Living Dreams: Cole Chance

This is a new section that is being started: Living Dreams. So often I meet people that I'm intrigued by. Just by speaking with them, I think, "You're living your life, not anyone else's, but the one you're supposed to be living." I'd like to introduce you to some of these most wonderful people, too. It may be their philosophy on life, their love, their passion. You don't have to agree with or like everything that everyone says. The point of this is not to reaffirm everything we already believe but instead challenge us to new heights. Hopefully, we engage an open heart where people are free to be different and not a threat, thus shaping us into more loving people.  So I'm serious, people, no rude and mean comments; I will delete them. Show each of our guests all of the respect. You can still walk away with your beliefs in tact; no one is asking you to throw them away--only asking you to listen with love. 

This week, I introduce to you Cole. You are going to love her. She loves yoga, to travel, to love! This is a long interview (because she's very interesting) so let's do this thing. (You may want to read this in a couple of sessions.)

Keely: Tell me who you are and what you love, what stirs you. I want to avoid the whole "What do you do" as what defines you. I wanna know who you are and what you love.

Cole: Let's see, I LOVE my pup, Shanti. She's the apple of both of my eyes! If I could only eat two foods forever, I would easily pick croissants and gelato! Since I was a little girl and realized that the town I lived in wasn't even on the globe, I have been fascinated with the world and traveling all over it: How people live, what their normal is, how a place FEELS, and also, how I feel in it. I have noticed the last couple of years of extensive travel, different aspects of myself come alive in different places--fascinating! And I can't get over all these places and people are simultaneously doing their thing! It's so big and so small.  

The original question of what stirs you: Since I was young, I have always been really moved by people who come up against trauma or atrocity or unjustness, unfairness. I've read a lot of books about women's rights and genocide, and I don't know why I'm drawn to these things.

Also, people who've fought against addiction. I'm one of those people. I don't know if it's that similar sense of unjustness or something that's involved in that, but I really feel a pull toward social activism. I'm not quite sure how that's going to play out in my life, yet. I've done a training with Off the Mat Into the World, which does exactly that. It gets you to use your yoga practice. We learn this awareness. We start to work on ourselves and be more conscious, but we can't only do that for ourselves.

Yoga isn't just about a self-care thing; it's about caring in general. If we're going to work on ourself then be like Peace, y'all, then that's not holistic; that's not yoga; that's not union. That still creates separation. I like the quote that says, "When you become more conscious, you become more conscious of everything." You can't pick and choose just the rainbows and the glitter without seeing the people that don't have enough food to eat and the people being killed by cops and people being stuck in ghettos. 

Keely: So how do you think, as humans, we balance the importance of consciousness to the pain and experiences of others; at the same time, not taking not he whole weight of it--sending some into spirals of depression and sadness and really a touch of feeling overwhelmed? 

Cole: Finding a balance between activism and draining is just that. Step in yoga and mindfulness and self-care. Always replenishing yourself and your soul. Knowing in what ways you can help, however small. That can feed you. I think everyone is also different with where their set point is so what they need to do to stay full will also be different. Our species has been so successful because of our adaptability and cooperation. When we begin to live our life completely capitalist, that cooperation fails. It's important we find ways to help and build each other up. Not everyone will or is needed to be on the front lines of a protest--maybe just to listen, to let others be heard is one of the most powerful things one can do. I heard once that's really all any person wants: to be seen, accepted, and to be heard. And all our craziness and insecurities come back to these base things. 

Keely: Tell me more about the feels. What kind of feels have you experienced, and what are your favorites? 

Cole: Once I was driving on motorbike through the rice paddies of Bali...waving green fields, blue, blue skies, the random colorful rice goddess (kind of like our version of a scarecrow), and my heart just wanted to explode. And it kind of did in terms of tears falling down my cheeks and squeals emitting from under helmet. You know how you can get so excited you have to shake? So much energy is built up..well, it was one of those moments. And I get them more and more lately. Wonder, joy, the feeling of being ALIVE!

Keely: I know what you're saying! And the beauty of being able to have these feelings of being alive even in the mundane moments are pretty incredible. Have you had an experience of seeing someone else's version of normal that you adopted and then became your own? 

Cole: Yes, actually. The Bum Gun. Asians really have this figured out. I think we are the only "civilized" society that wipes our asses with dry paper! No water involved! At first, I was skeptical. In Asia, you use your hand and the spray gun. But oh yeah... I guess I haven't adopted it here because I don't have the contraption but my girlfriend had one put in her new house! Ha! 

On a deeper note, though... I'm trying to pick up a bit of the looser sense of urgency I get from abroad...Greece, Italy, Thailand. At first, appalling how long it takes to get your drink or something but you realize here in the states we are impatient all day... I realize how little empathy I had for whoever was on the other side of my hold signal or food or in traffic. We see the world from relation to us, which everyone does to an extent but I feel there is more compassion in certain cultures. 

Keely: Loving your answers. So definitely had to check out The Bum Gun. I love your answer about the looser sense of urgency. I know in my own life, I can easily slip into filling every moment of my time, rushing from place to place without ever settling where I am and just being where I am and with who I am with. I also love your observation about our impatience. We easily get flustered if we have to wait 30 extra seconds on what is already "fast food," and you're right, start to totally lose our sense of compassion for the person behind the counter. How are different ways you keep yourself in check with this? 

Cole: How do I keep myself in check? Remembering to breathe deeply. It gets easier and easier as the new habit pathway is created. Our breath shortens when we come up against perceived stress and sends our nervous system into flight or fight... Deep breathing unwinds this. It's really a miracle! HA! Practicing it is key. That's another place yoga comes in. Practice on your mat. Get into an uncomfortable pose and work on breathing deeply. It's the same thing as far as our nervous system is concerned. It doesn't know the stressor, only the stress. I also make up situations that the people could be in to cause the situation... Like the person driving like an ass in front of me is an elderly mother looking for the right street to visit her grandson. It may be a make believe story but so is the one where they are purposely trying to piss us off. The important thing is how we FEEL so make up a story that causes that feeling to shift and your body relaxes with you. 

All little lessons we compile! I think that eventually turns to wisdom, right? I think we have such a wide spectrum of people being insecure and self-deprecating; then on the other side, taking 100 selfies a day. It's hard to come into yourself, but you must get to know yourself to do it. I still talk terrible to myself sometimes and can get envious and insecure... Human problems but so much farther than where I was before. Really taking time to be solo opened that up. You must reach in to be able to reach out!

Keely: I'd like to hear how you've seen yourself come alive in different ways in different places. Also, maybe a little theory of how one place a way of bringing different aspects out of people than another. This is fun. 

Cole: So one thing that was kind of the epitome of me coming alive was in this beautiful, open-air bungalow filled with about 150 people dancing to this beautiful tribal music, and it was just...alive. The whole place was throbbing with energy almost, and everybody was dancing and sweating and just really letting lose, nothing self-conscious happening.

And this is a place I would normally be self-conscious. Everybody was making animal noises and growling and throwing their bodies around. I probably had a little bit of nerves in the beginning, but a little bit into it I was just completely involved in the rhythm and my body and how to move my body and what felt good and just being able to see everybody expressing themselves in different ways was just something that I hadn't seen before.

You know, I've been to a million parties and a million dances. Normally, there's always drugs involved, so I'd felt this feeling before. I've felt this feeling of connection to myself, connection other people, but it was always through drugs and alcohol, so I had no idea this was even possible. This was about a year after I first got sober. I had no idea that it was even possible for me to experience it sober. 

And I was just over-joyed. At the end of it, everybody sits in this giant circle and they'll do some OMs and a little bit of meditation. Everybody kind of winds down slowly. I was just sitting on the side, and I just started crying, not like hysterically, but I just had tears running down my eyes. I was like, "What is going on? What is this about?" Before I was just in the moment, but that's when I realized this is what I've been looking for. This is the feeling I wanted all of those years that I was searching in all the wrong places. That's the feeling that always had me coming back, that kind of had me hooked.

I was like, "I already have this inside of me," and then I started crying a little bit harder because I imagined myself being younger, like 14 or 15, and being so confused and just wanting that feeling and having compassion for myself. Wish that I had figured it out, but at the same time, not just feeling sorry for myself but just seeing that little girl that was so confused that really all she was looking for was this love and connection. It's hard to describe what the feeling is. It's just really a joy, a visceral joy. 

They call it ecstatic dance for a reason. It is, it is like an ecstasy feeling to move your body and to get into those tribal roots or move with the rhythm that we've probably done ever since humanity could bang sticks together. That was an "aha" moment for me in my life, especially just realizing that we just have all these different levels to ourselves that we can tap into different ways, and just learning how to do that and exploring and doing things that are uncomfortable.

Tell me that I'm going to a sober dance party like normally that's not okay with me. Never in my years before would I have been caught dead because I wouldn't have been able to handle it. I would have had too much anxiety. To be able to step over that boundary of getting uncomfortable and coming out the other side like, "Oh my gosh!" Wide-eyed, I felt like I could have probably jumped 100 feet.

Keely: What's the most surprising thing you've learned about yourself [while traveling]?

Cole: One of the most interesting things I've learned about myself is that I like traveling alone. I don't know if it's one of the most interesting things, but it's something I never knew. I always thought that because I was an only child that I always craved connection, and that's true. I do. I really, really do. I do crave a tribe and group of friends, but I never realized that I would be so self-sufficient on my own. I never lived alone. I used to always be around people, and now I've noticed that I think I prefer to travel alone. Probably half and half. 

So for example, I was in Bulgaria, and I was running along in the park in Barna, Bulgaria. I saw these people slack-lining, so I stopped, and I said hello. Most of them didn't speak English, but one guy did. I ended up talking to him and getting on the slack line (and falling most of the time.) We made contact, and I came and saw them later. We went to this juice bar and there was book reading in the basement of the juice bar. There was an old man reading. He asked me to come and sit by him. He asked me if I would read his book in English. He had just had his book translated to English, and he wanted it to be read in English. He didn't fluently speak English, so I read this segment of this book for like 10-15 minutes. I was kind of looking around and was like, "I'm in a basement of this old, communist building in Bulgaria at a book reading, and I'm the one doing the reading. ...To a group of people that no one understood me, except this old man." And whenever I left, they wouldn't let me leave without giving me pictures that were on the wall, like framed pictures that this guy had done and some photography. I walked back to the ship, and I had all of these framed art and things. 

But that's just one example. Things that just wouldn't happen if I was traveling with a group of people. But there's a whole other beautiful aspect of traveling with a group of people and sharing experiences with people that you love and people you're just meeting... and to watch your connection grow. 

Because a lot of times when you're traveling by yourself, it is just yourself: you and your thoughts and reading and thinking; and I don't know. I'm pretty good company. 

Keely: I think spirituality goes hand-in-hand with this conversation, what is yours? Why do you think we are here? What does your day-to-day practice of spirituality and connection to God look like (if you have one)? And specifically, without leading you in one to an answer, I'd like to hear about God.

Cole: God, eh? I specifically don't use that word! Ha! I don't know if it's because I was raised in church or religious family... If it was all the 12-Step things I was made to go to all the time... I don't know where the aversion comes from. Here's what I think: I think there is so much that we don't know. We are such a speck in the universe and an inconsequential animal in the big scheme of time and space... I think it is pompous to think we know what this is all about or can read the stars. I believe in a great mystery... In the universe holding vast power... But as for some intelligent being having a hand in our lives, that I can't buy. 

I think religion does a lot of harm, as well. Not as a whole, not that it is all bad, but I think we should be careful to KNOW what we don't know. This makes other people wrong and divides us. If I did believe in God, it would be an intelligence of nature--to feed itself, to work in harmony, to have all the pieces to the puzzle. Humans would be the ones throwing the wrench in, not the ones a heavenly afterlife was created for! 

I would imagine we are just a small piece of the larger puzzle. Not more important, only in the fact that we can be more dangerous. Or we can be more helpful. So I guess we are here to live in harmony? To do our part in the cycle of life. If you take out a pest, like some places will kill rodents when they are out of hand, the butterfly effect occurs and that ecosystem goes haywire because there is a clear necessity for every plant, animal, mineral. Most of the time, they don't know until after the fact. Interesting to think what that purpose is for us. 

And maybe I'm totally wrong, and we are all actually supposed to be praising Allah! Who knows. 

I do, however, believe the idea of flow, the feeling of being in the groove of life, no barriers, like you are floating, and it could be taken as living in God's light or something of that nature. It does feel supernatural at times. Maybe it's physics? Good attracts good? I think many things one day will be explained by science... In the same ways that it continues to explain our past. 

Keely: So one of my favorite questions: have you ever had a divine encounter, supernatural experience, serendipitous event that made you feel like, "Whoa. Maybe there is someone who might have a hand in things"? 

Cole: I've definitely had serendipitous moments. I don't know if I've ever really thought there was a hand guiding it but maybe energies aligning? Law of attraction type... Honestly, even growing up in a church as a child, I was skeptical, way before my rebellious age (where I was doing the opposite of my parents.) I think a lot about it, though. What do I believe... There are many things I would like to believe, but just that statement shows how we choose things that are comforting, human nature. It's kind of at odds with even the yogic path. I'm still navigating where I fit in the spectrum. It's definitely interesting to me.

And how can you rationalize that most people in the world live completely differently, though, live in accordance to their god's will? If there is one source or God, and we have a zillion different translations, how to know what and how you are supposed to live? They are in such sharp contrast. If God is love, well, love is also subjective. I realize this isn't a question as to if there is one or not but rather what is the purpose to design they seek. 

I mean love is subjective if God is love. Because God is subjective. If your God tells you to love this and hate that... then that makes for quite a different scene depending on where you are. But love in specific, the feeling, maybe that is the same? I don't know, actually... You love your father different than you love your husband. There is romantic love, familial love, empathic love... A book I read, I think I've mentioned it to you, Sex at Dawn. It said it was hard to have these different loves for the same person at the same time... which I thought kind of depressing. I've went off on a different train of thought now but do you have that experience? In his context, he means it is hard to both love passionately and familial with a partner... That love shifts in a relationship.

Keely: I totally understand what you're saying as far as love. But there is an absolute energetic love that is very real and can translate to all relationships. Yes, the expression of love may look different based on the kind of relationship you've had with someone but love is love. And yes, I love [my daughter] differently than I love my mother than I love my best friend, but I think that's because all people love differently because each person is unique which means UNIQUE love. I can't name two people who I love the very same. And I think that what you love in different people is bits of who God is. And all of us combined together represents God, who is love. And when we love each other wholly, we know God and know love. I do believe in the Christian God, but I don't think the majority of Christian people do Him justice (and what person could anyway; it's an unrealistic expectation.) And I think it's impossible to have God "figured out" anyway.  

Thank you for sharing this conversation with me! It's been SUCH a joy. All the LOVE LOVE LOVE to you! You're fun, sweet Cole. 

Cole: You're fun, love. Good responses. ;) 

Also, Cole is an engaged and loving yoga teacher, massage therapist, among other things... She is doing her own retreat in Bali this upcoming April called Cultivating Connection: A Yoga and Thai Massage Experience. You can check that out (and sign up) here. You don't want to miss it and neither do it. I, myself, hope to go. Cole also has a personal site you can find here (colechanceyoga.com), which includes her online yoga videos. Trust me, you should check it out. 

Let's remember to send all the love and good stuff to Cole for sharing her very sweet heart with us. Also, all the love and good stuff to you, my friends. 

x Keely