Engaging the Little Lousy Lady.

So, this morning I was crabby.

More than crabby.

I was don't-ask-me-how-I'm-doing-or-I'll-cry crabby.

And some of that was due to going to sleep at 3am and then waking up at 8:15am with barely time to throw on boots and some deodorant before rushing out the door to come to the yoga studio and work. And some of it was just due to having spent a weekend over-using my over-active brain.

And I was determined that I would not be going to class, as I'd not had my morning tea, and I was in this near-tears state of crabbiness and Hagar was teaching and Hagar can be a little, well...ass-kicky.

But Hagar is also so full of awesomeness I can't describe it, and is a teacher who I have been growing closer with, and she asked me, as she was adjusting her yoga teacher meets avante-garde fashionista pants, if I would be coming to class, and I had to tell her the truth.

I told her I didn't think I would be coming as I was feeling a little off this morning.

"Physically?" She asked.

"Noooooo." (whimper, whimper).

And without pressing too hard, she...ahem, encouraged me to come to class anyway.

"It will be better than sitting here." She said. And I knew she was right. But still I did not WANT to go, because I knew that if I DID go I would be forced to confront whatever I was feeling as a real thing in my body and not just a flurry of fast moving thoughts in the ether of my brain. I knew if I went to class I would have to be with myself, and I was finding myself a bit distasteful at that particular moment. You want me to go be with myself? Why would I want to be left alone with this person (me)? All she does is tell me all the things that are wrong with me and remind me what I ought to be afraid of! You want me to take this person with me to yoga and open up all my soft parts to her? I doooooon't think so, lady.

So though most parts of me were like NOOOOOOooooo, let's stay out here and think things throoooooooough a little bit more first! One tiny teensy part of me was whispering, go. It will be good for you.

And so I went to class. I went and I allowed myself to be where I was--as grumpy as I was. I could feel Hagar with me throughout, though she rarely came over to me or spoke directly to me, I could feel her--as if she was teaching just for me. Which, of course, she wasn't--but she was holding me, gently, in her attention, and it helped. I felt bolstered by it. And slowly, slowly, slowly, as I lifted up and bent down and twisted, my attention began to turn, and I could feel all the stickiness of the upset and the worry start to get a little less...sticky.

How is it possible?! How is it that a couple handstands and some bending at the waist can utterly transform a mood? And why is it that I am so reticent to allow that fact at exactly the moments I need it most?

I posed this question to Hagar after class--why it is that the thing which we know will be best for us is so often the hardest thing to do when we are feeling bad? Why is it that the one solution that might actually relieve us of some weight is the one we come to very last? She said she thought it was because there is darkness and light in all of us, and that darkness can be loud and powerful and it doesn't WANT the light. It doesn't want it because for it, the light is the end of the road. Destruction-ay.

And we talked about the seductiveness of that feeling, and how strongly it can hold our attention, and I told her that, for me, what made the yoga so powerful is that it forces you to engage. Even if you don't want to. Because (and this is the genius of the whole system) the yoga is not possible...it is not physically possible, without engagement. Yes, you can go to class and be preoccupied, of course of course, but at some point, inevitably, all that mucking around with your body is going to bring you INTO your body. And once you are in your body, you are in your life. Once you are in your body, you are present. And it can be hard to commit to that when you are feeling lousy--because some part of you knows (it KNOWS, it really does) that if you get engaged, if you get present, then the lousy feeling can no longer be. It's actually IMPOSSIBLE for the lousy feeling to remain if you are engaged in your present moment experience. Trip out on that for a couple minutes, I dare you, because if you follow that to its logical conclusion it could mean a pretty radical attitudinal change...

And so that lousy feeling (or at least this is how it is for me) is like, "No, no, no, don't do that! You don't want to do that because then...well then how will you ever SOLVE me?! You're just going to, what, be IN your life? What about me? What happens to me, then?" It is fighting for its life, this little bugger. It is fighting for its entire existence, and so the thought of you doing something, anything, that would DISSOLVE it...is not at the top of the little guy's list.

And as we were talking I thought about this fact--this engagement--and I thought how often for me it is the thing which goes first. I am in my life, I am in my life, and then I just...step away. Thinking I am stepping away to get a better look, to make sure everything is going as it should, but really I am just withdrawing.

We get told over and over again in class to root through our hands and root through our feet, to keep our legs and arms engaged, to keep the core active, to hug in, to engage, to engage, to engage. And we are told we must do this to protect ourselves from injury, and we are told we must do this to get the full expression of the pose, and we are told that we must always come back to this--to come back to this feeling of engagement, and I realize that this is also what must happen in one's life. We have to remember to root down. To hug in. To engage and re-engage, because THAT is the only thing that will allow the full expression of one's life, and THAT is the thing that will protect one from injury.

And so to my little lousy lady inside I say, I hear you, but I am going to yoga, anyhow...

Shanti-Town Recommends...

This is a long time in the coming, but anyone who likes Shanti-Town will LOVE...

HAPPINESS IS...

Sigh, sigh, and double-sigh. This blog needs no explanation, it is just pure unadulterated loveliness.

It is the brain-child of an old friend and total goddess, Shannon Eileen, and I go here just to let a little of her gooey awesomeness rub off on me...

Thank you, Shannon! Happiness is, Happiness Is...!

xo
YogaLia

The Yoga of Fear...

So, the other day on my way to class, for no apparent reason, I was struck with a large and penetrating fear. The kind that washes your whole body--the kind that makes your heart race and your stomach go all quibbly. It was not connected to anything in particular (though I soon found something to connect it to, clever, quick-minded girl that I am. Note: Sarcasm), but it did come on the heels of an up and down day in which, among other things, I fired my agent.

That's right. I fired my agent.

Well, why is that? You ask. Is it because you have legions of other bigger, better agencies pounding down your door?

Nooo, not exactly.

Well then, why? Is it because it's sort of a slow season, and not the middle of pilot season, and you have some other meetings set up?

Noo, no, not that either.

Oh. Well it must be because your agent did something HORRIBLE like lost you a job or something?

Uh, no. Nope. Nopers.

I'm confused, YogaLia, what prompted this sudden termination?

Well, quite honestly, blog of mine, I fired him because he wasn't doing anything. I fired him because in the 7 months we have been working together, he did not procure me one single solitary audition. And also, and maybe mostly, I fired him because I needed to hear myself stand up for myself. I needed to know that the me who understands that I deserve better, much better, is still around and ready to take charge.

But that doesn't mean I wasn't sort of thrown off balance by the whole thing...I was. I wanted him to fight for me, and he didn't. I wanted the phone to ring right after with a sudden out of the blue call for a job that I could then rub in former agent's face, and it didn't. And so, on my way to class I was feeling a bit...adrift.

Hence, perhaps, the wave of fear. The wave of fear that felt very much like the fear of the possiblity of total groundlessness, and probably in fact WAS the fear of the possibility of total groundlessness, and which, all the same, took me by surprise and spun me nearly upside-down.

Now, let me add here that fear is my go-to emotion in most stressful situations. I hate to admit that. And I'll amend it by saying, that for all that, I still consider myself a pretty fearless person. But I WORRY. I worry...a lot. And when things get tough, instead of some good ol' fashioned anger, I tend to turn to...fear.

And as I walked into class, this feeling sort of DRIPPING off of me, I thought something along the lines of "Goddamnit. This again." Because I knew which way that road leadeth, if you know what I mean. I am very familiar with the ins and outs and ups and downs of the highway of worry that is carved in me, and I am, to say the very least, sick of driving those roads.

And I didn't want another moment of my life stolen by worry. And I did not want my yoga to be tainted, in any way, by the nonsense of worry.

And so as I sat down, I reviewed my options:

A. Spend class worrying. Go through motions with body.

B. Spend class fighting worry. Go through motions with body.

And then, suddenly, a third option presented itself to me. Something along the lines of:

C. Don't fight it.

Don't fight it.

Don't.

Fight.

It.

And I felt, as I considered this option, the strangest sensation. I felt the feeling of the worry intensify (as so much of the reasoning with/explaining away/fretting over is really an attempt by the mind to get away from the FEELING present in the body) and then I felt myself sort of--I don't know how else to explain it--sort of "drop in" to the feeling.

The feeling didn't go away, I wasn't suddenly transported to bliss-land, but I was FEELING what I was FEELING. And it wasn't altogether unpleasant.

My body was tingling. My chest was aching, like a heart aching in its shell. My cells were all alive and jiggly, but there was also--warmth. There was also an aliveness. And, it seemed at least, that maybe my heart wasn't pounding nearly so fast as I thought. I even felt, paradoxically, quite relaxed and attentive inside all the swirling feeling. The swirling feeling was still THERE, that's important to note, but I wasn't fighting it anymore.

And in that moment I really thought, oh my god, THIS is what I'm running away from? All that figuring out/examining/reassuring/lambasting, etc., is all just an attempt not to do THIS? Not to sit in the middle of THIS?

And I thought of all the times I've been told to be present. And I thought of how often I think of presence as being present to that which is OUTSIDE myself, and rarely do I think of my emotional state as a circumstance to be present to--just as valid as being present to sounds in a room or any of the other things I urge myself to pay more attention to.

And I felt such compassion for myself--for this intricate system that calls out to me and calls out to me and which I ignore or deem "bad" over and over again, in attempt to change the feeling that is present. And not going anywhere.

It was a powerful practice, needless to say. It was a practice that had little to do with the asana and so much more with standing out on that ledge--because it's a risk, isn't it? To be presented with a feeling that is uncomfortable and to say, I will not attempt to FIX you--I will not attempt to fix this moment--I will sit smack dab in the middle of it and experience it from tip to toe.

So, suddenly I post videos?

It's a little out of my ouevre, to post videos, I know, but I can't help myself! I stumbled across this and was so incredibly moved by it...

This is the winner of Ukraine's Got Talent (don't ask) and she is doing something called "sand animation". Basically she's standing behind a table that is covered in sand and lit from beneath. She is illustrating the bombings of Kiev during World War II...now, my knowledge of this is...well, nonexistent, and I imagine it would be even more powerful did I know the history and political import of some of what she's talking about, but the sheer emotional power of what she's doing is undeniable. One of the images that you'll see (thank you, Marianne Williamson, for explaining this so clearly in your blog) is a Ukrainian monument that commemorates the bombings she is talking about.

When the shots of the crowd come you see how cathartic what she is doing is for so many of them...because of the beauty and release she is granting to something so un-beautiful, so publicily and with so much GRACE (something that's been on my mind a lot lately--grace.)...and it doesn't hurt that she looks like a Ukrainian audrey hepburn meets charlotte gainsbourg.

Watch it, through to the end, you won't be disappointed.

Um...Gorgeous.