Merry Merry...

I just wanted to tell you all that you are LOVED, that I hope you had a wonderful holiday and I will be back in blogging action once I'm back home in LA (the 30th).

Ode to my Teach-as

Check out this gaw-geous sequence from my mentor/teacher/yoga rock goddess, Dana Flynn (co-founder of Laughing Lotus Yoga Centers)...

I have so much gratitude and respect for this woman...all you gots to do is watch this video and you'll get a little taste of why.

Shanti-Town Hits Newstands!

That's right, shanti-towners, I've been keeping it under wraps until now, but I can't hide it any longer...in the most recent issue of Breathe Magazine (hitting newstands this week), yours truly has her first published-in-print proclamation!

(It's not really a proclamation...I just wanted another "P" word.)

It IS an article, and I DID write it, and I hope you WILL enjoy it...and check out Breathe in the process, it's a super cool magazine, aimed at the active woman.  (Sorry, fellas...)

You can check the online version of my article here:

(It's an article composed of three mini-features, all by different authors...mine is at the bottom.)

One small stride for Shanti-Town, one giant stride for, um...well, also for Shanti-Town.  Okay.  A doubly giant stride for Shanti-Town!

The Talent of Friends...

It's nearly Christmas...I'm drowning in to-do lists...I promise more yoga ramblings to come right quick, in the meantime, please enjoy the amazing things my friends have been doing lately that's been making think/weep/smile/laugh...

First, from the mind of the uber-talented Alissa Ford:




Second...from the funny bone of the lovely Michaela Watkins: (note: this one is for adult ears only)

The Creepy Hand Model: Ellen Sirot with Michaela Watkins from Michaela Watkins

John O'Donohue...Big Celtic Siiiiiiiigh

I stumbled recently into the gorgeousness that is the poetry of John O'Donohue.  I have been reading this poem aloud to all my classes this past week and now, Shanti Town, it's your turn.  As a primer, the title, "Beannacht" means "blessing", and the word "currach" (found in the second stanza) is a kind of hand-made boat (um...I think). 

Enjoy, Shanti-towners, and please know that all of these things he wishes for all of us, I also wish...for all of you.


Beannacht/Blessing
by John O'Donohue

On the day when

the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

Jillian Michaels, I Am Not the Biggest Loser...

 So, occasionally my subconscious gets completely fed up with me, and instead of filling my nights with complicated dreams full of knotted imagery and up-for-interpretation kinds of input, she just throws her little symbolic hands in the air and BREAKS IT DOOOOOWN for me.

The other night I had this dream...and in it, I'm a contestant on The Biggest Loser (more on that in a bit)--which, if you don't know, is a show in which life-threateningly obese people participate in a glorified weight-loss competition, all under the watchful eyes of two very yell-y trainers, Bob and Jillian.  The Jillian in the equation is a one miss Jillian Michaels, a super fit, tom-boy hot, ass-kicker of a woman who has been known to, on more than one occasion, climb all over contestants like a cardio-crazy monkey in order to urge them on toward that last half-mile on the treadmill.  She is fiiiiiiiiiierce.  But, like all inspiration reality show cast members, she cares a lot and will often coo a "good job, sweetheart" at a sweating collapsed contestant immediately after ravaging them.

In short...I sort of dig her.  (Don't tell.)

So, okay, I'm a contestant on The Biggest Loser and I'm running some kind of race...it's a mid-way through the hour kind of challenge, and though I don't know exactly what the goal is, I know I'm supposed to run back and forth a few times on a long stretch of track.  And I'm supposed to win.  Mind you, I'm not overweight in the dream.  Nor are there any other overweight people running this race.  It's just me and an elderly man.  And in the dream I'm thinking to myself, I have got this. I am going to kick this old man's butt.  There is just no way that I'm not going to be able to run faster than this geezer.

So I'm plowing along, running as fast as I can (which, in that weird dream way, is just not very fast at all) and I think I'm beating the old guy, but after a couple of laps, Jillian steps in.  (And here, people is where the "my subconscious has given up" part comes in.  It's sort of like she always starts out giving me dreams that are like art films, and if I'm not catching on she sort of has to keep dumbing it down for me until eventually I just get accosted in no uncertain terms by a reality show television personality.   It's a little humiliating, frankly.)

Anyhow...Jillian Michaels stops me.  She puts a hand on either one of my shoulders and she looks at me in that really meaningful 'close-up on the eyes' way and she says to me:

"You have to pause.  You're not going to win if you just keep running and running.  You have to take a pause and catch your breath.  THAT's how you're going to win."

Um...

CONFUSED about that, anyone?  Anyone unclear as to what the secret hidden mystery message of my dream might be?  Anyone need to rewind and watch that again to get the full import...the true subtlety of that little missive?

What's doubly interesting about this is that the dream came during a week when I had spontaneously found myself teaching about a very similar thing.  For whatever reason, I had planned a theme for my classes, but had stumbled into talking sort of deeply and specifically about the breath.  I think my theme had been about enjoyment, about sneaking discipline in via enjoyment, but somehow I'd wound my way around to talking about the pause in the breath.  About how there is this inhale, and then an exhale, and then there is this...pause.  I was talking about what a doorway that pause is, and how it's an opportunity, built into the breath, for total stillness.

And as I was teaching I remember thinking about how easy it is to forget that the pause even exists.  So much of breath work and talk, and certainly the breath in the yoga practice, is about either the inhale or the exhale, at any given moment, but rarely are we asked to even turn our attention to this stillness that exists also as part of the breath cycle.  And I thought about how if we ONLY had the inhale and the exhale...my god, it makes me anxious just thinking about it.  We would just be in constant motion.  It's that stillness that really can determine so much.  Our breath dissolves, over and over again, into this state of just...nothingness.  Of sweet full emptiness.  It's like this very quiet message built into our physiology...yes, open up, yes, turn in, but also...pause.  It's really quite beautiful.  And I must have been thinking about it more deeply (or less so?) than I realized, because my dream seemed to be a big resounding DUH!! on the subject, from my subconscious mind.

What does it really mean about our lives, about what the proper balance of our lives is, if built into our breath there is not just expansion (inhalation) and contraction (exhalation), but also this total, biochemical SILENCE?  How many of us are conducting our lives as if we only had an inhale and an exhale?  Or if, rather, maybe we have a year of inhales and exhales, and a week or two where we allow that pause.  What would change in our lives if we abided by the necessity of regular, consistent and necessary...stillness?

I don't know.  I'm giving it a whirl.  I figure if I don't it's only a matter of time before my psyche just gives up on me altogether and turns the reigns over permanently to Tyra Banks...

A Short Treatise on Commitment...

Yes, that's right, I'm getting married.

I'm not going to go all overly-personal on you here, I promise, I just wanted to share a little episode in my day today which struck me as both sweet and promising, as me and my affiance step into the fire that is (dunh dunh dunh duuuuuuh) Wedding Planning.  (oh my god, if this turns into a wedding planning blog please someone come smack some sense into me.  I will provide my address for said smacking upon request).

So, this afternoon as I'm dutifully crossing things off my list (productive things! important things!) I found myself in my local bookstore.  Originally my intention was to find a yoga book I've been hunting for, but somehooooooooow I found myself crouching down in front of the "Weddings and Babies" section with a handful of books spread out on the floor around me.  Books with titles like "the DIY Bride," "Budget Weddings for Dummies," and, "The Crafty Wedding Handbook".  All of which seemed at once completely unnecessary and absolutely invaluable.  What if I DO want to make my own wedding wrap from satin and little fabric flowers?! Won't I be glad I bought this book then?! 

But, luckily my better sense (and the reasoned voice of my fiance) were playing in my head and I quickly passed on most of them.  MOST of them.  Because there was this one book...a fat tome on wedding venues in Southern California, that seemed pretty irresistible.  Hundreds of pages of venues with prices and maps and phone numbers...all in one handy little volume!  Searching on the internet for places has been driving me batty...so much clicking and so little information...so this book seemed like it might actually be worth the $24.

Okay, I decided, that's it, I'm doing it.

I felt very sassy laying the big W-E-D-D-I-N-G book on the counter and made sure the ol' engagement ring was visible as I did so (just in case the guy behind the register mistook me for just another unengaged girl buying a giant book about wedding venues), only to have my credit card get...um...declined.

Heh, heh.

This didn't freak me out, as I knew I had 4 checks in my wallet that I had forgotten to deposit earlier that day, and wanting it to be very clear that YES I was getting married and NO I wasn't concerned that I have no money in my bank account, I asked the guy to please "hold this for me while I run and go get cash."

At which point, with minutes quickly running out on my metered parking spot, I dashed to the 7-11 up the street where I knew my bank had at ATM that took checks.  I was a little annoyed at this ballooning-with-inconvenience errand, and I even debated just scrapping the purchase all together, but the symbolism of NOT buying a wedding venue book because I was too impatient to deposit some checks just did not sit well with me.  Besides, I've been a little on and off in terms of my venue-hunting diligence and I did not want to succumb to my lazier nature on this point any more, damnit.  So, I waited in line, signed my checks, and deposited them one by one, (as is the way with 7-11 ATMs).

When I finally hustled my way back down to the bookstore, the guy working the counter was switching out his spot for the next guy on duty and he pointed out my book for him.  "That's hers." He said, and as my gaze landed on my book I noticed that on top of it was a hand-scribbled note that read, "Still Shopping."

Still shopping?! Have you not seen this ring on my finger?! I am finished shopping, thank you very much.

The new guy grabbed the book.

"I'm ready now." I said, not realizing in the moment that "I'm ready now," said by a breathless woman buying a wedding book might strike some as...funny.  (I'm hoping for "adorable").

He smiled, swiping the little wand over the scan bar, "big commitment," he joked.

And as I took my book under my arm, I said in return, "Yep.  Just one big commitment at a time...". 

If he only knew what it took to get that book...

Keeping It Alive...

First of all, I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings! Mine was pretty awesome--my brother and sister-in-law and my two (ferociously fast-growing) nephews came for a visit, which made me feel like the coolest aunt in town.  The picture above is of the two of them, and has nothing to do with this post, but has everything to do with how ADORABLE they both are.

Okay, that's my proud aunt plug. On now to other matters...

So, I'm teaching...have I mentioned that I'm teaching? And I'm teaching more and more...everytime I get a phone-call to teach a class I feel like I've been sprinkled with confetti (p.s. if you're in the LA area and you want to come to class, I've put a little schedule widget on the ol' blog-o-saurus, just look down and to your right.)  Anyhow, it's pretty awesome, taking that seat at the front of the class and just trying to blast off in the hopes that I actually have something useful to offer.

And one of the unexpected side-effects is the way in which my focus has shifted, as this practice that has for so long been purely for pleasure becomes attached to more things...to money and to schedule and to some question about larger purpose...I have quickly become faced with questions about how it is that we keep things interesting for ourselves?  In particular, how do we keep things interesting for ourselves when that demon RESPONSIBILITY newly becomes attached to what we are doing?

Now, let me just preface this by saying that I am not at the moment having any trouble with lack of interest...everything is too new and too much like living in a brand new house for that to be a problem.  HOWEVER, what I have noticed, even in these first few months of teaching, is that my newfound sense of accountability in a world where once there was none, can impact the JOY of my practice, if I'm not careful.

What I mean by that is, I find myself forgetting and then remembering that I am ONLY doing this because I love it.  And if the "love it" quotient gets overrun by results-driven thinking (hello, acting career)...well, excuse my language but it just wouldn't be f-ing worth it.  For whatever reason in this field of doing yoga and writing about yoga and now teaching yoga, I am unwilling to give up the joy of the practice.  Just...totally unwilling.  I have never been that wise as an actor...joy has been often the first thing sacrificed on the altar of "I. Want. This." So, BECAUSE I feel a bit wiser about all this (I did just turn 30, you know), and because more and more work seems to be showing up, and probably also because there is a deeply personal component to my practice, this idea--this question of how it is we keep things fresh and alive is one that's been on my mind lately.

And in all my thinking, the thing I've realized, and the thing which has been reflected back to me over and over again is this:  (It's so simple.  Why is it always so simple?!)

1. In order for anything to have any lasting impact in my life, it has to have consistency.

2. In order for there to be consistency, there has to be (gulp) discipline.

3. If I don't like doing something, I'm going to quit doing it eventually.  Therefore:

4. My JOY will, without effort, equal discipline. (I.e., if I like it, I won't quit.)

This has been the case with my yoga practice, with my eating habits, with my relationships...with my burgeoning meditation practice.  I mean, seriously, I have been trying to start a meditation practice for YEARS, and always I've quit.  Over and over and over again I've quit.  Do you know whyyyyyyy? Because I've been trying to do it right, and I've found it totally and utterly SUCKY because of that.  Finally, finally, finally I have what I can call a meditation practice--at least the beginnings of one--and do you know whyyyyyyy? Because I finally decided that if I wasn't enjoying the actual act of sitting on my cushion for those 15 minutes in the morning, as it occurred, then what in the world was the point? So I found a way in that actually made me FEEL GOOD while I was doing it. 

And, voila!  Not only do I have a practice, but I miss it when I don't do it.  I find myself actually looking forward to it on a daily basis.  Which is...new.

This is one of those secrets, it seems, that some people just know intuitively (you know who you are) and others of us have to learn by repeatedly making ourselves miserable with trying and not making any headway until finally we just toss our hands in the air and say "I give up! I just want a little happy mojo in my life!" and Blammo! Forward movement.

Because, in the joy of doing there is openness...there is curiousity...there is relaxation.  There are all of the things that we label as attributes of successful work and living.  But most of all, there is just a deep steady sense of being alive.  Of having purpose.  And THAT is the thing we're hoping all the hours of sitting or moving or loving or chowing down are going to get us anyway, isn't it?
There is just this fundamental practicality which is: enjoyment (true, deep, skin-tingling enjoyment) is the best recipe for not quitting.  I think it must be the food that will power feeds on.

That's a t-shirt saying if I ever heard one: "Joy.  It's the food that Will Power feeds on."

Oh my god, I will give a million dollars to anyone who makes that a t-shirt and sends it to me.*



* not really.

ContentWHAT?!

 No, this is not going to be a Thanksgiving post...(not yet! I'm saving all the give-thanks-love-your-family goodness for later in the week...)! Though I suppose what I want to talk about here is not completely unrelated to gratitude...or perhaps it's at least a stepping stone...

What I want to talk about is contentment.


Contentment.

It's not the most GLAMOROUS of all the states of being.  In the same world where Katy Perry's chest explodes in fireworks in music videos...it's difficult to make contentment sound appealing.  It's hard to make it sound like anything less than a snooze-fest, actually.  And if you check out the dictionary, it is full of definitions like:

1.	mentally or emotionally satisfied with things as they are
2.	assenting to or willing to accept circumstances, a proposed course of action, etc

Blech! Booo! Satisfied with the way things are?! Um, I'm sorry, I am a child of the 21st Century, I do not ACCEPT things as they are, I MAKE things happen!  And if I don't, well, that means that I'm a looooooooooooosah.  And I'll just keep that to myself whilst bemoaning all the not-the-way-I-want them things that surround me and furiously making vision boards and lists of affirmations.

Right!?

But, the dictionary definition of contentment is not the contentment I'm talking about.

The contentment I'm talking about is santosha.  Yes, it's a yoga word.  (You knew it was coming.)  It's actually one of the edicts of one of the 8 limbs of yoga.  It's like...one of the yoga commandments.  Thou shalt be content.

Now, I have never been a girl who really trucked in contentment (see above for examples), but I don't know...maybe it's that I've finally started meditating, maybe it's because I'm about to become an old married lady, maybe it's just because most of my life goals other than "find more joy" seem to have fallen by the wayside, but lately I've been thinking a lot more about this contentment, this santosha.

So, this morning I cracked open my old friend Patanjali (he wrote the Yoga Sutras which are, in my opinion, just a bunch of books full of jewels) to see what he had to say about contentment, and of course, in much fewer words and with much more stinging accuracy than I, he is able to identify the who-what-where of santosha.  He says this:

"As a result of contentment, one gains supreme joy."

Hmm...still sounds a little boooooooring.  But, okay, go on...

"Here we should understand the difference between contentment and satisfaction."

Alright.  I'm listening.

"Contentment means just to be as we are without going to outside things for our happiness.  If something comes, we let it come.  If not, it doesn't matter.  Contentment means neither to like or dislike."

Wait, I'm sorry...repeat that first part?

"Contentment means just to be as we are without going to outside things for happiness."

Alright, thank you P-jolls, let me see if I've got this.  Contentment means just to BE as we are without going to OUTSIDE THINGS for happiness.  Not, "contentment means just give up" or "contentment means just resign yourself to the fact that you'll never get what you want."  He's including happiness as part of this definition, right?  And if he's saying that it's not on the OUTSIDE than it must be...that's right...on the INSIDE.

So, if I may take the liberty, Mr. Patanjali...?

Contentment means just BE happy.

Not because the stuff you want is on its way.  Not because you've rejected stuff entirely and feel that you are now a purist.  Not because you think if you play content all the stuff you want will be given to you.  Not because you're just an unlucky one and you better get used to it, but because it IS possible to be content.

It IS possible to be happy, JOYFUL even, regardless of circumstance.

Because, and I think this is the whole lesson-plan of yoga, of meditation, of any spiritual practice...there is this little seed-self, hanging out inside you, who is blissed out, all the time.  No matter what.  She's in there.  She's quiet and she's crinkle-eyed smiling and she's like that ALL THE TIME and is just waiting for you to get quiet enough yourself to feel that.  To be able to touch that joy that is regard-less. And that's the whole enchilada.  All these practices are just inventive routes into that center place of...smiling santosha.

And, I love this week of the year because I think that Thanksgiving is a very santosh-ic holiday.  You're with your family, and even if they get on your nerves or push your buttons, there is (can be) a sweetness being with them, touching those roots that you have grown from.  And there is all this "what are you thankful for" influence everywhere, which is of course about contentment--how can I look at my life and see what there is in it to be grateful for? Where is the happiness that exists without anything external changing?  And the eating, of course.  The eating.  Talk about happiness from the inside out!

The whole holiday is built around turning inward, settling in, and appreciating what and who is around us.

So this year, yes, can we be grateful but ALSO can we be...content?  Can it all just be exactly enough--the right place, the right people, the right food, the right weather--can we sit with that crinkle-eyed version of ourselves in the center and just eat it all up? (Um...so I guess I lied about this not being a Thanksgiving post...)

Gobble, gobble, Shanti-towners!!

A Little Late Night Rumi...

Gamble everything for love,
if you're a true human being.

If not,
leave this gathering.

Half-heartedness doesn't fetch
into majesty.  You set out
to find God, but then you keep

Stopping for long periods
at mean-spirited roadhouses.

- Rumi

(Get away from the mean-spirited roadhouses, sweet shanti-towners...it's just a lot of mean drinking and name-calling happening there.  Find yourself a love-shack and bunk down there for the night instead.  I will if you will.)

That Window Ain't Open, Fool!

I got interrupted by a bee during my meditation this morning.

If you know me at all you know that, while not usually the type to get squeamish, if a bee comes into my personal space while I'm doing ANYTHING I get a little...idiotic.

Usually I just sort of squeal and run away...

Which is exactly what happened during my meditation...I heard his foul buzzing and, without even taking a moment to think about it, I leapt off of my cushion and ran across the room.  Once safely the requisite 10 feet away, heart pounding, I watched the little bugger banging into the window and thought about how probably at some point I should actually just, um, try to sit through the bee in my space if it happens again during meditation.  Seeing as how, I don't know, that's the POINT of meditation.

And then I thought about how often I react to uncomfortable thoughts or feelings in this same way..."Eeek! Get it away from me!" (scramble, scramble, scramble).

And with bees I have this great excuse...about how my brother and I were attacked by a nest of hornets or wasps or something when we were kids and we both got stung many many times and it was very traumatic, blah blah blah...but don't I have those same stories for upsetting emotions?  And thoughts?  Don't I have my traumatic childhood story that justifies WHY I don't want to deal?  Why I can't just sit while it buzzes around me?  What do I think is going to happen? Worst case scenario, right, I get stung (be it bee or thought).

Ouch.

Yes, ouch...for like 15 seconds, ouch.  And maybe a sore spot.  And then?  Done.  Over.  And the poor bee...the poor bee is DEAD.  I'm definitely the winner in that situation.

So, I'm thinking about all this, and I'm watching the bee, and I'm watching him do the thing that a lot of bees do in our apartment, which is:  they fly in an open window, they land on a closed window, and they repeatedly buzz-bump into the window pane of the closed window, over and over and over again.  And the whole time I'm watching and I'm thinking, dude...the open window is right over there.  You just flew through it.  Can't you feel the breeze?  Can't you hear the noises from outside coming in from over there?

The smarter bees only get stuck like this for 30 seconds or so, but some of the younger and/or stupider ones can do that for a really long time.  I've seen some of them DIE doing it.  (I don't actually see them die, but I see their little carcasses on the ground next to the window later in the day).  And, I don't know if it was because I'd already sort of made this bee into a symbol for my inner-workings, but I watched him doing this little window-dance and I thought, oh my god, that is just so perfect.

How many times does the mind make a decision based on faulty information, that we then just blindly follow?  Because the mind is like, nooooo, no no, this leads outside.  It has to lead outside, because I can SEE outside.  So, yes, I know there's some sort of invisible barrier preventing us from getting there, but I'm certain this is the right way, so if you'll just bear with me a little longer, let's just keep ramming our heads into this glass until we finally get free.  And all the while this other voice (our intuition, our other senses, our body) is like DUDE...can't you feel the breeze? 

Because what we're supposed to be looking for is the FEELING of the BREEZE.  The feeling of freedom.  The feeling of sunshine on our skin.  That's the input we're supposed to be using as our little guidance system.  No matter what looks like it might lead the way...if it feels like repeatedly ramming into an invisible wall, probably it's not the best plan of action.

So, for all the bad things I've said about bees, I'm issuing an official apology here and now, because it seems like they might actually have a thing or two to teach me...

Ribs, Anyone?

No...not the barbeque kind....(heh heh)

Alright, y'all, so this line of inquiry started for me several months ago when, after many moons of wondering how on earth I am supposed to "open my heart" without "sticking out my ribs" a teacher FINALLY gave me an image that rocked my little rib-cage world.  "Imagine," she said, as we stood in tadasana with our arms raised (um, that's the one where you're just standing up, for those who left their Sanskrit dictionary in their other pants), "that your rib-cage is heavy and descending downward."  And maybe she said something about thinking of the rib-cage as one solid unit, or maybe that's just how it occurred to me as I tried it, but something about that image just clicked for me, and suddenly I felt how my ribs could...how do I put this...RELAX?

Yes, that's it. 

I imagined my rib-cage dropping straight down...as if it were some kind of bony sweater-vest being hung to dry from the clothesline of my collar-bones, and everything my teachers are constantly telling me to do ("pull in your bottom ribs", "expand your back ribs", "tuck your ribs in") it all just happened...effortlessly.  And I felt this immense and I mean IMMENSE relief.

And I realized that my heart is inside this cage of my ribs...and that if the whole structure descends and then the heart lifts...well there's more room for it to peak its little heart-head over the top of the cage, like a prisoner checking to make sure the coast is clear before she escapes.

I mean, I'm positive that physiologically that's not what's happening...but still.

So, it's this image I've been working with in my own practice for months now, and the more I work with it the more I realize that my ribs have been trying to do waaaaaaaaaaay more work than they need to do.  My ribs are showy little buggers--"Here I AM!"--they seem to be always shouting, all jazz-hands and protruding chins.  Well, no more, you scene-stealers! No more!

It's just one more way, I'm coming to see, that my body is trying (sneakily) to escape from itself.  Because when I hush those ribs, when I quiet them down and in, when I let them descend, when I give them the day off...I become...with myself.  The ribs literally become integrated back into the center of my body and likewise I become more centered.  My breath drops to my belly.  My shoulders relax.  And as things begin to loosen up down there in that protective armor of my torso, I realize...my god, I have spent so much time walking around HOLDING on.  My ribs have been like some puffed up bodygaurd.  (I'm mixing metaphors like crazy, here...my heart is a jailbird, and my ribs are apparently both like an attention-starved choreographer AND a juiced bouncer at a club.  What can I say, but that it's 3AM and I'm blogging...). 

What I mean to say is...my ribs used to be like some puffed up bodygaurd and NOW they are not.

Isn't it interesting, how we hold on to ourselves in all these ways...thinking that it will make things easier, or safer, or more perfect, and isn't it interesting how that is just never the way? When when when when when will we learn (and by "we" I mean "me) that the safety and the ease and the beauty comes from fluidity...from letting go...NOT from always gripping so damn hard?

Here they are!!

Alright, Shanti-towners...the moment you've been waiting for!

The conference is over and I've got posts up the wazoo for you to peruse at your leisure.  I'm going to link to them here, individually...feel free to pick and choose to your hearts content. 

(The conference, by the way, was a great success.  It was an HONOR to get to be a member of the press there and I'm very excited to see where Leaders Causing Leaders goes next...)


Wanna read what I thinks about Byron Katie?  Go here.


Do you know who Niurka is?  You should.


I knoooooow you've heard me mention John Friend before.  Thass right, saw him live, breakin' it down.


What's the Free the Slaves Award? 


What do you get when you cross a yogi with an internet guru?  Find out here.


Wish you could meet a Mad Scientist?  Try Nassim Haramein on for size.


Is Ishmael Beah really this amazing?


James O'Dea thinks you're an energy-transforming maaaaaaaachine.


Jasmuheen is made of Prana! (Or "Praner" if you say it with her yummy Australian accent!)


And last, but not least...Lance Secretan ain't just a ski bunny!

The Posts are Rolling In!

The posts are up...! Check out the Leaders Causing Leaders blog to hear about my day there yesterday, and stay tuned today for more, including a 2 hour session with the amazing Byron Katie! Look for my name as author, as I wasn't the only blogger on the conference beat!

http://leaderscausingleaders.wordpress.com/

Am I Allowed to Say This...?

This week I taught a--well, not a bad class, but definitely a mediocre class.  I taught a mediocre class and it was all my fault.

There was someone who was going to be in class who I wanted to impress AND I was using it as sort of a rehearsal for a class I'm teaching later on in the week at a studio I really want to work for.

Sound familiar, anyone?

And so I came to class with a PLAN.  A detailed, moment-to-moment, plaaaaaaaaaaan.  Which meant, that instead of being in my class, with my students, I was deeply involved in a relationship with my plan.  It was my plan vs. the class, a fight to the death.  Are they liking the plan?  Are they following the plan?  What comes next in the plan?  How is my plan working? 

And all of my natural attentiveness and joy went scrambling out the door in order to make room for MY. PLAN.

How many auditions have I screwed up using this exact same logic?  How many times have I walked into a room and instead of noticing who was there, what the temperature of the room was, and how I was feeling in that moment, was only thinking about how I had planned to do what I was about to do?

Many.  Many, many, times.

And if any of you have heard me talk about teaching yoga you know that I am determined not to make the same mistakes as a teacher that I find myself making as an actor.  Which is why (I assume) that halfway through the class some other voice kicked in, and the voice said:

"Throw your f-ing plan out the f-ing window."

And because I was having a miserable time up until that point, and because it seemed like everyone else might be too...I did.  I threw my f-ing plan out the f-ing window, and I arrived in class.  Yes, it was at least 45 minutes in at that point, and yes, I had some ground to make up for, but the energy in the room, the energy in my heart, the tightness in my chest immediately changed.  And POOF! There I was.  There I was with all of my knowledge and all of my desire to teach and all of my playfullness now fully (thank god) present.

And after the class was over, feeling mostly redeemed, I thought about how important it is to trust--to trust that we know enough, that we're smart enough and spontaneous enough to think on our feet.  To trust that we have everything we need--so much so that we can really just walk into a room, be there fully, and let what is going to happen unfold.  Without any additional help or worry or gripping from us.

The plan doesn't make me safe, I'm realizing.  The only thing that makes me feel safe is my full and unrestrained participation with myself.

So, Shanti-towners, if I could offer you one piece of advice today it would be:

"Throw your f-ing plan out the f-ing window."


xo
YogaLia

Leaders Causing Leaders...YOU can go!

Okay, Shanti-towners, some exciting news from the Shanti-town offices! (Which means, um, my tiny but adorable desk in my tiny but adorable apartment).  We (meaning me) are going to be one of the official bloggers for the upcoming Leaders Causing Leaders conference here in LA! 

I am SUPER crazy excited about this, as it is going to be a two-day event chock full of amazing speakers, cool workshops, music performances, spiritual-nerd-ing-out and so much more!

Byron Katie is going to be there! (oh sigh, double sigh)

John Friend is going to be there! (he FOUNDED Anusara yoga, y'all)

The Chicken Soup for the Soul guy is going to be there!

And sooooooo many more.  Check out all the many, many luminaries here.

But here's the important thing Shanti-towners...because I am going in a quasi-official capacity and because I LOVE all of you, and because Saeger Media Group who is letting me take on this little assignment is being super awesome, they have offered up a 25% discount to the conference to all of my readers!

Woo hoo!

The tickets are really reasonable to begin with, just $125 for the full two-day pass for adults, $65 for students, even less for the little ones...so that extra 25% can go a long way! $100 for two days of awesomeness? That's less than a somewhat-fancy dinner out! Does a somewhat-fancy dinner take you one step closer to enlightenment? I don't think sooooooooo.

So, come and join me, November 6th and 7th at the Long Beach Convention Center.  Just use the code LEADERSHIFT on the LCL website to get your discount--and let me know if you'll be there, I'll wave at you from the press garden.  The press walk.  The press circle?  The press-o-torium?

I'll just...wave.

Shanti-Town Recommends: Maria Cristina Jimenez

If you live in Los Angeles (or Puerto Rico?) and you've never taken a class from this woman...you should.

There are a few of my favorite teachers at Still with whom I haven't been able to take class in awhile, primarily because I've been teaching myself or doing my own practice or taking other yoga studios out on dates (don't tell!), and Maria Cristina is one of them.  But yesterday I got to take from her not once, but TWICE...and it was heaven.

Maria Cristina is not one of those teachers where you're going to walk away feeling like you had your ass kicked, that's not the kind of awesome she is (and way too often I feel like that's a measure of a great teacher, at least among those of us who tend to use achievement as the measure of our own worth)...no, no, Maria Cristina is awesome in an entirely different way.

First of all she, as a person, just beams with sweetness...she's quick to laugh and refers often to her students as "my chickens".  She cracks jokes, makes fun of her own love of reality television, and generally just creates an atmosphere that's love-er-ly to be in while in class.  Which is all great.  But that's not why I love her.  I love her because she speaks directly from her heart.  Which I think is rather large and soft and seems to have enough room for the whole class to climb inside of.  There have been several classes which I've taken from her where I feel a lump rising to my throat AS SOON as she starts speaking.  Which I'm sure is because she is communicating from her sweetness, from the center of herself, and it just reaches right out, zaps across the room, and flips on the lights in my own sometimes darkened insides. And THAT is what I consider a great yoga class...

So, if you're around: take from her! Doooo it.  Or you can just read her blog here.

(And thank you, MC, for two super great classes yesterday...)

Being Kind...

Oh, Shanti-towners...this one goes out to you...

Whether you are a reader of this blog, or just a member of this community because I know you and love you, or even if I don't know you, but still love you...this goes out to you.

Ahem.

Please, for me, Shanti-towners: Please be kind to yourself today.

If you can't do it for yourself, if your own feelings don't quite matter enough to you today, for whatever reason, then please just do it for me.

Please, for me, treat yourself the way I know you treat other people.

Treat yourself with the gentleness and soft-eyes and ready smiles with which you would greet even a perfect stranger if he or she happened to come to your home.

Does a stranger deserve more than your own heart and mind and insides?  Open the door for yourself, beckon yourself in, offer yourself a glass of water.  Take notice of the small things about you that you like...the crinkles of your eyes or the color of your hair or the way your hands move when you speak.  Take notice and appreciate.  If not for you, then for me!

Be sweet to yourself.  Trust only the feeling of sweetness.  I will say that again--trust only the feeling of sweetness, because do you know what TRUTH feels like, as it ripples across your insides?  It feels like sweetness.  That's how you tell truth from fiction.  Truth feels like a drink of clear spring water and fiction feels like chewing on glass.  It's not hard to tell the difference.  But if you won't take your own word for it...take mine.

Be sweet to yourself today, for me.  And if you can't do it for yourself, and you can't do it for me, then think of all the people in your life who love you and need you at your best.  NOT at your thinnest, NOT at your most successful, NOT at your richest, but at your best.  Think of how much you will serve them with your own open-hearted wide-armed-ness and then buck up and be nice to yourself...for them.

Please, Shanti-towners, for me, show yourself true kindness today.  Not the kindness of an owner for a pet or a stranger for one she deems less fortunate--love yourself like you would love your own child, love yourself how your parents love you (or how you wish they did), how you adore your lover (or the dream of one), how you love your friends, your idols, your teachers, your inspirations--shower yourself with love today.  Because you need it, and the world needs, and I can not think of a single good reason why you shouldn't have it. 

So, Shanti-towners, do me this one favor, won't you?  Throw out everything that doesn't make your blood slow, your heart warm and your head quiet, and just be nice to yourself.  Because you're my friend, and I don't take kindly to people who aren't nice to my friends...

Yikes, Ouch, All Around...

I woke this morning to an email announcing a friend's new blog, with a lead story about a Marie Claire blogger who has been gaining some, shall we say, notoriety after a recent post she wrote entitled (oh my god yes this is actually the title): "Should Fatties Get a Room?"

Let me just say that it was not a very nice article (understatement), directed pretty cruelly at the overweight, and it has caused a lot of virulent anger all over the web.  There are 994 comments associated with the offending post and most all of them say, in a nutshell: "I hate you, you bigot".  Marie Claire has taken a quiet position of defense, not taking the post down, and apparently not firing said blogger, which doesn't seem to me like the smartest decision in the world, as I will for sure not be buying an issue anytime soon...

HOWEVER,  what interested me way more than the offending blog post (which sounded, really, just like a lot of school-yard snobbery), was the reaction, and the reaction to the reaction, and the reactions to the reaction to the reaction.  Which went a little something like this:

1.  Blogger writes hasty and insensitive blog post.

2.  People get FURIOUS and start writing FURIOUS comments to said blog post.

3.  Blogger tries to respond in comments, then quickly realizes that she's made 1,000 people angry overnight, just as quickly realizes that these 1,000 people are just the ones who are commenting and that there's probably a lot more angry people out there, and so amends post with luke-warm apology.

4.  People don't care.  People still mad.  People still writing angry comments.  Other online fashion sites are chiming in, chastising Marie Claire and this blogger.   Blood in the water!!

5.  Blogger tries to move on, blog about other things.

6.  People don't care.  People STILL writing furious comments, even on her new posts which include tips on "how to know if he's the one" and some uninteresting gushing about Jane Austen.

7.  Blogger's other readers getting frustrated on blogger's behalf and writing posts telling everyone else to back off.

8.  Commenters say, "Blogger, you're a bully!"

9.  Blogger says, "Sorry!"

10.   Other readers say, "No, commenters, YOU'RE the bullies!"

etc., etc., etc..

Reading the comment streams was like watching some terrible yet hypnotic reality show.  Everyone is angry.  Everyone is convinced they're right.  Some people are being very confessional, some people are just being crass, and about every ten posts there is some very sensible comment pleading compassion and thoughtfulness.

There's something very familiar about all this...

Oh, I know! It's just like listening to election coverage!!

(heh, heh.)

This writer voiced some very shallow and very cruel opinions in a public forum and I am completely in agreement with peoples anger.  I'm shocked that she hasn't been fired by Marie Claire--but, who knows, maybe they love the PR, negative or not.  What I'm NOT in agreement with, however, is the tirade of hate and insult (one commenter actually said he thought she was the spawn of Satan) that follows in the wake of something like this.

It's difficult, when there is blatant cruelty happening, or ignorance, or whatever it is, to not want to start throwing spears at the offender.  It's difficult not to want to SHOW said person how WRONG they are...I was composing my own little rebuff in my head as I was scrolling through the comments section...but it is just not ever going to get us anywhere.  I firmly, truly believe (and if I get 994 comments about this, so be it) that calling a name-caller names is never the answer.

Hatred is hatred.  Cruelty is cruelty.  Even if I feel entirely justified, even if EVERYONE else would say that I'm entirely justified...it's still hatred.  And if I'm calling some woman worthless and the spawn of satan...well then I've just created a pretty divisive world for myself to live in.

Because it's MY mind and MY heart and MY body that I have to live in.  It's not this apartment, this city, this country, this planet--it's the landscape of my own heart and mind that I occupy--and if I'm building walled off places for the good and the bad and claiming my rights to hatred because the BAD people did something BAD, then I'm living in a police state, no matter who the government is.

Namaste, yo.

(Sorry, I had to get some yoga in there somewhere...)

Anyhow, I would love to know what you all think about all this, because there's a big question mark here about how it is we remain compassionate without being democrat--I mean, doormats.   How can we be fired up about silencing bigotry and hatred WITHOUT falling into the trap of bigotry and/or hatred ourselves?

Ideeeeeeeas?

Ch-Ch-Ch-Choices...

to see this photo in all its glory, go here.

I walked two miles the other day to get to a yoga class, as our car is in the shop and we're not getting a rental for a couple days...I wasn't going to do it, but I looked on the schedule and one of my favorite teachers was unexpectedly teaching a long class, so I put on my walkin' shoes and went on my merry way.

Let me just say, having recently experienced a walk across all of Los Angeles and now this mini walk from my house to my yoga studio--LA is NOT built for walkers.  It's just not.  There are crosswalks that span six lane intersections that give you 20 seconds to cross the street, there are big chunks of roadway with sidewalks only on one side of the street, there are pedestrian lights that never change...it's a sucky place to try and be a walker.  I was so annoyed at one point during my walk yesterday that I started writing an angry letter to the city in my head, though luckily I stopped myself halfway through the composition of it with visions of myself old and angry and taking it out on a typewriter in a dark room somewhere, "Letter to the Editor: I hate everything.  Love, Lia."

(The above falls into the coveted category of My. Worst. Nightmares.)

Anyhow, I get to the studio and my aforementioned favorite teacher, for whom I just walked two miles (two and a quarter if you count all the stupid detours I had to make to stay on actual sidewalks) WASN'T THERE!! Argh!! I was tempted, people, though I have railed against it in the past, I was tempted not to go.  But there was no way I was making that walk for nothing!

So, I went.

And let me say this...the sub was really lovely, a newer teacher but great, really passionate and sweet and welcoming, but for whatever reason I was just...not in the mood.

I wanted something familiar, I wanted the teacher I expected, I wanted to be able to sort of disappear into the class instead of, as it can happen with subs, to help hold up the class with them.  And I found that all through class I was sort of fighting myself, going off into these long deep spirals of thought and then swimming my way back to the surface again, coming up just long enough to get some air, to be in the room, and then diving back down.  And every so often I would think to myself...get in the room, Lia, just be in the room.

And for just a moment I would acknowledge the sanity of that--yes, I will probably feel better/be happier/move more deftly if I just decide to be where I am.  But, I just...couldn't.

Or, rather...I WOULDN'T.

Because I DO have a choice.  I know that now in ways I once did not.  I do have a choice.  Even when I feel like I am rotten and everything else is rotten and there's no way I could ever see anything as anything other than rotten...I know that I can.  I know that it's my choice whether I drop it or hold on tight.  It's my choice whether I indulge and dwell or whether I breathe and release.  It's my choice--and it was my choice in that moment--to either place my full attention on my body and my breath and the class in front of me, or to keep it where it was, deep in the muck.

Even to stay stuck is a choice--it's a sucky choice, most likely almost always for sure most definitely the WRONG choice...but it's a choice.  And I think what can be difficult is that, in those moments of choice, in those moment-to-moment how am I going to choose to walk through the world today choices, we are totally alone.  We are the final arbiter.  The big decision maker.  And there is no one or no thing on the outside that is ever going to be able to make that choice for us. And so sometimes it can be scary...to choose freedom, presence, happiness...it can feel irresponsible or vulnerable or somehow untethered.

But I am here to tell you, Shanti Towners, it's not.  And I am officially giving you my utter and full permission to make the right choice, the one that makes you breathe a sigh of relief...the one that sends thrills of peace down your backbone...I promise it will all be okay.

Do You Like It Fast or Slow?

 Alright, so now that I'm a teeeeeeeacher, I have become very, very fancy.

(I got enlightened for my birthday, did I tell you all that?  Yes, it's finally happened.  I don't like to talk about it much, since I no longer have an ego and have no need to pump myself up in any way, but let me tell you...it is AWESOME.  See you on the other side, suckas!)

Hmm, that's two references to a "sucka" in two blog posts.  That's not right.

Anyhooooooo...what I was actually going to say is that now that I've become a teacher, I just spend a lot more time talking about yoga, and in particular, talking about styles of yoga.

"what style do you teach?" "what style of class is this?" "what style of studio do you work at" etc., etc., etc..  And it's been an interesting thing for me in Los Angeles, because although there are a lot of "flow" studios and classes around ("flow" is technically the style that I teach.  Though now that I'm enlightened (and 30) I don't much care for laaaaaabels) but there are NOT a lot of classes or studios that really teach in the style that I am trained in, which is...ROCK STAR YOGA!!!

(insert slammin' guitar riff here)

I'm kidding.  Sort of.  Because actually a big component of what I teach involves music and creativity and (I hope) a kind of celebratory approach to the practice that can be a little free-form....  This is the kind of style that is par for the course in New York but very difficult to find in Los Angeles...which can be a GREAT thing for me as a teacher and/or it can get me greeted with looks of horror and disgust from students and acquaintances.

THEM:  What style do you teach?

ME:  (explains style).

THEM:  (just-smelled-something-rotten-face) Oooooh, I don't like that.

I'm taking a small amount of artistic license here, but I have had several interactions in the past couple weeks where people have proclaimed with fierce distaste: "I don't like to move fast" when it comes to yoga class.

Well, I have the following things to say about that:

1.  ME NEITHER!! A good flow class shouldn't be "fast"...it should flow.  The idea of Vinyasa, or any flow style, is that you're threading poses fluidly together...the idea is not to move "fast".  In Power Yoga maybe you move fast, but Vinyasa should be...flowing.  It should be rythmic.  It should move at the pace of the breath.

2.  Taking into account #1 above...the other thing about flow is that the intention is a little bit different than with a more-alignment based style.  Part of the intention of flow is to hypnotize the brain with that ceaseless fluid movement AND to get the body (and the spirit) lined up and in tune with a larger pulsation.  The pulsation of the universe, actually, is what we're trying to line up with (if I may be so bold).

So...

3.  Flow classes MUST be approached with a different expectation.  No, you are not going to spend as long in any one pose.  No you are not going to be doing a ton of deep anatomy talk, though depending on the teacher, you very well might.  I've got a whole class planned about the hands.  So there, suckas!

What I'm trying to say is that of course we all have preferences...I have preferences.  My god, I have a really serious Anusara practice in addition to my flow practice and sometimes all I want to do is go slow, go deep, stay immersed in a pose...but I think that the "flow" often gets a bad rap among students who maybe have never even really given it a fair shot.  And I want to say, in defense of flow teachers and students everywhere, that it is JUST as valuable and JUST as deep a practice as any other.

(As I'm writing this I realize I have to apologize, silently, for all the judgy things I've thought about Bikram yoga in the past.  Sorry, Bikram!!  We're all in this together!)

My Itchy Finger

So, one of the things I did for my 30th birthday was get a barn-burner of a pedicure--the 15 massage add-on, the deep moisture treatment, the callous removal (I was a little dubious about that, as I spend so much barefoot time AND for whatever reason nail ladies are always so judgy about callouses, I don't even know if I want them up in there), the polish, the foot massage--so good!! I was so happy to be getting some "pampering"--I was a little frustrated that all the good fashion mags were on the other side of the room--but it was mostly very, very, good.  And then I noticed that my finger, the index finger on my right hand was...well...rigid.  Every other part of me was relaxing into the chair, relaxing into the hot neck pillow thing behind my head, except this one, pesky, finger.

I flashed back to a day in a class several months ago when one of my teachers kept coming over and pressing my finger down on to the mat--that same index finger--because it apparently was having its own practice and like a little stress-flag, did not want to be put down.

And as I relaxed the finger in the nail salon massage chair, and its adjoining hand, I thought about how funny it is that tension will, just, find a way.  And I thought about how this firm little digit was like some last holdout of my un-relaxed (smaller) self--wanting to be in charge, wanting to hang in there a little longer and make sure all is well before really giving in to being relaxed.  And this finger seems to be a safe respite, a hidden spot in my body.

Well, not for long, sucka!

I have been paying a good deal of attention to those rebellious fingers lately...keeping them planted firm in downdog, keeping them sweet and soft in the standing poses...urging myself to be brave...reminding myself that it is okay to let go completely, even of this stubborn pesky pointer.

(For you symbolists in the audience...coincidence that the index finger is the finger used to point out when accusing and to point in when gloating?!  I think noooooot.)

Happy Birthday(s)!

I have been a very bad blogger these past few weeks, but I have good reasons, I promise!

1. I was planning a surprise party for my fiance's 40th birthday (don't worry, it's done now...it all went swimmingly) but who knew planning a party required so much...planning.  I'm considering a practice round for wedding planning.  Which, ladies and gentlemen start your engines, begins NOW.

2.  I was simultaneously trying to decide what on earth to do for my 30th birthday (which was yesterday, thank you very much)...because it was my big 30 and ALSO because it happened to fall on 10/10/10.  Which also equals 30.  Which means, I assumed, that on that day I would FINALLY become enlightened.  How does it feel to finally be enlightened?  Feels good, people, feels good.

and 3.  Because I've actually been teaching more and more (hooray) and I'm still learning the fine art of time management...

Anyhoo...the birthday weekend just happened (Paul's on Saturday, mine on Sunday--I know, how nerdy!) and it was a great success.  On Saturday we WALKED ACROSS LOS ANGELES.  No joke.  We walked from Los Feliz to Santa Monica.  And then we just fell into a little heap on the sand.  It was INTENSE.  There will be a future blog all about the crazy journey from total optimism to total physical torture that occurred during those 8 hours, but for now I want to talk about day two...Sunday...my birthday.

We, being totally sore and exhausted, decided that my birthday would be a bit more, um, relaxing, and I had several things I wanted to do, but no plan.  Purposefully, no plan.  At first I thought the plan-less-ness was a hindrance, or that I was somehow failing my own birthday, but as the day arrived I suddenly realized that the "no planning" for my 30th birthday was exactly how I want to enter into this new decade: relaxed, plan-free, spon-tan-eous.

The day began with coffee on the sun-deck of the motel where we stayed, evolved into a daring swim in the ocean (at 8am folks, because I am amazing), and then a hobble (you should see Paul's poor feet!) to the Santa Monica promenade where I bought some of my favorite green tea.  We had planned, then (plans!) to take a cab back home, but at the last minute decided (no plans!) to take a bus instead.  So we hopped on the first bus that we thought would take us near where we wanted to go, or at least to downtown where we could then take another bus...and as the bus pulled up at it's final destination, we saw across the street some kind of festival.

We pondered it and realized it was probably the Olvera Street market, which I'd been wanting to go to for quite some time, so we decided to check it out.  But upon further inspecition we discovered, to my delight, that it was in fact this big mole festival "Feria de los Moles" that I had been reading about and bemoaning not being able to go to (I LOVE mole)...and here we were! Right smack in the middle of it! On my birthday!  We promptly joined in, waiting in a long line in the hot sun for some amazing mole, and marveled at the magic of coincidence.

And as we sat on the sidewalk, eating our plate of black mole, I said to Paul that I was going to take the symbolic significance of our little adventure as confirmation that my 30's was going to be about not planning...and still ending up somewhere great.  Ending up, in fact, exactly where I wanted to go.

Shanti-Town Recommends: The Sassy Curmudgeon

This recommend has been a long time in coming, and I know, is poor excuse for not writing a real post, but I've got some top-secret (ish) projects in the works and I'm busy, y'all!! 

In the meantime, please go here. 

You will not regret it.  This blog is my secret blog addiction.  This blog makes me wish I were cheekier, snarkier and interesting-er...but it never makes me feel bad about not being more of any of those things...

If you like pop culture, unibrows, fashion by the fashionless, droll witty lasciviousness...you will love this blog.

Why Perfection Ain't It...

I have some breaking news, I hope you're all sitting down...

I.  Am NOT.  Perfect.

I just found this out myself pretty recently and believe me, I'm just as shocked as you are.  But get this!!  Not only am I not currently perfect, but I will NEVER be perfect.  (This is the one that really knocked me for a loop...).

But folks, here's what I've been slowly discovering, about this whole "perfection" thing:  If you believe you either a. can achieve perfection, b. are destined to achieve perfection and therefore c. MUST achieve perfection, you will tend to feel...DISAPPOINTED ALL THE TIME.

I was in a class the other day, one of the extra-long "practice" classes, where the teacher practices along with the students and, depending on the teacher, goes yoga pose ca-ra-zay...and in this particular class, with this particular energetic (and lovely) teacher, I was BY FAR the least capable student in the room.  There were, just, oodles of poses I couldn't even attempt, but which everyone else could, and did...and my first response was a feeling of being...affronted.

How DARE they all be able to do these poses I don't know how to do...don't they know who I aaaaaaaam?!  I am one of the lucky few who drives herself to distraction with the deep ceaseless drive for perfection!!  No, better even...I am one of those rarefied ones who knooooows deep in her heart that she is destined for perfection and so deserves any present day misery in service of the larger goal, and how dare you screw that up by proving me to be only (argh!)...oooooordiiiiinaaaaaary!

And I remembered how the last time I took an acting class I had this feeling...this feeling that I was not (god forbid) the BEST in the class and that my imperfection was being displayed for all to see, and how just tormented I was by it.  And I remember that I was cleaning a bathroom one night after class, just scrubbing and ruminating, when this thought occurred to me...

"If I didn't think that I am supposed to always be the very best at everything I do...if I didn't HAVE to be best in class...what would happen?"

And I realized that I would be...well, I would be the actress that I actually AM.  That maybe instead of being ashamed and disappointed that I was not living up to my own expectations of total f-ing perfection, maybe I would actually be able to see IN REALITY what my strengths and weaknesses are.

And if...if I look at those actual strengths and weaknesses and I (horror of horrors) turn out to be just...human.  Just a woman with a career and a family and a...life.  Then what?  Does that mean I don't count?  If I don't turn out to be a world-changing media-shaking titan (which, I have to say, since I'm nearly 30 and have like $2 in the bank, doesn't exactly seem EMINENT)...what, I'm just going to be disappointed my whole life?  Not just disappointed, but robbed of my present day experience because none of it "measures up"?!  Never knowing or being able to feel good about the place I'm currently standing in?

And I went back to that class, determined to be my imperfect self, and things turned around for me.  I became...with myself.  And my work got better.  And the praise I wanted, the feeling of satisfaction I wanted, the feeling that good work was being done...all came, effortlessly.

And I watch myself in yoga classes now, and I watch my students in class with me when I teach, and I see how often (even though it's not supposed to be part of the game) there is this sense of embarrassment when we can't do something...like if only not for that, no one would know we're not perfect.  Or at least WE wouldn't have to be faced with it.  And that's just...missing the bigger picture. 

Because, no matter what it is...how we are as an artist or a partner or a mother or a child, I think it's all just an opportunity for us to experience ourselves and our lives as they actually are and not, as so many of us seem to use them for, one more opportunity to measure ourselves against our own impossible standards.

So, Shanti-towners, go out there and be imperfect!! Let your average flag fly!!  You might just notice yourself breathing a big sigh of relief...

xo
YogaLia

Don't Be Scaaaaaaaared.

Okay, this is definitely a side note to what will be the bulk of this post, but I've been watching some boob-tube this evening (pun intended) and is anyone else as horrified as I am by the Victoria's Secret models in lingerie proclaiming kitten-like, "I love my body." while they squirm around and make kissy-faces. I mean, is that supposed to be ironic? Or am I supposed to think that it's the BRA that makes THOSE women love their body? It's not because, oh I don't know...they're VICTORIA'S SECRET MODELS?!?! Sorry...I just...seriously.

Ahem.

So, on to the point. I've been teaching. Mainly I've been teaching privately, as I'm giving out free introductory sessions in LA to friends and family so I can get my teach on, and a small class at a condo in Culver City...and I've been noticing this interesting trend amongst a lot of the folks that I've been teaching:

First of all, most of my students don't have a ton of experience in group classes and many of them express the same trepidation when they talk about yoga:

"I don't want to go to class because I don't want to be the only one who can't do anything."

And some of these students are, sure, injured or feel like they're not in tip-top shape, but some of them, MOST of them, are young and strong and healthy and have no reason to feel...inferior. In any way. Certainly not in a YOGA class. One of my students, who is a runner and in great shape and has a lot of natural grace asked me after our session, "am I the worst student you've ever had?"

The answer was of course NO, not by a long shot, but it was also NO and I would NEVER think of students in that way! That is not the deal with yoga! Yoga is about the opposite of that. It is about the eradication of that "oh no I'm bad at this" way of measuring progress.

But do you know whhhhhhhhy these students feel this way? It's not in their imagination. They didn't just make it up. It's because they've BEEN to classes somewhere and they've been made to feel, for whatever reason, that they were totally out of their league.

And maybe in some cases it's because they went to a class that wasn't the right level for them...but maybe it's just because they went to a class labeled "basics" that was far from it. Or maybe it's because they ended up at a clique-y studio where the teacher played favorites and made them feel out of the loop. Or maybe they tried to use a block to help them in class (this happened to a friend of mine) and the teacher came over and TOOK IT AWAY and said to her, "blocks are for old people and injured people."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Hold on. I'm collecting myself so that I don't go track down that teacher and kick him in his stupid head.)

Anyhow, my point is, I feel like there's this whole population of people who are interested in yoga but have been scared off in one way or another, and I just...where are the classes for them? Where are the classes for people who aren't "yogis", who don't feel like they have a natural affinity, who need some truly basic instruction in an environment free from judgment? Where do you go if you want to learn but you don't want to feel like "new kid" is tattoed on your forehead?!

I remember several years ago I wanted to take a dance class, and I had some ballerina friends who were like, "oh go here...take this beginner's ballet class at this great studio, you'll love it." And so I did. I showed up, and one of my ballerina friends introduced me to the teacher and told her I was new and she looked at me and said, "Great. What kind of dancer are you?"

And I said, "Oh. Um...I'm not a dancer."

And she said, "You're--you've never taken ballet?"

And I nodded and said, "In fact, I've never taken dance. Period." And, she seemed a little nervous about this, which made me REALLY nervous, and then when class began I immediately understood why. It's because a "beginning" ballet class at a dance studio in downtown New York is not for people who haven't taken dance since they were in preschool. It's for dancers. It's for modern dancers who want to try ballet, or for ballet dancers who have taken some time off and want a refresher course. It was, for sure, not for me.

I tried. I tried to leap around and stand on my toes, but really I just had to give in to being totally humiliated and feeling like a fat graceless slob compared to my classmates. Which I did, for a few weeks, but then I quit. Because I didn't want to feel that way. And I think that's how people feel when they go to a yoga class...they might hang in for a few weeks, but if they feel like they're miles behind everyone else, there's no way they're going to stick it out.

It's both frustrating for me to see this big GAP in the way yoga as a popular practice is taught in the west, but it's also sort of exciting for me, as a teacher. To be able to work one-on-one with people and begin to build a foundation with them so that maybe they CAN go to a class and feel like they're swimming in the same pool as everyone else. It's cool. It's gratifying.

And this is totally a stretch, but maybe my Victoria's Secret model rant at the beginning of this post wasn't actually so off topic...because, not everybody wants a bra that's made for a lingerie model...most of us can't even begin to relate to something marketed for a squirming vixen. Some of us want a bra made for adorable girls with bellies. Some of us want to watch the Dove Real Beauty commercials over and over again.

Which means, I guess, that as a yoga teacher I'm not interested in being Victoria's Secret. I'm very happy being Dove. Or...um...Hanes Her Way?

B.K.S You Can!

Okay, so, I know this really pushes the ol' yoga practice into the drum-circle-in-the-woods vibe, but if you take a sec to watch this video, just please raise an impressed eyebrow at the gracefulness of his transitions!! Hello B.K.S., will you be my yoga hero?

Discipline.

So, since I got back from my teacher training...my month long Yoga Extravagaaaaanzah, the question I keep getting asked the most is about discipline.  Namely how, now that yoga camp is over (tee hee), am I maintaining my home practice/mantra practice/sutra study/total crazy devotion here at home.

And it is a really really good question.

And it's a really really good question, because when I got back to LA, the thing happened that always happens, which is--I went right back to doing all the same stuff I always do but hadn't been doing during my month atop Mt. Yoga.  I went back to watching too much crappy television, to incessantly checking my blackberry, to stressing out about ridiculous stuff, to sleeping in and eating a little too much (just a little) and drinking wine and generally losing and regaining focus over and over throughout the day.

I also added some new stuff--like being engaged.  Which means promising not to make any solid plans for another month but spending time on wedding blogs anyhow, and talking to family, and gushing to friends, and dreaming and talking about the future.  And worrying about the future.  And gazing obsessively at my shiny new ring.

BUT!

(That's right...don't write me off yet...)

I have also...in the midst of all of that...managed to do the following:

Practice. Every. Single. Day.  Most days on my own mat, at home.  Because goddamnit I want to be a good teacher, and that is where I am going to teach from, so I am not letting that slide, alright?!

Meditate. (Almost.) Every. Single. Day.  Thank god for my mantra practice which has successfully fooled my brain into thinking we're not meditating, even when we are.  Sri Ram Jai Ram, yo.

Keep Teaching.  A lot.  I am giving it away for free all over town, and people are taking me up on it, and I am teaching and teaching and teaching.  And a few times it's been really great, and a few times it's been really sucky, and most of the other times it just feels...new. 

Keep reading and writing and thinking about my practice, about the kind of teacher I might like to be...about philosophy and asana and Lady Gaga.  Wait, oh....  Oops.  Does Vanity Fair not count as yoga reading material?  No...it counts.  I think it totally counts.  Lady Gaga is totally yoga.  I even have a future post planned which will be titled "Gaga for Yoga" or "The Yoga of Gaga".  Something.  Anyhow, she rocks.  She is, without question, so much cooler than I will ever even hope to be that I can't even feel inadequate next to her.  Because we're not even...we're not even the same species.  She's a neon pink giraffe with amazing eyelashes and I'm a...I'm like some kid's pet hamster.  So, you know, I can't really compare. 

Anyhow, I'm saving that for my Goga Yaga post.  Oooh! Maybe if I end up having a "yoga name" it could be Lady Goga! 

Wow.  I am so off topic.

What was this supposed to be about, again?  Yes, right.  Discipline.

Focus.

One-pointed-ness.

My POINT with all of this is to say that as much as I had fantasized, upon coming home, that I would still be spending 8-10 hours a day totally immersed in practice and study and and and (because that's how disciplined and enlightened I am)...the truth is that there is this other thing in my life, called life, and it needs its own room.  So I am discovering that discipline and devotion, in order to be successful, have to be flexible (pun intended). 

Yoga is really the first thing in my life that I've ever had a real discipline about.  I've been an actress forever, but I never woke up mornings and felt like "oh my god I have to make sure I'm acting everyday" in the way that I have always felt about yoga.  And so yoga is also the first thing in my life that has taught me what real discipline is...

And what I've discovered is that all it really is, is...doing the thing.  Just...doing the thing, over and over and over again.  Just returning, in this case to the mat, over and over.  No matter what.  And it doesn't mean that if you miss a day you have to start back at the beginning.  What it actually means is that if you miss a day, or a week, or a month...you come back.  You always just...come back.  And you don't freak out about it.

What actually makes discipline so elusive is that it's NOT summer camp...it's not an enforced structured 8-hours a day homework due at a certain time type situation...it's way more fluid than that, and it has to exist in your ACTUAL life.

So...how am I doing?

I'm waking up.  I'm practicing.  I'm doing a mantra.  I'm doing that nearly every day.  I'm trying to get to class.  I'm trying to read more, as much as I can.  And then I'm eating and I'm hanging out and I'm adoring and then complaining and then just saying screw it and having a glass of wine.  And I'm coming back.  And coming back.  And coming back.

No She Can't!

I was in class the other day with a perfectly fit, perfectly young, perfectly punk rock young woman who literally had an outloud reason for why she couldn't do EVERYTHING.  Including such gems as:

"That gives me rug burn"

"I'm clumsy"

"If anyone is going to break their neck doing that, it's me"

Etc., etc., etc.

It was so overt and so constant that I couldn't help but hobnob with the teacher afterwards about how often this girl sent up the "I can't do that" cry (seeing as how now I am also a *gasp* teacher, and I'm interested in dishing about how such things could and ought to be handled.  And I also just have sort of a gossip streak...) and the teacher just shrugged and said:

"Yeah.  It's her mantra."

And I just...yummy...I just LOVED this, because it was so very very true.  The "I can't do it" mantra.  Nearly as powerful, if not more so, than the "I don't want to do it" mantra, the "I'm no good at that" mantra, and my personal favorite, the "I don't deserve that" mantra.

They are powerful, those little sound loops in our head, but also (thankfully) totally within our control...

(or so they say)...