One little thing changes everything. I’ve been feeling scattered, having shifted my own life around to accommodate their needs. It’s what a mama does. Instead of teaching yoga in my home studio, that studio is now my graphic studio space and I teach my students in a yoga studio downtown. I struggled with this change internally. It felt like I was losing some part of me. Yet after making the change I feel fresh and ready to let my life unfold from here. Change, though sometimes pretty uncomfortable and hard to see the benefit of an unknown outcome, is a catalyst for growth and if we aren’t growing we aren’t living…and vice versa.

Yep, I might have been committed. Perhaps it is this town in particular but I believe that it is happening everywhere. People are waking up to what has happened to our world under our watch. We are leaving a legacy of crooked politicians, corporations, wars fought for fabricated reasons to achieve a goal of ultimate power. People who have behaved badly. We let them, if we were not one of them.

So now what to do? Do we stand by and shake our heads as oil spews into the Gulf. It is too sad to go into all the ramifications. Who are we to mess with another beings habitat? To not ensure the greatest safeguards to keep their home safe. I read an article that said that during the Bush administration a decision was made not to enforce that upon our offshore oil rigs. It saved the companies several million dollars, and this disaster will cost them many billion, along with the deep guilt and despair. I hope the people of those oil companies and those who enabled them, oh which might include us who fill up our cars with $3 a gallon gasoline and enjoy the freedom that provides.

Where have our voices been? Why have we been so silent to let it get so out of hand? Please wake up. Please. Those of us who have been need you to come along too. We need greater numbers of people who are willing to be considered crazy to go against the norm. The norm is ridding our planet of one species at a time, one ecosystem at a time.

Are you thinking “what can I do about it”? It seems an awesome task to turn this ship around. The Renaissance was only 1000 people. We turned the world around then. We can turn it around now. Please join me and, I’m hoping, millions of others around the planet. Wake up and smell the smothering, burning oil in the Gulf, the blood on the battlefields in cities, towns , villages and neighborhoods all over the world. We are killing each other and those that get in the way of that intention.

So what can we do as individuals? We can speak out. Talk about this with your friends and your neighbors. Start a conversation. What you bought at the mall conversation can wait another day. It’s time to ensure there will be another day for someone somewhere. People are starving and we go to McDonalds and eat food kills our bodies[1].

What stops you? I think about what has stopped me and that is fear of rejection. Fear that my children will think I am insane. Fear that others will consider me someone to fear. A general nature of fear, which I have been shedding over this lifetime. I have held a fear of being found out to be the person I have been trying to hide. No one hides for real, only creates a feeling of distrust for a person who doesn’t seem congruent. Something is off. We are the last ones to see ourselves, which is a pity. Enjoy who you are. Be who you are. It is oh so much more than enough.

This town is a place where you can reinvent yourself to be who you have been all along and afraid to live it. We are a town of misfits and out of the boxers. We lead the way for so many to follow.

So what’s our life like from an outside viewpoint? Google Obama’s and Asheville and read the stories. If I didn’t live here, I’d at the very least visit here. And of course, once here I would have to move here. We are a cozy town. We are an arts town. We are the Paris of the South. We are a town that recognizes each other. Those of us who have been here a while are home easily. The family shows up in friendship and taking courageous steps together. This weekend was “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” in downtown Asheville. Men walking a mile in pumps to raise money and awareness for a women’s shelter.

Click on image below to listen to Verbal Remedies podcast.

This weekend was full up with possibilities as the moon rose to full. Yesterday I went to Jubilee!, a “creation spirituality” church in downtown Asheville. I don’t go so much anymore, though when I do I am always touched either briefly or deeply. Yesterday was deeply moving. A friend I hadn’t seen in 6 years came up from Raleigh. When I knew him, he was sad because he wished his life to be full of love, a wife, a family. He came back yesterday with his family to celebrate his son’s 4 year old birthday. To see the peace and the joy on their faces filled me up with love like a rushing river of hope. Howard Hangar’s (the minister) theme for the day was magic. Seeing the magic. When we see the magic, we can have it. If we miss it, we cannot have it. Look for the magic this week. It is all around you.

As much as I want to escape from this feeling that I keep tucking back down inside of me, I know this time I want to stay all the way through. Stay where? Stay in the emotion that keeps nudging my diaphragm. Well it feels like my diaphragm. It’s in that region of the third chakra. The Manipura, the will power chakra. That seems to be the place where I generally stop the feeling and tamp it back down to the netherlands of my first and second chakras. No wonder I have low back pain. Got a bunch of stuff that sits there wishing to be expelled. And so I do, through my yoga practice. I let go. However I had so much stuff from past that needed to leave, I’m just now getting to the current issues at hand with some focus and clarity.

What’s up right now is I have just finished my 3^rd annual catalog project. I’ve learned to hold on through the year financially until I get to this place where I am fed generously monetarily. These last three years I was so starved for cash that I was like a person who has been without food or water and finds an oasis in the desert. My intention this year is to use the time and dollars wisely. Bank the money, continue to do other projects and move into what I love to do the most which is to offer inspiration to live a life we are most often afraid to look at, let alone live.

I developed some pretty good escape valves so I didn’t have to look at the fear of never achieving the full expression of what I consider to be my life’s work. Like finding a man to obsess over who isn’t interested in me, shopping for things that I am so excited that I can now afford, traveling to visit my kids who do not live in town (hey, they live in Aspen and Scottsdale so who can blame me when you add seeing them with a great place to be), obsess some more, fill my time with friends and wine and chocolate. Dream about my wishes while throwing lines in the water, hoping something unseen will bite to my mostly unattended hook.

This year, this opportunity around the same circle must be different and only I can make the difference. I know now that I am that teacher that I “want” to be. Nearly every day I am given the opportunity to be of some service, listening to friends, family, yoga students express their deep desire to be whole. What I give back I believe comes from a higher place of knowing as it comes without much thought. It seems to be a gift. My gift to give.

So now my “want” is to do this on a bigger scale. Write that inspiring second book that becomes a best seller this time, speak with listening audiences in packed auditoriums. Design product that supports the inspiration and inspires itself, (like an iphone app!) How is this going to happen? What do I need to do to create it? I ask and I listen for wisdom that is beyond my current knowing. And that’s where I am today. Staying with it.

For me the answer is yoga and even more clearly so today as I realize that my practice has fallen way off and that must be the reason why my mind is working its way around itself, going over and over similar thoughts. The yoga studio where I’d been practicing 3-4 times a week has closed for more reasons than the economic outlook. I’ve found a new studio that is not nearly so convenient distance or class time-wise. I’m having to create a new habit amidst the chaos, find my peaceful road while my mind jumps from one thought to another. My routine has been upset and my way to getting a new one seems unclear.

What I know is this feeling and situation is temporary. Been here many times and done this many times. And it is not so bad. I mean after all, I’ve got my health, my work, my family and friends, my barking companions (part of the chaos at any time) and a fairly positive outlook. So what to do? Write for one thing. Doing this is helpful. Having some one or two of you reading this is incentive. Who are you? Write to me and the others (more than one or two) reading this Verbal Remedies blog and talk about your own way of getting into a peaceful place and still participate in your life.

Another thing I will do is pull out my yoga mat and create my own practice here at home. I haven’t even been so good at that lately. I’ve kind of slumped away from all that holds me up strongly while I’ve been taking care of biznis. A dear friend who is studying astrology has told me that all of this is “in the stars” and planets. That is a relief and so is listening to the stories of other people who are experiencing their version of my story.

Ultimately, there is a deep trust that resides in me that all is just fine and somehow-someway there is a plan and a reason for all of it. I’ve seen pretty good results in my life from that line of thinking and belief. As Dorey says with her big fish smile, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.” Now go clean the toilet.

Tune in next time to see if shift happens and Breah can really let go…dum de dum dum dahhhhhhh! Cut to commercial.

Jubilee! is (and the exclamation mark is a definitive part of the name) a place where misfits gather to find themselves again. In fact, Asheville is a place where misfits gather to find themselves again. Asheville draws people here who have made a decision to change up their lives because their old lives just weren’t working anymore. We arrive here for various reasons and begin to “heal”. It’s easy to do that here. There are probably more massage therapists and yoga teachers per capita than any other place in the world. I make that claim with absolutely no numbers to back it up.

There is so much healing going on here that when I swipe my debit card for a purchase at Earth Fare, I turn my head so I don’t see the word “processing”. Not that I don’t have more places to grow. I imagine and hope that is a life long game. I’m just more than a little over the “me, me, me, me me” focus.

I say that with a tiny bit of irritation with myself for having been at it so long. Enough is enough. There is a whole world out there in need of cleaning up from environmental issues to plain old caring about your neighbor issues. Do you know your neighbors? I remember when I knew just about every family on my street. At least I knew their names and if they had kids and how many. For the last 10 years, during the healing phase, I have lived in rented…temporary…homes. This home I am writing from is no exception, though I have claimed it as my own. It is my hope that I will follow through with an intention to know more than the few neighbors I do know.

After 9/11, I went to New York for a peace march. I’d visited the city a whole bunch of times, for business and just because I love it. The city was very different that October of 2001. People looked at each other, acknowledged each other. It felt like a great big Asheville. That’s what we do here. We see each other. It is part of the draw to visit this lovely mountain town.

A few years ago, when the real estate market was booming and a growing up of the town was taking place, I moved away from Asheville to Phoenix though my move had nothing to do with what was taking place. It was a decision to be with my youngest daughter as she prepared to give birth to her son and my first grandchild. When I returned a couple years later in 2006, I was stunned. People were not saying hello and acknowledging each other as they had when I left. I was at the car wash one morning cleaning out my “drive across the country grit”. Standing in the waiting area with 3 other women, I realized we weren’t even seeing each other in the small room. And so I spoke up. I told them I had just returned to Asheville and found it less friendly than when I left 2 years before. They agreed that we had become cautious as more and more people came in, expensive condos replacing tired, unused space. We’d become a “hip” town rather than a “hippie” town. I suggested that we each experiment that day, saying hello to strangers and see what occurs.

I don’t know what the other women found but I realized a change quickly. Later that day as I walked through town, I heard a group of people remarking how friendly everyone is here. Coincidence maybe. Maybe not. Maybe our little carwash talk had an impact, enough to shift us back into trusting each other again. Trusting each other enough to see each other for a brief breath or a conversation. It feels a bit arrogant to think that I had anything to do with making such a change. And maybe there wasn’t so much a change in everyone else as there was in me.

So back to Howard last night. He led us in proclaiming our responsibility to our own lives and that of the lives around us. It was done with a light heart and a strong heart. My yoga teacher talks about holding onto a kitty that doesn’t want to be held. A careful strength, a loving intention. With such an attitude, we invoke and allow trust. My picture is that the kitty understands it is safe to be held and relaxes.

When we trust, we can see that we are not so different. We are each coming from the same place, no matter what our views are, no matter who we are voting for. We each are seeking a safe place to be. Lookin for love.

Breah