Author: Kay White

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I Am Already All That I Need

I love this quote by Nisargadatta Maharaj. This is such a great reminder of how beautiful life can be if you live by these principals.

I used to have an attitude or belief that my problems were all that mattered. I was always thinking about my problems, my life, my wants, my needs, my stuff, my lack, my suffering, etc. I was very busy trying to get things to be the way I wanted them.. the way I thought they should be. I was always a victim and something was always happening to me! Everything that happened in life that didn’t fit with my set of personal preferences was a problem, so I had lots of problems. I had an attitude that I deserved a better life and it was not fair when things didn’t go my way. One of my frequently used phrases was “why does this always happen to ME?!!” All my bad choices and circumstances (alcohol, drugs, abusive relationships, etc)  were because somebody did me wrong, either in that instant or at some distant time in the past, and It wasn’t my fault!

Through my process of recovery, I was able to change my attitudes and beliefs and realize that most of my suffering was caused by my own self-importance and misguided sense of what life was all about. Once I started practicing yoga and meditation I started to see everything more clearly. I began to have the insight through the practice of self-inquiry, and I was able to see the truth in each situation and how my attitude about it could change everything! If I practiced having an attitude of gratitude, my life looked much better than if I had an attitude of entitlement. Slowly, I got down off my high horse and began to live more humbly. One of my favorite quotes is from Rick Warren’s book “The Purpose Driven Life” which says:  “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less”. I found this to be profoundly true in my own life. I had been thinking about myself and my perceived problems constantly. I was making unimportant things important and leaving behind the most important things; like my children.

Once I began practicing humility, I became willing to see my own neurosis. The more I lived from this place of humility, the more real and honest I became, and the better I felt about myself. I had to stop pretending to be someone I was not and accept myself just the way I was, a train wreck, which would take a long time to clean up and get back on track.

Eventually, through continuing to practice gratitude and humility and by letting go of self-importance and entitlement, I began to see myself in a better light. I began to love the real me. I finally found the love that I had always been seeking, and it was right here inside me. I had been seeking love outside myself for decades, living the life of the “hungry ghost” that Gabor Mate talks about in his book about addiction and trauma. He describes the hungry ghost as “the domain of addiction, where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment. The aching emptiness is perpetual because the substances, objects or pursuits we hope will soothe it are not what we really need.”

What I learned from my own experience is that what I really needed was to love and accept myself. Love is knowing I am everything…already! There is nothing I need to do, be, acquire, aspire to, perfect, etc. I just needed to be me, and love who I am. So now, years later, the train of my life is flowing pretty smoothly along the tracks to wherever life is taking me. The things I thought mattered most, the things I thought I had to GET in order to be HAPPY, I still don’t have them. Life still happens without concern for my list of preferences. Life is still life but I have changed my attitude about it. Now I practice acceptance and gratitude, which gives me FREEDOM from wishing that what has already happened were different than it is.

Now, instead of thinking about myself all the time, I think about how I can make a difference in the lives of others. How can I help another person find the love inside themselves? How can I help others to find FREEDOM from suffering?  How can I show up in a way that inspires and uplifts everyone I meet? Now I know that life is not about getting…It’s about loving and giving and connecting to others in a meaningful way. Turns out, if you align yourself with love and humility, life is beautiful, and you don’t need anything to make it so.

Wishing you all love and happiness!

Namaste

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Rise Up Warrior Women

Be yourself and love who you are! Don’t judge, don’t compare, don’t worry! That is your mission! To boldly go out and be yourself!

I know this is a daunting mission. It took me awhile to get there. But don’t give up! Don’t give in! Make a commitment to this mission of loving who you are. Loving who you are right now, not who you will be someday if you do this, that and the other thing. You are a divine spiritual being who is perfect exactly as you are right now! The only problem is that you have not taken the time to get to know this being and fall in love with her. Instead you have spent all your time judging and criticizing her. So get to know your real Self and start looking for the things that are right and good and great about yourself!

MAKE THIS YOUR MISSION and you will find out what a miracle you are, how powerful you are, how beautiful you are, how amazing you are, how loving you are, and how blessed you are!

“If you look for the bad, you will find it. If you look for the good, you will find it. We always have a choice between two realities: the positive and the negative. The reality we invest our energy in is the one in which we exist.”  ~ Yehuda Berg

You will know you are making progress when you find yourself being more tolerant of others, more compassionate and less judgemental. When you catch yourself putting others down, stop and forgive yourself for that bad habit. Judging others is a sure sign that our inner critic is alive and well, and it judges us more harshly than it judges others. Just becoming aware of this is the first step toward conquering it. Catch yourself judging and re-direct those thoughts and inner comments into something positive.

Rise up warrior woman! Take on your mission! Conquer the negative mind! Train yourself to think happy thoughts. Find peace within yourself. I did it, and I am no different than you. You have the power….should you choose to accept it  :))

Peace & many blessings,
Kay

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Break the Cycle of Karma

“The Idea of Karma is that You Continue to get The Teachings You Need to Open Your Heart” ~ Pema Chodron

Before my recovery from substance abuse and love addiction (dysfunctional relationship addiction), I always blamed everyone else for all the things going wrong in my life. I was the perpetual victim and everything was happening “to me.”  I always felt like, “Why is this happening to me? Why do all the men in my life cheat on me, lie to me, put me down, call me names and abuse me?” Through my recovery process I came to understand that nothing was happening “to me,” it was all happening “for me.” These lessons kept coming for three decades, until I finally got it.

The great Law of Karma states, “As you sow, so shall you reap.” This applies directly to what I was experiencing, even though I felt I was the victim. My Karma was that I would continue to get the lessons over and over until I learned from them. I was unconsciously choosing to continue this cycle of suffering by not learning from the lessons that were being presented to me. These lessons were trying to teach me that NO relationship, except the one with myself, was going to give me the love that I needed to heal. I was not going to heal my wounds by finding the right man to love me.

Yes, I had been a victim when I was an innocent child, but that was long ago. The situations that I was participating in as an adult were happening because I had not healed from my childhood trauma, which had left me with insecurity, shame, guilt, and lack of self-love. Because I had not healed, I kept getting into relationships that would ultimately cause me great suffering. I would then blame the other person and make myself “right” and them “wrong,” which kept me stuck in that never ending cycle of blaming and justifying.  I could then justify my coping mechanisms, which were self-sabotaging and kept me stuck in the proverbial “vicious cycle.”

The lesson that life was trying to teach me was that I needed to heal from my childhood trauma and open my heart to the love that was buried under the layers of fear. The love that was hidden under the fear was the love for myself. Once I truly faced my fear, I was able to tap into that deep well of love that was there for me. I was able to see clearly that life was not happening “to me,” it was happening “for me.” It was trying to teach me the ultimate lesson. That there is nothing out there to “get” that would provide me with the love and happiness that I was seeking.  All that I needed and wanted was with me all along, all I needed to do is look within.

Looking within is not something that happens overnight. It is a process of healing, forgiveness, self-compassion and self-inquiry. It takes time and perseverance, but it has the biggest reward if you do it! It is the Hero’s Journey. You become the hero of your life when you get tired of being the victim of your life and become willing to face your fears. When you learn to love yourself unconditionally, your whole life heals. You break the cycle of Karma.

Dive deep into your own heart, discover your own true self, and you will find everything you were searching for “out there.”

Peace and Many Blessings,
Kay

“We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong.” ~ Pema Chodron

 

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Who Am I Really?

Who am I really? I am Consciousness. I am pure love, light and beauty. I am infinite and unknowable. I am the unmanifest experiencing the illusion of human form in order to know myself as love, as you, as the earth, as the sky, as the ocean, as the animals, as the stars, as the universe. All of this is the Divine Play of life. Life is amazing and beautiful.

Kay White is not just who I am. I am not just the Ego-self with the story that goes with that identity. That is just something I am making up as I go to help me “fit in” with society’s rules and expectations, but it is not who I am. No, this Ego person that I am making up has had many personalities and many different bodies over the decades. I had the 5-year-old body, the 12-year-old body, the 30-year-old body, and now I have the 50 something-year-old body. Each of these bodies had its own Ego. But throughout all of this, the consciousness, the pure awareness of being, has stayed the same. I have learned that I am not the circumstances of my life or the things and people I get attached to. If I make those things who I am, if I identify myself by these circumstances, then I will feel annihilated if I lose them.

I am not the voice in my head that tells me I am not good enough. That is just what the Mind does when it has been trained by society and implanted with false judgments, expectations and rules passed down from parents, teachers, communities, cultures, and religions. We don’t choose our beliefs, they are programmed into us depending on where and with whom we grew up. The Mind can be programmed to be your enemy. It can go against you your whole life if you let it. No, my Mind is not just who I am. I have the ability to separate myself from my Mind. 

This ability was not available to me before 5 years ago. I didn’t know about it yet. I had no spiritual life or beliefs. My life was painful because I was identified with my thoughts.  My thoughts were the brutal gatekeepers that kept me locked inside feeling hopeless, alone, ashamed and broken. I was constantly sitting in judgment of myself, and my belief system was programmed to make me suffer. I was a victim of my past and my thoughts about myself. I didn’t know that I was a powerful creator with my own Free Will that could be used to create beauty and love in my life instead of fear and self-doubt. I didn’t know that I could reprogram my Mind to see beyond the veil of illusion to the truth of who I am. No, I was lost in the fog of my Mind and could rarely see the beauty of life.

I learned to reprogram my Mind through the principles and teachings of Yoga and through the practice of meditation. Yoga is an 8-limbed path to self-realization. Anyone can learn and practice the path of Yoga. It is a step-by-step guide to reprogram and train the Mind to allow happiness and joy to come into your experience and to let go of all that negative bullshit you’ve been telling yourself. I learned to use my Mind to create and manifest positive emotions like love, joy, peace and contentment into my life. I can flow with life now instead of suffering it. There is no purpose for negative thoughts except to create fear and project it into an imaginary future situation that doesn’t exist. The daily practice of the Path of Yoga has taught me to live in the moment and focus on the good in each day, one day at a time.

I learned to control my emotions. I still have them and feel them, but they don’t take over my life. I can experience a wide range of emotions and then let them go. I do not have to judge myself and I do not have to judge others. If I slip into judgment, I recognize it immediately. I know it is a choice I made and I can choose not to do it. I no longer feel like a victim, I don’t feel sorry for myself, and I don’t blame others for any of the circumstances of my life. I left the old body and the story the Ego was telling, behind. I am not my thoughts and I am not my past circumstances. I am the conscious presence here in this moment writing these words and right now, I am happy, joyous, and free!

Yoga has given me choices. I can choose happiness now. I can choose love. I can choose forgiveness for myself and others. I am no longer programmed to be my own enemy. Now I am my best friend. I love me, I love life, and I love you. I love you because you are me. Yoga has helped me to see beyond the veil, beyond the illusion that we are all separate and we must compete to survive. There is nothing to get outside myself to make me lovable and acceptable. I just needed to look beyond the veil, to the truth of who I really am. When I got a glimpse of that magnificence, that undeniable truth, I loved myself instantly and I instantly knew that this was the truth for all beings. Yes, you and I are the same. If I can learn to love myself, so can you!

“The most important relationship in your life is the relationship you have with yourself”  ~ Diane Von Furstenberg

“You are searching the world for treasure but the real treasure is  yourself” ~ Rumi

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Yoga Is Not About Being Bendy

I knew nothing about yoga therapy five years ago. I started practicing in rehab at 48 years old with sciatica down both legs and degenerative disc disease in my back. Within a few months, I was healed. I can tell you countless stories of transformation by following this path. This thing called yoga is much more than being able to bend over and touch your toes (which, by the way, is not necessary). It transformed my body and mind and introduced me to my true Self. To my Soul. It taught me how to love myself and others. It taught me how to live. It taught me to believe in myself and become the woman I am meant to be. Yoga is a spiritual path to discover your Self! You don’t even need to do a single downward dog! The hardest thing about this practice is to show up for yourself every day. You don’t need to go to a yoga class for an hour and a half. You can get ideas and create your own practice by finding videos on YouTube or on Yoga Journal’s website. Practice your own breathing (pranayama), moving (asana) and meditation ritual for 20-30 minutes every day. This is when the magic happens. When it’s just YOU doing YOUR PRACTICE. It’s like a ceremony that is calling your best self into being. It will transform your life in ways you have never dreamed possible.

 

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Love Who You Are!

I love this quote, “Imagine a woman who Embodies Spirituality. A woman who Honors her body as the Sacred Temple of the Spirit of Life. Who breathes deeply as a prayer of gratitude for life itself. You are that woman.” It’s a reminder to tell myself, “Love who you are!” as much as I possibly can.

It is so amazing to look back on this journey I have been on over the past few years and see the amazing changes that have taken place. To know who I am and love who I am is a miracle in my life. I have a daily spiritual practice that connects me to this truth and to my deeply felt gratitude for knowing this truth. My daily ritual nourishes my body, mind, and spirit. It reminds me of the beauty and magic of life itself. My wish is for all women to know this truth…to feel this magic.

Namaste ~ The light in me sees and recognizes the light in you!

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Self-Love, Self-Respect and Self-Worth: The Keys to Happiness


 I spent decades looking outside myself for someone to love me, treat me with respect, and make me feel worthy, but because I didn’t love and respect myself, I attracted relationships that reinforced the lack of those things I was seeking. I spent many years in relationships that were not healthy; self-medicating with alcohol and drugs to numb the pain of not having Self-Love, Self-Respect, and Self-Worth. Of course, this only reinforced my thoughts and feelings of unworthiness. The proverbial vicious cycle.

I never found healthy love, respect or worth until I learned to love and respect my Self. The Self that I had never realized. The completely lovable Self residing deep in my heart. Through the discovery of this aspect of my being, came a complete transformation of my life.

If you don’t love your Self, it’s a thinking problem, a belief that you have agreed to. It’s all in your mind. You are judging yourself and condemning yourself. Or maybe you feel unlovable because of things that happened to you in your past and you feel like a victim of circumstances. Either way, it is a disconnection from the truth of who and what you really are. This is because the Ego self is ignorant of the truth. I learned to overcome the negative aspects of the Ego by spiritual practices such as yoga, breathwork, meditation, and studying spiritual philosophy. I found that you can learn to love yourself no matter what happened in the past. You can forgive yourself and others and overcome anything that is keeping you from being happy. You can let go of being the Judge and the Victim. I did! And I am just like you! We are the same, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. 

The reason we are here, having these experiences, is to transform. We are here to experience Self-Realization. To learn to love ourselves unconditionally. We can free ourselves from the mind (judge and victim) and become who we came here to be. We can discover our gift and begin to share that with the world. We can leave behind the negative thought processes and begin to vibrate a positive energy into our lives and the lives of those around us. When you discover the truth of who you are, you will no longer think you need people or things to “make” you happy. Happiness will come rushing into your life!

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds” ~Bob Marley

“You don’t attract what you want, you attract what you are.” 
“You must be what it is that you are seeking- that is, you need to put forth what you want to attract.” ~Wayne Dyer

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How Anita Moorjani’s “Dying to Be Me” Helped Me Rediscover Myself

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” ~Wayne Dyer

I was lucky to see world-renowed author Wayne Dyer speak at Wanderlust Festival in Lake Tahoe shortly after I got sober. During his talk he suggested the book, “Dying To Be Me” by Anita Moorjani. This memoir about Anita Moorjani’s experience during a very struggling time in her life which she was close to dying lead to a resilient realization of her inherent self-worth. This incredible story had a major impact on the way I see myself and the world. I was healed from most of my fears after reading it, especially the major fears that most of us share, like the fear of death or the fear of what other people think of me. Anita’s message helped me see clearly that I am a Spirit embodied and that I am full of potential to manifest whatever I choose to become in this lifetime.

I knew that I was much more than I had ever believed I was. It empowered me to be courageous and take on life in a new way. I learned to love myself for who I am now and stop waiting until someday when I accomplish all the things that I thought would make me lovable. I changed the way I look at things, and the things I looked at changed! I highly recommend Anita Moorjani’s book to all of my friends, clients, and colleagues. Wayne Dyer recommended it to, “anyone who is ever going to die.”

 

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15 Ways Yoga Can Heal Your Life!

Studies have shown that the spiritual practices of yoga, meditation, deep relaxation and controlled breathing exercises can increase the effectiveness of drug and alcohol treatment programs by helping us to connect to a power greater than ourselves. 

Here is a list of some of the proven benefits of yoga:
Reduces feelings of depression
Calms feelings of anxiety
Reduces stress and tension
Develops greater self-awareness
Calms compulsive thinking
Improves self-esteem and sense of wellbeing
Promotes better sleep habits
Improves mental function, including memory and cognitive function
Regulates endocrine, nervous, circulatory and respiratory systems
Boosts immune system
Improves organ function
Supports healthy digestive system
Healthier heart and blood vessels
Increases strength, firms and tones muscles
Improves posture

I know this is true because I experienced all of these myself within the first few months of daily practice. These practices healed my body, my mind, and my life!

Peace & Blessings,

Kay

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“I Found God in Myself and I Loved Her…I Loved Her Fiercely” – Ntozake Shange

I came across this quote recently and it resonated with me.  I felt so blessed that it did! Now that this rings true for me, I see how in the past I had no eyes to see these words. “I Found God in Myself and I loved her…I loved her fiercely.” This quote would have meant nothing to me and I would not have even noticed it. Loving myself was not even in my vocabulary before I got sober and transformed my life.

I now know that my relationship with myself is the most important one I will ever have.  I used to think I needed to find a man and get into a relationship in order to be happy.  All those relationships just made me more unhappy.  Then I would drink and use drugs to self-medicate my misery or to mask the pain and pretend I was having “fun”.  I would stay in those bad relationships endlessly because I felt so worthless and afraid to be alone.  I never found what I was seeking because I was always looking outside myself for something to, “make me happy”.

After getting sober I began working on healing myself and my life.  I discovered yoga and meditation and began practicing several times a week.  Yoga teaches the 8 limbed path to enlightenment, beginning with the Yamas & Niyamas which are ethical ways of living and being in the world.  These practices began to change things in me.  I began to feel better in so many ways.  I began to like myself more and my body and mind began to heal.

The practices helped me connect to a deeper meaning in life.  I began to see myself as a spiritual being having a human experience.  The more I practiced and looked within my own heart, the more I felt the power of my Soul.  As my mind and body changed, I felt a deeper connection to the Earth and to all beings.  My love for myself and for life grew and grew until I felt a happiness that I never thought possible.

I sincerely hope that all of you who are struggling with similar issues will give this path a try.  Do some research about what yoga is.  There is a movie called “Yoga Is” that you can stream on Amazon that explains a lot.  I know many people who have transformed their lives through this practice.  I also went to rehab and sober living, which helped, but the transformation came through yoga and meditation.  I wish you all a future being, “happy, joyous, and free”!

Namaste

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