What's a girl to do? So many different styles, teachers and rules. I think I found "a" way that makes sense.
"a" way, not "the" way
It can be a bit startling the first time (or maybe even the first few hundred times) you realize there are lots of different styles of yoga with lots' of different types of teachers with lot's and lot's of varying viewpoints regarding “real” yoga. After a while it can not only be a bit unnerving, but it can be a bit irritating. Different teachers all touting they know “the way”, the “right way”, the “sacred way”, the “way it was originally meant to be taught” or passed down, or whatever. In fact, the whole thing reminds me of my college boyfriend. He was a great person, he treated me well and he believed his way of believing in God was not only the right way, but the only way. In fact, he believed everyone who didn't believe like him was wrong. Not only in college, but even now, I can sometimes buy into such believing. In some ways, it is easier to go along with people who believe so blindly that they have the way. It's certainly easier to go along with it rather than question and find our own path.
The difference among yoga styles came up again for me as I attended the Sri Vatsa Ramaswami teacher training in May. It was mind blowing. The contrast between Sri K Pathabi Jois' Asthanga Vinyasa Yoga and Ramaswami's style called Vinyasa Krama really knocked me off the mat.
As I look back on the last four or five years I have devoted a lot of practice time and study time to Sri K Pathabi Jois' style of yoga practice, called Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. In this sometimes called “gymnastic” like practice you move through a series of poses in the same order, with a strong breath practice and your heart rate gets up. It is not uncommon to sweat buckets and finish the practice in a pool of water on your mat. All of this internal heat that is created is said to help detoxify the body. When I was first introduced to the practice, I threw myself into it with all of my might. I continued to teach other forms of yoga, but Ashtanga was my love. Some might say my obsession. In my opinion, the practice seems to lend itself to this obsessional quality. Maybe because it is so challenging and maybe because it takes such dedication and devotion. Maybe it gets this type of reputation because so many Type A personalities are drawn to this style of practice. It seems to catch the people who's minds don't settle down in a slower paced sort of practice and it seems to catch the people who are interested in a work out. As they said on the Seinfeld show “not that I think there is anything wrong with that.” Really. I don't. Seriously.
Although I have made some effort, I have never had the opportunity to meet Sr K Pathabi Jois but understand he has kind eyes and a gentle smile. I understand people's desire to travel at great lengths to see him and practice with him. I used to dream about going to Mysore India for a month or two to practice with him. I think this dream began to fall apart when I realized how much ego was tied into that plan. Wouldn't people think I rocked if I went to study with Sri K Patthabi Jois? Wouldn't it be cool to say...wouldn't my physical practice shift with 60 days of mysore practice in mysore. Wow, I might more easily put my foot behind my head. Wow.
So, there I sit in front of Sri Vatsa Ramaswami. It was my second time seeing him in person. The first time was four or five years ago when I attended a half day workshop. The half day was a bit frustrating because I had a difficult time understanding his accent and I couldn't fully do all of the postures (needless to say this was very early on the yoga path). So, anyway, through a series of events it seemed time for me to try seeing Ramaswami again. Everything seemed to fall in place and I was able to take the time off work and spend seven days in chicago for the training. I spent that week studying with RamaSwami in the same studio where I have attended numerous Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga workshops.
As I arrived for the first class, there were two students in the hallway and we began waiting for the studio to be unlocked. In arrives Sri Vatsa Ramaswami. He is an older gentleman with beautiful brown skin and kind eyes. He is quiet and unassuming. He wore gray dress pants, a white cotton long sleeved shirt (untucked) and a thin sweater vest. I introduced myself and told him how glad I was to meet him and have this opportunity to study with him. He responded kindly and then was silent. No idle chit chat. No talk of the weather, of his flight from India, of his anything, of my anything.
Silence. We continued waiting for about ten more minutes. This quiet, unassuming manner was consistent throughout the week. He taught standing in front of the room, barefoot and in the same (or similar) clothes he had on in our first meeting. He didn't make jokes, he didn't add commentary to the practice, he concisely instructed us with a compassion and kindness seeping through his pores. During our breaks he would quietly walk to the entryway and sit on the bench. He would respond when asked a question and would otherwise sit. Just sit.
The week consisted of lots of asana practice, more pranayama practice than I have ever done and more chanting and talk of the sutras than I have ever had the opportunity to study. Ramaswami said things like “yoga is not a work out...go to the gym to work out and then practice your yoga.” He talked about the importance of NOT getting our heart rate up when we practice yoga. He noted that historically the belief in yoga is that our lifespan is determined by the number of breaths we take, therefore we don't want to be panting through our practice because ultimately it would shorten our life. Ramaswami also talked about practicing asana practice seven days a week, even on full moon and new moon days. He said not to study the vedas on the full moon and new moon days. Any time Ramaswami noticed people getting too hot or not breathing steadily he would have us rest on our backs.
WHAT? What is happening? How can this be? How can this cool as a cucumber teacher who studied with Krishnamacharya (the father of yoga as we know it) for thirty three years have such a wildly different approach to yoga than say Sri K Patthabi Jois who also studied with Krishnamacharya? It's maddening. How can they both be right? Doesn't someone have to be wrong? Don't I have to pick?
Can I practice both? Can I teach both? Is this world about to come tumbling down?
Ramaswami never once said anyone else or anything else was wrong. He never once used another style to compare to the practice he was teaching. He never said other practices weren't as good. He never said his practice was good. He didn't say his practice was “right” or “the way”. He never once did anything other than provide instruction in a clear and concise manner stating it was exactly as his teacher taught him. He provided little physical adjustments but offered verbal instructions when necessary and useful. He quite obviously practiced what he taught...moderation in speech so not to excite the senses. Slow, steady and deep.
During the time I was in Chicago for the training I didn't pop Ibuprofen. The hamstring, piriformis issue I have been having after doing forward bends didn't bother me once l week. I didn't have trouble sleeping. I didn't wake up sore or agitated. I didn't once ponder the idea of skipping out of part of the training. The mind felt even and steady. There wasn't a lot of mental activity. Time seemed to move slowly. I didn't find myself obsessing over the difference between my body and my neighbor's body. In fact, there seemed to be an exceptional amount of space. Something was different.
So what does all this mean? Maybe it means nothing. Maybe it means I have had the great fortune to meet an amazing yoga teacher. He exuded yoga. He likely unknowingly helped me question a pattern of beliefs I had bought into about the practice and he deepened and widened my understanding of yoga. After the week I see more clearly that I can practice different styles of yoga. In addition to Ashtanga Vinyasa, I can also practice a style of yoga that is both challenging and complete and different from what I have known for the past five years. He helped me see that my needs and interests change and that they may change again. He inspired me to study, he inspired me to practice and he inspired me to live in this life with less suffering. Maybe it isn't “the” way but “a” way.
Living our yoga practice means our work continues after we roll up our sticky mat. Yoga practice is about way more than putting your foot behind your head. Thank goodness!
Freedom from Fragility
Are we all fragile? What keeps us from breaking emotionally?
FREEDOM FROM FRAGILITY
Ingrid Michaelson sings: “Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts? Just a cage of rib bones and other various parts...we are so fragile and our cracking bones make noise…we are all just breakable girls and boys….”
Have you heard the “cracking bones” lately? Have you noticed how fragile we all seem? Human fragileness has been on my mind lately. Sometimes I feel so fragile, so sensitive. Sometimes it looks like we live in a world where we are fragile, where our feelings are hurt easily, where we hold grudges and where we shut down and stop communicating with one another. If we recognize our own fragileness, then why can’t we more easily see how fragile everyone else is and find forgiveness behind the cage of rib bones and various parts?
Until recently, I don’t believe I had a very mature understanding of forgiveness. I had been hoping I could stumble into some wise answers. I had been hoping to meet some wise counsel who could walk me through a gate of heavenly forgiveness or bump into some old, wrinkled yogi with a long beard who could point me exactly to the spot inside myself where this answer lies. I did bump into a yogi with wise counsel, but not a wrinkled, long bearded yogi.
On the surface, I do believe yoga asana practice has helped me to learn to be forgiving of this body, at least sometimes. Sometimes I am fabulous at greeting an ache or a pain with an enormous amount of compassion. It’s a sort of forgiveness for not being perfect, or better said, not being the way I would like it to be. I have definitely learned that if I resist the reality of this body more suffering will occur. I have gone almost six months without practicing a full forward bend. When this painful ache first began to appear I would back off. Then I would push. Then I would back off. Then push. Then feel exasperated. Then lay off. Then try again. Then I figured it out. Lay off the forward bends and practice something that would feel good. Months without struggling and months of healing occurred. Now, the forward bend is feeling pretty yummy.
I was recently with a yogi who said she was having a hard time getting over something another person had said to her. It sounded as though she wanted to move on, but couldn’t. She seemed stuck. She seemed like she didn’t know how to forgive. This stuckness was keeping her from being able to take part in something she seemed to want to take part in. I wonder what would have to happen for there to be movement in this situation. How can we forgive someone when that someone doesn’t have the slightest clue that they may have had something to do with that crackling noise in our bones?
Shortly after this, I was with another yogi who was talking about some significant pain their partner had created, and was continuing to create in their family. This yogi was in so much pain. This yogi said aloud how much desire there was to forgive, but the mind was involved at such a level that the struggle seemed to this person like it might never end. Will this yogi find forgiveness behind the ribs and other parts that protect the heart? Is there such a thing as un-forgiveable?
Haven’t we all been there at one point or another? Haven’t we all believed that there was “too much water under the bridge” or too much time had passed or words or actions couldn’t be taken back. Haven’t we all believed we couldn’t change or someone else couldn’t change? Haven’t we all believed it was just too late to change our minds and forgive or see something in a different light?
When I was a freshman in high school my maternal grandfather died. It was such a loss. My grandparents lived about ten miles from us and were huge part of our day-to-day lives, especially my grandfather. He was the kind of grandfather who brought donuts to our house every Saturday morning of my childhood so he could watch cartoons with us. He watched us open our Santa Claus presents at 6 in the morning. He had the amazing ability to help each of us (my brother, sister and I) shine in our own ways. He was cuddly and loveable and available. He was present with us. So, following his death there was some conflict that seemed to be un-resolvable between my mother and maternal grandmother. Due to this conflict, the relationship with my maternal grandmother was severed. I always believed severed for good. I mean no relationship. None. Zippo. No contact. I mean missing all three of your grandchildren graduate from high school, college and graduate school. I mean missing your two granddaughters walk down the aisle. I mean missing all four of your great grandchildren come into this world. Nineteen years, yep nineteen years of no contact, and then…there was a shift. There was forgiveness between mother and daughter. There wasn’t too much water under the bridge after all.
There have been times when I have caused some pain or a lot of pain and wanted desperately to be forgiven. There have been times I have believed whole heartedly that I had done damage beyond repair. I couldn’t imagine forgiving myself, never-the-less someone else forgiving me. How do we decide to forgive ourselves for our imperfections and other people for theirs? Is it even possible to forgive other people if we can’t learn to first forgive ourselves?
Sometimes I wonder if the things I believe other people need forgiven for are really about me. For instance, if I am angry with someone for trying to bully me, I wonder if I need forgiven for having bullied someone else. Or, if I am upset with someone for not communicating with me about a concern, maybe that person doesn’t need forgiven, but maybe I need to be forgiven for all of the times I have been a poor communicator. As I think about it, most of the time there is something about my own junk that is stinking up a stilted forgiveness of someone else.
I have recently begun working with a woman who assists me in the practice of inquiry. This is the Byron Katie form of inquiry. You take a look at beliefs (or thoughts that you are clinging to which result in suffering) and determine if they are true, I mean really know in your bones without a doubt true. There is a part of this inquiry process where you “turn around” your belief to see if it could be true or truer. Well, let me tell ya, there can be a bit of a punch with such work. So, for instance, let’s say I’m walking around this planet believing you should respect me. Well, okay, I would like that to be true, but well, I can’t really know that is true that you should respect me. So, turn the belief “you should respect me” around and the statement is “I should respect you” or the turn around could be “I should respect me.” How could that be true or truer. Hmm. Or here is another one….I believe what you said is disrespectful and doesn’t honor my experience. Okay, so is it true? I believe what you said is disrespectful and I do believe you don’t honor my experience. Is it really true? Can I know in my bones that you don’t honor my experience or that what you said is disrespectful? Hmm. Nope. Can’t really know it. Can have a belief about it, but not know it. The turn around…”what I said is disrespectful and doesn’t honor your experience” or “I don’t respect what I say and I don’t honor my experience.” How could either of those turn arounds be true or truer than the original belief. Let’s just say they could be way true or truer.
Recently I was given the gift of watching a yogi find forgiveness of a transgression that could have ended a long and very loving relationship. The forgiveness came from the heart and not the mind. I was able to witness someone genuinely live from their heart. It is a moment I will never forget. I believe I witnessed someone demonstrate their enlightenment. As Eckhart Tolle says “Enlightenment means choosing to dwell in the state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes to what is.” Observing this showed me that on the surface, we may seem fragile, but underneath the bones and parts, there is strength to forgive that is stronger than we can imagine.
I don’t believe I am done walking this path of learning about forgiveness. I continue to learn how to forgive myself and other people. This practice has helped me see there is always a bigger picture. When I use the practice of inquiry I end up recognizing my own freedom..freedom from believing who we are is fragile, freedom from suffering, freedom from identifying with thinking, freedom to live in forgiveness, freedom from the belief that I am separated from the love that I am and that you are. There is this resting in love that isn’t fragile and that can’t ever truly be broken, even if we are just girls and boys.
“The Power of NOW 52 Inspirational Cards” Eckhart Tolle ISBN 1-57731-219-8
Ingrid Michaelson’s song is Breakable on the Girls & Boys Album
Byron Katie’s website is www.bryonkatie.com or www.thework.com
FREEDOM FROM FRAGILITY
Ingrid Michaelson sings: “Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts? Just a cage of rib bones and other various parts...we are so fragile and our cracking bones make noise…we are all just breakable girls and boys….”
Have you heard the “cracking bones” lately? Have you noticed how fragile we all seem? Human fragileness has been on my mind lately. Sometimes I feel so fragile, so sensitive. Sometimes it looks like we live in a world where we are fragile, where our feelings are hurt easily, where we hold grudges and where we shut down and stop communicating with one another. If we recognize our own fragileness, then why can’t we more easily see how fragile everyone else is and find forgiveness behind the cage of rib bones and various parts?
Until recently, I don’t believe I had a very mature understanding of forgiveness. I had been hoping I could stumble into some wise answers. I had been hoping to meet some wise counsel who could walk me through a gate of heavenly forgiveness or bump into some old, wrinkled yogi with a long beard who could point me exactly to the spot inside myself where this answer lies. I did bump into a yogi with wise counsel, but not a wrinkled, long bearded yogi.
On the surface, I do believe yoga asana practice has helped me to learn to be forgiving of this body, at least sometimes. Sometimes I am fabulous at greeting an ache or a pain with an enormous amount of compassion. It’s a sort of forgiveness for not being perfect, or better said, not being the way I would like it to be. I have definitely learned that if I resist the reality of this body more suffering will occur. I have gone almost six months without practicing a full forward bend. When this painful ache first began to appear I would back off. Then I would push. Then I would back off. Then push. Then feel exasperated. Then lay off. Then try again. Then I figured it out. Lay off the forward bends and practice something that would feel good. Months without struggling and months of healing occurred. Now, the forward bend is feeling pretty yummy.
I was recently with a yogi who said she was having a hard time getting over something another person had said to her. It sounded as though she wanted to move on, but couldn’t. She seemed stuck. She seemed like she didn’t know how to forgive. This stuckness was keeping her from being able to take part in something she seemed to want to take part in. I wonder what would have to happen for there to be movement in this situation. How can we forgive someone when that someone doesn’t have the slightest clue that they may have had something to do with that crackling noise in our bones?
Shortly after this, I was with another yogi who was talking about some significant pain their partner had created, and was continuing to create in their family. This yogi was in so much pain. This yogi said aloud how much desire there was to forgive, but the mind was involved at such a level that the struggle seemed to this person like it might never end. Will this yogi find forgiveness behind the ribs and other parts that protect the heart? Is there such a thing as un-forgiveable?
Haven’t we all been there at one point or another? Haven’t we all believed that there was “too much water under the bridge” or too much time had passed or words or actions couldn’t be taken back. Haven’t we all believed we couldn’t change or someone else couldn’t change? Haven’t we all believed it was just too late to change our minds and forgive or see something in a different light?
When I was a freshman in high school my maternal grandfather died. It was such a loss. My grandparents lived about ten miles from us and were huge part of our day-to-day lives, especially my grandfather. He was the kind of grandfather who brought donuts to our house every Saturday morning of my childhood so he could watch cartoons with us. He watched us open our Santa Claus presents at 6 in the morning. He had the amazing ability to help each of us (my brother, sister and I) shine in our own ways. He was cuddly and loveable and available. He was present with us. So, following his death there was some conflict that seemed to be un-resolvable between my mother and maternal grandmother. Due to this conflict, the relationship with my maternal grandmother was severed. I always believed severed for good. I mean no relationship. None. Zippo. No contact. I mean missing all three of your grandchildren graduate from high school, college and graduate school. I mean missing your two granddaughters walk down the aisle. I mean missing all four of your great grandchildren come into this world. Nineteen years, yep nineteen years of no contact, and then…there was a shift. There was forgiveness between mother and daughter. There wasn’t too much water under the bridge after all.
There have been times when I have caused some pain or a lot of pain and wanted desperately to be forgiven. There have been times I have believed whole heartedly that I had done damage beyond repair. I couldn’t imagine forgiving myself, never-the-less someone else forgiving me. How do we decide to forgive ourselves for our imperfections and other people for theirs? Is it even possible to forgive other people if we can’t learn to first forgive ourselves?
Sometimes I wonder if the things I believe other people need forgiven for are really about me. For instance, if I am angry with someone for trying to bully me, I wonder if I need forgiven for having bullied someone else. Or, if I am upset with someone for not communicating with me about a concern, maybe that person doesn’t need forgiven, but maybe I need to be forgiven for all of the times I have been a poor communicator. As I think about it, most of the time there is something about my own junk that is stinking up a stilted forgiveness of someone else.
I have recently begun working with a woman who assists me in the practice of inquiry. This is the Byron Katie form of inquiry. You take a look at beliefs (or thoughts that you are clinging to which result in suffering) and determine if they are true, I mean really know in your bones without a doubt true. There is a part of this inquiry process where you “turn around” your belief to see if it could be true or truer. Well, let me tell ya, there can be a bit of a punch with such work. So, for instance, let’s say I’m walking around this planet believing you should respect me. Well, okay, I would like that to be true, but well, I can’t really know that is true that you should respect me. So, turn the belief “you should respect me” around and the statement is “I should respect you” or the turn around could be “I should respect me.” How could that be true or truer. Hmm. Or here is another one….I believe what you said is disrespectful and doesn’t honor my experience. Okay, so is it true? I believe what you said is disrespectful and I do believe you don’t honor my experience. Is it really true? Can I know in my bones that you don’t honor my experience or that what you said is disrespectful? Hmm. Nope. Can’t really know it. Can have a belief about it, but not know it. The turn around…”what I said is disrespectful and doesn’t honor your experience” or “I don’t respect what I say and I don’t honor my experience.” How could either of those turn arounds be true or truer than the original belief. Let’s just say they could be way true or truer.
Recently I was given the gift of watching a yogi find forgiveness of a transgression that could have ended a long and very loving relationship. The forgiveness came from the heart and not the mind. I was able to witness someone genuinely live from their heart. It is a moment I will never forget. I believe I witnessed someone demonstrate their enlightenment. As Eckhart Tolle says “Enlightenment means choosing to dwell in the state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes to what is.” Observing this showed me that on the surface, we may seem fragile, but underneath the bones and parts, there is strength to forgive that is stronger than we can imagine.
I don’t believe I am done walking this path of learning about forgiveness. I continue to learn how to forgive myself and other people. This practice has helped me see there is always a bigger picture. When I use the practice of inquiry I end up recognizing my own freedom..freedom from believing who we are is fragile, freedom from suffering, freedom from identifying with thinking, freedom to live in forgiveness, freedom from the belief that I am separated from the love that I am and that you are. There is this resting in love that isn’t fragile and that can’t ever truly be broken, even if we are just girls and boys.
“The Power of NOW 52 Inspirational Cards” Eckhart Tolle ISBN 1-57731-219-8
Ingrid Michaelson’s song is Breakable on the Girls & Boys Album
Byron Katie’s website is www.bryonkatie.com or www.thework.com
Really? All we can do is keep breathing?
This is it? Really? There's nothing else to do other than keep breathing?
Can you get over the disappointment that all we can do is keep breathing... right now?
The minute it came out of my mouth I could see the disappointment in her face. I told her the truth. I told her….I got a tattoo. Seriously, I saw disappointment. This summer I have seen the look of disappointment in so many people’s eyes. Not about my tattoo, but about life. Disappointment seems to be part of the fabric of our lives. What do we do with it? Where do we store it? Do we need to try and overcome it, get rid of it, live with it, carry it around with us?
What if your entire childhood you thought you were going to be a doctor and then you couldn’t get into medical school? What if you thought you were going to run the marathon and you couldn’t run any longer? What if you get hit by a car and spend the rest of life in a wheelchair? What if after thirty years of marriage you are no longer attracted to your partner, physically or emotionally? What if you thought you were going to travel after you retired only to find out you were terminally ill the week after your retirement party? What if you desperately want to have a baby and can’t get pregnant? What if you put every cent you ever saved into a home on the coast only for it to be wiped away in a hurricane? What if your child is born with a serious illness? What if your partner changes dramatically after the kids are born? What if you realize after the kids leave for college that you no longer like each other? What if the person you married develops a mental illness that changes their entire personality?
How are we going to live? How are we going to move forward? How are we going to live our lives with holes in our hearts? How are we going to live with dashed dreams and disappointments?
Maybe we could use Leonard Cohen’s famous quote as our mantra…“There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.” Will the recognition that we all walk around with this crack help us? Will just knowing we all have this in common keep us putting one foot in front of the other? Can we see life’s disappointments in a bigger context? Can we recognize disappointment as just part of the whole rather than the whole?
Sometimes we may need someone to tell us to get up, get out of bed, get in the shower and move on. Sometimes we may need to stay in bed. Sometimes we may need a few hours, a few days, maybe even years to let allow the patchwork to dry so we can learn to love the life we have been given. Suffering happens when we resist reality, when we resist the life we are leading.
If we try to dive a bit deeper, what is disappointment? Maybe disappointment is simply resisting what is. Can there be disappointment if we don’t have any expectations? If we are living in the moment then there would be no expectation of future events and there would be no need to carry around what happened in the past. Is it possible to feel disappointed if we are accepting everything and everybody just as they are?
If we are accepting everything and everybody, then we would get the letter saying we weren’t accepted into Harvard and we wouldn’t have expected it to be any different that it was. We would we would run to prepare to race in the marathon without expecting to run in the marathon. There would be moments of attraction to your partner of thirty years and moments of not being attracted to your partner of thirty years. There would be life together without the expectation of it being different and there would be opportunity to choose, in the moment, what to do if something needed to be done. You might have purchased the house in Florida, but you wouldn’t expect that you would get to live there. You might plan to travel after retirement, but there would not be the expectation that it would happen. If your partner changes into someone you don’t like after the children are born, you would recognize the change and decide what you needed to do. If you were unable to become pregnant, there would be the understanding there are other options. There would be the understanding that everything is as it should be and that no matter the external circumstances, we can be at peace on the inside.
It seems that it is part of life to walk around with expectations. Sometimes we are aware of them and sometimes we aren’t. Likely, we become more aware of them when extreme suffering happens as a result of them. Maybe our spiritual practice isn’t about aiming for a life without expectations, but rather aiming towards a life of recognizing when we aren’t living in the moment and when we are constructing expectations in our mad monkey minds. Maybe it’s about recognizing that when we are attached to those expectations, we suffer. I believe it is human nature to grieve when we have been attached to some hope or dream that is lost. If there is a grief, there is grief. This isn’t about not grieving or denying our feelings. It’s not about being perfect. This is about doing the best we can and suffering as little as possible. This is about living in freedom.
Sometimes when we are disappointed we may need to take some sort of action. We may need to apply to a different college, we may need to seek marriage counseling, we may need to look at adopting a child. We need to find a way to love what is. Eckhart Tolle has said: ”Wherever you Are, Be There Totally. If you find your here and now is intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences. “
We only have now. Are you going to be at peace and free from suffering? We really don’t have to know that much. It’s really not as complicated as I tend to make it in my life. There are moments when I don’t have expectations and there aren’t disappointments. In those moments I am present to whatever is happening and there isn’t suffering. There are moments I am so stuck in my head, thinking about the future and/or the past and I have an expectation, a belief about how things should be. If that belief doesn’t match up with reality, then suffering occurs. Sometimes buckets of it.
Let’s wake up to right now. Let’s wake up and recognize we are breathing and that all there is is right now. As Ingrid Michaelson sings…” All that I know is that I’m breathing. All I can do is keep breathing. All we can do is keep breathing. Now. Now. Now. “
Can you get over the disappointment that all we can do is keep breathing... right now?
The minute it came out of my mouth I could see the disappointment in her face. I told her the truth. I told her….I got a tattoo. Seriously, I saw disappointment. This summer I have seen the look of disappointment in so many people’s eyes. Not about my tattoo, but about life. Disappointment seems to be part of the fabric of our lives. What do we do with it? Where do we store it? Do we need to try and overcome it, get rid of it, live with it, carry it around with us?
What if your entire childhood you thought you were going to be a doctor and then you couldn’t get into medical school? What if you thought you were going to run the marathon and you couldn’t run any longer? What if you get hit by a car and spend the rest of life in a wheelchair? What if after thirty years of marriage you are no longer attracted to your partner, physically or emotionally? What if you thought you were going to travel after you retired only to find out you were terminally ill the week after your retirement party? What if you desperately want to have a baby and can’t get pregnant? What if you put every cent you ever saved into a home on the coast only for it to be wiped away in a hurricane? What if your child is born with a serious illness? What if your partner changes dramatically after the kids are born? What if you realize after the kids leave for college that you no longer like each other? What if the person you married develops a mental illness that changes their entire personality?
How are we going to live? How are we going to move forward? How are we going to live our lives with holes in our hearts? How are we going to live with dashed dreams and disappointments?
Maybe we could use Leonard Cohen’s famous quote as our mantra…“There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.” Will the recognition that we all walk around with this crack help us? Will just knowing we all have this in common keep us putting one foot in front of the other? Can we see life’s disappointments in a bigger context? Can we recognize disappointment as just part of the whole rather than the whole?
Sometimes we may need someone to tell us to get up, get out of bed, get in the shower and move on. Sometimes we may need to stay in bed. Sometimes we may need a few hours, a few days, maybe even years to let allow the patchwork to dry so we can learn to love the life we have been given. Suffering happens when we resist reality, when we resist the life we are leading.
If we try to dive a bit deeper, what is disappointment? Maybe disappointment is simply resisting what is. Can there be disappointment if we don’t have any expectations? If we are living in the moment then there would be no expectation of future events and there would be no need to carry around what happened in the past. Is it possible to feel disappointed if we are accepting everything and everybody just as they are?
If we are accepting everything and everybody, then we would get the letter saying we weren’t accepted into Harvard and we wouldn’t have expected it to be any different that it was. We would we would run to prepare to race in the marathon without expecting to run in the marathon. There would be moments of attraction to your partner of thirty years and moments of not being attracted to your partner of thirty years. There would be life together without the expectation of it being different and there would be opportunity to choose, in the moment, what to do if something needed to be done. You might have purchased the house in Florida, but you wouldn’t expect that you would get to live there. You might plan to travel after retirement, but there would not be the expectation that it would happen. If your partner changes into someone you don’t like after the children are born, you would recognize the change and decide what you needed to do. If you were unable to become pregnant, there would be the understanding there are other options. There would be the understanding that everything is as it should be and that no matter the external circumstances, we can be at peace on the inside.
It seems that it is part of life to walk around with expectations. Sometimes we are aware of them and sometimes we aren’t. Likely, we become more aware of them when extreme suffering happens as a result of them. Maybe our spiritual practice isn’t about aiming for a life without expectations, but rather aiming towards a life of recognizing when we aren’t living in the moment and when we are constructing expectations in our mad monkey minds. Maybe it’s about recognizing that when we are attached to those expectations, we suffer. I believe it is human nature to grieve when we have been attached to some hope or dream that is lost. If there is a grief, there is grief. This isn’t about not grieving or denying our feelings. It’s not about being perfect. This is about doing the best we can and suffering as little as possible. This is about living in freedom.
Sometimes when we are disappointed we may need to take some sort of action. We may need to apply to a different college, we may need to seek marriage counseling, we may need to look at adopting a child. We need to find a way to love what is. Eckhart Tolle has said: ”Wherever you Are, Be There Totally. If you find your here and now is intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences. “
We only have now. Are you going to be at peace and free from suffering? We really don’t have to know that much. It’s really not as complicated as I tend to make it in my life. There are moments when I don’t have expectations and there aren’t disappointments. In those moments I am present to whatever is happening and there isn’t suffering. There are moments I am so stuck in my head, thinking about the future and/or the past and I have an expectation, a belief about how things should be. If that belief doesn’t match up with reality, then suffering occurs. Sometimes buckets of it.
Let’s wake up to right now. Let’s wake up and recognize we are breathing and that all there is is right now. As Ingrid Michaelson sings…” All that I know is that I’m breathing. All I can do is keep breathing. All we can do is keep breathing. Now. Now. Now. “
Can someone please stunt my spiritual growth?
Really! If it means being fake, could you please knock me off the spiritual path?
Please, can someone stunt my growth?
I have been feeling a crazy, nutty amount of sadness about one of my best friends moving to another city. She is so much a part of my life that I can’t imagine how life will be without her ten minutes away. At the risk of sounding dramatic, it feels like a piece of me is moving with her. I began grieving this loss the moment she told me about her move. I grieve as I write this, and she hasn’t moved yet. In fact, she is fifteen minutes away getting her hair colored this very second. She is getting her hair colored and I am grieving that she is moving next month.
Does this make any sense? I have had moments of intense grief over future possibilities lost. But, really, is it insane to grieve something that hasn’t happened yet? I wonder if underneath somewhere I believe that if I armor up and prepare for future grief if it will be less painful. Nothing like that good old fear-of-intense- emotions rearing it’s non-stop ugly head. I wonder what I am blocking out of my life right now by thinking about and grieving something that hasn’t even happened.
So about a month ago, I shared with a fellow yogi my sadness about my friend moving. This person is in no way someone who would intentionally invalidate my emotions. In fact, I think the response was one very much intended to be comforting. Having said that, the response to my declaration of sadness was “you know, every thing is an opportunity for our spiritual growth.” Seriously, after the initial processing time passed, I wanted to deliver a swift punch right to said yogi’s face. Just for the record, I didn’t. If spiritual growth means that I don’t get to experience the rich (and sometimes painful) feelings of sadness, anger, remorse, jealousy, joy and exhilaration, then please, someone stunt my spiritual growth.
I think for me, looking at every thing, every event, every moment as a growing opportunity can be useful. I do believe every moment is an opportunity to recognize I am not separate from Source, I am no different than you or our dog Bear at this core. I also think we can use our so called spiritual practice as a way, a mighty fabulous way, of shoving all kinds of gnarly crap under the rug. It can be a great way to avoid looking at and experiencing our own humanity, or lack of it. Being human can be so complicated and so messy sometimes. Sometimes don’t you want to hide under the down comforter in a dark room and have someone stand at the foot of the bed and witness your absolute, pure suffering? It’s as if sometimes we just need someone to see us, really, really see us. Sometimes we just need someone to look us in the eyes and acknowledge the pain and suffering that life can present. I think it might be one of the most genuine, intimate, authentic, kind acts we can do for another being. Without this, our world, our connections with one another, aren’t more than about an inch deep.
I recognize spiritual platitudes are meant to be helpful. I also recognize I don’t want to live in a world full of shallow sayings. It’s sort of like that trite saying we yoga teachers sometimes say: “no ego.” Well now really, how possible is it to leave your ego in the shoe rack? Isn’t there some ego involved in teaching yoga? Isn’t there some ego in practicing yoga six days a week? Some ego involved in trying to stand on your hands and drop back into some sort of crazy back bend? I’m not saying teaching yoga is bad or practicing yoga a zillion hours a day is bad or trying to stand on your hands is bad. I’m just saying, let’s don’t try to pass it off as “spiritual” and without ego if it isn’t. Let’s don’t hide behind our spiritual practice. Let’s jump in and get muddy. Let’s feel what we feel and shake out the rug, let’s step into the fire of intense emotions, let’s witness our own and others pain & joy. Let’s live with fewer platitudes and more practice at being present for our selves and other beings. Maybe that’s the definition of spiritual practice.
Please, can someone stunt my growth?
I have been feeling a crazy, nutty amount of sadness about one of my best friends moving to another city. She is so much a part of my life that I can’t imagine how life will be without her ten minutes away. At the risk of sounding dramatic, it feels like a piece of me is moving with her. I began grieving this loss the moment she told me about her move. I grieve as I write this, and she hasn’t moved yet. In fact, she is fifteen minutes away getting her hair colored this very second. She is getting her hair colored and I am grieving that she is moving next month.
Does this make any sense? I have had moments of intense grief over future possibilities lost. But, really, is it insane to grieve something that hasn’t happened yet? I wonder if underneath somewhere I believe that if I armor up and prepare for future grief if it will be less painful. Nothing like that good old fear-of-intense- emotions rearing it’s non-stop ugly head. I wonder what I am blocking out of my life right now by thinking about and grieving something that hasn’t even happened.
So about a month ago, I shared with a fellow yogi my sadness about my friend moving. This person is in no way someone who would intentionally invalidate my emotions. In fact, I think the response was one very much intended to be comforting. Having said that, the response to my declaration of sadness was “you know, every thing is an opportunity for our spiritual growth.” Seriously, after the initial processing time passed, I wanted to deliver a swift punch right to said yogi’s face. Just for the record, I didn’t. If spiritual growth means that I don’t get to experience the rich (and sometimes painful) feelings of sadness, anger, remorse, jealousy, joy and exhilaration, then please, someone stunt my spiritual growth.
I think for me, looking at every thing, every event, every moment as a growing opportunity can be useful. I do believe every moment is an opportunity to recognize I am not separate from Source, I am no different than you or our dog Bear at this core. I also think we can use our so called spiritual practice as a way, a mighty fabulous way, of shoving all kinds of gnarly crap under the rug. It can be a great way to avoid looking at and experiencing our own humanity, or lack of it. Being human can be so complicated and so messy sometimes. Sometimes don’t you want to hide under the down comforter in a dark room and have someone stand at the foot of the bed and witness your absolute, pure suffering? It’s as if sometimes we just need someone to see us, really, really see us. Sometimes we just need someone to look us in the eyes and acknowledge the pain and suffering that life can present. I think it might be one of the most genuine, intimate, authentic, kind acts we can do for another being. Without this, our world, our connections with one another, aren’t more than about an inch deep.
I recognize spiritual platitudes are meant to be helpful. I also recognize I don’t want to live in a world full of shallow sayings. It’s sort of like that trite saying we yoga teachers sometimes say: “no ego.” Well now really, how possible is it to leave your ego in the shoe rack? Isn’t there some ego involved in teaching yoga? Isn’t there some ego in practicing yoga six days a week? Some ego involved in trying to stand on your hands and drop back into some sort of crazy back bend? I’m not saying teaching yoga is bad or practicing yoga a zillion hours a day is bad or trying to stand on your hands is bad. I’m just saying, let’s don’t try to pass it off as “spiritual” and without ego if it isn’t. Let’s don’t hide behind our spiritual practice. Let’s jump in and get muddy. Let’s feel what we feel and shake out the rug, let’s step into the fire of intense emotions, let’s witness our own and others pain & joy. Let’s live with fewer platitudes and more practice at being present for our selves and other beings. Maybe that’s the definition of spiritual practice.
just this moment
I used to believe this moment was going to tell me what the next moment was going to look like. I thought wrong.
One of my new favorite things to do is sit in our bedroom with the window open and listen to the wind chimes. During the daytime, I can see the bird feeders in the front yard. Birds seem to float so effortlessly to the exact right spot, at the exact right time. I was recently with one of my best friends from elementary school. She and I were telling our other friends about the book Eat Pray Love. My friend began to talk about how much she enjoyed the book, but she just didn’t believe that life can fall into place the way it did for the author of this book. She thought it seemed a bit too effortless. This conversation with my friend and the birds, got me thinking about effortlessness….
After the accident last summer, something did seem to change for me and it certainly didn't feel effortless. I think it would be too cliché to say that I realized life could change in a flash. However, I did begin to feel a shift. It’s difficult in some ways to say it was directly related to the accident.
Two months after the accident, my professional life began to change, again. The shift could have been related to the change in my job. A welcome and very exciting change in my job. Different responsibilities, different things to learn, new people to meet, fairly frequent travel to Chicago. The changes meant juggling things with owning the studio, less attention to the growth of the studio, less time with vince, and the feeling of my energy being split in a lot of different directions. I am not in a position at my job where there is a ladder to climb, so it hasn’t been about moving up or moving anywhere. It has been about doing the best I can and learning as much as I can from the amazing people I get to meet and grow alongside. However, as my energy became focused on the day job, I could tell the studio was suffering. There is something powerful about seeing something you have birthed suffer.
I began to talk with Vince about closing the studio. I began to talk about selling the studio. I began to feel resentful of the time it was taking me to do basic things like get water and chocolate. A sense of overwhelm began to accompany me most everywhere. A sense of overwhelm that sticks around must be some sort of messenger. At least for me. So, I have lunch with a dear friend who I can show my vulnerable, grouchy, bitchy, sad, overwhelmed self. During lunch, my phone rang at least six times. At that lunch I decided to begin looking for a buyer for the studio. I felt resistance. I could also feel myself move one foot out the door.
Vince suggested he could begin to help more. He suggested hiring an assistant. I resisted. I was angry that a suggestion came so late in the mental development of this plan. I had become closed off to possibilities. Closed the door completely. After the fall-chicken-in-the-parking-lot-sale I had a group of friends over for what the Quakers call a clearness committee meeting. It was my version of a clearness committee. I invited people who were close to me who could ask me questions and help me find clarity about whether or not to sell/close the studio. Seven people sat in our living room asking me questions. What became crystal clear was that I was crispy and some change needed to happen. I needed a break. I needed space. I needed help. I decided with their support that I was going to sell the studio.
The following day, I called the landlord and told him the news. I called the attorney and began the paperwork. I called the Alexander technique teacher in Champaign. I told the teachers, each individually. I told them I wasn't looking for partners, I was looking to get out. I was looking to practice more and teach. I called the person I know in the community who I thought would be a great studio owner. I had serious conversations with a serious buyer. I had a few conversations with some other yogis. These other yogis had a few suggestions of things to think about. They offered total support. I accepted the support and resisted the suggestions. For some reason, I followed up on the suggestions. I followed their suggestions and found myself having a conversation with another possible buyer. I found myself thinking about having partners. I found myself in the kitchen telling vince maybe something was shifting. Again.
Shit! Things weren't suppose to be shifting. I had made up my mind! I was selling. I didn't want to pay attention to the shift. I didn't want possibilities. I wanted to be done. I found myself meeting with multiple people about a group partnership. I found myself having feelings I didn’t expect. I found myself shifting. Not all at once. But with each step I was wanting to wrap things up and with each step something was getting clearer. I didn’t want clarity. I wanted closure. What’s a girl to do when what becomes clear is that it’s not time for closure. Time for there to be space in and between conversations. It’s time to not rush, to not push. I kept telling vince I wanted this wrapped up in a nice tiny box with a really pretty ribbon. The more effort I put in, the more I pushed, the worse it felt. There were entire weekends of crying and feeling sick. There were entire weekends of no energy. There was a heaviness in my heart.
After some space and some time, clarity came. Not just to me, but to other people. I wasn't pushing. I began to feel better. I began to feel more like myself. I began to speak from the calm inside and out came words and ideas that were clear and focused. I began to feel more comfortable in my skin. The clarity of how this could work seemed to take on a life of it's own. A life of it's own, rather than my own. An arrangement fell into place that seemed to fit, effortlessly. It was the same effortlessness that was present when we opened the studio.
As I look back I recognize there are moments I wish there could be “do-overs.” Moments where I wish I would have spoken with more clarity and with more humility. I realize I wish I could erase some of the difficult conversations and moments. There were moments that I know were hard for me and for other people. I suppose this is where having compassion for myself and for other people at the same time can be quite beneficial. It can be a time of remembering that we are all doing the best we can, living with the most integrity that we can muster up and with the best intentions that we know.
One of the most surprising things for me is how clear I felt at the beginning of this process. It felt so clear, so not-forced and yet it isn't what ended up being the answer. I suppose what this has taught me is that if we are open to each moment what is clear this moment might not be the same the next moment. Growth and change happen if we allow it. As Michael Singer says in The Untethered Soul “Let your spiritual path become the willingness to let whatever happens make it through you, rather than carrying it into the next moment.”
One of my new favorite things to do is sit in our bedroom with the window open and listen to the wind chimes. During the daytime, I can see the bird feeders in the front yard. Birds seem to float so effortlessly to the exact right spot, at the exact right time. I was recently with one of my best friends from elementary school. She and I were telling our other friends about the book Eat Pray Love. My friend began to talk about how much she enjoyed the book, but she just didn’t believe that life can fall into place the way it did for the author of this book. She thought it seemed a bit too effortless. This conversation with my friend and the birds, got me thinking about effortlessness….
After the accident last summer, something did seem to change for me and it certainly didn't feel effortless. I think it would be too cliché to say that I realized life could change in a flash. However, I did begin to feel a shift. It’s difficult in some ways to say it was directly related to the accident.
Two months after the accident, my professional life began to change, again. The shift could have been related to the change in my job. A welcome and very exciting change in my job. Different responsibilities, different things to learn, new people to meet, fairly frequent travel to Chicago. The changes meant juggling things with owning the studio, less attention to the growth of the studio, less time with vince, and the feeling of my energy being split in a lot of different directions. I am not in a position at my job where there is a ladder to climb, so it hasn’t been about moving up or moving anywhere. It has been about doing the best I can and learning as much as I can from the amazing people I get to meet and grow alongside. However, as my energy became focused on the day job, I could tell the studio was suffering. There is something powerful about seeing something you have birthed suffer.
I began to talk with Vince about closing the studio. I began to talk about selling the studio. I began to feel resentful of the time it was taking me to do basic things like get water and chocolate. A sense of overwhelm began to accompany me most everywhere. A sense of overwhelm that sticks around must be some sort of messenger. At least for me. So, I have lunch with a dear friend who I can show my vulnerable, grouchy, bitchy, sad, overwhelmed self. During lunch, my phone rang at least six times. At that lunch I decided to begin looking for a buyer for the studio. I felt resistance. I could also feel myself move one foot out the door.
Vince suggested he could begin to help more. He suggested hiring an assistant. I resisted. I was angry that a suggestion came so late in the mental development of this plan. I had become closed off to possibilities. Closed the door completely. After the fall-chicken-in-the-parking-lot-sale I had a group of friends over for what the Quakers call a clearness committee meeting. It was my version of a clearness committee. I invited people who were close to me who could ask me questions and help me find clarity about whether or not to sell/close the studio. Seven people sat in our living room asking me questions. What became crystal clear was that I was crispy and some change needed to happen. I needed a break. I needed space. I needed help. I decided with their support that I was going to sell the studio.
The following day, I called the landlord and told him the news. I called the attorney and began the paperwork. I called the Alexander technique teacher in Champaign. I told the teachers, each individually. I told them I wasn't looking for partners, I was looking to get out. I was looking to practice more and teach. I called the person I know in the community who I thought would be a great studio owner. I had serious conversations with a serious buyer. I had a few conversations with some other yogis. These other yogis had a few suggestions of things to think about. They offered total support. I accepted the support and resisted the suggestions. For some reason, I followed up on the suggestions. I followed their suggestions and found myself having a conversation with another possible buyer. I found myself thinking about having partners. I found myself in the kitchen telling vince maybe something was shifting. Again.
Shit! Things weren't suppose to be shifting. I had made up my mind! I was selling. I didn't want to pay attention to the shift. I didn't want possibilities. I wanted to be done. I found myself meeting with multiple people about a group partnership. I found myself having feelings I didn’t expect. I found myself shifting. Not all at once. But with each step I was wanting to wrap things up and with each step something was getting clearer. I didn’t want clarity. I wanted closure. What’s a girl to do when what becomes clear is that it’s not time for closure. Time for there to be space in and between conversations. It’s time to not rush, to not push. I kept telling vince I wanted this wrapped up in a nice tiny box with a really pretty ribbon. The more effort I put in, the more I pushed, the worse it felt. There were entire weekends of crying and feeling sick. There were entire weekends of no energy. There was a heaviness in my heart.
After some space and some time, clarity came. Not just to me, but to other people. I wasn't pushing. I began to feel better. I began to feel more like myself. I began to speak from the calm inside and out came words and ideas that were clear and focused. I began to feel more comfortable in my skin. The clarity of how this could work seemed to take on a life of it's own. A life of it's own, rather than my own. An arrangement fell into place that seemed to fit, effortlessly. It was the same effortlessness that was present when we opened the studio.
As I look back I recognize there are moments I wish there could be “do-overs.” Moments where I wish I would have spoken with more clarity and with more humility. I realize I wish I could erase some of the difficult conversations and moments. There were moments that I know were hard for me and for other people. I suppose this is where having compassion for myself and for other people at the same time can be quite beneficial. It can be a time of remembering that we are all doing the best we can, living with the most integrity that we can muster up and with the best intentions that we know.
One of the most surprising things for me is how clear I felt at the beginning of this process. It felt so clear, so not-forced and yet it isn't what ended up being the answer. I suppose what this has taught me is that if we are open to each moment what is clear this moment might not be the same the next moment. Growth and change happen if we allow it. As Michael Singer says in The Untethered Soul “Let your spiritual path become the willingness to let whatever happens make it through you, rather than carrying it into the next moment.”
the fifth limb
The fifth limb of the yoga sutra took on a whole new light after being with Sri Vatsa Rama Swami.
And now he says we will practice pratyahara, sense withdrawal. As we kneel with a straight spine we place our thumbs in our ears, our index and middle finger over our closed eyelids, the tip of the index finger gently touches the nostril and our baby fingers point to our mouth. He assures us we will hear him tell us when we are finished. I begin the practice. Initially I am distracted by some discomfort in the shoulders and then a sense of panic arises. There is only the sound of, the sound of nothingness. I feel freaked out and I begin to secretly release my thumbs so sound comes in and the panic disappears. Thumbs back in and panic is back. I can't identify the origin of the panic. Rationally I know there is no-thing to panic about... and yet there is panic. I sit quietly the rest of the practice. Seven days of this practice before I no longer feel panicky.
This practice of pratyahara, along with some pearls of wisdom about our senses from Sri Vatsa Ramaswami, has had me thinking and had me looking at the Yoga Sutra a bit more than usual. Withdrawal of the senses from their objects (or Pratyahara) is one of the eight limbs of yoga as noted in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra. It is actually the fifth limb. This limb comes after practices of self control, precepts for social harmony and self discipline, yoga poses and regulation of prana. It comes before contemplation of our true nature, meditation on our true self and being absorbed in our spirit.
As I listened to Ramaswami talk about not clogging our senses by reducing our involvement in what isn't necessary and showing moderation in food and communication, I wondered if this isn't the missing link for some of us. It pushes us to go way deeper than our asana (posture practice). It means whether or not we can put our foot behind our head, we have more challenging work ahead...minimizing our nervous chatter, being moderate in our consumption of french fries and cosmopolitans. Even more challenging might mean no longer being involved in what isn't necessary.
Can you even imagine what it means to no longer be involved in what isn't necessary? Where would an overachieving, social, on-the-go, hard-working being even begin with such a task. It's something I dream about...being less busy. Having more time on the porch to read and watch the birds on the bird-feeder. I long for days of not being asked to do anything, even fun things. It's such a complex longing because my feelings still get hurt when I'm not asked to do things! I do fantasize about how much simpler life would be if I lived in a cave. Sometimes I even talk aloud about living in a cave. Don't get me wrong, I love my family and friends. I even love my job and my co-workers. I love the studio and the other owners and the teachers and the students. And, sometimes I still long to live in a cave where there is no cell phone, no fax machine, no email and no one asking me for anything. This anything might include me helping someone with a task, it might entail me babysitting, it might mean going swimming, it might mean listening, hanging out, going on a shopping trip or having dinner. Now really, how completely selfish does it seem that I get invited to go shopping and it further pushes me to long for cave livin?
How do we change and simplify our lives and our calendars? What's gonna go? If you are a parent does it mean your child is not going to be in softball three nights a week during the summer? Does it mean you are going to give up the dance lessons, or the church group on wednesday nights. What if you have multiple kids. How's that gonna work? As an employee does it mean you are going to say no to your boss about staying late or to travel? Are you gonna stop going to yoga class three times a week? Will you give up your evening run? Will you tighten up the social circle and not see people you have sort-of been friends with for ten years? Will you say no to visiting your grandmother every sunday afternoon and calling your cousin from out of state once a week? How do we stop without a new zipcode to cave city? Isn't it all necessary?
How do we decide when to say no and what to say no to and who to say no to? How do we do this without harming? Without turning into a selfish, narcissistic monster? My friend's therapist once told her she needed to lower her expectations. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe we should just stop expecting periods of quiet, periods of time to sit on the porch and watch the birds determine which food to eat. Maybe, we should just keep a goin and keep a givin until we completely run out of gas. Then we can refuel and start going again. This option seems, sadly, more realistic than the other option. The other option is to change. The word makes me shudder.
One of Ramaswami's many pearls of wisdom seems to shed some light on this subject...”Yoga teaches us to do the opposite of what we do everyday.” Change is a comin, like it or not. I have spoken with lots of yogis about this exact same message. At David Swenson's teacher training a student raised her hand and said “how do people deal with the fact that the more you practice the more you don't necessarily want to spend time with your old friends?” I once had a friend say the liability waiver should have a warning on it that if you start down this path your life may really change. His life, his internal life had changed so much that it meant looking at a separation from his wife of many years.
Could all of this be as simple as learning to prioritize? Maybe we just need to read Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Hmmm. If we follow the path of yoga and we use the Sutra as a practice manual it might become clearer that not relying on our senses will allow us find the answers we have been seeking. If we are relying on our senses as we live this life, then we are drawn to making more and more money, buying more and more material objects (this of course does not include sexy shoes), becoming more and more successful in our careers, and working harder and harder for approval. Hmmm again. For what? Do we really need more money? More material objects (again shoes excluded), more success in our jobs and more approval? Are these things going to reduce the suffering we experience before this bag of bones is no longer suitable to support us?
Maybe, just maybe, our yoga practice allows us to see clearly that change could equal relief. Maybe the change won't be radical, but gentle and kind and compassionate. Maybe we are honest when we say no to invitations. Maybe we can schedule in time to sit on the porch and do nothing. Vince and I are discussing the idea of setting aside a weekend every four months that we call our “retreat.” A weekend without email, phones and jobs that need finished. Maybe we can use this time to remind ourselves that we aren't, at our core, the friend who is being asked to go shopping, the friend who needs to listen, the sister being asked to babysit, the daughter who wants to go to doctor's appointments with her mother, the studio owner who needs to update the website and buy some more water, the teacher who wants to study and improve her teaching skills, the homeowner who needs to vacuum, the wife who is being asked to help with lunch, the daughter in law being asked to hang curtains, the neighbor being responsible for keeping up the yard, the employee being asked to return emails and the citizen who wants to give back to the community. As we practice the steps in the sutra, we become more and more aware of the nature of the true self and then the laundry list of roles and the pulling in five thousand different direction no longer even matters.
And now he says we will practice pratyahara, sense withdrawal. As we kneel with a straight spine we place our thumbs in our ears, our index and middle finger over our closed eyelids, the tip of the index finger gently touches the nostril and our baby fingers point to our mouth. He assures us we will hear him tell us when we are finished. I begin the practice. Initially I am distracted by some discomfort in the shoulders and then a sense of panic arises. There is only the sound of, the sound of nothingness. I feel freaked out and I begin to secretly release my thumbs so sound comes in and the panic disappears. Thumbs back in and panic is back. I can't identify the origin of the panic. Rationally I know there is no-thing to panic about... and yet there is panic. I sit quietly the rest of the practice. Seven days of this practice before I no longer feel panicky.
This practice of pratyahara, along with some pearls of wisdom about our senses from Sri Vatsa Ramaswami, has had me thinking and had me looking at the Yoga Sutra a bit more than usual. Withdrawal of the senses from their objects (or Pratyahara) is one of the eight limbs of yoga as noted in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra. It is actually the fifth limb. This limb comes after practices of self control, precepts for social harmony and self discipline, yoga poses and regulation of prana. It comes before contemplation of our true nature, meditation on our true self and being absorbed in our spirit.
As I listened to Ramaswami talk about not clogging our senses by reducing our involvement in what isn't necessary and showing moderation in food and communication, I wondered if this isn't the missing link for some of us. It pushes us to go way deeper than our asana (posture practice). It means whether or not we can put our foot behind our head, we have more challenging work ahead...minimizing our nervous chatter, being moderate in our consumption of french fries and cosmopolitans. Even more challenging might mean no longer being involved in what isn't necessary.
Can you even imagine what it means to no longer be involved in what isn't necessary? Where would an overachieving, social, on-the-go, hard-working being even begin with such a task. It's something I dream about...being less busy. Having more time on the porch to read and watch the birds on the bird-feeder. I long for days of not being asked to do anything, even fun things. It's such a complex longing because my feelings still get hurt when I'm not asked to do things! I do fantasize about how much simpler life would be if I lived in a cave. Sometimes I even talk aloud about living in a cave. Don't get me wrong, I love my family and friends. I even love my job and my co-workers. I love the studio and the other owners and the teachers and the students. And, sometimes I still long to live in a cave where there is no cell phone, no fax machine, no email and no one asking me for anything. This anything might include me helping someone with a task, it might entail me babysitting, it might mean going swimming, it might mean listening, hanging out, going on a shopping trip or having dinner. Now really, how completely selfish does it seem that I get invited to go shopping and it further pushes me to long for cave livin?
How do we change and simplify our lives and our calendars? What's gonna go? If you are a parent does it mean your child is not going to be in softball three nights a week during the summer? Does it mean you are going to give up the dance lessons, or the church group on wednesday nights. What if you have multiple kids. How's that gonna work? As an employee does it mean you are going to say no to your boss about staying late or to travel? Are you gonna stop going to yoga class three times a week? Will you give up your evening run? Will you tighten up the social circle and not see people you have sort-of been friends with for ten years? Will you say no to visiting your grandmother every sunday afternoon and calling your cousin from out of state once a week? How do we stop without a new zipcode to cave city? Isn't it all necessary?
How do we decide when to say no and what to say no to and who to say no to? How do we do this without harming? Without turning into a selfish, narcissistic monster? My friend's therapist once told her she needed to lower her expectations. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe we should just stop expecting periods of quiet, periods of time to sit on the porch and watch the birds determine which food to eat. Maybe, we should just keep a goin and keep a givin until we completely run out of gas. Then we can refuel and start going again. This option seems, sadly, more realistic than the other option. The other option is to change. The word makes me shudder.
One of Ramaswami's many pearls of wisdom seems to shed some light on this subject...”Yoga teaches us to do the opposite of what we do everyday.” Change is a comin, like it or not. I have spoken with lots of yogis about this exact same message. At David Swenson's teacher training a student raised her hand and said “how do people deal with the fact that the more you practice the more you don't necessarily want to spend time with your old friends?” I once had a friend say the liability waiver should have a warning on it that if you start down this path your life may really change. His life, his internal life had changed so much that it meant looking at a separation from his wife of many years.
Could all of this be as simple as learning to prioritize? Maybe we just need to read Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Hmmm. If we follow the path of yoga and we use the Sutra as a practice manual it might become clearer that not relying on our senses will allow us find the answers we have been seeking. If we are relying on our senses as we live this life, then we are drawn to making more and more money, buying more and more material objects (this of course does not include sexy shoes), becoming more and more successful in our careers, and working harder and harder for approval. Hmmm again. For what? Do we really need more money? More material objects (again shoes excluded), more success in our jobs and more approval? Are these things going to reduce the suffering we experience before this bag of bones is no longer suitable to support us?
Maybe, just maybe, our yoga practice allows us to see clearly that change could equal relief. Maybe the change won't be radical, but gentle and kind and compassionate. Maybe we are honest when we say no to invitations. Maybe we can schedule in time to sit on the porch and do nothing. Vince and I are discussing the idea of setting aside a weekend every four months that we call our “retreat.” A weekend without email, phones and jobs that need finished. Maybe we can use this time to remind ourselves that we aren't, at our core, the friend who is being asked to go shopping, the friend who needs to listen, the sister being asked to babysit, the daughter who wants to go to doctor's appointments with her mother, the studio owner who needs to update the website and buy some more water, the teacher who wants to study and improve her teaching skills, the homeowner who needs to vacuum, the wife who is being asked to help with lunch, the daughter in law being asked to hang curtains, the neighbor being responsible for keeping up the yard, the employee being asked to return emails and the citizen who wants to give back to the community. As we practice the steps in the sutra, we become more and more aware of the nature of the true self and then the laundry list of roles and the pulling in five thousand different direction no longer even matters.
thoughts on scotch, yoga and quinoa
What is completeness? Can scotch and quinoa help us find a way to live our yoga?
I recently purchased a good bottle of Scotch. I recognize how scotch and yoga connect is not immediately evident. Maybe it will never be evident. Anyway, a friend of mine was discussing a yummy bottle of scotch her husband was given for a birthday gift and I thought I should give it a try. I do love good scotch.
Drinking scotch requires some forethought. I need to plan ahead so I can carry out a deserving ritual. I don’t want to be in a hurry. I want to slow down and savor every second and every drop. I don’t want to waste it and I don’t want to waste our time together (me and the scotch). In fact, I like to drink it in good company. Preferably sitting down on the porch with time to enjoy the scotch and of course, the company.
I love the aroma when the bottle is opened. In fact, I love the smell of someone, actually anyone, who has been drinking scotch. And the color, oh the color. It is rich like liquid carmel. Silky carmel poured into a glass. A short, fat glass with ice, preferably crushed ice.
Now onto the pouring. Isn’t it amazing how it seems to pour out in slow motion, in a silky stream of sweetness. I am fascinated how it sticks to the sides of the glass like syrup. I am mesmerized by the crackling noise that leaves the edge of the glass as it is poured over the crushed ice. After the pouring, I like to swish it around so the syrup can make friends with the ice, seeping into the cracks. The perfect ice cube.
Typically, I like to take a drink before it begins to get watered down. Ahh, I love the burning sensation down my throat and the warmth that seems to float straight to my face. After the first drink I begin to feel my shoulder’s relax and my face soften. It’s as if the scotch takes a deep breath for me and sends some space in between the thoughts which take up so much space in my head. I am so relaxed, so warm and wish this experience would stay with me…
Oh, my head!! The alarm is going off and I need to be at work. I need to be at work early. I need to be clear and functional at work. I need to be connected with people in this life and not so fogggggy. I need to not be so distracted and not so clumsy. I am so clumsy the day after I have enjoyed…how can something so rich and yummy create such fog and disconnect? How can it create distraction and fog, clumsiness and fog, tiredness and fog, moodiness and fog? Maybe I need to set up some rules, some boundaries about enjoying scotch.
One time I heard someone say there is no reason to set up boundaries in our life, no reason for rules, boxes or categories. I am thinking this day after sharing the new scotch with Vince and my friends maybe that was some bad information. Maybe there are certain parts of our lives that need boundaries and limits.
What would the world look like without boundaries? If there had been limits would I be so tired tonight? Would I have a headache? Wouldn’t we all go to work late, speed on the highway, eat too much chocolate, blow off our yoga practice for a nap, drink scotch on a work night….uh oh. Hmm. It’s possible I have been breaking some rules.
Hmm. Upon more examination, the rules and boundaries are just imaginary aren’t they? Aren’t they just made up? I am so good at making up rules. I make up rules and then break them. What’s that about? I think you could say I excel at the rule making sport. Maybe, I mean I hate to rush into such a big statement, but maybe I am a gold medalist rule maker.
Questioning the rules makes rule following girls feel crazy and insane. Not following a rule sends rule-following girls to the edge of the cliff wondering what to do. A rule is a rule. Or is it? Maybe the rule is that there don’t need to be rules?
When I first met Vince he had a bumper sticker on his car that said “Question Authority.” It made me nervous. Seriously, it made me anxious. What does that mean “question authority? Why would we ever do such a thing. I think it meant the same thing as question the rules. Maybe the bumper sticker could have just said “Question.” Question with a capital Q. It is impossible to question all of these rules, inside and outside of my head. There are just too many rules to question and they are so detailed! It’s exhausting.
What if we had one big question? The mother of all Questions. The Mother of all Questions would make the questions about rules and limits and boundaries ultimately seems like child’s play. Seriously. Questioning rules about drinking scotch, going the speed limit and kissing Dr. McDreamy seem to be missing the point. If we stay stuck asking these questions we might stay on or in the eternal hamster wheel. If we ask the question of all questions, we might recognize there is no need for boxes, limits or rules or even other questions.
So what is the question of all questions? What is the question of the mother ship? It seems as though the capital Q question is “who am I” or “who is this I” and does this “I” need rules, boxes, limits, boundaries?
When I remember who I am the questions about whether to drink scotch, eat ice burg lettuce, eat too much chocolate or kiss McDreamy all seem irrelevant. They just don’t matter.
What? Have I lost my mind? Where is the rule followin' girl? Isn't she going to spin into outer space and find trouble without rules? Hmmm. Maybe not.
When I recognize who I am, who this “I” is that keeps being referenced, then all kinds of strings of attachment seem to snap away. Instead of feeling like “I” am a top spinning into the nether worlds, there is the ability to recognize that I am not separate, I am not these desires, these wishes, these neuroses, these character roles. Rules are just made up stories, made up by made-up characters. This is life, just life. There is the recognition that this is the play we are in and we are just playing our role. Sometimes the characters break rules and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes there is scotch drinking, meat eating and chocolatey dreams with mcdreamy. This is also life.
In this life there seem to be choices that can be made to decrease suffering. I know if lunch consists of a bowl of miso soup then the mind will be clearer in the afternoon than if it consisted of really spicy chili paste tofu or a big hamburger. I know if there is scotch in the evening I will likely wake up foggy, a bit moody, attached to the thinking in this head and clingy (wow, that sounds lovely to be around). Studying the sutras, chanting and reading texts seem to increase the odds that I am going to remember that I play the role, but I am not this role of yogi, yoga teacher, scotch lover, grant coordinator, social worker, wife, sister, daughter, friend.
If the body is fed well, if the body gets enough rest and enough yoga practice then we increase the likelihood we will rest in clarity, knowing who we are and that everything we need for enlightenment is right here and right now. It's the combination that the Sutra tells us creates more and more moments where we recognize who we are and the perfection of this, the completeness. We are complete, even if we love scotch, even if we get confused about who we are and even if we sometimes rely on imaginary external rules to help us out. We are the complete package, the complete package is here, the complete package is right now…we are all sort of like quinoa, the complete protein.
I recently purchased a good bottle of Scotch. I recognize how scotch and yoga connect is not immediately evident. Maybe it will never be evident. Anyway, a friend of mine was discussing a yummy bottle of scotch her husband was given for a birthday gift and I thought I should give it a try. I do love good scotch.
Drinking scotch requires some forethought. I need to plan ahead so I can carry out a deserving ritual. I don’t want to be in a hurry. I want to slow down and savor every second and every drop. I don’t want to waste it and I don’t want to waste our time together (me and the scotch). In fact, I like to drink it in good company. Preferably sitting down on the porch with time to enjoy the scotch and of course, the company.
I love the aroma when the bottle is opened. In fact, I love the smell of someone, actually anyone, who has been drinking scotch. And the color, oh the color. It is rich like liquid carmel. Silky carmel poured into a glass. A short, fat glass with ice, preferably crushed ice.
Now onto the pouring. Isn’t it amazing how it seems to pour out in slow motion, in a silky stream of sweetness. I am fascinated how it sticks to the sides of the glass like syrup. I am mesmerized by the crackling noise that leaves the edge of the glass as it is poured over the crushed ice. After the pouring, I like to swish it around so the syrup can make friends with the ice, seeping into the cracks. The perfect ice cube.
Typically, I like to take a drink before it begins to get watered down. Ahh, I love the burning sensation down my throat and the warmth that seems to float straight to my face. After the first drink I begin to feel my shoulder’s relax and my face soften. It’s as if the scotch takes a deep breath for me and sends some space in between the thoughts which take up so much space in my head. I am so relaxed, so warm and wish this experience would stay with me…
Oh, my head!! The alarm is going off and I need to be at work. I need to be at work early. I need to be clear and functional at work. I need to be connected with people in this life and not so fogggggy. I need to not be so distracted and not so clumsy. I am so clumsy the day after I have enjoyed…how can something so rich and yummy create such fog and disconnect? How can it create distraction and fog, clumsiness and fog, tiredness and fog, moodiness and fog? Maybe I need to set up some rules, some boundaries about enjoying scotch.
One time I heard someone say there is no reason to set up boundaries in our life, no reason for rules, boxes or categories. I am thinking this day after sharing the new scotch with Vince and my friends maybe that was some bad information. Maybe there are certain parts of our lives that need boundaries and limits.
What would the world look like without boundaries? If there had been limits would I be so tired tonight? Would I have a headache? Wouldn’t we all go to work late, speed on the highway, eat too much chocolate, blow off our yoga practice for a nap, drink scotch on a work night….uh oh. Hmm. It’s possible I have been breaking some rules.
Hmm. Upon more examination, the rules and boundaries are just imaginary aren’t they? Aren’t they just made up? I am so good at making up rules. I make up rules and then break them. What’s that about? I think you could say I excel at the rule making sport. Maybe, I mean I hate to rush into such a big statement, but maybe I am a gold medalist rule maker.
Questioning the rules makes rule following girls feel crazy and insane. Not following a rule sends rule-following girls to the edge of the cliff wondering what to do. A rule is a rule. Or is it? Maybe the rule is that there don’t need to be rules?
When I first met Vince he had a bumper sticker on his car that said “Question Authority.” It made me nervous. Seriously, it made me anxious. What does that mean “question authority? Why would we ever do such a thing. I think it meant the same thing as question the rules. Maybe the bumper sticker could have just said “Question.” Question with a capital Q. It is impossible to question all of these rules, inside and outside of my head. There are just too many rules to question and they are so detailed! It’s exhausting.
What if we had one big question? The mother of all Questions. The Mother of all Questions would make the questions about rules and limits and boundaries ultimately seems like child’s play. Seriously. Questioning rules about drinking scotch, going the speed limit and kissing Dr. McDreamy seem to be missing the point. If we stay stuck asking these questions we might stay on or in the eternal hamster wheel. If we ask the question of all questions, we might recognize there is no need for boxes, limits or rules or even other questions.
So what is the question of all questions? What is the question of the mother ship? It seems as though the capital Q question is “who am I” or “who is this I” and does this “I” need rules, boxes, limits, boundaries?
When I remember who I am the questions about whether to drink scotch, eat ice burg lettuce, eat too much chocolate or kiss McDreamy all seem irrelevant. They just don’t matter.
What? Have I lost my mind? Where is the rule followin' girl? Isn't she going to spin into outer space and find trouble without rules? Hmmm. Maybe not.
When I recognize who I am, who this “I” is that keeps being referenced, then all kinds of strings of attachment seem to snap away. Instead of feeling like “I” am a top spinning into the nether worlds, there is the ability to recognize that I am not separate, I am not these desires, these wishes, these neuroses, these character roles. Rules are just made up stories, made up by made-up characters. This is life, just life. There is the recognition that this is the play we are in and we are just playing our role. Sometimes the characters break rules and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes there is scotch drinking, meat eating and chocolatey dreams with mcdreamy. This is also life.
In this life there seem to be choices that can be made to decrease suffering. I know if lunch consists of a bowl of miso soup then the mind will be clearer in the afternoon than if it consisted of really spicy chili paste tofu or a big hamburger. I know if there is scotch in the evening I will likely wake up foggy, a bit moody, attached to the thinking in this head and clingy (wow, that sounds lovely to be around). Studying the sutras, chanting and reading texts seem to increase the odds that I am going to remember that I play the role, but I am not this role of yogi, yoga teacher, scotch lover, grant coordinator, social worker, wife, sister, daughter, friend.
If the body is fed well, if the body gets enough rest and enough yoga practice then we increase the likelihood we will rest in clarity, knowing who we are and that everything we need for enlightenment is right here and right now. It's the combination that the Sutra tells us creates more and more moments where we recognize who we are and the perfection of this, the completeness. We are complete, even if we love scotch, even if we get confused about who we are and even if we sometimes rely on imaginary external rules to help us out. We are the complete package, the complete package is here, the complete package is right now…we are all sort of like quinoa, the complete protein.
Bumps on the side of the road
Have you ever thought you were an emotional wreck? What in the world does that mean?
What does it mean when someone says “I am an emotional wreck?” Or, why do some people believe women are more “emotional’ than men? Why do we judge not only our own emotions, but other people’s emotions? Why would I get to weigh in on whether or not your tears are authentic and whether or not you are showing “too much or too little emotion?” What would it really mean if someone said you seemed incapable of showing emotion or that you don’t show enough emotion? Can I get control of my emotions? Are they even ‘my” emotions?
As I reflect, I realize we need to see if we can pinpoint what exactly an emotion is made of….hmm. I can’t see my emotions. I can’t put them in a box. I don’t ever seem to have control over them. I don’t choose them. I haven’t mastered inviting them in and I certainly have never ever, ever mastered getting rid of them. They appear uninvited and typically their timing stinks. Emotions come and go, they sometimes seem to change from one minute to the next. Hmm. This doesn’t necessarily indicate something we should be using to guide our lives.
In therapy world there is a model called Health Realization. The essence of this understanding is recognizing mind, consciousness and thought in action. Mind being something bigger than ourselves, consciousness is what brings our reality to life and thought, everyone who is on their mat knows what thought is (think that voice in your head that tells you to push, back off, stay on the couch when you shouldn’t, stay on the mat when you should be on the couch, eat the 3rd piece of cake, etc.).
In this model, there is much focus on becoming aware of how thoughts come before emotions or feelings. Another way of saying this is that there is never a feeling without a thought coming beforehand, even if we aren’t aware of it. In addition, there is this component of recognizing that our thoughts come and go; that we don’t have control over them; that we don’t decide which one’s come in to our minds. This has been true in my experience. I don’t decide to have a string of neurotic thoughts arrive. I don’t decide to have “catty” thoughts about other people and I don’t decide to have self-defeating thoughts. They just arrive.
Now, I do realize this goes against everything we have all learned from Jack Handy on Saturday Night Live. Remember his skit? He is sitting in front of the mirror repeating to himself “I am good enough, strong enough, something enough..” He believed he could change his thoughts so that he could feel good about himself. In my experience, I can’t change my thoughts. I can try like hell, but I can’t change them. I also can’t change my feelings. Seriously, I have tried and it hasn’t worked, at least not for me. In my experience the more I try to change thoughts and feelings the stickier they become. Thoughts and feelings do change, but it’s not me changing them.
So, anyway, if our thoughts come before our feelings and we can’t control our thoughts and I can’t control my feelings, then why do I give them such importance? Why do I ever believe them? Why, why, why? Why do we have to give them meaning? Couldn’t thoughts and feelings just be thoughts and feelings? Couldn’t they just be present, part of our make-up? Couldn’t we just see them for what they are? What are they? Aren’t they concentrated forms of energy, getting more and more momentum the more we focus on them? Getting to be gargantuan when we resist them? Resist and they will persist. Focus on them, talk about them, stew about them and they grow like a brand new chia pet.
I had this teacher in my Health Realization training whose name was Keith. He is an amazing person. He is kind, gentle, funny, big and Texan. One time he talked about how useful feelings/emotions can be in our lives. He said they can be like the bumps on the side of the road that let you know you are headed into the ditch. When you are driving and you hear the tires hit the little bumps do you get out and see what they are made of, or how many there are? The bumps are like our emotions, they can give us a head’s up that we are caught up in our thinking mind, that we our following the never-ending winding road of our mind. We don’t need to know the gory details of them, we don’t need to analyze them, we just need to know that they are thoughts. I don’t know about you, but that never-ending winding road typically leads me into messy waters.
Okay, but what about people who don’t seem to know there are bumps on the side of the road, I mean people who don’t seem to have, show or know that they have any emotions. Sometimes we talk about people like this by saying “they really aren’t in touch with their emotions” or we say they seem to be “numb.” We all know people who numb themselves in some way. In my profession we call that “self-medicating.” Are they numb? Are they really without emotions? Hmm.
If you were driving your car and you had your radio turned up, you were on the phone, your kid was screaming and you were thinking about your over due visa bill is it possible you wouldn’t notice that you had run over a few of those bumpy signals on the side of the road? Is it possible that we have had an experience or experiences that we have resisted certain feelings and emotions so intensely that we have started driving while straddling the line of bumps? We might have become mistaken and believe that if we straddle the line we will be happier or that if we straddle the line the mad mind will stop spinning said thoughts and emotions. If we drive straddling the bumps we don’t really have to allow ourselves to experience/feel the messy, uninvited emotions. We can keep on this route. We can play it safe. Not really living the moments and not in the ditch. What we resist will persist and we will have to keep straddling the bumps. If we could just feel the messiness and see it for what it is we can get back to the center. Our center.
Early on in my yoga teacher training, I heard a yoga teacher talk about how emotional she became after she moved into a regular practice of backbends. Honestly, I thought she was completely full of it (that would be an example of Ami’s thinking). Right. So, as I began teaching and began to incorporate heart opening poses and backbends I had more and more students begin to talk to me about what was occurring for them during and after these practices. Then, I attended a training where the teacher had us do a zillion back bends. You guessed it. Later that week waterfall city. Stuff I thought I was over, was not so much over. A symbolic heart-ache following heart openers. Hmmm.
We do know the body is made up of energy. Right? Everything is made up of energy. In the yogic tradition we think of the energy in eight different centers of the body. These centers are called Chakras, or spinning wheels of energy. Each energy center is associated with a specific region in the physical body. So, if we did backbend after backbend after backbend, it would seem to open up the energy center around our heart, which would seem to bring more emotions to the surface? Hmm. Makes sense to me.
In addition to practicing backbends and other heart opener asanas, I think we all have our own ways of not straddling the bumps on the side of the road. These are other ways of opening up our hearts and experiencing the messy and oh so exquisite emotions we are capable of having as humans. For me backbends will do it, so will plugging in to my ipod and listening to some Bob Marley or listening to Yo Yo Ma play the cello suites. Heart opening also happens for me during writing, taking pictures, rubbing Vince’s feet while sitting on the couch, giving a thai massage, feeling the Mexico heat in July, hiking in the redwoods, riding on the train and looking at the gray landscape of an Illinois winter. For you it may be walking in the cold air with the sun on your face, it might be drawing, it might be working in the garden, teaching kindergarten, or watching your kids play in the park. It really doesn’t matter what it is. They are all just tools and opportunities to recognize what we are and what we aren’t.
I suppose what matters is that we know that we have thoughts and we don’t have to do anything about them. I suppose what matters is that we know we have emotions and we don’t have to understand them, do anything about them or get control of them. I suppose what matters is that we don’t resist, that we know we will be okay if we experience extreme emotions and crazy thoughts. I suppose what matters is that we know there are moments we have the opportunity to soak up being alive and to be open to the exquisite emotions we are capable of experiencing. I suppose what matters is that we remember we aren’t our thoughts or our emotions and to live fully, we don’t need to straddle the line on the side of the road.
No kidding, I couldn’t make this up (well, I probably could, but I am not making it up).. As I finished this essay, my ipod began playing Hearts Wide Open by Jon Smith. Check him out. The song is on his Traveler Cd. If you have an opportunity to ever see him in concert, he might just make your heart melt.
What does it mean when someone says “I am an emotional wreck?” Or, why do some people believe women are more “emotional’ than men? Why do we judge not only our own emotions, but other people’s emotions? Why would I get to weigh in on whether or not your tears are authentic and whether or not you are showing “too much or too little emotion?” What would it really mean if someone said you seemed incapable of showing emotion or that you don’t show enough emotion? Can I get control of my emotions? Are they even ‘my” emotions?
As I reflect, I realize we need to see if we can pinpoint what exactly an emotion is made of….hmm. I can’t see my emotions. I can’t put them in a box. I don’t ever seem to have control over them. I don’t choose them. I haven’t mastered inviting them in and I certainly have never ever, ever mastered getting rid of them. They appear uninvited and typically their timing stinks. Emotions come and go, they sometimes seem to change from one minute to the next. Hmm. This doesn’t necessarily indicate something we should be using to guide our lives.
In therapy world there is a model called Health Realization. The essence of this understanding is recognizing mind, consciousness and thought in action. Mind being something bigger than ourselves, consciousness is what brings our reality to life and thought, everyone who is on their mat knows what thought is (think that voice in your head that tells you to push, back off, stay on the couch when you shouldn’t, stay on the mat when you should be on the couch, eat the 3rd piece of cake, etc.).
In this model, there is much focus on becoming aware of how thoughts come before emotions or feelings. Another way of saying this is that there is never a feeling without a thought coming beforehand, even if we aren’t aware of it. In addition, there is this component of recognizing that our thoughts come and go; that we don’t have control over them; that we don’t decide which one’s come in to our minds. This has been true in my experience. I don’t decide to have a string of neurotic thoughts arrive. I don’t decide to have “catty” thoughts about other people and I don’t decide to have self-defeating thoughts. They just arrive.
Now, I do realize this goes against everything we have all learned from Jack Handy on Saturday Night Live. Remember his skit? He is sitting in front of the mirror repeating to himself “I am good enough, strong enough, something enough..” He believed he could change his thoughts so that he could feel good about himself. In my experience, I can’t change my thoughts. I can try like hell, but I can’t change them. I also can’t change my feelings. Seriously, I have tried and it hasn’t worked, at least not for me. In my experience the more I try to change thoughts and feelings the stickier they become. Thoughts and feelings do change, but it’s not me changing them.
So, anyway, if our thoughts come before our feelings and we can’t control our thoughts and I can’t control my feelings, then why do I give them such importance? Why do I ever believe them? Why, why, why? Why do we have to give them meaning? Couldn’t thoughts and feelings just be thoughts and feelings? Couldn’t they just be present, part of our make-up? Couldn’t we just see them for what they are? What are they? Aren’t they concentrated forms of energy, getting more and more momentum the more we focus on them? Getting to be gargantuan when we resist them? Resist and they will persist. Focus on them, talk about them, stew about them and they grow like a brand new chia pet.
I had this teacher in my Health Realization training whose name was Keith. He is an amazing person. He is kind, gentle, funny, big and Texan. One time he talked about how useful feelings/emotions can be in our lives. He said they can be like the bumps on the side of the road that let you know you are headed into the ditch. When you are driving and you hear the tires hit the little bumps do you get out and see what they are made of, or how many there are? The bumps are like our emotions, they can give us a head’s up that we are caught up in our thinking mind, that we our following the never-ending winding road of our mind. We don’t need to know the gory details of them, we don’t need to analyze them, we just need to know that they are thoughts. I don’t know about you, but that never-ending winding road typically leads me into messy waters.
Okay, but what about people who don’t seem to know there are bumps on the side of the road, I mean people who don’t seem to have, show or know that they have any emotions. Sometimes we talk about people like this by saying “they really aren’t in touch with their emotions” or we say they seem to be “numb.” We all know people who numb themselves in some way. In my profession we call that “self-medicating.” Are they numb? Are they really without emotions? Hmm.
If you were driving your car and you had your radio turned up, you were on the phone, your kid was screaming and you were thinking about your over due visa bill is it possible you wouldn’t notice that you had run over a few of those bumpy signals on the side of the road? Is it possible that we have had an experience or experiences that we have resisted certain feelings and emotions so intensely that we have started driving while straddling the line of bumps? We might have become mistaken and believe that if we straddle the line we will be happier or that if we straddle the line the mad mind will stop spinning said thoughts and emotions. If we drive straddling the bumps we don’t really have to allow ourselves to experience/feel the messy, uninvited emotions. We can keep on this route. We can play it safe. Not really living the moments and not in the ditch. What we resist will persist and we will have to keep straddling the bumps. If we could just feel the messiness and see it for what it is we can get back to the center. Our center.
Early on in my yoga teacher training, I heard a yoga teacher talk about how emotional she became after she moved into a regular practice of backbends. Honestly, I thought she was completely full of it (that would be an example of Ami’s thinking). Right. So, as I began teaching and began to incorporate heart opening poses and backbends I had more and more students begin to talk to me about what was occurring for them during and after these practices. Then, I attended a training where the teacher had us do a zillion back bends. You guessed it. Later that week waterfall city. Stuff I thought I was over, was not so much over. A symbolic heart-ache following heart openers. Hmmm.
We do know the body is made up of energy. Right? Everything is made up of energy. In the yogic tradition we think of the energy in eight different centers of the body. These centers are called Chakras, or spinning wheels of energy. Each energy center is associated with a specific region in the physical body. So, if we did backbend after backbend after backbend, it would seem to open up the energy center around our heart, which would seem to bring more emotions to the surface? Hmm. Makes sense to me.
In addition to practicing backbends and other heart opener asanas, I think we all have our own ways of not straddling the bumps on the side of the road. These are other ways of opening up our hearts and experiencing the messy and oh so exquisite emotions we are capable of having as humans. For me backbends will do it, so will plugging in to my ipod and listening to some Bob Marley or listening to Yo Yo Ma play the cello suites. Heart opening also happens for me during writing, taking pictures, rubbing Vince’s feet while sitting on the couch, giving a thai massage, feeling the Mexico heat in July, hiking in the redwoods, riding on the train and looking at the gray landscape of an Illinois winter. For you it may be walking in the cold air with the sun on your face, it might be drawing, it might be working in the garden, teaching kindergarten, or watching your kids play in the park. It really doesn’t matter what it is. They are all just tools and opportunities to recognize what we are and what we aren’t.
I suppose what matters is that we know that we have thoughts and we don’t have to do anything about them. I suppose what matters is that we know we have emotions and we don’t have to understand them, do anything about them or get control of them. I suppose what matters is that we don’t resist, that we know we will be okay if we experience extreme emotions and crazy thoughts. I suppose what matters is that we know there are moments we have the opportunity to soak up being alive and to be open to the exquisite emotions we are capable of experiencing. I suppose what matters is that we remember we aren’t our thoughts or our emotions and to live fully, we don’t need to straddle the line on the side of the road.
No kidding, I couldn’t make this up (well, I probably could, but I am not making it up).. As I finished this essay, my ipod began playing Hearts Wide Open by Jon Smith. Check him out. The song is on his Traveler Cd. If you have an opportunity to ever see him in concert, he might just make your heart melt.
Arrows
Do we choose to suffer?
I am sitting on my bed, using the window to support my back. An amazing spring sun is warming me as I recover from some sort of infection. I am grateful for it in some ways, the infection. I have been hoping for some quiet time where I could write and be underneath the down comforter.
I suppose in some ways I could suffer. I could be suffering because the body feels too bad to sleep, because I am not teaching tonight, something I love to do. I could be suffering because it is about the third warm and sunny day following what seems to be the world’s longest winter. I could suffer because I was hoping for a lengthy, sweaty practice today. I could suffer because I had to leave the elementary school girl friend reunion early because I wasn’t feeling well. I could suffer for all kinds of reasons, but instead, I sit here breathing out of my mouth, with a fever, not suffering.
A few weeks ago I was at lunch with Vince and our friend Andy and we began to talk about the concept of two arrows and the Buddha’s teaching on suffering. So the idea, as I understand it, is that the first arrow is something like an illness, or the death of a loved one, or an accident, or the loss of the job. The second arrow is the suffering that is created following the first.
So, let’s say this infection is the first arrow and if there were mental/emotional suffering it would be the second arrow. So, what is it this time that leads to this equanimity rather than suffering?
Equanimity seems to come with complete acceptance. I mean absolutely no arguing with reality and knowing who I am. Who am I? Am I this body with an infection? Am I Ami who every year has an infection about the first week of nice weather in the spring or the first gorgeous day in October? Or am I who is aware of this? There might be the experience of suffering, but I am, and you are, the one who ultimately doesn’t suffer from any type of arrows.
I am sitting on my bed, using the window to support my back. An amazing spring sun is warming me as I recover from some sort of infection. I am grateful for it in some ways, the infection. I have been hoping for some quiet time where I could write and be underneath the down comforter.
I suppose in some ways I could suffer. I could be suffering because the body feels too bad to sleep, because I am not teaching tonight, something I love to do. I could be suffering because it is about the third warm and sunny day following what seems to be the world’s longest winter. I could suffer because I was hoping for a lengthy, sweaty practice today. I could suffer because I had to leave the elementary school girl friend reunion early because I wasn’t feeling well. I could suffer for all kinds of reasons, but instead, I sit here breathing out of my mouth, with a fever, not suffering.
A few weeks ago I was at lunch with Vince and our friend Andy and we began to talk about the concept of two arrows and the Buddha’s teaching on suffering. So the idea, as I understand it, is that the first arrow is something like an illness, or the death of a loved one, or an accident, or the loss of the job. The second arrow is the suffering that is created following the first.
So, let’s say this infection is the first arrow and if there were mental/emotional suffering it would be the second arrow. So, what is it this time that leads to this equanimity rather than suffering?
Equanimity seems to come with complete acceptance. I mean absolutely no arguing with reality and knowing who I am. Who am I? Am I this body with an infection? Am I Ami who every year has an infection about the first week of nice weather in the spring or the first gorgeous day in October? Or am I who is aware of this? There might be the experience of suffering, but I am, and you are, the one who ultimately doesn’t suffer from any type of arrows.
Do you know where you are going?
Our lives can change in a split second. Don't fool yourself by thinking you know where you are going...
It was a sunny day. I had finished work with the school district for the summer. I had a few glorious days of complete quiet and alone time at my friends farm. I was rested. I had finished my initial weekend of thai yoga training and had completed ten massages in a week. If you had asked me that morning what the summer was going to look like, I thought I knew. I thought I was going to spend the summer practicing yoga, teaching yoga, practicing thai yoga massage and completing my thai yoga massage certification. It was going to be a summer with lots of rest and relaxation. There can be such arrogance in that type of knowing. Or is it ignorance?
I walked out of the house and got into my car. I had a little discussion in my head about which route to take to meet Vince for lunch. I took the route that I don’t usually take. I am driving along and everything changed (see previous essay regarding this subject). All at once I saw blue, felt the impact into the driver's side door and air bags deployed. I knew a few things very clearly. I knew to turn the car off. I knew to try to climb out of the passenger side door. I knew my hand and my hip hurt. Everything seemed to be moving very slowly.
A kind teenager helped me out the door and walked me to the curb. I saw people running to get me a chair. Someone helped me lie flat on the ground. A woman went and got my purse and then my phone. She came and sat with me. She helped me call vince, then calling vince for me. She talked about the Ganesh on my bag. An off duty EMT stopped by and checked on me. The Ambulance came. The police came. I was on a board with my head strapped. People carried me to the ambulance, police were asking me questions. I was breathing. I was breathing.
Inside the ambulance the technician put in an IV and then we sat, or laid, waiting. I don’t know if I was there for hours or minutes. I could feel myself begin to feel panicky. I could feel my breath get shallow and tears roll down my cheek. The EMT was doing something technical somewhere near my feet and asked me if I could calm down. I began to practice three part breathing. I focused on the up and down movement of my belly. I felt the breath begin to slow. There were moments where it was as though I was watching from above. The ambulance began to move. I could hear the sirens and feel the bumps. Lots of bumps. I began to realize how I had completely surrendered. I felt such gratefulness for the people who had been helping me.\
As I was carried in the emergency room I watched people watch me. Lots of people came in the room. Lots of people left the room. Everyone left the room. I was alone, strapped to a board in a cold room.
It seemed as if I had two choices, my monkey mind or my breath. I returned to my breath. I heard someone come in and begin typing. I couldn’t see who it was, but I knew I wanted someone to stand with me, to be with me. I asked. A nurse came in and I was able to ask for her to stand with me. She left the room. I returned to my breath. I focused on my breath for what seemed like forever. Everytime the mind began to wonder away from my breath, I b egan to feel panicky and upset. As soon as I would return to my breath, the calm would return.
Vince arrived. He saves me sometimes. Saves me from getting stuck in the temporary madness in my head. I needed saved from the spinning about what it would mean to have a broken hand and an injured hip. I began conscioulsy trying to relax my body. There were really clear moments recognizing that I could breathe into areas that felt tight. Once they told me I could move around, I began stretching, pointing, flexing. I could feel how the body had tensed and I wanted to begin to open those spaces. Xrays and wrapping a broken hand.
My parents arrived. I walk out with a broken hand. A broken right hand. As if we need reminders that we only get one body.
I saw the car. I knew the accident was serious, I was in it. When I saw the car I went directly into memory and into «what could have happened.» What use is «what could have happened?» Of course the mind wants to naturally take us there, it's juicy material to gnaw on. But is it useful?
I rested and wore the plastic crown Vince gave me. My hand was in a hard cast. I listended to music I found during yoga teacher training that I have consistently found to soothe me. I laid on the couch. I stretched and breathed while lying on my back, I stretched and breathed sitting up. I asked for what I needed, which sometimes hasn't been easy for me. I felt out of it and teary. I felt calm and centered. I felt needy and scared. I couldn't drive. I couldn't write. I couldn't type. I couldn't dry my hair or shave my left armpit.
I taught Mysore style yoga in a completely new way. I had to find more precise language. I couldn't do physical adjustments. A really fabulous teacher in Minnesota teaches from his wheelchair. Attachments to all kinds of ideas began to fall away. Some after I resisted, argued with reality and suffered. Some fell away effortlessly.
Vince and I went to my appointment with the surgeon. I was allready a week into my «six to eight week recovery» period. I felt confident he was going to take a look and confirm what the emergency room doctor had said. My expectation was that in six weeks I would be up and running as good as new. It hadn't occurred to me that he would say anything else. He did. I needed surgery and the sooner the better. Then the six to eight week recovery period would start. Or maybe it allready had. Maybe I had allready started to recover from my expectations and my beliefs and my habitual way of living from my head and living in «what's next» rather than right now.
On the way into the hospital before the surgery, Vince and I chanted the Gayatri Mantra several times. It was either fill the space with something that connected me to something higher or listen to that unbearable chatter appearing in my head. A friendly ashtangi yogi appeared as my surgical nurse. When I saw her it was as if I had won the lottery. The connections we make with other people are priceless.
The surgery went well. Following the surgery I was really sick from the anesthesia. I was completely helpless. I had to rely on other people. Lots of other people. I had to rely on my breath. Lots of breath. It is what we can count on while this body is working. The breath is there, in the ambulance, in surgery, on our mat.
As I look back over the last eight months I have had steady practice recognizing how I have needed to rely on other people and how I have relied on the non-physical aspects of yoga practice. I have learned first hand (so to speak) that the body heals on it's own time table and we either listen and get out of the way or hinder the process. I have learned that our lives change, our bodies change, our schedules change, our minds change, our emotions change and our yoga practice changes. I have learned that we might start the day thinking we are leaving for lunch and we might not make it there. I have learned that I never ever really know how the day is goiing to to or where I am headed. I have learned that I am not this body, but rather what is aware of this body. I have learned that never changes.
It was a sunny day. I had finished work with the school district for the summer. I had a few glorious days of complete quiet and alone time at my friends farm. I was rested. I had finished my initial weekend of thai yoga training and had completed ten massages in a week. If you had asked me that morning what the summer was going to look like, I thought I knew. I thought I was going to spend the summer practicing yoga, teaching yoga, practicing thai yoga massage and completing my thai yoga massage certification. It was going to be a summer with lots of rest and relaxation. There can be such arrogance in that type of knowing. Or is it ignorance?
I walked out of the house and got into my car. I had a little discussion in my head about which route to take to meet Vince for lunch. I took the route that I don’t usually take. I am driving along and everything changed (see previous essay regarding this subject). All at once I saw blue, felt the impact into the driver's side door and air bags deployed. I knew a few things very clearly. I knew to turn the car off. I knew to try to climb out of the passenger side door. I knew my hand and my hip hurt. Everything seemed to be moving very slowly.
A kind teenager helped me out the door and walked me to the curb. I saw people running to get me a chair. Someone helped me lie flat on the ground. A woman went and got my purse and then my phone. She came and sat with me. She helped me call vince, then calling vince for me. She talked about the Ganesh on my bag. An off duty EMT stopped by and checked on me. The Ambulance came. The police came. I was on a board with my head strapped. People carried me to the ambulance, police were asking me questions. I was breathing. I was breathing.
Inside the ambulance the technician put in an IV and then we sat, or laid, waiting. I don’t know if I was there for hours or minutes. I could feel myself begin to feel panicky. I could feel my breath get shallow and tears roll down my cheek. The EMT was doing something technical somewhere near my feet and asked me if I could calm down. I began to practice three part breathing. I focused on the up and down movement of my belly. I felt the breath begin to slow. There were moments where it was as though I was watching from above. The ambulance began to move. I could hear the sirens and feel the bumps. Lots of bumps. I began to realize how I had completely surrendered. I felt such gratefulness for the people who had been helping me.\
As I was carried in the emergency room I watched people watch me. Lots of people came in the room. Lots of people left the room. Everyone left the room. I was alone, strapped to a board in a cold room.
It seemed as if I had two choices, my monkey mind or my breath. I returned to my breath. I heard someone come in and begin typing. I couldn’t see who it was, but I knew I wanted someone to stand with me, to be with me. I asked. A nurse came in and I was able to ask for her to stand with me. She left the room. I returned to my breath. I focused on my breath for what seemed like forever. Everytime the mind began to wonder away from my breath, I b egan to feel panicky and upset. As soon as I would return to my breath, the calm would return.
Vince arrived. He saves me sometimes. Saves me from getting stuck in the temporary madness in my head. I needed saved from the spinning about what it would mean to have a broken hand and an injured hip. I began conscioulsy trying to relax my body. There were really clear moments recognizing that I could breathe into areas that felt tight. Once they told me I could move around, I began stretching, pointing, flexing. I could feel how the body had tensed and I wanted to begin to open those spaces. Xrays and wrapping a broken hand.
My parents arrived. I walk out with a broken hand. A broken right hand. As if we need reminders that we only get one body.
I saw the car. I knew the accident was serious, I was in it. When I saw the car I went directly into memory and into «what could have happened.» What use is «what could have happened?» Of course the mind wants to naturally take us there, it's juicy material to gnaw on. But is it useful?
I rested and wore the plastic crown Vince gave me. My hand was in a hard cast. I listended to music I found during yoga teacher training that I have consistently found to soothe me. I laid on the couch. I stretched and breathed while lying on my back, I stretched and breathed sitting up. I asked for what I needed, which sometimes hasn't been easy for me. I felt out of it and teary. I felt calm and centered. I felt needy and scared. I couldn't drive. I couldn't write. I couldn't type. I couldn't dry my hair or shave my left armpit.
I taught Mysore style yoga in a completely new way. I had to find more precise language. I couldn't do physical adjustments. A really fabulous teacher in Minnesota teaches from his wheelchair. Attachments to all kinds of ideas began to fall away. Some after I resisted, argued with reality and suffered. Some fell away effortlessly.
Vince and I went to my appointment with the surgeon. I was allready a week into my «six to eight week recovery» period. I felt confident he was going to take a look and confirm what the emergency room doctor had said. My expectation was that in six weeks I would be up and running as good as new. It hadn't occurred to me that he would say anything else. He did. I needed surgery and the sooner the better. Then the six to eight week recovery period would start. Or maybe it allready had. Maybe I had allready started to recover from my expectations and my beliefs and my habitual way of living from my head and living in «what's next» rather than right now.
On the way into the hospital before the surgery, Vince and I chanted the Gayatri Mantra several times. It was either fill the space with something that connected me to something higher or listen to that unbearable chatter appearing in my head. A friendly ashtangi yogi appeared as my surgical nurse. When I saw her it was as if I had won the lottery. The connections we make with other people are priceless.
The surgery went well. Following the surgery I was really sick from the anesthesia. I was completely helpless. I had to rely on other people. Lots of other people. I had to rely on my breath. Lots of breath. It is what we can count on while this body is working. The breath is there, in the ambulance, in surgery, on our mat.
As I look back over the last eight months I have had steady practice recognizing how I have needed to rely on other people and how I have relied on the non-physical aspects of yoga practice. I have learned first hand (so to speak) that the body heals on it's own time table and we either listen and get out of the way or hinder the process. I have learned that our lives change, our bodies change, our schedules change, our minds change, our emotions change and our yoga practice changes. I have learned that we might start the day thinking we are leaving for lunch and we might not make it there. I have learned that I never ever really know how the day is goiing to to or where I am headed. I have learned that I am not this body, but rather what is aware of this body. I have learned that never changes.
one yogi's version of a smoke break
Sometimes I feel like I need a smoke break...or some kind of break.
Not that long ago I was sitting in my office and I had a vision of my head exploding. I could see it in full color in my mind. It was going to be loud and messy.
The message light on the phone was blinking, the phone was ringing, fifteen emails to return, a project due and a gargantuan meeting to prepare. This was related to my day job, not related to teaching yoga or managing the studio. I stopped long enough to realize that my breath was shallow and that I either needed to raid the chocolate dish outside the office door, begin smoking cigarettes, leave and take a nap or shut the door and do some yoga. My office mate was out of the office that morning and so I closed the door and rolled out the yoga mat I keep in the corner. I turned down the ringer and decided the next ten minutes were going to be my version of a smoke break (does anyone even get smoke breaks anymore?).
I turned on some soothing music and slipped off my shoes. It was really cold out that day, but the sun was shining directly onto my mat. I laid on my back for some three part breathing. I gave myself permission to move extra slowly and to move in whatever way felt good. After some gentle stretches I did a few energizing backbends and then headstand. I made sure to end with a twist and some relaxation time at the end. After savasana, I sat in seated meditation posture with the sun shining on my face. I felt like a cat who had found the perfect spot in the warm, safe house.
The practice time was about ten minutes. It felt like forty five. I no longer felt the need to raid the chocolate, take up smoking or leave for home to hide under the covers. I found myself working at a steady pace the rest of the day. I noticed I no longer felt the need to complain about being so busy and overwhelmed and I was again open to hear and connect with my co-workers.
I have a colleague who lives in Chicago who talks about his three rules to live and work by. The third rule is to remember your own humanity and the humanity of the person sitting across from you. Some days this practice allows me to follow rule number three. That’s way more than a cigarette break can provide.
Not that long ago I was sitting in my office and I had a vision of my head exploding. I could see it in full color in my mind. It was going to be loud and messy.
The message light on the phone was blinking, the phone was ringing, fifteen emails to return, a project due and a gargantuan meeting to prepare. This was related to my day job, not related to teaching yoga or managing the studio. I stopped long enough to realize that my breath was shallow and that I either needed to raid the chocolate dish outside the office door, begin smoking cigarettes, leave and take a nap or shut the door and do some yoga. My office mate was out of the office that morning and so I closed the door and rolled out the yoga mat I keep in the corner. I turned down the ringer and decided the next ten minutes were going to be my version of a smoke break (does anyone even get smoke breaks anymore?).
I turned on some soothing music and slipped off my shoes. It was really cold out that day, but the sun was shining directly onto my mat. I laid on my back for some three part breathing. I gave myself permission to move extra slowly and to move in whatever way felt good. After some gentle stretches I did a few energizing backbends and then headstand. I made sure to end with a twist and some relaxation time at the end. After savasana, I sat in seated meditation posture with the sun shining on my face. I felt like a cat who had found the perfect spot in the warm, safe house.
The practice time was about ten minutes. It felt like forty five. I no longer felt the need to raid the chocolate, take up smoking or leave for home to hide under the covers. I found myself working at a steady pace the rest of the day. I noticed I no longer felt the need to complain about being so busy and overwhelmed and I was again open to hear and connect with my co-workers.
I have a colleague who lives in Chicago who talks about his three rules to live and work by. The third rule is to remember your own humanity and the humanity of the person sitting across from you. Some days this practice allows me to follow rule number three. That’s way more than a cigarette break can provide.
do you prefer the window or the aisle seat?
How is yoga helping us live more intimately? Are we connected? Are we living as love?
I have been listening to one of my favorite folk artists, Wil Marring. She has this great song where she says if she had life to live over again she would choose the aisle seat instead of the window. In the song she implies, at least in my perception, that living from the window seat means you might not be following your heart, or listening to fate, or taking chances. What’s funny, strange funny, not ha ha funny, is that I prefer the window seat. Hmmm.
I have been reading a book called Yoga of Heart the Healing Power of Intimate Connection. I should probably acknowledge that I have had at least one other yoga teacher give me an icky reaction about this book. I like lots in this book. Radical of me to be so open about my opinion. We don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water, we can just drain the water.
So, I have had bubbles floating around in my head about yoga and intimate connection. At first, it seems like this might be a taboo subject. Is he talking about sex when he uses the word intimacy? Isn’t that what most people’s minds conjure up when they talk about or think about intimacy? He does talk about sex in his book. However, the book is about way more than sex. Isn’t this where yogis are suppose to turn their nose up and begin talking about brahmacharya, the fourth yama in Patanjali’s yoga sutra.
So, of course, let’s go there, without turning our nose up!
There are probably a zillion interpretations of brahmacharya (okay, not a zillion). Mukanda Stiles notes the literal translation:
Brahma +carya = living; living in the world.
brahma-cary (brahma=supreme Being) search for, respect for the Divine, continence.”
In his translation of the sutras, he translates this yama as “by abiding in behavior that respects the Divine as omnipresent, one acquires an inspired passion for life.”
Ganga White in Yoga Beyond Belief notes it is “usually translated as celibacy and abstinence….re-interpretated by some teachers in modern times to mean responsible sexuality or spiritual sexuality aimed toward God.”
The lovely mac computer I am attached to defines continence for us:
continence, noun.
1. control of one's actions and feelings; self-restraint; moderation.
Ex. The ancient Greeks advised continence in all things.
(SYN) self-control.
2. self-restraint or complete abstinence in sexual matters; chastity.
Maybe we should take a look at the word intimacy. Macintosh says:
intimacy, noun, pl. -cies.
1. the fact or condition of being intimate; close acquaintance; closeness.
Ex. The intimacy with which the two friends talked showed how fond they were of one another.
2. a familiar or intimate act.
(SYN) familiarity.
3. a euphemism for illicit sexual relations.
Maybe practice of some type can help us as individuals understand how we are using our sexual energy. Maybe that will lead to more intimacy, more closeness. Maybe the sutra about brahmacharya can help us be more aware of how we are living and interacting. Maybe it can allow us the opportunity to see if we are harming ourselves or someone else. Maybe we can look and see how we interact with people and why we interact that way. Maybe just talking about this taboo stuff can be of some help in leading to living more intimately?
Maybe getting on our mat and practicing allows us to be more intimate with life? What does it mean to be more intimate with your life? How can you be a close acquaintance of your own life? (I mean really, after a while this all starts to sound a little “bliss bunny-ish.”)
How can practicing down dog and triangle lead us to live more intimately? Is it leading you to live more intimately?
This is where it begins to stick for me. Am I distant and disconnected? Am I so busy that I have forgotten about intimacy? Am I present for what is happening in my life? Am I present for eating the vegetarian meatloaf that just came out of the microwave or am I typing while taking a few bites in between words? Am I able to be intimate and distracted? Hmm. I know the answer. Are we present for pain in the body? Does our language express intimacy or negativity? Are we present for all emotions or are we running from them, trying to figure them out, analyze them and make sense of everything? Can we be present and intimate with our moment-to-moment experience? Are we running away from what we know to be true in our gut? Are we running away from our own wisdom? Can we experience intimacy with the conflict we feel over what we feel? Can we experience embarrassment over something and just be with the embarrassment? Do we have to assign meaning to everything or can things just be? Can we be with anger just as easily as we can exhilaration?
Happiness and internal upset? Can we engage with people we don’t like, intimately? Can we live intimately with cancer? Can we engage intimately with someone we know sees the world in a completely different way than us? Can we can we can we?
Can getting on our mat actually help us with this? Are we even open to this? Isn’t living intimately a bit, just a bit, scary? I mean really, won’t it all just be a wild love fest? Wont’ every one be so nice that they don’t seem real? Will anything actually get done? How will we pay the mortgage and pick up the prescription from Walgreens? How will we set boundaries and stay committed to commitments? Hmmm….Or, will everyone be able to express themselves authentically and from their heart. Able to freely express anger, embarrassment and upset safely, without judgement, without fall-out. Now I am really sounding crazy.
Maybe if we are living more intimately with this life, maybe we begin to see everyone as our teacher. I don’t mean the put-them-up-on-a pedestal-bow-down-take-every-word-they say-as gold-type of teacher. I mean, maybe we see that every one is just like us, trying to live in the world, the best they can. Maybe we recognize in our bones that we are all the same. Maybe we recognize in our bones that there is no separation between anything and anyone. Maybe we see that everyone teaches us something. Maybe we see beauty in surprising places and surprising faces.
I was recently at a conference with people I have known for a year. Although I don’t see these people every day, or every week or every month, there is a connection, oh, I guess we could say an intimacy with them, that knocks my socks off. They are such smart, kind and welcoming people. I don’t mean that they aren’t human, because they are. Sometimes the words they say to me about living life is more meaningful and pertinent than the sutras have ever been. They surprise me. Why would I be surprised that people who are living their life, living intimately with their life, would have gems of wisdom? Maybe the surprise comes when I am not living intimately with life, when I am caught up in my crazy monkey mind about deadlines and cleaning the house and preparing for class and impressing the boss lady.
These people teach me, remind me, that people are kind, people can be respectful of themselves and of me, that people can stand up and refuse to participate in jokes that are offensive to them, people can hold a space that is both intimate and not over the line, people can know what they know and not cower from their own wisdom, and a group of dedicated, strong and bright people can get along with each other, intimately. They can’t possibly know this, but every time this occurs, it seems to put balm on old wounds. It’s as if every time we encounter someone living intimately with their own life, they unknowingly erase an encounter we had with someone who wasn’t. Who wouldn’t want to do that for themselves and for someone else?
I believe we can live intimately with one another from both the aisle seat and the window seat. In fact, I don’t think it matters where we sit, or stand or practice yoga. In fact, I don’t believe we even need to practice yoga to live life intimately. I think our yoga practice can be a tool, a tool that can lead us to have this conversation, with others and with ourselves. I believe it can be one more way to help open our hearts and our minds.
If we embrace our own wisdom and the wisdom of everyone else on the planet, live as many moments as we can with integrity and intimacy, then all there is love.
I have been listening to one of my favorite folk artists, Wil Marring. She has this great song where she says if she had life to live over again she would choose the aisle seat instead of the window. In the song she implies, at least in my perception, that living from the window seat means you might not be following your heart, or listening to fate, or taking chances. What’s funny, strange funny, not ha ha funny, is that I prefer the window seat. Hmmm.
I have been reading a book called Yoga of Heart the Healing Power of Intimate Connection. I should probably acknowledge that I have had at least one other yoga teacher give me an icky reaction about this book. I like lots in this book. Radical of me to be so open about my opinion. We don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water, we can just drain the water.
So, I have had bubbles floating around in my head about yoga and intimate connection. At first, it seems like this might be a taboo subject. Is he talking about sex when he uses the word intimacy? Isn’t that what most people’s minds conjure up when they talk about or think about intimacy? He does talk about sex in his book. However, the book is about way more than sex. Isn’t this where yogis are suppose to turn their nose up and begin talking about brahmacharya, the fourth yama in Patanjali’s yoga sutra.
So, of course, let’s go there, without turning our nose up!
There are probably a zillion interpretations of brahmacharya (okay, not a zillion). Mukanda Stiles notes the literal translation:
Brahma +carya = living; living in the world.
brahma-cary (brahma=supreme Being) search for, respect for the Divine, continence.”
In his translation of the sutras, he translates this yama as “by abiding in behavior that respects the Divine as omnipresent, one acquires an inspired passion for life.”
Ganga White in Yoga Beyond Belief notes it is “usually translated as celibacy and abstinence….re-interpretated by some teachers in modern times to mean responsible sexuality or spiritual sexuality aimed toward God.”
The lovely mac computer I am attached to defines continence for us:
continence, noun.
1. control of one's actions and feelings; self-restraint; moderation.
Ex. The ancient Greeks advised continence in all things.
(SYN) self-control.
2. self-restraint or complete abstinence in sexual matters; chastity.
Maybe we should take a look at the word intimacy. Macintosh says:
intimacy, noun, pl. -cies.
1. the fact or condition of being intimate; close acquaintance; closeness.
Ex. The intimacy with which the two friends talked showed how fond they were of one another.
2. a familiar or intimate act.
(SYN) familiarity.
3. a euphemism for illicit sexual relations.
Maybe practice of some type can help us as individuals understand how we are using our sexual energy. Maybe that will lead to more intimacy, more closeness. Maybe the sutra about brahmacharya can help us be more aware of how we are living and interacting. Maybe it can allow us the opportunity to see if we are harming ourselves or someone else. Maybe we can look and see how we interact with people and why we interact that way. Maybe just talking about this taboo stuff can be of some help in leading to living more intimately?
Maybe getting on our mat and practicing allows us to be more intimate with life? What does it mean to be more intimate with your life? How can you be a close acquaintance of your own life? (I mean really, after a while this all starts to sound a little “bliss bunny-ish.”)
How can practicing down dog and triangle lead us to live more intimately? Is it leading you to live more intimately?
This is where it begins to stick for me. Am I distant and disconnected? Am I so busy that I have forgotten about intimacy? Am I present for what is happening in my life? Am I present for eating the vegetarian meatloaf that just came out of the microwave or am I typing while taking a few bites in between words? Am I able to be intimate and distracted? Hmm. I know the answer. Are we present for pain in the body? Does our language express intimacy or negativity? Are we present for all emotions or are we running from them, trying to figure them out, analyze them and make sense of everything? Can we be present and intimate with our moment-to-moment experience? Are we running away from what we know to be true in our gut? Are we running away from our own wisdom? Can we experience intimacy with the conflict we feel over what we feel? Can we experience embarrassment over something and just be with the embarrassment? Do we have to assign meaning to everything or can things just be? Can we be with anger just as easily as we can exhilaration?
Happiness and internal upset? Can we engage with people we don’t like, intimately? Can we live intimately with cancer? Can we engage intimately with someone we know sees the world in a completely different way than us? Can we can we can we?
Can getting on our mat actually help us with this? Are we even open to this? Isn’t living intimately a bit, just a bit, scary? I mean really, won’t it all just be a wild love fest? Wont’ every one be so nice that they don’t seem real? Will anything actually get done? How will we pay the mortgage and pick up the prescription from Walgreens? How will we set boundaries and stay committed to commitments? Hmmm….Or, will everyone be able to express themselves authentically and from their heart. Able to freely express anger, embarrassment and upset safely, without judgement, without fall-out. Now I am really sounding crazy.
Maybe if we are living more intimately with this life, maybe we begin to see everyone as our teacher. I don’t mean the put-them-up-on-a pedestal-bow-down-take-every-word-they say-as gold-type of teacher. I mean, maybe we see that every one is just like us, trying to live in the world, the best they can. Maybe we recognize in our bones that we are all the same. Maybe we recognize in our bones that there is no separation between anything and anyone. Maybe we see that everyone teaches us something. Maybe we see beauty in surprising places and surprising faces.
I was recently at a conference with people I have known for a year. Although I don’t see these people every day, or every week or every month, there is a connection, oh, I guess we could say an intimacy with them, that knocks my socks off. They are such smart, kind and welcoming people. I don’t mean that they aren’t human, because they are. Sometimes the words they say to me about living life is more meaningful and pertinent than the sutras have ever been. They surprise me. Why would I be surprised that people who are living their life, living intimately with their life, would have gems of wisdom? Maybe the surprise comes when I am not living intimately with life, when I am caught up in my crazy monkey mind about deadlines and cleaning the house and preparing for class and impressing the boss lady.
These people teach me, remind me, that people are kind, people can be respectful of themselves and of me, that people can stand up and refuse to participate in jokes that are offensive to them, people can hold a space that is both intimate and not over the line, people can know what they know and not cower from their own wisdom, and a group of dedicated, strong and bright people can get along with each other, intimately. They can’t possibly know this, but every time this occurs, it seems to put balm on old wounds. It’s as if every time we encounter someone living intimately with their own life, they unknowingly erase an encounter we had with someone who wasn’t. Who wouldn’t want to do that for themselves and for someone else?
I believe we can live intimately with one another from both the aisle seat and the window seat. In fact, I don’t think it matters where we sit, or stand or practice yoga. In fact, I don’t believe we even need to practice yoga to live life intimately. I think our yoga practice can be a tool, a tool that can lead us to have this conversation, with others and with ourselves. I believe it can be one more way to help open our hearts and our minds.
If we embrace our own wisdom and the wisdom of everyone else on the planet, live as many moments as we can with integrity and intimacy, then all there is love.
Ashtangalatte
Have you ever wanted to sip a latte rather than practice? One day I did just that!
I am not sure why I am sitting at starbucks and five of my yoga friends are about to spend three hours with an internationally known ashtanga yoga teacher. I am recovering from a broken bone, but realistically, most of the practice could be modified. I have been all over the place with this decision to drink a latte rather than practice with this teacher. Hmm.
Last night, I caught a few minutes of a news story regarding letters that Mother Theresa wrote during her life here on the planet. I will need to read the book to know the rest of the story, but I heard the newscaster say Mother Theresa questioned her faith, in fact, she wrote about having lost her faith. Please do not mis-understand, I do not believe I share Mother Theresa’s qualities. Yet, I do understand this questioning, this loss of belief in something you once were sure was true. In this instance, I am questioning the dedication and hard, sweaty, mind-boggling practice of ashtanga yoga.
When I attended teacher training in Integrative Yoga Therapy it was suggested that the Ashtanga practice would be good for my dosha (ayurvedic body type). I think the suggestion was related to what was becoming clear was a fear of physically challenging practice, sort of a fear of my body. Maybe just a fear of everything.
So, as I often do, or let’s say did, I jumped right in to learning and practicing ashtanga….assuming people other than myself have some answers, or some wisdom that I somehow didn’t get when wisdom was passed out. So, anyway, I returned from the ashram and immediately found a way to learn the primary series of ashtanga yoga. We were headed to northern Washington state and I found a teacher who was willing to do a private lesson. I convinced my husband he should do the private lesson with me. As I found the private lesson,I also found out there was an Ashtangna workshop while we would be in town. I jumped in with both feet. A few hours of private instruction on Saturday and an ashtanga workshop on Sunday. I walked out of the workshop on Sunday with jello legs, sore arms and a drive to practice ashtanga yoga that can’t even be described. As we sometimes say, I had the yoga bug.
I began dedicating hours and hours to practice and study. I read and read and read. In the following year I attend three weekend workshops in Chicago and convinced my husband to make our following summer vacation plans in Vermont so I could attend a week long ashtanga teacher training. I convinced him to attend the teacher training (the story of him throwing his back out, crawling out of the hotel, lying flat on his back in the back of the volkswagon van to a local chiropractic office is for another time). Hmm. Can you believe he is still married to me? Anyway, I returned from ashtanga teacher training with a burning passion to continue practicing and to teach ashtanga. I wanted to share this amazing practice with other people. The fire inside couldn’t be contained. It was a little like being in love. Some might have said it was a little obsessional. So, the ashtanga fire spread. The power of this practice not only changes the body, it has this amazing power to change all kinds of things. Including my mind.
In my own assessment, I have found that Ashtanga has been a giant gift and a whopping challenge. There have been amazing moments of feeling like I was flying and moments where my body and mind ached. There have been moments of complete clarity on the mat and moments of very unexpected tears. There have been days and days and days of full practice and days where I just couldn’t face the mat. Through the years of Ashtanga practice, I have gained more than I can describe. I have found physical strength and balance that I didn’t know existed in this case of flesh and bones. I have surprised myself over and over what it is capable of doing. I have seen ingrained patterns and habits of thought that I didn’t even know existed.
There are people who believe if you practice Ashtanga yoga you should only practice Ashtanga. There are people who believe you should devote hours, six days a week to your practice. Historically, I have bought in hook-line-and-sinker to such rules. You see, I have been raised as a rule follower. Sometimes at work I will say to my supervisor, just tell me what the rules are and then I’ll be fine. So, as I started Ashtanga I believed these ideas to be rules. I mean if they have come out of Sri K Pathabi Jois’ mouth then they must be true, and they must be rules, and he must absolutely no more about how I should live than I know. He must absolutely know from 3 zillion miles away how it should look when I get on the yoga mat. So, there it was, the stick that I would continue to measure myself by.
After I learned what the rules looked like, I knew how to measure my success. What do you think success means in yoga? I think it is against the rules to even use those two words together in the same sentence. I wonder what type of police are about to come and arrest me in the clyborne and Webster Starbucks for using yoga and success together?
Speaking of the yoga police, I sometimes sense a rigidity and judgement around yoga. Let’s say if there is cross pollination between practices (mixing ashtanga and say Anusara yoga or Ashtanta and Bikram or Ashtanga and anything) or heaven forbid you would admit aloud that you aren’t on your mat twelve hours a week. My husband refers to this undercurrent of judgement as “yoga stink.” If you have ever smelled it you know to what he refers.
So, if you know how the inside of my head works, then you know that I set my personal standard to impress and accommodate the meanest, most critical and judgemental person in the room. I used to do this somewhat consciously. Semi-conscious. If you are interested in trying this horrid and very challenging practice, take a look around the room, see which person seems to be disagreeing with you, judging you, disliking you the most. Then, set the intention to “make” this person end up believing you are the bees knees. (I hope my wickedness hasn’t shocked you too much… If it did, then you won’t think I am the bee’s knees and then I am going to have work harder to convince you of this fact.) I suppose upon further investigation, the meanest, most critical and judgemental person in the room might be me. Sometimes what you see when you practice yoga isn’t that pretty. Maybe that is why I so often say to yoga students..it’s not what it looks like, it’s what it feels like. It’s a reminder to myself to go inside and listen. We need to listen to ourselves.
I really enjoy teaching ashtanga. I enjoy seeing people find themselves in the midst of such challenge. I like seeing peoples faces when they realize they are capable of much more than they ever imagined. It fascinates me to watch people see what their heads produce during practice. I am in awe of what some people wake up every day to face and then get on their mat to practice. It’s such a gift to see their resiliency. It is amazing to sit with people in savasana (resting pose) after they have finished the series. Their faces are flushed, their breath is deep in their belly, they are perfectly still. There is nothing like the sound of Om Shanti Shanti in a room full of people who have just reminded themselves they are the quiet they just experienced.
So, as I sit here with my latte and a hand I can’t put weight on, I wonder what it means that I am sitting here, rather than practicing with my friends down the street. Does this sitting here mean I am not serious enough, good enough, flexy enough, strong enough, skinny enough? Does it mean I must not want it bad enough? One of the riches that has come out of having had surgery on my hand is that I have really needed to look at what that means… “want it bad enough.” I mean really. Want what? There is nowhere to go with this practice, or with any practice. It’s not as if the national medal of honor is headed to me if I ever do handstand between postures. How many times have I said in class “take care of your body, there is not badge at the end of class?” Is it the belief that if I practice longer and harder I am going to be an international teacher who gets to present at International conferences with hundreds of dollars of sacred jewelry around my neck? No, maybe it’s that if I move into the next series that I am going to get the approval of said international teacher with hundreds of dollars of jewels around their neck? Hmm, maybe it’s that if I practiced harder and longer I wouldn’t feel stress, or experience sadness. Maybe it will lead to true happiness. Maybe it could lead me to win the lotto. Maybe it could rid myself of this budhha belly (actually, it might do that). Maybe it leads me right back to my self with a capital "s".
Anyway, will only certain types of practices lead to enlightenment? Are only certain people enlightened? It seems to me everyone is already enlightened. We might not recognize it, or act from it, but still enlightened. Will being enlightend mean people I love won’t get sick or die or that I won’t get hit by cars or break my hand or need surgery? Will it mean that you won’t die and I won’t die?
I suppose all of this means nothing. It means that I sit and think and type and sip a latte. I also suppose it means I have come to a moment where right now, in this moment I no longer believe I need an internationally known yoga teacher to fly across the country to inspire me to practice, or to tell me that I am good enough, strong enough and okay. These rules to live by reside inside me…right now, in Starbucks with my latte.
I am not sure why I am sitting at starbucks and five of my yoga friends are about to spend three hours with an internationally known ashtanga yoga teacher. I am recovering from a broken bone, but realistically, most of the practice could be modified. I have been all over the place with this decision to drink a latte rather than practice with this teacher. Hmm.
Last night, I caught a few minutes of a news story regarding letters that Mother Theresa wrote during her life here on the planet. I will need to read the book to know the rest of the story, but I heard the newscaster say Mother Theresa questioned her faith, in fact, she wrote about having lost her faith. Please do not mis-understand, I do not believe I share Mother Theresa’s qualities. Yet, I do understand this questioning, this loss of belief in something you once were sure was true. In this instance, I am questioning the dedication and hard, sweaty, mind-boggling practice of ashtanga yoga.
When I attended teacher training in Integrative Yoga Therapy it was suggested that the Ashtanga practice would be good for my dosha (ayurvedic body type). I think the suggestion was related to what was becoming clear was a fear of physically challenging practice, sort of a fear of my body. Maybe just a fear of everything.
So, as I often do, or let’s say did, I jumped right in to learning and practicing ashtanga….assuming people other than myself have some answers, or some wisdom that I somehow didn’t get when wisdom was passed out. So, anyway, I returned from the ashram and immediately found a way to learn the primary series of ashtanga yoga. We were headed to northern Washington state and I found a teacher who was willing to do a private lesson. I convinced my husband he should do the private lesson with me. As I found the private lesson,I also found out there was an Ashtangna workshop while we would be in town. I jumped in with both feet. A few hours of private instruction on Saturday and an ashtanga workshop on Sunday. I walked out of the workshop on Sunday with jello legs, sore arms and a drive to practice ashtanga yoga that can’t even be described. As we sometimes say, I had the yoga bug.
I began dedicating hours and hours to practice and study. I read and read and read. In the following year I attend three weekend workshops in Chicago and convinced my husband to make our following summer vacation plans in Vermont so I could attend a week long ashtanga teacher training. I convinced him to attend the teacher training (the story of him throwing his back out, crawling out of the hotel, lying flat on his back in the back of the volkswagon van to a local chiropractic office is for another time). Hmm. Can you believe he is still married to me? Anyway, I returned from ashtanga teacher training with a burning passion to continue practicing and to teach ashtanga. I wanted to share this amazing practice with other people. The fire inside couldn’t be contained. It was a little like being in love. Some might have said it was a little obsessional. So, the ashtanga fire spread. The power of this practice not only changes the body, it has this amazing power to change all kinds of things. Including my mind.
In my own assessment, I have found that Ashtanga has been a giant gift and a whopping challenge. There have been amazing moments of feeling like I was flying and moments where my body and mind ached. There have been moments of complete clarity on the mat and moments of very unexpected tears. There have been days and days and days of full practice and days where I just couldn’t face the mat. Through the years of Ashtanga practice, I have gained more than I can describe. I have found physical strength and balance that I didn’t know existed in this case of flesh and bones. I have surprised myself over and over what it is capable of doing. I have seen ingrained patterns and habits of thought that I didn’t even know existed.
There are people who believe if you practice Ashtanga yoga you should only practice Ashtanga. There are people who believe you should devote hours, six days a week to your practice. Historically, I have bought in hook-line-and-sinker to such rules. You see, I have been raised as a rule follower. Sometimes at work I will say to my supervisor, just tell me what the rules are and then I’ll be fine. So, as I started Ashtanga I believed these ideas to be rules. I mean if they have come out of Sri K Pathabi Jois’ mouth then they must be true, and they must be rules, and he must absolutely no more about how I should live than I know. He must absolutely know from 3 zillion miles away how it should look when I get on the yoga mat. So, there it was, the stick that I would continue to measure myself by.
After I learned what the rules looked like, I knew how to measure my success. What do you think success means in yoga? I think it is against the rules to even use those two words together in the same sentence. I wonder what type of police are about to come and arrest me in the clyborne and Webster Starbucks for using yoga and success together?
Speaking of the yoga police, I sometimes sense a rigidity and judgement around yoga. Let’s say if there is cross pollination between practices (mixing ashtanga and say Anusara yoga or Ashtanta and Bikram or Ashtanga and anything) or heaven forbid you would admit aloud that you aren’t on your mat twelve hours a week. My husband refers to this undercurrent of judgement as “yoga stink.” If you have ever smelled it you know to what he refers.
So, if you know how the inside of my head works, then you know that I set my personal standard to impress and accommodate the meanest, most critical and judgemental person in the room. I used to do this somewhat consciously. Semi-conscious. If you are interested in trying this horrid and very challenging practice, take a look around the room, see which person seems to be disagreeing with you, judging you, disliking you the most. Then, set the intention to “make” this person end up believing you are the bees knees. (I hope my wickedness hasn’t shocked you too much… If it did, then you won’t think I am the bee’s knees and then I am going to have work harder to convince you of this fact.) I suppose upon further investigation, the meanest, most critical and judgemental person in the room might be me. Sometimes what you see when you practice yoga isn’t that pretty. Maybe that is why I so often say to yoga students..it’s not what it looks like, it’s what it feels like. It’s a reminder to myself to go inside and listen. We need to listen to ourselves.
I really enjoy teaching ashtanga. I enjoy seeing people find themselves in the midst of such challenge. I like seeing peoples faces when they realize they are capable of much more than they ever imagined. It fascinates me to watch people see what their heads produce during practice. I am in awe of what some people wake up every day to face and then get on their mat to practice. It’s such a gift to see their resiliency. It is amazing to sit with people in savasana (resting pose) after they have finished the series. Their faces are flushed, their breath is deep in their belly, they are perfectly still. There is nothing like the sound of Om Shanti Shanti in a room full of people who have just reminded themselves they are the quiet they just experienced.
So, as I sit here with my latte and a hand I can’t put weight on, I wonder what it means that I am sitting here, rather than practicing with my friends down the street. Does this sitting here mean I am not serious enough, good enough, flexy enough, strong enough, skinny enough? Does it mean I must not want it bad enough? One of the riches that has come out of having had surgery on my hand is that I have really needed to look at what that means… “want it bad enough.” I mean really. Want what? There is nowhere to go with this practice, or with any practice. It’s not as if the national medal of honor is headed to me if I ever do handstand between postures. How many times have I said in class “take care of your body, there is not badge at the end of class?” Is it the belief that if I practice longer and harder I am going to be an international teacher who gets to present at International conferences with hundreds of dollars of sacred jewelry around my neck? No, maybe it’s that if I move into the next series that I am going to get the approval of said international teacher with hundreds of dollars of jewels around their neck? Hmm, maybe it’s that if I practiced harder and longer I wouldn’t feel stress, or experience sadness. Maybe it will lead to true happiness. Maybe it could lead me to win the lotto. Maybe it could rid myself of this budhha belly (actually, it might do that). Maybe it leads me right back to my self with a capital "s".
Anyway, will only certain types of practices lead to enlightenment? Are only certain people enlightened? It seems to me everyone is already enlightened. We might not recognize it, or act from it, but still enlightened. Will being enlightend mean people I love won’t get sick or die or that I won’t get hit by cars or break my hand or need surgery? Will it mean that you won’t die and I won’t die?
I suppose all of this means nothing. It means that I sit and think and type and sip a latte. I also suppose it means I have come to a moment where right now, in this moment I no longer believe I need an internationally known yoga teacher to fly across the country to inspire me to practice, or to tell me that I am good enough, strong enough and okay. These rules to live by reside inside me…right now, in Starbucks with my latte.
Hearts Wide Open
How are you living? Are your shoulders curved around your body, protecting your heart?
What are we all so afraid of?
I just recently finished reading a book about a woman who traveled through Italy, India and Indonesia. It was a book that made me laugh out loud and think, a lot. It brought me back to this question “am I living my life with an open heart?’ Am I protecting myself from people or from events? Who exactly is this “I” that “I” might be protecting? Is it an illusion to believe we could really do such a thing as protect ourselves? Is there really that sort of control? Or are we running uphill only to find that at the top is a meadow of vast nothingness?
About a week ago I heard of a horrible accident that occurred which resulted in the death of a small child. I found myself wondering how it is that we could believe such “freak” accidents could be prevented. If only we could lock what is precious to us up in a closet, keeping the precious safe and under our control. Is it wrong to lock my nieces and nephews up in the closet, feed them through a slot (only organic food of course) and watch them 24hours a day? I love them that much. I love them so much that I can’t bear the idea that I can’t keep them safe. However, I know as the 3 year old twins get out bed at night and attempt to make microwave popcorn and the 12 year old is doing 12 year old things and the 10 year old is doing 10 year old things that I can’t keep them safe. I could trust in God, or trust in the Universe, or trust in something to keep them safe. But what about the death of the small child last week? Where was God then? How was the Universe keeping the little one safe? How can we keep our hearts open when tragedy might be around the corner and the Universe might be taking a siesta?
Tonight before I taught class I had about thirty minutes to practice. I turned on the CD called Songs from a Secret Garden. I really love this cd. It is the music that my instructor played in our last class during IYT teacher training at the ashram in Pennsylvania. There were forty of us who had spent fourteen, fifteen hour days together. There was an openness, a connectedness in this room that I can’t begin to describe. Although I went to learn how to teach asanas (postures), most of us found that we learned way more than how to describe trikonasana. Our shells cracked open, our secret gardens opened. So, anyway, when I listen to this Secret Garden music I am transported back to a warm, muggy, overcast day in June that likely can’t be forgotten. So anyway, I am on my mat today practicing, focusing on breath and an open heart. I stand on my head with an open heart. I walk across the room with an open heart. As I was teaching I began to see the trees swaying a few lots away and it is as if there is not a separation between the tops of the tree and my-self. A moment of recognition that there isn’t a difference.
After class, I meet for a few minutes with the master mind and project manager for our care package for Adam, yogi in Iraq. It occurs to me that I have spent time talking with Adam about how to be in Iraq with an open heart. It occurs to me that I don’t know anything about anything. It occurs to me that sometimes staying alive and functioning might mean closing off your heart. It occurs to me that living with an open heart actually implies that I choose to live this way. It implies an “I” who makes decisions….yep, I’ll stay open to the moment when I feel like I am a tree and yep, I’ll close off when an emotion freaks me out and sends me running for the hills. How completely ignorant and narcissistic. Who did “I” think “I” was suggesting to Adam that he try to stay open. What do I know about living in a war zone in Iraq? Ugh. I am so embarrassed. Where did this idea come from that I have control of how to live my life? Where did this idea come from that I am in the driver’s seat? One might think after my brother’s illness this year I would have recognized I am most certainly not in the driver’s seat. What was the thinking behind the idea that Adam could control whether he was open to what he was experiencing in Iraq? Arghhh. And I call myself…what? Who oh who is this “I” who thought she knew something? Why oh why does this character named “ami” keep forgetting who she is? Will she ever remember? What will it take? Will it happen when she gets her feet behind her head in supta kurmasana? Will it happen once she has traveled around India and not died of dysentery? Maybe she will have to have taken the leap to working full time at the studio to see it? Maybe she will have to be a mother to see it? Maybe she will have to have been deathly ill to see it?
You see, anytime I am giving advice to myself or to someone else, I am believing
I know something. That should be the first key there is a problem. Anytime we think we know something….we are in TROUBLE. It could be the first sign that we have forgotten something important. It’s a sign I have forgotten that wisdom is not found in the intellect, but rather a wide open heart.
What are we all so afraid of?
I just recently finished reading a book about a woman who traveled through Italy, India and Indonesia. It was a book that made me laugh out loud and think, a lot. It brought me back to this question “am I living my life with an open heart?’ Am I protecting myself from people or from events? Who exactly is this “I” that “I” might be protecting? Is it an illusion to believe we could really do such a thing as protect ourselves? Is there really that sort of control? Or are we running uphill only to find that at the top is a meadow of vast nothingness?
About a week ago I heard of a horrible accident that occurred which resulted in the death of a small child. I found myself wondering how it is that we could believe such “freak” accidents could be prevented. If only we could lock what is precious to us up in a closet, keeping the precious safe and under our control. Is it wrong to lock my nieces and nephews up in the closet, feed them through a slot (only organic food of course) and watch them 24hours a day? I love them that much. I love them so much that I can’t bear the idea that I can’t keep them safe. However, I know as the 3 year old twins get out bed at night and attempt to make microwave popcorn and the 12 year old is doing 12 year old things and the 10 year old is doing 10 year old things that I can’t keep them safe. I could trust in God, or trust in the Universe, or trust in something to keep them safe. But what about the death of the small child last week? Where was God then? How was the Universe keeping the little one safe? How can we keep our hearts open when tragedy might be around the corner and the Universe might be taking a siesta?
Tonight before I taught class I had about thirty minutes to practice. I turned on the CD called Songs from a Secret Garden. I really love this cd. It is the music that my instructor played in our last class during IYT teacher training at the ashram in Pennsylvania. There were forty of us who had spent fourteen, fifteen hour days together. There was an openness, a connectedness in this room that I can’t begin to describe. Although I went to learn how to teach asanas (postures), most of us found that we learned way more than how to describe trikonasana. Our shells cracked open, our secret gardens opened. So, anyway, when I listen to this Secret Garden music I am transported back to a warm, muggy, overcast day in June that likely can’t be forgotten. So anyway, I am on my mat today practicing, focusing on breath and an open heart. I stand on my head with an open heart. I walk across the room with an open heart. As I was teaching I began to see the trees swaying a few lots away and it is as if there is not a separation between the tops of the tree and my-self. A moment of recognition that there isn’t a difference.
After class, I meet for a few minutes with the master mind and project manager for our care package for Adam, yogi in Iraq. It occurs to me that I have spent time talking with Adam about how to be in Iraq with an open heart. It occurs to me that I don’t know anything about anything. It occurs to me that sometimes staying alive and functioning might mean closing off your heart. It occurs to me that living with an open heart actually implies that I choose to live this way. It implies an “I” who makes decisions….yep, I’ll stay open to the moment when I feel like I am a tree and yep, I’ll close off when an emotion freaks me out and sends me running for the hills. How completely ignorant and narcissistic. Who did “I” think “I” was suggesting to Adam that he try to stay open. What do I know about living in a war zone in Iraq? Ugh. I am so embarrassed. Where did this idea come from that I have control of how to live my life? Where did this idea come from that I am in the driver’s seat? One might think after my brother’s illness this year I would have recognized I am most certainly not in the driver’s seat. What was the thinking behind the idea that Adam could control whether he was open to what he was experiencing in Iraq? Arghhh. And I call myself…what? Who oh who is this “I” who thought she knew something? Why oh why does this character named “ami” keep forgetting who she is? Will she ever remember? What will it take? Will it happen when she gets her feet behind her head in supta kurmasana? Will it happen once she has traveled around India and not died of dysentery? Maybe she will have to have taken the leap to working full time at the studio to see it? Maybe she will have to be a mother to see it? Maybe she will have to have been deathly ill to see it?
You see, anytime I am giving advice to myself or to someone else, I am believing
I know something. That should be the first key there is a problem. Anytime we think we know something….we are in TROUBLE. It could be the first sign that we have forgotten something important. It’s a sign I have forgotten that wisdom is not found in the intellect, but rather a wide open heart.
cracked open like an egg
My brother went in for brain surgery and my whole world cracked open, just like an egg.
This life continuously provides us opportunity to crack open like an egg. What I mean, is that if we are awake, we are afforded opportunities every moment to love more deeply and to live more compassionately. On this first day of 2007, I am fortunate enough to have the time to reflect on the last two months of 2006 where opportunities were quite abundant.
The Monday evening after Thanksgiving I was preparing to teach two yoga classes at the studio. I sat in the lobby with a few other people. I found myself staring out the glass door at the muddy parking lot and the rain. There was a moment of awareness of feeling dull. Maybe it was tiredness, maybe I had eaten too much afternoon chocolate (like having afternoon tea but less civilized), maybe my practice had been too short, but certainly a feeling of sluggishness.
That evening for the led ashtanga class, the studio was pleasantly full. Warm heat from the energy of the practice brought that rosy glow to the faces in the room. We were about half way through the seated postures of the ashtanga primary series when my husband,Vince, knocked on the studio door and asked for one of the other yoga teachers to come outside to see him. Since I was in the middle of leading the series, there wasn’t time for questions. Judy, who was practicing with the class, left her mat. Vince was scheduled to be at work that night so my mind began wandering…maybe he had clients cancel, maybe there was someone with questions who had walked in…no, Vince could answer any question about the studio or about the practice…maybe it was….back to counting out the series. One of the things I love about teaching yoga is that it is virtually impossible for me to teach and think about anything else.
I assisted students, I counted breaths (or I tried to count breaths) and then we were into the finishing series. My mind began to slow down and I began to see with clarity how absolutely extraordinary each person is on their mat. I know by now that something is wrong outside the door. Judy had not returned from the hallway. I moved the class through the last three postures and I lowered the lights for savasana (resting pose). I recognized how much I wanted to soak in the breath, the energy of the room. I made a special effort to reach each student to adjust them in savasana, touching them seemed important. Important for me rather than them. These moments felt anything but dull.
I sat down to find my breath. Was it there? Could I really count on it? My mind wandered to my family. Please God, don’t let it be one of our nieces or nephews. My mind moved to my brother who had been having some weird health things happening. It moved to my grandparents, to Vince’s mom, to my parents, to my sister, brother-in-law, back to my brother. I realized I didn’t know who I was pleading with. I didn’t know why I was pleading. I had been living life with a knowing that everything is as it should be. I had been living with the idea that there is something at work that isn’t me. I had been living with the recognition that I am not in control. Maybe that was all wrong.
I came back to my breath. I heard the silence in the room, the sound of the universe resting. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the people in the room. There was an awareness there was no separation between my breath and their breath. It was as if they were breathing for me. Their breath, such an intimate thing, was grounding me. From somewhere my voice began and I slowly led them to seated posture. The sound of Om reverberated in me. It soothed the anxiousness. I can’t remember a time I have felt more gratitude for having the privilege to teach yoga.
I sat on the office floor and cried after Vince told me they found a mass in my brother’s brain. He’s 31. He’s been sick. I find myself saying aloud how I knew something was wrong with him. Even while I was on the floor crying, there was awareness, some sense of something besides the scared chatter in my head. It was that there was something observing everything that was happening….me crying, people’s voices in the hall, the sound of faint music, cars. Vince was so kind. He held me. We made plans to leave for Chicago. Without requesting it to, the body moved. I stood and began to gather my things. The body produced tears and my feet moved. As I left, I found myself surrounded by people giving me love. I had never recognized so deeply that these people loved and supported me.
We packed and made plans to drive an hour and a half to pick up my sister before making the three hour trip to Chicago. We were ten minutes out of the city when I told Vince I felt faithless. Somehow I had this idea that if my faith in something bigger was true, then my heart wouldn’t hurt and feel as if it was cracking open. It was putting everything to the test. If I truly believed what I thought I believed, wouldn’t I be calm and cool and collected? Maybe I had been relying on a belief rather than something I knew based on experience.
Now it is clear, believing in something outside of myself is the perfect description of duality. Duality in action. Duality in action….hmm….is what I have been studying in yogic texts, in Advaita Vedantic texts. Isn’t this what I have talked about with as many teachers as I can? Isn’t the idea of duality or separation from our source where suffering comes from? Doesn’t faith in something, belief in something imply duality? Suffering comes from duality. Suffering comes when we believe we are separate from our source…suffering comes when we believe that Presence Awareness or Source or Spirit or God is outside of us. If I am praying to God, this has historically meant for me something outside of myself...I would be asking that big person in the sky to point down and do something differently. Resting in the awareness that I am-that’s it! Really, I mean that’s it. Source, or Awareness or God, doesn’t change, doesn’t waiver, doesn’t exist outside of me or you or the cockroach under the desk. It’s not separate from me, I am part of it. Ami is a manifestation of the source, everyone and everything and every being is a manifestation, not separate from it! Awareness was here before me, will be here after me. It was here before my brother and will be here after my brother. It doesn’t mean we aren’t sad or hurt when someone we love is ill or when someone we love dies. I think we could say that is what is called “Lila” –the play of God. Life. Sometimes it just hurts.
My head would begin spinning and tears and tears and tears would fall. I would find my breath and momentary calmness would settle. I would remind myself to tune into bodily sensation. The sensations were more trustworthy than the mad monkey mind. The mad monkey was spinning tales of cancer and brain injury and loss. Have you ever wondered why that monkey doesn’t spin more tales of “it will be fine, trust, peace, he’s strong and young, etc.” I suppose looking at it now, happy tales are just tales, too. In Vedic texts, this type of suffering is called duhka, it’s the suffering we spin. The bodily sensations were reality, the tales were not. If we are aware, there is opportunity every moment to choose between reality and non-reality.
My parents arrived in Chicago and called from his room in the neurological intensive care unit. Surgery was scheduled for the following day. My parents sounded strong. My brother got on the phone. Although likely not so yogic of me (whatever that means-isn’t it great to see all of these ideas/thoughts that we (I) carry around!) I say something charming like “shit….I love you.” Jeff says, “Ami, it’s just brain surgery.” We both laughed and then began to cry. Our connection and love for one another had never been louder or clearer.
What followed is a bit of a blur. It was a week of yoga in a chair, pranayama (breath) practice, phone calls to people closest to us, crying, sleeping at the hospital in a chair with my feet up in the air (fruits of asana practice arrived once again), and a lot of dark chocolate covered shortbread cookies. I would like to have believed (whatever for?) that in a crisis I would honor this temple of a body by eating tofu, sprouts and fruit. But that wasn’t my reality. Chai tea and shortbread. Sometimes, taking care of yourself doesn’t look like what you think it is going to look like.
Jeff returned home after a week. No cancer, no brain injury, no long term consequences-a full recovery expected. One day in a cab on the way to Northwestern’s emergency room, the next day brain surgery and home in less than a week. Astounding medical care at every turn. A neurosurgeon who was compassionate, patient and kind. It’s amazing how much a small bit of kindness from him made a difference for our entire family. Not just from the surgeon and the staff, but from the woman at the information desk, Jeff’s minister from Springfield, Jeff’s co-workers, Jeff’s former co-workers, our co-workers, our extended family, our friends. Small things make a difference. How often do I hold off to do something big for someone rather than offer something small? Small opportunities might be big.
It seemed like life stopped, but upon further examination you know, no matter what would have happened, life wouldn’t have stopped. Damn. How could everyone be carrying on with their lives when my baby brother almost died? I don’t know what it is that sounds so comforting about the world stopping...hmm. … even when I want it to stop…it doesn’t. How could I possibly see kids for counseling and adjust people in trikonasana (triangle posture) and get advertising done for the studio and pay bills and clean house? Maybe learning to lean back and be supported by people in our lives and by Awareness or by God, or whatever you call it, takes practice. I was certainly given an opportunity to deeply realize life keeps moving along, through love and loss and tragedy and heartbreak and celebrations.
Life kept moving, in fact it was time for the holiday shopping to be done and for the house to be cleaned for the solstice party. I still felt raw…not to mention I have been sad about Adam (a fellow yogi) leaving for Iraq. My heart feels heavy about the danger he will encounter. Not just the physical danger. My heart feels heavy for all of the families who’s loved one’s have died or been injured in the war. My heart feels heavy for the Iraqui’s. This rawness has opened me up like a giant wound. I was nervous about whether I would hold up when I spoke at the party about Adam leaving the yoga community. I hope he will remember the peace he has known through his asana, pranayama and mantra practice. I hope he will remember he is that peace.
I was overly tired and worn down. My physical yoga practice seemed to be getting shortened more and more every day. My eating habits seemed to be swirling out of control. The stomach flu came. I missed the live nativity scene in my sister’s barn. The physical body was practically yelling at me. I listened and spent the day in bed. We changed our plans and left late for our family gathering. I moved slowly, acutely aware of how physically and emotionally exhausted I had become. This body can only take so much. This body has such intelligence. A reminder was in order-listen!
On Christmas day, several of us were recovering from the flu. I saw attachment in full swing as we are all trying not to cling to one another, like lifeboats. I sat at the kitchen table and told my family how sad I was that I missed Christmas Eve service in the barn. I began to cry. Not about missing the service. Tears of recognition that we almost didn’t have a Christmas with two hundred people in the barn and the stomach flu. I have a moment of realizing my suffering is coming from thinking about what almost happened, not what happened. My brother takes my hand. His affection has always been present, but it never seemed to run this deep.
A few days passed after the holiday before Vince and I went to Chicago to be with Jeff for the New Years weekend. He’s not yet up for Chicago nightlife. Our favorite way to celebrate the new year is to have a quiet evening of movies and carry-out. I wonder if people expect that I am at home ringing in the new year with Sanskrit texts and hundreds of sun salutes (why I wonder this might lead us back to previous readings about my narcissism). As we walk to pick up our carry-out ,we laugh at my bizarre clothes…brown gaucho sweat pants, black tennis shoes without socks, grey sweatshirt, oatmeal hat. I look like I am directly out of the back page of cosmo magazine…what not to wear! Everyone else in high heels, sparkly dresses and fancy hair. We talk about how sometimes it seems like everyone else is having a better time…how sometimes it feels like everyone else is out living a life that can only be dreamed of….as if we don’t have opportunities to engage life fully and find enjoyment in what we have. We can allow ourselves to be pressured into believing our life isn’t good enough.
We left Chicago on New Year’s Day. I felt nervous and quite neurotic about leaving. Jeff is fine. His health is good, his recovery couldn’t be going better. It’s as if I somehow believed staring at him on the couch watching television was going to make him stay well. It’s not. I saw the attachment to my ideas of how things should be and I saw aversion of being with the unknown of the darkness. Tears rolled down my cheeks in the car. Leaving reminded me how fortunate we were to be there for the weekend. Each moment we are alive there are opportunities to experience gratefulness.
Living life with an open heart is another way of saying to have known love and to have lost love, is better than to have never loved (who said that?). We can choose bitterness or we can choose something else. To be aware of a mad-mad-mad- monkey mind illuminates the moments when the mind is crystal clear. To experience moments of absolute heartbreak allows us to recognize the feeling of love bursting through our hearts. To experience the pain in your heart when you walk away from someone you love shines a light on all of the glorious moments shared. To look in the eyes of someone who is sick reminds what it is to be healthy. To experience abundance over the holidays allows us to remember people who are having difficulty putting food on the table. To go to work each morning can remind us of people who are unemployed. To feel your partner’s hand on your back can remind us of people who are hardly ever touched. To lose someone you love can remind how precious every moment was when they were alive. To almost-lose someone you love can be a giant wake-up call to not take moments for granted, to be present, to be the presence we already are!
Resting in savasana reminds us that every moment is new, every moment fresh. Each moment is the present moment. As my mom says, that’s why they call it a present. Every moment is an opportunity to experience life with great care, grattitude and compassion, towards ourselves and every other being.
May we all crack open like eggs and experience life from our raw-wide-open hearts.
This life continuously provides us opportunity to crack open like an egg. What I mean, is that if we are awake, we are afforded opportunities every moment to love more deeply and to live more compassionately. On this first day of 2007, I am fortunate enough to have the time to reflect on the last two months of 2006 where opportunities were quite abundant.
The Monday evening after Thanksgiving I was preparing to teach two yoga classes at the studio. I sat in the lobby with a few other people. I found myself staring out the glass door at the muddy parking lot and the rain. There was a moment of awareness of feeling dull. Maybe it was tiredness, maybe I had eaten too much afternoon chocolate (like having afternoon tea but less civilized), maybe my practice had been too short, but certainly a feeling of sluggishness.
That evening for the led ashtanga class, the studio was pleasantly full. Warm heat from the energy of the practice brought that rosy glow to the faces in the room. We were about half way through the seated postures of the ashtanga primary series when my husband,Vince, knocked on the studio door and asked for one of the other yoga teachers to come outside to see him. Since I was in the middle of leading the series, there wasn’t time for questions. Judy, who was practicing with the class, left her mat. Vince was scheduled to be at work that night so my mind began wandering…maybe he had clients cancel, maybe there was someone with questions who had walked in…no, Vince could answer any question about the studio or about the practice…maybe it was….back to counting out the series. One of the things I love about teaching yoga is that it is virtually impossible for me to teach and think about anything else.
I assisted students, I counted breaths (or I tried to count breaths) and then we were into the finishing series. My mind began to slow down and I began to see with clarity how absolutely extraordinary each person is on their mat. I know by now that something is wrong outside the door. Judy had not returned from the hallway. I moved the class through the last three postures and I lowered the lights for savasana (resting pose). I recognized how much I wanted to soak in the breath, the energy of the room. I made a special effort to reach each student to adjust them in savasana, touching them seemed important. Important for me rather than them. These moments felt anything but dull.
I sat down to find my breath. Was it there? Could I really count on it? My mind wandered to my family. Please God, don’t let it be one of our nieces or nephews. My mind moved to my brother who had been having some weird health things happening. It moved to my grandparents, to Vince’s mom, to my parents, to my sister, brother-in-law, back to my brother. I realized I didn’t know who I was pleading with. I didn’t know why I was pleading. I had been living life with a knowing that everything is as it should be. I had been living with the idea that there is something at work that isn’t me. I had been living with the recognition that I am not in control. Maybe that was all wrong.
I came back to my breath. I heard the silence in the room, the sound of the universe resting. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the people in the room. There was an awareness there was no separation between my breath and their breath. It was as if they were breathing for me. Their breath, such an intimate thing, was grounding me. From somewhere my voice began and I slowly led them to seated posture. The sound of Om reverberated in me. It soothed the anxiousness. I can’t remember a time I have felt more gratitude for having the privilege to teach yoga.
I sat on the office floor and cried after Vince told me they found a mass in my brother’s brain. He’s 31. He’s been sick. I find myself saying aloud how I knew something was wrong with him. Even while I was on the floor crying, there was awareness, some sense of something besides the scared chatter in my head. It was that there was something observing everything that was happening….me crying, people’s voices in the hall, the sound of faint music, cars. Vince was so kind. He held me. We made plans to leave for Chicago. Without requesting it to, the body moved. I stood and began to gather my things. The body produced tears and my feet moved. As I left, I found myself surrounded by people giving me love. I had never recognized so deeply that these people loved and supported me.
We packed and made plans to drive an hour and a half to pick up my sister before making the three hour trip to Chicago. We were ten minutes out of the city when I told Vince I felt faithless. Somehow I had this idea that if my faith in something bigger was true, then my heart wouldn’t hurt and feel as if it was cracking open. It was putting everything to the test. If I truly believed what I thought I believed, wouldn’t I be calm and cool and collected? Maybe I had been relying on a belief rather than something I knew based on experience.
Now it is clear, believing in something outside of myself is the perfect description of duality. Duality in action. Duality in action….hmm….is what I have been studying in yogic texts, in Advaita Vedantic texts. Isn’t this what I have talked about with as many teachers as I can? Isn’t the idea of duality or separation from our source where suffering comes from? Doesn’t faith in something, belief in something imply duality? Suffering comes from duality. Suffering comes when we believe we are separate from our source…suffering comes when we believe that Presence Awareness or Source or Spirit or God is outside of us. If I am praying to God, this has historically meant for me something outside of myself...I would be asking that big person in the sky to point down and do something differently. Resting in the awareness that I am-that’s it! Really, I mean that’s it. Source, or Awareness or God, doesn’t change, doesn’t waiver, doesn’t exist outside of me or you or the cockroach under the desk. It’s not separate from me, I am part of it. Ami is a manifestation of the source, everyone and everything and every being is a manifestation, not separate from it! Awareness was here before me, will be here after me. It was here before my brother and will be here after my brother. It doesn’t mean we aren’t sad or hurt when someone we love is ill or when someone we love dies. I think we could say that is what is called “Lila” –the play of God. Life. Sometimes it just hurts.
My head would begin spinning and tears and tears and tears would fall. I would find my breath and momentary calmness would settle. I would remind myself to tune into bodily sensation. The sensations were more trustworthy than the mad monkey mind. The mad monkey was spinning tales of cancer and brain injury and loss. Have you ever wondered why that monkey doesn’t spin more tales of “it will be fine, trust, peace, he’s strong and young, etc.” I suppose looking at it now, happy tales are just tales, too. In Vedic texts, this type of suffering is called duhka, it’s the suffering we spin. The bodily sensations were reality, the tales were not. If we are aware, there is opportunity every moment to choose between reality and non-reality.
My parents arrived in Chicago and called from his room in the neurological intensive care unit. Surgery was scheduled for the following day. My parents sounded strong. My brother got on the phone. Although likely not so yogic of me (whatever that means-isn’t it great to see all of these ideas/thoughts that we (I) carry around!) I say something charming like “shit….I love you.” Jeff says, “Ami, it’s just brain surgery.” We both laughed and then began to cry. Our connection and love for one another had never been louder or clearer.
What followed is a bit of a blur. It was a week of yoga in a chair, pranayama (breath) practice, phone calls to people closest to us, crying, sleeping at the hospital in a chair with my feet up in the air (fruits of asana practice arrived once again), and a lot of dark chocolate covered shortbread cookies. I would like to have believed (whatever for?) that in a crisis I would honor this temple of a body by eating tofu, sprouts and fruit. But that wasn’t my reality. Chai tea and shortbread. Sometimes, taking care of yourself doesn’t look like what you think it is going to look like.
Jeff returned home after a week. No cancer, no brain injury, no long term consequences-a full recovery expected. One day in a cab on the way to Northwestern’s emergency room, the next day brain surgery and home in less than a week. Astounding medical care at every turn. A neurosurgeon who was compassionate, patient and kind. It’s amazing how much a small bit of kindness from him made a difference for our entire family. Not just from the surgeon and the staff, but from the woman at the information desk, Jeff’s minister from Springfield, Jeff’s co-workers, Jeff’s former co-workers, our co-workers, our extended family, our friends. Small things make a difference. How often do I hold off to do something big for someone rather than offer something small? Small opportunities might be big.
It seemed like life stopped, but upon further examination you know, no matter what would have happened, life wouldn’t have stopped. Damn. How could everyone be carrying on with their lives when my baby brother almost died? I don’t know what it is that sounds so comforting about the world stopping...hmm. … even when I want it to stop…it doesn’t. How could I possibly see kids for counseling and adjust people in trikonasana (triangle posture) and get advertising done for the studio and pay bills and clean house? Maybe learning to lean back and be supported by people in our lives and by Awareness or by God, or whatever you call it, takes practice. I was certainly given an opportunity to deeply realize life keeps moving along, through love and loss and tragedy and heartbreak and celebrations.
Life kept moving, in fact it was time for the holiday shopping to be done and for the house to be cleaned for the solstice party. I still felt raw…not to mention I have been sad about Adam (a fellow yogi) leaving for Iraq. My heart feels heavy about the danger he will encounter. Not just the physical danger. My heart feels heavy for all of the families who’s loved one’s have died or been injured in the war. My heart feels heavy for the Iraqui’s. This rawness has opened me up like a giant wound. I was nervous about whether I would hold up when I spoke at the party about Adam leaving the yoga community. I hope he will remember the peace he has known through his asana, pranayama and mantra practice. I hope he will remember he is that peace.
I was overly tired and worn down. My physical yoga practice seemed to be getting shortened more and more every day. My eating habits seemed to be swirling out of control. The stomach flu came. I missed the live nativity scene in my sister’s barn. The physical body was practically yelling at me. I listened and spent the day in bed. We changed our plans and left late for our family gathering. I moved slowly, acutely aware of how physically and emotionally exhausted I had become. This body can only take so much. This body has such intelligence. A reminder was in order-listen!
On Christmas day, several of us were recovering from the flu. I saw attachment in full swing as we are all trying not to cling to one another, like lifeboats. I sat at the kitchen table and told my family how sad I was that I missed Christmas Eve service in the barn. I began to cry. Not about missing the service. Tears of recognition that we almost didn’t have a Christmas with two hundred people in the barn and the stomach flu. I have a moment of realizing my suffering is coming from thinking about what almost happened, not what happened. My brother takes my hand. His affection has always been present, but it never seemed to run this deep.
A few days passed after the holiday before Vince and I went to Chicago to be with Jeff for the New Years weekend. He’s not yet up for Chicago nightlife. Our favorite way to celebrate the new year is to have a quiet evening of movies and carry-out. I wonder if people expect that I am at home ringing in the new year with Sanskrit texts and hundreds of sun salutes (why I wonder this might lead us back to previous readings about my narcissism). As we walk to pick up our carry-out ,we laugh at my bizarre clothes…brown gaucho sweat pants, black tennis shoes without socks, grey sweatshirt, oatmeal hat. I look like I am directly out of the back page of cosmo magazine…what not to wear! Everyone else in high heels, sparkly dresses and fancy hair. We talk about how sometimes it seems like everyone else is having a better time…how sometimes it feels like everyone else is out living a life that can only be dreamed of….as if we don’t have opportunities to engage life fully and find enjoyment in what we have. We can allow ourselves to be pressured into believing our life isn’t good enough.
We left Chicago on New Year’s Day. I felt nervous and quite neurotic about leaving. Jeff is fine. His health is good, his recovery couldn’t be going better. It’s as if I somehow believed staring at him on the couch watching television was going to make him stay well. It’s not. I saw the attachment to my ideas of how things should be and I saw aversion of being with the unknown of the darkness. Tears rolled down my cheeks in the car. Leaving reminded me how fortunate we were to be there for the weekend. Each moment we are alive there are opportunities to experience gratefulness.
Living life with an open heart is another way of saying to have known love and to have lost love, is better than to have never loved (who said that?). We can choose bitterness or we can choose something else. To be aware of a mad-mad-mad- monkey mind illuminates the moments when the mind is crystal clear. To experience moments of absolute heartbreak allows us to recognize the feeling of love bursting through our hearts. To experience the pain in your heart when you walk away from someone you love shines a light on all of the glorious moments shared. To look in the eyes of someone who is sick reminds what it is to be healthy. To experience abundance over the holidays allows us to remember people who are having difficulty putting food on the table. To go to work each morning can remind us of people who are unemployed. To feel your partner’s hand on your back can remind us of people who are hardly ever touched. To lose someone you love can remind how precious every moment was when they were alive. To almost-lose someone you love can be a giant wake-up call to not take moments for granted, to be present, to be the presence we already are!
Resting in savasana reminds us that every moment is new, every moment fresh. Each moment is the present moment. As my mom says, that’s why they call it a present. Every moment is an opportunity to experience life with great care, grattitude and compassion, towards ourselves and every other being.
May we all crack open like eggs and experience life from our raw-wide-open hearts.
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