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“But I’m not flexible…”

“I can’t do yoga because I’m not flexible.” Where did this B.S. (belief system) come from? Why do we think we need to be good at something first, before we try it?

Hello, I’m a recovering perfectionist. Are you new to yoga or returning to your mat after some time away? Don’t worry, I know what it feels like to be “bad” at something. I’ve held myself back from doing things because I wasn’t already good at them. I didn’t try out for the theater play because I believed “I wasn’t good enough and couldn’t act.” I didn’t submit that piece of writing to the magazine because, “There were other people who were better than me.”

Oof, these were hard lessons to learn. There will always people who are more skilled and talented than I am. Holding myself back because I “might look dumb” is no way to live life. This is your life! It is the risk of loosing face, which only stings our ego for a moment (usually).

There are risks we all need to take in order to over come our fears and move beyond our self-imposed limitations. (I don’t know what those risks are for you, but I know what they are for me, and chances are, if we’re anything alike, we might need to take risks in similar ways.)

When I try new things that I’m not already good at, I risk looking bad, falling down, appearing foolish or untrustworthy. I risk injury (mostly to my pride). I risk my old identity of “having all my shit together” for something far more interesting and profound: an experience of the unknown.

This, my friends, is scary stuff. Freedom doesn’t come from “knowing” and “controlling,” freedom comes in the continual act of letting go of what we think we know and who we take ourselves to be. Trust is revealed when we say yes to the difficult.

Our dominant culture of North America has us believe that our “skills” need to be capitalized on and we should only do things you’re good at because that’s what makes a profit. While that might be true in the business world, this approach will never work in the yoga classroom or anywhere we’re learning new skills and new ways of being.

I hold that the yoga classroom is a place to learn, not necessarily about yoga, but about ourselves. This context requires that we loosen our grip on perfectionism and adapt an attitude of curiosity. 1. Cultivate sincerity and a desire to learn new things about ourselves and 2. Don’t take ourselves too seriously so that when we fall down/get stuck/or suck at something we can try again from a new angle without too much bruising to our hamstrings or our egos.

I have been teaching yoga since 2012 and studying yoga since 2007. I have spent many, many hours in the yoga classroom and in my own living room, practicing getting it “wrong,” and trying again. Most people learn through trial and error. Lots of error.

Often my yoga students say, “I can’t do that because I’m not flexible.” Or, “I haven’t practiced in a while, go easy on me.” Or, “I’m afraid I’m going to do poorly.”

That’s the point! We’re here to learn.

We come to yoga BECAUSE we’re in pain, because we’re not doing well, because we’re in search of something bigger, because we want something more, because we need healing etc. We come to the classroom because we want to learn, not because we have it all figured out already.

And I’ll say that I also teach to learn. I don’t teach because I have all the answers. I teach so that I can learn to integrate my teacher’s teachings and understand myself further.

So, these questions follow: “Why are we afraid to try new things and look “bad” doing it?” “What are we afraid of?” “Are we afraid we’ll be “found out?””

This is yet another reason why my ultimate aim is to build a school of yoga and cultivate a community of people interested in more than “looking good.” The environment of the yoga classroom supports learning—we are bad at something until we become proficient at it. We become skilled through practice. This means repetition over a long, long period of time.

I said yes to trying new things I’m not good at and have never tried before like rock climbing, horse back riding, skiing, snowboarding, sailing, ice skating, inline skating, tango dancing, surfing, paddle boarding, pottery, making jewelry, painting, drawing, heck, even teaching yoga. (I wasn’t any good at teaching when I first started in 2012.) This is life. If we only stick to things we’ve proclaimed ourselves “good” at, then we limit our sense of self and self-discovery.

Join me as we follow this path of trying new things we’re no good at.

Much love,

Shinay

Context of Yoga

My teacher, Bhavani Maki, looked at us and said, “In business it is important to cultivate and rely on people’s strengths. This establishes a good, working foundation and people feel good about their accomplishments. We want people to excel in business. In the context of yoga, however, it is different. In the domain of spirit-work and transformation is important to go against or “natural” impulses, urges, tendencies, and talents in order to strengthen the elements in ourselves that are raw and even unknown to us. In the context of yoga we turn toward the difficult, unseen elements in order to bring them into the light.”

This is the fundamental difference between our “inner life work” and our “work in the world.” And in my experience “the world” is fodder for our “inner work.”

Context matters. It is everything. We have to be aware of which domain we are working in. The way I was trained yoga is not about self-improvement or even “self-care,” (more on that later). Yoga is not about setting goals and getting better and better every day in every way. I learned that yoga is union: it is the hard heart work of crawling back into the lap of the divine, of reconciling the split within ourselves between our essential nature and our crude existence; it is resolution between what we think and life as it is here and now. Yoga is our willingness to see beyond our likes and dislikes and lean into a much larger network of relationship.

Yoga is a big, broad term used by many people to describe a variety of endeavors and practices. In essence, the way I have learned yoga from my teachers (back to the necessity of having a lineage) is that Yoga means “to yoke,” to yoke ourselves to the healing/unifying elements present in ourselves and present in the natural world of which we are part. Ultimately bringing ourselves into greater alignment (which means different things for different people depending on our karmas and constitutions).

Yoga is an action, it is the effort required to heal the psycho-spiritual split that occurs when we signed up to transform in this lifetime as a human being. Yoga is a path toward maturation. Yoga is a continual stepping into the current of Grace. Yoga is union with Divine Nature.

Energy Management and Personal Power

One of the themes I keep coming up in my life, and especially in my role as a yoga teacher, is that of learning about energy management and personal power (which I might say are similar in nature). “Energy” as it pertains to healing and the body and “power” as vitality, attention and intention. Let me explain.

When I was in massage school, learning to become a massage therapist, our student clinic was booked solid with people requesting a massage from me. I worked so hard I made myself sick and eventually dropped out of school never to finish. However, the lesson I learned is that most people were coming to me to “fix” them, which I could not do, nor did I want to be in this kind of experience with them. 

I was very clear within myself that my role was to co-create a healing experience with my clients and students. 

What I love about teaching yoga is the fact that even if I wanted to I can’t “do” anyone else’s yoga for them. There is a more clear delineation of co-creativity. 1.As a student I know I need teachers to help me learn. 2.I am the only one who can do the work of healing myself. Teachers can help yet they cannot do it for me.

Abhyanga is a Sanskrit word for self-massage. It is the act of applying oil (which is food) to the largest organ of the body (the skin) for the purpose of greater intelligence and connectivity of the whole organism of the human body. In every culture there is a form of “laying on of hands” which implies an act of concentrated attention, with bodies, engaged in a shared experience of moving energy toward harmony and healing, seeking homeostasis and balance. 

In yoga we get to talk about taking personal responsibility for our own healing and at the same time we need guides along the way. This is clear. (I hope.) Teachers need students and students need teachers. The quest then becomes to cultivate discernment on the path of yoga (life) with awareness, knowing that we need teachers and not giving away our pawer to the “other” naively believing that the “other” with save us, fix, us, heal us, essentially will do our work for us. This is true of our relationships too. My teacher, Lee, used to chide his students for giving away their power to “the health food movement.” It’s a good lesson in inquiring where and how we give our power away.

Don’t worry, that’s the beautify of being human—learning where we are stuck or off our center and returning, forever making the journey of remembering ourselves and returning to center. Forgetting and remembering is the human condition.

How can we empower one another to become “healthy individuals,” as my husband Jesse put it, AND co-create with one another on our own path through healing, toward freedom with the foundational context that we are all whole, complete, and perfect already. 

Teachers do not have all the answers. Teachers, doctors, nurses, parents, massage therapists, scientists are all people. They have studied one area and they are learning to become experts. We are learning to become experts. Your yoga teacher, your spiritual teacher, your mentor, your shaman, do not have all the answers. What a good teacher does is turn us back on ourselves so that we can live our questions, come the answers and animate them in our lives. Good teachers are guides who motion us back toward our highest, deepest Selves. 

Whoot! Cheers to doing the work it takes to BE human!

If you’ve ever felt like “quitting” yoga…

“I want to take a few weeks off from yoga,” she told me, “it’s getting too hard and I leave each class hating myself and hating yoga.”

I looked at her tenderly and replied simply, “Please keep coming to class.”

Here’s what I said to her, more or less. In case you too, have ever felt like you want to “quit yoga.” I see you, you are not alone.

Yoga asana is hard work because we’re literally putting or body into shapes that ask us to use our physical capacity in new and different ways. We’re learning a new skill and we’re learning how to pay attention. We’re growing our respiratory system to be able to breathe more deeply. We’re aligning our bones for more optimal alignment. We’re using our physically body to access deeper layers of our being and bringing awareness into areas of our body that, for most of us, go unnoticed for our entire lives. We’re building our physical and psychology capacity to withstand higher charges of energy. We’re strengthening the muscles of our physical body and the muscles of our discriminating wisdom.

When yoga “get’s too hard” yes, it might mean that we need to take a break. Yet it also might mean we’re expecting too much of ourselves too soon.

As one of my yoga teachers, Christina Sell, said to me once, “Don’t let yoga ruin your life.” What I believe she meant by that is, Don’t let yoga get in the way of enjoying your life. Don’t let yoga add to your self-hatred narrative. Don’t let yoga be another reason to be sharp with yourself.

Yoga is hard work, it’s challenging by nature because it’s designed to bring stuff up. The purpose of yoga is to turn us toward ourselves and it’s up to us to cultivate the attitude loving-kindness first. Asana means “seat” but it also means “attitude.” What is the posture or attitude you take toward yourself? When we can meet our challenges face-to-face or even sideways, we learn that there’s no way through but to go through. Doing hard things is part of living. As my yoga teacher, Bhavani Maki, likes to say, “How we do one thing is how we do everything.”

Therefore, if my habitual tendency is to just go to bed when life gets hard it might be a useful experiment for me to try to stay awake, to sit, to wait, and to breathe. On the other side of the same coin of practice, if my tendency is to push harder when I’m faced with obstacles, then it might be more useful for me to approach with a little more humility and curiosity.

Like yoga, like life, there is not one “right” answer for everyone. It is an experiential education. Whatever way we engage the path and practice of yoga, one thing is important to remember that “quitting” is optional. Trust your inner knowing and it yoga is “getting too hard” perhaps it’s time for a different approach. In my experience if you really want it, it will never leave you alone if you do take a break. Yoga is always with you for “the practice of yoga and the experience of yoga are one in the same.” –Bhavani Maki, The Yogi’s Roadmap

Much of yoga teaches us how we sit with discomfort— do we wince or fidget? Do we muscle through? Do we immediately adjust and make ourselves for comfortable? Do we breath and know we will be through it soon and we won’t die?

I have gone through periods of time “shoulding” on myself for not doing yoga, berating myself because I couldn’t do the poses the way I thought I “should” be doing them. Yoga is challenging physically. The discipline works muscles I often didn’t even know I had. However, when I am able to hold myself tenderly and realize that I am learning new ways of being in relationship with myself and with the world, and when I can remember to entrust myself to the process of being peeled back by the teachings of yoga, I am able to discover and enjoy the delicate work of finding the ever-elusive balance between effort and surrender.

Thank you.

And please keep coming to class. Let us together find a new way of being connected to the life force within.

Be Kind

Mostly I’ve been drinking a lot of tea…

…and reading, writing, taking long walks, making jewelry, having long phone conversations with friends near and far, drawing, doodling, making collages, planting things, and doing a lot of cooking.

The past six months have been useful. I have started teaching yoga online which has enabled be to gain stronger footing as a yoga teacher and helped me learn and grow. Teaching online was uncomfortable at first because I did not get instant response/feedback from my students but what I did get was instant feedback about my teaching because I could literally watch myself teach. That has been very useful.

I have found a place to teach yoga in Prescott at The Yoga Prescott. Class size is still limited but I know each student who will each class (pre-registration required) and each student is there because they know what I teach and how I teach and they have elected to study with me. This is a teacher’s dream come true because there are no walk-ins, no wild-cards, no starting from scratch. In short, we can go deep, every time.

I have been listening to Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad and it is waking me up and making me thankful to be alive. For the first time in my entire life I feel like there is a reason to live. For a few years (decades?) I felt myself slipping into the status quo of “Humans are the problem,” and “we’re all going to hell in a hand-basket.” With the work set out for me in Layla’s book, I feel like there is work worth living for.

Layla F. Saad tells us in her book, “What you will need to do this work: your truth, your love, your commitment.” As my mentor Red Hawk says, “Tell the truth about yourself no matter how bad is makes you look.” And, just like yoga, “If you stay at the surface what you get out of this work will be surface level.” If you go deep, you will transform. Just like life. “This work is designed for you because you believe every human being deserves dignity… it means you do this work because you want to become a good ancestor… this work is hard, there is no way to sugar-coat it… What keeps me going is my commitment to truth, love, and being a good ancestor.”

Being a good ancestor means living based one what I know. Living within my means and remembering what really matters. That the internet is a point for connection but it’s not the real thing (or a replacement for the real thing). That gathering and community are essential for human beings to thrive and the pace of life that is dictated to many of us as “the way is should be” actually doesn’t work for me and that I am allowed to live life in a way that works for me—slowly, with intention. It means that there’s not one “right” way to do life, yoga, relationships, art, connecting, loving, playing, being, beginnings or endings. Each person is unique and we are united in the fact that we are all different. Being a good ancestor means doing the work even if I will never life to see what happens next.

And, above all else, be kind.

Everything Has One Place

14 Things I Learned from Yoga, Business School and Ayurveda

A quick distinction between “yoga” and “yoga asana.” When I use the word “yoga” I am referring the the broad, over-arching word that encompasses the body, intellect, and spiritual nature of all living beings on their journey toward wholeness, fullness, and love for oneself, others, and the planet. When I use the word “asana” or “yoga asana” I mean simply the physical practice of putting the body into various shapes and breathing.

Yoga has been in my life since I was a child. I was raised in a yoga tradition and I grew singing songs in Sanskrit and learning about the classical Indian epics of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana in my homeschool program. The first time I went to India in 2011 it felt like going home.

In business school I learned to be efficient and effective with my time. Time=Money and money is energy. My A-type personality really likes that fact that numbers don’t lie and sometimes it can get a little too rigid and dogmatic when I’m “All business and no play.” I’m learning to have more fun. As my husband like to remind me, “Life is too short, Shinay.” Nevertheless, the principles of energy management are useful in their essence (true form).

My studies in Ayurveda have helped me remember that I am part of the much bigger whole. The already-present cycles happening in the universe (e.g. the phases of the seasons and the coursing of the planets) are emulated within my personal energy field and within my own physical body. The study of Ayurveda takes a lifetime, but the implementation of it’s basic principles doesn’t require that I have a ph.D.

I’m still learning about Yoga, Business, and Ayurveda. I give my attention to all three because I want to continue to learn how to be in loving relationships with people, energy, money, time, and myself.

Here are the things I’ve learned so far.

These are the things I do every day no matter where I am on planet Earth, regardless of how I “feel” about them (myself, or the situation I’m in). These are practices that get more easeful the more I do them. The bottom line is, I do these things because they make me feel better. And I like to feel good.

I’m not selling you anything. I’m not seeking approval or agreement, or trying to convert you into “my way will work for everyone.” I’m sharing with you what I’ve learned (and what I continue to learn) because I wish someone had told me sooner.

Maybe something will also work for you today!

Yoga is teaching me about limitations and freedom:

  1. Two minutes every day. “Practice makes practice,” as Darren Rhodes says. The details of yoga mirror the details of life. And as one of my teachers said, “God is in the details,” and “Don’t sweat the big stuff.” What I do every day is my life. Small practices done every day outweigh the grand gestures made once a century. Do something everyday to further your journey and your Yoga.
  2. I’m learning there’s not one “right way” to do yoga or life. And there’s no such thing as “perfect.” The asana (shapes) are only part of the yoga practice for me. Yoga is about BEing in life, and learning to live based on what I know. It took a long time to learn this and I believe I’ll keep learning this lesson many, many times throughout this life.
  3. As Dr. Pat Allen says, “Beware your thoughts for they become words. Beware your words for they become habits. Beware your habits for they become your character. Beware your character for it becomes your destiny.” She takes her teachings from the I-Ching: Book of Changes, and the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali.
  4. Make yoga applicable to every-day life. The teachings of yoga through the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali are teaching me about discriminating wisdom—standing in my skin, on my path. Yoga is living in me to the degree to which I am able to live the teachings of yoga.

Business School taught me that time is energy:

  1. Everything has one place. From scrap paper, to books, to shoes, to the garden hose, to yoga props. When I put things in “their” place, cleaning up is easy and I spend less time looking for things I misplaced. I’m still on the learning curve of this because every time Jesse move I have, we have to renegotiate where things will live in our house. Think of it as the “Optimal Blueprint for Things.”
  2. Architect your space. You get to decide how you want to use the space you live in. What I mean by this is: Because I want to do yoga asana every day, I refuse every time my mother offers to buy me another piece of furniture or a “real couch.” In order to keep our living room open and clear so that Jesse and I can dance, do yoga, lie on the floor, whatever. Space is spaciousness. By design, we intentionally have kept our furniture to a minimum. If there is not enough space to dance in my house, then dancing is less likely to happen. Create YOUR space with YOUR intention.
  3. Check e-mail twice a day (respond to email twice a week). Once at 12PM and once at 4PM, respond accordingly. This helps me not be a slave to the “ping” of new messages and helps educate (and give permission) to my people that I do not live “on call” (or online) and this is helping us all remember that life happens more profoundly when we’re not plugged into the World Wide Web.
  4. Sleep hygiene. Turn off all mobile devices at night. (And then back on at 7 or 8 AM.) Do your research. Harvard Health, WebMD, Sleep Foundation, NYTimes.
  5. Turn off all notifications on your devices. Computers and technological devices have their own, specific use. Technology is great for communication when two people are not in the same room. NOTE: When you’re with other humans in the flesh, practice having real conversation and just being together. Leave devices in the car, purse, or better yet, at home. Don’t put your device on the table when with friends, on a date, or at your parent’s house. On weekends I don’t usually answer my phone at all. Some days I turn it off and leave it off all day. Also, it’s okay to ask your friends to put their phones away if you’re meeting them for a coffee. I’ve done this and it’s awkward at first but gets easier the more I practice.
  6. Clear your email inbox. This took me two years to complete but it was SO WORTH IT. I can’t tell you how easeful it is for me to check my email now. I don’t get overwhelmed, I don’t dread email, and it takes me less than 20 minutes (usually) to respond to all new emails. Here’s how to start: 1.) Make folders and file, i.e. “Taxes 2020” or “Recipes” or “Yoga” or “NY Times” and when an email comes in that fits into it’s specific category, file it, otherwise trash it. 2.) Unsubscribe from all newsletters and promotions that you don’t want, it take 20 extra seconds, find it at the bottom of each email. This is key! 3.) Delete all the rest. Once you’ve made your folders and are doing the work of painstakingly deleting all unwanted messages, you’re well on your way. If you’re not sure whether to keep it or trash it, make a folder and go back to it. (Chances are you will never look at that email again and can delete it in a year from now.) Make as many folders as you need with people’s names on them. If you want to hang onto their letters, fine, just move it OUT of your inbox.

Ayurveda is teachings me about the cycles of Great Nature:

Ayurveda means “the science of every day living.” This is how I learned how to heal my digestion.

  1. How I start my day matters. Waking up is easy for me. I usually jump out of bed and am ready to go, so lately I’m practicing waking up slowly, savoring the transition between being asleep and being awake. I learned this phrase from one of my teachers, “Don’t worry, don’t hurry, don’t rush.”
  2. Scrape tongue to remove residue. I do this second thing every morning. This is not a myth or woo-woo health fad. It actually works to decongest the lymph system and, in Chinese medicine, we see what’s going on inside our bodies by looking at the tongue.
  3. Drink water to eliminate fully. This is literally the third thing I do every morning. This step saved my digestion and helps me feel clear all day long. When I’m able to drink enough water to eliminate (poop and pee!) every morning I’m not walking around full of crap all day. 😉 It. Is. Amazing.
  4. Timing is everything for good digestion and jokes. The science Ayurveda says “It’s all about what we can digest,” (e.g. not only physical food but also impression food, our environment, conversations, news, etc.). Healthy digestion hinges on a good routine with waking, eating, sleeping, (and cuddling!) and is the key to over all well-being. When our daily rhythm is in accordance with the rhythm of the sun and other natural elements, we live in a simple way to clear stress-responses, inflammation and naturally reset and detoxify every day. Try a simple, daily routine of something pleasant, like a bath before bed, or letting the sun hit your face first thing when you wake up.
  5. Sneha means “sincere love,” motherly love,” and “adhesiveness.” I first learned about the use of oil on the skin when I was a teenager in high school looking for skin care products that wouldn’t exacerbate my acne. A friend told me about Dr. Houschka products. I had tried everything from intense hormone creams to urine therapy. When I was 18, I finally found something that worked—Dr. Houschka products. Their philosophy suggest putting oil on the skin instead of stripping it away. This practice changed my life. And it worked! In Ayurveda, oleation therapy is known as abhyanga in Ayurveda. It’s a simple exercise of massaging oil all over the skin to promote vitality, strengthen connective tissues, and immunological function. Since oil is food and your skin is the largest organ of your body, it’s important to think about the quality and kind of oil you’re putting on your skin. It also takes a little trial and error to figure out what works for your body. I do this every day, sometimes with just a few drops of oil. It makes all the difference in how I love my body and my skin thanks me.

Remember that the conversation is never really “finished” simply done for the time being.

Further Resources:

Banyan Botanicals, A good resource for Ayurvedic Support and Products

Bhavani Maki, Author, International Yoga Teacher Trainer

Dr. Claudia Welch, Ayurvedic and Chinese Medicine Doctor

Dr. Houschka Skin Care Products

Dr. John Douillard, Ayurvedic Doctor and Author

Dr. Svoboda on Sneha

Mount Madonna Institute

Yoga Asana Play at Home

1 door, 2 straps, and your sticky mat.

Here are some fun tools to use to upgrade your asana experience in your own home.

Hello!

What you’ll need: 2 straps (or scarves or belts) and a working door!

  • 1 + 2 Uttanasana, standing forward fold: secure the strap around your waist and fold forward.
  • 3 Adho Mukha Svanasana, downward facing dog, walk feet away from your hands and stretch forward, breath fully into your back, feel how the strap helps hold your hips. Stretch your spine.
  • 4 Parvottanasana, pyramid posture, place strap around the top of your back thigh, step your front foot forward, and fold any amount. Back toes point toward the front corner of you yoga mat.
  • 5 Uttita Trikonasana, fully stretched out triangle posture, align your back foot parallel to the back edge of your mat, position your feet 3.5 feet apart, and point your front toes forward. Pull up on your knee caps and hinge at your hips.
  • 6 Virabhadrasana II, Warrior II, loop the strap around your upper back thigh, bend into your front knee, and hold the strap for ease.
  • Standing back arch, place the strap down low on your back on your sacrum near you tailbone, bend your knees, inhale lift your chest, exhale and lean back without collapsing your back (especially your lower spine).
  • Urdhva Dhanurasna, upward facing bow pose (also known as “wheel”), this is for the advanced practitioners to help you with your “drop backs.”

Enjoy!

Hard Times Require Furious Dancing

“the world has changed: it did not change without your prayers without your faith without your determination to believe in liberation and kindness; without your dancing through the years that had no beat.” ―Alice Walker, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems

I’ve already had enough of the pandemic of 2020: The Corona Virus (COVID-19). I’ll stick to the CDC website because it helps to quell my fears. I don’t want to dwell in places that I have no business being. What I mean is that my mind is dark and murky and I could get lost in the vast array of dread, anger, doubt, and projection if I let my worry go unchecked.

A few days ago I sent this message to several friends and family: “What is one thing you know to be true, for sure, beyond time and beyond space? The replies I got where not what I expected. “I love you,” was the first response from everyone, across the board.

This astounded me. Not that I don’t know (or feel) that I am loved, I know this 100%, but because their replies were so immediate, within seconds. As my teacher said, “First thought best thought.”

I smiled and thought to myself, “How would I answer this question?” What is one thing I know to be true beyond space or time?

I know that I love people,” is the first thing that popped into my head. I love connecting and nurturing and being with people. Love is the underlying context from which the world operates. I’m sure of this truth.

So in this time of uncertainty, I practice the subtle art of not giving a fu** and I remember that from where I sit in Chino Valley, Arizona, in the middle of nowhere (almost), in the rural high deserts of the South West, I AM PRIVILEDGED.

From the dictionary: privilege | ˈpriv(ə)lij | noun: special immunity, right, advantage.

What this means to me is, “I’m white, I’m 32-years-old, I’m female, I live in America, I get to choose my profession, I don’t need to go to work tomorrow, and I can take time off.” And yet I am aware that not all of us have this advantage. 

Currently, I still have access to grocery stores (with food in them) and the outdoors. I have clean water to drink, I have clean air, I can press the button on the thermostat and I’m not in the “high risk” category for getting the virus. I can still walk outside of my own volition.

What is my responsibility as a person with “special immunity?” One approach is to stay home. That’s nice for me. Another approach, as my friend Laura has done, is to offer my services to help people in need, who have debilitating conditions and do not want to leave their houses, I could go grocery shopping for them.

From my cozy apartment in rural Arizona, I am still pondering this question of “What to do with my right to be human?”

Life goes on.

To not vote is still a vote. To not act is still an action. Hiding is an action. “Going off-grid” is an action. Staying silent is an action (often louder than words).

The tangible, fundamental things I can do are:
1. Stay alert to the CDC website

2. Make tea, drink it

3. Call friends and family

4. Write letters

5. Make art

6. Take walks outside


The only thing I can do right now is, keep the faith, do my own practices of self-education, study, stay healthy, and not freak out. I could hide away but I’m choosing to stay present to it all.

This is a wake-up call. This is a call to practice yoga off our yoga mats and engage with life AS IT IS. Real-life happens now.

What has yoga (read: “your life”) taught you over the years?

Uncertain times call forth our best and worst selves. The reality for me is that I need to continue to stay vigilant with the kinds of information I take in. Observe how I act and react to the current situation at hand.

What will I do when this is all over? Is it ever really ever “over?” Will I look back and say, “I wish I had not worried so much,” or “I could have sent more letters, went for walks, laughed more…” As I look into my lover’s eyes I know that I am loved.

You are loved.

“We were not meant to suffer so much and learn nothing.”
―Alice Walker, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems

Grace & Gratitude

Thanksgiving Day Benefit Yoga Workshop to support Stepping Stones Arizona.

The bodies and rosy faces just kept coming through the door. The weather came down rainy and cloudy. People jostled each other as they waited for us to sort out their names and cash and run their cards for donations.

I was not prepared for the sheer number of people, and neither was Cheryl. We stood behind the desk in amazement, trying to sign people in and orient our new arrivals as quickly as possible. Only afterward did we think to widen the practice space by moving the shoji screens to fit ten more people in the practice space.

Forty-five people packed into the Lotus Bloom studio, which normally holds eight to eighteen people in one class on any given day. Nine o’clock in the morning on Thanksgiving Day. “Wow, look how many people hate the holidays,” one voice said over the commotion. That comment made me smile. Or I thought people just like yoga.

As I sit here reflecting, I have no idea why people came to class that day or any day, but I do know that they were there for a reason. That morning I joked nervously, “I know you’re not all here to see me.” They humored me and laughed, I smiled and fumbled my way through a few more introductions. They beamed up at me as I found my groove and gave my sermon on Grace and Gratitude.

I might never know someone’s real reason for coming to yoga. Motives interest me less and less, but what I am interested in is helping people get where they want to be going. Asana postures (shapes) are just one way to literally put our bodies on the line. When effort is made in the gesture to know oneself fully, that is a worthy effort. Any gesture put forth on the path of yoga is seen and heard by the universe. It is said that when we take one step towards god, god takes ninety-nine steps toward us. I believe this is true.

Live The Question Part 2

Part 2

Read Part One here.

I drove East on the 160, headed toward Durango, Colorado to study with my yoga teacher, Bhavani Maki. I drove through Kayenta, and Red Mesa, listening to Adele “25” turned up loud on the car stereo. I’d never driven through that part of Arizona before, the natural landscape was exquisite and each town had its own level of poverty which was heart-breaking to witness. I had a long drive to think about the the questions I still had from the intensive training in trauma-sensitive yoga for firefighters I completed a few weeks before. Read Part One here. Some of my lingering questions included:

  • Why Yoga?
  • Why yoga for firefighters?
  • Why yog for anyone?
  • Is yoga for everyone?
  • Why does yoga work?
  • Can someone practice yoga asana and not engage any of the other lifestyle practices?
  • What does my community need?
  • Am I the best person to provide what they might need?
  • Why yoga for firefighters? (Read Part One here.)

I arrived in Durango in late afternoon. I parked at a grocery store for apples and kombucha and decided to take a walk to stretch my legs. I could hear the sound of water near the store so I wound my way down the concrete stairs from the parking lot to a bridge that crossed the Animas River. I crossed and walked in the sunlight and fresh air. The river seemed like it was filled to the brim and rushing fast. I saw a place without a railing where someone (or nature) had placed a large, flat, red rock. It was an invitation waiting for my feet. I slipped off my sandals and stepped onto the rock. The water was cold covering my toes and ankles and I welcomed the shock. I wanted to get all the way in.

The evening session with Bhavani started at 6 PM. We sat in a large circle, there were maybe 40 of us, in the high-ceilinged studio space at Yoga Durango. Bhavani said, “Yoga is the process of broadening our perspective, like the arms of a spiral.” She continued the evening’s talk by saying “Patanjali was a grammarian, a psychologist, and an ayurvedic doctor.” Bhavani spoke about yoga and trauma-sensitive yoga, and how and why of we might want to take a look at our trauma or “samskara” through the lens of yoga.

Yoga is a big word that umbrellas many facets of life and practice, but one thing became clear to me that evening: We all have our own interpretation of “yoga” and there is not one right way to look at the elephant. There’s simply our understanding from the level of understanding and life-practice we currently have.

I’ll share with you some of my notes from the first evening with my yoga teacher, Bhavani Maki, during her Friday evening session at Yoga Durango. (From June 2019.)

“It takes a really strong ego to let it go. Patanjali says that the Yoga Sutra is written in language which means they are made in gross generalities. We must take the teachings and make them our own. In order to “Evolution” we must “Involution.”

“Death, sorrow, loss, we are called to re-frame these painful adventures. Don’t avoid them because they have much to teach us. The brain is in a constant state of change. “Svarupa” means our essential self. Pathways in the brain change yet the neurons stay the same.

Yoganada said, “Hatha yoga practices are to maintain health of the brain.”

“The work with the samskara of trauma is the work of both teacher and student. Yoga is about learning about yourself, not learning about yoga.

“When we come into the now, there is yoga.

PRESENCE.

COHERENCY.

“Why are we clinging to old systems [of beliefe and though pattern] even if they are not working.

“Be careful not to over-simplify the teachings of yoga.

“When we stand in our essence we can see the essence of other people even when there are some edges and roughness. Embrace the difficult. Do something you’re not good at, open new neural pathways.

“Yoga is a process of cultivating a loving mood. Love is just another four-letter-word unless we really let it penetrate us. What aspect of your life is lopsided?

“Transcendence or Intimacy?

“Are we so controlled that we constricted?

“On the spiritual path, we will spiritually bypass. There’s no way around it. Using spiritual teachings to evade what really matters is “Blind compassion.” [Reference “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism” by Chogyam Trungpa]

“Trauma is out of the context of time, you revert to the first impulse and level of emotional response [when the trauma first occured].

“Trauma is something that happened too quickly that we cannot metabolize the experience. And it all leads to disconnect.

“Trauma is a common experience. When we talk about it, we put it out in the open. It’s part of our human experience. Use yoga asana, pranayama, and psychotherapy…. this is an important part of our integration.

“Yoga supports our physiology to reconcile our experience to feel our essential wholeness. I can desires connection. I can have an aversion to this situation. There is a place for struggle.”

“Yoga as an arrival, not an escape.

“Do we have the ability to expose our trauma and not get stuck in the old system? It takes fire, heat, and courage.

“We all love the light but few can take the ehat.

“Yoga is a process of breakthrough experience. In the Yoga Sutra, Patanjali outlines nine antaraya, or “challenges.” These “obstacles” are the work. According to the Patanjali, the nine antaraya are identified as disease, languor, doubt, escapism, laziness, worldliness, an inflated sense of achievement, backsliding, and instability. The only real obstacle is when we get stuck here.

“Freedom is when you don’t turn away from anything—full disclosure!

“What drives us is our sense of hopelessness. The cause to reach inside to find the resources.

There’s so much that could be said about each of Bhavani’s statements. I could write essays on each nugget, which I will do someday. But for now, let me sum up by saying, this talk clarified my big question of “Why Yoga?”

Let’s face it, life is about connection: living, yoga, dance, writing, relationships, meditation, spiritual practice, growing food, cooking food, nature—it’s about finding my center of gravity in this top-heavy world. Yoga is a discipline, a practice, a lens and a laboratory for the study of myself. With, humor, space, opening to Grace and a little grain of salt, I dive deeply into these questions. I continue to live the questions, because as my teacher Lee said, “Your questions will get answered through revelation. Your practice will answer your questions.”

Practice, practice, please practice.