What is your comfort zone? Is it the area that is only at arm’s length or does it stretch waaaayyyy beyond that? For so many, it is only as far as they can see with their ocular senses. For this ‘opti-mystic’ who views life through the eyes of possibility, it is nearly boundless. I have tossed out my line into the moving current and reeled in so many experiences that my heart desired, from jobs and creative opportunities, to relationships, from interviews with planetary transformers to publishing my ‘first best seller’. The challenge for me is to refrain from going too far. In yoga, we speak about ‘going to your edge’ so as not to injure yourself. Far too many times, I extended beyond my comfort zone and have wished I had been a bit more aware before the impact of my actions and choices knocked me on my tush. This is one of those times. In the past week, I have experienced lower left sacral pain that felt as if a sharp implement had wedged its way into my bones and muscles. On a mental/emotional level, I had been pondering how I would accomplish everything that needed to be done with my full time job, my consulting work, household routines and still leave time for the gym and a social life. I felt grumbly and resentful at times, forgoing sleep so I could make those lovely little check marks on my ever growing to-do list. Last weekend, I engaged in an anger release exercise that was supervised by friends who held space for my spectacular spewing of sincerely snarly stuff. I weilded a plastic baseball bat at a pile of pillows and when I was done, quite winded and spent, I settled into a process of examining how I had allowed the emotions to accumulate so I had that much to let go of.  Somewhere along the line, I absorbed the idea that good girls don’t kick up a fuss, make waves or rock the boat. I love the Laurel Thatcher Ulrich quote “Well behaved women seldom make history.”  I have learned to relinquish (most of the time) the role of the one who steadies the boat, in favor of the one who may shake it up. And yet, there are times when even a history making woman needs to veg. Today was such a day. After a healing session last night with my chiropractor friend Sandy Levenson, whose ‘hands and heart of gold’ stretched and re-positioned things back into place’, along with a mini massage from one of her staff, complete with a miracle substance called China Gel, I was feeling put together and ready to take on the world again. Sandy cautioned me about returning to the gym prematurely and said that Sunday was soon enough. Getting ansty since I haven’t been there since last Saturday, but still I listened. Awoke this morning with the sharp pain returning with a vengeance. My healing massage therapist friend Cindy Greb worked her own brand of magic and lulled me into an ahhhhh state on her table. When I left her cozy nest in the upper level of a converted barn of friends, I visited some critters in the back yard. Three wise goats stared at me with their unblinking eyes; one chewing who knows what, a second one flicking its tail, not sure if in greeting or warning and the third just hanging out. I asked them for ideas for just being as they seemed to be content with. Opposite them was a fenced in area that house some clucking chickens that came rushing at the gate as I approached to greet them. Such an important juxtaposition as the chickens represented my usual state and the goats symbolizing behavior what would be healthy at least some of the time.

Other lessons that are coming from this…knowing Spirit always ‘has my back’ and I am completely supported. I don’t need to carry everything …myself. It is ok to acknowlege that I sometimes feel pain, without a need to mask it or minimize because “after all, there are so many other people who are in chronic or more intense pain”…blah, blah, blah(:

Paradoxically, as I engage in this process of being part of the ‘Do nuthin’ tribe’ at least for a little bit, I am better able to immerse myself in the practices outside the circle in the illustration above, engaging in no limits thinking.