Last Saturday, after a long day of teaching yoga, feeling spent and vulnerable, and a lack of my own yoga practice, I found myself eating five chocolate chip cookies in a row. I was not hungry for food and was clearly undermining my own desire to take care of my body. I do not think that there is anything wrong with chocolate chip cookies except that for me- it can be awful. I will feel like crap; foggy, tired and scattered for at least a couple hours after eating this type of food. Not to mention that it will set me up to crave more of the same type of food. It is as if a part of my brain goes on stupid, unhappy and autopilot.
Last Saturday I ate five chocolate chip cookies in a row and so it began: the familiar war with food and my body was on. A place I have been many times before. It had been a while but still I recognized the familiar pull. A tug from my wild side. "Who cares?" "These taste so good." "Eat them." "No one will ever know." "You deserve this." "You will always be fat. Face up to that." The self talk got uglier by the moment.
Anybody who is familiar with using food or any other default strategy (shopping, gossiping, continuous lying or emotionaly outbursts, alcohol, drugs, constant busyness, etc.) to cope with uncomfortable feelings and emotions can relate. To think that the root of the struggle is with food or with my body is an illusion. An illusion that I can convince myself to believe.
The real problem is not with food. The real problem is not with my body. The real problem is with the belief that happiness lies only around the next corner, the next accomplishment. As a person who has yet to fully accept myself the "way I am," I am either trying to squeeze into a narrow and tight version of acceptable behavior or I am rebelling against everything that constricts me. Even if I get thin and stay thin for the next fifty years, I will still be afraid of not staying thin and I will spend my life swinging from one extreme to another. When we want to be different than who we are, when we think we are never good enough, we will never know who we are and we will never leave ourselves alone.
The ability for yoga to be my objective and gentle teacher and show me how to heal from a lifelong struggle with self acceptance is why I practice yoga, teach yoga, and opened a yoga studio in the first place. The real work of yoga is the real work of life. The real work is to disidentify from self-images that were formed a lifetime ago and from which we still construct our daily lives. The real work is to allow ourselves to be who we already are and to have what we already have. The real work is to be passionate, holy, wild, irreverent. To laugh and cry until you wake up to the amazing person that you are, right now in this moment.
The question is how do we do the work? How do we dream our own lives into being when we have spent most of our lives wanting to be different than who we are?
Yoga teaches how to be in this exact moment. As we hold challenging poses, we ask ourselves to think less about what we are supposed to be doing and more about what is actually happening. By being present with each moment of our lives exactly as it is, we learn that the more time we spend constructing parallel lives, the less energy we have for our present lives.
Yoga teaches how to feel, millimeter by millimeter and with support. The support is always there in the form of self observation without judgment. This is the muscle we learn to strengthen. Once we allow ourselves to feel our feelings fully and with complete compassion, then we begin to move through all situations in our life with grace. To feel sorrow, abandonment, disappointment and even hopelessness-we begin to understand what so much of our frantic activity is trying to cover up.
Yoga asks us to constantly inquire into our experience: Does getting what we want take away the discomfort of wanting? If I achieve headstand, am I still left with wanting something else? Is longing replaced by another and then another?
Yoga teaches to honor the longing to have a big life, which can either translate into the longing to have someone else's life or the longing to have the life you would already have if you were not constantly diminishing yourself.
Yoga teaches that behind every addiction is the burning question: What is enough?
Yoga shows us that no feeling is final.
Finally, we cannot understand or move through what we refuse to examine. It's not until we admit we are lost that there is even a possibility of discovering a new way.
After I ate the five cookies, I found myself wanting to eat at least five more. I moved into panic and then disgust. It was at this point that I got real. I got grounded. I took a deep breath, practiced restraint with the cookies and recognized that the cookies are not the bad guys, I am not the bad guy. My longing is not the bad guy. The bad guy is when we forget the qualities that exist inside all of us. When we cut ourself off from courage, strength, joy, will, compassion, and love. But you know, we cannot teach these qualities. We know these things only by remembering them. This is the sweetest gift that we can give to ourself and to others. When we remember who we are, then we no longer have to try to be someone else.
I covered the remaining cookies and left them for my family. It was then that I put some water on to boil on the stove for tea. Hot tea was what I really craved. Something warm and nourishing. As the kettle whistled, I realized that true nourishment existed all along. We all have true nourishment. We are the true nourishment we have been searching for.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Yoga and Worship
"I don't know exactly what a prayer is.I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,which is what I have been doing all day.Tell me, what else should I have done?Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
-Mary Oliver From A Summer's Day
One of the biggest surprises during my past 12 years of coming to know yoga is that yoga has slowly became my path for worship. According to Dictionary. Com, the word "worship" can be defined as "to feel an adoring reverence or regard for..." Let me preface this by quoting Swami J and I must fess up that I know nothing else about Swami J except that I stumbled upon some quotes of his while surfing the Internet. Still...I liked what he had to say. "There is no religion in yoga but there is yoga in some religions." So I am not speaking dogma here but I believe I am speaking a truth that I have experienced and continue to directly know through my practice of yoga.
I first discovered yoga at my Unitarian Universalist Church. What started out as the need to have a single two hour period to myself each week to reconnect with who I might be beyond my all encompassing role as a mother to a newborn baby girl turned into a blown out love affair. What began as forcing myself out my front door became a gentle entry into getting to know myself better than any therapy or self help book had ever done. It only took a few short weeks and I began to look forward to rolling out my yoga mat on the hardwood floor. The late afternoon sun would display it's glory through the floor to ceiling main window above the alter shining in chinks and patterns that gently played upon my body as I surrendered into forward folds, child poses, knee down twists and eventually corpse pose. I was quieted and soothed by my yoga instructor's English accent and his Ujjayi breath. When I closed my eyes I heard only the ocean- loud and rhythmic, ever present, dependable, and complete.
It was in that familiar room of reverence that I learned how to really breathe. Not the shallow breath that I had unknowingly come to embody; a shallow breath that is all too familiar to most Americans. a limited way of breathing that is encouraged by our stress producing yet sedentary culture. Like most of us, I spent many hours of each day sitting at my desk and computer, behind the wheel of my car, and sometimes in front of my television. I also spent many hours of each day obsessing on things that created angst such as piles of unopened bills, difficult relationships and appearances. My tendencies of body and mind had created a slumped position with rounded spine-physically and mentally. Making it almost impossible to fill the lungs with sufficient breath. Like Tinker Bell needed the infusion of children's faith to bring back her vitality and make her light shine, we too need infusions. Yoga recognizes that the breath is a major pathway for bringing dynamic energy into our bodies. Retraining ourselves to breathe deeply can have many gifts including renewed energy and a healing effect.
Twelve years ago I had to relearn how to breathe. Only when I could sufficiently take a deep breath could I learn how to be present for each moment. To be truly happy one must directly know how to be with what is in each moment of our lives. A lack of trust in the process of life and a need for perfection leads to disappointment over the past and a hard knuckled grip on the present in a unrealistic attempt to control one's future. For me, learning to truly accept each moment as it comes was another one of yoga's life lessons. We need little else--praise, material possessions, status, etc.- when we are directly in touch with life in each moment.
To this day, contentment is still slippery. A lifetime of negative thinking and never feeling good enough is a difficult thing to undo. Consider a seed in a crack of a pavement that grew into a tree that tore up the sidewalk. It is difficult to remove such a tree but my yoga teaches me that it can be done. The tree's roots begin to shrink in a brief and fantastic moment of self awareness combined with an intention of observation from a place of compassion and self-acceptance. This is what I need to bring with me to the mat when I practice. This is what I need to bring into everything I do.
The laws of yoga teach that our thoughts are the seeds of our actions and ultimately of our own future. What happens to us by events, nature and others can hurt us deeply but how we react and process these moments of our lives are what ultimately creates our own suffering or happiness. It is up to us whether our reality is harmful or healing. How we interpret and how we attach to situations in our lives all serve to create the amount of energy we give to events, things and others. When we come to understand that we ourselves are responsible for what happens to us, whether or not we can understand how, then it follows that we can change what happens to us by changing ourselves. We can take our own destiny into our own hands.
To be in the moment is the practice of contentment or santosha. Maybe this is why I feel that my yoga practice is an act of worship. A way to open up wide to the gifts of the universe, to connectedness, and maybe even to god. In the practice of santosha we get to decide that in this very moment we will be contented no matter what storms are threatening. As an adult, I have come to learn that there will always be storms. None of us can escape this. If we wait for things to become as we demand them to be in order to be satisfied, we will always be waiting.
Contentment can be enjoyed in small bites. On the worst of days, it is possible to pause and look at the world through the eyes of a child if only for a moment. See the sky, hear a bird, get lost in a loved one's face. We can say, "For this tiny moment, I choose to be content." Begin to look for these moments. The more you seek out contentment, the more it will show itself, the more you will worship life- especially your own life. The more you will feel an adoring reverence and regard for everything
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Josh
A year ago this April, my sister's 17 year old son Josh was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma. What began as a limp, while vacationing in Disney World, stemming from a pain in his right hip with no explainable cause, turned into full blown cancer within a few short weeks. What began as a visit to Josh's regular pediatrician turned into a visit to an orthopedist, then a neurologist and then a pediatric cancer specialist. X-Rays revealed lesions throughout his hips and his spine. Josh was put in a wheelchair. He was not allowed to bear his own weight. His bones were pronounced "moth eaten" from his countless tumors. All within the span of seven days.
The next week was full of MRI's, bone scans and pet scans. A port was put into his chest even though there was not yet a diagnosis. A bone marrow biopsy was performed. The good doctors of Connecticut Children's Medical Center pronounced it cancer. They just did not yet know what kind. They sent his test results to a major cancer center to determine the type. Josh waited. My sister waited. My parents flew in from Arizona and they waited. We were all full of dread and fear. We cried and hugged a lot.
Three weeks from the first doctor's visit a diagnosis was given- Stage Four Non-Hodgkin's Type Lymphoma. There was no way to wake up from this cruel nightmare. Josh's cancer was systemic. Although it was not in his lymph, it was seemingly every where else; hips, spine, ribs, lungs, bone marrow and even a spot on his heart. Josh's cancer was harsh and completely debilitating but we were told by some of the best pediatric oncologists in the world to hang in there,be tough, and have faith. It was curable. Maybe.
Ruthless and aggressive chemotherapy began. Last spring and summer, Josh had over 21 lumbar punctures (injections) into his spine. He immediately was withdrawn from his junior year of high school, bound to a wheel chair, and summoned to the cancer floor of a pediatric hospital. While his peers took their final exams at school, he lost all of his prized blond hair on his pillow, developed mouth sores that prevented him from speaking (forget about eating) and was nauseas most hours of the day.
We all felt that the cancer "sucked" and that it was totally unfair. We even wore pins that said "Cancer Sucks." Not Josh. Throughout the chemotherapy, Josh never complained or expressed feeling sorry for himself. Not once. Even when he couldn't close his mouth all the way because of sores that started in his mouth and ran throughout his entire digestive tract.. When Josh did speak about his illness, it was gentle and kind and usually something along the lines of "Don't worry about me. I can handle this. I am OK."
Josh is a sensitive kid and loves babies. This was made even more evident during this difficult time. He always had a smile and a high five for my Sadie. His two-year old twin siblings Danny and Maeve worship him and were like two puppies clamoring for his attention. My sister would often say that for Josh babies were the equivalent of "therapy dogs."
My sister showed me what it is to be a "Momma Warrior." Privately she was scared out of her mind and let out her own pain and vulnerability with those she was closest too but publicly she showed only strength. She did not fall apart. She got up every morning and did what she had to do. She watched her oldest child go through unbearable pain and face the unknown and she stayed right by his side- a calming presence. She did not waiver. If Josh could bear it then so would she.
Every day my sister had to entrust her two year old twins into the care of family and friends while she spent as many waking hours as possible by Josh's side. Between Josh's two parents, he was never left at the hospital alone. They slept under fluorescent lights, on blow-up mattresses and fell asleep each night to the random beeps of an IV filled with Methotrexate dripping its essential poison into Josh's veins.
It is one year later and Josh is completely cancer free. His port is being removed from his chest today. A simple operation. A major milestone. Our hearts are no longer broken. For now, our grief seems far away. Many times over the past year I have caught myself wondering what it would be like to face death. To look into the eyes of the tiger and not know if it was going to eat me.
Today my immediate difficulties seem small compared to our fear last April of losing our beloved Josh. These days I have anxiety about getting enough revenue to flow into our studios during a scary economy. I strive for balance and self-acceptance.
A valuable tool to help me deal with what is beyond my control is the teachings of one of my own yoga teachers, Yoganand (Michael Carroll.) He says that no matter who you are- how successful, educated, beautiful, thin, rich, popular, or healthy, that our biggest fear is our own death That is why we work so hard to define ourselves. To give meaning to our lives. Meaning could be a family, job, volunteer work, education, material things etc. We surround ourselves with our own importance and then we feel more secure in the fact that we cannot die. We are too busy or too important to die. We have too much going on for the business of dying.
During Josh's illness, my father said to me that we are all dying. "Each one of us is dying a little bit every day," I am a yoga teacher by profession and yoga is my spiritual path. My yoga mat can sometimes feel like a raft that I cannot let go of. Other times it feels like my magic carpet setting my heart and soul free to fly. My yoga mat is sometimes my prison and sometimes my church.
Today as I practice in the silence of early morning and take a moment to honor Josh's remarkable journey with cancer, it occurs to me once again that if we all could bare to face up to the fact that each one of us is going to die, acknowledge that each day we all get one step closer to our own death, that once we accept this, then we can know true peace of mind and obtain freedom from our own self imposed suffering. We can let go of our need to control everything and all of it. Thinking we are "separate" and special is a disease that leads to suffering. We learn instead that we are connected to everyone and everything. We are a part of all life has to offer. We are a part of all beauty and joy. We are also a part of all sadness and suffering. When we understand this union with everything than we can take in love and fully occupy our place in the world.
When I look back to last year and recall how my seventeen year old nephew faced something so difficult and scary as cancer with courage and compassion, I am reminded of what is important. To live in fear is to live a wasted life. The best we can do is to love ourselves and each other, take courage from that, and live each day with enthusiasm.
The next week was full of MRI's, bone scans and pet scans. A port was put into his chest even though there was not yet a diagnosis. A bone marrow biopsy was performed. The good doctors of Connecticut Children's Medical Center pronounced it cancer. They just did not yet know what kind. They sent his test results to a major cancer center to determine the type. Josh waited. My sister waited. My parents flew in from Arizona and they waited. We were all full of dread and fear. We cried and hugged a lot.
Three weeks from the first doctor's visit a diagnosis was given- Stage Four Non-Hodgkin's Type Lymphoma. There was no way to wake up from this cruel nightmare. Josh's cancer was systemic. Although it was not in his lymph, it was seemingly every where else; hips, spine, ribs, lungs, bone marrow and even a spot on his heart. Josh's cancer was harsh and completely debilitating but we were told by some of the best pediatric oncologists in the world to hang in there,be tough, and have faith. It was curable. Maybe.
Ruthless and aggressive chemotherapy began. Last spring and summer, Josh had over 21 lumbar punctures (injections) into his spine. He immediately was withdrawn from his junior year of high school, bound to a wheel chair, and summoned to the cancer floor of a pediatric hospital. While his peers took their final exams at school, he lost all of his prized blond hair on his pillow, developed mouth sores that prevented him from speaking (forget about eating) and was nauseas most hours of the day.
We all felt that the cancer "sucked" and that it was totally unfair. We even wore pins that said "Cancer Sucks." Not Josh. Throughout the chemotherapy, Josh never complained or expressed feeling sorry for himself. Not once. Even when he couldn't close his mouth all the way because of sores that started in his mouth and ran throughout his entire digestive tract.. When Josh did speak about his illness, it was gentle and kind and usually something along the lines of "Don't worry about me. I can handle this. I am OK."
Josh is a sensitive kid and loves babies. This was made even more evident during this difficult time. He always had a smile and a high five for my Sadie. His two-year old twin siblings Danny and Maeve worship him and were like two puppies clamoring for his attention. My sister would often say that for Josh babies were the equivalent of "therapy dogs."
My sister showed me what it is to be a "Momma Warrior." Privately she was scared out of her mind and let out her own pain and vulnerability with those she was closest too but publicly she showed only strength. She did not fall apart. She got up every morning and did what she had to do. She watched her oldest child go through unbearable pain and face the unknown and she stayed right by his side- a calming presence. She did not waiver. If Josh could bear it then so would she.
Every day my sister had to entrust her two year old twins into the care of family and friends while she spent as many waking hours as possible by Josh's side. Between Josh's two parents, he was never left at the hospital alone. They slept under fluorescent lights, on blow-up mattresses and fell asleep each night to the random beeps of an IV filled with Methotrexate dripping its essential poison into Josh's veins.
It is one year later and Josh is completely cancer free. His port is being removed from his chest today. A simple operation. A major milestone. Our hearts are no longer broken. For now, our grief seems far away. Many times over the past year I have caught myself wondering what it would be like to face death. To look into the eyes of the tiger and not know if it was going to eat me.
Today my immediate difficulties seem small compared to our fear last April of losing our beloved Josh. These days I have anxiety about getting enough revenue to flow into our studios during a scary economy. I strive for balance and self-acceptance.
A valuable tool to help me deal with what is beyond my control is the teachings of one of my own yoga teachers, Yoganand (Michael Carroll.) He says that no matter who you are- how successful, educated, beautiful, thin, rich, popular, or healthy, that our biggest fear is our own death That is why we work so hard to define ourselves. To give meaning to our lives. Meaning could be a family, job, volunteer work, education, material things etc. We surround ourselves with our own importance and then we feel more secure in the fact that we cannot die. We are too busy or too important to die. We have too much going on for the business of dying.
During Josh's illness, my father said to me that we are all dying. "Each one of us is dying a little bit every day," I am a yoga teacher by profession and yoga is my spiritual path. My yoga mat can sometimes feel like a raft that I cannot let go of. Other times it feels like my magic carpet setting my heart and soul free to fly. My yoga mat is sometimes my prison and sometimes my church.
Today as I practice in the silence of early morning and take a moment to honor Josh's remarkable journey with cancer, it occurs to me once again that if we all could bare to face up to the fact that each one of us is going to die, acknowledge that each day we all get one step closer to our own death, that once we accept this, then we can know true peace of mind and obtain freedom from our own self imposed suffering. We can let go of our need to control everything and all of it. Thinking we are "separate" and special is a disease that leads to suffering. We learn instead that we are connected to everyone and everything. We are a part of all life has to offer. We are a part of all beauty and joy. We are also a part of all sadness and suffering. When we understand this union with everything than we can take in love and fully occupy our place in the world.
When I look back to last year and recall how my seventeen year old nephew faced something so difficult and scary as cancer with courage and compassion, I am reminded of what is important. To live in fear is to live a wasted life. The best we can do is to love ourselves and each other, take courage from that, and live each day with enthusiasm.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Time For Me
This week I reaped the rewards of being an owner of a yoga studio. Instead of constantly concerning myself with the current recession and how to creatively keep my business thriving, I was able to leave all that aside. For almost a full week. Instead of changing diapers, picking up the relentless clutter and for countless hours drive my older kids all over town, I got to roll out my own yoga mat and train. For the unheard of length of five days, I got to practice yoga for almost eight hours each day at an advanced yoga workshop. One of the best parts was that it all took place in my own studio.
At this stage in my life, the ability to take a yoga workshop is an extreme luxury. When I get together with other yoga studio owners, I hear all about the fantastic trainings they are pursuing. I hear about yoga in Maya Tulum, week long detoxes at yoga spas, and studying with big name teachers. When they begin to tell me about their newest training endeavor, I am always polite. I ask questions. I nod my head in approval. I look at my peers and I smile. I am outwardly supportive but inside I seethe, just a little. You see, I want it all- to be a present mother, successful studio owner, inspiring teacher, caring and compassionate wife and friend. I want to do every amazing training out there. But I can't. Financially, emotionally and time wise-it is just not gonna happen for me right now. I am already maxed out in what I can and cannot do. From past experience, I know that if I take on anymore there will be ragged edges and the possibility of burn out looming large.
In recent years I have learned that I have to say no. Make choices. Honor what I need but also shelf some things (such as consistent and regular yoga training) for later. In my limited world I have seen the harsh results of trying to do it all. I have seen the failure of marriages between some of my oldest and dearest friends. I have seen how rapidly my friend's children have grown up. I understand in my heart and head how precious this time is with my family. I am aware that one day I will have to check with my children's schedules to see if they have time for me. I don't want to miss out. I don't want to forget.
Instead of forgetting, my experience with yoga this week allowed me to remember. I got to remember who I am, underneath all of my self imposed chatter and seep myself with compassion even when every muscle in my body was burning. I got to bring my focus inside. I got to have no expectations. I notice that I am much better at letting go of expectation on my yoga mat then in my daily life. This practice of letting go of expectation is truly radical and unfamiliar to most of us. To break that connection, to see impulses and thoughts arise and not act on them, not label them as real or unreal, but simply to observe them-this is how to turn off your auto-pilot. This is the beginning of developing “witness consciousness,” creating transformation and honestly taking control of your life.
This yoga workshop was physically demanding and I came up against difficult sensations and my own resistance over and over again. I watched stories about my yoga ability and my body play out. It was not always pretty.
As my hips began to open after five days of fire hydrants and cow's face pose, I realized that it was my sense of self that opened the most. I observed the patterns of thoughts that showed up like a relentless dictator. I watched my “wild child” side as she begged me to bail out. Yoga is designed to create a churning and so I was. On every level. I couldn't come up with a default strategy such as making myself busy to avoid what I was feeling. There was nowhere for me to go. No job to do, no child to take care of, no cupboard to stand in front of. I had to stay on my mat and watch. This was hard work! I noticed that I have developed a self-image, a complex system of values, a concept of my world with certain patterns of behavior and thoughts. In short, I have created a movie, cast myself as the star and am spending the majority of my life acting out the script.
Isn't it interesting how we invent ourselves and then we are imprisoned by our choices? We think we are in control of our life, that we are making our own choices, when in reality the choices are being made for us by our own movie script. This is a form of bondage. In yoga language, this is “avidya” or self-ignorance. The gift of yoga is that it begins to thin this veil of illusion. It thins this veil of illusion and requires that we do so from the right action of compassion.
My yoga teaches me that it is only from a space of loving compassion that we can see our patterns, our automatic responses that previously existed below the level of consciousness, and it is in that moment that we are given the opportunity to be freed. This week I was able to get quiet and start looking at my own tiresome and destructive patterns and was able to stay present and be fearless in my inquiry. I got to hear the cries of my own heart and by becoming a loving witness, I felt as if I could hear the cries of the world.
After five days, I emerged off of my yoga mat renewed and saw unlimited potential in clearing away the self-imposed patterns that imprison me. On the yoga mat, there are no mysteries and life is one big wonderful mystery. All of this at the same time. All of this in the same moment.
Like most of us, I am continuously trying to find balance. For me it is the balance between between being a mother to three, running two yoga studios and finding precious and quiet time for myself. This week I got to create a five day island of peace in the midst of chaos. A time in my life where the demands seem constant and there is hardly a moment when I am not bombarded with stimulation. I got to take off my “social” mask, my “professional” mask and my “mommy” mask and go on an inward expedition. I got to investigate. I got to stand in the fire. I got to surrender in silence. I got to pause. I got to breathe.
At this stage in my life, the ability to take a yoga workshop is an extreme luxury. When I get together with other yoga studio owners, I hear all about the fantastic trainings they are pursuing. I hear about yoga in Maya Tulum, week long detoxes at yoga spas, and studying with big name teachers. When they begin to tell me about their newest training endeavor, I am always polite. I ask questions. I nod my head in approval. I look at my peers and I smile. I am outwardly supportive but inside I seethe, just a little. You see, I want it all- to be a present mother, successful studio owner, inspiring teacher, caring and compassionate wife and friend. I want to do every amazing training out there. But I can't. Financially, emotionally and time wise-it is just not gonna happen for me right now. I am already maxed out in what I can and cannot do. From past experience, I know that if I take on anymore there will be ragged edges and the possibility of burn out looming large.
In recent years I have learned that I have to say no. Make choices. Honor what I need but also shelf some things (such as consistent and regular yoga training) for later. In my limited world I have seen the harsh results of trying to do it all. I have seen the failure of marriages between some of my oldest and dearest friends. I have seen how rapidly my friend's children have grown up. I understand in my heart and head how precious this time is with my family. I am aware that one day I will have to check with my children's schedules to see if they have time for me. I don't want to miss out. I don't want to forget.
Instead of forgetting, my experience with yoga this week allowed me to remember. I got to remember who I am, underneath all of my self imposed chatter and seep myself with compassion even when every muscle in my body was burning. I got to bring my focus inside. I got to have no expectations. I notice that I am much better at letting go of expectation on my yoga mat then in my daily life. This practice of letting go of expectation is truly radical and unfamiliar to most of us. To break that connection, to see impulses and thoughts arise and not act on them, not label them as real or unreal, but simply to observe them-this is how to turn off your auto-pilot. This is the beginning of developing “witness consciousness,” creating transformation and honestly taking control of your life.
This yoga workshop was physically demanding and I came up against difficult sensations and my own resistance over and over again. I watched stories about my yoga ability and my body play out. It was not always pretty.
As my hips began to open after five days of fire hydrants and cow's face pose, I realized that it was my sense of self that opened the most. I observed the patterns of thoughts that showed up like a relentless dictator. I watched my “wild child” side as she begged me to bail out. Yoga is designed to create a churning and so I was. On every level. I couldn't come up with a default strategy such as making myself busy to avoid what I was feeling. There was nowhere for me to go. No job to do, no child to take care of, no cupboard to stand in front of. I had to stay on my mat and watch. This was hard work! I noticed that I have developed a self-image, a complex system of values, a concept of my world with certain patterns of behavior and thoughts. In short, I have created a movie, cast myself as the star and am spending the majority of my life acting out the script.
Isn't it interesting how we invent ourselves and then we are imprisoned by our choices? We think we are in control of our life, that we are making our own choices, when in reality the choices are being made for us by our own movie script. This is a form of bondage. In yoga language, this is “avidya” or self-ignorance. The gift of yoga is that it begins to thin this veil of illusion. It thins this veil of illusion and requires that we do so from the right action of compassion.
My yoga teaches me that it is only from a space of loving compassion that we can see our patterns, our automatic responses that previously existed below the level of consciousness, and it is in that moment that we are given the opportunity to be freed. This week I was able to get quiet and start looking at my own tiresome and destructive patterns and was able to stay present and be fearless in my inquiry. I got to hear the cries of my own heart and by becoming a loving witness, I felt as if I could hear the cries of the world.
After five days, I emerged off of my yoga mat renewed and saw unlimited potential in clearing away the self-imposed patterns that imprison me. On the yoga mat, there are no mysteries and life is one big wonderful mystery. All of this at the same time. All of this in the same moment.
Like most of us, I am continuously trying to find balance. For me it is the balance between between being a mother to three, running two yoga studios and finding precious and quiet time for myself. This week I got to create a five day island of peace in the midst of chaos. A time in my life where the demands seem constant and there is hardly a moment when I am not bombarded with stimulation. I got to take off my “social” mask, my “professional” mask and my “mommy” mask and go on an inward expedition. I got to investigate. I got to stand in the fire. I got to surrender in silence. I got to pause. I got to breathe.
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