I just returned from 3 days alone at the beach on the northern coast of Sao Paulo state in Brazil (pictures here).  It was just the break from the city, and my life that I needed to “let the mud settle” as they say.  No TV, no radio, no phone – only me and some Eckhart Tolle meditations to keep me company.

Until my last day at the beach.  I settled into my beach chair and umbrella on the beautiful and as yet uncrowded, space on the beach.  I was listening to a meditation, when suddenly I felt something licking my hand. Startled, I opened my eyes and saw a dog gently lick my hand, and then lay down in the shade created by my umbrella.  It was as if he was asking my permission to share my shade.  At first unsettled, I soon realized that he was hurting nothing by laying there, so I let him share my space with me.

He laid there with me all day, sleeping. He was not a cute pooch by any means – mangy and not terribly skinny but not cute either. He seemed exhausted, and didn’t even stir when I carefully got up to go into the ocean for a short swim.  Keeping an eye on him while I was in the water, I secretly hoped he would not leave because I was not there, and that no one would bother him there (stray dogs are not treated very kindly here, in general).

When I became hungry in the afternoon I got up to go to the beach kiosk to get something to eat, and bought both of us hot dogs and a fried pastel with cheese to share.  When I told the woman at the kiosk that I was taking one of the hot dogs back for him, at first she laughed at me, and then she asked me if I thought he’d want mustard and ketchup on his.  We decided that plain was probably better, and she ended up bringing a glass of water back for him to my spot because I couldn’t carry it all myself.

It turns out that he was hungry, but much thirstier.  After I made 2 more trips back to refill his water glass, he and I were both finally able to relax again.  He very carefully took each bite I offered him (rather than let his food land in the sand). He seemed much more alert then, after eating and drinking. 

Such a gentle creature; I gently pet his head and told him he was a good boy.

By this time, we were becoming something of a spectacle.  The guy from the kiosk where I had purchased the food came over to ask me if I needed anything else, and I asked for 1 more cup of water for my dog friend.   When he returned a few minutes later, he carried with him a bowl of water AND a whole tin bowl of food with beans, rice, and chicken and set it down in front of the dog, who began to gingerly eat it.  I thanked him and he told me that he knew this dog and he used to be bigger and beautiful before his life on the street.  Then a nearby family on the beach sent over their leftovers for the dog to eat as well.

By this time, I was crying.  Here, I was experiencing something that I had yet to experience in my time here in Brazil – the kindness of strangers.  In that moment I realized that I had somehow lost my faith in humanity since moving here and that the dog was my spiritual teacher, showing me the potential goodness of humans.  I happened to have my Animal Medicine cards with me, and I looked up the meaning of dog medicine.  The power of dog medicine is to give, despite the lack of returned kindness or response from others. According to the text, even when beaten or mis-treated, the dog returns, only seeking to serve and to be loved.  It does this not out of stupidity, but from a deep and compassionate understanding of human shortcomings.

Ahhh…. that seemed to be MY lesson. Compassion and understanding toward human shortcomings.  That has been in short supply for me lately, and I miss it. 

So, as it turns out, the dog gave more to me than I to him.  By taking the risk to reach out to me, he re-ignited other people's generosity, as well as my own.  At the end of the day, apparently refreshed and rested, the dog arose, stretched and with one last look at me, trotted off down the beach.

It seems my lesson this week is about reaching out.  In my lesson a couple of days ago in “The Book of Awakening,” there was a parable about the spider and the sage.  In it, a wise old man sees a spider struggling in the water and rescues him, placing him safely back on the earth.  Just as he is releasing the spider, it bites him. The next day, the man again sees the spider struggling, again rescues him, and again the spider bites him.  After the third time this has happened, the spider finally asks the man, “Why do you keep saving me? Can’t you see that I will bite you every time because it’s what I do?”  The sage answers him, “Because it’s what I do.”

The lesson is that although there are many reasons to reach out in kindness, the most compelling is that it is our spiritual nature.  Which I understand conceptually. But it is not my experience right now.  After having been bitten several times recently, I unlike the wise sage, feel like withdrawing from picking any spiders up.  I have lost contact, temporarily, with my nature to reach out in kindness.  Sometimes it feels as if reaching out is a mistake.

Is it?

The lesson in the book says that the reaching out is more important than the bite.  The author says he’d rather be fooled than not believe.  Deep in my heart I know the same is true for me - that I can’t and wouldn’t want to change my optimistic, see what’s good in people nature.  It is my nature too. However, I don't think it wise to keep picking up the same spider that has bitten me before.  Isn't there another parable about that????

So then, what is my lesson?  Maybe it’s about forgiveness and acceptance of others exactly as they are, bites and all. Maybe it's about learning whom to trust and forgiving the rest.  Maybe it's about looking at my expectations and lowering them, at least here in Sao Paulo. 

During times of agitation, like I am experiencing now, I feel unsettled and I don’t like it. I find myself looking for ways to avoid the discomfort of not knowing how to change my life to return to joy and peace. I am not patient.  Mostly my mind tends to strategize, to play out different scenarios to see if any would be better than what I am currently doing – should I cancel ALL my classes and spend a month at the beach?  What if I stopped teaching Zumba and only taught Nia?  Maybe I should only teach close to my house so I am not dealing with traffic every day?  You get the picture.

So I was on the Eckhart Tolle website and watched a video by another teacher there, Kim Eng. And she talked about agitation in a way that really resonated and comforted me.  She said that agitation – the definition of which is to stir things up – occurs for a reason.  It’s part of the process that leads to clarity, but often we want so much to escape the discomfort of it, that we don’t let it do its work.  We are fearful of this discomfort because we project it into the future and believe that we will always feel this way. 

So true for me.  It’s so hard for me to remember that agitation is a state, a temporary state.  I just know that I don’t like not knowing, so I often make any decision rather than just allowing myself to feel agitated.  She encourages us to just watch the agitation inside us, rather than identifying with it.  Immediately I felt better when I could do this. 

She then shared that deep within each of us, the very core of us, is peace.  I know this place well.  This place is home, she said, and our lives are simply a continuous process of leaving and returning to home.

Home.

For me, this is both literal and symbolic. We all know what home feels like – the place we live that feels safe, comfortable, and beautiful.  Sometimes I feel like I just want to stay in my home and never leave, especially here in Sao Paulo.  At home, I am buffered from all the things that frustrate and hurt me.  But I know on a deep level that staying home forever is not possible.  I have to leave even if just to re-stock the shelves of the pantry.  It’s funny, because I have often contemplated becoming a hermit, thinking I would enjoy it. And maybe I would.

But maybe the purpose of my life IS to leave home and return home. To the home within myself-that place of stillness and peace; I now know I cannot dwell there forever either.  Life pulls me out of it, and when I experience stress and frustration then I know it’s time to return home.  Sometimes returning home is only a deep breath or Nia practice away, and sometimes it’s weeks of agitation. Either way the destination is the same, and I have made the journey once more.  Who knows? Maybe someday I will learn to enjoy the journey rather than resist it.

Now that I am back home in Sao Paulo, I have resumed my morning ritual of reflection, and have been contemplating a lesson from “The Book of Awakening” for January 2^nd.   In it a story is shared about a man who is hell bent on painting his studio; he mixes the paint, gathers the materials he needs, and goes to his studio. As he approaches the doorway, he realizes that with 2 cans of paint in his hands, brush in his mouth, drop cloth under his arm that he can’t open the door.  In his stubbornness to put anything down, he tries to open the door with his foot, and ends up falling and spilling his paint, and of course dropping everything anyway.

The lesson asks us to consider putting down what we are carrying to be able to open the next door.  It seems I am offered the opportunity to do this time and time again – to put down everything to open the door and then pick up only what is needed to move forward. And often, like now, I fail to do this and try to bring it all with me anyway. Since I have recently found myself laying on the ground, with everything scattered around me, I am asking myself, “What do I need to take with me to go through this door?”

I actually DID put everything down when I moved back to Michigan from California. And I had the opportunity to ask myself this when we first moved to Sao Paulo.  But stubbornly I wanted to HURRY and teach Zumba, HURRY and get a life, HURRY and meet people.  And I missed an opportunity to contemplate the threshold and take only what I needed.

So here I am.

Since it’s the beginning of the New Year, I am taking this new opportunity to ask and LISTEN to what the answer is – “What do I need to take with me to go through this door?”   I’ll let you know what I discover….

When something happens once, it’s an occurrence. Twice, my radar goes up.  Three times – it’s now a pattern.  And I am certainly noticing a pattern here about UN-dependability in general.  Actually, this is the most frustrating thing about my life here in Sao Paulo right now.

I don’t think I am normally sensitive to people being undependable – I usually avoid them as soon as I figure out that they are.   But here, I would be a hermit if I did that.  More than the “Te ligo” syndrome where people say they will call you and they don’t, un-dependability here is taken to a new level.  I have seldom made plans with someone here that they didn’t postpone or cancel.  Seriously.  Often more than once. And a lot of the time, it just never ends up happening at all.

It happens to me almost every day.  This week alone (alright, one of the worst) I had 3 postponements of lunches or coffees (some for the second time!), and 2 different people canceled on me after having committed to teach my Zumba classes while I am in the U.S.!

I really didn’t think I was sensitive to the imperfections of people, but I am seriously fed up right now. I honestly think that it is culturally acceptable here in Sao Paulo (can only speak from my experience here) to commit to something and then just cancel, change your mind, get a better offer, etc.  Clearly we have different definitions of commitment operating.

What is my lesson here? To learn to only depend on myself?  I’ve already been there, and I really prefer collaborating, supporting, lifting each other up.  But honestly, it’s just not happening here. Makes becoming a hermit look pretty good….

P.S. Okay, after my massage, I feel much better. But I am still sharing this because it is the truth of my experience right now. It isn't pretty, or enlightened, but it's true.

I seem to be in a learning space about friendship recently (and not the fun kind of learning, either).  I have been struggling to make new REAL friends (vs. nice acquaintances) since moving to Sao Paulo, which has had me pondering the whole concept of friendship.

What I am learning about myself so far – I don’t need many true friends, but feel very loyal and want to feel deeply connected to the ones I have.  I want to be able to truly let my hair down, answer the door in pajamas, and share my deepest secrets (yes, I do have a couple). It’s not easy for me to make true friends, because I am in truth an introvert, which means I’d prefer to be sought out rather than to seek.  It feels like a lot of WORK to form a new friendship, kind of like dating, and to be honest, I am kind of tired of trying right now. But if I don’t try, I feel alone in this big, big city.

I’ve also learned that I have deeply imbedded in me one of the first things we learn in Nia training: being impeccable with our words.  Unfortunately for me, that principle is almost non-existent in the Sao Paulo culture, where “Eu te ligo” or “I’ll call you” is basically a meaningless expression.  In my world, “I’ll call you” means that I will indeed call you. I have embraced this Nia principle in my life, and didn’t realize until I moved to Sao Paulo that I also value it in others.  I have been disappointed SO many times here, by both Brazilians and Expats who have apparently embraced the culture here, where saying you’ll do something doesn’t mean you’ll do it.  So, I have chosen to surround myself with a few people that I can count on, which I know limits me, but honestly I just don’t want to live my life any other way. 

So I find myself now in a place of having acquaintances, and possibly some budding friendships after being here almost 9 months.  Most days I’m okay with it, and some days I just need to call my mom and cry.  This too shall pass…

I have been VERY fortunate lately to be in the presence of Masters of their craft, namely Zumba and Nia, and I have been pondering why this lights me up!  In both cases, I took classes from teachers who embody what they teach, which was very powerful for me to experience. 

I love taking classes from other teachers who inspire me, make me want to be better, and help me identify how I can improve my own teaching. In my opinion, this is part of the road to mastery of anything – learning from others who are ahead of me on the road.  I LOVE this – I always leave so inspired and ready to up my own ante.

In the Zumba class I took from Zumba Jammer Lisa Marie Torres, I saw how she effortlessly commanded the energy of the entire class in a variety of ways:  she removed all breaks between songs, creating a seamless transition of music, she taught facing a variety of directions, depending on how easily we could catch on to a new move, and she used the whole room, making contact with each student during the class.

In the Zumba class I took from Zumba Education Specialist Karla Mead, I saw how to effectively break down moves, introducing either arms or feet first so students can build the moves during the song.  I also experienced some great new songs that I can almost immediately add to my repertoire because of her effective teaching and simple choreography.

Finally, in the Nia classes I recently took from Next Generation Trainer Kelle Rae Oien, I really GOT for the first time the power of music in a class. She has a talent for leading the energy of the class seamlessly through music choice, varying intensity, mood, and vibe perfectly so that I just lost myself in the movement.  She calls it “not frying people’s nervous systems” by varying the intensity of the music, although she may still use intense moves.  Additionally, I experienced the most athletic Nia class of my life, which was very appropriate for the audience we had, and I was so excited to experience the power of Athletic Nia.  I have always wanted more athleticism for myself and to deliver more to my students, and Kelle showed me how to achieve that and still stay true to Nia.

So now, here I am, totally fired up in a location that doesn’t offer many opportunities for me to be exposed to mastery in these 2 modalities.  I am going to ration out my enthusiasm so it will last until I return home to the U.S. for Christmas, where I can again drink from the wellspring of Mastery.