That's the name of my blog.
I chose it because I know that learning is a life long endeavor. We would all (especially me) love to believe that at some point we figure this whole life thing out. Unfortunately I don't really think figuring it out is the point.
We beat our heads against a wall and mentally and spiritually exhaust ourselves trying at times.
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
So then, what is the point?
I have this recurring thought and I am fairly certain most other humans must have it too.
These like, twilight zone moments where nothing feels real, yet you're self realization in the moment makes everything extremely creepily real and weird.
Why am I on this earth?
Why am I breathing?
How is that actually working?
Why are there trees, and sky, and water, and food, and pets, and children, and war, and poverty, and cruelty, and struggle, and death, and pain, and loss, and happiness?
What in the world am I doing here?
Do I have some purpose?
Am I on some kind of mission?
Am I a mistake?
Are you a mistake?
How is there even a me and you that can know and talk to one another?
Its all fucking madness.
Am I just a random happening because of some germs or cells accidentally landed on a planet that happened to have sunshine and water?
Excuse my language, but seriously. wtf?
Wtf is going on here?
I have this annoying desire to know every fucking thing.
Maybe everybody is like that but I tirelessly search, study, learn consume, question and oy', it makes me very very tired.
Really, its a very frustrating personality trait. I think there is a name for it, oh yeah, a know it all.
Ha!
No one likes a know it all!
I hate the desire to know it all. But it is a painful fact of me and I annoying myself daily, like brain just please stop. I don't want to think anymore.
But think I must.
One of my favorite thinkers of all time is C.S. Lewis.
Mr. Lewis said this:
“The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”
Ugh... C.S. you just get me. I feel you.
That thought. That, what even is this life?
That alone is our proof of something more. It gives me peace. I have this desire for this life not to be a waste of time, meaningless, an accident, so it is so. I believe it to be more than an accident, and so it is.
What an amazing, agonizing, beautiful, super annoying thought.
There is peace and there is question.
The peace is that the mere desire to question means that there is an answer. That's kind of scientific you know.
I have had such an interest in religion over the past several years.
I went to a private Catholic School and was often the proud receiver of the most Christian behavior award.
I'm not sure if they gave that award to me because I was especially kind or because I was for the most part a horrible student and they felt bad for me because I was never gonna make that A grade, but I know that I have spent most of my life trying to be nice to people. I try to be a good human. I've failed at that a good bit too but at least I can admit to it and I think that gives me a few more good human points.
Is the point of this life to be a "good human"?
Is there really a God who set up this little game called life that you don't actually get to know all the rules. You just take your best guess and if you guess wrong, SORRY eternal flames for your bbq'ed butt! Shoulda' guessed right!
Meh'
I don't think so.
I'm a parent and I would never put my children in a situation with unclear expectations and then punish them for not correctly guessing exactly what I want from them.
Some Christians would say well that's why we have the Bible.
From my personal study there is grey area in the Bible as well. Lots of it really. It is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read with so much wisdom and so much truth but it still has debatable information and the Church has agreed with me on that several times. Its why we quit burning and stoning people. Its why we quit selling our daughters or forcing them to marry their rapist. Its why I can eat pig when I feel like it.
You see the word has evolved. Our understanding and interpretation has evolved many times over the years. Why would we quit evolving now?
I think that when we cling so tightly to a certain set of beliefs it becomes more of a pursuit of our egos to be correct rather than a honest pursuit of truth. We have to stay humble and always ready to be told "hey stupid, you're doing it wrong!" The Bible warns us about staying on our toes, staying critical of ourselves. The Bible does not approve of self righteousness. So don't be an ass. Its pretty simple, the Bible doesn't like people who act like asses.
C.S. Lewis became a believer in his pursuit to disprove that there was a God.
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. Just how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? … Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless—I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning. (Mere Christianity, 45-46)
When I had my first child 7+ years I wanted desperately to raise him perfectly.
I cant tell you what a gift he was to me but I will try.
I had 7 miscarriages before him.
I found out that I had this chromosome disorder that caused miscarriage.
How can we be some divine creation that has these flaws?
My DNA is literally flawed.
In my mothers womb I didn't receive the correct genetic information some was missing on Chromosome 2 so chromosome 4 broke itself and attached to Chromosome 2.
My living blood saw my flaw that would have caused my mother to miscarry me left unchecked and it fixed itself.
Is that some bad ass science or what?
Genetics fascinate me!
However the flaw still lives in me and that is why I had so many losses. Why didn't my body fix itself again?
How could it know, fix itself once and then not know again?
I guess the answer is that my blood isn't that smart rather its an organism that naturally heals itself when possible. If I get a cut I grow a scab but I don't think of the process. it just happens on its own.
But OMGOSHHHH how does it do that on its own?
I'm experiencing more wtfs.
The point I'm getting at is this baby that finally came to me he was just everything. And I wanted to provide a perfect life for him.
So that meant Church, right?
Well for a few years we attended a local Catholic Church that my husband was raised in but I looked at my babies (yes I had another, both were baptized Catholic) So we go to this Church but I looked at my children and they were absorbing nothing and quite frankly neither was I!
So we switched Churches to a non denominational Christian Evangelical Church. It was a lovely Church with lovely people that I still love dearly, still love all those darned Catholics too so if I step on anyone's toes I will kiss them, I mean no offense. I'm just being real. "be either hot or cold" right?
We ended up leaving the evangelical Church as well because to be perfectly transparent it didn't feel right either. It felt like too much, too all consuming. It left me feeling guilty all the time at a point in my life where I was trying to live as purely as humanly possible. I felt constant shame and guilt. I had given up all alcohol, I had become completely submissive to my husband, I had my kids in religion programs and I sang in the Choir and all of that has lovely memories attached to it but still something did not feel right about it to me, for me and my children and continuing to pursue something I didn't fully believe in made me feel false and I just cant live untrue to myself or to my children. If there is an all-knowing God that hears all that I think then I couldn't fool him/her anyway, so why try?
So we quit going to Church but that didn't stop me from studying my Bibles, yes Bibles that's plural.
I have a King James, a Catholic addition, a new living addition, a chronological addition, a Jehovahs witness addition, and I even have the book of Mormon that I have read large parts of.
I have had the sweetest of sweet lady come to visit me weekly for almost 3 years now. She is a dedicated Jehovah's Witness and I admire her and her personal conviction even if it is not my own. I sit with her 1 hour per week and I listen to her lessons and they are beautiful and she is just wonderful. Jehovah's witness don't believe in Hell. They believe that the earth will be healed and renewed and the people that God chooses to "remember" will come back and the "bad humans" will simply be forgotten.
For a couple of years I regularly hung out with and studied with Mormon missionaries. The Mormon missionaries are literally the best people ever and if you have never chatted with them then you should! They are just the most open minded, loving, giving people that might ever cross your path! The Mormons or the Church of Latter Day Saints don't really believe in Hell either they believe in different levels of spirituality in the after life so the better we are now the higher level we will attain in the after life.
My issue with religion is the ego and authority in it. Somebody always wants to be the boss. Someone wants to be right and wants someone else to be wrong. In my heart its to convicting of everyone but its self. Us humans we do that we like to point the finger more than we like to look in the mirror.
I love Theology. Its one of my favorite things. I have no doubt there are bigger workings than what we see on the surface. I also have no doubt that we are currently in a state of consciousness that we are for whatever reason unable to fully understand. Maybe its that were not ready.
As a parent there are certain theories, ideas, movies, thoughts that I don't yet share with my children (not many, I'm a pretty open book with my kids) but for the sake of their inborn innocence and their right to figure things out on their own there are talks we don't have yet.
Maybe that is what it is like in the Universe for humans. There is simply information out there that we are not mature enough to digest. Never fear though, we are growing and learning and when the time is right I think we will be filled in. So why then waste our time, during this precious life experience trying to figure it all out?
It is so peaceful to give that up. Its not that I don't care anymore, its that I have complete faith that the answers will come when its time for them to come and that I cannot and do not have to try to control things that are so much bigger than me. I can let that go. Its a freeing feeling and full of trust and love.
I still teach my kids about Jesus. I believe the things he said. I believe he said that he was the divine son of God and that we were all his brothers and sisters and he wanted us to know how much we were loved and that like the saying "namaste" he saw the divine in us and invited all of us even murders to join him. I love Jesus!
SO my reason for yoga?
I have looked into the religious associations with yoga Buddhism and Hinduism and they are neat religions but just like western religions they largely oppress women and minorities and I'm not down with that.
So my yoga is not associated with any religion.
It is associated with deep love for myself and others.
I do find it to be extremely spiritual.
Yoga is all about accepting the way things are and controlling our reactions. Finding the power or source within ourselves to feel whole in a world that sometimes tears us apart. There is a world happening around us all day everyday and often we all feel like we are spinning out of control.
Jobs, kids, relationships, bills all need, need, need all day. All the noise of everyday life constantly pulling at us. Its stressful.
Yoga teaches us to go within find our sanity and rest in the quiet.
We let go of trying to control anything.
We notice how we feel, if its good or if its bad, we respect our feelings but we do not let them own or control us. Our feelings are simply feelings they are not us. They come and they go these feelings, but who we are stays and we have no reason to panic.
It is a place where I can go within myself to find the love and acceptance that I need without putting that responsibility on any other human. It is an exercise but more a state of consciousness or being. I find myself "returning to breath" every time I find myself stressed or frustrated, The exercise helps and is critical but you can do yoga in a way without the movement. Some people say yoga is meditation in motion and meditation to me is just like a prayer.
In a week I start a yoga teacher training. I'm pretty nervous that Ill be the only old Momma in the room, I also kind of don't care!
I'm doing it for my own self confidence. I'm doing it so my kids see me as more than just their care taker but as a individual with personal desires and drive. I have three sons and I want them to see women as individuals worthy of respect and love and capable of anything that a man is. I'm doing it because I love it and its something new to learn and I love to learn!
Another BIG reason for learning more about yoga for me is that it is a useful tool. Not only for myself but a tool that I can give or teach to others.
My entire life I have been a peacemaker a fixer. I have a very hard time saying no to anyone and I notoriously bite off more than I can chew. I am extremely codependent.
Yoga has taught me that when I take on other peoples stuff I actually rob them of their own experience. I can say no and I can do so because I love people. I deserve space. I deserve the room to figure my own crap out and so does everyone else. When I take on other peoples stuff I am trying to control their experience and no matter how much I feel like I am doing that because I love others, its the wrong thing to do. I am saying to the Universe that I don't believe others can do things for themselves, I am the one that has to do them and that is wrong.
This doesn't mean don't do anything for anyone. It means use your head. If someone is unloading on you rather than trying to solve their problems themselves you can suggest ways that they can solve their own problems. You can give them tools.
Yoga is a tool that we can use this way. To go within ourselves and perhaps to teach others how to do the same for themselves.
Lastly I am doing this yoga thing to continue to get to know myself and to like myself more.
Yup I'm 32 and a mother to three and I am still very much trying to figure out what life is about.
I don't think I'm alone in my pursuit.
I hold onto a lot of crap. I am still learning to let things go. I want to do that. I don't want to carry my emotional baggage around everyday or physical baggage for that matter. I want to learn to let it all go. To see it all, to feel it all but not to let any of the negativity that this life shows me own me. I think yoga teaches us how to live a bit lighter and that sounds pretty good to me.
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