A week ago, I drove from San Jose to Los Angeles, listening to Paulo Coelho's THE PILGRIMAGE and I was reminded that this would be the exact time I would have been walking El Camino de Santiago. Today marks the 6 month anniversary of my father's passing. Writing that makes me exceedingly sad, and I can feel my throat start to close. It was on the ride when I decided to instead create an inner pilgrimage for myself, in southern California, using my apartment as home base. The purpose of going on the pilgrimage is to tune into the energetic forms of support around me that I am unable to see but that I know are there. Support of my ancestors, my angels, the spirits in the leaves, Earth, sky, clouds, water, and the Universe itself. 

I am in a unique time in my life. I am six months into the loss of my parents. My home of 24 years is on the market. My friends, my tribe have been decimated during the pandemic. My career is in need of a complete overhaul. I am at a time in my life where I need to rebuild how I live. Nearly all aspects of my life need to be changed. 

I do not have parents to take care of, for the first time in my life.  I do not have children to take care of. I have a wide open field in front of me, or rather a cliff, and I have one foot outstretched about to walk off. 

I know I will be caught. I always have. And for the first time, instead of solely relying on other people, or turning to myself, I am turning to the web of energetic support that holds me up, keeps me moving forward, so I can step into a fuller and fuller version of myself. 

I am feeling drawn to turning inward. To listening ever so deeply. To that voice that knows. The voice that has the answers. Answers from the heart. Answers from the soul. 

I believe when decisions are made from a place of love, then my life track becomes more elevated. This is an experiment to see how highly I can elevate my life track. 

Today, I needed to treat myself with comfort. It was such a strong message. After I nearly passed out during Stength Training, doing a simple side bend. I nearly passed out.  I nearly threw up. And then the wave of emotion came.  So much grief. My day today, to listen to what I need - comfort.

I have a tendency to sit for many hours and not move.  I can be stagnant. My energy becomes stagnant. This experimental pilgrimage is all about the exploration of energy. My body is more energy than it is matter. I notice I sit in stagnation which keeps the energy of my body moving. An important part of that is my emotional body. When I move my body, the energy of stuck emotions can begin to move as well.  I know this. I am trained in this. I completely forget that I do.

I have a music playlist I started building about a year ago called "Peace, etc." It has become my pandemic playlist, to envoke the feelings I would like to be living, day to day during the pandemic. I keep adding to it. It is now a day long. 

Today, in an effort to move my energy, and to give myself comfort, I lay on the floor, with the playlist on, and allowed myself to move, in the most self comforting way I could in the moment.

It's funny how amnesiac I can be when practicing skills I know and teach others.

​

On the fist day of my internal pilgriamage  I went on a hike that could have been a dusty road in Spain. 
Intention: to 

Starting a blog. It seemed like the easiest idea. So her it goes.
Sunday. Day 4.
This was the time I was planning on going on El Camino De Santiago. It's been six months since my father has passed. Nearly to the day. I was preparted. Not at all surprosed. Only surprised that he lived so long. It is three years since his first round of pneumonia. The one that was expected to be fatal. But he would have nono f it. He loved life too much. Especially at the end. His final years. when his body was failing in so many ways, For over a year, he had only access to use of his right arm and turnin gof his head. His mental afuclies were usually in tact, although his reality was permeable. He often recounted the same memories of his yearlier years over and over again. Shortly after his first round of phemonia, he needed a new mattress. He gained an electric hospital bed at home. He instructed me that the best mattresses were filled with horse hair and asked if we could get him one. I told him that advancements had been made over the past 100 years.
But the purpose of walking el comino, for me, would be to well, another time. Stephen is insiting on placing himself in my line of vision while working out and jumping rope. this is not the place to go internal.
Today is day four on my internal pilgramage. I fear I may have made the wrong choice to come to the park for a class with Stephen. I honestly would have prefered to have stayed in bed, l
It is KUSC's Fall membership drive. I make a one time donation,w hich will be matched and doubled, during my favorite show, A MUSICAL OFFERING. Two hours of Barouque music on Sunday mornings. It has been a stabilizing presence during the pandemic. Consistancy that has carried over from my pre-pandamic life. One thing I would like to keep. There aren't many other things. Now is the time of change. Huge transsition, as I take this time to rewrite how I do my life. Ona adaily level. On a grand level. Setting up how I want to live for the rest of my life.
Constantly tweaking my inner life. So that my outer life would reflect it.

A live dedicated to deepening ny relationship tiwht my intertnal world. the energetic forces that surround me and support me. the parts of me that I can not see. maintaining and build the parts of me that I can see.
tNoticin what I cave control over. And what I don't.

And at the moment, I feel I owe myself an apolgy - and a forgeviness. I thought the opportunity to come with Stephen this morning to the par in Encino, would be a nice way to connect. I enjoyed his class in Plummer Park so much, I though it would be great to take this class, as well. And the weather. So beautiful, crisp. cool. And these were all intellectual decisions. Overriding how I felt when I actually woke up this morning. And now that I am in the car with 20 minutes before the start of class, I ​

The day I finished listening to The Pilgrimage I came across this piece at an art show. 

​Beauty. Exquisite beauty. Effortless. Radiant. Effortless beauty. The beaty that makes you gasp. The beauty of the sound that makes your heart stop. The beauty ofmusic played from the soul. Beauty that does not stop. The beauty to behold of magic and wonder.
 
This is what I aspire to experience and embody.
The knowing the feeling the being of beauty.
 
It is part of the refinement of aging. Along with the other parts of life that need mantaning and strengthening. Along with that is beauty.
 
SO that the external world reflects the internal.
 
I am drawn now to go internal.
I am now becoming more interested in the parts of myself that I can not see but that I know are there. The energy I can not see but I can feel. The support aroundme that I can not see, but keeps me afloat.
The invisible cheerleaders.
The hammock that has kept me lifted and supported my whole life but now, moreso than ever.
You see, within the past 6 months, I have lost my father, and I now have no parents. My home of 24 years has been placed on the market, and my career is in need of an entire overhawl. My unemployment expired September 4th.
I am at a moment in my life with a wide wide open expanse in front of me unlike I have ever had before. And I feel almost completely unteathered. And yet, the part of me that knows I’m ok is the part of complete blind faith.
And a belief that I am capable of creating or co-creating my life.
I am choosing to do that with a practice of deepening faith and surrender to all that I cannot see but trust is there. Support. Energetic support.
The beauty of presence is exactly the state that I am living now, day to day.
I had planned on walking El Camino de Santiago after my father passed and this is the exact time I planned on being there. But the pandamic changed that plan.
 

Over the past few years, I have been working with how words resonate with people.  I always had a sense that words resonate differently with each person, but working with a client today, I reached a deeper understanding.  

How does the word, "work" resonate with you?  With my client today, it made her feel dense, heavy, full of obligation.  Work is hard.  

This reminds me - I know someone who decided that he wanted to experience work as though he was on vacation.  He felt like he was on vacation on the weekends when he was restoring his mountain home.  Soon after making that realization, he started getting approached by his neighbors to help with restoration projects on their homes.  A few months later, he did the unthinkable - he quit his high stress job in the city and got his contractor's license.  This launched his new career as a general contractor. His new business grew quickly and consistently, based on referrals.  He said he didn't even feel like he was working any more.  It was what he loved to do.

I don't want to minimize what it takes to make a life transition of that magnitude.  Courage and trust and a ton of support from people around him who believed in him from day one. And it started with him choosing to redefine what work meant for him.

Today, I had a different take on the meaning of the word with my client:

She said, "I'm working on treating myself better and carving more time out for myself".  So, inherently, by her own definition of work, treating herself better is connected to feeling dense, heavy and full of obligation.  I suggested, "What if we replaced the word 'work' with the phrase, 'being open to'"...

She paused and took that idea in for a moment.  And, physically, she exhaled.  Already, just considering this idea inspired a release for her.  She said that made her feel light, stress free.  

And then, I added, "with the intention of balancing out your life."  And that completed the concept for her.

We went from "I'm working on treating myself better..." to "I am open to treating myself better and carving out time for myself, with the intention of balancing out my life."  She said the sense of obligation went away. She had a sense of possibility and allowing of things to shift for her.

Work doesn't have to be hard, exhausting, just good enough.  I've seen, over and over again, that there are far more opportunities and possibilities than you can imagine at this moment.

It's one of my favorite things about this process - seeing the new come in.