Lessons from the Universe- Part 2

So to continue yesterday's blog about changing your mindset about the lessons that keep showing up from the universe. If it doesn't mean that you've necessarily failed to learn a lesson just because the same lesson or similar lessons show up again and again, what could it mean or how could I change my mindset to learn something from it?

I kept thinking about things yesterday. I know I have things to learn from the lessons the universe is throwing at me again and again. But as I said yesterday, my dream and my trainer have let me know that I need to change my mindset about it and flip it. So how do I do that?

It's not enough to just realize that I haven't failed because the same lessons keep showing up. I need to practice and I need to learn deeper things and more facets of those lessons and understand that we face the same lessons at different times in our lives with different people. That's only the first step.

That helps me change the questions I can ask myself in order to learn the right things. Instead of asking myself why does this keep happening to me, or what am I doing wrong or blaming other people or other things, I can start asking different questions.

I can ask what can I do differently? What am I doing in these situations to create the wrong results? What are the signs I missed?

How can I handle these situations better in the future? How can I be prepared? How can I prevent? How can I change my focus? How can I pause? How can I be peaceful? How can I stop pushing?

I need to learn from this. Not so this lesson never shows up again. But because it's sure to show up again and I need to be ready for it.

Lessons from the Universe and My Trainer

I had a dream last night about hockey and quoting my trainer and it all came together this morning in the car and during yoga. Doesn't it always?

First my dream. Well, one of my dreams--I have all 18 theaters open every night. I don't know why there was a hockey team watching video games or something and they were trying to figure out shots (it won't make sense--it was a dream)...but the idea was that they were complaining because the video game was wrong because they couldn't have made those shots because there were other circumstances in between that made it impossible.

Anyway, I said, well, as my trainer always says, Change your mindset. Instead of worrying about why the game is wrong and why the shots can't be made, maybe the game is trying to teach you to think ahead. Instead of thinking that the shot is the end, maybe think past the shot and what can you do after the shot if it's missed and what move you might make then.

Again, this doesn't make a lot of sense now because it's a dream. But my brother somehow showed up, nodded, and said, Perspective.

My lesson when I woke up was that there are always new ways to look at things and new lessons to learn. This got me thinking about the quote that you see all the time about the universe keeps sending you the same lesson until you learn it.

And I flipped that quote for the first time. At first glance that quote seems to imply that if the same lesson keeps appearing in your life that somehow you haven't learned your lesson yet. You've failed. If you'd learned that lesson, it wouldn't keep showing up. But that's wrong. The universe is going to keep showing you that lesson in different ways to keep you on your toes.

Learning doesn't stop because you've learned something. It's like training. You don't stop training because you've trained once or learned an exercise. You keep training. You learn deeper. You learn better. You practice.

The universe keeps sending you the same lessons because you need practice. You need to remember what you've learned. You need to learn deeper. You need to learn in different ways. With different people. At different times. Maybe you even need to help other people learn, too.

Professionals athletes probably learned how to play as kids. They learned the rules. They learned the skills.  But the learning wasn't over then.

You keep learning and playing and getting better and better as time goes by. As you grow. As you play better opponents. There are degrees and levels of learning the same things. Different facets. New challenges. New ways of using your skills and applying those rules.

We learn life lessons the same way. We learn them. But we then we grow. Time goes by. We face different circumstances. We play different opponents. We have different teammates. We get out of practice. That doesn't mean we never learned anything. We always have more to learn. We always need practice.

I have learned many life lessons. I haven't failed because the universe is still sending me some of the same lessons. The universe is helping me. The universe is reminding me what's really important to me. What I need to practice. Deeper lessons. More facets. It's giving me more practice. It's making me better.

Tulips

The tulips are out again. I am reminded of the idea of introverts and tulips. I read somewhere once that introverts are like tulips. They can bloom and shine but for short periods of time and only after the winter of rest. They aren't like the summer flowers that bloom all summer long. I liked that idea.

Some people think that introverts never like to "come out" and have fun or be pretty. But they do. They just can't do it for a long time without needed the long rest of winter to be able to come back out again.

Lately I've been feeling like the way too wide open tulip that has been out in the sun for too long and the leaves have turned brown and the petals are falling off. I'm ready for a rest. I tried to be a summer flower like the rest of the world and it just didn't work. I can't be what I'm not.

I can't maintain the schedule that the rest of the world does.  I wilt. My petals fall off. I get ugly. Really ugly.

It feels like the world is made for the summer flowers. People don't get the tulips. But I'm the tulip so I'm the one who has to get them.

I have to figure out what I need. What my wintering involves so I can keep my flower blooming and stop my leaves from turning brown and my petals from falling off so easily and enjoy the sunshine more often. I'm a tulip and tulips are pretty cool and beautiful even if they don't last as long and need special care.

Giving Myself Credit

When I look back on my teaching career, and my fibromyalgia and early retirement, I sometimes feel like people think that I didn't just push myself enough. I was reading a book today about the happiness mindset and it talked about several celebrities with chronic conditions who have found ways to manage their conditions while staying positive and happy and I thought, shoot, I did that for 30 years!

I managed it. That is how I pushed through it. I went to bed early so I could get through the next day. Sometimes early meant 8:30. Sometimes early meant 6:30. I rested all weekend so I could make it through the week.

At different times I did yoga. I did walks. I got sun-simulation lamps.  I got massages.  I meditated during my lunch break. I researched homeopathic remedies. I read. I went to movies. I swam. I went to the hot tub.

I spent my summers resting on the porch making lesson plans and organizing my ideas so I had things ready for the year.

I spent 2 weeks in July cleaning and decorating and organizing my classroom so it was ready for the year because I knew I couldn't do it in a day before school started when things were already packed with other tasks.

I made routines for my lessons that benefited my students and also allowed me to have a rhythm and a rest every hour so I could get through my days. I needed pacing.

I still managed to add creativity, fun and variety to my lessons all the way up til the day I couldn't do it anymore. I always loved my job and my students. There just came a time when all the managing in the world wasn't working anymore. My body just wouldn't do it. It couldn't keep up.

Putting me down with shingles or ear infections or stomach flus or muscle spasms to force me to rest wasn't cutting it anymore. Going to bed at 5:30 every night wasn't enough.

So if people think I didn't push myself, I can't worry about that. I know I did. I managed and pushed myself for a long time. And I managed to be pretty positive and happy all that time.

I have to remember that now when I'm managing and pushing myself in different ways in my next phase of KBuddah life. I get in trouble when I focus on the past or the future. When I focus on the now and the present, the world falls into place the way it should.

I'm Two KBuddah Winters Old

Tomorrow we're supposed to get a little April snow. But I've made it through two winters now with KBuddah! And they've been the easiest winters I've been through in forever!

Winters are really hard on me. I remember saying those exact words a lot to myself in the past. Winters are really hard on me.

The darkness. The cold. The grey. It's not that I don't like winter. I never thought I minded it. I like snow sometimes. It's pretty. I like hiking in it even. I like fleece clothes and cozy fires and hot chocolate. I like cozy in general.

But something about winter is hard on my body. I get tired. I get really tired. Really, really tired. My pain was always worse. 

These past two winters seem to have gone by so easily. I've been tired. But that's not going anywhere. I'll get to that in a minute.

I've been tired, but I have gone out of the house to the gym at least 4-5 times per week and done workouts at least 3 times a week.

I have been overwhelmed at times, but for the most part, I have been able to keep up with my laundry and housework at home and with what I want to do to help at the gym and even take showers after every workout day. 

When I used to be overwhelmed, I'd have to take days and weeks off to catch up. Now I can catch up in a day or two or over a weekend.

Things like taking showers and doing laundry and dishes likely sound like things normal people do all the time, but for me, those are things that were very difficult to manage when I was working and in pain and exhausted. 

As spring arrives, I feel the next level of KBuddah training arriving as well. My surface pain and the radiating pain that was non-stop, has essentially disappeared. That happened really quickly after I started training. That was a huge surprise to me. I never expected that to happen.

It's a difficult pain to describe. It was a dual pain. There was a skin pain and then there was a pain that was a little deeper that was like the aches from the flu or the soreness from working out that was there all the time. 

All the time. It was nagging and relentless. It wore me out physically and emotionally. I still have back pain, but that's different and separate.

Underneath that skin and aching pain was a really deep and sharp muscle pain that was almost in my bones. That pain is more like the deepest part of a black bruise. Like when you hit your muscle on the sharp corner of a table. But I feel that pain from just pressing on my muscles. 

That pain is still there. It's still underneath my skin. It's still deep in my muscles and between my ribs. Deep in my thighs. In the knots in my shoulder blades. Under my armpits. It hasn't gone away. I just don't feel it all the time. But it's still holding onto things. It's still wearing me out. 

Khris has started a stretch and recovery class. This class has started to dig deeper into the muscles and let out something. When I first started training, I'd have emotional releases after training at random times.

I believe that was my body releasing pain and tension and stress that my muscles had been holding for years. I believe that's how the pain started leaving my body. 

Now it's time for this deep pain to start to release. I don't know if it will ever totally let go, but I'm ready to put in the work to see what happens.

I'm grateful to have a partner like Khris who will push me and push my muscles and not worry about the tears that come. He only worries about the progress that will come by the time I'm Three KBuddah Winters Old. 

Living in the Present Is the Only Resolution I'll Ever Need

Meditation has a scary, intimidating sound to it. but if you just let that go, it can be found in everyday things. In January of 2017, my New Year's resolution was to live more in the present. I'm still living that resolution. It stuck. It's something I can return to all the time. I don't have to make a new resolution every year. I can just use that one to do anything I want in life.

I started with cleaning out my closets that year. I decided to pull everything out of all of my closets at once. It was a bold move. But one I knew I needed to take because  I was so worn out that if I started small, it would never get done. And one I had the luxury of taking because I live alone.

Then I lived in the present every day by focusing on the little things. I didn't look at the big mess. I just walked over the mess and  took small parts and addressed them every day for months. Little by little it got done and got done the right way. That one thing led me to so many rewards.

I need to do another big closet cleaning. I have some trouble balancing my resting and my house cleaning still. But my huge purge 2 years ago and keeping things really minimal has made cleaning up and clearing up so much easier when I do it.

But what does that really mean to live in the present? What I tried to do is focus on stopping myself from ruminating on the future or the past. I've found that the way to do that is to just do something. Focus. Focusing sounds intense. But it is one of those paradoxes that I love. When you focus you can let go.

In meditation, you focus on your breath. When you focus on your breath, you can let your thoughts go. That's why personal training with Khris is so present-moment and meditative. It's very focused. When you focus on your form or your breathing or small precise movements, you let go. You are not mindlessly doing reps or thinking about what you're going to do later in the day.

When you focus on small things, you are in a meditative and relaxed state. I remember reading an organization book that started with shining your kitchen sink. It told you that no matter what the condition of your entire house, it wanted you to empty your sink and clean it until it shined. You were to scrub it with Comet and use SOS pads and do everything possible to make it perfect.

It was a way to get you to take some action, but not just any action. An action that was focused and small and really had you in the moment. You didn't have to make decisions and your mind couldn't wander.

I love small focused tasks like that. Sometimes, they are the most satisfying. Cleaning a light switch plate or a door knob. Shining a mirror. Cleaning the screen on your phone.

The expression that the little things are the big things is perfect for meditation and living in the present. It's why I love yoga and training. If you start to judge and worry, you've lost your focus. Sometimes when I'm in yoga or training, I can make an improvement that is so tiny. Sometimes I can only feel the intention of the improvement in my body. I can feel my energy reaching in that direction. To me, that's meditation. It's living in the present.

If I have things I want to do or find I need in my life, I think the place to start is to figure out how I can live in the present to make them happen.

What Got Trained Today?

Did you train arms? Legs? Core? Nope. That's not what I'm talking about. Training is deeper than that and we need to look deeper when we think about our training and reflect on our sessions.

Train: teach a particular skill or type of behavior through practice and instruction over a period of time. 

We learn all kinds of new behaviors and skills from our training from our coach and from ourselves and the practice over time. We learn discipline, compassion, persistence and much more. We learn very personal and practical lessons, if we pay attention. 

Yesterday, I was at the gym when another client was experiencing a very intense moment with Khris, a high jump box and his own fortitude. From the outside it could have been interpreted many ways. I won't interpret it. I will say that the boy who experienced it has a lot to unpack from his training! 

His lessons could include simply training lessons about getting over his fear and getting over the box. But there's so much more there. The moment he thought might be disappointing to his coach, he found out later was the highlight of his coach's day. Khris posted his pride all over social media. There is a lot to be learned from that. 

Again, I won't presume to learn his lessons for him. But I learned lessons FROM him! And I learned that there's always more to learn from training than it seems. We need to look deeper every time we train at what we can learn from our practice. What did we train in addition to our body?