HAPPY NEW YEAR!  This morning, January 1, I woke up feeling…. different.  (And not simply because I had imbibed an inordinate amount of pink champagne at various NYE festivities, and kissed a few friends (and maybe even one or two strangers) last night as the ball dropped)…..  Different, because I know that today is a brand new day, in a brand new, squeaky clean sparkling new year!  A day, and a year where anything is possible.  Life just feels… new.  vibrant.  brimming with all the potential for whatever I choose to imagine.

2011, for me, was a year of learning. and growing.  I almost feel as if I knew all along that it was merely a preparation.  A time to listen, and feel.  To overcome, to persevere, and to clear space for all that is to come in 2012.  And now…. 2012 is here.  So as I tumble out of bed, I feel almost giddy as I down a glass of fresh squeezed OJ (resolution #1 – no diet sodas) and brew my own coffee (resolution #2 and #3– consume less sugar, and don’t squander money at Starbucks for ludicrous half-caff sugar free mochas).

For the New Year, I have resolved to begin each morning by drawing an ‘angel card’ for a daily intention.  These are small cards with one word printed on them…. representing the specific ‘angel’ that is working with you to guide you along your path each day (resolution #4- be open to study and explore my own spirituality).  Today, I decide to shuffle the cards before choosing.  As I do so, I start to feel an inexplicable pressure to choose the right card.  The best card.  I mean… I’m kind of expecting this little card to offer some deeply profound insight for the ENTIRE year.  After all, my friend Katie has told me that she is positive 2012 will be my MIRACLE YEAR.  My friend Cathy has told me that, exactly one year ago, her psychic predicted that 2012 was going to be my YEAR of ABUNDANCE (No pressure).  This card I’m about to pick HAS to be perfect!  But then…. I breathe, and realize that I’m being ridiculous (resolution #5 – stop trying to be perfect, and accept my soul’s inherent perfection).  SO I calmly continue to shuffle, meditating on my intentions as I do so (resolution #6 – practice meditations).  Just then…. a kind of miraculous thing happened.  At least…. I choose to think of it as miraculous (resolution #7- notice, and appreciate small miracles…. they are a key to the divine).  As I am shuffling… 3 cards flip themselves over.  Now… this breaks all the rules (resolution #8 – break more rules) of having to CHOOSE just ONE card, but I harnessed resolutions #7 & #8, and just went with it.

the 3 words facing me were: ABUNDANCE.  AWAKENING.  and AUTHENTICITY.  As I stare at each card, I marvel at the perfection of these words. I look forward to the vast potential of this new year. This fresh start (resolution #9 – learn from the past. Be present. Look forward). It’s beginning to appear that 2012 will… in fact… be my personal MIRACLE YEAR.

ABUNDANCE.  AWAKENING.  AUTHENTICITY. I couldn’t have chosen better myself. Which leads me to notice…. a rather wonderful lesson: sometimes…. The true path to your destiny, means getting out of your own way, and trusting that LIFE…. may have bigger plans for you, than you could ever have imagined for yourself (resolution #10- Trust more.  Fear less) I hope YOUR New Year is….. MIRACULOUS.

One filled with joy preaches without preaching. ~Mother Teresa

live your life to the fullest, and practice radiating JOY! not just “in general”, but specifically…. now. today.

breathe. read. send an email to an old friend. make a new friend. practice the power of positive thought. taste every bite. take a bubble bath. do a 2 minute meditation on ‘gratitude’ at your desk. get your exercise by JUMPING for JOY!!! you have the power to brighten someone’s day….. do it. and never forget…. that by “preaching” joy with even your smallest ACTIONS, you receive the ultimate gift yourself. true happiness.

Late last year, I took a trip around the world, and one of the many highlights was a jaunt to Mal Pais, Costa Rica (see previous blogs).  This sleepy little village is a haven for venturesome surfers, located square between the beautiful rolling waves of the coast-line, and the alluring greenery of the dense rain forests.   In short…. Paradise.

During my visit to this Utopia, one of my favorite treats was cracking open a fresh coconut (straight from the tree) for the hydration of it’s water.  And by “cracking”….. I actually mean machete-ing.  and by “water” i actually mean ‘liquid Bliss’. That’s right.  Part of my enchanted exploration of our planet involved learning to wield a heavy, hand-made machete to cut the coconuts down from the branches & break them open for their delicious meat & milk. (no harm came to the coconut trees in this massacre.  Their fruit is meant to be harvested).  This fresh coconut water kept me hydrated and energized through hours upon hours of sunshine, surfing, and hiking through the wilderness.  It kept me cool in the warm daylight, and sweetened the starlight drenched nights.

Back in the real world of los angeles, it’s not quite as easy to find a) a coconut tree springing out of the 405 freeway, or b) a handy machete to carry around in my yoga bag.  SO….. I have recently been introduced to the next best thing!  YogaEarth “Purity” organic coconut water. Easily transportable, this 100% organic powder is hand- harvested from coconuts in Bali, Indonesia (another elysian Arcadia I visited on my travels).  Each  tiny packet packs a HUGE punch of hydrating electrolytes, which give your water a flavorful boost, and can easily sustain you through a rigorous yoga flow.  Or….Tough Mudder.  or deep sea fishing adventure.  or… any other earth shattering feat your sense of adventure brings your way!

To be honest, i’ve never been one who Loved the taste of straight up water.  I mean…. i Drink it.  but it’s more out of a sense of obligation.  in fact: obligation… mixed with guilt.  Dehydration wreaks absolute havoc on your endocrine system.  So i drink water… because, I know it’s healthier than… say… a boba tea. or an In-n-Out milkshake.  But in most cases, i would much rather have either of latter.  Those who know me, know that i have a (not-so-secret) penchant for Diet Dr. Pepper.  It is one of the guilty pleasures i am trying desperately to quit.  Let’s face it.  it’s not exactly the ideal “poster drink” of the yoga community.  PLUS, i am constantly reminded by my loved ones that sugar substitutes have lately come under scrutiny for causing strokes in later years.  Awesome. SO…. In my recent quest to cut down on my (formerly embarrassingly high) intake of diet sodas and high calorie/ sugar-rich sports drinks, “YogaEarth Purity”  is exactly the ally I need to thwart the insidious enemies: aspartame & dehydration.

And perhaps even MORE amazingly…. Each sip I take brings me back to that relaxing beach on Mal Pais, where I lay (arms distance from my machete), enjoying a quiet siesta in a swaying hammock between 2 coconut trees, listening to the rolling surf kiss the sundrenched shore. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

** look for purity at YogaEarth.com.  I am thrilled to be one of their newest ambassadors!

5 Things I am grateful for today:  1) my loving yoga students, who presented me with a check for donation to my favorite animal charity  2) the swimming pool at the Shangri La Hotel 3)  my writing  4) my Voluspa gardenia candles  5) love in all it’s various incarnations

The 7 stages of grief:  1) shock & denial 2) pain & guilt 3) bargaining & anger 4) reflection & loneliness 5) the upward turn 6) reconstruction 7) acceptance

Grief: Stage 4.

I knew it was coming, so one could argue that I should have been better prepared. I suddenly found myself (a life loving, joy seeking, extrovert) in the most difficult phase of all…….

The ominous…… ‘reflection & loneliness’.  Anyone who has suffered a loss of any kind, will understand this phase.  It is the time when the phone stops ringing, the texts stop pinging, and you have to go out and buy your OWN pinkberry.  This is the time of deafening quiet and absolute aloneness.  The point where friends have to continue on with their own lives & schedules, and society in general feels like you should get on with it, and get over it.  The emotional support is still there of course, but you are left…………… Alone.

Loneliness.  To be blunt….. it sucks.  It attempts to steal our strength by hurling us into a powerless & needy phase, where we feel agonizingly alone, and therefore search OUTSIDE ourselves for comfort and acceptance.  Of course, this search will always turn up barren because we can only ever truly find these things WITHIN.  But this does not stop loneliness.  In our weak & vulnerable state of grief, loneliness is able to convince us that what we REALLY want is external acceptance.  To be hugged and held and kissed and loved.  Loneliness assures us that we NEED to be wanted.  It induces in our hearts an insatiable craving for external attention and appreciation.  In our sadness, we believe (momentarily) that if we can only convince someone…. ANYone to need us and want us and hold us and hug us, that we will somehow be validated.  We will somehow be miraculously healed.  The fatal flaw in this plan, is that we cannot seek this validation from others.  We must find it in ourselves.

This of course is much easier said than done, for very often it is easier to find love from others, than to truly seek it within…. But the kind of love you will find in loneliness is fleeting and superficial.  Real ‘Self Love’ can be deeply elusive.  Many people unknowingly mask their lack of ‘Self Love’ with over-confidence or narcissism, thus creating a façade which robs them of the ability to truly turn their gaze inward.  They build up walls which grow tall and strong around their hearts.

Instead, I’ve decided to convert this stage of loneliness to one of resolute introspection.  I will use this time ‘alone’ to grow and to learn…. to cultivate and honor my gifts.  I will vigilantly remind myself that in knowing my OWN worth, I will attract the TRUE kind of Love…….. when the time is right.

Reflection: It is during this precarious phase of grief that I believe we ourselves determine the destiny of our recovery.  Though…. Destiny may be a careless use of vernacular, since the recovery ACTUALLY rests on the foundation of ‘free will’.   It is in this stage that a choice is made.  We can either seek escape, or…. We can transform.  We can either create a pretense of faux positivity to cover up and deny our pain, or we can seek our authentic joy. We can chose to push the grief and anger way, way, WAY, into the recesses of our heart, and cover it with all the other layers of emotional grime & guck we’ve buried down there, or…. We can make a much more difficult choice.  A choice that can be as frightening and unyielding….. as it is enigmatic and labyrinthine.  We can choose to take an honest look inward and confront our sorrow and our demons head on.

In order to reveal our true radiance, we must expose & confront our melancholy.

Goethe said “to die and so to grow’”.  The Yogis speak of savasana…. A death of the old, to allow for a rebirth of the new.   In her book  ‘BROKEN OPEN: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow’, Elizabeth Lesser also speaks beautifully on this subject.

She says:  “Now I know that when we only show our light side to the World, our shadow grows restless, sucking into itself much of our energy and passion.  In order to release my trapped energy and awaken my best qualities, I had to engage with my ‘shadow’.  I had to be broken open so fully that my whole self was laid out before me to own and to forgive and to love.”

AMEN Sister!

So here I am.  Right smack in the middle of the dreaded Stage 4.  Confronting my melancholy.  So today, for my “blissful” activity, I plan to hang out here for awhile.  To own it.  To meditate on it.  To practice yoga through it.  I’m not going to hope and pray for Stage 5 to hurry and show up already.  I’m going to learn to change Stage 4 from the negatives of ‘lonliness and reflection’ to the positives of ‘solitude and transformation’.

Namaste

5 things I’m grateful for today: 1) my friends Carrie and Michelle for inspiring me to remember my strength 2) Rachel, Amy, Nicole and Mike K. who got me through the night. 3) the homeless man who literally gave me the shirt off his back  4) my friend Andy for bringing me green tea with agave & soymilk, without me having to ask 5) my mom for talking me through my grief, and my dad for flying across the country to help me recover 6) because today, I need a 6^th) the kindness of strangers

The 7 stages of grief:  1) shock & denial 2) pain & guilt 3) anger & bargaining 4) reflection & loneliness 5) the upward turn 6) reconstruction 7) acceptance

Grief: Stage One

I really don’t know how to write this blog.  I didn’t want to.  I just wanted to stay in bed under the covers and weep.  I wanted to cry and scream and feel sorry for myself for all the challenges I’ve had to go through this year.  Right now, it just seems like too much.

2 days ago, I lost my sweet puppy Dagny to a hit & run driver who nearly ran us both over as he plowed almost 50 mph down a residential street in Santa Monica.  She didn’t suffer.  I can’t say the same for me.  I just sat there, in the middle of the street, screaming and crying & holding her tiny little body even though she was gone.  I could not let her go.  I could not put her down.  I could not believe it had happened.  As I sat there in my grief I really believed that if I just WANTED it enough, she would come back.  That this hadn’t actually happened, and it was all just a horrible horrible nightmare.  I kept telling myself to wake up. WAKE UP!!! It will all be ok…… this couldn’t possibly have just happened.

I sat there with her like this for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes, before a kind motorcyclist who had witnessed the accident came over… & helped me off the road and over to curb.  That’s when I noticed: he wasn’t alone.  5 or 6 motorists who had witnessed the accident and seen my profound heartache had all stopped their cars, and bikes, and evening jogs to come comfort me.  Some shared my tears, some sat nearby in reverent silence.  Some offered kind words & support…. And one even offered an ativan to help quell my heaving sobs & hyperventilating.  I couldn’t breathe.  I couldn’t speak.  I could only weep. My sobs came directly from the center of my being.  I was traumatized.  I felt broken all over again.  As if it had finally happened….. my heart had finally been ripped apart & wrenched out of my body to die there on the side of the road with my dog.  And she was not JUST my dog…. I really believe she was my angel.

Within moments, 2 of my friends arrived & wrapped their arms around me.  They did not ask me to stop crying.  They did not ask me to let go.  They did not tell me it would be ok.  They just surrounded me with their love & support, which I could feel even through my sorrow.   One of the motorists, whom I’d never met, and whose name I never heard, took Dagny from me, and wrapped her warmly in a shirt I didn’t recognize and placed her back down gently on the grass.   My tears poured out faster & faster, as my breath got shorter & shorter.  My friend Amy, who is one of the most incredible mothers & all around human beings I know, just held me.  She reminded me to breathe. I couldn’t.  She stayed, and breathed for me, until eventually my panic slowed, and I was able to exhale.  Finally…. After nearly an hour, I was able to give Dagny to my friend Mike, who had dropped everything he was doing to drive over to  help.  He took Dagny to be buried.  I wept as he carried her off.  I simply couldn’t accept that I’d never see her sweet face again, or laugh at her wet kisses.  I wept as Amy walked me home, and as more friends came over with food (which I couldn’t eat) & love (which I didn’t have to ask for).

Hours later, when I felt nearly cried out, my sobs finally slowed and I found myself in a room filled with just a handful of ALL the incredible people who bless my life so richly with their love.  All I could say was “thank you”.  All I could think was how healing unsolicited, unconditional love is.  And how fortunate I was to have it from so many people.

So that day… the saddest day I have known, maybe in my life… my commitment to my “bliss” was to allow my friends to see me at my most vulnerable, and to LET them be there for me, and show their love.  As someone who is much more comfortable GIVING help, it is often a challenge for me to receive it…. to admit that I actually NEED it.  But this time… I did.  I tried to remember how much joy it brings me to support others with help & inspiration, and that it brings my friends the same joy to return it.  We all want to be able to show our love by giving unconditionally.  The other half of this…. The half I SO often forget…. Is that we have to be able to RECEIVE this love and support as well. Graciously, wholeheartedly, and without apology.

I saw both sides of humanity that night.  First, the recklessness of someone in a black Lexus who could destroy one life, and shatter another without even slowing down.  And simultaneously, the polar opposite… the part of humanity that I sincerely believe is massively more prominent in our world…. the selflessness of humanity.  On this evening, that magnanimity was embodied in an elderly homeless man on 14^th street, who saw the heart-wrenching anguish of a complete stranger, and offered her friends the shirt off his back so she could lay her dog to rest.

I have walked the neighborhood these past two days looking for this compassionate soul…. Hoping to thank him, and maybe return the kindness in any way I can.  I’ve not seen him anywhere.  Maybe, he too was an angel… sent to remind me that even when we feel we have lost everything, we still have SOMETHING that only we can give.   And sometimes….. that ‘something’ can mean the world to the person who receives it.