Yogis Anonymous

Speak Your Mind

voiceshakes Clear communication is so important when it comes to understanding and being understood, but for many people, it isn’t easy. There are all kinds of reasons we don’t always say what we mean — maybe we don’t want to admit what it is that we want, because we feel conflicted about wanting it; we might feel ashamed, or afraid or insecure. Maybe we were taught that our feelings didn’t have an impact on the people or the world around us, so we don’t bother. We might think we already know what the other party will say. Perhaps we want to avoid confrontation or uncomfortable conversations. We might be quiet because we know if we speak up, things will have to change. So much can get lost in translation when we keep things to ourselves, hoping other people will possess the gift of telepathy.

Sometimes we avoid saying a thing, because we fear it might cause pain for someone else, but most people would really prefer to understand what’s happening, even if it hurts. I mean, of course you always want to do your best to speak kindly, and with compassion, to put yourself on the receiving end before you speak, but I don’t believe you do anyone any favors by keeping them in the dark; most people know when something is off. We may not want to know a thing, but usually if something is stirring below the surface, we know it in our hearts.

Life is pretty short, and it isn’t an easy gig. We have an unknown and finite amount of time, as do all the people we hold dear. We all have a song to sing, we have particular gifts to offer. It’s worth asking yourself, if you knew you only had a year to live, what would you do? I don’t just mean your bucket list, here, I mean, what would you say? Where would you put your energy? With whom would you spend your time? Is there something you’d stop doing or being right away? You realize you might only have a year, right? I mean, I hope you have ninety more great ones, I’m just saying, life doesn’t happen out in front of us, someday when “things calm down.” It’s happening right now, today, this is it.

I think you really make yourself sick when you deny what’s in your heart. I’m speaking mostly of big things here, the meaningful things we push down, but even in day-to-day interactions, every time you make yourself small, or shy away from saying what you mean, you weaken yourself. You can say what’s on your mind in a kind but confident way, it just takes practice. It takes more practice for some people than others, but it’s a gift to assert yourself. You won’t get everything you want, of course, but life is hard enough without adding murkiness to the equation. Even when we speak clearly and allow ourselves to be known and seen, intimacy is still challenging, but it’s completely unrealistic to hope for it if you leave too much under the rug. Dishonoring your tender heart is painful and lonely, and it will deplete you. Feeling like no one really knows you is lonely, but betraying yourself is the loneliest thing there is.

Sending you love,

Ally Hamilton

If the posts are helpful, you can find my books here <3

Focus on the Days, Not the Decades

Somebody sent me an email today asking what I do when I don’t know what to do. She said she has big choices to make, but none of the options look good; no matter which way she turns, there’s suffering. Life is like that sometimes, and it’s just not easy when we come to those forks in the road.

I like the saying, “When you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything,” and of course, there’s the White Rabbit from “Alice in Wonderland”, with his famous line, “Don’t just do something, stand there!” When I don’t know what to do, meditation is always helpful. Getting quiet so you can hear the voice of your intuition is a good plan.

When your decisions are mostly going to impact you, it’s a bit less daunting. You may make a regrettable choice, but sometimes that’s how we have to learn, so we can make different choices the next time, or so we learn something about ourselves, or life, or other people. Maybe there are growing pains, but anything that helps us to see ourselves more clearly is ultimately helpful. When your decisions impact other people, like your children, for example, it’s exponentially harder.

“Paralysis through analysis” springs to mind. We can’t nurture ourselves or anyone else when we’re stuck, and in fear. Fear is a perfectly natural feeling we’ll all experience, but it’s not a great motivator. I mean, sometimes we have to feel the flames scorching our ankles before we move, I’m just saying whenever possible, coming from love is always better than coming from fear.

None of us has a crystal ball. It’s not like we get to make both choices, living our parallel lives so we can see which way is better, and then circle back and decide. Also, we really have no clue what anyone else’s journey is supposed to look like. If you’re making choices that impact other people, you just have to do the best you can to weigh it all out.

Sitting at the fork in the road biting your nails and agonizing isn’t going to serve anyone. If you have to act, move in the direction that seems the most likely to be the least painful. That’s the very best you can do sometimes. Life doesn’t always unfold the way we expected or hoped, and you truly never know what may happen down the road. Maybe nothing makes sense right now, but later the pieces will all fit together.

It isn’t all light and positive. Some of it breaks your heart. Sometimes you have to make your best guess and feel your way along and see what happens. You do the best you can with the information you’ve got and you try to move toward love. Something will happen, you can be sure of that, and maybe you can work on trusting yourself, and your ability to open to the vulnerability inherent in this experience of being human. You can always find beauty, joy, love and gratitude on any given day. Focus on your days and not the decades out in front of you. Try to unearth the gifts each day. The smile of someone you love, or someone you don’t even know. The sound of laughter from those closest to you. Hugs. The sun on your face. Your ability to uplift other people in small ways and large. Give everything you’ve got from your heart, because you’ll never run out of love. Move toward those things that inspire you and light you up. Piece together a bunch of those days, and you’ll be looking at a good life.

Sending love and a hug to anyone who needs it,

Ally Hamilton

Denial

hemingway2 When we refuse to accept the truth, we set ourselves up to suffer. There’s no doubt that there are times we’re confused and things are unclear, but sometimes we know the truth of a thing, and just don’t want to face it. This can happen professionally and romantically, and it can happen internally, too. There are truths about ourselves that are not always easy to accept and integrate. Denying what’s real for you and rejecting essential parts of yourself is a prison full of pain.

Finding the strength to deal with reality as it is, especially when it isn’t unfolding the way we’d hoped it would, is no small feat. Falling in love with someone, for example, only to realize too late that you’ve fallen by yourself, is a painful journey. Trying to cajole, manipulate, sell yourself or dance like a monkey to get the other person to see how wonderful you are is the surest way to make yourself feel small and to dishonor your gorgeous heart, but we don’t always have the strength to pick ourselves up and walk away. Sometimes we think if we just stick around and accept less than we really want, we can turn the tides, but you weren’t put here to convince anyone else of your worth. Your lid isn’t going to fit every pot. Why try to force it? If it doesn’t fit for both sides of the equation, it’s not a match. Maybe you got caught up in an old dynamic. Maybe it isn’t love, maybe it’s dysfunction. Maybe it started out as something good and took a turn along the way. Whatever the case, you don’t want to let your self-esteem take a pounding for too long, or you’ll end up with some serious healing to do.

This happens in the work realm, too. People accept a position because the money is great, even though the day-to-day experience is soul-crushing. Maybe your boss lacks any sense of boundaries, or makes demands on you that aren’t reasonable by anyone’s estimation. Maybe you’re just out of school and think this must be how things are, or, who are you to walk away from a job with security? Your life is made up of moments that turn into hours and days and weeks and months, and before you know it, years have gone by. If you’re in a situation that crushes your spirit, you have to find an alternative, or you’ll die on the inside.

Anything real that you refuse to face will own you. If you reject certain aspects of yourself, deny them, push them down, or flee from them, you just exhaust yourself, deplete your energy, and sentence yourself to a life full of pain. You also put your pain in the driver’s seat. It will rule all your choices, behavior and actions, the way you think about yourself and other people, and the way you move through the world. If you deny the truth of another person, if you refuse to accept things as they are, you’re sure to suffer. And if you allow yourself to be mistreated because you’ve rationalized your way into a corner, you’d better bust yourself out.

Life can be short and precious, or long and painful. I’m pretty sure those are the options, and I say that because when you’re on fire, when you know who you are, when you uncover and share your gifts, when you love the people in your life with your whole heart and see them and accept them for who they are, when you look around every day and take in all the beauty around you, you realize you’re here for one awesome, shining flash of time, and you’d better make the most of it. You’d better soak it all in and give it all up and immerse yourself in this gorgeous life for as long as you get to be here. Option two is that you numb out or run or deny or allow yourself to believe you’re unworthy of love, and you repeat patterns that take you down paths of misery and anguish, leading to your depression and belief that you can’t count on anyone, including yourself. Option one seems better to me.

Sending you love and a big hug,

Ally Hamilton

If the posts are helpful, you can find my books here <3

No One Can Save You but You

frankl Nothing breaks my heart more than a child in an unsafe environment, whether we’re talking about physical or emotional violence. If something happened along your journey that made you feel terrified and powerless, my heart also goes out to you. You do not have to let your past dictate your present, though, and I hope this comes across in the most compassionate way possible, but I believe it’s your work to heal. I think that really needs to be your priority, because if you don’t, you’ll never uncover and share your gifts, and you’ll also take other people down with you. You won’t mean to do that, it’s just that when a person crosses your path, and they see the beauty within you, even if you can’t see it yourself, they’re going to want to stop, and they might even fall in love with you. If you’re still struggling with things that happened to you, through no fault of your own, through nothing that was or is lacking within you, believe me when I tell you, those people who love you and see you will suffer and you might even hate them for it.

This is what abuse does. It cycles back on itself, and if you don’t break the loop, you perpetuate it. Those are your choices. Or you can try numbing yourself so you don’t feel anything, but what kind of life is that? Also, the rage seeps through, anyway. Healing is your best option by a long-shot. How you go about doing that is intensely personal. A great therapist is an excellent place to start. You can’t change anything that exists outside your awareness. If you’re in a state of misery and you can’t seem to pull yourself out of it, if you notice patterns in your life romantically or professionally that do not serve you, if you have difficulty maintaining close relationships with people, if you’re abusive and unable to control yourself when you get angry, you need to find help and support. Nothing good can blossom and sustain itself until you go back and and investigate the source of your pain; it’ll just keep rising to the surface, driving your choices and your actions, wreaking havoc in any way possible to get your attention. It won’t end unless you end it.

Awareness is only step one, though. Figuring out what happened along the way to make you hate yourself, doubt yourself, believe you’re unworthy of love, or that you’re broken…that’s the beginning. Looking at your tendencies, your belief systems, your way of being in the world, your ability to be kind consistently, or not, all these are areas that need to be brought to the surface so you can get your hands and your head around them. Step two is figuring out how to rewire your system, how to unhook your journey from something that happened long ago. How to redefine yourself, recreate your outlook, reimagine your future, rediscover your capabilities, remember who and what you are, that’s step two.

For me, yoga was, and is an essential part of the equation. I think of therapy as the “top-down” part. You get inside your head, and by that I mean what’s conscious and what may be unconscious, and you hold that stuff up to the light so you can see what the hell is going on, and you do that in a safe environment with someone you trust, and you do not look away. You look until you see and you understand what you’ve been thinking, believing and doing that’s landed you in the state you’re in. Yoga is the “bottom-up” part in my book. You get on your mat and you breathe and you move, and whatever your tendencies are, they will show up on your mat with you. So if you have a loud, harsh unforgiving inner critic, guess what voice you’ll hear as you move through your practice? And because you’re aware of your tendencies and you now understand this does not have to be the way of things, the way of you, you can choose not to feed that voice. You do not have to believe everything you think, as the saying goes. You could, if you cared to, kindly tell your inner critic to f&ck off, and you could begin to feed a loving, accepting, patient, kind, caring, compassionate voice. Whatever you feed will grow and strengthen.

Is it painful to confront your pain? Hell yes. It’s brutal and uncomfortable, and if there was a way around it, I’d advise it, but it’s not like you have to lean into your pain for the rest of your life. If you’ve been living this way for thirty or forty years, then you’re probably in for a few fairly painful ones. They might be lonely or scary or isolating. You can probably count on a lot of resistance internally and externally. Confusion, fear, and doubt will travel with you for a time, but if you flood your system with new information from the top-down and the bottom-up, believe me you can heal. You can reinvent your life so it feels good to you. You can leave your past where it belongs, and get busy co-creating your present and your future. No one else can do it for you. No one else can save you, or complete you, or solve it for you. We each have to do our own journey.

If you’re in love with someone who isn’t yet willing or able to look honestly at self-destructive habits or patterns, you can’t save them. You can love them, but you cannot fix or mend or make up for anyone else’s inability to love themselves. You can get really hurt trying, though. Don’t over-inflate yourself. You aren’t here to manage anyone else’s path. No matter how much you love someone, they’re going to have to wrestle their own demons. If we could do it for each other, of course we would. We’d do it for our children and our parents and our best friends and our partners. It simply doesn’t work that way. We struggle through the birth canal, in the dark, trying to find our way until we come into the light. Sometimes you have to rebirth yourself. Same process. Wishing you strength and love and peace and joy and good health and wholeness. If you want to practice with me online, try this. Try it for a couple of weeks, and see if you notice a shift. I teach because this practice transformed my life, and there are few things I enjoy more than sharing the tools that worked for me. Life is not something to get through, it’s something to be experienced and celebrated and lived fully, from your heart.

Sending you love, and a hug if you need one,

Ally Hamilton

If the posts are helpful, you can find my books here <3

Intimacy

lovelisten One of the great gifts of an intimate relationship, and by that, I do not necessarily mean a romantic one, is that it constantly offers us the opportunity to grow; anyone you’re close to will challenge you to show up as your best possible self, for you and for them. That’s part of the joy and the pain of having people in our lives who know us and see us clearly. These people may be your parents, your siblings, your best friend, your children, or your partner. The most intimate and enduring relationship you’ll have in your whole life, though, is the one you’re having with yourself.

The thing about intimacy is that it demands honesty. There’s no hiding if we want to be seen and heard and known, and those who truly love us want us to shine. This means there will be times when we have uncomfortable conversations, because no one shows up as their highest self in every moment. We all make mistakes, say things and do things we wish we hadn’t, or get ourselves worked up over imagined or real slights or wrongdoings. Sometimes we want to hide from ourselves. Maybe there’s some tendency that doesn’t serve you, some way you’re moving through the world, or thinking about yourself or other people, some way you’re showing up for yourself or not. When we love people, we also hold them accountable, not in a cold, shaming way, but in a loving, compassionate one, “I know you and I see you, and this is not the best you can do.”

When we love, we have to want for the other person what they want for themselves, even if it’s at odds with what we want for them, what we want for ourselves, or what we wish they would want, and I believe it’s also our job to kindly hold up a mirror when someone we love is not making choices in service to their highest good. That’s intimacy. Clear seeing, and the ability to communicate when things are not clear, “Help me understand what’s happening with you. Help me see how things are for you right now.”

This isn’t the shiny, glossy stuff we’re sold in the movies. If you’re close to someone, you’ve seen them crying until their nose runs, or you’ve seen their face twisted by anger or despair or frustration. You’ve seen them in the midst of struggle, when they’re triggered and trying to come back to center, and you’ve seen them at their best, too. Maybe you’ve seen them lie to themselves, or watched them lie to your face out of fear or an inability to say the hard thing. Love isn’t always pretty. For a long time now, I’ve tried to practice unflinching acceptance of the people with whom I’m closest. Just let me see the truth of how things are for them, then I’ll deal with the truth of what that means for me. That’s a practice in and of itself, but I believe it’s worth exploring. This does not mean I allow myself to be disrespected or abused, although there have been times I’ve let the lines get blurry, because compassion for someone else can turn into abuse of oneself if you aren’t careful. I’m certainly not recommending that.

Sometimes we really fight reality. We want to stuff everything into neat little boxes that are all labeled, “My Plan.” Sometimes we try to stuff people into those boxes, too, but you’ve probably noticed, since you are a person, people don’t like that very much. Sometimes we dance like monkeys and bend over backwards and try to sell ourselves or other people on the idea that, “everything is okay”, when really, we know it is not. Sometimes, as we all know, the truth hurts, but I’d take the truth over a lie any day of the week; I’d rather deal with a painful truth than a pretty lie. I want to stand on solid ground and know I can trust myself.

The only way that happens is to know yourself, too, to do your best to see yourself clearly and understand what’s driving you, what’s blocking you, what’s lighting you up. There’s nothing wrong with getting some help if you need it, because sometimes we’re so close to a thing, we can’t see clearly, and sometimes we’ve grown up in situations where we pushed our needs and wants down, and focused on survival. You may not have a clue what you want. Maybe you’ve spent your whole life responding to what other people want, or you’ve been “shoulding” yourself for so long, you wouldn’t recognize a cry from your intuition if it was in surround sound.

I really think you have to start there — self-acceptance, self-compassion, clear-seeing, and sometimes you’ll be terrified by what you want, or paralyzed by it, or maybe even ashamed or disgusted. That is totally fine. Feelings are not facts, and you don’t have to act on every feeling you have; in fact, you’ll probably create a lot of pain and turmoil for yourself if you do. However, anything you reject within yourself is going to push back four times harder. The truth wants out. There’s a drive within all of us to heal, if we open to it. Underneath the layers of pain, confusion, darkness, doubt, rage, grief, loneliness and despair, you will find love. That’s what healing is in my opinion–it’s a return to your natural state. Love, acceptance and compassion thrive on truth, that’s how you make that stuff blossom.

Chasing happiness is like sprinkling yourself with that “flower food” they give you with cut flowers. The flowers aren’t rooted. Maybe that stuff will make things look pretty on the outside a little bit longer, but if you want to feed your soul, you have to find your roots and plant them in soil soaked in truth. Once you accept what’s real and right for you, it makes it inevitable that you want to do those things for the people you love. You want them to know you can see them and that you understand them. You don’t have to agree with how someone feels or what someone needs in order to accept that’s how it is for them, you just have to be willing to face it, and then you figure out how to love them and still honor your own tender heart. There are no boxes in this thing. Love has open hands, open eyes, open ears and open arms. May we all be strong enough and brave enough to love ourselves and the people in our lives.

Sending you love,

Ally Hamilton

If the posts are helpful, you can find my books here <3

Tolerance

Not everyone is going to like us, get us, understand us, see us clearly, or dig where we’re coming from, that’s just reality, and we aren’t going to understand everyone we encounter, either. I think making the attempt is the thing.

I definitely don’t expect everyone to like everything I write, for example. I put my heart out there, and sometimes I don’t do a great job of getting the feelings and thoughts from my head and my heart into words on a screen; I can live with that. I love and welcome a respectful dialogue about different ideas and opinions. Sometimes someone has a perspective that’s so unique, it makes me think about something in an entirely different way, and I’ll tell you, when I write and when I’m teaching yoga, one of my big goals is not to leave anyone out. I know that’s hoping for a lot, but I always try to think about all kinds of people — people who are happy, people who are suffering, those who’ve endured knifing losses, and those who’ve been spared, those who grew up immersed in love, and those who’ve had to teach it to themselves. I don’t want to alienate anyone.

Sometimes people cling to their ideas like a shield, you just can’t offer a differing opinion, it bounces off, and that’s okay, although I don’t think it’s ideal. It’s just that sometimes a person needs to grip their beliefs to get through. If they drop a particular idea, their whole life philosophy falls apart. Maybe they have coping mechanisms they need at this point in time, but I think it’s going to create problems for a person who can’t even entertain a different way of thinking about something over the long haul because in order to hold onto to their beliefs, in order to make the pieces fit, they have to reject anything that calls those beliefs into question. If someone doesn’t agree, they’re wrong, or they’re the enemy, or they’re blind, or lost or confused. A differing opinion or choice feels like a judgment against them.

I see this on the micro-level, between family members who stop speaking to each other because they dig their heels in. This thing happened, and they’re so attached to holding onto their story about why they’re right and their brother or sister or mother or father or son or daughter is wrong, they forget about the human being(s) they’re sacrificing in order to keep the story of their rightness. Everyone screws up. Everyone. We all say things and do things and think about things in a heated way sometimes. We get bogged down in layers of subconscious rage or pain or ideas we have about injustices that have been perpetrated against us, and sometimes we drag a lot of history into the present moment. You can’t turn back time. You can’t undo something you said or did, or something someone else said or did. You can only work with what is, and where to go from here, but angry stories aren’t going to show up by your bedside to hold your hand one day when you really need it. They aren’t going to cover you with a blanket, and rest a cool hand on your forehead. We don’t have to agree all the time to love each other, and to treat one another with respect and kindness.

If family members struggle with these things, then of course friends will, also, and acquaintances, and you can bet strangers will. Then you start adding borders and different countries and different languages, and you can see how this can lead to trouble. We’re so quick to categorize people, to assume we know, to label someone and check the box. Sometimes people rage, or vent, or call names, because they can’t see the eyes of the person they’re attacking anymore. Intolerance divides us, it creates an us, and a them and makes conversation impossible and obsolete.

When we dehumanize people, we can ignore them or hurt them. We take ourselves off the hook of doing the work to understand them or love them, or be open to anything they might want to say or share. Life is about connection, I truly believe that, and intolerance is the opposite of connection. Sometimes it’s good to examine where you’re intolerant. Maybe it’s with certain aspects of yourself. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have a belief system, so don’t get me wrong. I’m just saying I think it’s important to make sure we aren’t clinging so hard to what we believe, we’re blinding ourselves.

Sending you love,

Ally Hamilton

Don’t Make an Ass out of U and Me

The two things that are most likely to cause trouble between family members, partners, close friends, colleagues, strangers, and pretty much anyone who interacts with anyone else, are assumptions and projections. We all have our experiences, and they shape the way we think about things, people, and the world at large. They also inform the way we respond to the data coming at us; we can only know what we know, we can only have the frame of reference we have. A big part of maturing has to do with the awareness that your way of seeing things is only that — your way — and with the understanding that your frame of reference may be severely bent, the glass may be distorted or warped, and you might need an entirely new prescription.

If, for example, all you’ve known is abuse, fear, loss and grief, then your experience has taught you that the world is an unsafe place, and no one can be trusted. You’ve also learned that your feelings don’t have an impact on the world around you, and that they aren’t important. What’s important, according to what you’ve known, is that you don’t upset the apple cart, that you learn how to maneuver, or how to be invisible, or how to be invaluable, so that you can survive. This is an extreme example of a warped frame of reference, but hopefully it illustrates my point. If that’s the kind of life experience you’ve had so far, you can bet it’s going to affect the way you respond to people, the way you move through the world, and how much value you place on your own feelings, needs, wants and dreams.

If your experience has been that love is conditional, something you have to earn, and something that can and will be withdrawn if you don’t measure up, that’s also going to bend your frame and affect the way you operate; the way you are in relationships, at your job, with your friends.

If your experience has been that people are loving and kind and interested in how you feel and what is exciting or inspiring to you, that will certainly affect the way you think about people, and the way you lead your life, so your perspective is hugely important, and so is knowing that you have one. A lot of people assume how they feel is how everyone feels, especially if they’re young. Usually, enough time teaches us that people have wildly different ideas about everything, but for many people, this feels like a judgment against them. If someone is making different choices or has different opinions, they’re rejecting me and my way of thinking about things. All it really is, though, is a different framework.

We can be so quick to judge and assume, and put people into the “us” camp, or the “them” camp, and it’s so sad, because fear drives a wedge between people. It’s hard to drop our stance and just listen, just explore how someone else looks at the world. We can cling to our ideas and beliefs like our lives depended on it, we can insist we know what someone else is thinking, so there’s no point trying to talk. We can make all kinds of assumptions about what someone is feeling based on nothing — a face they’re making, the fact that they didn’t say hello when they walked by.

We tend to move through the world and respond to it as if it is all being directed toward us, individually. This makes sense when we’re young. As babies, we don’t differentiate between ourselves and our mothers; it takes us awhile to understand we’re separate, which is kind of cool–we come in knowing we’re connected, we’re not “just us”, but as we grow, we discover autonomy, which is also good. We think about what we want, or where we’re headed, or what we’re contributing, or not; about our relationships, and our jobs, and keeping a roof over our heads. We think about dinner, and a conversation we had with someone we’d like to do over again, but sometimes we forget we’re connected to everyone and everything around us. We forget that “our story” is overlapping with everyone else’s; the threads are intertwined. We are not at the center, with everything else in orbit around us. We spend so much time on the inside, looking out; we’re in there with our internal dialogue, our expert on everyone and everything we encounter, and we process things through our own filtering system. Sometimes we need to flush the system with new information.

I think a big part of healing has to do with wiping our lenses clean, especially if they’re blocking us from living life in a way that feels good, full of meaning, joy and inspiration. Recognizing that everyone has something unique to offer, everyone has a story, and that maybe, the way we’re thinking about things or other people, is not the way they actually are; to understand that what we think and feel may be greatly impacted by what we’ve known. That’s part of being accountable, and of knowing yourself; it can be the key to liberation if you’re suffering, too. Sometimes we’re just stuck. There are many ways to clean, repair, or release your frame of reference if you need to; seated meditation, yoga, therapy…you have to figure out what works for you. (I’m a big fan of a combination of all three).

We can never know the interior world of another person, unless they’re willing to show us. We can make all kinds of assumptions and projections based on what we would do or say in similar circumstances, but that’s like expecting someone from another planet to believe and accept what we do, it’s not any different. If you want to know what’s happening with someone else, ask, care, listen.

Sending you love, and a big hug,

Ally Hamilton

If the posts are helpful, you can find my books here <3

Open Heart, Open Hands

Sometimes in the name of love, we seek to control. We may do this because we can see a loved one is about to head into a brick wall, and we long to save her from getting hurt. Parents do this all the time, especially with their firstborn child. It’s a natural instinct to want to protect your children from pain; if you don’t have that instinct, I worry for you and your little ones, but if a parent is always there to say “no!”, “stop!” and “don’t!”, what results is a fearful person. You don’t want to scare the curiosity out of your children, or rob them of any sense that they can trust themselves. Eventually, we all have to learn that if we run too quickly, we’re probably going to trip and fall, and it’s going to hurt. That’s how we learn.

Sometimes we see a friend stuck in a painful cycle, and we throw our hands in the air. What are they doing? How can they not realize they’re repeating this destructive pattern? How many times will we have to be there when it all falls apart? I’m not saying we shouldn’t kindly hold up a mirror when someone we love is hurting themselves, but you can’t force a person to see something they aren’t ready to see, you can’t manage another person’s journey. You never know what someone else needs in order to learn and grow and strengthen; sometimes we need painful lessons over and over again before we get it. Sometimes we have to have our hearts broken badly, until we finally say, “That’s it. Enough.”

Communication is beautiful. “I love you, and it hurts me to see you treating yourself so badly. It hurts me to see you in such a self-loathing place, because I see you so clearly, and you’re beautiful.” Say it, go ahead. Maybe, hopefully, some part of that will seep in there. Maybe a tiny little root will grow, and one day the person will start to see themselves the way you do. If you’re dealing with someone who’s harming themselves, of course do everything you can to get them help, but understand, ultimately, everyone has to do his own journey. Healing is inside work. A person has to be open to help, or no help is available.

None of us knows the interior world of another person, we only ever know what someone is willing to show us. We all have pain, some people do a better job managing their pain than others. Some people have more pain handed to them, that’s a fact. Sometimes a person is up against so much grief and despair they reach for anything to numb it, anything to avoid feeling the abyss. Desperation and loneliness and a certain kind of personality, along with possible trauma, a person’s resiliency, and so many other factors can lead to the kind of numbing that’s hard to comprehend. No one wants to be addicted to something that has the potential to ruin or end their lives. Addicts are prisoners of the object of their desire. They get hijacked by it. They’re owned. Their pain owns them, and the agent that numbs the pain owns them. Unless they find the enormous will and strength and love for themselves to fight back, and even then, it takes a Herculean effort, a lot of support, and a decision every day to choose love, to choose health, to choose freedom. Sometimes people just don’t win the fight. It’s heartbreaking. Addiction robs us of so much beauty.

Have you ever been in a destructive, abusive relationship that you wanted to end, but you just couldn’t find the strength? You just weren’t feeling good enough about yourself to say, “F&ck this. I don’t deserve this”? Maybe you tried to end it a bunch of times, but the pull was so strong, you found yourself dialing that number, even when every part of your being was screaming, “No!” It’s not easy being a human being. It can be gorgeous and beautiful and wildly interesting, but it isn’t easy. Love the people in your life. I mean, really love them. Honor them, cherish them, see them, hear them, support their growth and their joy. That’s all you can do, and sometimes, you’ll have to do it from afar if someone you love is hurting themselves and won’t be stopped. Don’t ever think a person is choosing between you and a drug, and that you must not mean much to them if they’re choosing a drug over you. You’re not even in the fight. You’re not in the mix. It’s not about you, so don’t get confused. You’ve been left on the shore. They’re out to sea with this thing, fighting for their lives. You’re outside the thing, so try to grasp that. How much they love you has nothing to do with it. It’s how much they’re able to care about themselves. May all beings be free from suffering.

Sending you love,

Ally Hamilton

Free Yourself

Most of us struggle with control and attachment to some degree, thinking if we just try hard enough, we can get life to bend to our will. We start dating someone and want this to be “it” before we even know the other person, before they know us. We’re ready to have a baby, and expect to get pregnant on the first try, or the second. If it hasn’t happened by the third month, we start to get upset. We have our plan, and life needs to get with it, right? Or we want our kids to do well, but maybe our idea of well, and theirs, is different. We want to be promoted, we deserve it, but our boss is a fill-in-the-blank.

I’ve given this a lot of thought. When it comes to human beings and to life, force is a sure recipe for suffering. It’s fine when you want to open jars of almond butter, or remove a tiny Lego piece for your kid, but you can’t force another person to love you or do what you want them to do, or to want what you want them to want, or feel what you want them to feel. Setting intentions is great. It clarifies what it is you’d like, and can inspire your actions every day. That’s a lot different than gripping to an outcome. Things have to go this way or I’ll be miserable. Nothing clouds the vision like attachment. You’re going to be attached to people, that’s part of the human condition; one of the more beautiful parts, actually. Anyone who says differently is fooling themselves or you. We want to be able to hear the voices or the laughs of the people we love most in this world. We want to be able to hug them and kiss them, and if they’re taken from us, we are going to suffer. If you have children, you will be attached to wanting the best for them, wanting them to be healthy and happy and strong. If they are not any of these things, you will suffer.

So some attachment is just part of the gig, unless you want to move to a cave, but as much as possible, open hands, open heart, open mind. Attachment to people comes after love, not before. Loving an idea of a person is not the same as loving a person. Sometimes we meet someone and want them to be this magical person we’ve been waiting for because we’re thirty and the plan was to be married sometime around now, with kids on the way by 32. That’s the kind of attachment that you want to nip in the bud: attachment to our idea of “How Things Should Be,” to that picture in our heads. Life is how it is. It’s not obligated to go along with your plans, and it probably won’t. Maybe something more amazing than anything you’ve planned will unfold.

Sometimes we’re attached to how things were, to a relationship that’s come to an end, for example. We long for the way we felt. We think maybe there’s some way we can get back there, but if a person doesn’t love you for who you are, if they can’t see you anymore, if everything has become dark and no one is shining, allow yourself to be released, even though it hurts like hell. There are some things you’ll never understand. The more you can face reality as it is and work with that, the less you’ll suffer. Be attached to your own discernment. Be attached to working with the truth of a thing even if it breaks your heart. Be attached to the people in your life whom you love beyond words, and understand it makes you vulnerable, and do it anyway. Try to let go of the rest. Life is an adventure. Sometimes it breaks your heart, and sometimes it hits you in the face with so much love it knocks you off your feet and fills your heart with yes. You can’t force that stuff.

You can treat yourself well, though. You can be kind and patient with yourself, and you can do that for other people, too. You can explore what it means to really love someone. Practice on your parents or your friends or your nieces and nephews or a person you’re just getting to know. Practice on yourself. Be curious about acceptance, about looking clearly at someone and listening without allowing your own opinions to block you from hearing them, without allowing your own defenses or wants or needs to prevent you from seeing theirs. Most of the stuff we become fixated on is so meaningless. I think we just lose the thread. Life is to be experienced and examined and explored. Trying to control it is like trying to control the weather.

Sending you love and a giant hug,

Ally Hamilton

If the posts are helpful, you can find my books here <3

To Be Seen

If you want easy and comfortable, forget about intimacy, because in order to be truly known by another person, you have to be willing to be honest, even if that means shining light on some part of yourself that isn’t fully healed. If you want to be understood and seen, you have to be willing to show yourself, and in order to do that, you really want to feel safe.

Your heart, your time, your energy and your attention are the most precious gifts you have to offer anyone. There are only so many hours in a day, and so many days in a lifetime. You will spend the large majority of your time in the company of your own internal dialogue, processing the data you receive from the outside world, and from the people you encounter; those closest to you, and those you meet in passing. You will do your best to make sense out of what is coming at you. You can only know what you know, and you can only be where you are. Your experiences have shaped you, they’ve become part of the way you understand what’s happening around you. Sometimes the lessons we’ve learned are damaging; we’ve only seen a sliver of reality, but it’s all we know, so we make our assumptions, we fill in the blanks, we project, and we tell ourselves stories. These are ways we might close ourselves off, keep people out, keep ourselves safe, or make ourselves miserable.

I get so many emails from people who feel alone and alienated and angry, or at a total loss. People who feel no one sees them or cares one way or the other, but that’s just the people they’ve known, or maybe it’s just the way they’ve experienced those people. You can’t assume anything. What seems obvious to you or me may be a total mystery to someone else, because we are alone unless we actively reach out. No two people have had the exact same life, memories, experiences and feelings. How vulnerable are you willing to be, and how truthful? I mean, there are some things better left unsaid even if you want to be known, some things that only cause pain, but short of that, how much are you willing to open yourself? To speak up when you feel uncomfortable or hurt or angry or confused? To try to articulate, calmly and with compassion, your own experience? How much are you willing and able to open to the idea that your view is only that; that there’s the distinct possibility you missed something, or crushed something unknowingly beneath your words or with your actions?

Most people do not set out with the intention of hurting anyone. I’d say the majority of people are doing the best they can with what they’ve got and what they know, to piece together some fulfillment, meaning and happiness, to live a life that feels good to them, to figure out what lights them up, and what brings them down, and to do more of the former, and less of the latter; to know themselves. It’s a process, all of it. Usually we’ve just gotten lost. We’ve followed the shoulds instead of the yeses. We’ve dropped the thread, or we’ve become a player in someone else’s story, or we’ve landed in a ditch full of rage and blame. Most people do not follow a linear path. You have to screw up in order to understand your own humanness, and to have compassion for other people when they blow it. You have to grow enough to realize it is not your job to judge or control or try to manipulate another person’s journey.

Whatever happens, happens. Maybe you’ve had your heart broken badly. Maybe you’re in mourning for something you’ve never had, or for something that was robbed from you. Maybe someone was ripped from you too soon, with no warning on a sunny Tuesday morning, or a rainy Friday afternoon. These things can crush you, crush the breath and the will out of you. It could be that you were abused, neglected, ignored. There are stories in this world that are hard to hold in your head and in your heart, but human beings have an incredible potential to heal. I asked my four year old daughter why she was so sweet the other night while we were cuddled up. It was rhetorical, but she said, “That’s the way nature designed me.” Like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and I really believe that to be the case. I think at the very center of you, there’s love. I think if you peel away the layers of blame and rage and shame and despair and loneliness and confusion and fear, you will hit the jackpot. Love is the most freeing, accepting, powerful force I know. If you want to get things done, let that power you. You just might have to dig for it for awhile.

Love gives you the courage to bare yourself, to embrace all parts of yourself, even the stuff that you wouldn’t post in a status update. To be able to share those parts with the people closest to you is really the only way for you to feel known. Cherished. Close to people. If you just show the shiny perfect parts, if your whole life could be displayed on Instagram, my guess is you’re going to feel pretty alone. Human beings are built for connection; we come in needing each other, we go out needing each other, and in between, you can bet we need each other. When you show yourself, you give other people permission to do the same. When you can communicate how you feel and what’s happening within you, you give the people in your life the gift of being able to love you as you are, not as you think you should be, or as you want to be someday, but as you are right now. Not everyone will be able to do it. Some people are not ready to be naked like that with you, but you don’t need many. True connection between people is so beautiful. You don’t even have to know someone well to be intimate in the way I’m describing. You just have to be willing to be present and aware and open. That creates the possibility of seeing another person fully, and of being seen, and that feels pretty great.

Sending you love,

Ally Hamilton

If the posts are helpful, you can find my books here <3

When Your Heart Breaks, It Opens, Too.

Some things in this life will just break your heart. The beautiful and extraordinary thing about the heart, though, is that when it breaks, it opens more if you let it; it expands. There are things that can bring us to our knees. Losing a loved one too soon, that’s at the top of the list. Going through a divorce, a breakup, any kind of rejection from a person who was once a lover and/or a friend. Being fired from a job. Being abandoned, neglected, discarded or betrayed. Dealing with someone who won’t or can’t communicate so you’re left to grope for the answers yourself, and have to learn the painful lesson that some things will never be explained, that the only closure you’ll get is acceptance.

For so many of us when we’re hurt like this, when we’re grieving and there’s nothing but tears and despair, there can be such a desire to shield the heart; to build up walls so we can’t ever be hurt this way again, to decide we won’t be putting ourselves out there anymore, we won’t allow ourselves to be vulnerable. There’s no way to be a human being in this world without being vulnerable, though, it comes with the territory. We all have a finite amount of time, and we have no idea how much time we have. The thought of that can shut you down or open you up. When you’ve learned firsthand that those you love beyond words can be ripped from you with no warning and no chance to say goodbye, you know the truth of this all too well. If you board up your heart, you serve no one. No one who loved you would ever want you to do that, because it’s a half-life. It’s not even that; it’s an existence. If someone was taken from you, live for them. Honor them by celebrating every moment you have here, and by celebrating the fact that you loved so deeply. No one is ever gone from you. You can close your eyes and be with anyone you’ve ever been close to right now if you try. I realize it isn’t the same as being able to hold the people we long to hold. It isn’t the same as being able to hug them or hear their voices, or see their eyes light up, but they aren’t gone from you, they live in your heart.

If someone has left you of their own volition, allow yourself to feel all the pain around that. Rejection makes us feel like we aren’t worthy of love. It makes us doubt ourselves at the deepest level, but if someone couldn’t see you, or treasure you or understand you, if someone couldn’t receive the incredible gift you are, allow yourself to be released. Everyone deserves to be cherished. Every single one of us is a miracle. You aren’t likely to feel that way if you’ve just been left or betrayed, but you are, truly. Seven billion people, one you. Only one.

If you’ve been fired, that can reek havoc on your self esteem, especially if you identify strongly with the kind of work you do. It can make you feel like you’ve been cut off at the knees. It’s hard to imagine it when we’re in the midst of turmoil and stress, when we’re trying to keep a roof over our heads and food in the refrigerator, but sometimes it’s a gift when our plan gets turned on its head. Maybe eventually you’ll see that this was a catalyst for something beautiful and unexpected to emerge, but in the meantime, lick your wounds.

Whatever you’re going through, keeping your heart open is so key. Shut yourself down for awhile if you need to; if you’re going through the kind of loss that’s so knifing you’re struggling to breathe in and breathe out, then just surviving this period is enough. Just crack the door open so you can receive love and support, because you’ll need it. Some things will never be okay, but accepting that is often the thing that enables you to open your heart again. Life without love is cold and dark; it’s not natural to us, we thrive on connection and closeness. Everyone is in this thing together. Some people face pain that’s hard to endure, and others face the “normal” amount of suffering, but no one gets out with zero suffering, and no one lives forever. With the time that you’ve got, live all the way. Embrace it all and try to trust in your experience here, even if you don’t understand it all the time. Just being a human being is such a gift. Just getting to have this journey is something extraordinary. Even when you feel completely alone, you aren’t. Keep your heart open and you’ll feel that reality.

Sending you so much love (and a little yoga to support your healing process.)

Ally Hamilton

If the posts are helpful, you can find my books here <3

Struggling

Few things in life are as uncomfortable as having to face your own fears, limiting beliefs about yourself or others, deepest desires if you aren’t living them already, and places where you feel trapped or paralyzed. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations of our own making, and we realize the only way out is through the raw and rough terrain of our darkest places. This is generally a very good thing, shedding light on whatever we’ve pushed down that his risen back up to bite us in the a$$, but I don’t know anyone who enjoys it or finds it comfortable. No one heads there willingly, you go because you realize you must if you want to start co-creating your life. A Jim Morrison quote comes to mind, “We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.” Many people run, deny, or numb out when they come up against it. Sometimes this takes the form of extreme busyness, or all-consuming relationships, shopping, eating or not eating, drinking or drugging or sleeping all day. Holding back the truth or denying reality is exhausting. It’s painful and it’s also pointless. Eventually, if you want to be at peace, you’re going to have to turn and face yourself.

I get emails from people who are struggling all the time and most of them compound the pain by beating themselves up for it. “I know I need to stop doing this, but I can’t seem to help myself.” You stop when you’re ready to stop and not a moment sooner. If you aren’t ready, you’re going to keep hitting that brick wall for awhile. It gets worse before it gets better, because most people hit the wall through unconscious action for quite some time. When you start to realize what you’re doing but haven’t yet found the strength to stop yourself, it’s even more painful because you hit that wall without the blinders on. You watch it coming closer and closer until you get bashed in the face, and you wonder, “Why don’t I care about myself enough to jump off this horrible ride?” But you may need to play it out consciously a number of times before you find the power to make a different choice. “Stopping” isn’t some easy thing; it isn’t likely to happen right away just because you’re making an effort. If you’re trying to stop making habitual choices that end up hurting you, that means you’re trying to rewire your system and change like that doesn’t happen without great effort, determination, persistence, support, guidance, time, and a willingness to smash your face along the way without giving up.

Despair and frustration are not fabulous traveling companions when you’re working to create something beautiful. An inner voice that tells you you suck and you blew it again is not going to inspire you or strengthen you or motivate you to give it another go. That voice is more likely to make you want to pull a blanket over your head and call it a day. You’re looking for the death of one thing, and the birth of another. Old habits die hard, as the saying goes, but it’s never too late. If your way of being isn’t working, please don’t hate yourself for it. I mean, truly, welcome to the human race. Lots of people get stuck in the rage, blame, shame cycle, and it gets old and tired because living a life where you feel powerless really doesn’t seem like a great way to go. So you change things up, but by all means, get back-up, get yourself some help. That might be your yoga practice, it was for me. Also seated meditation, and therapy, and reading and writing and hiking and not feeding that inner voice of meanness that may have taken up residence in your head. What you need to strengthen yourself is personal, but that inner voice is the thing. If it’s nasty, starve it until it’s nothing more than a whisper, nothing more than vapors and feed a voice you want to hang out with. Little by little, the kind voice in your head will start coming out of your mouth, and informing your actions and your choices. Eventually, it will lovingly insist that you no longer bash your face into brick walls. In the meantime, go a little easier on yourself. This business of being human isn’t easy.

Sending you love,

Ally Hamilton

If the posts are helpful, you can find my books here and my yoga classes and courses here.

Get Comfortable!

I think there are many people out there who feel alone and afraid and quietly desperate, worrying that they are really just unlovable at their core. That they’re not pretty enough or strong enough or smart or funny or tall or skinny or rich or sexy or charismatic, or whatever enough, to matter much to anyone. If that speaks to you, I want you to get a little closer to your screen. Because I really think you need to get clear on something: those are all lies.

When you were born, someone marveled at your 10 perfect little fingers, and 10 chubby little toes. Maybe it wasn’t your parents; sometimes, through no fault of our own, we are born to people who don’t know how to receive the gift of a miracle. But someone looked at your little digits, and thought they were amazing. You could look at them right now, just to make sure they’re still there, and also to remind yourself, you are still a miracle. The 37 trillion or so cells that compose you have never come together for anyone else in exactly the same way before, and they never will again. Of all the moments you could have shown up, you arrived when you did, on your birthday. Happy Birthday, by the way!!! I’m so glad you were born.

No one else has your smile, your laugh, or that twinkle in your eye. That’s yours. No one says things exactly the way you do, or has those little quirks you have. No one else has your exact memories, heartbreaks, joys and particular gifts. I’m sorry, but I just reject the idea that this is all a coincidence. You’re here for a reason. We’re all made of the same stuff, but we each have our own special way to shine our light. The trick is to unlock it, to bust the lid off of it and fully amaze yourself.

When you are comfortable with yourself, when you realize what you know, and acknowledge what you are, love will naturally spring up from deep within you. It’s been waiting to do that your entire adult life if it hasn’t happened already. You probably understood you were made of love when you were little, unless you had that idea stamped out of you. You probably went around shining and loving and giving it away freely, with abandon. You need to do that again. You know how, it’s literally like riding a bike. The feeling of loving yourself is like coming home. And when you do that for yourself, it feels so good you want to do it for everyone you meet. You want to extend yourself–your hand, your ear, your heart, your shoulder, anything you’ve got. When people feel love coming from you, they want to get closer. And closer is nice. Let the love in. Sending some to you right now, Ally Hamilton

Are We There Yet?

No one is perfect, we are all just human. As such, we will all make mistakes, say things we don’t mean, do things we wish we hadn’t, and be left with the mess to clean up.

Sometimes you will be the person who made the mess, and sometimes someone else’s mess will land on your head. I’ve certainly been on both sides of that equation, and neither one is especially fun. If someone else’s mess lands on your head, you may have some pretty strong feelings about it. Especially if you feel the situation could have been avoided. But there are always two or three (or more) sides to every story, and your perception is just that. Nonetheless, it’s very unlikely anyone is intentionally “messing with your head.” I’m not saying that never happens, and if you feel you’re caught up with someone who is, then get yourself un-caught. Quickly. Because life is too short for that.

But if it’s the kind of messy stuff that happens as a result of simply being human, work through your feelings, express yourself, shampoo your head, and let it go. If it was your moment to blow it, examine what happened so you can show up differently the next time. Know yourself, and be accountable, but also try to give yourself and the other humans you know a break. We all want to feel appreciated and loved. It feels terrible to be the object of someone’s pain, or anger, or contempt. And it also feels terrible to be angry, disappointed and resentful. Don’t “boil yourself” alone for too long. Talk things out with people you trust, and whenever possible, practice forgiveness so you can set yourself, and the mess maker(s) free. Because you’re going be the mess maker too, it’s just a matter of time.

We need to love each other. We need to know how to look someone in the eye and say, “I blew it, I’m so sorry”. (You can’t do that all the time, though, or “I’m sorry” becomes meaningless!). This business of being human is not easy, and it’s a nightmare for perfectionists (full disclosure: I know because I’m a 97% recovered perfectionist). Being in a constant state of disappointment with yourself and others is no way to live; it’s life in prison. Forgiveness is the key. You can find it tucked away in this little pocket in your heart. Reach in there if you need to and set someone free. You may be the someone. Be kind to yourself and to everyone you encounter. We are all in this crazy, beautiful, mysterious, gorgeous mess of being human together. The path is full of twists and turns, and so are we. We are all going to trip and fall and screw things up sometimes. May as well recognize that and have the hose ready! Sending you love, and a hug, Ally Hamilton

How Did This Happen?!

Do you ever find yourself in the exact situation you were trying to avoid and wonder how this could have happened, or find yourself thinking the universe has a twisted sense of humor? Are you sure it’s the “universe”?

Carl Jung has a quote, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Any places within you that could use some healing will make themselves known to you one way or another. If you’ve found yourself in a set of circumstances you were consciously hoping to avoid, it’s your unconscious at work, waving a burning flag at you. The flag is a marker. It’s your intuition drawing you toward an obstacle you need to address first, in order to open fully to love. We all want to heal.

Knowing yourself is at the heart of any spiritual practice. And there’s just no getting around those places where we’re raw, where we’ve been hurt or disappointed or betrayed or abandoned. Until you acknowledge those places and sit with them for awhile, they’ll continue to seek your attention.

But it’s not really “them” seeking you, it’s YOU seeking you. You just may have to play it out in order to “get it”. When a current experience feels like the ghost of an old situation, you’re probably in for some serious pain. Because in a very real sense you’re re-living the original wound. Sometimes people have to do that over and over again, especially those who run from the experience or numb it out or push it down. It’s so much better if you can turn and face it, because ignoring or denying it won’t make it go away. It’ll just keep chasing you. And ruling your life.

We all have pain. Sometimes people apologize to me for crying in the yoga room during class. Are you kidding me? Let the tears flow. Give yourself a safe place to allow those feelings to come up so you can release them. This is how you unhook your journey from an old wound and find the freedom to move forward without having to carry that heavy stuff on your back. There’s no reason your past has to rule your present or your future, and there’s no sense in finding yourself on the same painful road over and over again, either. Sit down on the curb for awhile and bawl your eyes out if you need to. When you’re ready, stand up and start walking. Just put one foot in front of the other. When you come to the fork in the road and one sign says “Same Old Road” and the other says, “Highway of Love”, I’m pretty sure you’ll know which way to go. And you’ll still think, “How did this happen?!”, but you’ll have a big grin on your face. Because love feels good. Sending you some right now, Ally Hamilton

The Picture in Your Head

Do you know people who get married because they’re thirty and the clock is ticking, and that’s where they thought they’d be by thirty, and so this guy or girl will have to be the one? Or talk to people with rigid ideas about things, like, if they’re dating someone for a year and there’s no ring, it’s over? How about people who go to medical school because that’s what their dad did and their grandfather, too, and that’s just what people in their family do? When you have a picture in your head about how something should look or feel, you are rejecting things (or people) as they are. Sometimes the person you reject is you, your authentic self.

Life rarely looks like the picture we have in our heads. Sometimes it’s so much more incredible than what we had imagined, and other times it’s way more painful than we had hoped. But there are always opportunities to grow and to open, to dig more deeply and see more clearly. I don’t know why things unfold the way they do. I have theories and ideas like we all do, but who knows if they’re right? Some things are so incomprehensibly painful you just have to let your heart be broken open.

Whatever your feelings, the ability to be with things as they are makes the journey so much easier. To look at your life as it is, with curiosity and compassion for yourself and everyone you encounter, because it’s not an easy thing, this business of being human. To be awake and aware and engaged with what is, not with a daydream or a fantasy or a memory or a picture in your head. I’m not saying thoughts aren’t powerful. The chair you’re sitting on started as a thought in someone’s head. I’m just saying, don’t think your way into a box, where nothing but the picture you’ve imagined will do. Because it might not go like that.

I had a beautiful birth plan with my first, for example. Low lights, no drugs, just a few people to support me. I ended up with a respiratory team in the room, monitors blaring, fear like I’ve never known before or since, panic everywhere. But you know what? I have the most amazing son. Like, insanely amazing. Kind and sweet and smart and funny with a smile that could light up any room. He has incredible enthusiasm for life, hunger for information, a contagious laugh. There’s more love than my heart can hold. So much laughter, so many hugs, such an adventure. And we are both okay. And there has been more joy than I ever pictured or imagined or planned for. Open to what is. Be with it. Explore it. Maybe you’ll be surprised, amazed, heartbroken, head over heels in love. I don’t know. But I do know that whatever you take in as it is, is real, is full of truth, and its own particular beauty, even if it’s the truth and beauty of having your heart broken. This is the ride, this is the best mode of transportation I know. The rest of it is numbed out illusion, a dream, a sleepwalk, an attempt to control something that is really no different than if you woke up today and decided you were going to try to manipulate the tides of the ocean. Just get in and swim. So much love to you, Ally Hamilton