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March 23, 2011

What Are You Manifesting In Your Life? (and Modern Family)

What are you manifesting in your life?

The other day, as I projectile vomited while teaching my own yoga class, I asked myself that same question…a question I sometimes pose to my students.

I had been suffering from severe migraines to the point that I have a) thought I was dying b) thought I might already have died c) have had my speech and vision impaired and d) yes, projectile vomited while I was teaching at Equinox in Santa Monica.

(I made it to the bathroom, but not past the door, to be clear. And yes, one of my students helped clean it up because I had left the rest of the class in a crescent twist as I ran ran out without saying a word, as would have been impossible with said vomit in mouth.)

So I asked myself the old standby, “Jen, what the [heck] are you manifesting here?” (I may have sworn.)

Illness, darkness, sleep, depression, headaches, vomit, sickness blah blah blah. Yeah, all of that.

WTF? ( You can translate that as you like but I prefer Phil Dunphy’s from Modern Family: Why The Face?)

I thought about when I had been on the way to Cody, Wyoming, along Route 70, and suddenly, a deer in the middle of the highway, as sudden as that small shock against frost: that single blade of grass.

My deer recognized the regret in my eyes.

What is the nature of regret?

He stood shaking in the highway, his summer coat chestnut red and soaking with rain, regretting that, although he could see all of his surroundings at once, he could not focus on one location with both eyes at the same time.

He thinks that us humans must take this for granted.

How much of his life had he missed because of this?

How much of my life have I missed lately?

I have been wondering this.


I got a CAT Scan of my brain this morning. (Yes, scary.) Nothing wrong. (Yes, pretty awesome.)  Now I need to get to the bottom of why I have been suffering, what the root is. (The hard part.)

I have to visualize myself fully healed and pain free.

This visualization is the key that I sometimes forget. I went to a massage therapist  (who was really more of a healer) who, when I said “I cannot live like this anymore!!” Said back to me, “Well, how can you live?” Aha!

I was struck by the fact that I had forgotten this rule. (Again, Why the face?)

I had been moaning and whining and crying about how I couldn’t take it anymore and didn’t want to be in pain anymore. Complete focus on what I did not want. On lack.

I teach this in workshops! How did I forget this?

Oh, wait! I know how.

I am….a Human Being. Dun, dun, dun.

Ah, how often I forget this. I push and push myself and then when my body reacts I feign confusion and I get angry and sloppy with my thoughts.

I’m back. I sit here clear, not sure what exactly is causing this pain, but what the healer told me, and what I believe is that my body locked up with fear and thus my muscles can’t breathe and are dehydrated from clenching. Or something like that. I get it.

So back to my own Manifestation Manifestos I go. Thinking from the end. Being in the feeling of what I want. Not worrying about the how.

I teach workshops all over called, yes, you guessed it, “What Are You Manifesting In your Life?” The next one is in New York City at Pure Yoga West April 2nd (yes…I manifested this after having it on my vision board and really imagining myself doing this). The following workshop is at my home studio the Yoga Collective in Santa Monica April 30th.

These workshops are designed, much as my regular classes are, albeit longer, to help students release whatever may be holding them back in life (uh, migraines, Jen?) and manifest what it is they really, really want in life.

I transformed my own life 100%. I waitressed at the same job for 13 years in Los Angeles while half-heartedly trying to be an actress…as I was anorexic and severely depressed. Within two years of taking yoga teaching training I was a very successful yoga teacher in the land of very successful yoga teachers. How?

I found my bliss.

I thought from the end. I didn’t worry when everyone told me not to become a yoga teacher in Santa Monica, the mecca of yoga teaching in the world. I immersed myself in Wayne Dyer talks as I walked.

Jen and Wayne Dyer

I made vision boards. I started surrounding myself with people who inspired me. I wrote! I also finally came to terms with the fact that I was severely hard of hearing and needed hearing aids. I opened the ear in my heart.

Until I stopped asking why did it fall from my grip. My fist opened and the why slipped into the sky like it belonged there. And I watched it hover then float. And I accepted what I was. A healer.
Of course, I did a lot more but that was the start and I go into depths the steps to take in my workshops and retreats. Most of it is thought based. My only goal is to inspire people and so I share my story and what I did to get where I am. I finally got honest, mostly with myself. And sometimes, startlingly here, on Elephant Journal.

What I did was take a hard look at the discrepancy of what I said I said I wanted to manifest and what I really was manifesting around me. It didn’t add up.

I know all this is said in the film “The Secret” and various other self- help books, but let me re-iterate: it is easy to forget. So sometimes, being in a space with a person/teacher who makes you feel safe or whom facilitates a place of healing or breakthroughs in yoga or thought processes is just the thing one needs in actually creating synchronicity in their own lives. Sometimes people don’t know what their bliss even is. I know I didn’t for a long time. I knew it was not refilling iced teas and taking orders for egg whites and lying about how many auditions I had. But I did not know what it was. Until I found it.

When the student is ready the teacher shall appear.

My workshops bring together asana, meditation, journaling, chanting, laughing, and sometimes joyful outbursts of singing or dancing (Michael Jackson and the Beatles are always a hit.) They are followed by wine tasting, vegan treats by my friends at Zuddha Girls as well as live  music. Why?

Because all of these things I have found, have led me to be inspired! (and make my heart happy!)

I can only go from what I know, but, if you do things that allow you to be your most inspired self on a daily basis then I am quite sure you would be attracting pretty awesome things into your world. Pretty awesome people. Pretty awesome thoughts.

(That’s pretty awesome.)

I also encourage people to ask the question ” How may I serve?” I give free yoga to kids who have special needs through a charity I created called GAME: Gifts And Miracles Everyday.

www.GameYoga.Org

Jen and her GAME kids at the Yoga Collective in Santa Monica

I can safely say it has become the drive for my life. Find something, anything, that makes you come alive! Last Saturday one of my kids, who is 100% blind and autistic, when I asked her what she loved about herself (my daily question), answered, “My life!”

I was humbled. To tears.

So I sit here visualizing my Italy retreat and how lovely it will be and it is making me feel happy. My headache is gone. I also think of Cam or Claire or Gloria sometimes to smile. You know, from Modern Family. Or my kids from GameYoga.org or a good glass of wine and a book. Ok, Phil from Modern Family makes me smile too.

Ok, I get it, universe. I get it.

Next workshop is in NYC April 2nd at Pure West can be registered by clicking here . The Santa Monica workshop April 30th register by emailing [email protected]. If you can’t make a workshop I will leave you with these words:

Thank the universe, in advance, for what you are manifesting.

Expect to be delighted! Be in the feeling of what you want to receive.

Speak your goals with excitement and joy as if they are already in motion.

Step out of your comfort zone.

Trust. Trust is the bridge between your asking and its manifestation.

Release what is no longer right for you.

Let go!

Say yes!

(Okay! The whole cast from Modern Family makes me happy!)

What makes you happy?


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