hear the ocean waves crashing, feeling them pull us in deeper and surrounding our whole being, becoming one with the wave, surfing it, just our body, and the ocean.

May we each find good health and free our bodies of sickness.

May our families grow as we long them to, feeling the child growing within, holding the sweet newborn to our breast.

May we feel crazy good.

May we embrace this life, to have a smile spread across our whole body as we see the beauty surrounding us.

May we have sunlight and color filling our homes, our lives, right now.

May we have gorgeous beads around our necks, wrists, ankles and dangling from our ears, an expression of our creativity, our beauty.

May we embrace our femininity, the gentle softness that is our birthright, feeling it deep in our bones and know that we are Whole, Enough, Beautiful as we were born, as we are now.

May we be held and told it will all be okay, this rough spot isn’t forever, This Too Shall Pass.

May we feel passion, savor all of life, connect deeply and completely to our bodies and our souls.

May we release the trauma living within us, be brave and move into this deep healing.

May we dance the Sacred Dance, what that means to each of us, together and apart, in our time and space.

May our breath be taken away by the gorgeous beauty and generosity of others.

May we take other’s breath away, with our beauty and generosity.

May we blossom and open, release the tightness, the clenching, find our fluidity.

May we come together, individuals into the whole, growing and guiding and changing each other as the rebels we are, and in this coming together may we change the world.

Namaste.