Gratitude and other games

Try this for your transformation and delight

What do you love, right now, about being alive?

Ask your heart.  Ask your head. Ask your body. Ask yourself: what do I love, right now, about being alive.

Think of one of them, and let a smile come to your face. 

Then find a pen or a pencil and some paper, and write down four things that you love about this crazy mess called life.

Really. Write them down. If you can’t find a pen, do air writing, as if the air is a piece of paper. Write four. Things you love. About being alive.

Right now.

This now.

Now.

Good.

How does that feel to write down four things you love?

Was it people, places, food, experience, your sensations right now, a pleasant memory, your job, the earth, nature, movements you love, sports you love, animals, children, friends?

Now write another set of four, with a slightly different twist, though it could end up being the exact same things.

Write four sentences that start with: “I am grateful for….” and then finish the sentence.

Try this: write slowly, allowing yourself to feel your hand and maybe even your breathing as you write.

Feel the you inside your life that is grateful right now, for these four people, places, aspects, glories, amusements, amazements.

Whatever it is for you.

Go slowly as you write.

Feel the you who is feeling this and writing this.

Can you feel grateful that you are you, alive, right now, writing gratitudes as you move along to a deeper and more amazing life?

And now stand.

Feel your feet on the floor or the ground, and rotate your shoulders and head gently to the right, and gently to the left. Hug yourself, with your right hand in your left armpit and your left hand in your right armpit. 

Swivel left and right, slowly and softly, feeling your spine twist gently. Don’t go to any limit.

Do notice what you see, and how that moves as your head and ribs move.

Do notice how you are breathing. Do notice any weight shifting as you rotate to the right and rotate to the left.

Do this a number of times, slowly, until somehow this feels like a very simple form of pleasure and awareness for you.

Really. Do it.

Now.

And now, stand and enjoy yourself standing. And do this little game. Put your weight a little bit on your toes and lift and lower your heels from the floor, letting them lightly, lightly plop plop plop on the ground.

Now, put your hands again on the opposite ribs near the opposite arm pit, and rotate side to side with these two additions. Lift on heel off the ground as you go one way. And lift the other heel off the ground as you go the other way. 

And sometimes close one eye. And sometimes close the other. And sometimes have both open.

Again, do this slowly for pleasure and awareness and see how much you can notice about your spine or what your are seeing or your breathing or anything else that is interesting to you in the present.

And again, rest by standing still and looking and sometimes plop plop plopping and sometimes not.

And return to your seat, unless you want to read standing now. And think of four things you desire in your life to be a little better. Or a lot better. Or things you want that you have none of right now. You want a lover and have none. Or you have a lover, and want a better friendship. You want a job. You want your job to be more fun, and make more money. 

This is the core of lust: we are human and we want things.

This is what the universe is about: expanding.

Good can get better and if we can get that without discontent about what we already have, miracles can begin to shift in our favor. That is why we started with love and gratitude.

Love, lust, enlightenment.

What do we love.

What do we want.

What is the present like when we come there in our bodies. Right now. 

Write four things you want, four desires, or even better, formulate them as goals.

But don’t forget to make the means to the goal part of the goal.

I want to earn $100,000 is one goal.

I want to earn at least $100,000 with ease and delight and make new and amazing friends and discover things about myself and life that I love and never knew, is a whole different goal.

I want a relationship. Is one goal.

I want to find a person who loves and adores me and whom I love and adore and with whom I can have great talks and great sex and great friendship and learn a lot and with whom I can expand my idea of what human beings are like and capable of, is another goal.

Don’t worry about how big or little the goal is.

To have a good night’s sleep is a great goal.

To be happier, more often is a wonderful goal.

Essential actually to real human life. If we aren’t happy, then why are we living.

So maybe that will be one of your goals.

Write four and add the twist we added before: enjoy the you that is moving your hand as you write, right now. Writing right now, get it? And as you write, right now, feeling the you inside that you that is writing.

This feeling the you that is alive right now is a big part of enlightenment. And your goals are going to be about having more of what you love in life, or having more love, so this is important, these goals, for the whole Love, Lust and Enlightenment shebang. 

Life is good.

Write them down.

Now.

Now stand again, and put your hands on the opposite side of your neck and shoulders. Just hang them there.

And rotate left and right again. With the heel lifting in each direction. With one eye and then the other and then both open.

With the plop plop plop between turns.

And do a couple of turns, making sure you have pleasure and enjoyment in each.

End with a plop plop plop and then go walk a little. In your house. Outside. Walk slowly. Noticing and enjoying each foot as it touches the ground. Sometimes closing one eye. Sometimes closing the other. Always noticing how lifting your heel is part of walking.

Always noticing that you are alive and that you are breathing. Have a smile on your face as you notice your feet and your breathing and what you are seeing.

Good.

That’s a good start to a life of more Love, Lust and Enlightenment.

Ten things Men should Know about Women ( warning, sex is in here)

From the book slow Sex

What Men should know about Women:

1. For women, everything is connected.
2.  Women want sex just as much as men—just not the sex that’s on the menu.
3. Women will short order their desires
4. Women have as much sexual energy as men, it just freezes more easily.
5. What she really wants is access to your attention.
6. Learn to navigate her desire.
7. Women have no idea how much men love them.
8. Behind every woman’s complaint is a desire.
9. Women are not just dishonorable men.
10. She doesn’t want to win

Grounded....the ground is desire: we want to move because...

This is a rerun
on the exploration of "being grounded."

GROUNDED:

It's still as simple as noticing
gravity,
our pull down
into the earth.

And as humans, that is important,
not for the wonderful bliss of knowing we are on planet Earth

but because we want to be non-trees on planet Earth.

We want to MOVE

we want to move to eat,
the play,
to hunt,
to work,
to hug,
to mate

movement is simplicity itself:
we go over there to get something we want
we reach out and bring something to ourselves we want

we want to enjoy a dance together,
we move with
we want to enjoy sex 
we move with
we want to build a house
we pick up, saw, carry, hammer, nail,
we move things around and
create something we want
or get paid to create and we want the money

and any good carpenter wants the
satisfaction of making something that wasn't there before

a painter paints
a poet writes

stuff happens,
moving thoughts
moving emotions
and someone in there,
moving the body

you name it,
almost any it and it's about movement

AND WHAT'S THAT GOT TO DO WITH GRAVITY/
WITH BEING GROUNDED AS CONNECTION TO AND USE OF SELF IN GRAVITY?

EVERYTHING:

a baby who can crawl is not the same being
as one who can't crawl

this is where a lot of the "babies are Buddha" people
get a little nutso:

The goal of babies is not hanging out in bliss:
it's eating when they want to eat,
and being held (that's bliss, surely)
and
crawling across the room to
get the toy
to explore
to get in trouble
to eat the dogfood
to drive their parents crazy

kids want to move in the world

and when they can crawl they are
GROUNDED

they know,
hands push down to hold the front part
up
knees push down to hold the hips up

and this is their transformation:
they know how to PUSH DOWN INTO THE GROUND
in just the right sequence of hand and knee and hip and back
and shoulder and all that good stuff
and that moves them forward

they like that

the are CONNECTED inside,
back to arm to hand to floor
inside back to pelvis to thigh to knee
to floor

it's not that simple
it's really complex
and it's simple to say:
they are grounded because they know feel and use the ground

MOVEMENT WITH ATTENTION
this is Anat Baniel's first essential in Move into Life
and her children with special needs book:
Kids Beyond Limits

and it's central obviously to the Feldenkrais® work:

Awareness comes thru Movement
because
we need love enjoy have to move

and until we are in space
we have to move in and in spite of
and in connection with
and in coordination with gravity

this is good
life is good

happy grounded day
happy moving day

let yourself be moved by the glory of
life

if you wish


good