To suffer, to be restless

Warning: this will be reflective and rambly. Until tomorrow, when I reluctantly drag myself into the office to get caught up on work, I'm on spring break. I'm sleeping a lot, observing cats, reading, hiking, doing yoga, and catching up with friends. As a result, the normal constrictions of time, routine, and purpose have been loosened. I love it.

One of the things that often comes up when I'm "on break," though--be it summer, spring, or winter--is a sense of restlessness. When I am in the throes of grading, when my day is accounted for in 15-minute intervals, I crave a break. Try as I might to balance things out by taking it slowly and appreciating the moment, at a certain level of business, I shift into a hyper-manic mode. Whatever I might be feeling deep down is completely washed aside by the tsunami of activities.

Then, the break finally does come. And it's beautiful. I have a deep appreciation for things I ordinarily don't even notice: the cats' daily routine. The feel of the finished wood on top of my computer desk and the rough, unfinished wood beneath. I notice way the dirt crunches under my feet; the way the pavement refuses to break apart under my weight; the squish of mud next to a creek.

I also notice a profound sense of restlessness. "The break is here! Lovely! ....And, now what? OK, we'll read for a half hour. Then, some light yoga. Then, a snack, meditation, a nap, and finally, Bikram." And before I know it, half a day has been spent in planning the day. It was this dharma talk by Sally Clough Armstrong that gently reminded me how great a part restlessness plays in Westerners' lives. (In the talk, she also refers to her experience teaching meditation to new converts from India, and how students from the region don't seem to have the same problem. Interesting stuff.)

If you find yourself also noticing a deep sense of restlessness, maybe this insight I got will help you too: it's progress to notice your restlessness. If you notice this at any particular moment, treasure that realization, because that feeling is probably there most of the time, but it's been hidden beneath layers of activity. As I see it (and as I derive from Armstrong's talk), restlessness is one layer beneath the "doing," the relentless onslaught of activities we schedule to avoid boredom or anxiety.  Under the layer of restlessness is probably something even deeper we've been avoiding. But we can't get there unless we keep diving past the layers!

I remember reading literary criticism of Toni Morrison and William Faulkner, and critics referred to both of these authors as having an "unflinching gaze," a willingness to look, and look, and look, despite how ugly (or restless) the picture seemed. So, I'm thankful for the break's opportunity to continue looking, despite that continual urge to run away by going to Target or out to dinner ;-)

To end, here is a quote by Woody Allen on suffering that Armstrong refers to. On my better days, I compare myself to Tina Fey in 30 Rock. On my rougher days I've been known to think of myself as the female Woody Allen. That can't be a good thing. Don't be like Woody Allen.

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.” --Woody Allen

Unbound

I'm stunned. I've been leveled. I've been flattened by a joyful steamroller.

It's spring break in my corner of the world, and it got kicked off on a most lovely note. A gorgeous childhood friend is getting married in a month, and to celebrate, I took a drive up the coast with some girls I've known since elementary school. The gloomy SoCal weather magically dissolved, and we spent the weekend lounging by the pool, picking citrus, and soaking in a hot tub under a luminous moon as we celebrated marriage, babies, and almost 25 years knowing each other. 

So, where's the "stunned" part come in? I'm not quite done processing, but we all came home and, via a chorus of emails and text, agreed that the experience was even more amazing than we'd anticipated.

I think, in part, that these girls have finally grown up. We were never an uber-catty, high-drama bunch, but what little of that there was seemed to completely drop away. It was almost dream-like--it seemed like each of us had learned to make room for the other person in the time that had passed from our last trip together: my lovely friends knew that I would be the first one to sleep, the first one to wake, and to spend a quiet hour to herself doing yoga and basking in the sun before everyone else arose. I could see that this recognition, this knowing,  was felt as deeply by them as it was by me.

I lowered my achy, stiff torso into standing backward bend in my Bikram class this morning and felt so grateful for the warmth, friendship, and this sense of being unbound that we all seemed to experience this past weekend. I bow to it, and I let it go, trusting it will be felt again and again.

Santa Barbara loveliness

"Body is a playground," or, How I got into Yoga

I must confess: I've become a Bikram traitor! Again! Heheheh.

OK, I know there's really no such thing. But I admit to feeling a little naughty when I walked back into my Bikram studio after taking a few days off to try some vinyasa classes. I have been having a great time at this studio. I've been humbled, I've been uplifted, but mostly, I've been reminded that, as my newly-favorited self-help guru Byron Katie says, "The body is a playground."

I have not shared much about my history with yoga on this blog, but my time at these classes inspired me to reflect on how I came to it. I've been doing yoga since I was 16. I can hardly believe it--that means I've been doing yoga for 13 years! I can actually say I have a history of doing yoga now.

When I was 16, I joined a gym to impress my then-best friend. She wanted to "get in shape," and I wanted her to like me more. (Typical E!) She wanted to take step classes and lift weights. I was drawn to one of the (only) two yoga classes the gym offered.

(**I should mention that I do not come from a gym-rat family. My dad golfed and played racquetball, but no one ran or worked out for the sake of staying healthy. I was never overweight as a kid, but I was always un-athletic. I couldn't touch my toes, do ten sit-ups, or run a mile. I surely failed all those presidential fitness tests--you can forget the competitive sports. No, seriously, I'm still trying to forget tetherball.)

I finally got up the courage to go yoga without my friend. From my first class, I was hooked. After all those years of awful P.E. classes and feeling lame because I couldn't even touch my toes, I finally found this way in. And it was all for me. It didn't matter that my hamstrings and shoulders were tight, that I couldn't balance for shit, couldn't breathe right, or that I didn't know what I was doing. It was like someone had given me this permission, this key to enjoy how I felt, regardless of how "good" I was actually doing in comparison to others. Body is truly a playground when you're open to it, no matter how you feel.

Wouldn't you know it? That key has continued opening doors. I was an introverted kid--still am, in many ways--but I don't doubt yoga gave me the ability to stand a little more confidently on my own. Of course, I touched my goes. My friendship with that mean gym girl dissolved. I started looking forward to school, rather than hating the world when my alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. to wake me up. I made cool, new, happy friends through that yoga community. I even convinced my mom to let me go on a yoga retreat in Mexico when I was 17, something I never would have wanted to do if I hadn't known yoga's ability to open me up, to tug gently at the tension binding me together.

I remember overhearing my mom, who had initially wondered about my new-found interest, talk on the phone to one of her friends a few months after I started yoga. "There's something different about her. She even walks straighter."

In coming back to that vinyasa style class, things are definitely a little different. It was humbling. Though I could be wrong, I doubt I'll ever see the physical progress I saw when I started at 16. But physical strength or flexibility were never really the point, were they? I needed to get myself to that yoga retreat when I was 17, and that had nothing to do with touching my toes. Who knows what other journeys await? I might become the most social person on the planet ;-)

I'm so glad I went to that new studio. Even though some of that playground equipment was rusty, it was so fun to give it another spin. After two classes there, my Bikram return was the most phenomenal class I've had in a while. I look forward to finding a new balance!

Yay, yoga!

We all Surrender

When I was a teenager, U2 came out with a greatest hits album. It was the one CD my entire family enjoyed equally, that is, except for the song "Bad." In our universal dislike of this song, we'd instantaneously agreed to skip it during family road trips. "NEXT. 'Where the Streets Have no Name' is way better."

I've come to appreciate "Bad."

"Surrender. Dislocate. Let it go," Bono sings in this meditative and steadily-building song.

What do they surrender to, someone who dies? What part of them dislocates? What do we surrender to, we who live? What part of us is dislocated, and what happens to it?

A colleague... a friend... passed away this weekend. It feels like a tiny bit of good has dislocated from the world, a piece of our big, beautiful puzzle suddenly gone. Since then, I've been inhaling the tributes that have been dispersed through conversation and the internet: emails, Facebook memorial posts, and phone calls. Their sweet smell lingers after I put down the phone or walk away from the computer. I feel oddly calm after each discussion about him.

Maybe we--"the living"--surrender the most. Any disagreements, any sense of separation between "you and "me" are dislocated, and we surrender ourselves to moments of pure connection with others as we remember the good in the deceased. I think that when we're doing it right, we all surrender, all the time.

So, Leon, amongst other things, you and I argued about music, but we both grudgingly agreed that it was nearly impossible to hate U2. Enjoy it, all!


U2 "Bad"

What are the ways it's NOT hot?

They say that when one door closes, another one opens. What if you shut that door yourself? What if the universe doesn't do it for you, and you have to weigh the risks involved? "Do I want to keep walking through this door? Will another one really open?"

I spent a good amount of time recently wondering if I should shut a particular door. I pleaded with friends. I questioned my yoga teacher. I asked my family. I asked myself, and I asked the door itself. "Should I shut you?"

I don't know if "I should/shouldn't" "She should/shouldn't" statements are the best ones to let churn around one's mind. I will, however, offer up my tiny little testimony: shut the door, sometimes you see doors that have always been there. You've just been to door-obsessed to notice how unique, simple, ornate, solid, and beautifully-made they always were.

OK, back to the "I" voice ;-) One of the doors I'm seeing more clearly lately is yoga. Each time I go, it's a transformation. The possibilities for progress are always there. In the Bikram blogging world, it's a cliche to write about how a class that is "the same every time" provides ample opportunity for different experiences.

Lately, I've been taking those 20-second savasanas to question my stressful thoughts that come up during class. We've all had the "It's too freakin' hot. The teacher should really turn it down" thought. So, when I notice that's coming up, when I see the students wilting like sad Icelandic poppies in gushing heat, when I see the puddle of sweat on my towel is abnormally large, I think about it. What are the ways it's not too hot? Let me count them :-) I can still feel my body, my heart rate slows when I'm not in the posture, I keep sweating, I keep thinking... etc.

It seriously works! I've had a couple of classes lately that were hotter than normal, but my experience in the room was much better than it "should" have been.

Ay, speaking of "should," I feel like I should come back to the door metaphor ;-) Take the time to look around, I guess. They are many doors that are already open. That much, I can promise.

A not wilty Icelandic Poppy

You Good Scholar

I've been learning my lessons in the weirdest places lately. I get it--we are constantly presented with opportunities to learn, but it seems like the more I turn to books or teachers for answers, I'm presented with these really decisive messages from other places.

I think learning to be honest--with ourselves and with others--is a life-long journey, but currently I'm getting reeeeeal schooled in it.

I learned a little factoid recently that told me someone I work with had sold me on a pretty big lie. I had believed it for a long time. Unfortunately, I didn't learn this factoid until the person left, and I probably won't be in contact with her for a few months. So, upon learning this, I sat, stunned and steaming in anger, trying to think of ways to let this person know how she'd lied to me and how pissed off I was about it.

There is really nothing I can do, though. She is gone, and even if she were here, what would my confronting her do about the situation? I fantasize that my lecture would turn her into the upright citizen I want her to be, but it's doubtful my words would do that ;-) Only she can do that.

Since I can't inform her that she's a liar and what to do about it, I've been sitting down with myself and asking the same question. What did I lie to her about? Turns out, plenty. I had (and still have, I suppose) a lot of professional respect for this person. She is good at her job, so any suggestion she had about my work or personal life, I figured I should immediately put it into practice. I put winning her approval first so I might feel like I was the professional I always wanted to be. Rarely was I honest about how I really felt. So I lied to her pretty much all the time, too.

Jeez. When I let myself go there in anger, I have plenty to get pissed off about, but really, is there anything I can do but go sweat it out? Or healing that anger by being more straight with the people I come in contact with from now on? (Are ya throwing up by now? ;-)

I don't know much of anything, really, but this beautiful poem by Mary Oliver deals with how the world around us is really our teacher. I hope you good scholars see that "untrimmable light" everywhere you go!

From "Mindfulness" by Mary Oliver

Oh, good scholar, 
I say to myself, 
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world, 
the ocean's shine, 
the prayers that are made
out of grass? 

___
Other random factoid: speaking of nature, did you know that seals are known by environmentalists as "charismatic megafauna" due to their sweet, big eyes? I can't get over that.

Cute seal

Put It Down

I made a huge life decision a couple of weeks ago, and while the process (deciding, going through with it, dealing with it) has been painful, I've already experienced a lightness I have not known for a long time.

As all regular practitioners of anything disciplined already know, your practice reflects what goes on inside. (I am also learning that how you treat others is pretty much an inversion of how you treat yourself, but that's a whole other blog!) I know this intellectually, but it hard to feel it inside at all times. I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago when reading a post by The Lady J. In it, she was expressing gratitude for being able to let go of her "life" and just focus on what was happening for 90 minutes. The lovely LalaPiggy confirmed that she, too, knew freedom from those stressors when she was in the hot room.

I've been having such awful classes lately that I could hardly believe what I was reading. My stuff has weighed on me like a ball and chain when at yoga.Yes, the classes brought relief, but only because I suffered so tremendously when I was there that I was simply yoga-stoned by the time it was over. I would spend the majority of the class pondering things going on in my life.

It even manifested in very specific physical hindrances. For months now, I could not kick my leg out and hold it the entire time. Ever. Either set. I couldn't get my head to the floor in separate-leg-stretching pose, and this is a girl who has been doing yoga since she was 16.


But now that I made that choice, I feel like I've put a tremendously heavy weight down, and I can simply go further than I could before. Sometimes, I can hold my leg out the whole time, the kicking leg getting closer and closer to being flexed. I can also usually get my forehead to the floor.

Nothing, of course, is much different in my world. I still wake up, go to work, grade papers, play with kitties, read, write, do yoga, watch tv, see friends and family, sleep, and start the whole thing over. On one level I can see so clearly that what causes us stress is just the thoughts. It's arguing with reality that freaks us out, and that war is fought entirely in our heads. I can also see, though, that sometimes you just gotta put some things down in order to move forward and kick that leg straight.

No advice here, just reflections. Thanks for reading! :-)