JOY TO THE FISHES & THE DEEP BLUE SEA

"Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves

 to recognize how good things really are."

Marianne Williamson

I have a gift  - a talent - something I took for granted for so long because I thought it came easy peasy to every body.

I know how to access my JOY.  I know what it feels like in my bones - I know how it feels to open my heart.   I know how to shahahare it and spread it so others feel it too.  

It's something I practice daily.  I jump for joy.  I dance.  I sing.   I laugh in the sea.  I lay back in the water and let her hold me gently.  I open my mouth and make a sound - hahaha.   I hear it with my ears submerged under the water.  Feeling vibrations in the waves as I flow.

I didn't realize that peeps have become disconnected with their joy.  Misery does love company and peeps love to complain and focus on the one gray cloud in the sky rather than the vastness of  blue and the occasional white cloud ballet.

Most people think that JOY is something outside of us - to be found or acquired.  Actually, it's an energy we knew how to access as children and over the years, we forgot.

JOY is a fire from within. An energy of HAhaHAppy that gets ignited by touch, smell, sound and memory. It's a feeling - a birthright - that we get from the simplest of things.

JOY is about finding the pleasure right NOW. Accepting ALL that is in our lives with grace. Surrendering to the circumstances with gratitude.   For me, this means focusing with an attitude of gratitude on everything that is within and surrounds me. Enthusiasm for my time RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW on this heaven on Earth. Joy at the simple pleasure of being alive and breathing.  Joy at the freedom I have to rise and stretch.  Joy at putting my fingers in paint and plastering a piece of paper with color.  Joy at the opportunity to sing with the birds in the early hours of dawn.  Joy to move and shake and dance - woohoo.

I've spent the last ten years of my life remembering how to shift my focus from outside of me to within. Learning to redirect my energy and attention to a vibration of gratefulness for all the abundance I am blessed with.  Doing this with kindness and compassion for me as I delve deeper into the OMazing miracle of life.

This last week, on Day 12 of Oprah & Deepak's 21 Day Meditation - the theme was Living Laughter.  Deepak shared that: "pure, innocent laughter is the most obvious sign of the joy we feel in our hearts. It is also a powerful and instant way of spreading that joy all around you."  

This gift is so easy and yet so difficult to achieve.   It is so much easier to complain and stay in the negativity. It takes work to shift this mindset and raise our altitude.  It takes just a MOMent to open the heart and share our true nature.   There is no other way to the LOVE that we are.

This spiritual discipline of HAhaHAppy - LAUGHTER - keeps me in the flow of bliss.  I connected to this truth years ago.  I saw people's eyes light up with laughter and I wanted this magic in my life.  I wanted the lightheartedness of spirit that I felt and the energy of ecstasy that I witnessed.   As I let go of things that no longer served me and became a Master at the Art of Doing Nothing, I built my laughter muscle.  I remember recapturing the feeling of childhood and expressing my joy through laughter. It felt so good to relax muscles and organs and just be free to express my heart's haHAhappiness.  Today, the joy i feel in my heart shows up as laughter on my lips - a deep appreciation for all that I have and am in this moment.

"Joy to the World, all the boys and GIRLs.

Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea,

Joy to you and me."

- thahahank you Three Dog Night (see video below)

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

 OUR TRUTH - ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

  "I am so blessed , I am so blessed, I am so grateful for all that I have."   

                                                                          - Karen Drucker

These words are the lyrics to Karen Drucker's song (see the whole song in the video above). The words of this song set the tone for my day, each and every morning.  I focus on what is truly important - how blessed I am and grateful for all that I have.

2014 is my year of Gratitude.  Checking in, halfway into our year - I've shed so many skins, loosened so many layers and let go of all things that I have no control over. The weather, the news, traffic, other people, death, aging....  

What I can control - what I have 100% autonomy is my ATTITUDE.  I choose how I will respond or react to any situation that crosses my path.  My research, over the years, shows me that the only attitude that really works and gives me what I want (health, happiness, abundance) is GRATITUDE.   Here are more things that my gratitude research reveals or 3 things that I know to be true about gratitude:

Truth:  GRATITUDE IS A MUSCLE

Gratitude - saying thank you on the INside and out - to each and every thing that comes my way, no matter what it looks like when I receive it.   

This was not allways my way.  

I would go from experience to experience without taking the time to digest and savor.  

Now, I stop and breathe and process all the juiciness that is in my life.  Expressing gratitude when I first wake up for the legs that let me stand, for my heart that beats, for the arms and hands that let me move and feel.  Singing gratitude for what my eyes see and my mouth tastes.

When I get lost in my thoughts or lose my focus, I stop and breathe and get down on my knees and get gr8full - counting my blessings and thanking the Universe for all the chaHAhallenges and opportunities in my life to LOVE.  

The Universe works in mysterious ways and what I see is not always what is.   

Being in gratitude allows me to chaHAhange my perspective - have aHAHA moments and appreciate this life I have.

Before I go to bed, I get quiet and do a Pussy Ritual.  

I put my hands on my core - my sweet spot (the sacred space with 8000 sensory nerve endings designed for pure pleasure ) - I meet up and I feel theall the pleasure in my life and I give thanks - 12 times.  12 things that I acknowledge that brought me pleasure and I am truly greatFULL for.  12 things that I love about myself and how I be in my world.   12 people that touched my life today.

I flex and strengthen this attitude of gratitude.   I work it out by putting words on paper and writing thank you notes or doing a Act of Random Kindness (ARK).   I expand my muscle by knocking on a neighbor's door or calling a friend and just listening.  I cultivate gratitude by sitting in the grass and taking in the nature that surrounds me - hugging a tree and talking to the squirrels and being One with my surroundings.

Truth:  GRATITUDE IS A MULTI SENSORY EXPERIENCE

Gratitude is more than the words we say.  It's a feeling - deep inside - of reverence and irreverence for life.

It's feeling GREATfull for the smell of a fresh peeled orange in the morning or squirting lemon in my glass of water.  It's feeling pleasure for the cotton modal fabric I adorn my body with and the lotus flower that sits on my tush when I put my yoga pants on.  

It's tasting the dew on a leaf outside my door as I prepare for a walk with .  It's breathing in the sunrise as the clouds dance and change colors.  It's touching my cat's fur and feeling her purr in response as we dance, fingers to fur.

Using my senses to experience gratitude heightens the experience.  It keeps me in that delicious vibration of aBUNdance as more comes my way.  It brings me delightful and pleasurable experiences.

Truth:    WHAT I FOCUS ON, I GET MORE OF

As my understanding of myself shifts - my perspective chahahanges.  As my attention resides with what is good in my life, I find myself noticing more all the little things I take for granted.   

I focus on my breath and being healthy.  My world expands so I find the right teachers and arenas to make small adjustments for optimal alignment and balance.

I focus on my family - all the Wee Ones - I get to see them all in one weekend - six nieces and two nephews, three sisters and two brothers.

I focus on my ability to laugh, at myself, and with myself.  
I focus on the joy of being outside in nature every day.  
I focus on the freedom to be and do, in my pleasure.

It took the lens of GRATITUDE to see all the yummy and exhilarating life lessons that have created me, Goddess Diana, the human bean that I am becoming. Looking at THEN and seeing how it has shaped NOW. And finding the gifts of THEN in the NOW. 

I am so grateful for THEN. I am so blessed for where it has brought me NOW.  I am so grateful for this PRESENT.

REST & LAUGHTER

 

  

Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive 
acts of all.    Laugh, rest, slow down.

                              -  Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

I've spent years perfecting the Art of Doing No Thing - one of the most difficult things I've ever had to learn to be.

First, I thought doing no thing was taking a day off work and lounging around the house - watching TV, reading a book, catching up on household chores.... I realized I was still doing something.   

I incorporated napping into my schedule.  I would lay there on my bed and while my body was at rest, my mind was running thousands of miles an hour.  Feeling guilty for all the things I should be doing. Not giving myself permission to just be.

I incorporated guided meditations during naptime - listening to someone's voice take me on a journey of the inner recesses of my mind - focusing on a mantra and tuning into the musical soundwaves.  Gradually, my mind slowed down.  Emptied out a little bit.  I realized that I didn't need to sleep.  I just needed to be still.

My dog encouraged me to go outside.  We would sit on the grass doing no thing - listening to the wind blow.  Feet naked in the ground - watching the tree branches sway.  When thoughts would come up, I would watch them and bid them peace and farewell.  Taking a deep breath and focusing on my environment - the luscious grass, the cool earth, the trees providing me with shade.

Laying back on the ground, watching the clouds dance.  Turning over on my stomach, observing the ants marching up and down grass stalks. A whole ecosystem below me - holding me up and providing me comfort.  Connecting my nature to nature.  It felt so peaceful and energizing.

I realized that slowing down and resting gave me more energy and stamina when I shifted into being a human doing again.

I began to seek other ways to find this delicious peace of resting - this pleasureful sensation of feeling loose and present in my body - relaxed yet aware.

I found it in laughter.   When I have a good laugh, it's like I shaHAhake all my cells up.  Everything jiggle and joggles and gets moved about.   A delicious chaHAhaos of breath resulting in peace and relaxation within.   

In the beginning, to have a good laugh laugh, I watched funny movies or listened to a comedian.  While that helped, it kept my mind going with all sorts of stimuli.   Laughter Yoga - laughing for no reason - brought me the stillness of mind I was seeking.  Engaging my body to function in a way that was pleasureful to my soul.  Creating a sensation of mirth within that would overflow outside of me and make a wonderful sound.

We live in a culture where we are taught to do, do, do - rest is seen as being lazy.  We live in a world of seriousness and stress.  Laughter is not the norm.  Both of these birthrights taken away as we grow up to fit our society.

Yet - we seek it.  We crave it.  The pleasure of stillness - of being, resting, laughing.  When we hear it and experience it, it lightens up our soul.   Yes, Anne Lamott, I am a subversive, a pleasure Revolutionary to my core.   Woohoo!!!

HAHA in the AIR

I just returned from Ecuador - more specifically Vilcabamba, Valley of Longevity, and even more precisely, MonteSuenos, Mountain of Dreams.  

My heart called me to this sacred space from the MOMent I heard its name. WSM Noah asked me "Why Ecuador?"  I knew not why, I just knew I had to go and explore, experiment and express.

SisterGoddess Lourdes' daughter and her partner brought a group of women and a few brave and bold men together for a Sacred Nature Journey of the Sierras of Ecuador.  

I spent one glorious fabulous week in a sacred space of creativity - a space created by one woman and her hubby - her vision of what our world can be - through the eyes of the Divine Feminine.  This space nurtured my soul, my body and my heart.

I met new peeps and reconnected with some I already knew.  I felt like I was living out of a novel - EAT, PAINT, PRAY - hahaha.

Our days were OMazing - woke up to a SisterGoddess police officer who kicked my ass doing cardio at 5:15 a.m. with the dogs and burros and roosters singing their melodies.   Sunrise yoga stretching our bodies as the sun lifted over the mountaintops.   Yummy fruit breakfasts and walk down the mountain for some green juice.  A walk back up the mountain for my morning workout and then sacred painting circles.  Followed by Laughter Circles and lunch.  Woohoo.

I had the pleasure and joy of being with three of my laughter yogini peeps, SisterGoddess Lourdes, SisterGoddess Nilsa and WSM Victor.   WSM Victor and I would laugh all the time - just looking at each other - for no reason at all except it felt great.

Our house, at the top of the mountain, had a fabulous place to laugh.  Right around the firepit, overlooking the valley of Vilcabamba and the mystical magical Mandango Mountain, SisterGoddess Lourdes led a Laughter Circle almost every day.  Just before lunch, we would walk up to the firepit, overlooking the valley of Vilcabamba and shaHAhakti shaHAhake and laugh like lawnmowers and HO HO HAHAHA - playing and hugging and laughing and moving our bodies.   We laughed so hard residents of both houses could hear us.   The kitchen staff would crack up as they were preparing our delicious meals, mixing into our food the wonderful enerchi of love and laughter.

We infused the air with HAHA chi and let it roll down the mountain into the valley and rise back up again with the delicious smelling air up the sides of all the mountains.

We yelled out affirmations in Spanish and gibberished on our mountaintop - spreading our juicy yummy enerchi for all to feel.  It was OMazing - we were OMazing - life is OMazing.

A great big thaHAhank you for SisterGoddess Lourdes and bringing Laughter Yoga to Ecuador, from the beaches to the mountains and next year into the rainforests.

Woohoo