Healing Hillary

sticky vanilla

As I sit here listening to the rain outside and sipping on my homemade vanilla milkshake (thanks hubby), I am wondering what I am going to write about...

Not to call attention to something that you might have overlooked, but I have been suffering from some writer's block. My creative energies are a bit low. I have some theories as to where that energy has gone...and in time I am certain that this will all be framed in a perspective. As for now, I am just sitting with it.

I reminded myself that if I do the same, I will get the same. So instead of just not posting or forcing a post, I thought I would just admit my stuckness (yes, I still apparently like to invent words). So here I am...sitting in the still silence and loving this place every bit as much as I have loved the places filled with abundant thoughts and creative words. 

Yours in honesty,

Hillary

my healing path...hypnosis

...Continued from My Healing Path, More Uncovered...

I had 2 days to prepare for my surgery. I contacted a hypnotherapist I had worked with once before and asked for help. He worked with me for those two days preceding my surgery and the day of he came to the hospital to "set me up" for surgery. 

I remember going back into the surgical rooms noticing the things that could induce fear (the ringing, paging, beeping, waivers and worst-case talk), however, I felt no fear within my body. I did what was required, answered the questions, signed the waivers and my pulse never increased. I was comfortable and willing.

In surgery my nurse anethesist (who was pregnant herself) suggested to the surgeon that they not tourniquet my leg until the last possible moment. I quickly settled in, steadied my breath and let my mind travel. 

Photo Credit

I began with the steps my hypnotherapist taught me. I relaxed quickly and could hear my the gentle and steady beep of my heart rate on the machine next to me. My mind began to wander to beautiful places I had never begun to imagine. I swam with fish in a cool pool, I sipped chamomile tea fireside on a bear skinned rug, I milked a cow. Occasionally a nurse would check on me, or ask me a question and I was able to respond and quickly drop back into this beautiful world my mind was creating. 

I chased a little boy through a field, my little boy. He was naked and his long almost white curly hair brushed the tops of his shoulders as he ran from me. I called after him, he turned for a moment and smiled and kept running. I never could catch him. The next imagery flooded me, as I witnessed the birth of a colt. Just as the colt came into my imaginary world, the tourniquet on my right leg was released.  

To be continued...

In healing,

Hillary

my healing path...more uncovered

 Jizo Statue

Last year on May 13th I lost a unborn soul. He swirled and danced around me for many weeks after, something that my midwife told me would happen. It was a hard time, a time of pain for me. I remember awaking in the middle of the night one night a few days after the loss in those deep painful sobs. My grieving had only just begun. 

My loss was 13 days after my foot surgery. I had a lot of fear around this, fear of judgement mostly, for a long time. That in my attempts, I hadn't done everything I could. The truth is that I did all that I could. I had surgery without general anesthesia or pain medicine. I was under advisement of my midwife and utilized hypnotherapy to surpass the pain. I went to greater lengths than my surgeon, surgical team and I, thought humanly possible. 

What I know now is that this soul came into my life just when I needed it. Unlike the pregnancy with my daughter, I was not ill, had no breast tenderness and generally felt normal from the beginning. My understanding, now, a little over a year later, is that this soul came to help me do what I could not have done for myself. He (just a strong hunch, no proof) required me to advocate for myself and to heal myself. His presence took me to a place mentally where I could begin to understand the massive power of the human mind. He brought me to a different level of myself, where I recognized that the only thing stopping me was...me. I began to heal, reconstruct and rebuild. I began to Heal Hillary. 

This, is where the story began...(to be continued).

Recognizing the power we all possess,

Hillary 

Healing Monday :: inspiration, my favorite poem

I heard this poem on a backpacking trip at the age of 14. A trip that would vastly change my life and how I see life. Three days before the trip I writhed in deep pain and after much debate, my parents took me to the docs office and then the hospital. I had a kidney stone. 

When I first met my doctor at the Children's Hospital, my first words to him were of my upcoming trip that I was going on for a month. It was up to him to figure out how. I had surgery, a stint put in and was given a large bottle of horse pill antibiotics and discharged the day I caught my flight out west. I was a stubborn teenager. Although I endured more pain from my healing body, it was all worth it. 

I felt The Call of the Wild. 

This morning I awoke with the words of the poem in my head. I can almost recite this poem by heart, I have read it so many times over the past 17 years. 

The Call of the Wild...by Robert Service, found in one of my favorite books, Earth Speaks.

Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
 Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
 Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,
 Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go and do it;
 Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sagebrush desolation,
 The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?
Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of all creation,
 And learned to know the desert's little ways?
Have you camped upon the foothills, have you galloped o'er the ranges,
 Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through?
Have you chummed up with the mesa? Do you know its moods and changes?
 Then listen to the Wild -- it's calling you.

Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver?
 (Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.)
Have you broken trail on snowshoes? mushed your huskies up the river,
 Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?
Have you marked the map's void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races,
 Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?
And though grim as hell the worst is, can you round it off with curses?
 Then hearken to the Wild -- it's wanting you.

Have you suffered, starved and triumphed, groveled down, yet grasped at glory,
 Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?
"Done things" just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story,
 Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?
Have you seen God in His splendors, heard the text that nature renders?
 (You'll never hear it in the family pew.)
The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things --
 Then listen to the Wild -- it's calling you.

They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,
 They have soaked you in convention through and through;
They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their teaching --
 But can't you hear the Wild? -- it's calling you.
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
 Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to guide us,
 And the Wild is calling, calling . . . let us go.

Listening to the Wild,
Hillary 

loving my body

Here is a photo of me on Mother's Day. I share this photo with you for many reasons. In the past several years of blogging and sharing my life and insight online, only a small fraction of the photos shared are of me. I can *promise* you that NONE of them have been me in a bikini. And yet, my body is not all that different today than it has been since T was born, over 3 years ago. So what is different? Me.

I have been watching Mamas these past few days in their suits. So many Mamas are covering up their beautiful bodies. My definition of beautiful is not perfection. It does not have to be perfect to be beautiful, in fact perfection is completely boring. So here I am reflecting and sharing.

I have seen Mamas in long long shorts over their suits, in coverups all day, in tshirts and everything in between. I have watched Mamas step out of the pool and hastily cover their bodies or shyly peel off a layer before stepping into the pool. Where did we all lose our since of beauty and curves?

 
Now I mentioned earlier that my body is not perfect nor is it different than it was before when I was being shy about it, correction...ashamed about it. The difference has come from inside. The difference is my perspective. When I began to love myself, I began to feel more comfortable with my body and then the reflection in the mirror started to change. For so long I would make negative faces at myself in the mirror or tell myself what was wrong with me instead of what was right. Today that is different. Today, I celebrate my body. It is my vehicle. I smile at myself in the mirror, wink at myself and blow a kiss.

I challenge you to look in the mirror and fall in love with something new you see...and blow yourself a kiss. This my friend, is my Mother's Day present to you!

Sending love to you all,

Hillary

Red Shoes

The Story of the Red Shoes

These were my shoes...on the sole of them my mom wrote 1980. I toddled in these shoes, I grew in these shoes. My mom gave these to me about a year and a half ago to see if T could wear them. These shoes are sturdy and heavy, hard-soled and firm. T tried and tried to wear them, but we never had much success because my little soft-soled toddler just plain could not walk in them. 

So as much as I wanted to share these shoes with my daughter...they were never quite a good fit.

The first thing I remembered when I was reunited with these lovely red shoes was one of my favorite photos. I love this photo...it is a perfect vintage capture, a photo that tells a story, right down to the smudged rotary phone. 

As I began to connect to these shoes, I began to feel a deeper connection to myself holding these shoes, I started to wonder...

I think those little red shoes were my first pair of sassy shoes. Indeed today, *one* might say I have an affinity for red shoes in particular (and sassiness come to think of it). Somehow when I am wearing a pair of reds I feel...well, more me. 

What makes you feel more you? 

Grateful for my reds...and feeling like me,

Hillary 

P.S. Just a little reminder that my Etsy shop Red + Teal opens today at Noon CST.  

Meet Me with Yarn

I am a knitter.  No big surprise to most of you. Actually, if you know me even the teensiest bit you know that I knit.  I knit at red lights and sometimes inadvertently at green ones.  I ebb and flow with my knitting as in all things in life.  Sometimes I knit every spare moment my hands have and sometimes I go a few weeks with out picking up anything at all.  I love the journey. 

I find knitting rhythmic and meditative at times.  At other times I think it is a great way for me to practice not loosing my temper...I mean it's just a dropped stitch, right? 

I love the feel of yarn running through my fingers.  I love knowing that I can create beauty out of string.  I love that my daughter is literately wrapped in my love when she wears something I made her.  I love that I can give hand made gifts from my heart. 

I learned to knit from a woman in Montana named Amy.  She is a wise one, in her 70s now.  She taught me how to keep at it when I felt like giving up, how to take a step back when I needed to, and how to appreciate my mistakes as unique irreplicable bits of character. These were lessons I never thought I'd learn amidst the mechanics of knits, purls and pattern interpretations.  

I learned so much on Wednesdays with Amy and the Knit Wits (my sweet knitting group of Amy and 10 or so others, including one man...aptly named the Knit Wits).  I learned how knitting was a tool for me to practice patience, self-acceptance and determination...all lessons I needed and still do. 

Amy taught me the trade with the promise that I would teach others and pass it along.  I have taught countless friends how to knit, all with the promise that they too will teach others and pass it along. 

For those of you who want to knit and don't yet know how...here is my one suggestion...find a grandma who knows how and ask her to teach you. I imagine that the relationship will be mutually rewarding and if you are like me, you'll learn more than just how to knit.   

From one Knit Wit,

Hillary 

P.S. This rainbow backpack is still on the needles...it will be felted this week for a special little one's 3rd birthday! 

Meet Me on the Mat

Photos...I love photos! I never have any of myself (I'm the one behind the lens...never in front of it), so I had a photo shoot last weekend with Elizabeth Priddy of Priddy Sweet Portraiture. There were many, many beautiful photos. I will share them with you over the next few weeks here on Sundays. 

Really, I am introducing myself, sharing myself. I am a woman of this earth, a blogger, a writer, a yogini, an artist, a crafter, a mother, a love, a lucid dreamer...I am many things, as we women usually are. 

Today I share with you my love of yoga. Meet me, by the stream, amidst the green on the green mossy mat...

I began my yogic path in 1999 on the carpeted floor of my college apartment, late one evening with a Patricia Walden video. That night I slept well, a rejuvenating sleep I had craved for so long and never knew I was missing. I was transformed from a gal to a yogini.  

I followed my path after college to Esalen Institute where I became a work-scholar for a few months, the first month of which I studied yoga with Thomas Michael Fortel. I found the physical component of yoga very familiar, having spent many of my formative years in ballet. It would be years until I began to grasp the mental component. 

Yoga was not an easy path for me. It was my first understanding of intentional mindfulness. It brought awareness to my life, something that I had resistance around. Living unaware seemed so much easier, in that numbing way, and yet I found greatly less fulfilling. When I turned the corner of connecting my yoga practice to my life (gently, this took years), I found yoga to be a tool to tap into my state of being. That where I found my yoga practice to be a mere reflection of my life. 

I remember formulating my yoga theory...that there are three components balance, strength and flexibility. These three components mirror my life. I am very flexible both physically and in life. However, until I cultivated strength I was unstable. Yoga gave me a reminder...yes, I am flexible but my life will never be mine without strength and balance. The postures gave me insight. 

I found it humorous that I could bend backwards with ease, and yet chest (heart) opening poses provided me great challenges. I noticed could move swiftly through poses with ease and loathed being still in a pose for minutes. Hmmn. Are you seeing the connection yet? 

As I continue to grow and change I love having a mirror into my soul. I find these in many forms in my life. One place I can always see what is going on with me is on my yoga mat. Yoga has been with me for a long time now. It feels like home to me. I continue to grow and strengthen in my practice and in my life. Yoga has provided me a forum for growth and self-acceptance. It has been my teacher. 

My practice has taught me to love and accept myself exactly in this moment. To love my funny toes and the way my arms extend...to me yoga is a way I can love myself. I see my body, its abilities and limitations and I cultivate love for myself with that new knowledge. It is self-love.

Loving myself is the gateway to loving the whole world. It is not possible for me to love, with out truly loving myself. I honor my body for the path that it has taken me, the things it does for me and the life it allows me. I love the path I am on. I am blessed to be teaching, what I call, Self-Love Yoga. I share my love of yoga, awareness and life in general with others. I am living a dream.

This is me...

Meet me on the mat,

Hillary

P.S. Locals...Self-Love Yoga tonight 7pm @ The Yoga Room...see you there!