abby|lane

You could not “be” anywhere other than where you are, because it’s WHERE YOU ARE. Based on your experiences, there is no other possibility in this moment that you could have chosen differently. If you could have, you would have. You are HERE. Where is here for you? • Sometimes just asking the question can bring us into the present moment enough to break the cycle of living in unwanted patterns. Most of us subconsciously choose similar feeling experiences until our bodies are on auto-pilot and our response systems are deciding for us. “I am this way,” “this is what I’ve always done.” • At some point, pain begins to feel more comfortable than joy. Our bodies get chemically addicted to the presence of a specific emotional cocktail and we make choices based on putting ourselves in a position to release that same emotional cocktail for comfort. Pain is less risky than joy. It hurts, but it’s predictable and we know how to tell that story. More often than not, we bond with people over shared pain rather than joy. • We get stuck repeating things to ourselves that we think are the ultimate truth of who we are. We’ve taught ourselves to uphold certain levels of discomfort to show how much we can handle. We love to praise a struggle story because people who are just happy come off as insincere in a world that thrives on extreme narratives of victims and heroes. • Joy is on the edge. Joy imagines a different outcome is possible. It is spontaneous and free and makes us feel invincible—a thing that scares a body that is used to safe margins and a practiced way of staying small. It takes more focus to trust it instead of analyze it. It takes self love to accept that it is OK to feel happy no matter what is going on. • Where is HERE for you? Try to answer that question without looking backwards at what you have “done” to get here. Or just simply repeat, “I AM HERE.” Be present with it. For 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 5 minutes. Eventually, the gaze of the old story softens enough to allow the possibility and delight in the idea of something new. Maybe you need a reset or a full life pivot. Maybe you just want to feel anything different. You deserve joy, because you are HERE. https://www.instagram.com/p/B2WkyyIBJHg/?igshid=1508otro06swl

To be human IS to be connected. We can’t breathe without the forest. We can’t eat without the earth. We can’t see without the sun. We know power because of storms. We know stillness because of snow. We know magic because of shooting stars. • Music transforms sound into love. Dance tells stories without words. Books introduce people who will never meet. The internet evaporates distance. Cinema erases time. Silence speaks. • Perception is the only barrier to seeing ourselves as worthy to be part of a bigger whole. If you believe you are insignificant that is the experience you will have. If you believe you matter, your experience will also reflect that. What perception are you being influenced by today? Fear/Scarcity/Separateness?Love/Abundance/Inclusion? • We all forget our divinity from time to time. Nothing to worry over. When you remember, live into it. Spread the light. This is your reminder for today. Go pass it on. • [Photo by Milan Popovic on @unsplash] https://www.instagram.com/p/B2T5JxChuli/?igshid=139lq3ng3fj7s

There is this thing about being human. This way about us where we tend to feel that the present moment we are in, is the one that will define us forever. We “know” that’s not the case, but it becomes an unspoken guide to whether or not we are “ok”. If we are experiencing something that feels positive, we attach ourselves to ideas of being good, worthy, capable, productive and free. Conversely, when we experience something that feels negative, we insert our being right in the middle of it and are sure the world is ending. When external realities are the sole metric by which we allow defining feelings, our sense of identity shifts into a reflection of the outside world and the absence of certain factors feels devastating. • In a world where everything is accessible NOW, we are quick to self-destruct and impatient to allow healing. We will move twelve steps toward a thing and then want to get out of it in just one. But the more focused into a feeling we get, the more of it we create. One negative thought, then another, and another. We wake up feeling swallowed, suspended inside a moment we are sure will end us…rejected, isolated, abandoned, dismissed, misunderstood, uninvited. These REAL experiences are blighted with ideas about scarcity and feelings of fear. “Now” Is all we have, but it is not all we are. • Sometimes recognizing that you want something different simply sounds like, “I can’t do THIS anymore.” • Zoom out. Soften your gaze toward the thing you have been creating so much of. Bring yourself back to a position of observing the thing, instead of feeling like the thing IS you. Release the tension of resisting what is and allow it to just be. Clarity. Find a new thought that feels better. And another, and another, and another. Your momentum will shift until the belly of the thing you thought would end you, becomes the womb from which you are born. • You are always becoming. #dearabbylane https://www.instagram.com/p/B1ZKTFhh6or/?igshid=tt5z1hicig7p

Time is a difficult concept for me to wrap my head around despite how much of it I spend actually trying to grasp its purpose. The sound of a ticking clock makes my chest close up, but the rhythm of a song sets it free. Calculating my to-do list for the week leaves me grasping in fear, yet I can exist inside a sunset where seconds are measured in color and sense an abundance of the thing I thought was fading. • I have wrestled this week finding rest for my soul as I continue to untangle ideas about how I spend my time being the thing that gives me meaning. I am too often driven by this repeating pattern of numbers made visible to me on every device within reach, taunting me with the reality that I will never get it all done. I feel behind instead of being present in what is happening now and allowing myself to continue to dream. • Most of my panic vanishes when I remove judgment from myself. I am learning to replace, “I should be HERE already,” with gratitude for where I know I’m already going. If things are allowed to be what they are in the present moment, then space opens up for me to dream about what I want next. And where I am going next is not possible without allowing where I am now. • For anyone who needs it other than me…deep breath. And another. And another. “Let a new life happen to you.” And know that it will find you perfectly as it does. #dearabbylane https://www.instagram.com/p/B0e3BOjB_uS/?igshid=10r0kjjoqoy9x

S U N D A Y ⛅️ Traditions are patterns, habits or beliefs we place value on, become attached to and pass on because of how they make us feel. There is a deep beauty and an ease in living inside ways of life that tell you who you are and how to be. It’s easy to get frustrated when circumstances or other people interfere with our traditions because it feels like they are taking away something valuable from us. But what do you do when valuable traditions no longer allow your full expansion? • I no longer have a “church” community (for many reasons), a routine and rhythm of life I lived inside of for almost 30 years. The values inside this “way” I held for so long are still mine because they are internal. They are sacred practices of peace, community, growth, accountability, solitude, learning, love, commitment, honor, truth and beauty. I have had many encounters with people who don’t understand how I (daughter of two ministerial parents) could be “ok” not going to church. The absence of that habit makes them feel I am missing something, hiding something, or that something needs to be fixed. • I have learned that their questions tell me that church is an important tradition to them. I have seen the beautiful ways in which they have found and placed value on their time, commitment and beliefs. I have felt the unease of their bodies in my presence because my experience does not fit into their perspective of “what is”. • What I know is that their same traditions instilled deep values in me that matter. What I know is I still practice those values. What I know is it is ok that my practices look different and are less certain. What I know is fluidity has boundaries but not edges. • I am grateful for the ways that our horizons continue to cross. I will be honest when the boxed corners of beliefs meant to be sincere hurt me or others. And I will move forward with where I came from as the wind in my sails, even if the ocean takes me farther than they can yet see. #light #dearabbylane https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz6KvwMB3fI/?igshid=162v8u9i69jt1

I gave up alcohol for a hot minute. I wasn't overly drinking, but I was constantly sluggish and uninspired. I was reaching for ideas and desires that required me to rise into a new version of myself that I wasn’t able to access or embody. • Every time a craving for a familiar pattern comes up, I look at it, hold it. 3 seconds, 10 seconds, 30 seconds. What is it about. Is there something I want to mute, ignore, hide from? THERE. I have a tired mind, so I sleep. THERE, I am anxious so I write. THERE. I am insecure, so I focus on my breath until I am centered. And then it dissipates - turning a solid road block into vapor. • The space from which I consume anything gives rise to how it will affect my body, mind and soul. The perspective from which I see is based on the emotional frequency I carry at any given moment. If I’m on a high playing field, I am less affected by lower-moving energies in or around me and I have more clarity to decide if I want more or less of something. If I am entering an altered state at an already resistant level, my experience is much more likely to carry my conditioned state further down because the blur feels like relief. And it is, until it isn’t. • It’s how any addictive pattern happens in us—repeated frequencies building momentum. As our cells adjust to our new “normal”, what once registered as negative or depressing starts to feel like familiar comfort. Our default state becomes detachment from ourselves, and attachment to the things that are keeping us “comfortable”. Feeling better is often a harder choice because involves a level of awareness we can’t find from where we are. • I thoroughly enjoy a glass of wine, especially in the company of close friends. But I’m really grateful for however long this moment lasts too. I was living into a habit I was less aware of than I care to admit, and the release of that is empowering. My head and my heart feel connected—a legitimate struggle for an #enneagramfive. • We all tend to have a thing. A tool we use to numb out or escape. Next time it comes up, look at it long enough to see it. Then choose if you want it or not...and don’t be afraid of the answer. #dearabbylane https://www.instagram.com/p/B0yZiIEB0u-/?igshid=1qfe58nmztv21

H O M E : where you can be silent and still be heard | where you can ask and find out who you are | where people laugh with you about yourself | where sorrow is divided and joy multiplied | where we share and love and grow #grandmas

really excited to celebrate New Years, or Christmas (or like, a Tuesday) with my @anthropologie glasses for bubbles 🍾#cybermondaysale #merrychristmastome