Find your rhythm and allow it to flow!

Day 83 Desert:

"Each desert experience in my life has brought with it wonderful and valuable information about my strengths, my power, and my endurance."

I am not sure about you, but I know that when I am in the mist of the desert experience it feels really dry, really hot, and really frustrating. As I shared with you in today's reading, heat is my kryptonite. This past weekend while doing yoga, the room was extremely warm and I got overheated. I have had countless people tell me that I would love hot yoga, and that I should really give it a try. It has been stated to me that I would adjust to the heat and be fine. One of the things I love most about this journey through nature, is my insatiable quest for information. Over this past year, I have read countless books, done a lot of research, and deepened my love for nature. One of the books that I read was written by Deepak Chopra and explained the Ayurvedic program that confirmed a deeper awareness about my body type and the how it works.

In nature, you don't often find daffodils growing in the desert. There's a reason. It's too hot for them. One of the things that I want to do to drive home with today is knowing ourselves. We spend most of our life looking for answers that we hold within ourselves all the time. One of the things I loved about Deepak Chopra's book was that it affirmed the truth that I had known all along. My particular body type has an aversion to heat. The best thing I can do when overheated is find the quickest way to cool down. I should avoid long exposure to the sun and hot humid weather. This was made clear by growing up in the south within a farming community and no air conditioning. The heat, humidity, and long days of working in the garden and tobacco often had me ill tempered, and abrasive.

When I relocated to the Pacific Northwest, I thought I had found Nirvana. It's cool damp climate was perfect for me. The lesson underneath all of this is in knowing who we are and how to work with that. By knowing my strengths, and my challenges I know more completely how to balance my life out. Case in point. While at yoga being overheated I chose to step outside and cool my body down. I know for myself to push on through the heat would have an adverse effect. Over the years, I've learned that a cool fan, a cool towel, or a cold shower are some of my favorite things. It helps me to regulate who I am and restore myself to the exquisite balance that I know to be me.

I share this with the understand that you will get at a deeper level the importance of understanding of knowing who you are. I believe that when we go through these desert experiences in our lives we gain a greater knowledge about ourselves. It is usually when we are in the fire of the moment that we absolutely understand what are need are, and what is of the utmost importance at that moment. A great many people talk about endurance and I really want to stress the value and the understanding that we each have an endurance in our individual way. And what is someone else's endurance point is not my endurance point. It is easy to get pulled into comparison, and not wanting to be left behind that I often placed myself in a compromising place. My deep and abiding love for the ocean has me often getting up earlier than anyone else for a walk on the beach. I know myself well enough to understand and know that it is not in my best interest or anyone else's that I should be on the beach during the hottest part of the day.

As we learn how to love ourselves more deeply we began to have a love affair with ourselves. Can you remember the first time that you fell in love with someone in your life? You did everything possible to make their world more appealing, more exciting. When we learn to do this for ourselves we begin to recognize that self-care, self nurturing, and self-love is of the utmost importance. Over the last season, I have put on a great deal of weight that I had it taken off through the use of the tools within this book. I stepped out of some wonderful habits that I have built and found myself once again filling myself up with comfort food and things that were not best for my body. Why? I needed a desert experience to greater learn this lesson.

Life is a brilliant and wonderful university. We're always learning. Pema Chodron has a quote that I adore" nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know." I know for myself that logging my food on a daily basis is the quickest way to love myself, and restore myself to my ideal body weight. The moment I move away from doing that which I learned while writing seasons and change, is the moment that I consciously choose to begin gaining weight.

This morning I had an awakening. I awoke at 3:30 in the morning with the understanding it was now time to meditate. I've learned over time these wake up calls bring great awareness and understanding. I placed my hands on my heart and I began to breathe. I allowed the chatter within my mind to rise to the top, I thanked it, I released it, and I returned to on my breath. I found myself being invited to this deep and abiding place of peace within the depths of my soul. It was this inward calling that was telling me to let go and be. The deeper I went into this spiral of unconditional love awaiting me the deeper I felt the call to be. I found myself surrounded by abundance and a greater love than I could fathom possible. Which was interrupted by mindless chatter, release, and a return to bliss. I embraced this amazing feeling that was happening within me. It was out past mind-body consciousness. It was as though I were seated firmly within my soul. After this powerful meditation I laid there and bask in the understanding that love is all there is. I learned in this moment of depth that "being" draws to us that which we want. Out of this understanding, I woke with the desire to write a love letter to myself. In that moment, I recognize that logging my food daily is a daily love letter to myself. It is though that love and compassion for myself that I love myself most brilliantly.

Each of us is a creative expression of divine energy. Find your rhythm and allow it to flow regardless of what others are doing around you. Be bold! Be your self! Be divine!

I love you,

Thank you,

Rev Allen