Yoga as Re-Engagement with the World

I am so thankful to finally be sitting here-in front of my computer. Baby is napping. The older kids are at school and I am finally alone. I have made an uneasy choice to let the chaos of the house sit still for now. For my own sanity, I refuse to acknowledge the dishes that need to be loaded into the dishwasher, the laundry that needs to be put away. A warm cup of chamomille tea sits beside me and I can feel its goodness in my belly. The day is rainy and dark. Fallen leaves cling to the driveway. The wind outside is a warm gush. I am barefoot, unshowered, tired and have been struggling all week to find some way to carve out time for myself. All of my spare moments have involved the simple and mundane tasks of the mother; wiping off crumbs from a counter, emptying out overflowing kitchen garbages, taking the laundry down to the laundry room, picking somebody else's clothing off of the floors, holding a tired 9 year old in my lap, giving my 11 year-old daughter extra help on her math homework, school conferences, dentist appointments, art lessons, music lessons, hair appointments, buying winter coats, grocery shopping, bringing our fat cat to the vet. The list gets exhausting and so do I.

I try to be accepting of my life in this moment, to let go into the world of taking care of others but ultimately I always come back to realize that I am out of balance when I try to do it all. I come back to the reality that only I can take charge of creating happiness or peace in each moment. As a women, mother and studio owner, I could continuously take care of "things" and never get time to take care of me. To get myself out of what I call my resentment cycle, I have learned to slow down and check in with myself when I start to feel overwhelmed. For me, feeling any amount of overwhelment is a red flag for self-imposed stress. Many times I will try to blame my uncomfortable feelings on others. I might blame my husband for working a lot of hours or my kids for not picking up after themselves or my employees for not handling things as competently as I think they should, but ultimately I learn that only I can change my unhappiness. This always leads me back to sitting down in the quiet moments of my life and listening to my body, asking myself, "What is it that I need in this moment?" The answers are always there. I only need to listen.

This weekend at Yoga Teacher Training I lectured that the ultimate goal of yoga is to reach a point where a yogi can be at peace in any moment. Every moment. In the yogic tradition, there are two archetypes or models for how an individual might reach this ideal state.

The first model is that of the yogi renunciate, on the mountaintop or in the cave, totally separated and withdrawn from the everyday world. Going inside, into isolation, the yogi finds what she needs- great clarity and peace.

The other archetype is the yogic warrior, who is fully and passionately engaged in the world. This yogi is completely dedicated to the well-being of others, and vows to never rest until all other beings are happy and at peace. He or she is the one who finds inner peace in the middle of external chaos.

Most householder yogis need to find a balance between these two archetypes. Seeking peace by creating a space free of intrusion, distractions, and external demands. He or she must also channel energy toward service, work, creativity, and relationships. As yogis, we must reflect on which of these two ways of recharging is missing from our lives.

There are other ways to think about this balance-the cycle of retreat and re-engagement. Consider using the physical body as an analogy. One of the primary differences between animate and inanimate objects is that animate beings adapt to stress, whereas inanimate objects are simply worn away by stress. Imagine a mountain that is being eroded over time by wind or water. An animate object responds differently: it actually grows in response to stress. Without forces of resistance, humans cannot develop adequate strength. Think of how we develop physical strength-we ask our muscles to do something they have not done before, and they react by changing; by growing new blood vessels to fuel the muscle cells, by growing in size; by developing new neuromuscular patterns that make it easier to do something that once was difficult. The same is true for how our immune system develops, for how we learn new skills, for how we develop our minds.

The key to this cycle of adaptation is that it requires a period of recovery. Physical rest is required after strength-training, and without sleep we would not be able to create new memories or engage in learning. If we do not offer the body and mind a period of rest, retreat, and recovery, our "engagement" with the world becomes a form of over-load and even self-injury. When we don't allow ourselves periods of rest, we don't become resilliant. We don't develop resistance. We are no longer replenished by activity. We become like the inanimate objects and wear down over time. Worn down from the way we interact with our world.

Recovery should be in scale with the stressor, activity or challenge we have recently been through. A little bit of recovery in every day may be enough to keep us learning and adapting. This is why recovery is so necessary in the yoga class that we offer our students. Just a little bit, in a vigorous yoga class, can teach our students the value of "recharging."

As I stated before, it is important to have balance. Consider this example- A person becomes overwhelmed by his or her job and looks for ways to "recover" through retreat. This person begins to try to take care of his or her self by cutting out everything that takes energy besides work. As he or she gets more and more disconnected, he or she has fewer meaningful moments and rewarding experiences. This person becomes less able to tolerate the stresses of their job. He or she ends up unable to get out of bed in the morning, and feeling like he doesn't have the energy to do anything at all. This is a classic cycle of depression, where the instinct to withdraw or to "rest" is not balanced by the instinct to re-engage.

This is someone who does not need more rest but needs more activity. This person needs something meaningful that exhausts him or her in a way that actually fills them up. There is something to the fact that using up all of our energy creates more energy, because we adapt to experience. It's like working out-the demands of activity create the strength, the flexibility, the endurance. People who are in the cycle of withdrawal and retreat have nothing to adapt to-and they continue to lose resilliency with the challenge that full engagement creates.

The other cycle is when someone is so involved with "doing" that he or she thinks there is no time to rest, and looks for what is missing in more activity and more projects. The more this person takes on, the more he or she feels unable to rest, and more he or she thinks he needs to do. Many people in this type of cycle tend to deprive themselves of sleep. Making the choice to continuously deprive yourself of sleep is a form of self-abuse. The body needs rest in order to build strength and endurance. A recovery period is always necessary. We cannot adapt withouts some kind of recovery. If we restress our body too soon, we create injury or chronic pain that makes us think we need to do more-and the more we do, the more we disconnect from what we need. The more we injure ourself.

Once we find ourselves in either one of these cycles, our instincts for balance are usually hidden underneath the strength and force of our habits and emotions. So most of us need to observe our patterns and look for what is out of balance. For the first time in over a week, I have chosen to sit down in front of my computer and create an entry in my blog. As I sit here in the stillness of the day, I realize what needs to be balanced. I have been putting all of my energy into my "work" for the past two weeks. I have been completely taken over by the demands of my mothering. It is time to engage myself in something that fulfills me in a creative way. That is why I am here, at my computer. Writing about what I love- yoga-challenges me and fulfills me. So does practicing some good hot sweaty yoga. Tonight I will make time for myself and I will gently push myself to get out of my house and take the power class at my own studio at 5pm. I will forget that I am a yoga teacher and studio owner and when I unroll my mat, I will surrender my thoughts and body over to the teacher and allow her to guide me into a state of yoga bliss. The demands of the yoga will be challenging yet sweet and serve to recharge me and re-engage me with my own strength and creativity. I will let the demands of the vigorous yoga "fill me up." in a meaningful way.