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A few years ago, I went to a talk by His Holiness The Dalai Lama in Melbourne, Australia. It was held in the Rod Laver arena that is home to the Australian Open Tennis Championships, which translates into holding a few thousand people. It was striking to me how quiet such a huge crowd became when His Holiness entered the arena. That was the first thing I remember clearly...the hushed masses.The second was the one word that was the theme of the evening and the on-going mission by His Holiness.
Compassion.
What I've learned since seeing the Dalai Lama is that not only is compassion a theme, it's an action. We can practice acting from a place of compassion on a daily basis. In order to do this I ask myself, how can I, an ordinary gal find more compassion within myself and others? My teacher Judith Hanson Lasater talks about empathy being the first stepping stone along the compassionate path. Pema Chodron, a well published Buddhist teacher echoes Judith's words by trying to put ourselves into the perspective of others. What is the experience through their eyes? What is it like to be in their shoes? When we begin to create their experience for ourselves, we often have a shift in us being right and them being wrong.
I had this theory in my head and then, not surprisingly, was given an opportunity to test it out.
During a hectic holiday season, I was on my way to work enjoying one of those beautiful desert mornings with low light and crystal blue skies. I was stopped at a red light that had a "No Turn on Red" sign. So, I sat waiting for the light to turn green. As I came to this stop, I hear the guy in a truck behind me, laying on his horn and can see him yelling at me via my rear view mirror, wanting me to turn right on red.
I rolled my window down and pointed to the sign. His reaction was to continue yelling at me (which I couldn't hear, but could see his agitation). When the light turned green, I turned right. We both came to the next set of lights and he pulled up along side of me to make a left as I was going straight.
Once again, I rolled down my window. He did the same and before I could say anything he defensively says, "yah, yah, Ma'am, I saw the sign...". To which I said, "I was just obeying the law". My old un-evolved self wanted to call him a nasty name coupled with some sarcastic comment, but my ever evolving was more present and simply shrugged her shoulders.
It really struck me that in that moment, I had a choice to either feel that I was right and he was wrong (and impatient) or to find a lesson sitting right in front of me. The lesson rang out loud and clear and it was that the guy probably wasn't having a peaceful morning and was in a hurry. He might not have noticed the crystal blue sky. He needed to be some place. And I had a choice to either feed my momentary anger or to reconnect to enjoying the morning.
Once I realized the choice, I learned the lesson of practicing compassion. Not only for the impatient driver, but compassion for me, choosing to be how I wanted to be.
The challenge for you this week is before reacting, just step into another persons perspective, even if just for a moment. You might be surprised at what you see, feel and experience.
When we head out the door and make our way into a class, most of us do so because we want to get something out of it. If we turn up and it seems as though it's not really making a difference then we stop going. Our compass is pointed toward finding just the right level of challenge. What I have witnessed over many years in the fitness and yoga (especially power vinyasa and hot yoga) industries is an over-emphasis on physically challenging the participant. With this over emphasis on the physical aspect the concept of self-nurturing tends to be ignored.
The harder, the better. No pain, no gain. If it really physically challenges us then it must be really good for us. Right?
Throughout my life I have always pursued different challenges. Many are physical in nature and some push my will and confidence. When I see the word, it looks like CHALLENGE...all in bold and luring me to take it. The idea of looking after myself as I undertook the challenge was often greatly neglected. The word nurture was just that...seemingly small and insignificant. I didn't realize until I started yoga, that the two could co-habitate...if I allowed it. I needed to invite nurturing into my challenges and guess what? When I did, the challenge seemed more robust and I kept in a better state of balance. The challenge didn't knock me off my feet because the simple practice of looking after myself helped to define my boundaries.
This is the beauty of advancing along our yoga path - that we can seek to challenge ourselves and at the same time look after ourselves in the process. We learn to know our edge and how it fluctuates. We begin to give less voice to the concept that how we treat ourselves is in reaction to being good or bad and more to the idea that we deserve to offer ourselves compassion and love as we step into situations that push us.
So the next time you decide to go for the gusto, check in with yourself. Can you push to your limits without bursting through and creating havoc and imbalance? Can you be in a strong pose or one that butts up against what you know to be familiar and take a breath of ease? Can you soften not only excessive muscular tension but your attitude as well? Can you lead from your heart rather than fulfilling the perceived need of the ego?
With practice and a decent dose of humble awareness, we can both stretch to our full potential and do so from a place of self-love and self-care. Isn't it time that we nurture ourselves more deeply? Try it out and see what happens...you might just soar higher than you ever thought imaginable!
As I was placing more paper towels into the bathroom at the yoga studio the other day, I was reminded of a YouTube video I had seen that has always stayed with me. It's a short presentation given by Joe Smith and it's nothing fancy but it had traction. After washing your hands, shake them 12 times and use one sheet of a folded paper towel to dry. Why? Because we use way more paper towels than we actually need. See the Ted Talk by Joe Smith here!
By replacing the towels I was reminded to be conscious of their source...trees. Americans use tons of paper towels every year which means that we use tons of trees to make them. In the constant pursuit of living my yoga I feel it is beholden upon me to share easy changes with others when they cross my path. Being on a yoga journey means raising our awareness around many things: our bodies, our relationships to ourselves and others; and our relationship to this planet. We have incredible abundance in the United States and access to anything we can think of. By having so much to choose from we can so easily become disconnected from where it all originates. Over the recent holidays I was waiting in line to use the bathroom at the movie theater and watched as the hustling crowd of women darted out of the stalls, hastily washing their hands then grabbing a bunch of towels to dry and head out to catch their movie. I doubt that many people gave a thought to how much paper they were consuming just in that one visit.
I was deeply moved when I met Julia Butterfly Hill in 2013, where once again I was left with a deep impression of our connection to trees. Julia lived in Luna, a giant sequoia for over two years in an effort to stop logging in northern California. Her book The Legacy of Luna details her relationship with living in a wise elder and through her story telling reinforced how oblivious most of us are in our relationship with using paper and how we could make a shift to alter our individual impact. I started paying more attention following my interaction with Julia, so she too, had traction in her words.
Changing how we do things begins with becoming aware of how we do things. When I shared with my yoga teacher trainees about trying to use only one paper towel by shaking and folding, one by one they would emerge from their bathroom visit with the comment of "hey, that works!" So imagine the impact those 10 people going home that day and telling just one other person about shaking and folding could have in terms of a ripple effect. Something so simple that could have such impact.
It's not just the 12 shakes that will make a difference. Imagine if we became more conscious of: turning off light switches, shutting off the water as we brushed our teeth, creating a compost bin, bringing our own bags with us for shopping and recycling goods. I know that if you're someone who is reading this blog, it's highly likely that you're on a path of becoming more conscious. So can you take the next step in sharing it with someone else? Shake, fold...smile and pass it along!
I have heard the statement, "yoga changed my life" and often wondered what that really meant. When I sat and thought about it, I realized that it wasn't yoga that was the agent of change, but the person undergoing the change. Yoga is just yoga...a practice a few thousand years old which is open to anybody who's curious about what it all means. Many people hold the image that yoga is a physical workout that often reflects one's ability to touch their toes, twist into figure eights or turn upside down. For some, it's the image of a loin-clothed man sitting in a lotus pose deep in meditation and for others, it's completely out of their realm of consciousness. It means many different things to many people and only by participating in the practice can somebody discover what it holds for them.
When people decide to create a change in their lives they have many options from which to choose. The process of change is an interesting one which we've been contemplating in classes this past week. With the flip of the calendar from 2014 to 2015 the dialogue around change seems to be prolific. Gymnasiums count on it as do multiple nutritional companies waiting for those dissatisfied with how they look and/or feel to walk through their doors. But if we take a look through the lens of yoga we recognize that nothing in you is broken, nothing needs to be fixed and nothing is wrong with you. You are a perfectly imperfect human being doing the best you can. What our yoga practice offers is a way to remember this, to uncover what we have forgotten about our deeper selves and reignite that powerful feeling of self-acceptance and self-love.
What often happens when someone steps onto a yoga mat is that they give themselves time to explore where they are in the present moment and to see if they are pointing their life in the direction that is reflective of their best selves. Sometimes this is on a physical level which can be addressed through poses, breath and food choices. It can reflect the need for mental or emotional change which is accessed through managing stress, facing uncomfortable thoughts and learning to use the breath to ease and affect the action. And this is just the point of launching with a tradition that is rich in philosophy - it truly does hold something for everyone.
The practice begins to assist us in peeling away the layers that have accumulated, often over a lifetime, that has kept us from remembering who we truly are. It engages the multiple levels of our being from the physical to the emotional/mental and further to the esoteric spiritual self. Yoga doesn't change their lives, people decide to make a change and use the tools of yoga to undertake further evolution of self.
How much one changes is completely dependent upon a person's motivation and willingness to create a shift and this process can be one of great courage. If change were an easy thing everyone would be doing it. When we decide to create change in our lives, big or small, and we source that from the intuition of our hearts, we can trust we are pointing ourselves in the right direction. Coming from the heart, the word "courage" (coeur=heart=in French) we know that all is possible.
Whether you attempt to create change by stepping onto the yoga mat or decide to use another support system, recognize the bravery it takes to do so. One step at a time with eyes and heart wide open.
It seems a bit odd that the deeper I go into my yoga practice, the more vulnerable I become. One might think that the longer you spend in the practice of yoga that things might become easier. And in one way they absolutely do. What first sounded like "blah blah asana" is now a Sanskrit name you recognize. The general pattern of a class becomes more familiar and you more naturally find your quiet place as soon as you roll out the mat. Over time, the layers of the poses begin to reveal themselves even as they become more subtle. Instead of just trying to be in a triangle pose, you're now connecting to the outer edge of your foot and getting interested in how your breath IS moving.
Stepping onto our mats is like stepping into a rehearsal room, where the purpose of rehearsing is to be more comfortable in our lives once we step off the mat. We tip toe our way into the practice and over time we become aware that we are like onions, slowly peeling away the multiple layers of not only our physical selves, but our thoughts, emotions and spiritual questions. Something happens through the practice, the magical alchemy of body, breath and intention, that allows us to get rid of what's not truly serving us and focus on the things that are. Yet as we travel along, it gets a bit trickier as our lives shift like sand. What once felt solid, is now moving and how we react to all of these transitions is yet another layer of our practice.
How we evolve along this path has much to do about feeling the fear and doing it regardless. I'm not talking about taking a flying leap, but rather looking at the small progressive steps that inch us along. It means coming face to face with "stuff" that makes us uncomfortable and within that, it takes a particular sense of courage to do so. Stagnation reigns when we stay put in either body, attitude or thought. When we have fear around change we often choose not to change and stick with what's familiar and seemingly comfortable.
Yet, if we truly listen our inner voice will whisper, "you know that if you try, you'll grow".
Over the past couple of weeks I've had two experiences where I felt the fear and did it anyway. One situation was, after riding my bicycle with toe clips for the past 25 years, I switched to real cycling shoes that clip into the pedal. On the outside, that doesn't seem like such a big deal...we see cyclists all over the place with their ergonomic shoes making riding look easy. But for newbies to this way of riding the possibility to fall is great. If you don't click out of your pedals quickly enough, you topple onto what's most likely asphalt or concrete. And if you can't clip in quickly enough, you have less force to accelerate and dodge things like cars.
Remember, I've been riding the "old way" for over 25 years. My bike is so comfortable and familiar to me, it's like sliding into an old pair of jeans. It wouldn't be an understatement to say that when I rode with my new slick shoes, I was scared. But, with the tutoring of more experienced clipless riders and some practice clipping in and out in my safe neighborhood, I headed out on a ride. Yes, it was slower than usual and I was most likely over-thinking things, but I did it. I faced the fear of the unfamiliar and did it.
The other experience was recently leading a kirtan where I sang and played the harmonium. Kirtan is a call-response gathering and we had about 30 friends over to participate. I would sing a line and they would sing it back to me. This practice offers an amazing sense of connection particularly when in a live setting. It all went well, with great energy and participation. However, the next morning during my meditation, I had an old familiar feeling in which I was asking myself questions like, "Was it good enough? Did people notice my mistakes? Who do I think I am to do this?". In those moments, I recognized these questions as being a reflection of feeling vulnerable. I had opened myself up publicly and was wrestling with the concept of scrutiny.
Thankfully, what I have gained from a daily meditation practice is the recognition that these thoughts didn't serve me. I had no idea as to what other people were thinking, only what I was feeling and what I felt was love and joy. I recognized that by opening to my own fears, stepping out publicly and trusting a deeper sense of myself that not only was I vulnerable, I was expanding.
When we put ourselves out there, when we face what scares the daylights out of us, when we change something consciously-we expand. The big question is: Are you willing to risk feeling comfortable to grow?
Go on...listen to that inner voice that drives you and send it out into the Universe. You might be pleasantly surprised as to what happens next.
