Pilates Video Routines

 

Monday Morning Freewrite

 

Wow! What a morning! I slept in until 5:50 am this morning, but it was enough time for me to have an hour with the LORD before I met with my first directee at 7 am. She is in Asia so her evening is my early morning. 

All I got to say is THERE IS A GOD! I had prayed about what to share. Hemmed and hawed. I wasn't anxious, but he kept saying things to me that seemed like too much. Usually, I like to start with something, and I had an Imaginative Contemplation on the bleeding woman cued up and ready to play, but God also reminded me of a poem. I had that at the ready, but God said to not introduce either of them at the beginning. 

But BOTH were part of God's plan. She proceeded to tell her how the story of the bleeding woman ministered to her as she went through the exercises. She had already listened to the link I had provided in my manual of the Exercises. So that is why God had it on my heart, but even how we got to the story of the bleeding woman was a different route than I would have ever expected. It was through a story that she was telling about something else. This was a fantastic story of the healing of two people! I was so encouraged.

I cannot give too much away because my sessions are confidential, but that story led to me feeling God was telling me to challenge her thinking on something. I had a little conversation with God about the fact that the whole thing about direction is that it is not super directive and more companioning. But I felt really strongly the need to speak up about this, and it was AMAZING what this brought about in our soul-to-soul time. 

Then the poem totally fit. Totally fit. 

He makes all things fit together. He was THERE. I am in AWE.

The next directee was 20 minutes later. God led me to the Spiritual Location Exercise. I love that one, and I usually do it upfront with people to get a feel for where they are at, but I had never done this with her. It was a very good time. She shared about an experience she had with God. While she was sharing, God brought a specific verse of Scripture to mind.  She went through her whole story, and at the end of our time, she mentioned that during this time in her life, the same Scripture he had been putting in my head was the Scripture he had given her about starting a ministry 12 years ago. I confirmed it by saying that was the verse in my head the whole time she was sharing!

Then God led me to mention Celtic prayer. She had ALWAYS wanted to explore this. So I played her the Celtic Morning Prayer Music and a wonderful YouTube of the last song in that series. It so touched her. 

Just part of my morning. I love doing what I do. 

Now on to my "other job" that God is also really confirming things with because I just got a text while I was typing this. 

HE IS SO REAL PEOPLE! HE IS SO HERE! NO DOUBT IN MY MIND! Two different people on opposite sides of the globe this morning, but God had these aligned things for both of them. I love co-laboring with HIM in Kingdom work. YAY. 

Sunday Morning Freewrite

This is my Sabbath. I have been pretty good about honoring it, either on a Saturday or a Sunday depending on whether things come up for us. 

It is always about balance for me. I have all the abundant energy I need for the work that God has for me. Today, I will just rest and connect with God (and my family). The rain is raining hard. I am cozy in my home. Deadlines looming for me. Emails out to others as I wait to move ahead on some of them. 

One email sent was automatically answered, and I am grateful. I am teaching on the Instinctual Variants (Subtypes is the popular name, but it really is not descriptive of their function according to Russ Hudson of the Enneagram Institute.) for a Year Two Cohort for Sustainable Faith. I taught on it last year this time, and I think it went well. So, my handouts are all prepared. I just need to put it in a format that I can share on Zoom, which I have always wanted and needed to do. So, I will work on that part of this week. 

I also need to make one-two more videos of 20-30 minutes for a girl from one of my OSU Pilates classes (2018). She has created a life-coaching business and wants to have introductory Pilates videos for her students. She has been less consistent at replying. She asked me in January, and I didn't hear from her for six weeks. Then I got a contract and was asked to have my stuff ready in two weeks. Between the time she asked me and when she told me the parameters, my life has gotten incredibly (and deliciously) more full with the Abiding Resources and Testimonials sub-group that I am leading for our Movement. 

So, when it rains. It pours. (I am sure I wrote this in a previous freewrite already, but Freewrites are about writing about whatever is on your mind and letting your pen/fingers on a keyboard GO!) In the meantime, I have had three people "out of the blue" want to talk about helping me interpret and utilize their WEPPS scores for the Enneagram, doing a typing interview, and just a "can you call me" about something, but that person is not telling me what that is. All three are people I rarely hear from. So I have had to say, "Not right now" to two out of three of them. I fit in the other one because I had a spiritual direction cancellation. 

Anywho, tomorrow, I will finish up the Pilates videos request. I have some I have already done, but she has not told me if that is what she wants. I have two from a former project with OSU and one I made on Friday that was quite fun. I do love making these videos, and I finally got the audio down. 

I just got a ping from my friend in Central Asia. I have been wondering how she has been. She moved to another country. That might be better for her. 

On a very positive note, ever since Dr. Myers adjusted my back after the massage that made my back go out, I have been pain-free. 

Today I am going to read. I am going to spend time with my favorite people (we went for a walk around the hospital last night at dusk). I will also have two Centering Prayer sits with Mercy Center and the Corvallis group. Centering Prayer has been such a nice addition to my customary (many call it "Rule of Life," but Order of the Mustard Seed calls it customary). It is so ... well... CENTERING on God!

I am loving my full life lately. 

Oh, one more thing. We spend the last three mornings marveling at what God is doing in one part of the world. PRAISE HIM! I am so encouraged and overwhelmed at His goodness. 

Wednesday Morning Freewrite

I Wholeheartedly Endorse the Imago Christi Discovery Event! 

 This is what caught me this morning in my meditation time:

^19-21 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

²¹ Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily. (Gal 3:19-21, MSG)

I think this is all about living in harmony with who God made me to be. "The ego is no longer central." I know I have read it in The Message version before, but it just struck me when Carla Harding read it in Lectio365 this morning. This is an old Navigator verse that I memorized in the "Assurance" pack! I love the Navigators. No matter what anyone says, Sheryl Rice modeled contemplative practices to me back in the late 70s. Now they are "all the rage" in many evangelical circles. My best friend, Debbie, and I both sort of look at each other and say, "Well, yes. Doesn't everyone know this?" She was in a Sacred Rhythms class at her church, and I read her workbook where there was a new rhythm introduced, and she wrote in the margins, "Learned in 1979 from ________." Maybe our ministry was different. Maybe it was just Sheryl, but now it is all the rage and a "new" thing for people. (I think it is GREAT though. Read that book if you want an introduction to those Rhythms! I think Celebration of Discipline is also a great introduction to all of this. I love Richard Foster and Renovare too. So many good resources out there now. I am NOT knocking the resources just stating they are not new for everyone.)

But no matter. I am realizing that I just need to live FREE and FLY! 

So today, I am going to talk with the leader of the IMAGO CHRISTI DISCOVERY COURSE. It is an introductory spiritual formation course using the model of Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle using Tom Ashbrook's book Mansions of the Heart. I am listening to it on my walks, and I am saying, "AMEN!" all along the way. He is preaching to the choir. I love it. (Parenthetically, I am sure people on the street think I am mentally ill.) 

I want to meet with this director to see how our movement can officially partner with him. I am very excited. I am not going to be afraid. I am talking to so many people in our movement, and it can be intimidating. I just encountered ONE ego in the midst of the talking. No excitement about what we are doing. "My husband and I are superior" attitude in the email. It was a little unnerving for me, but God has replaced it with 99% of our movement that is so EXCITED and HELPFUL. I have a great team of four people. One is a dynamo of a worker. He spends one day a week looking at resources for us. The other was the person who told me how IMAGO CHRISTI changed her life. The other is wise and helpful. Now I have pulled in people who know the technical side of a podcast, and it is someone who interviewed me for something many years ago, and God brought him to mind, and he (and his boss) are really excited about this! Abiding is part of their year goals. 

Then there is my friend, Eric. We dreamed in Sumas, Washington back in 2018 about this coming to fruition. I kept telling him that he is the one who can make it happen more than me because I am just a spiritual director to people because "eliciting change on the individual level" is my jam. Now, we are in CAHOOTS. He has more of a voice with the big-wigs. I have more of the experience of working with people in abiding for the last 40 years. 

In fact, I was thinking about my own "TIMELINE" of growth, and it was on Lake Washington in September of 1983 where God radically changed my life after a breakdown. Romans 8 spoke to me big time. "Nothing can separate me from the love of God." And the note I had next to my bed, "God loves me no matter what I do for him today." (Parenthetically, the husband of the couple who housed me on Lake Washington when I fled from my spiritual abusive situation just died two days ago. I will ALWAYS be thankful for them taking me in.) Then, I led those women through the "Year of Abiding Discipleship" in the Upper Room of the Law's house (1985-1986). Always been my life theme and my "drum to tap" since my breakdown. "Abiding in Christ is the end of self-effort." from my counselor, Pearl Tadema. Thank you! 

That is 15 minutes for me. I am out.