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.

God! Please Bring Me More Suffering!

Class: 4:15-5:15pm, "Happy Hour", Alison.

My teacher today was someone I rarely take from but whom I love--(she is brown skinned and tiny and muscular and her face is all almond eyes and strong cheekbones)--and so I should have been happy to have found the hour to be with her, to watch her sinewy body against the gray outside and to practice there with her, but I was not. Because I watched her today, all through class, as through some waterfall..."as through a window. On one side of the glass, happy untroubled people, on the other side--you" (John Patrick Shanley). This is how class was for today--me, wishing so much I could be there, really be there, and be pulled from the muck of my worry--but unable all the same.

I near my 21-month anniversary of an almost daily yoga practice. These days I can hold my own in the most advanced classes. I still can't do a handstand in the middle of the room, but I can do a hundred things I never would have thought possible. These days it is rare that I do not leave behind what ails me within the first several minutes of class.... But, today was an exception. Today I listened with one ear to my teacher and listened with my other ear to the angry struggle taking place between my forehead and the back of my neck. Today I could have cared less. Today I flew through the asanas, absolutely unwilling to stop. And breathe. And feel. Today I refused to let my practice in. My body felt good and open after a day or two of rest from the more vigorous classes and I marveled at the fluidity of it, even in the midst of my mind's turmouil.

There was a point, a couple years ago, at which a daily and vigorous physical practice of some kind, any kind, became desperately necessary in my life. I was suffering from an anxiety theretofore incomprehensible to me...anxiety like a constant cloud above my head. My boyfriend encouraged me, during this bout of panic, to start taking yoga every day. Up until that point I had a yoga practice that was...sporadic. At best. I had a couple of yoga videos on my shelf and memories of a class I had taken (my very first) for several months nearly 4 years prior. Since then, I had not stepped foot in a classroom. My boyfriend told me that when he had suffered from an extended bout of anxiety in his youth, a doctor had ordered him to go out and do something fun and active for one hour every day. He reminded me that anxiety is pent-up energy, and that getting out and sweating a bit of it off every day could only help me. Besides, I claimed to love yoga (what I knew of it), and had often complained that I could not (would not) find the time to do it.

As soon as I stepped foot into my studio, I knew I had found the right place to practice. I still get that feeling, everytime I step onto the third floor, head down the hallway to the studio, and open the door to be washed by the smell of incense and bare clean feet. This studio is unlike any other I have been to, before or since, and I will hold tight to my claim that it is the best, most creative, most welcoming and most challenging place to practice in New York City. My heart jumps a little bit in my chest every time I walk through the door...knowing that we are in for something together, my heart and I. It's amazing to me how the body knows things, and how it can recognize a sanctuary so immediately.

So, I was compelled back into practice. I was desperate to reconnect with myself and to shake off at least some of the weight of the heavy coat I felt like I was suddenly every day wearing. And, I did not expect some revelatory change. I did not expect to slide into downdog and watch my anxiety slide right along with me, onto the floor and into a million pieces. I did not expect that, and that's not what happened.

The story of the evolution of this...anxiousness...is a long one and too personal and too indulgent and much much much too boring to tell here, but I will say that it did not take long for my practice to develop into something seperate and necessary in its own right. The thrill of watching my body respond and lengthen and open began to overshadow the I need this feeling with which I had first entered the studio. But, also, the physical side effects of the anxiety began to diminish and diminish. Even on days when I could not seem to stop spinning my wheels, even on days when I felt only half-present in my practice, still the feeling diminished and diminished. Still my body felt more calm, more open when I left class than it had when I went in. Even if I refused to let go of my worry for the entire hour or hour and half, even then, as if against my own will, still things began to change and loosen.

But, as I said, today was an exception.

We are asked, as yogis, to embrace all the qualities of our existence, to embrace and to desire all that we have, including the yuck. A teacher once cried out to us again and again in class, with the most joyful exuberance, "God! Please bring me more suffering! God! Please bring me more suffering!" We are charged to approach our lives with this much openness and delight...to bite down into all the juicy meat of it...And though I would like to rail against my own failings...rail against the fact that I still, two years later, still am susceptible to days of what feels like never-ending worry...as much as I would like to do that I am stopped, utterly stalled, by something undeniable: I have been given a gift.

It is none other than this worry, which I claim to despise and want only to leave me, that led me to my practice. This worry, this black-mark on what I consider an otherwise clean record (ha!), is the reason I am where I am today. Since that day, two years ago, when I first began to suffer from this somewhat unnameable fear, I have turned my life around in ways too numerous even to name. And though I convince myself that I am failing, again and again, for not having rid myself entirely of all traces, how can I forget that without this worry I would never have lept so wildly into my practice. I would not have read the books which have broken my heart these last years. I would not have returned to my family with arms so much wider than they have been before. I would not have changed my financial life. I would not have written five plays and a novel. I would not have lived and struggled and fought and loved with my love. I would not have questioned and doubted and sought after God. I would not have cultivated the several beautiful friendships that now blossom in my life and, I would not have faced the past with such painful honesty. I would not have learned that it is, indeed, possible to walk around in the world hurting and ungaurded--and survive. I would not have learned that there are things I am afraid of that are unexplainable and unsolvable and I would not have learned that the most beautiful by-product of pain is compassion.

-YogaLia