The Discomfort Zone: Where Life really Begins

No, this ain't a post about contraception :-) For more on that, turn to your preferred media outlet, which  greedily catalogs the Republican presidential nominee race.

Have y'all noticed? Spring is here.

Flowers in the Anza desert

I hate to be cliche, but I'm working on sharing honest opinions. In this case, my thoughts toward spring probably mirror most other folks'. Spring is alive. It's hopeful, and it's bright. It's blue, shiny, green, laden with scent and fluttery animals. Shoot, out here in the SoCal desert, even our cacti bloom, exhaling radiant colors into our atmosphere.

And, dare I say it, I come to life. I admit that I kind of hibernate during winter. It's a time to hunker down and pull into myself. (An aside: I think there's a reason our major holidays are in winter. We've gotta put dates on family celebrations, or else it's likely we'll sink tragically into ourselves for the remainder of the dark months.)

Don't get me wrong. I love me some introspection. Enough about yoga as an Olympic event: if Rumination were a contest, I would take the gold medal.

I guess you can imagine my relief when daylight savings time arrives and the weather starts to tick upward a few degrees. I'm propelled to get outside and out of my routines and out of my head.

It was at this moment of springtime appreciation that I saw a delightful fellow blogger's FB status update that she was going to make adventures a priority. Not just any adventure--as she put it, she's looking for adventures that put her "out of her comfort zone." A ding of recognition went off in my head as I read her post. What if I did the same? What if I identified actions that would put me out of my comfort zone, and then, drawing upon the inspiration of this beautiful spring, tackle them one by one? What would happen if I actually went through with this little experiment?

I am tempted to try it out. 

So, the first step is to identify just what constitutes adventure for me. It's not as easy as it sounds. In my case, I do not need to sign myself up for more traditional occurrences that would be labeled "adventurous." I have been spelunking. I have bungee jumped. I dove off cliffs into cool pools of water in Belize. I climbed rocks and rode horseback in the Rockies, I've swum with sharks; I traveled to South and Central America alone; I have ridden across the border into Mexico on the back of a motorcycle, my arms around a man I hardly knew.

Those aren't the kinds of adventures I need. For me, those are comfortable adventures. Although I plan to get back to Asia one day, perhaps to stay in a monastery in Bhutan or to soak in hot springs in Japan, I don't have to rev myself up much to make that a possibility.

The kinds of adventures I need are the ones that will knock me off balance. I am one who walks through life as if on a tightrope. As you can see from the list above, I can manage some real feats! However, those feats are accomplished under a microscope of minute calculations--none was taken up as a result of true spontaneity. Everything is planned, analyzed, evaluated, and teased apart for potential complications and consequences. Don't want the week to be too exciting--tomorrow, I might get exhausted and behind on work. Don't become too much of a recluse--boredom and anxiety can breed under such conditions.

What I need to do is take myself off balance. Below are actions, listed from simplest to most complex, that would do precisely that. This would get me into the discomfort zone.

• Stay up late doing something I love, the night before I've gotta do some heavy-duty teaching or grading. Enjoy myself without worrying about the consequences for once.
• Tell students, point blank but with compassion, that they simply will not pass this time. Feel the discomfort and tell them anyway. 
• Have a drink when I'm out with friends. Don't have a drink when out with friends--do what's more uncomfortable.
• In yoga: do not leave the room. 
• **Unless staying in the room is something I'm doing out of fear of the teacher's disapproval. In that case, leave the room.
•  After lying in bed for two hours, trying desperately to sleep, mind stuck like iTunes on repeat, get up, and do something I love. Do not worry about the consequences.
• Do something really, really loving for someone I'm related to. It has to take the form of an act of love not typically expressed in my family (i.e., money-bestowing or letter-writing). 
• Say no--repeatedly--when I am asked to do something I'm not up for. Say no, especially to men. 
• Get uncomfortably intimate (emotionally) with someone I care about, knowing full well that doing so will feel like inhaling water. 
• Do not make important decisions without knowing how I truly feel.
• Be who I am, who I really am, around the people I'm often not.
• Recognize that this list might contradict itself and make decision-making even tougher.
• Sit. (Meaning, meditate. On a regular basis.)

This may not be your list. But if I could get through this, even once (except for the yoga/meditation ones: those have to be regular), I would be taking a long stroll through discomfort. And as they say, life begins when we leave our comfort zones.

So. How do I proceed from here? Well, some of that stuff can't be scheduled, so I'll have to keep 'em in the back of my mind and act when the moment arises. Others, like yoga and meditation time, are easier that way. I recently bought tickets to a concert that will take place on a Tuesday evening. It's almost mandatory that a couple of adult beverages will be consumed at this show, and wouldn't you know it? Wednesday is my longest (and earliest) teaching day. But I won't worry about the consequences--at least for that one day.

Part of me wants to keep writing and address questions like, "for how long is this experiment an actual focus of mine? How often will I report on it?" But I think I've done enough obsessive planning. I'm trying to do less of that, after all.

It's in the name of science that I undertake this little experiment. Does life really begin when we leave our comfort zone? And what would be on your "discomfort zone" list?

It's What I Know.

The school's absence policy is strict: two weeks of missed classes and you are out.  Armed with this reassurance from the dean, I walked into class, prepared to go to the mat on this issue.

"I've been recovering from surgery. I have a baby. I'm a veteran. If you drop me, I'll lose my stipend." The student stood in front of me as I prepared for class to begin, his arm wrapped in a cast. Persistently, he repeated his reasons for staying in the class as he washed a Percocet down with soda. My resolve buckled. I told him to sit down, and I caved to his every request for missed materials and laborious recounting of past lectures.

As I left class, I felt myself slip into a familiar pattern of thinking: trapped between my "take a hard line" self and my "Yes! Limitless compassion for all!" self. Fueling this vacillation was my old self-loathing, angry and ashamed that I had been unable to take the stand I'd committed to.

On my way home from work, a stanza from Ani Difranco's new album stuck out like a neon vacancy sign blinks at weary travelers:

"I walk past my own self-loathing
Like I walk past animals in the zoo
Trying not to really see them
And the prison they didn’t choose."

One of the reasons I love that stanza so much is because it pictures the self-criticism so aptly as a series of traps. It is like a prison, but, as a friend once told me, it's a prison with an open door; we can walk out at any time. "How frightening it could be out there!" we think, and cling desperately to the bars of our own cells. Because there's something familiar in those old negative patterns, isn't there? We grasp onto our suffering, afraid that if we let it go something new and more terrifying will replace it.

In the past few years, I've cultivated technique after technique for dealing with this, ah, problem. Yoga provides me with a baseline of strength and awareness from which to address this stuff directly. Meditation, prayer, and biofeedback training arm me with methods for interrupting these thoughts mid-stream. But sometimes I get too tired to fight, and let's face it: these techniques don't provide an easy 180 out of suffering. And fighting means facing the fact that those old patterns are still there.

So, fine, I'll say. Let the student stay in class. Let nepotism continue. Let me continue to lie awake at night, haunted by streams of self-criticism and doubt. I may not have chosen this prison, but it's what I know.

I've never been much of a gardener, but I imagine this is what folks mean when they say it's like getting stuck in a rut. It can be so easy, so comfortable, to keep pushing your wheelbarrow forward on that familiar path. But a rut is a rut; at some point, we've got to get the strength to heave our barrows up and out and to continue on, forging a new (if bumpy) path forward.

Wheelbarrow/ "So much depends..."

Security!

Picture this:

It's 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday. You're sleeping peacefully, as any rational person would be. Suddenly, all hell breaks loose: you are hit by a wall of sound so overwhelming it feels like your body is being struck. You tumble out of bed, terrified. The cats are already hiding in the closet. You dumbly register the thought, "The alarm is going off," but it feels like so much more than that.

This was my morning. After realizing what was happening, I went through almost comical routine of beating the smoke detector with my palm until I realized it wasn't what was making the noise. No, it was the supposedly-defunct alarm system that came with the house. I've lived here for three years now, and nothing like this has ever happened.

Man covers ears. Like I did.

I'm one of those people who has to learn a lot from movies and/or television. While there have been many cinematic depictions of the "alarm scenario," I realize now that those scenes resonate only with those who've lived it. There's simply no way to convey the volume of sound that they emit. Forget the burglar--the goddamn alarm is scarier than any robber. (Interestingly, the thought of a real break-in only registered in the furthest regions of my mind.)

I was so disoriented that it was all I could do to stumble outside and call the police. As I waited, I apologized to groggy neighbors emerging from their homes to see WTF was up.

And that.... in that period was waiting I had one of "those moments." It was like I got myself quiet and allowed this space to form around me. Maybe it's what they mean when they say "collect yourself!"

One of the lessons we learn as we sit in meditation or do yoga is how to become ever-friendlier with discomfort. The heat wills us to grab the water bottle and guzzle, but we abstain because we know that we will pay for the cool but momentary joy by feeling nauseated in Camel pose. Similarly, giving into the sensation of boredom in meditation ("I'm bored! This is pointless!") leaves hidden places unexplored. Why not push past that sense of discomfort and see what else is there?

I think that's what kinda happened as I was sitting on the stoop in front of my house. The ten minutes since I'd called the police seemed like hours, no doubt exacerbated by the embarrassment I felt in causing my neighbors to awaken at an inhumane hour. As I was sitting, I vaguely recalled a time when the home alarm emitted a quiet but irritating beeping sound. By pushing the asterisk button on the control panel, it stopped. With this in mind, I steeled myself and covered my ears as I ran inside, making a beeline for the control panel. And ya know what? It worked. I hit the button, and the beeping stopped. I cannot tell you the relief that flooded over me--I almost started crying.

Shortly thereafter, the police arrived. They each had their ideas about what to do with the malfunctioning alarm, knowing I would never, ever choose to experience it again. (One of them had the well-intentioned but not-so-bright idea of ripping the control panel from the wall. I ended up paying the neighbor's electrician friend to dismantle it. Funny how much safer I feel now that the alarm is now truly defunct.)

So.... what if I had collected myself a little sooner? What if I had sat in that (albeit extreme) discomfort instead of running around like a headless chicken, calling the police, waking neighbors, and destroying my own property?

Collect yourself a little sooner. It's the task of a lifetime!

Please... Make Me a Borg

Resistance is futile

...do I even need to explain the reference to the Borg? Or to the phrase, "Resistance is futile"? For those of you who were not lucid between the years of 1987-1994, or for those of you who are not pop culture nerds who research utterances that seem to refer to something generally understood, please Google "The Borg Star Trek." Also, if you don't know who the Borg are, you don't need to talk to me anymore ;-)

It's summertime, and the living is easy for She-Who-Eats-Yolks. Well, mostly easy. I have slept in until the record late hour of 9:00 a.m. I have stayed in bed until all hours of the night (i.e., 11:30 p.m.) reading Ann Patchett's new novel, State of Wonder, imagining my bed to be a boat cruising down the Amazon, my cats snakes and other such jungle marvels. I have yoga'd at other studios, gone to the movies, signed up for a meditation group, hiked, cooked. I even plan on baking. Yes, there will be baking.

There is, however, the tiny inconvenience of teaching one online class, which prevents me from oozing into a complete puddle of decadent, summery bliss. What amazes me is how this class, which generally demands no more than an average of two or three hours per day of work, absorbs much of my mental space. Through studying yoga and meditation (and also just observing what happens) I've learned that the resistance to those approximately two hours per day probably adds up to as much time as I spend actually working on the class. I wake up in the morning, and one of the first thoughts is, "I should really respond to those discussion boards first, so I can enjoy the day." During yoga: "I should've done those discussion boards earlier. Now I can't focus." After lunch: "Damn. I should really do those discussion boards." And on and on.

Once I actually sit down to respond to the discussion boards, however, it's so easy. It's relatively enjoyable! I like my job. Why so much resistance to actually doing it? Hey, Borg ship, you giant cube of lights, wires, and drone people. Come get me. I'm ready to stop resisting.

Oh God. Here it comes: A Valentine's Post.

"Happy Singles' Awareness Day, dude."

I overheard a student commenting sarcastically to his friend as I walked through the hallways today, feeling kinda grumpy about Valentine's Day. Jeez. It's a cliche to point out what a useless and industry-generated holiday this is. For those of us who aren't in a relationship, seeing the ads of happy couples, people walking around with pink gift bags, flowers, and balloons can be a painful reminder of what we think we don't have. For those of us who are in a relationship, the holiday can make us feel pressured to express emotions we may not actually be feeling, or buy a bunch of crap we can't afford that the other person probably doesn't even want. Corporate bottom line? For the win! Individual? FML.

There was something about the student's comment--which actually resonated with what I'd been feeling in the buildup to this "holiday"--that actually snapped me out of my self-righteous sarcasm. It does suck to be reminded of loneliness or feelings of disconnection. It does suck to feel like we've got to please our man or woman by buying or doing things.

Even the cynic in me, though, must grudgingly admit that the holiday has at its essence a good message. While at the grocery store yesterday, I saw little pots of flowers that made me think of a couple of really great women friends I work with, so I bought 'em and put 'em on their desks this morning. It just... felt... so.... good!

Of course, the TV ads tell you to buy a diamond ring for your girlfriend, or your family tradition says buy some chocolates from See's. They don't show two platonic female friends exchanging flowers. But that "I'm glad you're in my life and I'm thinking of you" message is one we all deserve to hear, and one that feels really good to say!

So, let's use the skills we develop in yoga and meditation. The message is perfect! The delivery might not be so good and may even be driven by the bottom line, but go back to the message and let that drive our action and thoughts instead. Doing so is what makes us feel connected and loved.

Dare I say it? Happy... Valentine's... DAY. I'm thinking of you.

Heather/a South African flower

A New Challenge

Scared. Wrung-out. Confused. Elated. Joyful. Sick. Powerful. Irritated. Uncertain. On any given day lately, it seems like I experience all these emotions, often within the span of a very short period of time. As someone who values steadfastness, I'm looking to bring a little more equanimity into my life, so I've undertaken a "challenge" of a non-Bikram-but-very-Bikram-related kind.

I've been incorporating meditation into my life lately. I've been studying it in books and listening to talks on meditation and Buddhism from sites like dharmaseed.org. Yoga itself is a form of meditation--I often think Bikram is a meditation trial by fire: learn to be in the moment or you're a gonner.

But I've been feeling like I've been in the "learning about meditating" phase for a long time. It's time to really roll up my sleeves and establish a routine that I stick to unfailingly, like brushing my teeth in the morning or greeting my kitties when I come home from work.

Sharon Salzberg, a well-known Vipassana (I think!) meditation instructor, has a new book out called Real Happiness, and in it, she challenges people to take up meditating 15 minutes or more a day for a month. On her website, she's asked readers to begin the challenge at the start of February, and invites people to blog about what they're experiencing and share in a sort of online sangha (Buddhist community).

Admittedly, I don't actually have her book. But I have read others and have met her in person and listen to her talks, and I've undertaken the challenge of meditating 15 minutes a day.  (15 minutes is a long time.) While I don't plan to blog about it all here, I'm sure future posts will be influenced by what comes up.

So far, it's been very ... interesting. Just like in practicing yoga, when meditating, you never know what's going to come up. Sometimes you can get a sense of real peace and joy, sometimes demons wake up and rattle their cages, and sometimes it can get boring. One of the keys I've learned from exploring Buddhism is a lesson I don't think most of us get: not to judge. As stuff comes up, it's inevitable we want to attach judgment to it. "Oh her. She was so cruel to say that. Didn't she realize how thoughtless she was being?" And then I am mad at myself for feeling judgment when I should be feeling nothing but warm, fuzzy lovingkindness. Sometimes I am able to remember: don't judge... not even the judgment part.

I'm trying not to set rigid goals for what I'm going to "get" from this little challenge. I'm trying not to have expectations. But I am pretty sure that looking into the pool of my mind, watching the mud settle, and seeing what lays on the bottom is a good place to start.

A Muddy and Bright Night

I was listening to a talk by Insight Meditation guru Jack Kornfield the other day, and in it, he quoted a famous Serbian proverb (you know, we just don't get enough of that Serbian wisdom these days!). The proverb goes, "Be humble because you are made of mud; be noble because you are made of stars."

This past Friday, I visited teacher training, and took a lovely evening class with a Canadian teacher named Ida. A dear friend of mine and I met bloggers Josie and Catherine, who was visiting from out of town, and just had a blast. There was so much energy in the tent that night (gee, did it have anything to do with the trainees getting the night off? The shouts of joy upon receiving the news were deafening).

It was just what I needed. After the class, my friend and I sat on our mats long after everyone else had left and talked to these bright and lovely yogis. I felt connected and alive. It was just what I'd needed after a pretty rough day. I'd spent the day with a real beast in my brain--so much frustration and, uh, not gentle thoughts toward myself. I was so down before class that I almost "called in sick" to yoga. Talk about being made of mud! Before the class I felt like my thoughts were formed out of clay, so hardened and thick that they'd be completely unmovable.

Obviously, though, I got myself to the class. Seeing Catherine's and Josie's happy smiling faces, entering that "yoga bubble" the trainees talk about, and the rockin' class itself softened up that clay.

I'm sure casual visitors to a TT class know what I'm talking about: you enter the tent and are astounded by experience of being surrounded by 400 people. You think you'll spend the class gawking at the blue shorts in front of you or the 10-foot high podium holding up the teacher, marveling at the many bodies moving in unison. Of course, somewhere around standing-head-to-knee pose it all becomes you and your mat once again. I think that's the most marvellous thing of all. Thanks to my old and new friends.

So... I don't really know what it is that enables us to be made of both stars and mud. Maybe it's the fact that we're made of of atoms that comprise both types of matter. Maybe it's because we let the sludge pile up over the stars that burn brightly inside us. Both are there, but which do we give power to?

We're made of mud, and we're made of stars. Let's feel appropriately humbled and inspired, shall we?

________________________________
p.s. A shout-out to one of the many sources of inspiration out there on 'net-land: download free talks amazing talks by Kornfield and the like on Buddhism and meditation http://www.dharmaseed.org/

p.p.s. for those of you kind enough to care about my termite saga, they are still keeping residence with me, but due to the cooling trend they are no longer swarming, praise Buddha, Allah, Mary, et al. I'm exploring my treatment options...

I stretch. I force. I stretch. I force.

Do you stretch? Or do you force yourself into a posture? Normally, I think I take things pretty gently and that I never fall into the latter category, but after yesterday's class, I'm not too sure. But more on that later.

Last weekend, I went to a way cool talk on meditation given by a dharma teacher, Sharon Salzberg. It was chock full of insights that I let wash over me. Many ideas from Sharon's talk stood out, but one seems particularly relevant to yoga. Sharon discussed the difference between stretching and forcing. The goal of meditative practice is not to force the mind into unnatural realms. The result of doing that is simply more anger or fear! Instead, we work to gradually stretch ourselves out, to move out of our conditioned brains and connect with the vast consciousness that is already within us. The result of doing so is an ability to react more appropriately to whatever stimuli we encounter--we respond to a colleague's suggestion with equanimity and acceptance, for example, rather than out of fear or anger that we've been judged. 

The relationship of stretching vs. forcing to yoga is obvious enough to you yogis, right? The point is not to force ourselves into a posture; we move at the edge of discomfort, trying to continually hold ourselves there, until gradually that edge moves further and further away. But what about forcing yourself to get to class? To maintain a practice? To think that this yoga is right for you when some days you're just not sure? These are the questions I've been grappling with lately.

I admit to feeling a bit like I'm forcing my yoga practice these past couple of weeks. Heck, I feel like I've been forcing a lot in my life lately! It's a time in the semester where just maintaining the status quo is hard enough--forget trying to make progress in yoga or other aspects of life. When I'm going, in, and returning from class, I have a lot more doubt than I've had since returning to Bikram yoga a year and a half ago. I wonder, "is this too hard on my body? Am I helping or hurting?" "In a time of stress, as this is, should I take it easy on myself, or make myself go to yoga in order to maintain my health and consistency in my life?" Heck, my blog is called Eat the Yolk--it's all about going for it--but maybe you gotta go through a phase where egg whites will do!

I had a class yesterday that scared the living daylights out of me. It was a super-hot one, which I can typically handle under normal circumstances. But by the fourth posture, standing-head-to-knee, a migraine headache came on seemingly out of nowhere. I felt like one of those cartoon characters that randomly got whacked over the head with a giant hammer. 

It scared me. The excessive heat, the lack of circulating air, a new instructor, and the headache combined and put me in freak-out mode. I struggled to get a hold on my thoughts; it seemed they were roaches scattering across the walls as the light flicked on--they were quick, frightening, and too numerous to address any one of them in particular. Among other things, I thought of Salzberg's idea of stretching vs. forcing. In that class, I really felt I was forcing it.

I took a quick break, leaving the room to check my tongue in the mirror to make sure I wasn't having a stroke ;-) Really, I did do that! The rest of class, of course, I was OK. No strokes! The headache persisted for a while but eventually dissolved, and by the end of class I had a handle on my thoughts by recognizing them as simply... thoughts. Like the cockroaches, they're there. They can be ugly and scary, but when the light is on, they scamper away pretty quickly. 

I reckon this post could seem a little wishy-washy. There's the nice idea about not forcing, just stretching, but I don't always feel I can recognize where the line lies. I know, however, that not every question can be resolved and tied up in a neat little package. Maybe the goal is to become more and more comfortable with that uncertainty. 

Until I know for sure, you will probably find me at a Bikram yoga class. But I'll be stretching, not forcing! :-) 

------------
Randomly awesome quote:
"At least he keeps the borders of his mind realm well patrolled."--Sam Lipsyte, "The Dungeon Master"

What helps your practice?

Wow--can you believe we're midway through July? SoCal has been so temperate that it hardly feels like summer yet, but I know the season is well on its way!

This summer has been a blessing in many ways. For one thing, things have just... changed around here. I've changed, my routines have changed (a little ;-) and I've been trying new things. Contrary to what I initially thought, I've discovered that my yoga practice is enhanced when I add new things to my life. It's such a great realization--I don't have to clear my life to focus on my yoga practice; so long as I get myself there and give 100%, the practice continues to unfold. 

In the last couple of months, away from school, experimenting with new ideas, I've learned that my practice is enhanced by a few things in particular: 

1. Meditation: In the past year, I've been working on cultivating a meditation practice. (In particular, Tonglen has been really helpful. Helps you develop concentration and provides a path to really meeting and conquering the demons haunting your life--I find it a bit "easier" than traditional, "focus-on-your-breath" meditation.) I've noticed that my mind is calmer in the hot room when I meditate daily. I am able to focus more deeply in each posture on an aspect of my body. Today, for example, I thought so deeply about the standing leg in Eagle pose. It was like each muscle in my thigh came to life! I still have days when my neurotic stuff can take over, but I find that to be less and less of a challenge.
2. Sleep! Who knew that sleeping enough would be so helpful? :-) School isn't in session, and my external stressors are low. I'm able to get a solid eight hours of sleep almost every night, and it makes such a difference when I'm in the yoga room. Must remember to commit to sleep when the semester starts! 
3. Eating well and when needed: This is another luxury afforded by my summer break from teaching. You know how it is when you don't have time to prepare the food your body needs, or eat when you're actually hungry. And, worst of all is forcing yourself to eat because you're on a tight schedule. 
4. Whey protein shakes: While we're on the topic of eating well, I gotta give a shout-out to whey protein. I don't eat meat except for fish anymore, and even that is a rarity. As a result, I've gotta be careful about eating enough protein. A friend turned me onto whey protein shakes in the morning. A little almond or soy milk, some powder and a selection of frozen fruit and you've got an amazing-tasting shake. Plus, it feels so nice and light in my stomach that I can practice yoga an hour after I drink one. The attention and time spent making the shake each morning is like a meditation, too.
5. Not having attachments to the outcome of the practice: This is huge. I have got to admit. Ironic as it sounds, I would actually have anxiety going into class. I'd set up these weird expectations for myself--hold Standing Bow the whole time! Don't sit out a posture!-- and then I'd beat myself up or congratulate myself depending on the outcome of the class. Madness, I tell you. Also, totally common and normal. But I think these expectations need to go. The last couple months, I am able to notice when I hold a posture the entire time, or when I feel particularly focused in class, but I seem to attach less judgment to it. And that's a great feeling. There's that great quote by Courtney Mace, Bishnu Ghosh, yoga champion about competition: "[Competition] happens every time you step into the hot room, and it’s a competition between the ego and the soul. And the soul always wins." I'd take it a step further and say the soul wins so long as you're taking up the struggle against the ego. Being there (in yoga, in meditation, whatever) just helps us see that the ego has always been powerless in the face of soul. 

Ramble, ramble, ramble. Enough of that! I'm curious. What helps your practice?           

So others don't have to

Am I the only one that takes comfort in art and ideas typically labeled "depressing"? I guess that's a silly question--Radiohead would be out of a job if that were the case. Still, I can't help noticing that my favorite artists center on dark scenes and haunted souls: think Tom Waits singing "Misery's the River of the World," Joni Mitchell's "River." There's something tempting about sadness. Some days, it can feel like as comforting as a blanket wrapped around the shoulders.

My mood lately might have something to do with the weather. It's been beautiful out here in Socal. When I walk outside, flowers are blooming, bunnies are hopping, and my neighborhood is just teeming with life in general. I think I get this weird expectation: "Oh yeah, it's SPRING. Time to enjoy the outdoors, think of love and all that gooey stuff." But life and its challenges, they're still there. While I appreciate the various aspects of spring, I don't think that unrealistic expectations help anything. Hence, Tom Waits is getting a lot of iPod playing time.

The fascination for the dark extends beyond my taste in music. After reading The Dancing J's recommendations in reading, I picked up How Yoga Works. (Great read, by the way. Getting a lot out of it.) In it, the author quotes the Yoga Sutra, one of which that reads, "Truly, every part of our lives is suffering" (130). At this point in the book, the character takes refuge in this line, seemingly in the same way I do. But why, of all the wonderful lines in the book is that the one that stands out to me?

Why acknowledging that suffering is at least part of our lives can be comforting, I don't quite understand. Maybe there's something about pulling our heads out of delusion and acknowledging that there is gain and loss, happiness and tragedy, that plants our feet squarely on the ground and enables us to see the world as it really is and connect more deeply with others. Perhaps trying to deny the suffering and focus only on what we choose to label "good" actually compounds suffering. I remember my meditation teacher suggesting we think, "May I carry this burden so others don't have to" when faced with a tragic situation. Or, conversely, "May others experience this immense joy." It can be tough to pull ourselves out of the drama enough to think that way, but maybe it's something to aim for.

I don't think it's a smart idea to obsess over the moments of suffering--or cling too strongly to the moments of extreme joy. This is where yoga's balancing ability comes in. You walk in the room, stripped of almost everything on your body, and you do a mental disrobing act as well. I don't mean to suggest that a yoga practice isn't joyful, but I don't think being overly emotional is conducive to attaining deep concentration. Those emotional extremes are part of what gets set aside when we practice.

Yoga has been tough lately. It's been hard to get myself there, and while it always brings me a sense of peace and balance when they're over, classes have been a struggle.

Oh well. I am sure things will change direction and lift back on up. And in the meantime, I can always wrap myself up with that sweet springtime melancholy :-)

"Keeps perfectly still"

Bikram yoga. It's the same thing everywhere, right? What crazy person would want to take the same class, over and over? And to hear the teacher say the same words every time? We must be out of our minds.

Maybe not.

It was The Dancing J who published a really cool post recently that reminded me of a song I used to listen to all the time. In this blog, I've mentioned that I'm a teacher. I also indicated, I think, that I used to have some anxiety issues.  Before I would teach a class, I used to be wound up like an E on the first string. I'd sit in my office, lesson plans in order. I was technically ready to go, but for those fifteen minutes or so before class started I would get nervous and couldn't concentrate on anything. I'd sorta hop around, thinking about this possibility and that, and as a result it would take a few minutes at the beginning of class to really settle in and connect with the students.

The best way to be really prepared for anything, of course, is to find a way to get into the moment. What did the trick for me was hearing Tori Amos's "Horses." (If you hate Tori Amos, just roll with me a minute anyway. I promise it'll all come together. ;-)

Before every class, I'd sit down at the computer, go to the Blip.fm file I'd bookmarked, and just listen. That song came out in 1997, so I already knew it inside and out--where the breaths were taken, which syllables were drawn out, and which notes were emphasized on the keyboard. To be perfectly honest, the song is not the most sonically interesting of stuff that's out there. It's repetitive. It's meditative. The melody doesn't develop into a typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus the way most songs do. But there was something in that song that spoke to me, so I'd listen to it anyway. I'd listen closely to the notes I'd memorized, letting myself get hypnotized, every single day, before each class. The anxiety about class starting would quietly drop away and by the end of Tori's final repetition of "keeps perfectly still," I would be absolutely in the moment. I'd be truly ready for class. 

Isn't that what yoga does? Doesn't it get you ready for life? You go to a Bikram class, and what some might think of as a curse ("it's the same thing every day!") is really a blessing. To do the yoga you have to meditate on what's happening. 

After a few months, regular practitioners know the sequence. We "know the words." But we can't know what's actually coming in our practice, right? Despite the repetition of the dialogue and postures, there's a spontaneity in what actually happens in the yoga room. We never know what the body will tell us, what we'll be capable of, when a line of dialogue will speak to us in a new way--or when we might unexpectedly fall flat into a puddle of our own sweat.

Perhaps because it's "the same thing over and over," you have to keep your mind perfectly still. And being present in the practice leads to being more present in life. Can't get much more prepared than that!
ॐ

Check out a pretty good version of "Horses" here. If you don't hate Tori, that is :-)