read and spoken

Ahhhhh sigh.

There's been a few things I've read in the last few days that have really spoken to me. So I'll jot them down here..

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Why Lying Broken on your Bedroom Floor is a Good Idea
Posted by Anne Van de Water | Category: Uncategorized | No Comments 

Here is an amazing article that I recently read in Elephant Journal…So powerful. So true. So just what we all need to hear…
The Goddess of never not broken.

You know that feeling when you have just gone through a breakup, or lost your job, and everything is terrible and terrifying and you don’t know what to do, and you find yourself crying in a pile on your bedroom floor, barely able to remember how to use the phone, desperately looking for some sign of God in old letters, or your Facebook newsfeed or on Glee, finding nothing there to comfort you?

Come on, yes you do. We all do.

And there is a goddess from Hindu mythology that teaches us that, in this moment, in this pile on the floor, you are more powerful than you’ve ever been.

This past week, I have been deeply inspired by a talk I heard on the Yoga Teacher Telesummit by Eric Stoneberg on this relatively unknown Goddess from Hindu mythology: Akhilandeshvari.

This figure has snuck up inside me and settled into my bones. She keeps coming out of my mouth every time I teach, and she’s given me so much strength and possibility during a time of change and uncertainty in my own life. I wanted to unpack a little bit about who she is for those that might be, like me, struggling a little bit in that pile on the floor and wondering how the hell to get up again.

The answer, it turns out, is this: in pieces, warrior-style, on the back of a crocodile. Yee ha.
Akhilandeshvari:

“Ishvari” in Sanskrit means “goddess” or “female power,” and the “Akhilanda” means essentially “never not broken.” In other words, The Always Broken Goddess. Sanskrit is a tricky and amazing language, and I love that the double negative here means that she is broken right down to her name.

But this isn’t the kind of broken that indicates weakness and terror.

It’s the kind of broken that tears apart all the stuff that gets us stuck in toxic routines, repeating the same relationships and habits over and over, rather than diving into the scary process of trying something new and unfathomable.

Akhilanda derives her power from being broken: in flux, pulling herself apart, living in different, constant selves at the same time, from never becoming a whole that has limitations.

The thing about going through sudden or scary or sad transitions (like a breakup) is that one of the things you lose is your future: your expectations of what the story of your life so far was going to become. When you lose that partner or that job or that person, your future dissolves in front of you.

And of course, this is terrifying.

But look, Akhilanda says, now you get to make a choice. In pieces, in a pile on the floor, with no idea how to go forward, your expectations of the future are meaningless. Your stories about the past do not apply. You are in flux, you are changing, you are flowing in a new way, and this is an incredibly powerful opportunity to become new again: to choose how you want to put yourself back together. Confusion can be an incredible teacher—how could you ever learn if you already had it all figured out?

This goddess has another interesting attribute, which is, of course, her ride: a crocodile.

Crocodiles are interesting in two ways: Firstly, Stoneberg explains that the crocodile represents our reptilian brain, which is where we feel fear. Secondly, the predatory power of a crocodile is not located in their huge jaws, but rather that they pluck their prey from the banks of the river, take it into the water, and spin it until it is disoriented. They whirl that prey like a dervish seeking God, they use the power of spin rather than brute force to feed themselves.

By riding on this spinning, predatory, fearsome creature, Akhilanda refuses to reject her fear, nor does she let it control her. She rides on it. She gets on this animal that lives inside the river, inside the flow. She takes her fear down to the river and uses its power to navigate the waves, and spins in the never not broken water. Akhilanda shows us that this is beautiful. Stoneberg writes:

Akhilanda is also sometimes described in our lineage like a spinning, multi-faceted prism. Imagine the Hope Diamond twirling in a bright, clear light. The light pouring through the beveled cuts of the diamond would create a whirling rainbow of color. The diamond is whole and complete and BECAUSE it’s fractured, it creates more diverse beauty. Its form is a spectrum of whirling color.

That means that this feeling of confusion and brokenness that every human has felt at some time or another in our lives is a source of beauty and colour and new reflections and possibilities.

If everything remained the same, if we walked along the same path down to the river every day until there was a groove there (as we do; in Sanskrit this is called Samskara, habits or even “some scars”), this routine would become so limited, so toxic to us that, well, the crocs would catch on, and we’d get plucked from the banks, spun and eaten.

So now is the time, this time of confusion and brokenness and fear and sadness, to get up on that fear, ride it down to the river, dip into the waves, and let yourself break. Become a prism.

All the places where you’ve shattered can now reflect light and colour where there was none. Now is the time to become something new, to choose a new whole.

But remember Akhilanda’s lesson: even that new whole, that new, colourful, amazing groove that we create, is an illusion. It means nothing unless we can keep on breaking apart and putting ourselves together again as many times as we need to. We are already “never not broken.” We were never a consistent, limited whole. In our brokenness, we are unlimited. And that means we are amazing.

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"Patience child, patience. Remember, life is a journey. If you got everything you wanted all at once there'd be no point to living. Enjoy the ride, and in the end you'll see these "setbacks" as giant leaps forward, only you couldn't see the bigger picture in the moment. Remain calm, all is within reach; all you have to do is show up every day, stay true to your path and you will surely find the treasure you seek."
- Jackson Kiddard

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You can't chase a man. Women who have a feminine core shine with their radiance and the right man will be attracted to her like a moth to the flame. But in many women's insecurity, they don't give a man the right amount of time or space to pursue them, so they end up pursuing a man - which is not in their nature if they have a feminine core. I'm reminded of something Tony Robbins said at Date With Destiny. He said, "A lot of women are too busy being a good man to attract one". And this is how many women are in the West today. They are super awesome at making stuff happen and achieving what they think is how to create and attract their ideal man. But, if you have a feminine core, your natural essence isn't to pursue, but to be pursued. She was in touch with that place inside her that knew that her soulmate wasn't just going to come along, but her soulmate is going to BE where she is going and that she doesn't have to DO anything to find him except be her beautiful, amazing, awesome radiant self. So, are you trying to produce your love life? Can you let it go and trust that the right one will show up in perfect time? Can you know that because you exist and so does your desire for love that your soulmate exists, too? 
-The Daily Love 1.12.12

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The key to any relationship or partnership is trust. And there is one aspect of trust that I think is most important is trusting that when moments of anger, sadness or frustration come up that the relationship is safe enough that each person can express their truth without the threat of the other person leaving the relationship if that happens.
It’s okay to be fully expressed in how you feel, and just because someone is sad, angry or going through something, that doesn’t have to equate to “I’m leaving you”. Somewhere in my brain I equated sadness and anger to being abandoned. The lesson was: I can feel this way, still Love you, be committed to staying with you and also Love myself enough to feel the feelings that I was feeling.
So, my question for you today is: can you express your truth in your relationships? Do people make you feel wrong for doing that? Do you link up anger/sadness with being abandoned? Do you avoid telling the truth because you are afraid that your relationship is going to fall apart if you do? And do you have the courage to let the truth out anyways, knowing that when you do, you will either come closer together, or split – because of the TRUTH!?
-The Daily Love 1.16.12