Me and Yoga, Sittin' in a Tree...

The other day a friend of mine, and fellow yoga teacher, took me aside before class to tell me that she had been doing an intensive yoga training the week prior and that she had thought of me. She had thought of me because, while she knew she was supposed to be feeling in love with yoga and in love with life, all that she was actually feeling, toward the end of the week, was that she wanted to punch everyone in the face.

And so, she thought of me.

This, I will have you know, I took to be a great honor. 1. Because this friend/teacher is someone I hold in great esteem, and the fact that I would come to her mind in the middle of a day at all makes me feel sort of soft inside. 2. Because, damnit, if you feel like punching yogis and you just want to know that there is someone out there who understands...well, I am eager to serve. Because I get it, yo. I get it.

She told me that she had been feeling guilty, because many of her counterparts during this week had been going to class in the mornings before the training began, and then staying late after to do even MORE yoga, and/or to sit around cups of hot tea and talk about yoga. My friend, she confided in me, only wanted to go home and drink wine, and basically do anything other than think about yoga. And she was feeling a little guilty about it.

I, of course, would have been on the go home and have a glass of wine team right there with her. Also, the friend in question is thriving as a teacher right now, she's got a crazy class-load AND she's doing retreats AND taking classes herself as a student, so it's no surprise that she's a little yoga-ed out.

But, I've been thinking a lot about our conversation over the last couple days. I was thinking about what Steven Espinosa said in my podcast interview with him a few weeks ago, about how often people can get into this yoga frenzy when they first discover the practice, and try to set their whole life up so that all they're doing is yoga...which is great, except for the fact that yoga isn't life. Life is life.

And I started to think about how our relationship to our yoga--or to whatever it is in our life that calls to us--just like our relationships with other people, can either be an obsessive one, a (dare I say it) immature one, or it can be a grown-up relationship. Grounded. Balanced. Sanely committed. It's the difference between obsessing over every text the object of your desire sends you, and talking non-stop to your friends about how perfect/dreamy/sensitive said object of desire is--it's the difference between THAT kind of relationship, and the kind of relationship that evolves out of a true and deep devotion.

One that has ups and downs. One you might have to participate in, even when maybe you don't so much want to. One that has some regularity and stability and some give and some take. This kind of relationship, the grown up kind, it allows room for those nights when all you really want to do is zone out and have a glass of wine, instead of gazing at one another across a candlelit table.

The other, the relationship that's only all zip-zappy-happy and fireworks and oh my god I only ever want to do this one thing because I love it so? I think that it's bound to disappoint. I think it might not have the room for growth that a body needs, which means that someday, it will be outgrown.

So, Shanti-towners...if you're just not feeling it today, whatever IT is, I am here to tell you...it's alright. Go for a walk. Read some trashy coverage of the royal wedding. Have a glass of wine (I would wait until at least noon for this one, but you gotta do what you gotta do). And remind yourself that your life is BIG, and there is all kinds of room in there for you to grow....

Easter Chickens and Lotus Flowers...

Happy Easter, Shanti-towners! 

It's amazing to me that not until my 30th year did I get around to having a conversation with someone about why the Easter Bunny lays eggs.  Why did I never notice that?  Bunnies don't lay eggs, people.  Chickens lay eggs!  I would like to officially begin, here and now, the campaign to elect a chicken to the role of Easter harbinger.  We've had enough of you, you weird egg-laying rabbit.  All hail the coming of the Easter Chicken!!

My apologies if you were a student in one of my classes this week, because you're about to witness me ripping myself off to write this blog post.  That's right, I'm stealing from myself.  (Cut to me, buffing my fingernails on my lapels.)

I am not going to pretend that I KNOW much about Easter...I was raised without religion (gasp!) and so my Easter knowledge stops at the following: Jesus died.  He rose again.  Ta-da!! Happy Easter!

But as I was thinking about it this week (trying to pull some fun class themes out of it)...thinking about transformation and about rebirth, I kept coming back to the symbol of the lotus flower.  You've seen this, yes?  You can find depictions of the lotus flower splattered all over religious iconography from the east...the Buddhists definitely lay more claim to it symbolically than the yogis, but you can find many a Hindu deity balanced on, and many a yogi's backsides emblazoned with, the lovely lotus.  It is, in my mind, one of the best symbols for transformation, and here's why:

The lotus, this gorgeous, pristine, floats-on-water flower is famous, not just for its beauty, but because of its roots. Literally...its roots.  The lotus flower spends its gestation period in the mud and muck at the bottom of ponds. Until, when it's ready to bloom, it grows up from the dank and mud, through the pond's depth, and finally opens, brilliantly, on the surface of the water.  Contained in the bloom of this little guy is not, then, just clarity and purity and perfect petals, but also muck and gunk and the remnant of it's long passage through the water.

What better symbol for transformation than something that began in darkness, that struggled from the grips of darkness, and then had to hold it's breath, just keeping faith that the surface was somewhere above it, probably unaware all the while that its destiny was to become this floating beauty.

Sound familiar? 

I don't know, maybe you're reading this and you're already in your float-y lotus stage...maybe you've left the muck far behind you and if so, could you please call me?  I have some questions I'd like to ask you.

But maybe you don't feel that way.  Maybe you feel like you're just bouncing back and forth between the mud and the upward struggle through the water, and never breaking the surface, and if so, then maybe the lotus could teach you (me) a thing or two:

Like that transformation can not come without something to be transformed from.  Like that a lotus flower without its roots in the mud would just float away, or get pulled under and drowned, or plucked up by some wayfaring bird.  But that a lotus who decided that the mud was good enough, or all that there would ever be...isn't a lotus.  And that change requires direction, it requires consistent motion and faith that there is a surface to break through.  No lotus is going to carve a zig-zap course through the water--zooming up half-way and then deciding the journey is futile and turning back.  It's up, up, up, with that sweet friend faith...just waiting for the water to part around your rising petals.

So, even though the Easter Chicken has come and gone by now, there is still time to channel your inner lotus.  To notice, at least, whether you're in the mud, or swimming towards the surface...or (lucky devil) already bobbing on the glassy water, and to take your next steps accordingly.  I believe, with all my heart, that there is clear water above you, and a surface above that, just waiting for you to break through it.

Ta da!! Happy Easter!

A Small Prayer for the Evening...

Dear god-universe--cosmic-soup-tingly-feeling-in-my-fingertips-and-chest-whoever-you-are-this-evening,

(Please tonight, as I'm wending my way toward sleep, please, please, oh-that-which-is-softer-than-me-and-all-open-arms, please help me to remember a few things, as I head towards bed.)

Please help me to remember, first, not to turn expansion, into pressure.  And that just because good things are happening, does not mean I have to become a better version of myself in order to keep them.

Please help me to remember that making lists of all the things I need to get done, is not the same as getting those things done.

Oh, and help me, if  you could, to remember to breathe into the tight places.  Please help me to remember that I know the difference between that which is open and that which is closed, and that it's up to me to choose which of those I want to be.

Could you also, while you're at it, help me to remember that it's all going to be okay? To remember that I can let go, and worlds will not collide?

Help me, please, to remember not to rob myself of joy/bliss/thrill/excitement/lovelovelove with the expectation that eventually (and soon) the other shoe is going to drop. Please help me to stop looking for that damn other shoe.  Remind me, please, that sometimes there is only shoe.  The good one.  The one that fits.

Also, please help me to remember that there are other people in the world. Help me to remember that I am connected to them. And that my heart isn't just yearning to be open so that I can have more stuff and fun-times, woo-hoo!  But so that we can collectively all begin to open, heart by heart.

And help me remember that I am allowed. And that there is room. And time. And resources to get everything I need to get done...done.  And also help me to remember that I will never get it all done.  And also help me to remember that all of those things I think I need to do, are just pale sad covers for the real and only thing I ever need to do, ever worth doing, which is learning, finally, how to fall madly in love with my own life.

Please help me remember how to fall madly in love with my own life.

And with you.

And with everyone else.

(Even the jerks.)


Lots of love,
YogaLia

In The Chair

You'll be pleased to know, after my last missive about this, that I do not have any sort of condition that's going to make all of my teeth fall out.  Phew!

What I did have, it turns out, is a loose crown.

Can I just put it out there, first of all, that I take really good care of my teeth?  I do.  It just so happens that I have been blessed with an "unbalanced PH" in my mouth (this is what my mother tells me.  Though she is also the person who assured me as a teenager that I would eventually be tall, like all the other women in my family).  Anyhooo...I get cavities really easily, is what I'm saying.  Thankfully not in years have I had a full-fledged cavity (though that's also how long its been since I last went to the dentist), but the last round of work I had done involved several (yes, several) root canals and crowns.  One of which, lovely bugger, had come loose.

After letting it sort of wiggle around in my mouth the last couple weeks, the pain and annoyance got to be too much to bear, so I moved my dentist appointment up a couple weeks and was in the chair this Tuesday for the big event.

This dentist I found, as I said in my last post, is lovely.  He's this sweet young Indian guy, who works there dentist-ing away with his dad, who has had the business for years.  He's friendly, he remembers my name and my teeth, and he makes me feel like he knows what he's doing.  His assistant, who looks like she's about 17 and who kept grimmacing every time she put the little suction thing-y in my mouth because she kept suctioning my lips and cheek...did not make me feel so much that way.  But, okay.

We had decided, my lovely dentist and I, that "while we were in there" (ugh) he would not only replace the crown, but go ahead and replace some old fillings as well.  Why not?  It'll be a little party right there in my upper right mouth.  Hooray!

Have I mentioned that I hate having dental work done?  Have I mentioned that I had to take a few deep breaths in the car before I could even make myself take the long walk across the parking lot into the office?  Have I mentioned that my mouth doesn't open very wide so going to the dentist always makes my jaw ache?  Have I mentioned that the whole thing, the weird horror-movie chair and the terrible music and the smell of, uh, sickly sweet something and the office-park blinds on the windows, how it all makes me feel vaguely ill?  And how the fact that I usually know enough about what they're doing in my mouth to be very nervous, but not actually enough to keep my imagination from running wild?

Right, there's that.

So, needless to say, I had to institute some serious deep-breathing for my little dental adventure.  I believe the dentist, who knows I'm a yoga teacher, actually said as we were getting ready to begin, "Alright, time to get your meditation on."

So I focused on the slats of trees through the blinds, and not the nervous hovering assistant.  I focused on relaxing my hands every time I felt them clenching up into little balls of "god please let this novocaine be good" terror.  And I tried to breathe.  And then tried to breathe again.  And so on.

And as I was laying there, my mouth achingly open, just trying with all my might to stay present to the whole room, and not just to my upsetting narrative about my buzzing teeth, I thought about how life can feel this way sometimes.   How there are these moments in life when there is nothing to be done...where you've let the problem, the little nagging ache get big enough that now there's no choice but to turn it over to a professional...and so what do you do?  Life is just like, open your mouth please, and keep it open until I'm done.  I'm going to be sticking some saws and drills and stuff in there, and you can either sit still and make it easy, or you can freak out, and make it a lot worse.

And I thought about how often, in those times when I am being drilled or cut open or forced to sit with something uncomfortable in my day to day life, how I just (I mean let's just call a spade a spade) freak the fuck out.  And that if I handled the dentist the way I handled those things...my god, he would have to strap me down.

So why is it that in the dentist chair I know?  Why is it that there I can say, alright sweetie...just breathe.  It will pass.  And I listen to myself.  And maybe I come in and I come out, but I know, somewhere somehow, that this uncomfortable (painful) experience is an opportunity for me to sit with.  To breathe in the face of.  To open, to stretch just a little bit wider.

But be it a nagging THOUGHT, instead of a trip to the dentist, and this same, alright sweetie...just breathe, it will pass, gets met with a big ol' NO IT WILL NOT!! I am never going to feel better and I need to fix this right now, I need to get myself the hell out of this chair!!

Imagine if you went to the dentist and had a hysterical meltdown because some part of you actually thought you were going to be in the dentist's chair FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.  That would, I think, make you a crazy person.  But this happens with emotions, with thoughts, all the time.

(Please tell me I'm not alone in this...)

But here's what I learned, Shanti-towners...I went to the dentist on Tuesday, I left that same day, and while my gums are still recovering from all the action they got, by and large, the experience is over.  Done.  Better.   Fixed.  And I'm sort of thinking, next time I'm faced with something I like about as much as I like my teeth getting drilled, I'm going to try--in the words of my lovely dentist--to get my meditation on.

Yes, Sometimes I'm Unfaithful...

That's right, Shanti-towners...I sometimes peddle my goods elsewhere.  It's time you knew.  And so here, evidence of my tarting around, is the article I just published in elephant journal.  Check it out if you have time!

Why I Don't [blank] As Much As I Should...

Home Practice.  Argh.

I've talked about this before in this blog, and thankfully, I have learned a few things about what a home practice is "allowed" to look like.  And that is...absolutely anything.  I've taken a very sneaky poll over the last few months of my fellow teachers and what their at-home deal is all about (I try to sneak it into conversation in unlikely places, as if we're just sharing, and not as if I'm picking their brains about their behind-closed-doors lives so that I can feel better about mine.  Which I am).  Anyhow...there's a range.  And the big advice is always...do what makes you feel good.

Do what makes you feel good.  (This is why I'm a yogi and not a Catholic.)

Alright, so I'm allowed to just do headstand and some pigeons if that's all I want to do.  Excellente!  You'd think I'd be rolling out my living-room mat like a champ.  But I'm not, and here's why:

1. I'm going to be really honest here Shantis...I'm teaching tons of classes every week, I'm talking about yoga, I'm writing about yoga, and between classes I'm thinking about, well, my wedding...and yoga.  The last thing I want to do when I'm home by myself...is yoga.  It's just the bald ugly truth.  I'm so sensitive about not turning my practice into a chore, terrified that then this one thing that has provided me such obligation-free joy over the last many years...will be ruined.  So I have been skimping on my at-home work.

2. I let myself get away with moi-der when I'm at home.  I am the kind of student at home that I would NEVER be in someone else's class.  I get distracted.  I half-ass all kinds of stuff.  I let my mind just go buck-wild...I mean WIIIIIIIIIIIIIiillllllllllllld.  I drink tea, I answer my phone, I sort of half check my email by glancing at the computer from the ground.  I fall out of poses!  All the time!  I rarely fall out of a pose in class! Want to know why?  Because in class...I'm focused.

3. And this goes along with number 2...I skimp on the el-class-o structure-o.  I just don't give myself a full class.  No theme-setting, no Om-ing...sometimes even (gasp) no savasana.  I mean, do I really neeeeeed all that stuff when I'm alone?  I'll just "mark" the places where I would normally be setting up or taking down and that will be good enough.  Right?

Wroooooooooooong.

Oh my god...if I went to someone's class and did that, I would be the crazy distracted student they told their friends about afterward.  I think about my own wildly distracted students this way!  Poor unfocused darlings!  But apparently their distractedness is just a reflection of my own scattered inner-workings!  I mean, come on, this is "outside is inside" symbolism 101, people! I should knoooooow this.

So, yesterday, I took matters into my own hands...I decided that I would treat my home practice just like it was a real class.  I moved furniture.  I brought props.  I chose a time frame and some practice-appropriate music...I turned off my phone and closed my computer...and set to work.  I did everything but give myself my own dharma talk!  I om-ed, I bowed, I focused.  I treated my practice with a bucketful more reverence than I normally do...and it worked!  I was present, I was breathing, I even did some crazy ass stuff that I would usually need a teacher to push me into.  ("crazy ass stuff"...yes, that is sanskrit.  It means...crazy. ass. stuff.)

So, great.  What I want to know is...why is the mere fact that other people are present in the room, or the mere fact that someone else is holding you accountable...why is that the necessary catalyst for a person to set to work?  My writers out there...you know what I'm talking about.  Deadlines can function like this...even if the only person who's going to read something is Paul, it makes me more likely to dedicate myself toward completing what I'm working on.  But try and sit down every day to do your work without this something or someone as encouragement...it's so much more challenging!  Why is it so hard for us to give ourselves permission to be dedicated?  To be focused?

Well, enough is enough!

From here on in, I'm saying it outloud...you get to be as sweet to yourself as you are to other people, as attentive to your own work as you are to the work that is assigned to you from elsewhere, and deeply dedicated to the actions you take, whether you're alone, or in front of 1,000 people.

Mooooooooooon River...

I would like to take a moment, Shanti-towners, to speak to you about my moon.

That's right...my mooooooooooooooooooon.  This is what a woman, I'm sorry--a goddess--would be likely to call her menstrual cycle.  The first time I ever heard someone call their period, their "moon", I felt nothing but embarrassed for everyone present.  There is no way, not even if I remain a yoga teacher for the rest of my life, not even if I start to talk straight-faced-ly about the chakras, will you ever EVER catch me referring to my cycle as "my moon".

From herein on in, this mystical time of the month will be spoken of merely as my "lady time".  Or, if I'm feeling frisky, my lad-ay tiiiiiiiiime.  Aw yeah.

Why am I bringing this up, you ask?  Well, mainly it's because I'm obsessed with myself, but ALSO it's because, though I jest about it...I do think it's important for we women to pay attention to and honor this very (frustratingly) frequent occurrence in our lives.  And for you men...I don't know, maybe you'll get something out of it, too.

Fun fact:  (I learned this in my Human Sexuality class in college--always a sold-out show) the hormone levels in a woman's body during her period are nearly identical to the hormone levels in a man's body ALL THE TIME.  Yikes!  When I first learned this I felt a surge of compassion for the men in my life...no wonder you get so fist-fighty so easily.  (I mean, the men in my life weren't really fist-fighty, but men in general...)

Let me just say that currently, I myself feel a little fist-fighty.  And sluggish.  And hungry.  Ladies...can I get a holler!  Wha-wha! So, you'll have to bear with me as I slog my way through this attempt at sense-making.

This is the other often unspoken side effect of the lady-time...one might have the tendency to get a little punchy (punchy as in dorky-with-humor, not punchy as in fist-fighty.  We covered fist-fighty already).  Apparently I was a regular one-woman comedy show during my private class this afternoon, and I blame it all on the downward flow of prana in my body.

Okay, good...I knew this would get around to yoga talk.  So, I've spoken about this before, in relationship to whether or not to invert during your cycle, but as a recap...when a lady is on her moooooooooooon, the prana, the life-force in her body is apana, or downward-moving.  Necessarily so, right?  There's a lot of stuff that needs to be released and the path of that exit is, without question, in a downward direction.  And for me, right around the beginning of my period I can feel, pretty strongly, the downward pull.  One morning, a day or two before the big event, I wake up and everything in my body just feels...heavy.  Drawn towards the floor.  Sort of like I'm walking through mud.  And this, ladies and gents, is apana in action.

Side Note: For me, because I am often not the most grounded person in the world, these couple days, though they can be frustrating for other reasons, actually feel pretty good.  I get a lot of relief from this enforced grounding.  Double Side Note:  I'm hopeful that this means when I get pregnant I'm going to LOVE it, as pregnancy has this same grounding impact on the system, only for NINE MONTHS instead of a few days.  Hoorah!

So, this morning was one of those trudging through mud mornings, and as I headed off to go teach I was feeling a little conflicted about what the best course of action might be, in terms of the vibe of my classes that day.  Often, if one is sluggish, the prescription is to do an energizing practice...something to kick the sluggishness out of the body.  But this wasn't a I-haven't-had-enough-sleep kind of downward pull, this was the natural rhythmic down-down-down cycle of my body.  Wouldn't it make sense to try to honor this moment, in the way that I might honor a season or a time of day, and not try to go for a run at 2 AM to try and wake myself up from my necessary sluggishness?

The answer that I came to, resoundingly...was yes.

And so my classes today were a lot about the hips and the legs...about the feet in contact with the floor...about moving breath in and out, drawing it up from the earth and then sending it back down.  And  because I was being sensitive and listening to the guidance from my own body, I was able to connect deeply to what I was teaching (and, I'm learning, if I'M connected, THEY--my students--are usually connected, too) and I found myself, as classes progressed, becoming more and more energized.  And it made me think about how there is this lesson that yoga is always teaching, in terms of the body, and patterns in one's life...that there is no one-size-fits-all answer.  There is no always do THIS in THESE kinds of circumstances recipe for success.  I mean, I know that I probably spend way too many hours in every day looking for exactly those kinds of hard and fast rules, but the truth is...they just don't exist.

What does exist is the sensitivity of our own system.  What does exist is a constant flow of information and guidance in the form of sensation that, if we're paying attention, will probably lead us out of the woods.  And I keep realizing, over and over, that there is a certain amount of bravery required, that there is some courage demanded of all of us, if we are going to stay present with ourselves and actually truly listen to what's going on, and what's best for us.  In. This. Moment.

Put very simply, there is no way for us to be in tune to the information being beamed at us through the systems of our body, information that MIGHT, if we were able to listen to it, really clear some shit up for us, if we are superimposing that information with prescriptions.

So, ladies of Shanti-town (and men-folk, too) I guess what I'm saying is...next time you're faced with some natural and un-ignorable change in the energy of your body (or heart or mind)...maybe take a moment to tune in to what is really being asked of you.  It's possible that there is some serious wisdom up in there that could make your relationship to that changing shifting self of yours a slightly sweeter one.

P.S. Please send chocolate.

xo
YogaLia

Expanding in All Directions...

(This is the universe.  It is also expanding.)

Let me just say this...my man is out of town, I'm on the couch drinking wine and eating crackers, and on in the background is a reality show about someone named Aubrey. Who is this Aubrey? I have no idea. But something about the ting-y reality television sound is making me feel less lonely. Oh, and you. You, too, are making me feel less lonely...

Save me, Shanti-towners!

Okay, so there's this interesting thing that's happened--this becoming a teacher thing--which has, for me, taken my attention off of my OWN practice (which used to be the obsessive subject of all of my talking and writing and exploring) and put it more firmly onto the practices of my students and the people around me.  And as my relationships with my students grow, as people return to class over and over--and actually even among those students I'm meeting for the first time--I am starting to notice distinct patterns in their practices.  This type of student pushes too hard, this one has trouble focusing, this one is just naturally graceful and has no idea, and so on and so on.  All of these archetypes of people and practices keep making themselves known.

And there is one student in particular who I've been thinking a lot about lately.  She comes religiously to my classes at the gym where I teach, and she's sweet and attentive and always in the front row, and well...I like her.  And I have watched her, over the last many weeks, take some definite steps forward in her practice.

But...she could be taking LEAPS.

Because, every time I go over to her during class, she's "in" the pose, and I think that she thinks she's fully in the pose, but if I even begin to encourage her to open more or extend more...it's like she has just MILES of room in her body that she's not even near filling.  I start to roll her shoulder back, and instead of the half-inch most people have to play with, she's got feet of openness to expand into!  This is not the case with all students.  Many people, even beginners, know how to play at their edge.  They know how to expand.  In fact, many of them (don't look at me) have the opposite problem--they OVER expand and OVER reach and need to learn to sort of shhhhhhhhhhh, soften.

But we're not talking about me--um, them.  We're talking about my lovely half-extended student to whom I find myself saying, over and over, "you have so much more space than you're giving yourself."

And each time I tell her this she smiles, her lovely shy little smile, and opens up into all this possibility she didn't know was there before (and then immediately goes back to kind of...uh...half-assing it.)

But this is the thing!  I don't think she IS half-assing it...she's obviously interested and invested and curious...she asks questions and comes to class without fail...so it's not that she's not invested, she just doesn't know what it feels like to expand.

And as I watch her and encourage her and sort of bite my fingernails secretly about how much further I feel she could go, I can't help but think about how often in my own life I do a version of this same thing--how I can just sort of stop, right at the point of comfort, and assume it's good enough.  Okay, yeah, I'm here.  Or, well, I'm here-ish.  I'm here-looking.  I seem like I'm here.  That will suffice, right? 


No, imaginary self, no it will not suffice!  I mean if I'm not expanding...if I'm not filling up my life with my FULL self, with all of my extremities and my open-heart and open-throat and closed eyes and energetic toes...then what?  Then I just stay. Exactly. Where. I. Am.

And that, honestly, is what I think is going on--maybe not with this particular student, but certainly with the pattern she is caught inside of in her practice, and that is: we assume we are still where we once were.  We assume that who we were in the past, how open or strong or revolved our body may have been in the past is STILL how open and strong and revolved it is today.  And we forget to expand.  We forget that maybe we already HAVE expanded--that maybe our boundaries, which are constantly growing and shifting, have moved a bit further out then we remember them to be--and that it is our job to continue to fill all of that delicious space.

In my own life, in this time when so many things are changing and expanding, when in certain moments I really just want the ride to slooooow down--in this crazy time, it gives me some small comfort to remember that expansion is natural.  To remember that not only is it natural, it's imperative.  Because if we're not keeping up with our own growing pulsating boundaries, then we're only half-way making the shape of the pose, the shape of our life...but not really living inside of it.

So, Shanti-towners, what I want to say to you is, as I make ready to re-fill my wine glass and hunt for something less horrifying to watch...you have so much more space then you're giving yourself.

(And I think you ought to go and fill it.)

Trying On Some New Shoes...

Alright, Shanti-towners, bidnezz first.  Yogala, the coolest new studio in Los Angeles (that's right, I said it), is off to an AMAZING start.  If you're in the LA area and you haven't checked it out...dooooo it.  Besides myself, there are a ton of great teachers there, lots of class options, a beautiful light-filled studio, and just such a lovely vibe all around.  That beautiful bhav (mood) is due to the intrinsic loveliness of Yogala's founder, Samantha Jones.  (No, not the Sex and the City character, a different Samantha Jones.)  It's impossible for a place not to end up being a reflection of it's maker, and Yogala is definitely that--just like Sam it is full of sweetness and ease and hip-young-mom awesomeness.  Can you tell I like this place?  I like this place.  Come and visit!!

Okay, onwards.

I'm back in the saddle this week, and plowing my way through more of the Erich Schiffmann book I've been reading/half-reading since Christmas.  I love this book (and many thanks to my soon to be sister-in-law for getting it for me), but it's dense, and I can't seem to do more than a few pages at a time before I have to take a break to madly scribble down the best bits.

So, this week's best bits (which I robbed for a theme for a few of my classes) were about growth, and about how uncomfortable growth can sometimes be.  He used the metaphor of a child growing out of a pair of shoes that have become too small...

"It's not reasonable for them to continue wearing their favorite shoes when they no longer fit.  You get rid of the old ones and buy a new pair. The reason you need new ones is that their feet have grown.  Growth has occurred.   Their feet grew, the shoe became too small, their foot hurt.  Pain is not an inherent part of being a foot.  Nor is it an inherent part of growth."

I can't even tell you the number of times that I have found myself repeating an old way of being or thinking, even though I know that I've grown beyond it's hold, just because it's familiar and because I can't imagine myself really no longer needing that old pair of shoes.   We have to constrict in so many ways in order to stay where we are, in order to stay static.  And it's painful. The world around us is in constant motion.  Everything is changing, all the time.

I woke up this morning, and the sky smelled different, and I knew that it was finally Spring.  Change.  And even though I wake up, and I walk into the same living room in the same apartment every morning, nothing is really the same as it was when I went to sleep.  My cells have changed, the makeup of my body and heart and mind have changed.  The air has changed.  My breath, from moment to moment, is constantly ceaselessly changing.  And yet I have--all of us have--built so many structures and patterns that we use to approximate stability.  We build routines and relationships and patterns of thought about who we are and what we're doing, so that we don't have to feel like we're just living in a cosmic soup.

And also, I think, we're all just terrified that change means pain.  That growth means loss.  I've found for myself, that even the loss of negative patterns, things I'm so grateful to be free of, still feels like loss.  My heart still pangs a little bit with every shedding. Will I be the same once this is gone?

And I watch this in classes--both with myself and with my students--because as you get to know yoga, get to know the poses and your body in them, you start to make decisions about what you can and can't do.  How far you can and can't go.  And oftentimes, even when our body has changed and strengthened and opened enough to take us farther in some pose or another, we still stick with the version of the pose that we know. 

I've had moments in a class where, for whatever reason I decided to, say, roll my top shoulder open a little more, and I realize that I have SO MUCH more space than I used to have to complete that action.  And I don't know when that change took place, but in the moment of exploration I realize how often I am just stepping into the pattern I've already established, and no further.  This is what this pose looks like for me, it's pretty good, I'm happy here.  Done.  Which is fine...for a while. But eventually that pose is going to start to get...uncomfortable.

Which is amazing, because it means that even the places in our lives where we are trying to consciously open...if we're not being sensitive to the continual changes taking place...that thing that felt at first so free, can start to feel constricted.  And not because IT changed, but because YOU changed and you forgot to go with yourself.

So maybe, just maybe, if you're feeling constricted in some way--in your body or your heart or your mind--maybe it's not about something being wrong with you or your life.  Maybe it's just that you've changed, you've grown, and you've got this new version of yourself sort of...waiting.  Just waiting for you to step into yourself.  And maybe that stepping in, that stepping forward, maybe it's not a painful process at all.  Maybe it's the simplest thing in the world, and once you do it, once you slip into that new appropriately-sized pair of shoes, you'll realize that all the discomfort has been left behind.

Maybe...

Please Vote...

Please vote for my super amazing friend and teacher, the lovely Emily Burton, in the Yoga Journal cover model talent search. Reasons why you should do this:

1. It takes 10 seconds.

2. Look at her! I mean seriously, she's the prettiest thing in a meadow full of flowers, for god's sake.

3. She is a teacher with tons of heart, a super sweet spirit, and I want her to be on the cover of Yoga Journal!!

Thank you, Shanti-towners!

xo
YogaLia