What is Yoga Asana and what is Cirque Du Solieil?

  Yoga is an internal practice, all else is a circus

Pattabhi Jois

     The year was 1994 when one of my massage clients asked about doing a little "yoghurt" with me. She said she needed to stretch. And although my yoga practice was still my own I was willing to show her what I knew because I knew enough to know that yoga wasn't a delicious dairy product. Hey, it was a beginning. Fast forward twenty years and I still know that yoga isn't yoghurt, but even with consistent study, practice and teaching of yoga it still seems a nebulous topic. The more you learn about yoga the more you know you don't know much. If you ask twenty yogis what yoga is you will get twenty answers. In the west it has taken on the form of pure exercise for many and that's ok. But yoga is such a deep topic I thought it might be helpful to flesh it out a bit. The word yoga means to yoke, as in to tie or tether together. Imagine two oxen plowing a field and the device on their shoulders keeping them in sync is the yoke. Only in yoga what we are yoking is body & mind. I think if you have 100 people there are 100 varations on this yoking, which is why I do a lot more privates and yoga therapy sessions these days because a one on one teaching is the only way to get specific for an individuals yoking. But let's get to the commonalities that we should all experience in practice. And for the sake of clarity when I say practice in this context I mean asana, or the physical practice. But let's also remember that of the 8 limbs of yoga asana is only one.

     So, what is the difference between asana and shape making anyways? First, for a position you are taking to be considered yoga asana both the spine and the breath must be unrestricted. So in a posture is it helpful to make micro movements of the spine in all six directions that it moves. (Forward fold, backbend, side bends, and twists). If your spinal movement is not accessible in all six directions then you should back off into a smaller version of the posture. Then check in with your breath. Remember we breath 360 degrees into our torso, not just into the front body. So for instance if you are in a side bend, check the side that is compressed to see if you can still breath there. If not, again back off to make it yoga by unrestricting the breath.

     Secondly for a shape to be considered asana we must balance the action of our muscles with the softening of our shape. We must find a right amount of effort with awareness of our foundation and a vibrant core, but equally important is that we find a certain amount of ease, or letting go. The ease is generally found in our perimeter, our jaw, our skin. It is not more important to apply effort than it is to find ease, but rather like wings of a bird we need them both to fly. So, find your Goldilocks posture: not too hard and not too soft.

     And, finally, yoga asana is defined by continually bringing the wandering mind back to the breath as it moves through our bodies. it is not defined by staying present which is nearly impossible, but by returning to presence again and again. In the body mind conversation that yoga is, breath is the middleman. So keep observing the breath and every time you notice your mind has wandered, congratulations you are back. It is best to just simply welcome yourself back.

     This most basic practice of yoga, checking in with your spine and breath and balancing your effort and ease and being present can be done on the mat, on the sofa, in the grocery store and in conversation. it is especially useful in uncomfortable conversations and situations. Take a few moments out to stealthily practice a little yoga in your off the mat life and see what happens. It may just make a yogi out of you yet.

The Art of Breaking

   Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Romans 12:1

  I am learning not to "should on myself" because it usually results in some kind of crap. Like my last blog post, which was the result of my thinking I should do so many blog posts a month I should have something interesting to say, I should, I should, I should. And the result was a completely mediocre post. That is the first reason I have not blogged in two months, the second is a little more complicated so let me take you back to the beginning ...

    With a very shaky and trepidatious hand I wrote in the back of my first bible "God will not use you until He breaks you". The year was 1995 when I wrote that without much thought, I do remember feeling a slight shiver at the prospect of being broken, but I quickly forgot that ominous prophecy and got on with my life. I began teaching yoga and Tim and I moved back to Austin and I opened my studio. Opening Quiet was a Spirit led surprise that I neither planned nor expected, and after a lifetime of professional success, I was in no way prepared for the hardest 2 years of my life. Build it and they will come, they say. Follow your heart and you will soar they say. "Crap" I say. I felt like a jilted prom queen with no one showing up for my classes. I stoked the fires of envy looking through FaceBook posts of huge yoga classes going on down the street from me. I cried and I hated it. When new clients showed up I smelled scared and sad and so no surprise only a few returned. I was living in a pressure cooker of self pity and fear. Nice, huh? But the thing is I do believe in a loving and omnipotent and omnipresent God who works all things together for good. And the circumstances of Quiet coming to be were riddled with supernatural "coincidences". So I added confusion to my misery stew, but somehow I kept at it. I don't think it was faith or even perseverance, but rather pride. There were a lot of people rooting for me and I was creating the illusion of success and I would be damned if I was going to let that illusion crack.

     After two years of this struggle I was driving to Quiet worn down and praying a pathetic "what do you want me to do" kind of prayer when that "still small voice" that is unmistakably Holy Spirit spoke to me again. "Release your image" it whispered. Stunned I didn't even know where to begin with that. Did I need to stop wearing make up, did I need to disassociate from my labels? I received this directive about a year ago and here is how I have shifted from it up to this point. Everything I think I "should" do is to maintain an image, my opinions reinforce my image, the idea that my mind is in charge of my body is a false image. The idea that our bodies don't have their own intelligence is a false image. When I plan ahead or rather dread ahead it is image related. I am sure I am just scratching the surface of image at this point and it is a lifelong journey. But here's the thing, as I release opinions and desires God has given me a replacement image. In Romans 12 we are called to be living sacrifices and on the surface (at least to me) this sounds like a horrible thing. Visions of Mayans tumbling to their deaths filled my head. Bur here's how it is playing out in real life. The living part I feel on the inhales and it includes all sensations of life, breath,  energy, grounding, ascending and feeling Gods spirit flow through my veins. The sacrifice part I practice on the exhale and it includes releasing everything I do not need, my external body armor, my headstrong manipulations of people and life because "I know best"  the muscle tension that is held because subconsciously I want to project a certain image. I am sacrificing the mundane for the amazing. Releasing your image and embracing being a living sacrifice is a place of  little control and often it feels like there is no ground beneath my feet. But the thing is my control resulted in the mediocre and what I thought was the ground beneath my feet was probably just my stubborn locked knees. So instead I breath in and feel my heartbeat and all of life, and I breath out and let it go because it was never mine to control in the first place.

     And somehow, along the road, people started joining me at Quiet, not for my plethora of yoga knowledge or my awesome illusions, but rather just to come and breath and be. And that is where I am. Learning not to frantically "should" all over town. Breathing in the fullness of life with the knowledge that in every breath is found my yoga, my God, my life and my breaking crumbling image. And I am more happy in this brokenness than I have been for years. I will leave the last post up even though I am not proud of it, because I would only delete it to maintain "my image" and today I prefer to be broken into a thousand tiny pieces because being broken frees you up in the most wonderful way.

Just Keep Swimming

    "And I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have the power, together with all the Lords holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ..." Eph 3:17

      It is intuitive that we are surrounded by something bigger. You may call the something bigger God or Universe or even perhaps you think the something bigger is not sentient and you simply connect to the shared breath of humanity or the earths atmosphere. Ironically though one of the first steps to the internal act of practicing yoga is acknowledging that something bigger. In this connection to Something Bigger I notice there are two major categories of people. There are the people who imagine the force they are surrounded with to be benevolent and helpful and there are the ones who imagine either a harshly judgmental force or an uninterested neutral force. Since really no one has the definitive answer to what is the Bigger that surrounds us no one can say with 100% assurance that the Bigger is good, bad or neutral. So we make a choice about how to interact and envision this Bigger and this choice is shaped by so many factors:  parenting, society, past experiences but it is a choice none the less and a crucial one. Perhaps no other choice affects us more that the belief that we are surrounded by love or by something else.

     I have noticed that the people who believe in a benevolent force are more relaxed in their muscles and their mind than the ones who believe in something else. Even just believing the larger force is uninterested and neutral seems to keep peoples nervous systems a little bit more one edge. But we just believe what we believe, right, so what is even the point of this observation? Well, I learned a valuable lesson almost 30 years ago from a cute drivers ed instructor. Since I had a little crush on him I listened to what he said. And one thing he said is "look where you want to go". This obviously serves us well driving, but just as well in spiritual seeking. Once we set our minds on looking for the good things we can attribute to the Bigger we see more good. When we intentionally look away from the garbage pile and seek out the small spring flowers we begin to see more beauty.

     You can say the Something Bigger allowed you to be in a fender bender and feel agitated or you can feel gratitude at not being injured. Everyday we make a thousand little subconscious choices about what we believe and all of our choices in turn reinforce that Something Bigger belief. it may take decades to slowly shift your belief from thinking you reside in an uncaring world to the belief that you are surrounded by love. But, hey, what else are you doing today that's so important? look around you, see the beauty. Make this an intentional practice. Look for the good. We are like fish swimming in a sea of Love. There is no where you need to go to experience this, nothing you need to do, except choose to believe. When your mind offers you bad memories and your eyes turn to the ugliness of the world shift your view. then shift it again and again and again. And one day you will wake up and realize that you are loved. Like the little fish in Finding Nemo, we just gotta keep swimming.

But, but, but ...I'm a good person, right?

     “Wherever you are, be there. If you can be fully present now, you’ll know what it means to live.” Steve Goodier

     God sees the best in the worst of us and the worst in the best of us. For a long time I have tried to be a "good person" and it has really mattered to me to have a net positive effect on the people around me. Time to let that go. On the surface I want to see myself as a helper, even perhaps a healer. But I wonder at the depths of that intention what darkness lurks? Do I need to see myself as a "hero" or do I need to imagine my worth as greater than someone else's whose life consists of robbing banks and eating HoHos? All people are "good" at times and all people are "bad" other times. But to label ourselves as good or bad people really is a stumbling block to growth. Further, I would argue that every situation you find yourself in is neither good or bad,  both hold the potential for shifting into greater awareness or solidifying a maladaptive belief. Today I have a "day off" and a part of me that tends towards a puritanical work ethic can mar this day by casting about looking for activities. Another part of me that tends more towards the slothful can darken this day by just giving up and having a iPad zone out marathon. I often label my "work ethic" self as good and my "slothful" self as bad, but these labels are just cop outs that keep us from real presence, awareness, living fully awake if you will.

      Once the bad/good label is applied to a person or situation then our mind quickly fills in all the rest of the details and creates a preset scenario in which we lose our opportunity to learn from being present in the moment. Maybe an activity filled day is what is called for and in this day I will learn endurance, maybe a "lazy" day is what is called for and in this day I will renew my energy. Either way labeling good/bad will disconnect me from the middle ground of compassionate observer. Instead, I sit and listen to my breath for a moment, not good or bad, just still and listening.

     I am not a good person. I am not a bad person. And neither are you. Instead of trying to be good or bad, today I will reach for compassionate and present. Compassion is found in remembering that I wish no harm to myself and those around me. That generally leads to non harming actions. Then having established that base we can ask ourselves "What is the next loving act I can do?" Sometimes the loving act is to reach out a helping hand and sometimes the loving act is to allow someone to stumble. Sometimes love means run, endure be a warrior and sometimes love is letting go.
I have noticed that the more I desire to be good and the more I really want to help someone the less ease I have in a situation. My desire to "be good" ironically stands in the way of Gods spirit flowing through me which really is the highest good we can do for each other. God is the ocean and we are little waves on the surface. The way to expand our consciousness is not to be good, but rather to relax enough to become part of the Ocean. So, today I won't hope for a good day or try to avoid a bad day, rather remembering each moment is fodder for growth I will hope for an awake day so that "Namaste" will come true and the highest and best in me will see the highest and best in you.

Monkey Traps

      "Everybody wants to get enlightened but nobody wants to change."
 -Andrew Cohen

     As a spiritual seeker a lifelong direction I aim for is to simply be fully present in my moments and in turn my life. To observe our lives without adding on mental drama or without checking out is a path to deepening self awareness. And it is with clear eyed self awareness that we become more helpful to our fellow man and more connected to God. So let's take a look at the three major distractions that pull us out of our moments and see where we can perhaps refine our thoughts and actions. I know I could use work in all three areas: desire, aversion and simply checking out.

     There is a method of trapping monkeys in which the trapper uses a basket as a trap. There is a small hole in the side of the basket allowing a monkey to reach in and grab the tempting fruit left as bait. All the monkey needs to do to be free again is to unclench its fist and drop the fruit. But mostly the monkeys hold onto the fruit for dear life until they are captured. The call of desire has a strong hold on all creatures, man and monkey. Healthy desire can lead us down wonderful roads of spiritual exploration and desire can literally create life. Our desires can also be destructive distractions. Like all mental and emotional states,  as it arises desire must be mindfully explored and then either acted upon or released. Inflamed unchecked desires will lead us away from living presently and the objects of our desires will ironically become less obtainable the more we crave them. We must hold our fruit lightly knowing when to let it drop back into the basket. When desire rears her head feel it is your body. Does it manifest in clenched hands or perhaps a tensed jaw? Many people express desire with a simple leaning forward of the torso. Finding it and softening it in your body is a first step to softening it in your mind and spirit.

     There is another side to the coin of desire: aversion. Aversion equally has the power to tear us away from presence and peace. Unlike desire which most often manifests locally in the body, aversion has a tendency to tense  up our whole body and interfere with smooth breathing. Our mind darts around looking for escapes and our awareness is wholly invested in leaving a situation or person. This is a shame because the aversions we carry are potentially rich areas of personal growth if we can be compassionately present with them. Almost always an aversion we have to another person is a reflection of where we could refine ourselves.  Like desire,  aversion can be a healthy tool alerting us to situations that are potentially harmful and like desire,  aversions must be gently examined and perhaps acted upon.  Sometime the aversion tells us not to drink the spoilt milk but sometimes the aversion is mirroring a darkness in us. We must be curious and friendly as we apply awareness to aversions rather than assuming and judgmental.

     Along with desire and aversion the third monkey trap that can steal our awareness is simply becoming numb or checking out, mostly manifesting as lethargy or mindless busyness. There are a thousand ways to check out some benign and others down right dangerous. Technology over use, addictions, focusing too much on others, worry and anxiety are common monkey traps. I know when I watch a 30 minute show on my iPad I feel like I have taken a healthy break but when those minutes turn into hours I have crossed the threshold to numbness. When we recognize that we have numbed,  a good technique to apply is a simple body scan. Our bodies bring us back to present when our minds have torn us away.What distracts you? Anxiety and worry may not feel numb but they are distractions from the now. There is a fine line between being "in flow" and being "checked out" and this line is one we all must measure for ourselves. Do your downtime activities leave you nourished or numbed? In short when we are stimulated by desire or aversion or numbed and distracted we are not fully living our lives, however we can use these monkey traps as tools to awaken  when we approach them skillfully. So, here's to the journey into Inner Space to connect to our Highest Selves, it truly is the journey of a lifetime.

Truth with a Capital T

    It is neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so. 

William Shakespeare

  Every moment we are faced with choices to interpret our immediate circumstances as good or bad, negative or positive. We can be aggravated we are doing dishes or grateful for the hot water and soap. Really our lives are viewed through layers of thought that shape our perception. Right now I can be frustrated with my fuzzy winter hair or grateful that I have hair. I can assume that my business is growing so slowly because "everybody hates me, nobody loves me and I should go eat worms" or I can be grateful that it is growing and grateful that I have a job in the exact field I want to be in. I can notice my husbands sweet smile or the stain on his shirt.  Every moment is a choice to be light or to continue to wallow in darkness. "Choose this day whom you will serve" is a common statement in Judeo-Christian literature. So will I serve my best self and continue to refine my thoughts or will I bow down to darkness? Probably like you: a little of both.
    
     On one level we all know how important our thoughts are. They really do create your life or at least your perception of your life. But on the other hand most of us do not apply as much effort to examining our thoughts as we do choosing our clothes. One of my favorite meditation teachers Tara Brach says that we are mostly lost in a "trance of thought". My most favorite meditation Teacher ever, Jesus, says to "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind". I have a vivid memory of a scene about 20 years ago. I was walking my dog on a sunny day in our quiet Florida neighborhood and from out of nowhere I had the strong thought "How do people even begin to control their minds?" Before this exact moment mental management was not even a concept on my radar. I just assumed that our toddler like minds had complete control to fill our heads with random thoughts.

     So fast forward 20 years and I am enlightened, or not haha. But I do now know a good place to begin to train your minds. In Philippians 4:8 we are instructed to think about certain things the first of which is to have "true" thoughts. What, you assumed that just because you had a thought that it that it was true? Yea, so did I years ago. But Truth is a very subjective subject. Some people insist that if something is perceivable with their senses it is true. But what about the story of the blind men who feel different ends of the elephant? The one man "knew" that he was feeling a tree trunk the other "knew" that he was feeling a snake. Our senses may or may not be leading our minds to think true thoughts.
     I have found that in general any thought that begins with "always or never" is usually not true. Any thought about yourself that you are too much or not enough is generally not true. Any thought about another persons feelings, motivations or intentions is surely not true as we can't know the depths of any human but ourselves. I find it helpful when a thought has an emotional charge to simply stop and consider "Is this thought true?". Someone insults you and you think "what a jerk" and that thought leads you to tense your shoulders and tensing your shoulders leads you to feeling stressed. STOP, rewind ... was the original statement an insult  or an observation? Was the original statement a reflection of the speaker or the hearer? Was the original statement true or not? If it was true then do something about it and if it was not true why are you insulted at all? There are very few absolute truths in this life, truth with a capital T if you will. But this I believe is one: Our thoughts make us move toward light and love or fear and darkness so it is valuable to consider if they are even true. This is one step towards beginning your mental transformation. Not the only step or the only way but perhaps it is a way that will serve to launch your meditation practice as it did mine. Think about what you're thinking about today. Is it true?

Breathing In Breathing Out

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.

Thích Nhất Hạnh
 

      In the ebb and flow of life when challenging circumstances arise I tend to return to the basics of my yoga and meditation practice. So in week 2 of my federally unemployed husbands "vacation" combined with a super slow week at Quiet and a silly head cold I have really pared down my practice to a few sun salutations and the Breathwords mantra "Breathing In/Breathing Out".So these past two weeks my meditation has been simply to sit and watch my breathing body as I think the words "breathing in and breathing out" with each breath. I anticipated this practice to kind of be a "place holder" to allow me to not lose too much ground in my inner spiritual work while I deal with worldly problems. Instead the beautiful simplicity of the practice has really reinforced a few lessons I need to remember all the time.

     First, when things go awry like most people I tend to write stories. A simple example is instead of just noticing the car that cut me off on the highway I would write a story in my head about the driver that went something like "this person must be an entitled ass who doesn't care about my life". In reality there are a 1000 possibilities why they cut me off, Perhaps they simply didn't see me and they are not actually an evil villain. Writing stories while comforting in the moment just tend to exacerbate the situation inflaming emotions and hooking out minds into unhealthy patterns. So, this week in dealing with a challenge before I could begin my story I asked myself what was actually true and the only truth I could find in the moment was that I was "breathing in and breathing out". What a relief to release the need to write a novella about a small annoyance and instead just carry on with breath.

     The second lesson I re-remembered was what my actual to do list contains: breathing!  Sometime building a small business catapults me into frantic "to do" mode. I would have more students if I did this or did that I tell myself sternly. Just go market a little more and all will be well a little voice in my head offers up non helpfully. Well, while it is important to take care of the business in front of us it is not helpful to load ourselves down with to do lists long enough to choke the life out of us. So what is it that we really need to do today? You guessed it "breathing in and breathing out". But I have to go to work and cook dinner for my children you argue. No you don't. You either need to do these things OR suffer the consequences of not doing them and while unemployment and hungry kids may be ugly consequences I will still argue that you do not NEED to do these things. Simplify by remembering that all you have to do today is breath and make everything else optional. This will expand your breathing space big time.

     The third thing I remembered with my simple mantra was that every breath we take is taken in present moment. While our minds ping around temporally and emotionally our breathing body is always in present moment. So when I notice this breath in this moment I don't have mental space for romanticizing the past or catastrophizing the future. When we notice the present moment we notice  that we are safe and secure in the moment and that our doubts and fears live in the past and future. If you are truly in danger in the present moment you are beyond just noticing it and rather are in flow responding to it. This blog on re-remembering lessons may not be earth shattering news, but I will not write a mental story about how I should have made it more exciting. I will not give myself a to do list of writing a more amazing blog and I will not predict into the future that you read it and yawned. Rather I will "breath in and breath out" and be here in this moment. It may not be my most beautiful moment ever but it is not the ugliest either and remembering that both our joys and sorrows are Gods gifts always makes me breath a little deeper.