There's a Fireplace in Your Center.

Turkey Day is fast approaching! (Thanks-a-Chickie, as my dad likes to call it.) The time when we gather together with friends and family and try not to let them, and the giant meal, and the nearness of Christmas and New Years and oh my gosh, where has the time gone...drive us all to distraction.

I love the Winter...I love that it gets dark early, that it gets cold (even in LA), and that collectively we just want to snuggle up and spend our days in warm candelit rooms...it's so sweet. But, in addition to the dark-cave-like quality of Winter there is also this...holiday frenticism, that can make a person feel speeded up instead of slowed-ed down.

So, in the face of these cross-winds a blowing (one that is slow and steady and says, hey, just bundle up, drink some tea, fuggid about it, and the other which just kind of whips your hair around in your face), it's more important than ever for us to find the center...and to go there.

The center of what?

Well...in the yoga philosophy, the body is thought of as having these layers, these sheaths, all of which surround a constant center.  Right at the center of the body.  The sheaths are all the stuff that is NOT that center.  The sheaths are the physical body, the energetic body, the mind, the emotions, our wisdom, our bliss--and then, at the center of all of that is...um.  Just, uh.  Total Awesomeness.  What's at the center can be conceptualized in a lot of different ways. The yogis just call it the self, or Atman, but it is sometimes described as light, as pure awareness, as God, as source, as truth--whatever you want to call that big perfect divine A-HA! Which exists at the center of every single one of us.  (I like to call it Total Awesomeness.)  And the practice of yoga, is really just a practice of diving down through all these layers, through all these sheaths, until we can rest in this sweet center, and then try to live from there.  (Try to.)

And I feel like this image, of peeling away the layers, is particularly potent in the Winter.  As if, at the center of our body is where the fireplace is, and when we're stuck out in the cold, way out on the fringes of our experience, our job is just to start opening doors and traveling deeper and deeper in, following the trail of warmth, until finally we get to that fire lit parlor, way down deep inside.

What's so beautiful about this is that, yoga practice or no yoga practice, we can all be scavengers for our bliss.  We can all use our basic powers of deduction, to find the fire that burns at the center.  It goes like this: is this door warm?  No?  Wrong door.  Is this door warm?  Yes?  Open door.  Go deeper in.  Look for the next door.  Rinse and repeat.

That's it...just like a bunch of blind mice, following the scent of burning wood and charcoal, we can find our own way into the center of ourselves and our lives.  Without assistance.  Without books or tapes or teachers...we just have to reach our hands out, and look for the warmth.

So, if you're feeling the chill.  Or if you're feeling shut out...miles from the hot chocolate and s'mores that are waiting for you deep down in the center of your experience, just take your hands out of their mittens, and start feeling for a hot doorknob.  I promise, it's there.

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!!