Bahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…………..

I’m toast right now. And not crunchy buttery perfectly melt in your mouth light brown toast. I’m burnt and crispy and crumbling toast.

Right now. At this minute. On this day.

I can’t tell you much about yesterday. It’s a bit of an eternity in itself. I can’t tell you much about tomorrow as it seems a desert trek by way of mirages and mountains of sand away.

I can tell you that in this moment I feel like a thousand pounds of dead weight. Too much to sit up in my chair to type. The bed holds me in a semi-reclined slouch of no ergonomic kindness.

Wow this time is heavy. Like an anchor it pulls me

down down down.

Which makes sense. It makes sense because I know what I feel in my body. And I know that it is full up. With six months of 3 kids and a husband and me in the same four walls. With a business that went from planned expansion back in March to unplanned contraction into no office nor teacher training nor private sessions now in August. With forever poignant losses of my nephew and now newly departed loved ones. With my children who can’t walk into a school and are heartbreakingly saying for the first time ever, “I never thought I would say this…but I don’t like school right now.”

Full up within me. No space for air within me. A nonsensical image of a black hole imploding into the heaviest of gravities.

And then there is the with out. The surrounding world stretches its claw like hands up at me as well. Grasping and curling around my shirt’s edges. With its hurt and its hatred. With its blame and its shame. With its divisiveness and its spinning wheels. Mud flying every which way in this crowded and sticky swamp.

It’s all falling at the same rate right now. Whether an acorn descending or an elephant dropped from the sky, it all hits together and the impact feels equal. No matter size. No matter mass. It all

**********KABOOMS********* 

So what to do?

Well. As much as makes sense, I sit in this open, exposed field and let the hits pound around me. Divots, potholes and craters in the ground. And as much as makes sense, I close my door and tap tap tap out the words on the screen or scritch scritch scratch the words in my journal or watch watch watch as they morph and fly by on the backs of my eyelids in meditation. And as much as makes sense, I go outside and watch Nature do her thing with her patience, persistence and clarity of purpose. And as much as makes sense, I dance with my kids to way too loud music and spin them around in roller skate parties in the garage. And as much as makes sense, I cry and let the tears fall when they finally unlock from the massive hidden reservoir somewhere within this container of a body. And as much as makes sense, I drink tea and order take out and feel my clean sheets and try to remember to pause in stillness with my eyes closed for the hot water to run down my back in the shower. And as much as makes sense, I move on my mat. An arm here. A leg there. Exploring space.

And I open my eyes in the morning. And I get up. And I close my eyes at night. And I go to sleep. And I look into the eyes of my husband and my children. Simultaneously (or alternately as it may be) exhausted and enamored by them.

Because this ALL feels like a big ol’ mess right now. Twisted and snagged – and taking any step first includes pruning away the winding vines that snare my ankles and toes. So there is extra effort in all for a spell.

And so, as much as makes sense, I try to let myself Be. Be however and whatever I am in the moment. I try to get off my own back and watch the miracle of this time breaking frozen waters within me and allowing new icy springs to gush forth. New awareness, new tendings of self, new choices, new habits.

And so, as much as makes sense, I let myself be.

Breathe in. Breathe out. I am okay. I am doing great. I am finding my way through this pitch black room with no furniture to grasp or person who has walked ahead to guide me from the other side.

And as subpar as my best feels to me on any given day, I think that one day as I squint into the rearview mirror, I will say to this Now version of Rachel, “You did freakin’ GREAT. That was hard.”

sigh……………………………………

Keep going.

Yes, this is a letter to myself. Which I’m guessing is also a letter to you. Because I know I am not alone on this ride. And neither are you.

I’m playing with nurturing connections on Instagram as part of this evolution. I miss people. There are people there. Perhaps you are there too. Click here to follow me and we’ll see and feel what arises. Grief, joy, silly, scared and all the flavors that greet us. Together.

With great love and the utmost respect,
Rachel

7 year old Ruthie stands beside the kitchen table and whines,
“ughhh… does anyone know how to get rid of growing pains?”

She cringes as she dramatically doubles over and presses her fingertips up and down her left foot in slow, dragging strokes.

“DUHHHHHHH….” bellows our clearly youngest child, Nora,
“Just WAIT for it to go away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

huh.

Ruthie is on to something. Growing pains can suck at any age. As a child, she feels the stress and strain on her tissue as it expands. As adults, we feel the stress and strain on our hearts and minds as they expand.

And Nora is on to something too. Waiting is quite the life skill.

As I look at my own life, I breathe into the growing pains.
As I look into my family of birth, I breathe into the growing pains.
As I look into the interwoven mess of our country, I breathe into the growing pains.
As I look into the collective learning of our world, I breathe into the growing pains.

Sometimes growing pains just are. So we lean in as humans. And we love in. And we look to one another (when we remember that we aren’t alone). And we take two steps forward and fall one step backward.

Growing pains.

Man, they can hurt.

If you need a break from some of these growing pains, click here for a 5 minute downshift into stillness with breath. No specialty props or clothes needed (I do this one in my long dress for this hot summer day). Just grab a chair for your calves to rest upon and a folded towel or blanket for your head.

For just a moment, let’s get quiet and see what awaits.

Take good care,
Rachel

A few days ago, a lovely woman passed on from this life. I’d known her since I was 10 years old. Privately, I called her “Mrs. Claus” for her rosy red cheeks, stout body and chortle of a laugh. Fittingly, she made cookies that melted in your mouth like a popsicle on one of these North Carolina summer days. Her caramel corn was sweetness spun into air pods of wonderful. I never ceased to feel excited about seeing her. Never.

And most of all.

She told the truth.
She didn’t sugar coat.
She listened.
She knew pain.
She knew amusement.
She laughed.

And that, my dear friends, is a life well lived.

What more can we ask for?

The dark and the light. East meeting west. Sun meeting moon. Hand meeting hand. We ride.

I will miss you, dear one. I am grateful our paths crossed for a time.

Join me in a short practice adapted from Roshi Joan Halifax and influenced by a dear client’s observation in her session this week. Click here for this 5 minute meditation which includes sound and breath.

Breathe with someone whom you wish to breathe with once more.

With love and gratitude,
Rachel

“Shelter! Let’s take shelter from the rain!” 7 year old Ruthie exclaims to Nora as she scurries her doll into the pink and yellow dollhouse.

My ears perk. “Shelter.”

Right.

Shelter can be Grace. A pause from the deluge of chaos and confusion.

My mind is easily side tracked these days into how to have an “appropriate” voice in the erupting abyss of hard and tough of our country and our world.
Into the fear that my writing is contributing to the very separateness that our country is experiencing.
Has always experienced.

But I don’t want to learn in a vacuum. I’m a human being and human’s learn in relativity to one another. I must be in relation in order to grow and expand.

We must be in relation in order to grow and expand.

So my small piece of “how” is simple today. (It usually is.) And by way of nature and my children. (It usually is.)

Find shelter. And feel.

As the dragonfly in this photo took shelter from the blowing rains, take some planned time to shelter from the rage of voices and feel what your heart fills with. Overflows with. It is not our time to talk. But it is our time to hear and to feel.

Checking out sometimes is not wrong. It is necessary.
The trick is to check back in.
In and out. Up and down. Forward and back we flow.

This feels Big like Godzilla with his leveling arms of fury and might. And it Is. But the flow of nature points the way.

Find shelter of the trees to sit. Find shelter of a friend to rest. Find shelter of a cool dip in a summer lake to be still.

Know that even in the midst of your sadness, your heartbreak, your fury, your gratitude, your fear, your shame – all of it in juxtaposition to a flurry of emotions bouncing around our world and within these shapes we call bodies –
None of what you feel is wrong.

It is what has been given to you from your culture, from your history, from your family, from your karma.

And there is more coming for You.

This path that you are on requires shelter. To ebb and flow. To feel and protect. A million times a day expand and contract.

Breathe in and breathe out.

There is so much we don’t know.

So be there.

Not knowing.

Space surrounding you. Tether to a ship of shifting earth.

Where can you find shelter? Drop me a note at rachel@pureresilienceyoga.com if you desire to share.

In shelter breathes Grace. Rest your weary solving mind for a time.

With gratitude and the Biggest of Love,
Rachel

p.s. I’ve posted a guided imagery clip that offers one way to pause in Shelter for 4 minutes. Click here to practice with me.

I used to think that my offering of kindness to the world was enough.

That myth is now shattered. I’m sitting in grief and allowing that to roll through.

It is ick blick yuck stuck goo.

Let it boil and simmer.
This is.

5 year old Nora stands in the center of the kitchen, breakfast dishes filled with small pools of milk beside her on the counter. She’s still. A beam of sunlight floods in through the square window above the kitchen sink. Light bounces off a small, clear plastic toy container in her hands – Elsa and Olaf rest in that container. Eternal smiles upon their faces.

The light bends in the corners of that little cube in her hands. The light jumps and dances around her. The light is like a boxer with the softest of quick steps around his opponent.

Nora’s eyes dart after that bounce of light like a cat after a mouse.

“What is that?” she wonders aloud to my husband.

“It’s refraction,” Greg says. “Reflection is when light bounces straight back. But refraction is when light moves through something transparent and it goes somewhere you’re not expecting it to.”

Nora waves the container in broad slo-mo arcs like drawing in the air.

The light responds to her. It spotlights a swirl on the wooden floor, then a sea green wave of granite, and next a dried splatter on the bottom of the cabinet.

Her words are halting and careful as she checks herself (and before I continue, yes, the 5 year old really says this),

“So, because we’re solid, we make shadows. But if we were clear – transparent – light could go straight through us?”

My heart drops and shudders even as I write those words.

We are solid beings. We make shadows. There is a lot of shit in those shadows.

But our awareness – that which we have the capacity to know – it’s luminous. It’s transparent. Our awareness is clear and light can move straight through it.

The truth of us right NOW, the truth – no matter how impossible and awful it sounds – is where we must begin. We must dive deep into the transparent pool of truth to let the light permeate the cracks of our hardened minds. The truth of us, of how we are, of what we do and don’t do, of how we’ve looked away and not toward.

I borrow the words from the LoveServeRemember Foundation in my own commitment Now and as I step forward into the Next:

I, Rachel Manetti, stand in solidarity with the Black community and protesters across the US and the world against systemic anti-Black racism. I stand in solidarity with all victims of police brutality and white supremacist violence, including the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and the many, many other Black victims of violence.

I take this commitment and I pair it with my superpowers:

Feeling.

Listening.

Learning.

Coming out from the shadows

to inhale

the dancing spotlight of truth.

I start here and then I’ll see what comes next.

You start there and then you’ll see what comes next.

May the light shine through us all – the Black community, You, and Me – in this Land of Possibility.

With deep love and reverence,
Rachel

There’s heat in my belly. It’s a yearning to help. It’s an intensity wired into my Being. To do something. I’ve written and written and written over the past two weeks. But I haven’t sent you

any of it.

I don’t have writer’s block.
But I do have sharer’s block.

I worry that I’ll say the wrong thing. I worry that I won’t know how to help you. I worry that I’ll instead hurt you. I worry deep down that the words that spill from my soul, will accidentally bind your’s.

But I’m clear that my intention is to share more than you might see on your own.

My intention is to learn from you, from my children, from this earth, from what I read, from what I watch… my intention is always to learn. To expand. To become bigger and broader and more from that which has touched me. Good or bad. Hard or easeful. My intention is to let it all in.

In the midst of letting it all in, there’s a critical medicine that I drink of.

Joy.

This is not joy in the sense of elation like the day of my wedding or the births of my children.

This is a day to day joy that permeates the unavoidable suffering of our world.

Suffering. The hard. The heavy. The impossible to bear when held in the confines of tunnel vision.

So, let’s walk together now. Walk with me through the dark and toward the light. And perhaps we’ll see more.

I’ve lost someone dear to me. 48,344 people committed suicide in the United States in 2018. My someone is 1 of those. I don’t know if he is #34 or #340 or #34,000… or what.

But he’s not a number. He’s a name –

Thomas.

Thomas was a person. He was my nephew. He was 17 years and 11 months of spectacular. He lived and breathed and pulsed with his fleshy realness.

Thomas is now a Being. He is a soul who flies free of his body. His prison. Our bridge. How we might imagine him. How we might remember him. How we might learn from him.

And I know. I know he’s in that number. 48,344. Mashed up in it. Smushed into it. Twisted around other names, faces, lives, laughter, sorrows. He’s in there.

And I know there are 48,343 more like him.
Stories of for better and for worse. Intricacies of who and how.
Lives lived to their individual completion.

In every one of the 100,000+ people who have died from covid-19 in the United States,

in every one of the 250,000+ people worldwide that have died from covid-19,

there is a story made of beauty and tragedy.

Those numbers aren’t just statistics.

Neither is Thomas.

Breathe with that for a moment.

Pause with it. For real.

Take 3 breaths and feel it.
The gravity.
The realness.
This is.
These people.
Hold them all in the space of the big blue sky and let them rest there.
Together.
Seen by your breath.
Felt by the tightness in your chest and throat.
 
 
1 breath.

2 breaths.

3 breaths.

No, they’re not just statistics. They are all part of something bigger.

You and me too.
And so it goes.

In the midst of this suffering, in the midst of any suffering, there’s an elixir that awaits.

How fragile life is.
How temporary life is.
How beautiful this opportunity to Live is.

Heartbreak can crack the door to joy. To our very Hereness and Nowness.

5 year old Nora rolling in the mud with her dear friend.
Head to toe they’re covered. Unabashed by their all-in the shit’ness.
Her bath afterward, her brown eyes sparkling with newness and satiation for her puddle fun.
An awakening from the sometimes sludge of homebound aloneness.
Me cracking Nora’s door moments ago at 3:30pm to find her snuggled into bed.
Rabbit string lights aglow above her bed and whispering waves  crawling out of her sound machine.
Her mouth closed in peaceful slumber as her breath slips in and out of her nose.

My heart breaks open as it flies high into the air. Far above our house it goes with joy to see this Being in all her aliveness.

A raindrop in time. We fall together from Before to Next.
I am in awe.

Joy.

And with my next inhale, Knowing. Sand through my fingers.

Joy is a hair’s width away from heartbreak.

It allows us to orbit around the axis of Now. Joy into heartbreak. Heartbreak into joy. Inextricable as night and day.

Embark upon your quest for joy. Joy doesn’t have to be big and flashy. Joy doesn’t have to be arresting and mind blowing. Joy pulses as the beat of our soul. Joy rests on the slipstream threading its way in and out of every. single. moment. It hides in corners. Dances behind doors. It awaits us even in the darkest of times.

And I choose to believe that those who’ve died wish us to Live. They wish us a few more spins on this rock called Earth. So let the heartbreak in. Read obituaries and feel the weight of those lives lost. And then look at what stands in front of you. That child. That neighbor. That parent. That dog. That tree. That ocean. Those stars. That moon.

That big, glowing, white washed moon suspended in the pitch of night sky.

Look at them with eyes clean of your tears of grief. And drink in the joy that is here and now.

Pause. Reflect. And, if you desire, leave a comment sharing your truth,

Joy is……

Then breathe it in.

Feel it.

1 breath.

2 breaths.

3 breaths.

Choose to see the heartbreak. Choose to see the joy.

Your courage travels galaxies. And you never stand alone.
May we be in it and move through it together.

With gratitude for your presence,
Rachel

p.s. If you’d like to hear about joy as a tool of yoga, take a look at this 5 minute clip about ojas that I’ve posted to Vimeo. Explore and expand.

The ground is moving. The earth is spinning. The air is swirling. The light is flying.
It’s all changing.
Unknowns. Unseens. Understand nots.

But.

Don’t miss it.

The birds feeding outside.
The water boiling behind you.
The deep purple of the grapes on the counter.
The bright green of the limes in the bowl.
Nora watching storytime in front of you blowing bubbles into her leftover lemonade. From last night’s desperate dinner drive through.
The sun filling the expanse of the bay window.
Your butt in full on contraction as you stand at the counter typing.
The whisp of a cat who runs up and in.
The clunk of ice cubes.
The voice of your husband filtering up from the basement.
The wind in the leaves of high spring.
The boil in the pit of your belly.
The craving of a chai mid-morning.
The growl of the trash truck outside.
The piles of laundry in the playroom.

Don’t miss it.

See this. Here. Now.

This is the magic.

This is a life. Alive and pulsing and beckoning you to be Here.

There is nothing to wait for.
Even though your shivering chest thinks otherwise.
And your doing mind craves more.

This Now. Allow it.

Pause now.
See. Listen. Feel.
Arrive.

I am grateful for your reading eye. And I’d love to connect with you.

Leave a comment to share 10 things from your Now.
What else is there beyond your first glance, your first listen?
10 things.
20 if you dare.

With gratitude,
Rachel

p.s. If you’re curious about one yoga tool that I used in writing this piece, check out my 90 second video overview of mindfulness. Please excuse the back light. Learning am I. And imperfection is a core value for me. Enjoy.

I received some awesome feedback on the video version of my written blog this week. I want to share it – and my subsequent digestion of it – with you. You can reach the new reflection clip through the play button on the image above or here.

There is space for all of us. No part left behind.

Take good care,
Rachel

Before we jump into one of my mind’s most recent wanderings, I want to share that I’m experimenting with filming a video version of me reading the current blog. Check it out here if you desire to watch and listen instead of read. And please share with others as it may serve.

Sending gratitude.

Now, on we go. (I feel a bit like the trolley in Mr. Rogers heading off on the track. Toot toot!)

A Truth

8 minutes. I am giving myself the 8 minutes of my daughter’s social studies video to tell you something.

So, what do I want to tell you?

I want to tell you that we are learning in our house. And I don’t just mean the kiddos in their school at home adventure.

We are re-remembering and seeing anew. How to support one another. How to listen to one another. How to see one another.
How to support ourselves. How to listen to ourselves. How to see ourselves.

We are discovering how deeply our big rocks are our big rocks. Togetherness, separateness, self reflection, humor, truth telling, surprise sharing, kindness giving, body moving, food preparation and – yes – indulgence as well.

Rest and move and Be and share.

We are learning how to support ourselves and one another in this sometimes paradise sometimes prison of a home.

It is a beautiful and gnarly thing.

I cannot speak for the other 4 members of my family. They are on their own journeys of which I will never fully understand the intricacies or impact of their experiences. But I can speak to what I know of my own.

What is most pivotal for me right now?

For me right now, I see all of the things that I typically define myself by. The list was two pages long in my journal this morning… a sampling follows here:

I am the one who needs lots of space.
I am the one who is fragile.
I am the one who feels a lot.
I am the one who is overwhelmed easily.
I am the one who can sit with others in their hard.
I am the one who takes care of others.
I am the planner.
I am the
on and
on
and on…

My mind rips and wraps and builds this model of me. This thing that I perceive is so solid. The corners and edges built by my experiences and thoughts and beliefs. And my assuredness that I am not me without those corners and edges.

But why?
Why am I not me if I am not seeing many clients?
Why am I not me if I am not writing and sharing?
Why am I not me if I am yelling in parenting instead of being calm and clear?
Why am I not me if I get frustrated with my spouse instead of being understanding?
Why…
I am still me.
I am.
You are.
We are.

No matter the turns. No matter the twists. No matter the thoughts. No matter the convictions.

You are whole. I am whole.
We are whole.

Ruthie is done with her video now.
8 minutes is up.

Be well,
Rachel