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.