Can You Hear the Whistle Blowing?

This visual that I encountered when meeting with Renee was pretty profound. One experience that I love when I meet with her is that I have visions. I see myself in circumstances and situations that become much more interesting with Renee than if it were a passing thought on my own.

Renee has a wonderful ability to explore thoughts, visuals by asking the right questions.

The visual that I had that day when Renee talked to me about how I felt on my new spiritual journey, was first, walking like a penguin. I told her that I didn't feel off-balance in my "waddle" but actually comfortable...sort of a feeling like life's ebb and flow. Tick tock. Side to side. Steady.

After I described what my "walk" looked like these days, I had an image of me walking along train tracks, balancing on a rail.

No trains in sight.

No self-deprecating thoughts.

Just a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other walk. Renee thought my imagery was (and is) significant.

I'm walking along the rail.

Balancing.

Wobbling.

Hands out to the side to steady myself and to help me slow down.

We went further into what this train track visual could mean. I told Renee that I didn't feel like I was falling off the rails. Instead, I felt an oxymoronic sense of balance in the wobble. Being unsteady felt right.

My life isn't steady. It's a dance.

Good days.

Bad ones.

Rainy.

Sunny.

As I walk the rails and visualize myself, I told Renee that I wasn't afraid of falling off. She noted that if I did fall, it wasn't far and easy enough to get back on.

So true!

The train tracks represent a journey not a destination.

Even though I don't have far to fall from the edge of the track, I will fall. I do fall, and I've given myself permission to fall and be okay to get back up and keep on walking.

A significant revelation that came to me as I was talking, was how I had actually been learning the art of losing my balance and getting back up.

Thru...

Yoga.

The mantra of yoga is that the practice is yours, not anyone else's. No one is performing. Everyone gets off balance and there is permission and, above all, freedom to fall and get back up...over and over again. No judgement. No one is looking at your practice, your balance, your poses, your interpretations, your modifications, your need to rest while others continue.

Again. Yoga is a personal practice. Life is a personal practice.

And practices are unique to each and every individual.

The freedom for me in this revelation is profound, and I had no idea how some intentional days of yoga in a class would come around to mimic how to live life.

There's no balance. We can seek balance, but I think that when we do that, we lose focus. To hold a pose, you have to focus and when you're distracted, you topple--

I don't want to be distracted by an unrealistic goal of living a balanced life. It's not in the cards. That's okay.

That's wonderful!

So, as I unravel the threads of legalism, misplaced guidance, shaky foundations and more, my inability to fully balance has become a path to freedom.

Freedom to explore new ideas.

Freedom to be me.

Freedom to be okay with being me.

Freedom from unnecessary anxiety over "what will they think?"

Gosh. I just feel so full of life and joy right now. Writing down my experiences with Renee, my guided analogies and visuals, gaining understanding, revelation even...It's super exciting and energizing.

And while this train track image of me seemed so random...turns out there have been more train tracks in my life than I realized...

One: there was a train that ran behind our house when I was 5 and under. I remember it. I never walked its rails, but I can still hear the whistle blowing. I can still recall the "hobo" that stood and knocked at our sliding glass doors having just hopped off a box car.

Such is life

A journey

An unexpected knock on the door

A change of course

A shift in the track

No more balancing act...at least that's my goal, my intention.

Instead, a wobbly, imbalanced, incredible journey...