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Callings

Forget who you believed
yourself to be,
who you thought
others thought you were.

Become someone who can’t
answer simple questions like,
“What do you do?”

Fail.

Totally and completely fail
to reach your intended destination,
though carrying a map and compass.

You are where you need to be
the moment after you
give up on all the landmarks.

This is an excerpt from the poem “Callings” by Jamie K. Reaser. I’ve had it sitting on my desktop for the last few weeks, revisiting it every couple of days as a way of celebrating how Grace & Grit Yoga has gone from a moment of inspiration to a reality in less than three months.

This was not the intended destination!

And I couldn’t be happier with where I am. The older I get the more I’m able to see that the maps I hold to are always missing a portion, and my compass is often pulled a few degrees off mark by fear.

When I can truly have the courage to give up on the external landmarks and simply align myself with myself in the moment, it’s astounding where I end up. I’m so much happier, and there’s a whole hell of a lot less effort.

And yet I know it looks a little messy from the outside. When I gave my dad my new Grace & Grit business card the other day, he opened his wallet, laughed, and said he’d put it with his collection of all my other cards.

I cringed a bit, embarrassed by how erratic my life can seem from certain perspectives. And yet, I know that the path of life is like a path through tall grass–you don’t know it’s there until you look back where you’ve been. grass

I can so clearly see the path to Grace and Grit Yoga and teaching yoga teachers from where I stand looking back. It makes complete sense–miraculously so. But that doesn’t even matter so much. What matters is that I like what I see when I look around where I am right now.

And what matters even more is that I go forward with curiosity and passion further into the tall grass, willing to fail at the next intended destination.

And so this newsletter will be short, as I’m engrossed in writing the final touches of “How Not to be a Poser: 12 Tips for Transformational Yoga Teaching,” and excitedly getting together the details of my upcoming Grace & Grit Yoga Tour.

Look for more details about both on www.graceandgrityoga.com on it’s *intended* launch date, Monday, September 12th. I can’t wait to share it with you! So be sure to look for one last email from Revelationary Living to announce the launch of Grace & Grit Yoga in less than two weeks!

I know I’m not the only one going through transition right now; so many students and friends are, in their own ways, intrepidly taking off into unknown territories guided only by their internal compass. I love this! It gives me courage and gratitude for such lovely companionship.

And so to all of you fellow heart-driven folks walking in the tall grass with me, I offer the final lines of “Callings” in your honor:

When people ask you to tell the
story of your travels,
your journey,
of the road you have taken,
do so by living your Life,

Ecstatically.

Now you are human.

2011 09 01 Newsletters Comments (0) Permalink

Scratching at the Door to Get Out

This post was originally written as a guest post for REVEAL.

A few weeks ago I was in Canada leading an outdoor yoga council for yoga teachers. A yoga council is a yoga class that opens and closes with a council circle, an ancient and pan-cultural practice of using a talking piece to support speaking and listening from the heart. As one of the main tenets of council is to be spontaneous, I still had absolutely no idea what I was going to say even as the women began settling into their mats.

Let me say, even after twelve years of teaching, I still get nervous about not having a plan and trusting the inspiration of the present moment. And when I say nervous I mean that my head starts going into spin mode: “Jay, you’ve got to figure out what you’re doing! These women are going to expect you to have your shit together and to say something poetic and meaningful. Since you don’t have that, just put something useful together…say something you’ve said a million times before or something you heard someone else say. Just don’t choke!”

As I was trying to breathe and not buy in to the frantic lashing coming from my mind, I noticed that in the house close to where we were practicing the cat that had been quietly sitting in the window was now desperately scratching at the screen door to get out. Her owner wasn’t there to let her out, and she was trying for all she was worth to open the door.

I felt a sudden and intense ache in my heart for her, wishing the door wasn’t locked and that I could let her out. I thought, “God, how I know that feeling.” I was so moved by her wildness and determination to get out that tears welled up in my eyes.

So in the last few moments before the class was to begin, my heart turned to my mind and said it could stop its campaign for me to get it together, because that’s not what my students needed from me. What they needed was my vulnerability, my authenticity, and my presence.

And so, from the ache in my own heart, I opened the council with the question, What part of you is wild, trapped in the house and is clawing desperately to get out?

I can’t even begin to tell you how moving the responses of the women were as they opened their hearts and poured out their longing: The part of me who wants more play in my life; The part of me who wants to be more sexually alive; The part of me who wants to be loud; The part of me who is willing to fail trying; The part of me who knows what I love and is ready to have it.

After sharing, I guided a yoga practice that was playful and juicy. I invited the women to scream their om’s, to purposefully fall out of poses, and as the poet Mary Oliver says, to simply “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

Tara Brach, a leading western teacher of Buddhist meditation, emotional healing and spiritual awakening, says that the cultural sickness of our time is homesickness. We are homesick for our own bodies. The spin of our mind, whether it’s about trying to be liked, or trying to avoid debt, or trying to avoid feeling in general, keeps us locked out of our own home. And the thing is, if you’re locked out on the front porch, as it were, the part of you who is scratching to get out will stay trapped.

Of course, to come home to and to live in your body means that you also have to contend with the closets where you’ve stuffed all sorts of things away over the years. You have to accept that you want a claw foot tub but all you have right now is a tiny shower. You have to acknowledge that there will always be something that needs your attention.

But coming home to your body also means you get to rest, to not forever be running around exhaustingly in your head. And it means that you can simply walk over to the door, turn the latch and let the part of you who is desperately scratching there out.

 

So I ask you, What part of you is wild, trapped in the house and clawing desperately to get out?

See this part of you in your mind’s eye. Now see if you can feel the ache in your heart as you witness that part of you scratching. Acknowledging that ache is the way home to yourself. Alongside the vulnerability of the aching is your own presence. This presence, more than any falsely put together you, is what you and everyone in your life needs from you—including that part of you who is ready to be out in the world.

I invite you, from the longing in your heart, to reach out and open the latch.

2011 07 30 Newsletters Comments (3) Permalink

Get Free & Have Fun

When I returned at the end of last month from my life-changing trip, everything in my life felt upside down and subsequently felt up for re-evaluation. Two things I knew for sure were:

1. I wanted to get out of my own way and truly follow my joy in my work.

2. I was tired of doing it all on my own and wanted help.

The first felt clear: I know what parts of my work I love, and I was actually really ready to give myself permission to put more focus and attention into them.

The second was stickier: though it’s true that I don’t want to do it all on my own, there was a way that I was holding this that was completely disempowering.

Let me clarify.

I’ve become aware that I’ve had a long-held belief that I can’t do things on my own. Yes, I know I’m capable and intelligent, but there’s been a way that I felt like unless someone else came along and recognized me for the talents I have and the gifts I offer and gave me some big break, I’d never actually be able to stand on my own two feet.

This way of thinking feels really small and tight to me. Every time I sit at my desk and try to do something from this place in me it feels overwhelming and not possible.

But the confusing part for me is that it’s true that there are things that I’m not good at that I want help with—marketing my workshops, designing flyers, learning about SEO for my website, to name just a few. These are things that I could learn, but I don’t particularly like doing them and would rather put my energy into the things I like doing and am good at, like teaching yoga and writing.

So I would get all tied up in not wanting to ask people for help, and yet desperately wanting someone else to do these things for me.

That previous sentence perfectly demonstrates why this wanting help thing is so sticky for me. It’s completely different to feel dependent, wanting others to help or do things for you from a desperate place of “I can’t do this by myself!” than it is to stand independently in your strengths and talents and to be clear about where, how and from whom you could use some support.

Can you feel the difference?

I’ll tell you what—I certainly can! When I really got this at the beginning of this month, man did everything change! Suddenly I knew exactly what I love doing and what I wanted to do about it—AND I became clear about the kind of support I would need and from whom. Then, when I approached these people from the place of being aligned with my own confidence, passion, expertise and joy and asked for support—everyone said yes. And the coolest part is, it was fun and easy and beneficial for all of us!

Be sure to check out the juicy stuff I’m brewing up this summer with the support of some of my favorite folks in Portland!

But before you do that, I want to come back to what this means for you, and in particular, what this means for you and your yoga practice.

Here are two more things I know:

1. It’s hard to go to the yoga studio in the summertime when you want to be outside and when you are traveling about doing cool things.

2. Even if you love your yoga and are dedicated to going to the studio, a lot of you have yet to venture into having a home practice.

These two things add up to less yoga for you in the summer months.  And I don’t know about you, but less yoga for me makes for a more crazy, stiff, uncomfortable, depleted, ungrounded Jay.

What better month than July to practice some yoga independence? Because all you really need in order to practice yoga is your body, and you have much more than that. You have experience with yoga, you know what you like and what brings you joy on the mat, and you know how your body feels and what it wants.

So rather than feeling like you need the teacher at the studio to make your yoga practice happen, instead try approaching your practice from the place of being aligned with your own confidence, experience, passion and joy on the mat. From that place, how, where and from whom you need support will become clear.

And just to start you out a bit, here are some suggestions for starting a home practice:

  • Don’t feel like you have to do it all alone—you can still go to classes! In fact, I recommend that you do because you can add to your knowledge and because community is important. Consider taking a pen and journal with you to class and writing down the sequence and any quick pointers that the teacher offers so you can play with it at home. Sometimes it’s nice to know you have a place to start when you come to your mat at home.
  • Give yourself permission to just start with five minutes and a couple of poses—just getting on your mat is important. If you think you have to practice for a whole hour or more for it to count you’ll never do it. Start small.
  • Give yourself permission to practice when it makes sense to you and to your rhythms and schedule. You don’t have to practice at the crack of dawn if you don’t want to!
  • If you do practice first thing in the morning, feel free to tempt yourself out of bed with a restorative pose. On the mornings when I don’t want to get out of bed, I’ll stumble my way to my mat and get all cozied up in a restorative posture like supta badha konasana I’m always delighted to find it’s even better than sleeping!
  • Remember, you’re not a robot. You might meet with feelings on your mat. If that’s the case, it’s ok. Some days your practice might look like just curling up and crying on your mat. This counts! The poses are simply to help you to connect to yourself and to be present—if something is up for you emotionally when you get to your mat, stay present with that and trust that it’s your yoga that day.
  • Go outside! I find that putting my mat in the yard to do my practice has magical effects. I automatically slow down, feel my body more and trust my own natural movement. Nature is a great studio and teacher in one. Try it!
  • If you have injuries that you’re tending to or specific questions about your body and your practice that keep you from practicing at home, schedule a private session with me so that we can put together a sequence of poses specifically designed for your body.

What are your tips for practicing on your own? Leave them here so we can continue to support each other!

2011 07 01 Newsletters Comments (0) Permalink

Celebrate–You Have a Body!

May 10th:

I am in the passenger seat of a car on HWY 25 in New Mexico. Myself, my co-guide and one of our assistants for the women’s vision fast that will begin in two days have just left the Albuquerque airport.

Suddenly we are swerving dramatically, and then spinning across traffic. My body tells me we are going to flip. I consciously choose to relax; there is nothing I can do. As we begin to roll over I think, “I’m going to die now.” I am keenly aware of my breath and of a warmth and calmness that spreads through every cell of my body in a way I have never felt before.

When we come to a stop the car is upside down and the three of us are hanging, suspended by our seat belts, completely and utterly unscathed.

I get out of my seat belt, crawl out the window that has been smashed in, and find myself standing on the side of the highway, cars stopped all around. My first thought is, “I have a body!” Everything else falls away—having a body and being in this world are the only things that mean anything to me. I feel connected to every living thing. I don’t have words to describe the immensity of gratitude and love that courses through every part of my being.

Flash to three days previous to the accident:

I am in New York City as a sponsor at the REVEAL Conference, a forum for young, female spiritual leaders and for women who want to courageously follow the voice of their own soul and make a difference in this world.

A theme for the day is the wisdom of the feminine body and how necessary it is to be embodied in order to be able to be in touch with our deepest knowing. As I talk with the truly remarkable and inspiring women at the gathering, I am shocked by how few women are actually in touch with their bodies. More than one woman admits to me that she has absolutely no connection with herself below the neck.

Flash to ten days after the accident:

It’s dawn on the final morning of the women’s solo time among the pinyon, juniper and ancient rocks. The women have been alone and fasting for the last four days and nights, full of intent. As the sun moves higher from the horizon, warming the freezing air, the seven women come one by one from all four directions carrying a pack and empty water bottles.

We meet them at the threshold circle and smudge them with sage as a way to acknowledge their transition back from the spirit world of their ceremony into this world. They look so beautiful, these women who have ancestors from all over the world.  Each woman wears her body in a new way, is more at one with the dusty ground under foot and with the birds flying overhead. Even though they are weakened by lack of food, they hug with such ferocity as we reach out our arms to welcome them back. We can see and feel how they embody a new way of being, how clear and purposeful they are, how they carry powerful medicine for themselves and their communities. There are tears and whoops and joyous laughter.

May 23rd:

Driving home from the airport, the city I’ve lived in for nearly the last seven years doesn’t look familiar to me. I walk into my apartment after being gone for three weeks and it no longer feels like home. In the first few minutes of being home I learn of a deep betrayal by someone I love and trust very much. My life flips upside down again.  I feel angry, scared, and alone. I sit motionless, sick to my stomach, breath shallow. And then I feel it again: “All I really have is my body.” Except this time it doesn’t feel euphoric like it did on the side of the highway. It feels heavy. And yet, it also feels calm and grounded, like for the first time I really get in my bones that I am the only one who can ever really be there for myself.

And I am.

I’m still incorporating the many incredible and life changing events in May. Though still a bit disoriented, I feel very alive and full of gratitude and curiosity. I am certain that I am a different person than I was a month ago, and I am slowly beginning to uncover what that means for me personally and professionally.

What I do know for sure, in a whole new way than I’ve ever known, is that your body really is all you have. It’s how you experience everything that is real in the present moment. It’s how you connect to your children, your lover, your friends your world, your self. It’s where you meet your feelings and your wisdom. It’s where your spirit lives. It’s how you make manifest the gifts of your mind and your heart in this world. It’s what makes your life possible.

Your body is a gift that is precious beyond words, and it is certain that you will lose it one day. So it’s absolutely time you start living in it consciously! Yes, that might mean facing physical discomfort or really finally feeling painful feelings of being alone or trapped or scared or angry…

But it also means that you give yourself the ability to really LIVE. To have the visceral experience of being connected to everything and everyone, including your most wise, loving and strong essential Self. And we need embodied men and women on this planet right now, because it truly is the only way anyone can ever make a difference.

And I’m clear that this is my work–whether it’s teaching yoga or guiding vision quests or mentoring about guidance, the foundation of it all is about helping you be in your body. All of it brings me such joy. I truly look forward to playing with you in the coming days, weeks, months, years.

In the meantime…I invite you to:

Painted on the wall at the restaurant we stumbled upon right after the accident. :)

Do a little dance where you are right now—you have a body! Woohoo!

Eat a meal like it’s your last—savor every bite. And then lick your plate!

Do yoga, go for a run, make love to your partner, take a nap—or as Mary Oliver would say, “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

Go into the natural world and play like a little kid—touch, taste, smell, listen, look. You are made up of the very same stuff!

Let yourself be moved by what you feel—really feel all your emotions so you can move through the places you are disempowered and stuck and get to doing what you’re really here to do!

2011 06 01 Newsletters Comments (8) Permalink

Playing on the Edge

In teaching yoga I often talk about playing your edge in a pose—finding the spot in the stretch that is enough sensation that you’re not bored and not too much sensation that you hurt yourself or want to escape. This spot, your edge, is where you feel challenged, compelled and connected. It’s the place where you meet yourself at a limit or boundary of a certain experience of yourself, and through meeting yourself in that way, create transformation and growth.

Your edge is not a destination so much as it is a process; it’s always changing. You meet your edge and then it shows up again the next day in a new place—and not always “further” along as you might think.

For example, yesterday I did a really hard yoga practice with my teacher, meeting my edge in my hamstrings as well as in my arm strength. At the end of the practice I felt so open and strong! Then this morning when I came back to my mat I was so stiff and sore from having played my edge yesterday that the first half of my practice felt positively remedial.

The elusive and confrontational nature of the edge means that it takes quite a bit of skill, courage and compassion to find it in a pose. I’m amazed (speaking from experience!) how one can go through a whole practice—or years of practice—either hanging out in the dullness of comfort or purely mechanical movement, or in constantly pushing beyond the edge into pain and injury.

Of course, playing your edge isn’t only applicable to your hamstrings, but to your heartstrings as well. You can spend years of your life hanging back in the flat terrain away from the edge of your own personal growth and healing.

I’m so grateful to say that my community of friends, students and colleagues is full of fellow edge-players, so this might be a bit of preaching to the choir. But I also know that the edge is a scary place to be, and just because we’re out there singing doesn’t mean us choir members don’t also enjoy some affirmation and communion!

In fact, having spent a portion of my morning with my face in a puddle of my own tears, snot and drool because of how scared I am on my edge right now, I decided it might be a choice time to revisit some of the….

Reasons we give to talk ourselves back from the edge:

It’s stupid!

As I said above, if you’re really at your edge, it will always be changing—just when you think you really get something in your job or your relationship or practice, you find yourself at your next edge where you feel unskilled and incapable in some way. No matter what your specific edge is, it inherently is a place where there is no path, no clear answers and one else who can play it for you.

This can lead to feeling incompetent, but rather than just hanging out with how uncomfortable it is to feel stupid, you tend to project the stupidity on the whole situation and want to bail. The only stupid thing is not going to the edge in the first place—be gentle on yourself when you’re there! It might feel stupid, but it’s the most brilliant thing you can do.

It’s selfish!

Playing your edge emotionally, physically, or mentally requires that you stay close to yourself, making decisions that are about your best interest. It’s easy to argue that the time and attention you give to yourself is being selfish. Guess what? It is.

As my mentor says, everything you do is selfish. There’s no other way to be. Look closely: even the “selfless” things you do in some way benefit your self, or you wouldn’t do them. This isn’t a bad thing, it just is. You can’t help but be selfish because you make every decision from your self.  So be easy with yourself, and trust that as you do what is in your best and highest good it will ultimately also serve others in ways you can’t even know.

It’s unsafe!

Talking with a fellow edge-player the other day, I listened as, through tears, she expressed just how cliff-like her edge feels now when it comes to the learning she’s doing at her job. Not that she’s literally in physical peril, but that there is a part of her who feels emotionally unsafe and wants to go hide out far away from the edge.

I get it! I’m not advocating hucking your self over the edge in a way that causes harm, but I am saying that feeling unsafe goes with the territory of the edge—and of life in general. My favorite saying of late is “a false sense of security is the only kind there is.”

Just ask the people of Japan or Libya or of the tornado-torn towns in the south. Or any human being for that matter! LIFE is unsafe. There’s nothing you can do to escape emotional and physical damage and pain; as mythologist Michael Meade says, no one has gotten out of life alive.

But there is one part of us that is indestructible. Whether you want to call it your spirit or the God within or your essence, it’s the part of you that can’t be taken, broken or killed.  The closest thing you can experience to safety is the presence of this part of you. Seek out its presence more! You’ll need it as you do the scary work of living life to the fullest and meeting yourself in the uncomfortable places on your edge.

And the world needs you to be there playing, growing, healing and transforming on your edge. Because only on the edge will you be able to see where your place in the world is and to meet the rest of the world in the way that you are needed.  So don’t talk yourself down!

2011 04 30 Newsletters Comments (2) Permalink

Alone and All One

The other day my counselor called me on having, what she termed, “a fantasy relationship box” that I’ve been carrying around since childhood. It’s the idea that there’s a relationship out there that somehow meets all the romantic and practical qualities of my dream relationship.  On the outside of this fantasy box, in silver glitter, it reads, “And they lived happily ever after.”

There’s a part of me who knows this is not real, and even if it were, would not want anything to do with any relationship that could fit in to a box that small. And yet, there is a part of me who keeps this fantasy box around like a safety blanket that I’m both ashamed of and yet also scared to let go of.

My counselor asked me to imagine destroying the box and then staying present to what I felt when I did. I pictured myself ripping the box to shreds, jumping on it, and then putting the scraps into the fireplace and burning them.

And then I sat for a few moments. I realized I felt very, very alone.

My first inclination was to escape—to cast my mind out into any number of situations to think about, control, arrange, fix, manage, manipulate, etc. Anything to feel this lonely!

But encouraged by the presence of my counselor, I sat with myself without running from the feeling. After only a few moments of choosing to stay with the feeling, the chest-crushing loneliness subsided into a quiet sense of spaciousness that I would call aloneness. And after only a few moments of feeling that spaciousness, a strong sense of presence and peace crept into the aloneness. Rather than feeling alone, I’d say I felt all one. I felt truly connected to myself and to everything around me. It felt as full as sharing a loving moment with another person, except it was just me sitting there with me.

I’ve felt this presence countless times before, and yet it’s so hard to remember that this experience of being all one is what’s at the opposite end of the spectrum from the desperation of feeling lonely. In the middle is simply being alone. Which, whether we want to admit it or not, we all are.

No matter how close you are to another human being, you are always your own entity with your own thoughts, feelings, sensations, experiences, beliefs and perceptions. You can share these with others to a certain extent, but never completely.  And whether you resist this or embrace this determines whether you experience loneliness or all-oneness.

We all have our way of resisting feeling alone—staying in a relationship you know doesn’t serve you, staying in a job that sucks your soul, giving yourself away to others in all sorts of small ways so that they won’t go away, staying continually connected to your phone or computer, and numbing out through any form of addiction. And that’s just to name a few. For me, one way I resist is by holding on to that fantasy relationship box and to the thought that one day the perfect partner will come into my life so that I won’t ever have to feel alone again.  Yeah right! That would never work!

In fact, none of those ways to resist feeling alone work, and that’s because when you try to resist the reality that you are alone in essence you abandon yourself in your own experience. That self-abandonment is what creates the feeling of loneliness. It has nothing to do with whether someone else is present or not. Sometimes our loneliest moments are when others are present. Recall one of those moments in your life—were you present to yourself?

The truth is you can never share your life with others unless you first share your life with yourself. And sometimes this means embracing yourself in your own aloneness. When you do this, paradoxically you find that feeling of all-one-ness. Because the reality is you are as inherently alone as you are inherently all one. These are the two seemingly contradictory realities of being human.

But don’t take my word for it. Make some alone time for yourself. What do you do that helps to bring you back to your own unique experience of yourself and that also opens the window to your connection with all things?

Here’s a suggestion that I’ve been playing with recently:

All -one Breath Meditation

Get comfortable. (I like to do this in bed when I first wake up or during savasana.)

Follow the movement of your breath in your body without forcing it to be a certain way. After some time of following your own breath, open your awareness to include the breath of anyone who might be in the same room or building as you. Even if you can’t see or hear their breath, can you imagine that you are breathing together?

Then expand your awareness to include the breath of everyone in the town you’re in. Can you stay with your own breath and still breathe the one breath that you share with everyone in your town, no matter what it is they’re engaged in doing?

Continue to play with this awareness—how far can you extend your experience of this one shared breath? Everyone in the state? Country? World?

After some time, begin to reverse your awareness. Feel yourself breathing the same breath as the people in your town, in your house, in your room, until you find yourself back at just your breath in your body. Stay with yourself as long as you can in feeling that your breath is that one breath. Feel how in your aloneness is your all-one-ness.

2011 04 01 Newsletters Comments (6) Permalink

Exposed

I went to Breitenbush Hot Springs this past weekend for a few days of much appreciated soaking and nourishment after quite an intense February. This is one of my favorite places, not just because of the healing waters, but also because of the delicious meals, the toasty little cabins, and the incredibly powerful and gentle land.

But as I stripped down to enter the far meadow pool for my first soak of the visit, silently smiling and nodding to the older couple drying off after their soak, I realized that one of my favorite things about Breitenbush is that it’s a place where complete strangers sit together in the pools totally naked in broad daylight. I never cease to find it sweet, comforting and remarkably beautiful that people of every shape, size, color and age are willing to be so exposed and vulnerable in this way.

I’ve always been pretty comfortable in my body and have not gotten stuck in our culture’s hang-up about nudity; I remember my mom saying when I was younger that when it comes to being naked there’s really only variations on two themes, so what’s the big deal? Our bodies are what make us human. Why do we feel like we have to hide them?

Well, the other thing that makes us human is our emotions. And like our bodies, we mostly keep these fairly cloaked. This way we don’t have to look down at our own metaphoric spots and rolls, nor have them revealed to others. We put on heavy layers of resistance until we’re nearly paralyzed—I’m thinking of Ralphie’s little brother in the movie A Christmas Story who’s mother bundles him up in so many layers to trudge to school in the snow that he screams out from behind his scarf, “I can’t put my arms down!”

To be honest, that’s pretty much where I’m at right now. I was reminded this weekend that I might be fully willing to stand outside naked in the freezing snow in front of total strangers, but I’m not yet ready to bare myself next to the pool of emotions that I currently feel. I’ve essentially bundled myself in resistance so tight that my body is all locked up. I don’t even know exactly what I’m resisting, I just know that my body is uncomfortable and contracted and not even hot springs or yoga makes it feel better.

The truth is I’m resisting feeling emotionally exposed. And sharing that with you makes me feel even more exposed! I can’t tell you how much I wish I had something beautifully crafted and straight from the wisdom of my guidance to share with you today. But that would take being able to discard the layers of my resistance to connect to my body in a way that’s not contracted. So instead, I just have my vulnerability to share with you.

I’d like to think there’s a gift in that, though. The same way that being around people courageous enough to be seen fully in the humanness of their bodies evokes a sense of solidarity, acceptance, and love, I feel that seeing someone in the humanness of their emotional vulnerability does the same. Sure, it’s kind of uncomfortable, but like bodies, we all have emotions, and they, too, only come in variations on a few themes.

I teach in my yoga classes all the time the importance of connecting to your body and feeling your feelings so that you can be in touch with your guidance because I believe it’s the most important work we can do individually and collectively. And I also teach it because it’s precisely what I’m trying to learn! I’d like to think I’ve gotten pretty darn good at it, but I also know that there are times, like today, where I’d rather curl up in bed and watch movies than peer into the dark waters of my body’s sensations.

So here is my humble and heartfelt acknowledgment that being connected to your body and feeling what you feel is not always easy. No matter how committed we are to staying connected and fluid, we all sometimes get backed up from the big things like illness or injury, breaking up or falling in love, getting fired or getting promoted, and all the other hundred million things that evoke emotions (and emotional resistance) in our daily lives. And even when we’ve done lots of personal work, we still come upon layers that have extra sticky zippers or are too tight to pull over our heads without the help of someone else. And that’s ok.

So rather than a buttoned-up teaching this month, I send to you an unbuttoned thank you for being part of my community of courageous and vulnerable people willing to at least come to the edge of the pool of our emotions. It’s just as comforting as it is uncomfortable to know that I’m not alone in this! Even just writing this has let me feel a little more willing to wade into the pool, because I know once I’m in I’ll be able to relax, soften, and be connected once again to the healing wellspring of guidance.

P.S. One tip: When I find myself in this place of being shut down and disconnected from my feelings, if I can resist the urge to get out of the discomfort by having something in the future or past all figured out and just ask my guidance “What now?” I always get an answer. If you find yourself feeling disconnected, start there. ;)

2011 03 03 Uncategorized Comments (4) Permalink

Why get engaged?

Think about it–when were you ever taught how (or even why it’s important) to be fully engaged with yourself? No wonder most people aren’t very good at it.  And yet, if you’re not engaged with yourself, it’s impossible to be fully engaged with anyone or anything else.

This is why it’s so important to begin practicing, and the yoga mat is a perfect place to do so. If you’ve been playing with the suggestions for how to be engaged from my previous post, perhaps you’ve noticed some of the benefits:

  • Energy–The asanas are designed to increase prana, or life force. Wherever you direct your attention, you direct that energy. Consciously directing your attention to your own experience while you practice helps you to fill up rather than leaking or giving away that energy to the things that consume your thoughts–usually things that are linked to anxious, fear-based or circular thinking.
  • Ease–When you’re engaged even the most difficult poses have a sense of effortlessness. That doesn’t mean that they get easier, it just means that the struggle diminishes. When you’re engaged, you’re with what is, not with what you want it to be, and there’s less of a tendency to force a pose to happen. And since it’s almost always your mind that gives up first in a pose, when your mind is fully present your body can rest more fully into being supported and you can summon your physical endurance.
  • Time/spaciousness–How many of you don’t feel like there’s ever enough time in your life? Or that life is crammed full of way too much to do? The beauty of being engaged with the moment is that it has a way of expanding time, because the tendency of always being engaged in the thinking mind with the past or the future robs you of the very moment your in.

  • Authentic relating–This is the essence of engagement to me: authentically relating with yourself and with what is. This is absolutely impossible to do unless you are in your body and aware of how you’re feeling physically and emotionally. Of course, being this present means saying yes to being vulnerable and to  being wholehearted. But not being this present means not participating in and claiming your own life. I can say from experience, that gets old.

Putting it to practice.
Though the yoga mat is a good place to practice being engaged with yourself, it’s kind of like being on an island, and doesn’t offer you the ability to practice staying engaged with yourself in the company of others. This is a whole different ball of wax. And if you’ve ever really tried it, you know it’s pretty darn hard.

How many people are you able to be around and still be aware of your breathing, how you’re feeling, and be atleast 70% in your body? I find this hard to do even (especially?) with the people with whom I am closest.

Recently I’ve been practicing an ancient form of meditation as practice for this:

Light a candle and sit in front of it in meditation. Take as long as you need with your eyes closed to connect to your breath, still your inner gaze, and get behind your own eyes and present in your body. Fill up as much as you can.

When you’re ready, open your eyes and gaze at the candle. Notice if you stop breathing or lose the capacity to feel like you are the one behind your own eyes. Notice if your chin starts to stick out, if you start to lean forward, or if you have the sense that your attention on the candle pulls you out of the experience of being in your body.

Stay with it for 5 minutes and watch the play that might happen between being mostly present with yourself and not the candle, or mostly present with the candle and not yourself. Can you get to a place where you are 70% present with your own experience and 30% aware of the candle?

What does this experience with the candle tell you about the dance you do with others? Can you be fully engaged with yourself while engaging with another? If not, why not? Do you more easily engage with yourself to the degree that you cut out the other, or do you abandon yourself to be more connected with the other?

2011 02 18 Ruminations Comments (0) Permalink

Are you engaged?

In class I’ve been talking for the last few months about how yoga is a practice of intimacy with yourself. As with any relationship, the natural progression is to go from intimacy to engagement. So here we are at engagement.  In light of the last post, I want to take a moment to look at how you know you’re engaged with yourself on your mat?

  • You’re breathing (and you know that you’re breathing). You’re always breathing, but how often are you aware of it? As she had us in deep, long yoga poses, my first yoga teacher, the lovely Rosie Taylor, used to recite, “Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know that I am breathing out.“Sometimes I just need to say this once to help anchor me back to my breath. Other ways to stay connected with your breath are to count the breaths, to attach your own word or phrase to the inhalation and exhalation, or to really tune yourself to the physical sensation of the breath in the belly or at the nostrils.
  • Your eyes are still. When I first sit for meditation or get in to bed at night, I notice that my eyes are darting all over the back of my eyelids like I were reading the script of the previous day and the days ahead. Rapid movement of the eyes is indicative of rapid yammering of the mind.

    That’s why in yoga fixing your gaze or drishti, whether inwardly or outwardly, is a way to still the mind and engage with what’s happening in your body.

  • You are behind your own eyes. One step beyond making sure that your eyes are still is making sure, as my friend and yoga teacher Moira McNairney says, that you are the one behind your own eyes.

    This is a big one. There is a tendency to get ahead of ourselves, which energetically can feel like being in front of your eyes and which physically presents itself as the common holding pattern in the body of having your chin press forward as your mid-back slumps back.

  • The container of your body is filled up with you. If you are aware of your breathing, your eyes are still, and you can sense being behind your own eyes then you will find yourself present in your body. Assuming that your body is the physical container for the essence of you, how full is it?

    I’ve been playing with this over the last few weeks and must admit that I’m pretty astonished how many times I check in to find that I’m only about 10% in my body. The other 90% of my energy and attention is up in my head or with other people and external situations. No wonder I can feel so depleted so much of the time!

I invite you to play with this over the next week. If you aren’t practicing yoga or meditating daily, integrate these practices into the time when you get into bed at night or when you first wake up in the morning. Take a few minutes to practice being fully engaged with yourself–breathing, eyes still, and behind your own eyes. Notice what percentage of full you are in your body when you first become aware, and see if you can stay long enough to fill up to atleast 70%. Begin to check in throughout the day, engage, and fill back up so that you’re eventually building your capacity to just stay engaged and full all of the time.

2011 02 12 Ruminations Comments (0) Permalink

Getting Engaged

This afternoon I had an initial conversation on the phone with a soon-to-be bride about the potential of officiating her wedding. I congratulated her on her recent engagement, and as a way of feeling out whether my approach to ceremonies would be a good fit, I asked her why they were getting married and what kind of ceremony they wanted. She couldn’t really say.

This isn’t uncommon—somehow “getting engaged” has come to be synonymous with “planning a wedding.” And whereas it is true that when two people become engaged part of it is about planning the wedding, it’s my belief that it’s a time to truly engage with themselves and each other as fully as they can in their relationship—to look more closely, to ask questions, to become more rooted.

I think culturally we’ve lost the art of being engaged, and I don’t just mean the time period preceding marriage. I mean being engaged—with ourselves, with others, with our world. So before I step up onto my soapbox about relationships and marriage, let me step over to the yoga mat and speak from here about engagement.

On the mat I feel like engagement is on the other end of the spectrum from escape. For me, being engaged means being with what is, whereas escaping means using something—even a yoga class—to distract you from your self and your life.  I think it’s like the difference between using your practice to medicate versus using your practice to meditate.

What I mean by medicating is that you use the time on your mat to disengage—treating your mat like an island apart from your life where you have the luxury of the teacher telling you when and how to move so that you don’t have to have any responsibility or accountability. On the other hand, meditating is using the instructions and the poses themselves to actually become more present in your experience, to get to know what you’re feeling in your heart and body and to make space for your self.

I’m not saying that medicating or escaping with yoga is bad, there certainly are far more destructive ways of escaping. However, I think it is a disservice to the potential of the practice, and any desire you have to be as present and alive as you can in your life. Because the truth is, if you engage with yourself in the practice, and use it as meditation rather than medication, the blessings are endless.

So how do you engage, what does that even mean?

Well, being the word geek that I am, I checked out the thesaurus to help me get ideas about the different facets of being engaged when it comes to yoga:

Captivate—I love that this is the first synonym in the thesaurus for engaged, as it fits so well with what I feel is so important on the mat: allow yourself to be completely enchanted with what’s happening. If nothing else, begin here: be delighted with the physical sensations, fascinated by the inner dialogue, engrossed with your emotions. Let your experience captivate you!

Recruit/secure the services of—So many people aren’t familiar with the muscles and bones in their body and what their purpose is in yoga poses. I think part of being engaged with your self in the practice is learning your body—what muscles should you recruit in certain poses, what parts of the body do you call into service to make a specific action happen. Knowing what muscles are designed to do in different poses helps you to not only to meditate more closely with what’s going on, but also to engage your muscles in way that allow for optimal stretching and strengthening.

Commit/vow/promise—If you are truly engaged with yourself in yoga, you have made a commitment to yourself. Perhaps this is new each time you come to your mat, perhaps it’s a vow you made a long time ago that gets renewed and strengthened over and over. What is the promise you make to yourself through yoga?

Participate in—To be engaged means you are an active participant in your yoga, not just a yoga robot. Don’t just always do what the teacher says! Even the best, most expert teachers don’t have the experience of being in your body. Trust your instincts. Play. Explore.

Do battle with—When I first looked at the list in the thesaurus I thought how all of the words or phrases were perfect in relationship to yoga—except for this one. I wondered how I could spin this one so that it wouldn’t seem negative—going to the mat isn’t like going to battle! And yet, if you’re anything like me, it can feel like that. The reality is, yoga is a confrontation with yourself. That doesn’t mean you show up on your mat to pick a fight, but it does mean that if you’re really tuned in to yourself you become privy to the ways that your mind and heart can be in battle with one another. This is normal! If this happens, don’t try to sweep it under your mat. Watch the conflicts, get to know them. Engage with all the parts of you on the mat, not just the wise, peaceful, loving parts.

Interconnect/join together/unite—This is what it all comes down to: if you truly engage with yourself, all the parts of yourself, you feel whole in yourself.  When you feel whole in yourself you have the capacity for the possibility of yoga everywhere—feeling interconnected with everyone and everything. And that’s what it’s all about.

I am humbled and baffled and challenged and inspired by the topic of engagement, and feel like there’s so much more to say and explore! I invite you to come to class and/or check out my blog over the next month for deeper exploration: How do you know you’re engaged? What are the benefits of being engaged? What does engagement have to do with effort and ease? How do you use all this practice on your mat to stay engaged with yourself when you’re with another person?

2011 02 03 Newsletters Comments (1) Permalink