Go Sit by a Window!

The other day, I sat out a second set of Camel pose and the first set of Rabbit. My heart fluttered like a hummingbird's wings and my mind hovered on panic mode. Feeling eminently sorry for myself, I flopped onto my mat and took my head into my hands. I turned gradually to look out the studio's two small windows. Rain was falling, as it has been often this San Diego fall, dripping quietly off the rafters and onto the water-logged cars below. 

As if matching the level of intensity in my life, my yoga practice has been spotty. At times, I'm a fiery ball of energy, plowing through the postures with a strength I hardly recognize. But mostly, I can barely make it through class. Everything in my body and brain feels cluttered, and I feel like I'm about to suffocate.

There's just so much to do. Mid-semester evaluations. Committee work. Grading. Stopping the cats from fighting. Figuring out who to vote for. Oh, and all that regular stuff we've all gotta do, like being with loved ones and trying to care of ourselves. It can begin to feel like a house overstuffed with furniture and endless lists of chores, all so important I don't know where to begin.

I heard a line in a song that same day (the refuge of music, right?) that was like a tiny lightbulb flickering on and off. "Our heads are just houses without enough windows," Arcade Fire sing on their brilliant new album, The Suburbs. The line resonated. And then, it pissed me off.

A house without enough windows sounds pretty bad, right? Could be a prison. Could be like some of the classrooms I've taught in. Sometimes I run around feeling frustrated or sad that there aren't enough windows to open up. Why didn't the architect plan better? Didn't he think to add lots of windows? Can I hire a contractor to cut a few more holes??

I guess that's not really feasible, at least not now. I probably won't be able to transform my "home"--my head, my ego, my brain, my mind, whatever--into a cool, airy, Zen room anytime soon. Maybe, instead, the solution is to learn to just sit by the windows we do have, few as they may be, and watch the rain fall, cool and gentle, on the ground below. Maybe a tiny sip of that cool air is all we need. 


Listen to "Half Light" by Arcade Fire! Do it!

Arrows and Heavy Hands

I don't feel I have time or the energy for a "real" blog post, so I'm going to post a couple of random odds and ends today.

One is that I had a lovely time this weekend meeting some of the bloggers who are at or are visiting TT. We sat around a a table in a funky, off-the-beaten-path Mexican restaurant here in San Diego, eating too much, laughing and talking shop. Y'all are some fabulous ladies and devoted yogis!

That lunch was a respite from a rather hellish part of the semester. Much as I hate to admit it, the stress has been settling on my shoulders like a pair of heavy hands. Each night, I dream somethin' simultaneously awful and laughable. One night, it was the apocalypse and a friend and I, stranded somewhere in China on bicycle, fought to buy donuts from the last open vendor to tide us over as humanity suffered agonizing deaths. Then, the night before meeting the yogis, I dreamed I was trapped at teacher training, stuck in the hot room with no way to get out. I wake up, relieved the dream is over, laughing at its ridiculousness, and strive to take that attitude with me throughout the day. 

When I stress, I can get wrapped up in what causes stress. "Why am I reacting as I do? Why am I not all calm and Zen yet? What incidents occurred in my childhood that made me the way I am today?! Was it that time on the playground. . . " etc, etc, etc. I've been trying to pull myself out of that mucky stuff with a well-known Buddhist analogy that I'll share with you. Imagine a woman who's been shot with an arrow. Does she obsess over who shot her, what she did to deserve it, or what the shooter's reasons were for doing so? Of course not. She just focuses on getting the arrow out. Ignore the dream and turn toward the reality.

So, y'all do the same. Forget about how the arrow got there or who might have it out for you. Focus on the glorious and horrifying task of wrenching it out of yourself. That is enough!

*Need some respite yourself? Check out these awesome yoga blogs!
http://www.japanesehamsandwich.blogspot.com/
http://www.keepitlocking.blogspot.com/
http://www.japanesehamsandwiches.blogspot.com/
http://www.nameste822.blogspot.com/

Breathing under the Mango Tree

Some days, a few moments of breathing is all you need.

I encountered a pretty challenging situation today at school. Can't go into details, but I had a little confrontation with someone I work with. While I did not do something that was entirely in the wrong, what I said to her provoked a deep and pained response. I was shocked by how I'd obviously hurt her. She rattled me to the core--my way of interacting with students was called into question. I was barely able to compose myself and finish what I was doing before I had a chance to scuttle off.

My main yoga teacher has told us a few times that pranayama deep breathing is the perfect way to combat stressful situations. Until today, I wondered if that was contradictory advice. After all, the dialogue says, "Warming up the body, from the inside out." It always seems to have an energizing effect. Wouldn't that be the opposite of what you want when riddled with anxiety?

After the incident with the person, I had less than 30 minutes to get to an important meeting. Dilemma time: do I go to my office and prepare for the meeting, or go outside and get centered? Some days, I would have just gone to the office. I'd have squished the feelings about the student away to some little corner of my bowels, and they would have probably just come bubbling up again at the most inopportune of times. Probably during the meeting ;-)

But today I decided to take a walk to a lovely garden not far from my office. There, as I stared at the bright the fish in the lilypad-covered pond underneath the mango tree, the tears started up. I couldn't get the incident out of my head. There was this desire to indulge and obsess over what happened, yet, I needed to get to this meeting. I remembered what my teacher said about pranyama, so, as the tears began to spill, I stood up and began inhaling through the nose exhaling, through the mouth. By breath 10, I kid you not, I was fine. Not perfect, but my head was clear and I knew I had it together enough to go to the meeting.

The fishies and mango tree didn't hurt, either :-)

Pranyama, y'all. Did ya know the Sanskrit name means "restraint of the prana (life force) or breath"? It's almost counter-intuitive. Restraining the breath, the life force, awakens and enlivens us, enabling us to connect and be more present.

Stuff still needs to be worked out with this student. I'm still anxious to see how it will resolve, to see how deep the impact will be. But one breath at a time is all we can ever do, right?

Mango Tree