Ira Glass, I love you.
I was talking to my friend, Meredith, the other day and she said something that was so beautiful and true that it took my breath away. She was saying that she is trying to use the word “and” a lot more when she describes aspects of herself because that word allows her to acknowledge and appreciate her complexities and the varied dimensions of herself. “And” is so inclusive and it speaks to the depth and the complexity of the human personality … I wish I had recorded that phone conversation with her. She said expressed this so perfectly that my heart ached in that “this American Life” sort of way.
Ira Glass and the other great people who create “this American Life” each week, do this “and” thing really well. They are able to tell a story about a guy and even when that guy has done something crazy or kind of awful, by the end of the story, you can see how he got there, why he made the decisions he did and you feel for him. You feel him. If you are me, you are usually listening on Sunday morning on the way to dance and you have to pull over to cry a little bit because you know how complex and yet how simple we human beings are. The story, whichever it happens to be, is so human that it stirs up compassion and empathy and these primal things that we all experience: love and the need for love, fear, a dark side to ourselves, our childhood…and you just might see yourself in that guy. Because you can relate to who he is and how he got into his predicament, it’s not judgment that you feel, it’s compassion.
When we are asked in a yoga class to observe the breath and not to judge it, or when we are invited to notice the feelings and the stories that we tell ourselves when we can or can’t do a challenging pose, what would happen if we pretended to be Ira Glass or Meredith? The old me might say, “Last month, I could do this pose, but now I eat lots of cake and I don’t practice as often.(uuuugh!)” The new me with Meredith-Ira enhancement could close my eyes, use that pleasant and inquisitive Ira Glass tone of voice and instead said, “I used to be able to do this pose and now… now I eat lots of cake and I don’t practice as often. (quiet pause)” Doesn’t it change the whole thing? Doesn’t it seem like maybe I am more interesting for my eating of chocolate cake and don’t you wonder what it is that I do with my time now that I practice less often? The “and” allows for the beautiful complexity of who I am. With Ira Glass and Meredith, I can see that I am a person worthy of a 10 minute slot on an excellent radio program because there is way more going on with me than just not getting into a pose anymore. I have a life that is rich and full and interesting and I am on the verge of discovering even more about myself because there is another “and” and another independent clause just waiting to be tacked onto that sentence. I might not be able to rock bakasana today. So what? And, I enjoy eating chocolate cake. You got that right. And lately, my yoga practice doesn’t look much like yoga at all. It looks a little more like sleeping in. ah-hem. There are a whole bunch of experiences, qualities and neuroses that make me who I am and if you heard my very own story narrated by Ira Glass and edited with perfect music and that hollow empty space of sound behind his crisp and honest voice, you’d probably feel something in me that is in you and you might even have to pull over and cry a little bit. This little word “and,” as Meredith says, is such a good one to use when talking about yourself. It allows for so much.
When I’m in my car, I know I should be completely one with my machine and road and elements, but I must confess that some of my energy goes to scanning the side of the road for the smushed animal that lost its life due to cars and asphalt and fossil fuels and the carelessness of humans. Some of my fascination with roadkill is connected with a need to feel guilty. Whenever I see some innocent squashed animal I immediately think, “But whyyyyyyyyyyy??? Why do we need cars and roads and look at how we are disrupting mother nature’s ways and cutting through these ecosystems so that we can get to our jobs that are way too far away and then we do further damage by fueling these vehicles with fossil fuuuuuuels that kill little furry creatures who are just trying to live out their liiiiiives. Whyyyyyyyyyyy?” And then, if I can, I turn my car around, park it, and run over to the little dead thing to get a closer look.
I humbly offer for your consideration this passage from Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha by Swami Satyananda Saraswati.
Awareness: This is as essential to the practice of asana as it is to all yoga practices. […] Awareness in this context may be understood as consciously noting sensations in the body, the physical movement, the posture itself, breath control and synchronization, movement of prana, concentration on and area of the body or chakra and most importantly, witnessing any thoughts or feeling which may arise during the practice. Implicit in the concept of awareness is the acceptance of any thought or feeling which comes uninvited to the mind. This awareness is essential in order to receive optimum benefits from the practices.
I bet this “acceptance of any thought or feeling which comes uninvited to the mind” applies to blog readers, too. It’s essential to receive optimum benefits from this blog. Now, please continue.
Since moving to Texas, the roadkill that I encounter is much more interesting than any I remember seeing in Seattle. Here’s a list of what I’ve seen in the last month alone: deer, turtle, jackrabbit, 2 rattlesnakes, a rat snake, an armadillo, a cardinal, a pigeon and way too many butterflies. There are animals that were on the road but not yet roadkill and this list includes this crazy-ass lizard that was pale, almost albino, with spiky skin, a triangle shaped head and a missing tail (see photo below), a tarantula, a roadrunner and loads of turkey vulture that were, no doubt, feasting on some of the animals from list one. I saw vegetables, too. Someone lost a box of artichokes on their way to market, so I stopped to pick that up and my fam and I ate like artichoke kings and queens for 3 days. Feasting. On artichokes.
Lately, I’m a little more compulsive than usual. This shows up in the things I have been putting in my pie hole and in my roadkill scanning. I’m pulling over to look at dead things on a weekly basis. Fortunately, there are times when I can’t actually do this because I have places I am going on a timeframe or it’s a busy busy street, but still, I manage to stop and check things out —up close—quite often. My recent habits don’t even compare to a year ago. Please consider that when the girls and I moved here to Austin, we were still homeschooling, I didn’t have an outside job and I didn’t have any friends. This combination of circumstances gave me even more time to pull over and look at dead things—Plus, I had my small children’s Education to think of. They would, no doubt, learn so much by looking at roadkill up close. Things like the smell of decomposing flesh and the cruelty of cars and roads, and the innocence of sweet little furry animals.
One time, the girls and I were in the car and I saw a dead raccoon right by our house. It looked freshly hit. The corner of a car must have clipped it because it looked like it was just having a peaceful little snooze out there on the road—no blood and no guts. Of course, we pulled over. The raccoon was in the middle of the lane and I couldn’t have my girls hang out in the middle of the street, as I’ve been known to do, so I left the two of them on the curb. In my trunk, I had one of those thick plastic bags that you put car seats in at the airport and I ripped a corner off. I approached dead raccoon and squatted down. Still, I’m thinking, “cruuuel cars,” and “wow, I’ve never been this close to a raccoon.” At the same time, I was feeling like an awesome homeschooler mom who was about to win major coolness points. I reached out; plastic barrier in place, to grab what I was sure would be the warm and fuzzy raccoon leg. However, when I actually made contact through the plastic bag, I had a flash-realization: the animal was dead and stiff, rigor mortis had already set in and what I was intending to do was really disgusting. Maybe it could even be called perverse. It didn’t feel like science anymore, it started to feel like the stuff of Mary Shelley novels. Those human instincts (that we have for a reason) screamed, “don’t do it, Amanda. That animal is d-e-a-d. Leave it,” and then my body shuddered.
I must have had an expression of disgust and horror on my face, but I didn’t look up because I didn’t want my kids to see me grossed out. I don’t have any problem letting them see me gag and wretch when they eat a globby booger in front of me (there’s nothing I can do about that- That is the most disgusting thing anyone could do… ever), but get grossed out by death and animals, something that is a natural part of the cycle of life and mother nature and the earth… naah. Not me, girls. Not your mama. I embrace aaaaalll parts of the circle of life. So in the most unnatural way, I forced myself to push through my disgust and I grabbed that rigid, furry little leg/paw and proceeded to drag that dead raccoon (20 pounder, at least) to the curb.
The girls had that same sparkle in their eyes that I get when I think about communing with animals and Mother Nature and furry things. There was some sadness beneath the sparkle because the creature was dead, but I could see it… they have my same fascination with roadkill. They both really wanted to pet it and I had to insist that they just use their eyes to get to know the raccoon. Hazel kept insisting and I finally gave in and let her pet it through the piece of thick plastic that I was still holding.
Where’s the yoga in all this? Honestly, it took me a while to uncover it. I almost didn’t post this little story-confession, because I began to wonder if it was appropriate for this blog. I started to feel weird and self-conscious about this roadkill thing I have and do. I worried that you, dear reader, would judge me or get grossed out or think some other thing that might make you stop reading and then I’d be bummed out and might fall into a deep depression and never recover. I pushed through those fears, posted, and discovered that this small decision to post this story was a step towards self-acceptance. These things that we are curious about, these “weird” things that fuel a curiosity about nature and life and connections, aren’t something to stifle. These are the things to celebrate. These quirks and idiosyncrasies are really fun to get to know when we can practice acceptance and non-judgment and when we let go of the stories that we tell ourselves about what other people think. As Swami Satyananda Saraswati says, “This awareness is essential in order to receive optimum benefits” and inherent in optimum benefits is more joie de vivre. Accepting any thought or feeling which comes uninvited to the mind is a practice and I think it’s worth it. See? Yoga can even be found in roadkill.
Not having a husband anymore leaves me feeling alone, a lot. For the time being, I’m not dating anyone and I am living life without a partner, so someone might say, “She’s on her own,” or “Yeah, she’s single” and we all know what that means. As if any of us is really on our own or living singly, especially if, like me, you have two children, a co-parent, friends that you call and talk to all the time and parents that live next door. If you are a teacher, you have students, and if you are a student, you have teachers. Maybe you have a therapist. We all have farmers growing our food, store clerks that help us at the stores, factory owners, workers and distributors that get you those cookies that you luuuv…the web of connections is intricate and extensive and wonderful, but still, we all know what “single” means. Single means that you are still missing that perfect puzzle piece of a person who will fill your hole and complete you.
Ha ha! Just kidding. I couldn’t resist. Single is really what we all are. We need to be able to know our self-separate from our spouse, kids or extended family because it is from this place that we really come to know our personal dharma, or our roles and responsibilities to family, our community and ourselves. The continued practice of svadyaya or self-study helps you to know your personal dharma. It isn’t impossible to uncover it while married, but I’ll tell you being single has given me a lot more time to contemplate things like my dharma and…well, being single. Sometimes I miss having a little, traditional nuclear family so much that it hurts. I miss being able to be in that place where four people are forging a life with the common goal of loving each other, helping each other to grow and doing it together. And there’s something else that I miss about it…I miss being able to ignore myself. When in nuclear family mode, my personal issues could disguise themselves as group issues, husband issues or general relationship issues. “The kids were a mess today! That explains why I’m a mess.” I could ignore the little voice that told me that I wasn’t really following my dharma (which is known to have symptoms of malaise, disenchantment, and a lack of joie de vivre) because I was too busy listening to my nuclear family voice that said, “Kids are fed and happy. We’re just fine. Let’s sit on the couch together with wine and a movie and put off that troublesome self-reflection.”
Now, I’m single/alone/whatever you want to call it and I have a lot more time to hang out with myself. This is really nice when I want to read, write or do yoga. I even take myself on dates to the movies. “Do you want some popcorn, Amanda?” “You know I do, girl.” But when I’m not doing something enjoyable and instead, I’m grappling with something in my life that isn’t working so well, then it’s a little less nice. In the past, when there was a family group, the reasons that things weren’t working were mostly my husband’s fault. But now, he’s not around to blame and to my surprise, I’m finding that there are some things that are totally my deal. There are things that I do or think or say that cause me heartache and those things are all mine. I’ve had some dark “alone” moments (picture mascara running down blotchy, tear streaked face) but I see some light in there somewhere, too. This aloneness has given me time to get to know myself a little better and to better understand my personal dharma. For example, I now understand that my personal dharma is different from the fake dharma that other people thought I should have and I believed for a while, or the bogus dharma that I thought other people thought I should have. I’ve learned that it’s important to listen when something is a little off inside and the bogus dharma symptoms appear because those are clues that things might need some reevaluation.
I think we women-moms often find ourselves saddled with a fake dharma and we too easily shrugg off the bogus-dharma-symptoms. We want to do a good job as women-moms but no one is born with complete know-how. We saw our moms try their best to be good at that job and our subconscious took notes. We see friends giving it their best shot and maybe not so subconsciously, we model our behavior after those great gals. Motherhood can be so overwhelming and it isn’t necessary or possible to figure it all out on our own, but when we just take on someone else’s version of what motherhood means without checking in to see if it is what we think it means, we can get confused about what our personal dharma really is. We can play a part or be the grease that keeps the family unit running smoothly and it might look good and sometimes it feels good, but when our heart and soul isn’t aligned with the role we play, if it isn’t connected to who we are, singly and individually, then it doesn’t satisfy. This applies to motherhood and to all those other responsibilities we accept and fulfill. When we do what we are here to do, it feels right and good. We can feel it and other people can see it in us. Personal dharma is very individual. Gary Kraftsow* says, It is through the fulfillment of our personal dharma that we connect to our ultimate dharma—the one that has to do with reaching our highest potential as human beings. It is fulfilling our dharma that gets us closer to ananda, an ultimate joy and bliss of connecting to the divine source within. When we fulfill our personal dharma, we are better able to fulfill our ultimate dharma, the same ultimate dharma that all of us on the planet share.
This fantasy that being a part of a nuclear family will help me feel less alone is beautiful, but it isn’t the answer. The ache has much more to do with just being a person and feeling who I am in this world, and knowing that, even in the beautiful and extensive web of connections, I have a personal, single, individual dharma to fulfill and that is to be done by me, alone. I have to figure out who I am without explaining my aches by whom I do or don’t have along, because even though we were never meant to live in isolation from others, we still have the individual roles that we each carry out. It is through the fulfillment of our personal dharma that we connect with this ultimate, universal and beautiful human-birthright of goodness or ananda. It is in knowing alone-ness, knowing that everyone has their individual role to fulfill that we connect to so many others out there who are working at the same thing. We are all in this alone-thing together.
*This comes from Gary Kraftsow’s book, Yoga for Transformation: Ancient Teachings and Practices for Healing the Body, Mind and Heart. Penguin; 2002. It hasn’t made it onto my book list yet, but only because I haven’t gotten to the end. It probably will.
I was wiping my counters after washing a whole lot of dishes last night and I noticed how relaxed I felt. I don’t love doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen, but I don’t hate it either. I land somewhere in the middle. Washing dishes and wiping counters is something that must be done, often, and other than the special occasions when my mom comes over and does it for me, it’s my job. Tonight, I washed, wiped and even scrubbed the bottom of the sink with comet. All the dishes were back in the cabinet. No clutter. No stickiness. No turning a blind eye to drying curls of carrot and cucumber peels. I’ve gone through this cleaning sequence so many times and I’ll do it again a hundred thousand times more, I’m sure, so this one time, right here in the middle of the counter wiping timeline isn’t that important.
And yet it is. Because last night when I was wiping the counters, I felt a little like my mom. She cooks and cleans up with incredible grace and ease. She can make a delicious meal in 20 minutes for the five of us in our shared household and then she cleans up without hating it. She doesn’t get exhausted from it. She isn’t annoyed when we don’t help with the dishes. She does it with near emotional-neutrality. I say “near” because there’s a little more to it. I also see some simple, quiet joy in there, too. She seems to take pleasure in this dish-washing task, this role and relationship that she has with food and dishes. She offers it up with generosity and benevolence, but not it a big showy way. She does it in a simple and sustainable way. In a way of day-after-day, coming to the same work and doing it again and still finding joy in there somewhere. It is admirable and healthy. Tonight, I got to feel a little bit like my mom. I had the awareness of that kind of pleasure that can come with wiping counters, and I noticed it because it isn’t always there. I noticed it and I liked it.
The clear mind and the easeful counter wiping was special because I have this thing going on with dirty dishes. When the girls are with their dad, and sometimes when they are here with me, I let dirty dishes pile up in the sink. I think it’s connected to my complicated relationship to motherhood. I know I harbor some resentment about having to be responsible all the time. Parenting jettisoned me into adulthood in ways I never could have anticipated and I mostly love it, but when I don’t, I take it out on my dishes. Unlike my children, dishes are inanimate and so they don’t care if I wash them or not. They don’t actually know if they are dirty in the sink for 4 days or if they are shiny and clean in the cabinet. I can be less-responsible in this area of my life and it doesn’t matter all that much.
But it kind of does, because when my counter is a mess, I get grumpy. I’m not cooking much these days, but I do assemble food for myself, and when I have greasy, sweating slices of old cheese next to the salad of baby greens, garden cucumbers and roasted chicken, it bums me out. Salad is much more exciting when there isn’t something unsavory hanging out nearby. Also, the tipping point from invigorating no-dish-wash-rebellion to dirty-dish-overwhelm is oh-so delicate. I don’t think I’ve hit the sweet spot on that one very often where I’ve managed to satisfy my need to not feel quite so responsible and then jumped in to clean the dishes at the perfect moment so that I also get the satisfying and joyful sensation of a job well done.
I have decided that I want to spend less energy rebelling against my dishes. I’d like it if the energy I do have to spend on dishes was of a nourishing, feel good and easeful variety. I want to do dishes like my mom does dishes. I want it to feel like it did tonight with no internal conflict, no chatter in my head about how much I don’t like the task or how many dishes there are or how gross the orange and oily spaghetti sauce line is on the sides of the sink. I want to simply do the dishes. My rebellious streak might better serve me elsewhere—into areas of my life that need a little shake up, but dishes? They just need to get done. And yeah, you can call me Amahnda Nhat Hahn if you want to.
Happy Mothers Day, Mom. I love you.
In golf, the full swing is the glamour shot. This is the one that is big and showy and the ball goes for miles. The full swing has the sounds of glory—the sound of club moving through air at the speed of light and the “crack” as club hits ball. The full swing has those big movements that make good body mechanics look sexy. It is synchronicity of all of the parts of the body working toward a common good and it involves a tool, a club, to increase the impact. The full swing is the reason that people ever start to play golf. They want some of the glory.
I’ll be honest. I want it, too. I stepped foot on an actual golf course last week and I observed some seasoned players and a golf-pro in action. (I also drove a golf cart for the first time and did fine when no one was talking to me, but then someone did and I ran the cart up on a curb in an embarrassingly noisy and dramatic way… but that’s another story.) There is a peace that these players find in the moment before they tee off. The tone is serious and everyone is quiet and it appears to take a lot of concentration. Then there is the swing and you can actually hear the club move through the air. It isn’t a boring swoosh, either. There’s the beginning of the swing and then the sound changes as the club speeds up to approach the ball. It’s a perfect sound. That sound is part of the glory, I assure you.
The full swing is a much more dramatic and much bigger version of the putt, and from what I know (having had only two golf lessons in my life), it isn’t really about having incredible strength in the arms and body. It is about using the inherently awesome body to do what it can do when the mind gets out of the way. It’s about finding your full range of motion, winding back, and then swinging the club head through the air from one end of a pendulum to the other. Because there is a ball in the line of fire, it happens to gets knocked into the distance. It’s at this point that the golfer looks and feels like a bad ass. (Curious about physics of golf??? Click here to read a great article.)
I tried to do this. I did. And I noticed something really cool. When I was able to stay relaxed, when I really didn’t let myself care about where the ball ended up, and when I let my body do its thing without over-thinking alignment and muscles and effort, it worked. My club made that sound and I even hit the ball into the far far distance a few times. It is so incredibly satisfying. When I swing like that, it feels like I am actually doing something beautiful and meaningful and important with my body. My mind and all my senses are tuned into the swing, and there’s nothing else in there. No distractions. But let’s face it, that wasn’t always or even usually what happened. As soon as I cared about the ball, I would start my swing, think about hitting the ball, shift my hands or tense my shoulders or bring the ball into sharp focus and then done-zo. No good sound, no contact with the ball, along with the annoying feeling of trying really hard to do something and then failing.
I want more of my mind and senses tuning in to what I’m doing. I want to stay relaxed and let the inherent power that is in my muscles and body do their thing without letting myself stress out and try so hard all of the time. I want to be ever-aware of the strength that is inside of me and I want to know how to make the most of it when I need to use it. This is the good stuff. This is the beauty of golf and it is the same beauty that I find in my yoga practice: ease, strength, the ability to observe the things that are happening in the mind and with the senses. Or maybe it is more simple than that. Maybe it is just that awesome feeling of doing something beautiful and meaningful and important with my body. I still can’t believe that I really like golf. I didn’t expect it. But I do. I’m hooked. And it happened with that first beautiful full swing.
I had my first golf lesson. (If you know me you might need a minute to let that sink in …) In that one lesson, I found enough material to consider, integrate, and work with to keep me busy on my yoga mat for a year… at least. I’m not kidding. I cried in the car on the way home and I hardly slept that night with all the thoughts that were going through my body and head. Yoga and golf are really similar. Both ask you to develop your ability to focus the mind on one thing, and implicit in that is emptying the mind of all else. The big wonderful difference between yoga and golf is that in golf you have a golf ball.
A thing I love about my golf lesson numero uno is the immediate feedback that I got on my level of concentration, focus and relaxation. In yoga, there are times that I muscle through an asana practice, holding my poses with crazy amounts of tension in the shoulders, neck and face, while mulling over some annoying thing that happened to me that morning. I might not be aware of any of this at the time, because it’s just me being me, on my mat, tense and distracted. Golf, on the other hand, has something built into the game that let’s you know how focused and relaxed your body is. It’s the Samadhiorometer. You can’t fool yourself or anyone else about how focused, relaxed and attune you are when you swing the club because the ball reveals all. If the Samadhiorometer gets a bad reading, then the ball doesn’t move at all, it plunks itself one foot from you or it goes and hides itself in some scraggly bush far far away from the nicely groomed green part. When the Samadhiorometer reveals high levels of concentration, you have a swing that makes that sound (if you golf, you know it) and the ball flies in a beautiful arc toward that flag flying out in the distance. It’s quite a feeling.
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras describe eight limbs of yoga. With good a good teacher and a steady practice maintained over time, we develop these eight limbs not in sequence, like rungs on a ladder, but as limbs grow on a tree. The first 4 limbs are Yamas and Niyamas, (ethical precepts) and Asana and Pranayama (posture and breath practice). The second four have to do, primarily, with focusing of the mind. These are the four that are so very relevant to golf. Number 5 -Pratyahara, is sometimes translated as sensory withdrawl, but that’s not really the way I think of it. It can’t be practiced, but you can notice the conditions that let you feel it happening. The senses aren’t shut down in pratyahara, but they aren’t distracting you by chasing all the sensory candy either. The senses are doing what they are supposed to do… they are tuning into whatever you choose to focus on. Pratyahara happens when you are rockin’ limbs 6 and 7. Number 6 is Dharana, the ability to maintain focus on a chosen object. You have to be able to get somewhere with dharana to have any chance at number 7. Number 7 -Dhyana, is a deeper concentration than Dharana. In Dhyana you come to know your object of focus really, really well. Then there’s Samadhi and I know I said that the limbs are limbs and not rungs on a ladder, but this one is a kind of top rung. We are going to talk about Samadhi and golf next week when I talk about the full swing. (Get excited.)
Today, our focus is the putt. For the putt, the ball is relatively close to the hole so the arc of the swing is small. The ball only requires a tap to make the ball go the distance and land in the hole. Sounds easy? It’s not. Putting posture is uncomfortable. You have to stick your butt out behind you and hover the eyes over the ball in a shallow utkatasana-like pose. There’s a lot of effort that comes with that but you don’t want to let that effort creep up too high in the body because the arms, shoulders and neck have to stay super-relaxed if you are going to have any chance at sinking the ball. Think of the perfect balance of sukha and sthira, ease and effort, in the body. The other big part of putting is the ability to stay focused on a chosen object. Remember dharana and dhyana? The object of focus in golf isn’t the ball or even the hole. (This surprised the heck out of me.) The object of focus is the swing. Now, this was explained to me and I tried to keep it in mind, but the ball is just so interesting. It is white and cute. It moves. It responds when hit with the club and you can watch it roll. If you are a lucky first-time golfer, you might even get the gleeful rush of excitement as the ball rattles around in the plastic hole. It is very hard not to focus on the ball. Despite the sensory delights that the ball offers, I was determined to be one with the swing. My determination worked for about half a second. Putter moves back behind the ball and I’m thinking about swing. Putter moves toward the ball, still thinking about swing. Then “Oh my gosh, there’s the ball and I’m about to hit it!” Excitement, anticipation and the desire to achieve something wonderful take over and my shoulders tense, my focus shifts and the ball launches away from the hole. It takes about 2 seconds for all of that to happen and after repeating that little sequence 30+ times, the ball isn’t nearly as cute.
My best golf swings happened after the exercise of closing my eyes, letting go of the goals and balls and holes so that I could simply swing the club head, feeling the weight of the club head move like a pendulum with my body responding to the swing. It wasn’t muscles and effort that allowed my body to synchronise and relax into the swing. It was a partial surrender and a soft focus on the task at hand. I felt the club in my hands. I noticed the shifting of weight from foot to foot. I wasn’t aligning or striving or aiming or hitting. I was just feeling the swing. My senses were tuned into the swing and that was all. That was my experience of dhyana with a side of pratyahara and I got a taste of it from golf. It was when I opened my eyes and could still feel that easy focus and concentration of simply swinging that I could tap the ball and sink it. I still have the memory of the pleasure of my body and mind coordinating like that. It is the feeling of allowing the body and mind to do what they are made to do. It’s a simply wonderful experience and I want more of that in my yoga practice. Golf just might help to get me there. Wow.
My kid took this picture of my belly while I was sleeping. It makes me laugh. Eventually my photos are going to have something to do with blog content, but not today.
So there’s a thing I want to talk about but I can’t actually talk specifics. Not very bloggy of me, I know. No names, a little vague, but hey, my very intimate friend (a-hem) has this thing going on and the story is so familiar that I wanted to consider it here, together. As the title states, it is a tale of misapprehension, confused values, excessive attachments, unreasonable dislikes, and insecurity. It is a tale of Avidya in action.
This friend of mine started dating someone. That someone told her that he didn’t drink coffee and didn’t really like it. My friend loves coffee. It’s part of her routine. She started drinking it at 19 but started loving it at 6. As a child, she liked the smell of it on her dad’s breath. She liked the way her mom poured a cup and waked around holding the mug but hardly taking a drink. She always assumed she would share the love of coffee with the love of her life. Is the no coffee thing a deal-breaker for friend and beau? She doesn’t think so at first. She heard this bit of information from her special someone and she thought – “I can live with that. I can drink coffee and he doesn’t have to and I like him enough that not having a romantic coffee house date every once in a while or having the early morning cup of coffee together won’t be that big of a deal. Maybe I’ll even take a break from coffee and see how that feels.” She said all of that to herself, but deep down, she had this unconscious belief that he’d come around. Eventually, he’d see how great coffee really is and how nice it can be to share a cup of coffee with her and maybe not tomorrow, but eventually, he’d change.
The relationship progressed. They both did a little toe-dipping into each others’ coffee/no coffee ponds. My pal convinced herself that she spotted early signs of a coffee-loving epiphany and with great anticipation, she let herself imagine the European roast they’d share when they traveled to Paris together, but it just wasn’t in the guy. He tried to like it because he liked her, but coffee just didn’t do it for him. He didn’t like coffee one month in. He didn’t like coffee three months in. And it turns out, he still doesn’t like the stuff. They broke up.
In yoga, there is the concept of avidya, the obstacles to clear perception. In the book, Health, Healing and Beyond, T.K.V Desikachar says this about avidya:
Patanjali describes avidya as misapprehension, confused values, excessive attachments, unreasonable dislikes, and insecurity. And these in turn lead to troubling emotions expressed as desire, anger, possessiveness, self-delusion, arrogance, and envy. In practice, the outcome invariably is Dukha – the constraints upon our physical and mental life that lead to illness and discontent.
Man, when I read this, I got it. Avidya. Wow. That description pretty accurately describes a big part of my part in my marriage. It’s the same complicated stuff that was going on with my friend. Thank you Sanskrit for so nicely packing it all into a single word: avidya. The cycle of Avidya-Dukha is unavoidable and universal – it touches each one of us and we don’t have to feel ashamed about experiencing it …but wouldn’t it be nice to have a little less of it around?
When I think about my friend’s situation, I think about the importance of svadyaya, self-study, of coming to know yourself well. This is an ongoing study. We are changing all the time and new situations, new dating-partners, give us more to work with… more information about ourselves. In a new relationship, there is so much heart-fluttering it is easy to confuse that excitement with love (misapprehension). We can want to be liked back so much that we don’t listen to what we want at a deeper level (confused values, insecurity). We can get really attached (excessively). I think the unreasonable dislikes usually come a little later. None of this is unusual and some of it is healthy. My friend might have discovered that she could continue to enjoy coffee without sharing it with her lover or maybe even realize that coffee is just one of many things that she really enjoys. It’s good to challenge a habit, not so good to have an attachment to the idea that someone is going to change for you.
Which leads me to the topic of svadharma. We need to know our dharma. Mr. Desikachar explains svadharma in this way: “Sva means “self ,” and dharma is that which protects, holds up and elevates. In the upholding of dharma every person has a role to play […]It is…necessary to be clear about the limits of this responsibility and not to interfere in, or worry about, things that fall within the orbit of another’s responsibilities. This distinction between what is ours, and what lies beyond our responsibilities is svadharma.”
Okay, so this is awesome and this very idea is one of the best things that has come from my latest year of intense yogic study. I like to think of svadharma in these terms: “I have responsibilities (plenty of them) and I don’t need to try to be in charge of someone elses likes, dislikes/life. I get to take responsibility for my dharma alone.” I think this is so liberating in a relationship. Once my friend’s unconscious expectation moved to consciousness (she wanted boyfriend to change for her), then she got clear about what he was offering (he wasn’t going to drink coffee for her) and then she got to decide if that was going to work for her and act accordingly(it wasn’t and they broke up). Nothing was wrong with the guy. She wasn’t rejecting him. He didn’t not like coffee and her. It just didn’t work. She took responsibility for herself.
Sounds simple? Breaking up is rarely simple. Feelings are hurt. Rejection sucks. Anticipation of losing movie dates and sleepovers can feel really sad. So how do you make the choice that is right for you (assuming that you come to the point that you know what that is) and not let the fear of what comes afterward stop you? Ishvara pranidhana—or as the Baptists of my childhood used to say, “Turn it over to God.” There’s a surrender to something greater implicit in Ishvara pranidhana, but Yoga isn’t talking about Jesu Christo or even Krishna. Ishvara is the supreme, all knowing, beyond-error teacher and if you are a Baptist, that’s probably the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If you are Muslim, that supreme, all knowing, beyond-error teacher is Allah. If you are Hindu, there is a whole pantheon that might be your Ishvara. Yoga is neutral and whatever your higher power, it is there, in Ishvara. Acceptance and surrender to that higher power is Ishvara pranidhana.
In order to break up with someone, I think this trust that what comes after is going to be okay is really important. It isn’t just general trust, but trust that there is a higher-power out there rooting for you. Maybe that power takes the form of a robed and bearded man, maybe you know it when you smell the warm and wet earth, maybe you feel it when you are in a crowd at a concert and you feel everyone around you moving to the same beat. Maybe you know it when you are helping someone in need or receiving the gift of kindness when you need it. The surrender and the faith can be the anchor that helps in times of uncertainty.
This story offers much more than misapprehension, confused values, excessive attachments, unreasonable dislikes, and insecurity. It is also one of self-awareness, embracing the roles and responsibilities that are uniquely yours and the beauty of connection to something much bigger than yourself. This is yoga, people. It can ground a friend during a break-up, it can be an anchor through the tough times and the good ones. Yoga is so awesome.
The other day, I walked into my dad’s office and his TV was on. PitBull (the entertainer, not the animal) was on the screen looking good. His beats were pounding and he was walking through a night club with sunglasses on. As he passed the others in the club and twisted off a beer cap, the beautiful ladies nearby would magically swirl around in a computerized-genie-like effect and then, transformed by the power of Pit bull’s beats and beer, they would emerge from the swirl smiling, dancing and wearing less clothing. I was sucked in. I’ve been thinking about this commercial ever since.
Why? Why do I love this commercial so much? How did those ad people know it would work on me? I do love Pitbull, no doubt about that, but Bud… not so much. Night clubs and high heels? Um, no. Shirts that could expose a breast if you turn too fast? No thanks. Did I want all of those things for the few seconds that I first watched that commercial? Yeah, I kinda did.
Advertisers know what catches my attention and they know the things that evoke a reaction and a response. They know that I probably have some experience in a night club and that sexy is… well, sexy to me. They know that if I watch that commercial enough times, there’s a good chance I’ll start to associate pleasant feelings (sexiness, friends, dancing, smiling) with the thing their featured product, and I’m not the only one.
Why are the ad people so good at this? They study. They research people and tendencies, trends and habits. They get that the target audience at any time of day, while watching a particular program, probably has memories and experiences that will back up the flashes of images and sound that they skillfully arrange on the tv screen. They know how color affects mood, how music attracts attention and then they put all this information together and suggest that a mediocre product might make your life a little more glamorous. Also, they probably, as individuals, have good intuition about these things.
What if we took our own moods, habits and tendencies that seriously? If we knew ourselves even better than the ad wo/men do? What if we were able to understand how our mind works and how the mind affects our bodies and our choices and our behaviors? In the practice of yoga, Svadyaya or self-study, is a really important theme. We need to know, not only, how bodies work in a general way (brain function, how to maintain an healthy body) but also how our individual system and mind works in that svadyaya way.
Ads work because they appeal to the senses in a general way (we do the part that makes it personal just by watching…) AND the ads run over and over again. Frequent exposure is key to advertising success. The PitBull ad that plays over and over again eventually gets me to feel or sense that beer can make me fun and sexy. The ad folks are helping me to associate the whole scene with the product: people having fun and dancing and attracting the opposite sex while holding their beer. It works and that’s why advertising is such a big business.
Interested in how the brain makes links? Sean Brotherson, Family Science Specialist, does a great job of explaining how the brain links to experiences in his article Understanding Brain Development in Young Children.
The things that we link to can support the intentions that we set for ourselves, but a lot of the time, our senses go to the sensory-candy that is presented to us by other people intending to sell us shit. (I feel myself whining inside, “But the candy tastes so goooood. PitBull. Sexy ladies. Beeeeer. I can just let that roll off. It won’t get meeeeeeeee…”)
What we do and what we look at, what we read and even the messages that we tell ourselves when things don’t work out or our thighs don’t look like our neighbors’ thighs— all that stuff starts to form a link in our mind. We link to these things and the brain starts to wire up so that it is easier to think that way again. We get used to the pattern. The brain is made to make connections and notice patterns. So mindfulness and awareness of the things we link to have a big impact over how we think, and how we think is the basis of our behavior. The meaning of the word, Pranama, encompasses the ideas of perception, comprehension and understanding. Pramana is the basis for what we do. How does the fantasy world of PitBull and nightclubs fit in for me? I’ll have to get back to you on that one.
Yoga helps us develop the ability to pay attention in a sustained way. Sometimes, that means we start to remove the sensory-candy from our daily experience and we go for something more nourishing. Maybe we make space in our day for space and quiet. Maybe we have that experience of making space in yoga asana and we allow ourselves moments of stillness in our postures. We can take steps and create samskaras, habits and patterns, that support and nourish the pursuit of a focused mind and deep self-awareness. And I’m pretty sure we can do it without the help of advertisements.
Every month I menstruate. This probably isn’t any big surprise to you, readers, though I know it is an unsavory topic for many of you. I continue, nonetheless… Since puberty, there have only been 2 stretches when it didn’t visit (baby one and baby two), but other than that I’ve had a period every month. And, for most of those 20 menstruating years a pattern has emerged: When my period starts, I’ve been known to exclaim, “Seriously? Today? Shit. Do I have any tampons?” And for the few days before that, I also, quite predictably, feel like the world might be ending. When I’m pretty convinced that my life is headed for doom, I wonder how there was ever a time when I thought I could manage all the really hard stuff that is happening in my life. I decide I can’t possibly do my job or be a good mother. I wonder why I don’t have any friends. I cry into my oatmeal for 3 to 4 mornings in a row. And then my period starts and I feel better and I realize that I don’t have to radically reorganize my life and pad my walls. I really do like my kids, my work, my life and my friends. The period comes and then I become aware of the likelihood that the “world-ending syndrome” might have had something to do with hormones.
So my question is: How is it that I forget that I do this every freakin’ month? I cry and everything is hard and I’m really sad. Every month. Why do I not think about the HORMONE PART OF THE DEAL when I’m in it?
I am getting better at remembering that I have a period every month and technology is helping. For the last year, I have been using this app called iPeriod. iPeriod lets me enter in the start/finish date of my cycle and then it tells me when to expect the next one. “Alert: your period will start in 4 days!” Only since using this app do I realize that I am VERY regular. My period starts exactly when the app says it will. I ovulate when the green squares are highlighted on the calendar and I am predictably sad the 4 days before the red dots appear on the calendar. I’m perfectly average in this regard.
So again I wonder: Why, for 20+ years, have I refused to accept that my hormones and my months have a regular, predictable rhythm? I’ve refused to admit that there are certain things that my body needs and does and it doesn’t have much to do with what I think about it. My body, a woman’s body, is made to have babies and help keep the human race going. That’s not all that it can do, but it’s a pretty big part of the package. Brain, hormones, anatomy, cycles, attraction and attachment— all of these things are connected to body/human animal and effect thinking mind/behavior. It’s not all top-down. Sometimes (much of the time??) the body has a much stronger influence over the mind. I have been fighting against it by using the power of IGNORE. But the power of IGNORE doesn’t change the hormonal fluctuations, it just means I’ve been able to cultivate some deep mental blocks that keep me from the acceptance and awareness that for part of one week every month, I’ll feel sad. I’ll cry a lot. I’ll probably forget that I have friends and people that love me. I am going to need a little more sleep.
The app people know that there is a predictability and an average for women’s menstrual cycles. They built a program that works for enough people that they can actually make money selling it. I, however, have thought that somehow I could overpower my hormonal shifts with the power of the mind, and I must say, I think that it has something to do with being an American. Maybe it was Freud. Maybe Descartes. The individual is so important and effort and determination is so highly valued in these models. The thinking brain is imagined to be able to out-smart and out-will the body and somehow exhibit control over what our body does. In these models, to let something like a period slow me down – to be unable to just push through that emotional stuff and to let that affect my productivity, feels weak. Which might have something to do with my refusal to accept and prepare for this monthly moon-time.
When I think about the relationship of body to mind through a yoga-lens, it looks a little different. I don’t need to put mind and body on opposing teams and try to dominate one with the other. My yoga practice has offered acceptance up as a really good option. The mind and body are incredibly interdependent. That’s not good or bad; it’s just the way things are. My system has a few hormonal days. I don’t have to suppress or ignore that away. It isn’t a weakness. It is part of me.
Yoga invites us to get to know ourselves. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1.13 says that we do this by practicing with steady effort and over a long period of time. Move the body. Stuff comes up. See an improvement and notice how that feels. See things that don’t change. What message do we tell ourselves about that? What things are we trying to ignore about our body, self or personality? Is there room for less judgment and some acceptance?
When we do anything and give ourselves the time and space to reflect on how that activity affects us, deepening our self-awareness, that’s yoga. My yoga looks a lot like asana, meditation, dance, art and parenting. Yours might be listening to music, driving, washing dishes or being really present with your grandkids. Whatever it looks like, it is a practice. It takes effort and it isn’t instant. It’s okay that I am still working with this period-thing. With time, patience and perseverence, I might accept and even appreciate my body’s cycles and the rhythm of my month, making space for fewer struggles and more ease. We’ll see.
This is my first guest-blogger piece! To read more, click on the link below and visit Natasha Devalia’s mom-yogini-blog, “Our Little Yogis.”
“You can look for the positive and the beautiful even in moments when it might be difficult to spot and like a yoga practice or meditation, and you bring yourself back to the intention of noticing when your child is doing something wonderful, even if it is as simple as sitting quietly for two minutes and looking at a book. As a parent following the Glasser model, you get to thoughtfully express what it is that you find and with practice perhaps this becomes your samskara. You bring the yoga of intention and focus to something really amazing and you start to share that perspective with your kids. “
