Author: Erin

I write - all the time - mostly random thoughts on that which makes me happy every day of my life.
Words in Sentences

Little Red Zen

by ErinLeave a Comment on Little Red Zen

This morning, over coffee, David inquired to my morning practice of sorting envelopes with handwritten notes to myself in them; each envelope adorned with notes and reminders and ideas in various colored ink over the past couple of years.

I gave my best explanation of something that changes daily and realized the simplest answer is: it helps me orient myself at the start of my day and before my dreams. Fact: I felt I had so much to consider and work on with these 6 humans I love, that I intentionally started using sleep as productive time, trusting my subconscious and unconscious self could take care of mental repairs while I rested.

Yes… mental repairs.

Little context: My mental health game needed a reboot over the past couple of months. Fielding situations, talking talking talking and digging into relationships was unsustainable. I needed a bigger solution / longer term strategy so I resurrected a practice I dabbled in a couple of years back which is all based on understanding the archetypal patterns in your psyche.

I became interested in this after studying and practicing yoga nidra, yogic sleep.

For reference, yoga nidra is a relaxation method where one sleeps without falling asleep.

(Here’s my favorite, it will probably change your life. It is on spotify and apple music, btw.

PS: don’t listen to it while driving…)

Yoga Nidra uses revolving consciousness to numb the mind chatter and allow you to go inward… to hover on your motherboard among your belief systems and deeply embedded wiring. In several practices, I have had astounding experiences. Experiences that make me confident in recommending yoga nidra not only to relax the body and mind, but as a tool for rewiring patterns that don’t serve your life any longer.

I describe it to my yoga students as how sometimes you can stop a baby from crying simply by being in the nursery; likewise you can heal simply by being present with these patterns.

These patterns and belief systems, for me, lined up to a separate study a friend from teacher training introduced to me to via, Caroline Myss.

My dear friend gifted to me Sacred Contracts and Anatomy of the Spirit, Myss’ books that started to make things make a lot of sense to me.

Intuition as a trustworthy tool.

Archetypes as blueprints.

Caroline Myss uses the 12 house system as a way to examine one’s life, purpose and shadow work… this lined up with what I have always found fascinating in the zodiac, the divine’s great salt and pepper shakers in the sky – seasoning us all individually with planetary placements and characteristics.

Why not.

I found Chani Nicholas at some point in the last 7ish years and have been following her workshops and podcasts and teachings ever since. Practical. Abstract.

Miraculous. Realistic.

Mix these women with Jesus, the Buddha, Marcus Aurelius and the Dalai Lama and I have my mental mai tai.

Back to my necessary mental repairs: a few months ago, I started to feel really weak in my mind.

I felt overpowered, overrun and overburdened.

For somebody who published her first book, who was empowered enough to leave a corporate lifestyle that was only spending her at both ends, for somebody who got to pick “pie crusts or drawing hippos” when prioritizing their day – it really was not making sense that I felt so drained.

Life was so good and yet so hard. The future so bright but I was feeling really sad.

Collectively, I am sure we all have felt this due to the pandemic. Yet, I have always been enthusiastic, willing and happy. Funny and playful and bright. The sulk and uncertainty was serving nothing – was a total buzzkill – and taking away from really otherwise peaceful moments.

You may be in this place.

This place where where you are and what your life is, your age and your family, your children and their problems, your children and their children, your finances and your dreams, your life purpose and your day job, your puzzles and your pride – these things are conflicting, trapping you and somehow then also making it hard to know what to eat for dinner. Making it difficult to sleep. Making it impossible to do what you love.

So… here’s what I know. And I really do think I know this as somebody who has reclaimed her power in the 8th house :) of mental health.

If you are awake today? Like if you opened your eyes and have consciousness today?

There is purpose on your life.

There is reason to your name.

It may be smile at the grocery store clerk small (through your mask, a special new challenge to rise kindness) but it also may be big.

Big for me these past two weeks was turning that pouty perfect Little Red Hen into a reasonable, hardworking Little Red Zen.

I am going to keep on saying this: We are guaranteed nothing. We are not guaranteed tomorrow or our loved one’s tomorrow.

Time is actually factually too short to give power to hopelessness.

I believe, time begs us to turn hope into a noun.

I believe hope gets irritated being a verb or a feeling.

See, Hope is an anchor. (Hebrew 6:19) Hope is the thing we trust when we are rocked by the waves.

Hope is the thing that lets us wake up and take on our purpose – whatever size – and allow time its relativity. Its stillness *and* its grand schemes.

Today is a good day to assess hope in your 8th house of mental health.

Have hope that whatever you choose as a ritual in the morning to orient your day or as your reflection in preparation for sleep will work.

Will orient you. Will help you claim your purpose.

Again, I say, “why not”.

BTW. Here’s my hippo. Isn’t she cute? She is in Words that Rhyme and Lullabies. :) But you can also buy her sticker here.
Words in Sentences

A Note to Friends and Family and to their Friends and Family and to theirs and so on:

by ErinLeave a Comment on A Note to Friends and Family and to their Friends and Family and to theirs and so on:

Hi.

I think my point has been made: through you. Through the people that I know you know, there is a love and a light and a happiness.

You know from your years and your loss and your life, what hope feels like, what joy feels like and what like – that bigger thing, that needed thing… that *necessary* thing. You know it all. You know there are degrees and nuance in things like life after death.

*And your faith is better for it.

And yet, with that knowledge of the range of human emotion – there is always better understanding to be had.

There will always be the next inevitable truth.

There will always be truth – at minimum – in the fact that there will always be truth.

What is true for me may or may not be true for you so to make my truth matter? To make my truth “truth” lol – I mean, the spirit in me must be generous to give you yours. Regardless of whether or not I choose to partake.

It’s a time of great divide. It is also a time of great attention and great love and great peace and great observing.

Take care of the earth. Pet a dog. Smell a newborn.

Thank you for reading and sharing yesterday. It was good to feel the life of Frozen Spaghetti, my Dittmer namesake…. the place I credit my parents: Terry and Cherie Dittmer for everything good and hard, wonderful and formative, about my early life.

Honor your father and mother.

I mean. It makes so much sense. :)

So, with that – I thank you. And encourage you. And appreciate your reading and sharing – once again, thank you. This really is “my great coming together” – or, at least my best attempt.

Ok. On to Apple Tree Magic…. that creative thing I am doing.

Pre Orders are available for the Devotional that launches 4/17

New items in my shop

Support the arts, love the artists! Recycle. Smile. The whole thing.

Words in Sentences

Allowing Goodness

by ErinLeave a Comment on Allowing Goodness

In my post yesterday, I closed with “there is goodness in the land of the living” as part of a call to rise above your old ways of thinking that make being easier for others harder for you.

The “land of the living” is a reference from Psalms (27:13).

I remember always loving it because, contextually, the writer leads to it by admitting to having so many different voices messing with their mind. So many different demands on them and they are pleading, ‘just please, bigger greater thing than I, make this smooth… make this easier… make this anything other than being destroyed or oppositional forces winning.”

When I heard myself internally complaining about it not occurring to anybody to rinse the dish and put it in the dishwasher, there was a bigger story going on that I will elaborate on now. See, I wrote “put it in the dishwasher” but – actually – the dishwasher was broken. Not “broken broken”; just in need of a little tweak in the drain hose but I digress…

It was the third snow day. It was the 8th meal. And it was probably the 100th bowl that was staked though one might argue the mountain of dishes theoretically made it more challenging / time consuming to stack a dirty bowl than to just rinse and wash.

<insert existential question on the shift when one sees more work in laziness than in establishing moderately productive daily habits.>

Anyway. We were out of mugs. We were out of spoons. We were out of bowls.

I was working in phases on the dishes and, upon returning to complete another round, I found the clean stuff I had washed was dirty and stacked. Literally, actually, actively *left for me*. And I felt offended. “It doesn’t occur to anybody to do their own dish”.

Here is why I am going back into this…

I am at the kitchen sink. I am looking out at the beautiful snow. The Google home is playing French Indie music. I have a candle lit. I am comfortable. I like my hair. My hot tea was drinkable and smooth. And I planned on doing the dishes anyway. It *had* occurred to me.

So this offense at what did not occur to others was an adversary. The thought that rose up was against me. The drain of power was about to cause me to lose heart. The oppositional force could easily win.

<enter Psalm 27:13>

…”unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

The “land of the living” is our very real life that makes very real demands on us but in that same reality offers us the truth that our present moment can stay in tact and be neutral, be smooth by allowing it its goodness.

Goodness took over when I let go of “what did not occur to others” and felt the power, the honest empowered steadiness of thinking instead, “it does occur to me”. I came to the sink prepared to do dishes in a peaceful, lovely time. The thought had no room in the inn. I chose to not be a victim – Martha the Little Red Hen of a scenario in which I was actually the hero – Martha, Little Red Zen.

What if every time we sigh and “are annoyed” about toilet paper rolls or shoes on the carpet or dirty dishes we actually gave ourselves a pat on the back for noticing?

(And, also, what if we sometimes did not put the toilet paper roll on the thing as a practice of recognizing it actually is not that important in the grand scheme of things?)

Hence the “time is running out” and also “time is relative” comments at the end of my post. It is worth noticing we have choice in whether we spend time wishing others would do what we are equipped and able to take care of… This includes caring for our self, sanity and safety.

I woke up in the middle of the night, realizing in a way I opened a can of worms with my last post because it is not a one post kind of thought trail. This is a lifestyle. This is a reckoning and an awakening. I need to tell you other examples as a part of this story, because it is ongoing, a process and a constant humbling learning.

My teens are my greatest teachers. They are helping me connect inner parts with my higher self. This seems right to write about.

That same chapter of Psalms ends with “…be of good courage and your heart will be strengthened…” (Psalm 27:14) I mean.

Why the heck not.

Sounds like hero stuff to me.