No More

Oaxaca, Mexico

No more maneater

No more ice queen

The resurgence of the in between

No more ardent lover

No more violent hater

All the more serene

Maybe this is called authenticity

This is a surfboard unsinking

This is what it is to own energy

She’s keeping her silence now

Less and less apt to feel the need

To fill the space

No more tough girl act; defense machinations

No more external validation

Who’s really the one keeping track?

No more drama unnecessary

No more over controlling

Live and let live; give get and give

No more people pleasing

No more overly friendly

Oh the beauty of boundaries

She’s more careful these days

She’s more thankful these days

What’s hers is hers alone

No more clinging to definitions

No more unchallenging the latest version of me

Ode to finding simplicity within complexity

It’s much less sexy

When you’re no longer the life of the party

But how enchanting to know where you’re going

No more clinging to ideals

No more holding onto all that is fluid

Finding the light and love in uncertainty

Letting the universe hold me

Surrendering

Being

I Want to be a Hindu Cow, Dammit!

Perhaps it’s not experiencing every single type of hell to taste the heights of heaven for only a moment that makes life worth living.  Perhaps the answer lies within the in between spaces…

See that mellow look in that cow's eyes, that should be me doing yoga.

You’d think I’d be as clear and as calm as a Hindu cow with all the yoga I've been practicing lately, but instead here’s this anxiety riding, self-obliterating person who has been a complete asshole –mainly to herself.

The past few months have resulted in an over-stressed, over-committed, ambivalent being that has been focusing far too much on everything that’s wrong rather all that is perfect and right.

Then something happened.  I was in class trying to get into virasana pose (this pose is also an asshole), visibly getting frustrated as I moved props under my knees and still felt too much pressure.  I shifted back into baddha konasana and watched everyone else meditate in perfect virasanas.  Then judgment: I was yelling at my knees in my head then wondering how on earth is every goddamned person in this room in this pose?  It’s not like I see each of them in class week after week or day after day in the studio...

By the third pose my teacher took a moment to come up to me and look me in the eye.  She said, “I need you to practice compassion for yourself today.  I need you to be patient with yourself and be kind to yourself.”  She touched my solar plexus area before saying, “You’re beautiful.”

I kept my composure and kept nodding my head up until the “you’re beautiful” part, at which point I started crying and proceeded to cry throughout every subsequent pose in class.

In yoga they say that one goes through the process of self discovery that sometimes is not always smooth sailing.  This process is called Dukkha.

The only way out is through.

In the Heart of Yoga by T. K. V. Desikachar it says, “Someone who is searching for clarity always sees more suffering than someone who is not.  The awareness of suffering results from greater sensitivity.  The person who is not searching for clarity does not even know what brings him happiness or sorrow.”

Desikachar says that “through the insightful percept of problems and confusions we move toward clarity.”

When people wonder why I continue to practice yoga and want to teach it I say this: I’m not there yet, but I feel more like myself than I've felt in a really long time.  This clarity, while not always pretty – is worth it all to me.  This same clarity is what keeps propelling me further into living purposefully, fearlessly, transparently and BOLDLY.  I’m not afraid of myself anymore and perhaps I’m not sold on believing that I’m beautiful yet, but I’m getting there.  As my other teacher always says: slowly, slowly.

It just takes practice.

Resolution

Be less despondent

More warm-hearted

P A T I E N C E

Don’t take it personally

Be less self conscious

Make peace with the uncertainty

Let it go

Stop controlling

Write more

Talk less

Work harder

Play everyday

Dream bigger
Be fierce
Be friendly

Slowly slowly

Practice daily

Less arrogance

More acceptance

Kill the ego

Breathe deeper

Push yourself more

Rest more often

Let it go

Turn off the television

Give thanks

Pray all day

Fill up on love

Be less angry

Let yourself cry

Be strong enough

Practice mindfulness

Sink into the pose

Don’t try so hard

Let things flow

Read more books

Listen attentively

Be present

Let it go
Turn off your cell phone

Spend more time outside

Listen to your body

Respect your elders

Let them come

Be the change

Become the teacher

Set the example

Tell the truth

Show kindness

Embody compassion

Look beyond yourself

Know self sacrifice

Dig through your darkness

Embrace your weakness

Hug more people

See the good

Challenge yourself

Widen your perception

Evolve.

Preserving Authenticity: as you are in anything is as you are in everything

Aside from writing poetry and practicing yoga, I have a career I very much treasure and enjoy.

When I was younger in my career I believed everything was easily categorized and could neatly fit into a box.  If I was going to work in business I needed to BE business in the narrow-minded way I saw it to be: this rigid, cold, rule-abiding clear-cut thing.  After all, I was born in the 1980s where everything was marketed to me in a neat package since inception.

I spent years feeling conflicted because I am not clear cut.  I am a mix of everything from the indigenous blood mixing with the Spanish blood in my veins to my attempts at perfecting eagle pose before a conference call to my ideas of a fun Friday night consisting of watching Shark Tank while working on a new drawing.

I wrote a rap song once (my alterego is simultaneously an MC folk singer) and one of the lines from it goes:
...but til then I'll face the struggle of living in square boxes
too many right angles don't fit my round face
but it's packaged and it's pretty and easy to place...

For too long I felt I'd have to sacrifice my creativity and all those marvelous things that make me me in order to become this great business leader that I wanted to be.

During this time I was the epitome of ambivalence: a bohemian creative type that wanted to take over the business world.  Who did I think I was?

That's precisely the best question I could have ever asked myself.  In reading a business article on leadership I came across this quote: How you do anything is how you do everything.

Business is coming of age.  It is recognizing that we as humans, employees, consumers are not this one-sided square thing.  Our motivations stem from a number of different factors: our relationships, societal norms and a sense of purpose.

And sometimes we do headstands...

My shifting consciousness on the state of business has guided me to this simple conclusion: find out who you are and be the best you you can be.  As you are in other aspects in life, you are in business.

I lived in the middle of the New Mexican desert surrounded by wolves to learn to be comfortable with always being uncomfortable.

I traveled all over the world (and counting) to understand and embody diversity.

I practice yoga because I am the greatest resource and ally I will ever have.

I listen to others because I'm a perpetual student fortunate enough to view everyone as a teacher.

I write my life lessons down because I believe in sharing.

In business, I am all of this: the risk taker, a holistic thinker, transparent, the student, the teacher, the people person who strives for connectivity in all she does.  I'm not only my title at my company.  I am guided by purpose in all things because as I am in yoga I am in business and as I am in business I am as a friend.  How you do anything is how you do everything.

Fear, Headstands and Snuggling up to Dragons

What do I fear?  What am I so afraid of?  I tried kicking up into a headstand in the center of the room half paralyzed with this “fear” thing and half completely self-aware that everyone was watching me. 

When people think about yoga they don’t necessarily consider it a daring sport, to say the least, yet, in so many ways it’s the most daring of all because it pushes you to know your greatest ally and your biggest enemy: yourself.

I’d been going to the studio regularly for a couple of months before I picked up Ana Forrest’s book, Fierce Medicine.  Ana Forrest is a contemporary yoga teacher and founder of a specific practice called Forrest Yoga.  With combined expertise in overcoming trauma, psychology and physical therapy Forrest developed a style of yoga that is both physically and emotionally rigorous. 

Forrest Yoga is a transformative experience that pushes the practitioner into a deeper awareness and understanding of his or her own psyche in a “fiercer” way than many other styles of yoga.  Forrest pushes you to keep going the moment you’re ready to sink into Child’s Pose.  Forrest pushes you to fully experience the burning in your legs during Warrior II and not to stop until you can feel that euphoric sweet spot. 

It’s no surprise that much about this practice has to do with courage and being brave of heart, but first, back to my headstand.

I’d never done a headstand before and here I was in front of all of my fellow teacher trainees in the center of the room in one.  It felt like a long time, though I’m sure I was only in it for a few seconds.  Inversions are often the scariest poses in yoga.  They literally turn your world upside down and all of your weight is balanced on your head.  You may fear that all the delicate muscles in your neck will break or perhaps that you just carry too much weight around to begin with.  My mouth tasted bitter, not quite like the iron when you bite your tongue too hard, but metallic.  My mouth tasted like fear.

Forrest says, “We have a lot of internal responses to fear.  We push it away, we deny it, we freeze, or attack (fight or flight syndrome). But there are alternate ways to responding to fear.”  Forrest’s preferred method is to go hunting for it until she finds the root of it and instead of “slaying the dragon,” she cuddles up to it and allies with it.

This, of course, is the furthest thing from my mind.  I felt the pressure on top of my head mounting.

Step 1: identify the fear.  Aside from the obvious (death from breaking my neck), I had always feared my own body.  I remembered hiking with one of my boyfriends in the dead of winter.  We crossed a river with very thin ice and had to jump huge rocks to get to the other side.  It took him all of 3 minutes to cross, jumping confidently from rock to rock.  It took me what seemed like an hour with a lot of encouragement from him on the other side. 

“Trust yourself,” my teacher whispered.  I had stopped shaking.  “Good, good now squeeze my hand.”  She had her hand between my thighs and I began to feel that burning sensation and my core strengthening through the pose.  The weight on my head lessened.

Step 2: Turn around, hunt it, stalk it.  Forrest says, “Fear is a signal.  Be alert.  Get vigilant.  It wasn’t that long ago that other humans or predators hunted us.  This means you have to take action.  You can’t just sit and meditate your problems away; many meditators become my students because their abuse or rage doesn’t go away by meditation alone.  It does teach you how to get steady though.  So get steady and now go out hunting.”

In Forrest Yoga, it’s not enough to have awareness of a trauma that happened to you that you now feel in the tightness of your hips, no, one has to be able to chase that trauma out of one’s body.  One has to be able to not back down when you’re in a pose and suddenly your breathing is shallow but take the courageous path to breathe in deeper and keep digging and once it surfaces get cozy with it.

Step 3: Stop making decisions based on fear.  This is one I’ve taken off the mat more than others through reading this book.   Forrest says, “…when I respond from that fearful or panicky place, 99 percent of the time I end up making terrible decisions…The hero’s choice is to disobey the dictates of the fear.”

When one chooses to not obey those dictates of fear, it’s empowering.  It’s as Forrest puts it, “the brave-hearted path.”  She says, “It takes a lot of courage to explore your fear.  Courage isn’t the numbed out, flinty, Clint Eastwood-esq stoicism we’re accustomed to, but instead it’s daring to experience our feelings-even if this requires painful awakening- with discernment and intelligence.”

Step 4: Find the healing within the fear.  How does one exactly do this?  What does my fear of heights say about me?  Does it say that perhaps I fear reaching new levels of success or perhaps I fear my potential or maybe I fell from a tree when I was a child?  How will snuggling up to that fear make me a better person? 

Fear is a very powerful thing when you think about it.  When you make the choice to not make any decisions based on fear you begin to realize how much it may dictate in your life, such as whether you talked to that cute guy at the cafe or not (fear of rejection) or whether you stated exactly what you thought in a business meeting (fear of communicating your truth).  Then you dig deeper.  You realize you fear your own honesty and you fear others not validating you as a person.  Dig deeper.  Maybe you never felt worthy as a child or maybe that one time you told the truth before things went wrong.

Now, what happens when that scary dragon of unworthiness creeps into my life?  How do I shift my reaction from fear to something else, and what is that something else?  Forrest has a unique approach to this: “Once you’ve faced your dragon, your next task is to ally with it.  Don’t kill the beast, you fool, because that’s your power!  This is the archetypal hero’s quest: you’ll meet the dragons and demons and fight and fight and fight them until you finally get the treasure.  Then you’ll depart that quest   irrevocably changed, with that treasure a part of you.  Every time you stalk your fear and choose life instead of oblivion, you’ll begin to reclaim the parts of you that have been blocked off.”

Step 5: Snuggle up to your fear: maybe this means confronting headstand head on (pun intended).  Maybe I won’t be able to get into headstand on my own for a while, but I’m still trying and that’s a win.  For me, snuggling up to my fear means trying even though it’s not perfect and I have to sacrifice my autonomy on the mat to go there for the moment.  Learning to be in the moment and confronting fears like turning your world upside down might be enough of a win for today. 

“I’d believed that in order to do what I was afraid of, I had to get rid of the fear first, but that turned out to be only an idea, not the truth.  You have to do something two hundred times before the fear will disperse.  Are you still afraid of something?  Just do it again.  Do it again.  Do it again.” – Ana T. Forrest

The Mirror

I haven't been a nice person lately...to myself anyway, possibly others.

There are 8 limbs of yoga: yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi.

The yamas generally mean abstinence or restraint and the niyamas have more to do with observance.  Together the yamas and the niyamas form a sort of code of conduct for yogis, similar to the 10 commandments for Christians.

The first yama is ahimsa: non-harm or non-violence. 

Yoga is a mirror

In yoga, we attempt to bring our practice from the mat into the real world. We allow the experience on the mat to be a mirror to our experiences off the mat.  

Ahimsa is not harming your own body for the sake of perfecting a pose i.e. not pushing your knee when it’s in pain.  Yet, as with everything in yoga, it’s much more than the physical practice of not being violent.  As powerful beings we are able to cause much harm by our words i.e. bullying.  Even our thoughts can cause pain and violence, especially to ourselves.

In yoga we always start right from where we are.  Ahimsa teaches that even right now, from where I am sitting in my chair writing this I can choose to practice or not practice ahimsa.    If I slouch I am harming my future self.  Taking it a step further I could choose the way of ahimsa by having compassion for myself, not judging my failures and treating myself with kindness especially in my thoughts.  When I compare myself to others it harms me.  When I am critical of others it is also self-harming – it is but a mirror to how I think of myself. 

When we are trying to change habits, like learning not to slouch or think violent thoughts about ourselves it is helpful to remember that each moment is one we've never lived before.  Right now is a fresh moment to start practicing.  

Ahimsa is important because we must have compassion for ourselves before we are able to have compassion for others.  The same goes for ahimsa, if you can’t practice ahimsa in relation to yourself, you cannot practice it off the mat or in relation to others.  

Don't we all want to be a little kinder and nicer, starting today?

Mastering Me

"If you want to learn something, read about it. If you want to understand something, write about it. If you want to master something, teach it.” 

– Yogi Bhajan

 “I practice [yoga] to deal with my own bullshit so that nobody else has to.”
 – Callie Munson, yoga instructor

Callie’s words resonated with me as I walked out of class last night.  In less than two weeks I start my yoga teacher training.  Much has been written about the benefits of yoga such as the meditative aspects to reduce stress or the physical fitness obtained from regular practice.  I come to yoga for those benefits too, but they aren’t what drive me to practice.

I keep coming back to the mat because I learn something new every time I’m on it.  I consider it a self study both physically and emotionally.  In the best of states, I am the quiet observer of my mind during a challenging pose; witnessing my thought processes as I struggle to hold a pose.  Am I kind to myself?  Am I playing a tape on loop that’s unkind to my body?  Am I a perfectionist?  Am I settling for less than the best? As I breathe deeper into the pose I ask myself: why?  Why am I unkind? Why am I rushing through the moment?  Why am I not fully present?  Why am I not giving myself this moment to be the best version of me through the struggle and the challenge?

My practice builds character.  It allows me a glimpse into my inner psyche so that I am armed with the knowledge to be a better person.  I practice to become a noble woman; one who takes responsibility for herself fully so that my issues don’t become someone else’s.  I practice to honor my divinity so to witness everyone else’s divinity with graciousness and humility.

Yoga challenges me to be accountable.  It pushes me to work harder to get past my ego.  It teaches me how to maintain tranquility in moments of calamity.  It shows me how to be grateful for the small things: your leg lifting a centimeter higher than it did the week before, holding the pose for eight breaths instead of six, or that cool breeze hitting your face as your sweat hits the mat.

My practice reminds me that my personal success doesn’t have to be measured in milestones, but rather in the day to day; like giving my lunch to the man I saw digging through the trash or not playing that same soundtrack in my head when things go wrong that is wrought with guilt and violence towards myself. 

I practice to have mastery over myself.

Namaste 

Exploring the Dark Side

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.” 
― Hermann Hesse, Demian

I often think of this quote whenever I have a jarring encounter with someone.  I think of it when I get annoyed about something or during those moments where I look at someone and my inner critic comes out.  My darkness; my enemy, exists within me.  It’s a good lesson and one I’ve recently been encountering on the mat.

Often times yoga teachers say that when you don’t like a pose, you should figure out why – what does that pose bring up for you? What stored up memories, energy or junk is stored there?  Are you ready to let it go?  What sorts of thoughts go through your mind when you’re in the pose?  Why is this uncomfortable?  Why are you angry?  Where is the compassion for yourself?  Why aren’t you surrendering to the experience?

In general, when you have a strong reaction to something it has to do with you.  As Hesse writes, “what isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”

So next time you’re in a difficult pose, frustrated by someone else or angry about something in someone’s personality, perhaps the lesson lies in looking inward. 

I borrowed this image from here.

I know, much easier said than done, but most things worth doing are.

The Chicago Project: Validation and Humility

This past weekend I went to King’s Spa with some girlfriends of mine.  King’s Spa is a Korean spa so for the first part of the experience you get completely nude in a room full of other women to enjoy a steam room, showers and hot tubs.

King's Spa 

My girlfriends came up naked and we all looked at each other for a moment before one friend said: look at us; we’re beautiful.  We – as a whole – not based on this superficial notion of beauty but based on our willingness to share this experience with each other.

That set the tone: validation.

My friend has this tattoo on her arm: it says: do not seek outside of yourself in Latin.  I pondered this as an array of different bodies walked past me.  Body-positive experiences are something I’ve been intentional about having lately starting with the naked bike ride and taking my next steps with my yoga practice.

Throughout the evening I pondered the notion of validation within our society and seeking it from external factors.  I’m very guilty of this – as we all are.  I seek validation from the men I keep in my back pocket to make me feel attractive or the books I read to prove my intellectual prowess and the social circles I maintain to show some sort of status. Still, I keep coming to the same conclusion:  when you lose the ego you feel no need to be validated by others.

Humility is honest; it’s vulnerable and damn it, it’s scary.  It’s sitting naked in a hot tub and feeling at peace.  It’s telling the truth even when it hurts you to do so.  It’s smiling at a stranger on the street with no expectation of receiving a smile or recognition in return.  It’s walking into a room with quiet confidence knowing you have nothing to prove. 

It’s also very hard work as we fight against our conditioning in this society.  The ego likes to keep one safe.  The ego keeps my sunglasses on as I follow the beat of my heels hitting pavement attuned to my ipod making no human connections walking down my street.  The genuine me, however, wants to be honest, vulnerable and notice how lonely everyone really is and say, it’s okay, look at us; we’re beautiful.

Taking the Leap: Leap Year 2012

“People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything alive holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition.  We know little, but that we must hold to what is difficult in a certainty that will not forsake us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.”

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Full excerpt here.

I’ve been meditating on Rilke’s words a lot.  People do have a tendency towards the easiest path.  We tend to like what we are good at and build up those strengths while neglecting our weaker skills and compensating with our strengths because it’s easy.

Crow Pose

I’m horrible at yoga.  (I know, I know, how can anyone be horrible at yoga?  It’s the most noncompetitive form of physical activity in existence, but I am!)  I’m awkward and completely lack the grace that most yoginis have when flowing into poses.  Sometimes I still confuse my left with my right, I fall out of balance and my crow has repeatedly kissed the earth and not in a good way.

So, clearly, I should become a yoga teacher, right?!  Totally!

I can never just wade into the water and gradually go in; I’ve got to dive in each time.  As such, I just handed in my expensive nonrefundable deposit this past week towards a yoga teacher training certification program – equivalent to getting a Bachelor’s in Yoga and now there is no going back.

Back in February, I thought about how 2012 is a Leap Year and then I stumbled upon this Leap Year project site and wanted something to contribute.  I think this is it.  My training begins this September and goes until my 29^th birthday in February.  I’ve done some pretty wild things in my life from living with wolves to fasting for 40 days to being a full time solo wanderer unsure of where I’d lay my head the next night, but I have to say I think this is the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I’ve never been much of an athlete and my relationship with my body, though it has evolved thanks to my yoga practice, has been a tumultuous one.  Committing myself to teaching a physical practice to others is incredibly intimidating and scary, yet I absolutely feel it is the next step in my own personal evolution.

I’m diving into the difficult, wrapping myself around my weaknesses and hoping to come out of this a better human, or in the least, knowing my right from my left.

Hot Button Issue: Unbottoning Down

My yoga teacher that evening was a thin muscular guy with grayish black hair and this fierce vitality that is both incredibly compelling and abrasive all at once. He’s the type of guy that swears in the middle of class so that all the serious yogis can let go of their “good/evil” references.  He can be really annoying when he’s telling you to get into these impossible contortions while maintaining complete awareness of your breath, tailbone, toes and fingertips all at once.  He goes out of his way to mimic the chatter in your mind during your practice, if only to point it out to you.

I had heard of those tricksters that come into your life to test you; the ones that will bring out your demons and push all of your buttons so that you recognize the buttons you have. 

“We cannot always control what happens to us, but we CAN control how we react.  That’s yoga; understanding your reactions and learning to control them.  It’s a discipline.”

I wasn’t controlling it. I was angry.  Didn’t he understand how impossible his commands were?  We were in yoga class, not some sort of military drill.  How do you remember to track your breath, toes, bhandas and alignment in four breaths?  Who does he think we are? 

“Now you’re going to shift all of your weight onto your left foot.  Keep those toes lifted! Push your right leg up towards the sky behind you and stack your hips.”  I struggled to find my balance and he came up behind me to pull my right leg back into alignment – at his touch I collapsed.  We tried again, and once again I collapsed. 

“Trust me; you’ve got to trust me!” he said in a not so gentle tone.   “One more time; you can do this.”  I did it for a few seconds before he walked away and said “just do your best.”

Button #1: Trust.  That’s a loaded word right there.  I’m barely learning to trust my own body to get into these poses, much less some guy adjusting me in yoga class. 

You’d be amazed at the things that run past your mind when you’re trying your hardest not to hold onto anything that comes into your mind.  Here I am in a balance pose remembering the day my body betrayed me.

I was in the fourth grade and had quite the audience awaiting my performance in my front yard.  The audience included my family and some of the older neighborhood boys.  I needed to prove myself.  I got into position: front foot perpendicular to my back foot; arms raised as I wind-milled my arms to the ground into a cartwheel.  The next thing I know, I’m in the car with my parents on the way to the hospital.

“I want the hot pink one,” I said to the nurse. There’s nothing like rocking a hot pink cast with all your boring outfits.  My right arm had suffered a sprain as I had put too much weight on it.

Back on the mat: I remember this now – the feeling of my body betraying me.  I was supposed to impress all of my friends with my amazing cartwheel and instead I collected signatures on my arm for six weeks.  Oh the humiliation!

My friend had a pin the other night that said “button free.”  I asked her what it meant.  She said that when she works with youth teaching them yoga or breath-work she teaches them to be “button free;” meaning having an awareness of their buttons so not to allow anyone else to push them.  

Damn good class (the swearing is to throw off all of the yogis).

The Yoga Project: Calming the Monkey Mind

I was going strong having done yoga for 13 days straight but I was going crazy.  I hadn’t been able to see my boyfriend or friends for more than a week (and I live alone – so when I say going crazy, I mean it literally – all work and no play make Jen Jen cray cray).  I was getting home at 10 each night and leaving by 7:30 a.m.  I felt exhausted.

It dawned on me that the point of yoga isn’t to drain your vitality but rather to replenish it.  In conclusion, I’m planning on doing yoga as much as I can without burning out or losing the point of this exercise which was to integrate more yoga in my life and develop a regular practice.  That being said, I’m planning on practicing at least five times a week or so.

Now that the technicalities are out of the way, let’s get to what it’s been like on the mat for the past couple of weeks. 

I’m learning and relearning so many things like what it is to really breathe or how to sit up straight to remembering promises I made to myself as a child that are no longer useful to me.  Engaging in a yoga practice so aggressively (bet you never thought you’d hear yoga and aggressive in the same sentence, huh?) is no joke.  There are days where I just can’t get with it – the teacher says left and I go right, my downward dog looks like a pathetic panting puppy and I’m not feeling so zen towards my instructor. 

Then there are other days where practice seems to flow so gracefully.  I do a pose I’ve never been able to do before.  My breathing stays consistent with my movement and shivasana (corpse pose) feels as though I’ve entered into a magical realm between dreamscapes and reality while conscious.

Last night, I would not allow myself to enjoy my yoga class for whatever reason.  I was having a really off night.  During these off nights I feel as though I learn the most about myself and my old thought processes and patterns.  For instance, you decide you’re good at hip openers but bad at core work so you avoid the core work and at some point you realize that you are deciding it all and not allowing yourself to be open to the experience.  Instead of opening up, you then become your mother’s voice in your head telling yourself that everything you do sucks and that of course you’ll never get into the poses that the tiny girls right next to you get into and of course you’ll never be strong enough to sink that knee fully into Warrior pose then you REMEMBER.  You remember that you’re in control, and that you love yourself and your body and are thankful it can take your knees halfway in warrior and that you can get into that one bind that you couldn’t do last week. 

Yoga reminds me of Aztec danza – for every step to the right there is a step to the left and they call themselves warriors, not because they participate in bloodshed, but because they battle themselves in the danza.  I often feel as though I am battling my mind on the mat and I wonder: which half will win tonight?  The overly critical dark half that leaves me wounded and crying or the compassionate light half that allows me to feel the joy within my body and accepts me always as I am.

More to come on my yoga journey.

Namaste

The Yoga Project: The Beginning of my Destruction (Day 4)

Something happened to me in class tonight.  Yoga happened.  (dun dun dun – insert melodramatic orchestra here).

I left class crying and feeling defeated.  It will take more than a simple blog-post to fully comprehend what is happening to me.  I believe it's transformation.

The word “transformation” seems to be this ethereal new age term that cannot be explained in a pragmatic manner.  That is precisely how I feel about my strong emotional reaction to a physical practice.  Yoga is hard, much more difficult than many things that I’ve done and emotionally, I’ve barely scratched the surface.

There is a saying about destruction being necessary in order to rebuild (rebirth).  I believe I’m currently in the destructive phase right now.  I can only hope the plans I lay out after this phase are better than what I am currently in the process of destroying.

Through this I am realizing what yoga really is.  It is a challenging practice.  It is rigorous for your mind and body.  Yoga is a mindset, it is not a destination, it is not a competition, and it is far more than I understand right now.  It is powerful.

There’s something to be said about finding your breath through the discomfort of this process and being able to hold the pose.  I feel as though I am going to be here for a while. 

The Yoga Project: Day 2

My whole body hurts.  Yes it’s only been two days of yoga but there are these muscles that I didn’t even know that I had that are hurting me.

Other than that, nothing is that challenging for the first 2 days (unless you’re fasting, in which the first few days are by far the worst).  Classes, although not easy, have gone by quickly.

I did want to acknowledge one thing.  Last night when I got back from yoga class, I had a TON of energy.  Finding myself quite listless and distracted, I had to coax myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

At this point, I’ll go into my general background with yoga.  I started practicing yoga in 2007 and I took classes once a week for about a year.  That is the most consistently I’ve ever practiced.  Since then it’s been a class here and there but nothing completely regular for more than a couple of months.  One of my biggest hopes is to reestablish yoga as a routine in my life.

In later posts, I’ll go into the philosophy of yoga and the small nuggets of wisdom extracted from each class.  I’ll leave you with one here: last night my yoga teacher began to share his appreciation for many Republican presidential candidates.  Many yoginis began to groan in distaste (and perhaps because he was talking while we were holding a challenging position) and then he said something interesting.  He asked us to notice how easily our minds became irritated.  Then he said something completely radical: if we dislike someone else’s politics then we are not truly doing yoga. 

Something to contemplate, I suppose. 

Namaste!

The Year of the Dragon and the Yoga Project

2012 is the year of the Dragon.  I consider this good luck if only because I’m dating a Dragon.  I mean, a human born in the year of the dragon and not an actual dragon because that would be strange and possibly delusional but I digress.

I’d like to take a moment to do something that I feel I don’t do nearly enough which is allow myself some pride in my accomplishments of 2011.

As I began 2011 I was in a very different place than I am now.  I was very depressed, uncertain about my path and full of self doubt.  My health suffered as a result.  The year proved to be challenging and transformative. 

This year I found myself again after having lost myself.  I completed the extremely challenging goal of fasting for 40 days which required tremendous discipline and self control.  I regained my confidence.  I helped nonprofit organizations raise thousands of dollars for causes near and dear to my heart.  I backpacked through southern Mexico, had some great family time in California, lost forty pounds, started a new job, grew up a little bit more, became more honest to myself and finally, I found love again.

Despite these great strides I’ve made in the span of only one year, I understand that I am merely a work in progress. To reach one’s potential, one must never be fooled into thinking that she is done learning all she can learn.  I gained more from fasting for forty days then I’ve been able to convey here.  Benefits have included a healthier diet, emotional clarity and much self confidence. If I can do that through challenging myself to a consistent behavior for a period of time, what else can I do?   This has brought a new challenge to the forefront.

Having complete control over my body was great during fasting, I now desire more control over my mind.  I’ve decided to commit myself for the next 30 days to a daily yoga practice.  I plan on documenting my experience through this blog.

The reasons I’ve chosen yoga are trifold:

1. The challenge: It will be hard.  The purpose of challenging yourself is to actually do something difficult. Sadly, I've never done ANY exercise consistently for 30 days.  This will be demanding on my body, mind and schedule.
2. Nourishment of self as habit: daily yoga allows me the opportunity to pursue nourishment for my body, soul and mind.  Yoga is a rigorous practice that demands meditation, movement and time.  Making time for myself in this way is a constant statement in my psyche telling me that I’m worth it.
3. The benefits: I’m only human and that vegan chocolate cake I baked for New Year’s was fantastic!  My hope is that I become stronger, gain more energy,  lose some pounds, gain more clarity and maintain a regular practice when I am done.

For the next 30 days I will:

• Attend a yoga class DAILY (classes are generally 1.5 hours each)
• Blog about my experience on a regular basis
• Neglect my family and friends for yoga (sorry guys, but this is likely)

Happy New Year and Namaste!