I have a difficult time with endings.  Endings of a class, of a life, of friendships, of a good time, of a day, of a meal.  I still think about clients after the session is over, I still think about conversations that I have had even though they are long gone, and when I have to say goodbye to my mother when visiting her its like someone has died (water works all over the place).  When I think about it, I have been this way since I was a kid. I always felt so empty after a fun sleepover and then all of a sudden that situation was over and I was back home.  I have been trying to pay more attention to this difficulty with endings through my meals recently.  During a meal, even a mindful meal, I am thoroughly enjoying myself.  Taking long luxuriously meals on the weekends that last almost an hour, chewing fully, tasting, smelling.  And then the plate is empty (and yes sometimes I will lick my plate clean if the meal was that good).  Today I sat with the joy I felt while eating and enjoying an experience of my life and I began to cry.  Sure the judgmental thoughts came up, "seriously Stephanie?  You're crying over an empty plate?"  But that empty plate meant so much more to me and it is amazing what we can realize and track through our patterns with food.

Let me back track for a second.  We all have our upper limits of happiness.  Throughout our lives and the disappointments and joys we have encountered we have set an unconscious or conscious limit to how much happiness we believe our bodies can hold.  In the past my limit was pretty low and feeling any twinge of joy made me squirm.  Keep your expectations low and you won't get disappointed right?  Wrong!  So over the past couple of years through graduate school I have slowly raised my upper limits of happiness.  Yet, I am still working with how to let the joy run through me like a stream and know that the joy will come again.  Take my meals for example.  I know that I get to eat again as soon as I feel hunger and yet after experiencing such pure joy of feeding myself nourishment it is enough to send me overboard and not truly know how to stay in my body with the immense amount of gratitude I have for filling myself up.  And then this extends to, how else can I fill myself up throughout the day? 

I offer this experiment to you.  Notice how you feel after a meal.  Do you feel empty?  Energized?  Joyful?  Sad?  This can begin to give you clues to how you end other things in life or how you let other things full you up.  And please let me know what you find out I would love to hear!

I'm going to India and I'm scared and excited and anxious. I spent much of my life with digestive issues and now for the first time I rarely have any digestive flare ups anymore. And here I am going into an environment that will ultimately bring those issues back. I keep hearing the advice of just get ready to get sick. I suppose this is a practice in letting go.

I don't honestly know what's going to happen. I can make up some fantastic stories in my head about a mosquito sucking on me while I'm asleep and giving me malaria but again no idea what's going to happen. If I had to actually sit down and ask myself why I am so triggered by this trip it's probably because I never really put myself in a dangerous situation. I have usually played it safe. I don't ride bikes, I don't stay out late in awkward situations, I don't go up to strangers and randomly start conversations. I have pushed myself emotionally out of my comfort zones but physically I have treated my body like a fragile glass slipper.

This seems rather remarkable in this moment to wonder how treating my body that way affects it. Has my body limited itself from its full expression due to limiting thoughts. Bodies want to shine like the sun, they want to express and move and jump and play. And yet my fragile thoughts have most likely constricted my body in some way.

The art of letting go of old patterns that no longer serve us. I find as I approach the end of my 20s, I hear the same words other adults have said to me, that life has not exactly gone so far as I thought it would. But I wouldn't change a thing. Every event has made me who I am today. So perhaps with each new situation that comes my way now I can practice opening my heart, letting in a little danger, a little uncomfortable uncertainty and flowing with whatever may happen next. If I've loved the journey so far who knows what may come next. Cheers to embracing life's unknowns and uncertainties.

I started reading a book this morning on one's relationship with money and love.  I truly believe that how we approach one thing in life is typically how we approach most, if not everything, in life.  My relationship with money hasn't been the easiest (as has my relationship with allowing love in).  Besides my father sitting down and teaching me how to count change, money wasn't necessarily talked about in my family before the divorce.  All I could sense was money was important and if I needed a new pair of jeans it was never an issue to go out and buy something.  I can see now that I was extremely privileged growing up and the opportunities that my family could afford (trips to NY city, Broadway shows, traveling abroad).  After the divorce is a horse of a different color.  I was the last child for my divorced parents to financially get through undergrad (and the only child interested in going to graduate school).  Suddenly with my parents as two separate entities and many of my conversations with them about money, I became very aware the power money holds in our society.  We all want more of it and yet it doesn't exactly bring happiness.  And the many who have a ton of money pay someone else to take care of their money and so many who have a lot of money don't exactly know what to do with it (except save or spend).  I really don't want to generalize but it seems to be a common theme.  And a question less asked is what do I value and how do I want to save or spend based on my morals and values in my life.

Additionally, money itself is nothing.  We created the system, we created the paper, we created the power that money holds.  So the way we think about money has a lot to do with how we take care of our money.  If we think there is never enough that probably also lends itself to other areas of life where there is never enough joy, never enough love, never enough food.  And the ironic thing is that when one starts thinking this way they then go and spend more money, eat more food, look for situations to introduce more love to ignore the underlying thought in the first place of scarcity.  We humans are funny in what we will do to ignore anxiety and stress.  I admit I have been in scarcity thinking most of my life.  That I have to conserve and save and watch what I spend and has this led to more prosperity?  NO.  This has led to more fear, and anxiety, and scarcity thinking and has not propelled me to believe in myself and all the wonderful gifts I have to offer.  And while it feels vulnerable to share this I believe I am not alone in this boat.  

What if we all started believing in ourselves that what we have to offer the world is enough?  How would that translate to how we feel about our financial status or our relationships or how we nourish our body? 

Today in the Jewish world is the day of atonement: Yom Kippur.  Today is a day where all the Jews are supposed to fast, which includes no drinking, brushing your teeth, no working, no looking in the mirror, no doing dishes, no turning on and off lights.  Basically anything considered an external need is taken away so you can come internal to repent over your sins of the past year to be written in the book of health for the next year.  It is interesting to look back to my childhood and be jealous of the adults that got to fast and my parents telling me that I couldn't yet.  The first year I was given permission to fast I thought it was like a right of passage.  O goodie I get to eat no food today!  By 4 or 5 in the afternoon every year I would be cranky and whiny and then we would just go back to synagogue for the final service and some how I would make it until sun down and every year the first thing in my mouth was a toasted everything bagel with lox, red onion, and tomato.  I don't even eat bagels anymore but just the thought of those memories makes my mouth salivate.  And it is not just salivating for the food but for this concept of tradition and home.  To know that every year on that day would bring the same events and the same food was a comfort in an unpredictable world. 

Flash to now and after years of not the healthiest relationship with nourishment, with taking things in, with taking in love, I question whether to fast or not.  Last year was the first year I did not fast since I was probably around 13.  The Jewish guilt rising up in me like acid reflux.  I was very conscientious I remember of at least what I was putting in my body knowing that my fellow Jews were not ingesting anything.  And I was even more contemplative because I actually has the blood sugar stabilization to reflect.  So here it is another year later and yesterday I sat and asked myself am I going to fast this year (also considering the luxury it is to even be able to ask this question)?  I talked to my loving partner and I talked with my mother and I checked in with myself and the resounding answer I got was no.  So I am not fasting today and I am consciousness that many Jews are in synagogue right now repenting for their sins and I am at home just after a yoga practice (my alternative form of religion).  I feel the guilt mucking around in my half digested food in my belly and at the same time there is a slight tingle in my heart with the knowing that I am doing what is best for me and my body (something I have not always listened to). 

In reflection of this past year: excuse my language, but it was a hard fucking year.  Last year of Graduate School, writing my thesis, internship, a part time job, and trying to maintain a happy relationship.  I fell back on old patterns, I used old coping mechanisms, I reverted to a 5 year old too many times to count, I shut people out, all just to get through the year and to not feel the immense amount of stress I was under.  12 months of hell.  And I survived.  But in reflection today I find that there is a little voice inside me saying you could have done better.  You could have been better.  You could have been there more for your partner, your friends, your family.  So I am not only practicing forgiveness today of those who hurt me in the past year but more so I am practicing forgiveness for and to myself; for those I possibly hurt and the ways in which I hurt myself with my own lack of compassion and self love.

Now finally out of Graduate School, I feel myself coming back to myself in ways that I couldn't in such an intense environment.  I am pushing myself every day to stay authentic and honest and truthful.  I have a wonderful partner who is supporting me and just allowing myself to be me every moment of the day even if what I need to do is randomly squirm around our apartment or break into a random dance party or speak gibberish because I simply can't put words together.  With the Colorado flood happening there is also a tone to the day of focusing on what is really important.  I have seen a spilling over of love and support on facebook in terms of supporting one another with basic needs such as food, shelter, and water.   I find this is something so easily forgotten in our world of too much external stimulation to truly ask what are the simple things I need just in this moment.  Most of the time I find its just a hug and to feel connected to my surroundings.  And with that being said, I feel it is time to get off the computer and go reflect and connect with my surroundings.  For those who are fasting today I hope it is an easy fast, for those not fasting pat yourself on the back for just taking care of you, and for those who don't even celebrate I hope you have a beautiful Saturday.