Ask Others, Trust Yourself by Elisa Balabram

Since my experience with taking Ballet Fit classes earlier this year, I've been asking myself what else is possible? If I could, in a relatively short period of time, reach a level of stretching I hadn't experienced in a long time, what other “muscles” or areas of my life do I wish to practice or develop? How often do I need to do it?

It is certain that only four months later, and not having exercised since, I no longer can stretch as I did the last class I attended. I figured that all spiritual practices, business activities, and behavioral patterns are the same way. At first they seem difficult, almost impossible, and as we commit to mastering them, we slowly see small changes, until it reaches a point that the results are truly noticeable. Then, in some cases, we stop practicing, and only get back to it when old patterns somehow bother us again.

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What comes first? I’ve been thinking about these questions for the last couple of months, while dealing with being stuck:

• The will to change or the change itself?
• Happiness that leads to action or action that leads to happiness?
• Despair or the unwillingness to do something about one’s current state?
• Trust that things will be different or things actually turning out differently than expected lead to trust?
• Procrastination or depression?
• Healthy eating habits just because or thanks to a health scare?
• Unstuckness by itself or the movement towards changing the status quo?
• An unexpected insight or an openness to inspiration?
• Do you get yourself stuck by not taking action or by taking action and failing? Or both? Or is stuckness related to lack of action or resistance to simply allowing?

What comes first?

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I haven’t posted anything in several weeks. It’s not that I haven’t written anything. I’ve worked on a few blogs, and wrote two full articles. The two articles I wrote and haven’t posted are: “I’m a writer” and a week later I wrote “Failure”. I wrote the article “I’m a writer” and explained why it’s been hard for me to say that. I also challenged myself at the end of the article, to introduce myself as a writer at a networking event I was attending that evening. I totally forgot about it, and introduced myself as a coach and lecturer. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t posted it, as I haven’t done what I said I would.

The other one called “Failure” I wrote because a campaign I ran with synchronized third party tweets, group sharing on Facebook, and other strategies to promote “Mending a Broken Heart: Lili’s Magic Journey” failed. In the article I included the definition of the word, and also how it feels. Then, there were a few dilemmas: which post do I share first? How can I post an article calling myself a writer, when a book promotion failed? Perhaps that’s the real reason why I haven’t posted either article.

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I have been writing my dreams as soon as I wake up, and asking about the meaning of it, and one of them made me keep thinking of its meaning. The dream was of me going outside, and seeing that the top of my car was filled with dog poop. At first I thought: who could have done it and why? but soon I shifted into thinking what I could do about it. I got in the car, accelerated into a field, and then hit the brakes, so that the poop would fall, and go into the soil (this was a dream after all). The idea I had within the dream was that this way, the poop could be used as a fertilizer, and something good would come out of it. Then I proceeded to wash the car.

When I woke up, I wrote the dream, and the question: What does it mean? And the answer I got was clear and simple. Nobody had put the dog poop on my car; the poop was a symbol of my own stuff, a cloud of negative thoughts, fears, challenges, and the feeling of stuckness I had been caring; and the fact that I used it as a fertilizer showed my readiness to move forward.

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On the last day of Hanukah I received three or more miracles.

The first one was a change to my flight back home. I bought the tickets with mileage, and I was scheduled to travel from New York to Cincinnati, to Miami and then to my hometown. A couple of weeks later American Airlines changed the flight, now I was going to Norfolk, Virginia Beach, then Miami, then my hometown. Because that happened, I thought: wouldn´t it be nice if the flight was changed again, and I would only have to travel from New York to Miami, instead of the extra stop? And the day before my trip, I received an email from them that the flight had indeed changed. Instead of having to leave my home at 11am, I could now leave at 3:30pm with plenty of time to catch my flight. It was a double blessing, as the final flight was delayed from that night to 8am the next morning.

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In case you keep asking yourself what’s your purpose, you are not alone. I've been told by a few clients, friends, and students that they don't know what to do next, what their purpose is, or which career to pursue.

My first encouragement is to be fine with not knowing. I have changed careers a few times in my life, and I’m still growing, learning, and stepping more into my purpose each day. Then, I recommend that you consider meditating, and doing a writing exercise of your ideal day, highlighting what stands out to you from it.

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I went to the Rubin Museum with a friend, and we spent time enjoying the exhibition “The All Knowing Buddha : A Secret Guide”. The exhibition includes 54 detailed paintings, which provide step-by-step guidance to visualization of the Buddha Sarvavid Vairochana, and it offers unique insight into the meditation and rituals of Tibetan Buddhism. Both of us chose to stop in front of each painting, take it in, and have our own interpretations of it. Maybe we had stared at five of those paintings, when someone opened the emergency exit door, and the alarm was really loud. I started laughing… it was really as life is, we are all centered, focused, enjoying a quiet moment, and then, bam! something happens. It is up to us to keep our cool. I think we waited until silence was restored to keep enjoying the paintings, and to me, the whole episode was a reminder to practice keeping it cool in the midst of chaos.

Then, I was invited to share a few coaching strategies for a new app project in a video format. We spent all day filming, and the street noises, the honking, the sirens, or even someone walking upstairs would disturb the sound, and I had to record whatever message I was saying, again, and again and again. And again. I encouraged the team a few times, to set an intention together that the noise would stop. It did stop for a while, and then, maybe we let go of our guards and it started again. It was an all day ordeal, and I believe that if we had not set the intention, it would probably have gone through the night.

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Do you ever hear yourself say that, while cooking, communicating, working, presenting, selling, creating, etc.?  As I practice paying attention to my inner voice, I’ve noticed lately that when I’m cooking, that voice shows up every time I decide to try something different. I might be in the middle of adding a spice or herb I find in my cabinet, which was probably placed there by mom during her visit, and I hear “I don’t know what I’m doing”.

I only started cooking after I moved to New York, and it’s not like I’ve cooked daily since. I don’t consider myself a pro, I’ve never had formal training, and I usually don’t know what goes with what. I tend to resist studying about it or following book recipes… I try to follow my mom’s recipes by heart, but I sometimes can’t find all the ingredients, or don’t remember all that is needed, so I give myself permission to experiment. The reality is that when I catch myself thinking “I don’t know what I’m doing”, I acknowledge that yes, I don’t know.

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I missed the semifinal World Cup game Brazil vs Germany yesterday afternoon. I was commuting and checking in disbelief the score on an app on my phone. By the time I got home, it was half time, and by then there was no point in watching it anymore. (I’m happy to see many positive messages starting to pop up, as it relates to our personal and spiritual growth, during “good” and “bad” times, but this article is not about the World Cup.)

On my way home as I followed the game, I thought how nice it would be if the box of chocolate my mother had mailed to me last week would have arrived. It would at least be something good to balance the events of that afternoon. I imagined two scenarios: either there would be a delivery note in my mailbox for me to pick it up, or as it happened once before, the postman would have left the box there for me, even without a signature.

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I had the opportunity to visit Finland for the first time, to attend a conference in Lappeenranta. It was a wonderful experience, I learned from the conference, and I also had some personal experiences that I will always cherish. Here are the evening experiences that made the trip even more special, as I followed my intuition:

The day I arrived, there was a dinner outside with the conference attendees, followed by an opportunity to go to the sauna, and then jump on the cold lake, and back to the sauna. I had read the program, suggesting that we could bring a swimming suit if we wanted to experience it, and I did. I was a little insecure about it, since I had never done it before. It turns out that several people had done it and knew what to do. I trusted myself and asked as many questions as I could think of to one of the conference attendees who was leading us to the sauna, and who had done it before. Even though we had just met, I asked all the questions I could think of, as it was the only way for me to gather courage to do it.

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