Your Life Is Your Message

 

During one of my visits to New Delhi, India, I walked past a large poster of Mahatma Gandhi that said, “My life is my message”. I stopped and thought, “Yes...that couldn’t be more perfect”. Some part of me wanted to remember those words so I had my picture taken with it. About a week ago, as I was working on the slideshow for my Mom’s Celebration of Life ceremony, I came across a similar quote by the Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh saying, “Our own life has to be the message”. It seemed truly like I once again needed to marinate in this thought and, hence, it became this week’s theme.

It’s so crazy to be able to condense a person’s 88-year long life in a slideshow. It has taken many hours of editing, viewing, and deciding which images represented the life of my Mother. I also asked my three siblings for one word that summed up what her life meant to them. For me, it was kindness. She modeled for me what kindness in action looked like: always remembering birthdays; ensuring that her four kids had an equal number of presents at the holidays; not gossiping; she was a good listener; she collected things for her family that she thought we would treasure; volunteering at a thrift store; she sent boxes of clothing to grandchildren; offered financial support during hard times; didn’t shoot down anyone’s dream of doing something; and she laughed with an open heart. She was a woman of few words yet was able to fully express kindness in action.

We don’t often think about the meaning of our lives as we’re busy simply living them day to day. The beauty of stepping onto our yoga mat is that it’s the perfect forum for us to take time to regularly check in with our purpose and values. It offers us moments of quiet and stillness to reflect and ask ourselves if the current choices we’re making are in alignment with how we wish to be in the world. It has the potential to become a daily act of living consciously, with our highest intentions leading the way. Death is a doorway into contemplation, one we so often try not to open. Yet wouldn’t it be a shame to get to the end of our life and look back with regret for not taking action toward our deepest calling and yearnings?

The author and host of The Slow Home podcast, Brooke McAlary, tells a story about looking at a book of writing prompts and opening to the page where the prompt was to write your own eulogy. She did with great dedication and it altered her life choices. She had two young children and wasn’t sure if how she was currently living was the eulogy she wanted to write about. She became clearer on her “why” of life and made changes. Perhaps if all of us took time to write our own eulogy, we would create a point of focus to keep us on course.

Living with intention takes work and consistency. I liken it to the 23-hour couch potato, where someone who goes to the gym every day for an hour and returns home to a sedentary lifestyle the other 23 hours, often in frustration by the lack of progress in fitness. It’s what we do most of the time that makes a difference, including living from a heart-centered and intentional life. Over the course of your day, what do you spend your time thinking about? What actions do you take throughout the day that are in alignment with your highest values? How are you treating yourself and others? Simply said, it all adds up either to bring greater consciousness to your life or to keep you stuck in un-evolving patterns.

If you want your life to be your message, Gail Brenner (Life is Expressed in our Actions), suggests we can do the following:

·       Become aware of fear so it doesn’t divert us

·       Identify roles and patterns that aren’t serving

·       Listen to our deepest yearnings

·       Make decisions with full awareness

·       Follow what brings us happiness, joy, love, and true fulfillment

I was going to say there are no words for my Mother’s long life, but there are. It was the message of her life - kindness.

Mudita

I don’t know if grief ever truly ends. I’m in the mourning phase of grief with the recent death of my Mother. It’s been a month since she passed and I find myself getting through the days, doing my work, staying with my personal practice of yoga, going to the farmer’s market, and wearing my mask. You know…the usual stuff that doesn’t stop because someone has died. And my process has been to be unapologetic with how I’m feeling and to simply allow the process to be what it is. And although I wouldn’t describe this phase as containing obvious joy, I have found moments of looking for it, largely outside of myself. What’s within me is a bit gloomy, not what you would describe as a fountain of joy bubbling over.
In repeating this intention, I remember what I want for myself, which is a deep contentment and sense of joy, and it’s the same thing that I wish for others. When I practice loving-kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy I am able to experience equanimity in my life. This means that I get better practiced at simply being with what is, whatever that may be in my life…grief, joy, gratitude. I get to take action and set the path for my own evolution.

I hadn’t really recognized that I was looking for joy until I saw a post by someone I know in the yoga world displaying what they’ve been secretly working on for several months which is a stunning and peaceful new space. When I saw the images, my first reaction was “how cool and exciting!” Honestly, this reaction surprised me as the more un-evolved version of me may have had a tinge of jealousy with the thinking of how did they make this happen? Why do these opportunities seem to find a way to them instead of me? But it didn’t happen that way. I felt the excitement of their new adventure and wished them luck and prosperity.

In this experience, I realized that I was searching for good things that were happening. And although I’ve had a harder time finding them within myself, I could see them in somebody else. Joy is joy whether it’s ours or someone else’s. And this is what is referred to a Mudita, or joy. More precisely, it’s vicarious or sympathetic joy, the kind that is easily witnessed by a proud parent as they see their kid making good in the world. Parental pride is easy compared to finding joy for what may be perceived as a business competitor. When we see others, particularly those vying for a similar client base doing really well we may tend towards envy and jealousy rather than congratulatory slaps on the back. This tends to be a natural reaction and belief that joy is a limited commodity, so the more someone else has, the less there will be for us. It’s a sinking feeling to sense that we’re not going to get our share.

Mudita is part of the Brahma Viharas, described as sublime attitudes. Loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita) and equanimity (upekkha) comprise the four-faces of love or heart-practices from Buddhism. It is suggested that if we’re having difficulty finding vicarious joy for others, that practicing compassion for ourselves and others may open the pathway to discovering the abundance of joy existing everywhere and for all people.

Times are tough…pandemic, endless Zoom calls, grief, and economic uncertainty. It’s as though all of us could greatly benefit from switching our focus from those challenges toward finding what’s good in our lives.

Based on work by the Buddhist meditation teacher, Sharon Salzberg, I’ve been asking classes this week to reflect on appreciating what’s good in their life as well as asking if their accomplishments bring joy. Do they feel happiness with important people in their life as well as experiencing joy and satisfaction of loved ones, friends, and strangers? Sometimes we answer no to these questions which gives us grist for the mill…digging into why we may feel joy has limits.

A practice that supports us in re-directing ourselves towards joy is to repeat the following phrases, beginning with ourselves and moving outward towards others.

“May my happiness and good fortune not diminish. May it increase further and further.”

“May your happiness and good fortune not diminish. May they increase further and further.”

“May the happiness and good fortune of all beings everywhere not diminish. May they increase further and further.”

Karma

 

Karma---It’s become a familiar word in our daily vernacular. But what is it? When we witness somebody acting in an undesirable way, we often quip, “oooh…that’s a bunch of bad karma” but is it really and what does it mean?

When I asked students this past week what their understanding was of “karma” I received a few of the following responses: “What goes around, comes around”, “It’s the concept of cause and effect, as well as being a key factor in rebirth”, and “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

The focus on karma this week has been its effects on both our internal and external environments, as well as what it means to be a Karma Yogi. External karma is the consequence of our actions in the world; internal karma is the effect of our thoughts and emotions on ourselves. Our internal world is that which is bordered by our skin and all that is contained within. It includes our physical body, what we think, and the emotions we experience, as well as how we connect to the bigger universal source or spirit.

Hovering an inch or two away from the skin, I visualize another boundary of our auric field, one you can sense and most people can’t see. You know its presence when in the company of someone you enjoy and want to get close to, the pull of attraction that draws your two fields of energy towards one another. And you also know it when the opposite is true, coming across someone who you literally repel away from, not wanting to mingle your energy with theirs.

Beyond our internal quantum field and our auric boundary is everything else-the external environment. And although they’re being described as two different things, they are most definitely linked and influencing each other. It’s as though we have a porous membrane between the two which moves energy in both directions…towards and away from our individuated selves. The point of this concerning karma is we might believe that if we think unkind thoughts either about ourselves or someone else, and if we don’t act on them, they can do no harm. However, imagine spending a big chunk of your mental real estate on negative self-talk, flooding your mind with things you would never dare say aloud. What’s the effect of filling your field with self-criticism and judgment?

We all know people who seem to complain regularly and I would guess that the negativity that propels the complaining begins within their thought process, silently taking a foothold on their energy until it begins to spill out of them. The result is an impact on not only the complainer but those hearing it. It’s as though the internal toxic environment begins to spill into the external environment, poisoning all.

The beautiful thing about our practices of yoga and meditation is that it helps us recognize and potentially begin to shift away from habitual and harmful self-talk that is ultimately unhealthy, toward a kinder approach. When we begin to nurture our inner environment, it naturally begins to nurture our outer quantum field. We begin to see that what we say, what actions we take, and what we think has a karmic, or cause and effect cycle.

Some people believe that our actions not only have an effect in this lifetime, but we have carried over unresolved traumas from previous incarnations. The caste system in India was a reflection of this --- if you acted badly in one life, you would be born into a lower caste in the next life. How you act now begins to determine what lays ahead. As Deepak Chopra said, “Karma means you have to live with the consequences of the actions you have taken in the past. Whatever you put out, is coming back.”

One practice besides awareness to improve your karmic outcome is practicing Karma Yoga, often called the yoga of service. A top example of a Karma Yogi was Mother Teresa, whose calling was to serve the most impoverished and forgotten people on the streets of Kolkata, India. She served those who were unseen by the majority of the population without expectation of anything in return. As a Karma Yogi, her actions led her to sainthood and her practice of service never involved undertaking a single yoga pose (which is Hatha yoga).

Ultimately, when we begin to live a heart-centered life, we connect to a deeper place both within and without. Send out those good vibes as we know they have a return address!

Be With What Is

One of my frequent sayings about our yoga practice is that whatever you’re needing to practice will jump right out in front of you. And so it has been for me, following the recent death of my Mother. I’m in the second week since the day she passed and for anyone who has ever lost a loved one, you have likely experienced the ever-shifting sands of the emotional ride of grief.

I took a week off from teaching to give myself complete permission to only be responsible to myself and my family. The great honor I have in being a teacher comes with the sidebar that you hold space for your students. When they show up in class, whether in person or online, my role is to put aside my own agenda and open to their needs. I simply couldn’t do that last week and as I have come back to teaching this week, having taught literally thousands of classes, I am able to tap into something that I’ve been doing for years. And yet, it feels different than it did. I know how grief works…it takes time, it shifts and surprises you. It can have many different faces. One lesson I am grateful to have learned is to allow for whatever I’m experiencing.

The theme this week is to be with what is. It sounds so easy and yet, it is one of the most difficult practices we can face. Human nature is to move away from things that are hard or challenging and seek things that make us feel good. Who wants to wallow in the mucky feelings of life? As Judith Hanson Lasater wrote for her January 31 entry in her book “Living Your Yoga”:

Yoga is not about avoiding difficulty.

Living Your Yoga: When we try to avoid difficulty, we create difficulty. Today choose something you find difficult and do it with love for five minutes.

Coming to our mats, either for an asana practice or to sit in meditation, is the training ground for confronting difficulty. Does your mind fly all over the place when you try to sit in meditation? Are there certain yoga poses that when they’re put into a class or sequence, you roll your eyes and take a break for some water or to use the restroom? Does modifying your usual practice because of injury pluck at the strings of your ego? On those days when the mat isn’t calling, do you stay disciplined or turn to scrolling on social media? Life is hard. It won’t always be pleasurable and if we think we can dodge that, we will definitely be creating our own suffering.

When we try to be with what is, it helps to place us more in the role of the witness. Noticing our reactions, trying not to interfere or alter the experience and to see if we can actually find a sense of ease in unsettling moments.

To quote Byron Katie, “I am a lover of what is, not because I’m a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality”. That pretty much nailed it for me…the recognition that I have very little control over many aspects of life, particularly noticeable throughout this pandemic. When I release into the present moment, when I allow myself to fully feel into whatever is happening, I no longer deny my true experience. I stop fantasizing about other dreamy possible scenarios. It’s a very stoic approach to life, that of honoring what we have control over and what we don’t. Being with what is, is the permission to be fully present in each and every moment. Being with what is for me over the past several days is to also not apologize for what I’m experiencing. I’ve been quiet, angry, sullen, belly-laughing, and kind of “meh”. I’ve been able to feel the fullness of the experience without pushing any one of those feelings aside or trying to side-step the hard stuff.

It takes courage to face difficulty. We can practice this in small chunks of time, stand strongly in a warrior pose, and honor our process. If it gets overwhelming, we can turn to another practice of offering ourselves self-compassion and kindness.

And despite my feelings of loss, I also have feelings of fullness. The richness of the emotional range is showing itself to me and the feeling that I am but one of a billion people having such a real and human experience is a humbling one. And for that…I am grateful.