What's In It For Me?

This past week I posed the following question to my students:

What keeps you coming back onto the mat, week in and week out?

If you're like many people, what initially brought you to yoga has changed. You might have stepped into your first class because you were curious; or you heard that yoga makes you more flexible; or that it helps to ease tension and lower anxiety; that you have back pain and need to improve your core strength and flexibility; or you might have thought that yoga could help improve your balance.

When I first stepped onto a yoga mat, some 18 years ago, I was simply curious. My practice began at the University of Melbourne where they offered short courses throughout the semester. One of those courses happened to be yoga and they were PACKED! Jammed packed in fact. I began to wonder, "why are all these people going to yoga? I've got to check it out".

At that time, yoga was completely foreign. Every pose sounded the same-blah, blah-asana. I realized that parts of my body were wound really tight (ahem...said my hips). My instructor, Murray, had a glimpse into my future and said, "Jayne, you should teach yoga..." to which I replied, "I'm not interested. I teach everything else. I want to just do yoga for myself".

That was my initial reason that I kept going back to the mat. But, 18 years later things have changed. Yoga now is the foundation upon which I choose to live my life. As my knowledge and practice has grown, the realization that yogic philosophy has given me the foundation by which I live moment to moment and day to day. It's evolved from being an activity that I did a couple of times each week to a way of life. And the funny thing is, is that I never would have anticipated this evolution the first time Murray uttered the words, "stand with your feet together with the crown of your head lifting to the sky".

My curiosity continues to intrigue me. Why do my students keep coming back to the mat? Here are some of their reasons:

1. "It reminds me to exhale. Before I started doing yoga, I had no awareness around how my breath moved. Coming to yoga reminds me to exhale".

2. "It keeps me strong both in body and mind".

3. "I walk in feeling one way and leave feeling completely different. No matter what is happening in my world, how busy or chaotic or stressed I am, the moment I come into class it all fades into the background".

4. "To be in front of a teacher. To receive and learn".

5. "To be with the energy of the group. I feel this positive vibration when I'm with everyone else in class".

6. "The feeling at the end of the class where you feel energized, as though you've expended energy and yet feel completely relaxed".

7. "My yoga practice is a sanctuary. When I step onto my mat, it's all about me with no need to impress or compete with somebody else".

8. "It connects me to that deeper part of me that I'm too busy to acknowledge when I'm doing my daily activities".

9. "To connect to myself, to my teacher and to my community of fellow yoga practitioners".

So, I'm asking you. What keeps you coming to the mat? If you haven't started your practice yet, what's keeping you off the mat?

I would love to hear what you have to say. Feel free to share your experience!

Leaky Boat

One of the most interesting and innovative bands to come out of the Australian/New Zealand rock scene back in the 80's were called "Split Enz". Two brothers Tim and Neil Finn formed the band, wrote many hits, were hugely popular down under and eventually reformed as Crowded House (initially with Tim). What do they have to do with yoga, you might be asking? It has to do with my thought of the week and as I have been thinking about it, it reminded me of a song Split Enz had called "Six Months In A Leaky Boat".

And you're still wondering...Split Enz...yoga...leaking boats...what's the connection?

Here it is. One of the keys to any practice, including a yoga practice is consistency. Turning up time and time again on your mat, going through repeated exercises of breath, movement and awareness. It often begs the question, "how much is enough?". And that's where seepage comes in. As soon as you embark on the journey of a yoga practice, the moment you set yourself onto your mat, I believe you are forever on the journey. It is a process of unfolding, opening and growing awareness.

Even if you only practice yoga on an irregular basis, you will begin to have seepage. Some of the thoughts, ideas and practices will begin to ooze into your everyday awareness. We often procrastinate doing something because we are unable to fully commit to doing it...the all or nothing syndrome. But, once you begin to learn the tools of yoga, they begin to seep into your day.

Things such as:

1. Taking a deep breath before answering the phone.

2. Pausing before taking your first bite of a meal to inhale the aromas.
3. Thinking about your standing posture as you are waiting in line at the store or bank.
4. Allowing yourself five minutes to just sit and do nothing.
5. Recognizing when your self condemning thought is just that...a thought that can be shifted into a self supportive one.
6. Giving someone 100% of your attention when listening to them speak.
7. Feeling gratitude for someone or something.
8. Moving your body in a natural and easy way.

These are just a few simple things that can easily leak into your life. And what is the ingredient that they all have in common?

Awareness.

Obviously we do as much as we can. If we seek to dive deeper into our practice we can certainly dedicate more time to doing so. We can open the flood gates and let our practice become a way of living. But if that's overwhelming, try spending six months on a leaky mat instead...

If You Didn't Know How Old You Are...

I once saw this on a birthday card: "If you didn't know how old you were, how old do you think you would be?". Interesting question, as I know that as I approach turning 50 next year (yikes!), I often feel like I'm a young kid. How is it that my internal age doesn't quite match up with my external self?

It's a process to look in the mirror and work on accepting and loving my wrinkles. I have to work on it because, we live in a culture that wants to live long lives, yet avoid the part where we look like we've lived a long life.

I recently asked my oldest client, 97-years old, the above quote. He sat there puzzling over an answer to which he replied, "it depends on my mood". This got me thinking more about the idea that our age truly is a state of mind.

If we feel vital, enjoy good health, are connected to our purpose in life and happily socialize with friends and family, we can feel younger than our calendar age. Think about a time when you attended a reunion with people from your childhood and how some of the patterns of interaction were reminiscent of when you were younger...and for a little while there you lose the connection to your actual age.

I understand why we want to look and feel young. The primal need to be attractive to others, the energy that youthfulness brings to the work place or city in which you live and the feeling that we are still vital and needed. Plus, we don't live in a culture that highly honors our elders and the wisdom that's been gathered throughout the years. So, how can my yoga practice support me in aging gracefully?

As Mark Twain famously said: "There are two certainties in life-death and taxes". It iterates a basic truth that everything is in transition and that nothing is permanent. Yoga offers up the idea that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. That our vehicle (this body) is how we sense all that is happening on the physical plane...taste, touch, sight, sound, scent. If we keep ourselves in optimal physical condition, we reduce the hurdles that get in the way of us going into a deeper spiritual realm. If we focus simply on the physical, we lose out on touching the seat of the soul.

We honor the temple (our bodies) so that we may journey into the place where we form thoughts, experience emotions and ultimately deepen our own awareness. This takes us through different energetic layers of our being and is thought to place us on the abyss of bliss.

Think of those times where you were completely at ease, floating in a moment of utter bliss. These moments, often fleeting, are an experience of being completely present...IN THE NOW of life. If I focus my attention on shining light into the present moment, guess what? I don't even know that I have wrinkles.

In fact, what I have noticed in the most beautiful elders that I've come across is not the smoothness of their skin, but the radiance of their being. It can't help but expand out emitting the most deeply held beauty of all...a peaceful and loving heart.

Put on a brave face. You don't want to upset others. Don't let your opponents know how you're feeling. Use your poker face. Grin and bear it. There's no crying in baseball!

These are all familiar sayings from my past. As an athlete, I learned to not show my emotions. If I blew a balance beam routine, I would turn and smile at the judges after my dismount and then I'd march off and crumble in the corner completely out of sight. Heaven forbid that anyone knew what I was feeling, especially when I was being judged for it! It's taken deep awareness and effort to un-learn the act of stuffing down my feelings. It's easier for me to hit the mute button then to let the emotions rise to the surface.

So why change? Why not maintain the stoicism? Because eventually it will catch up with you. You can't hide what you're feeling or trick your body into ignoring the tough emotions. Many people believe that if we stuff feelings, tamp them down tightly that the body becomes un-easy and can lead us more rapidly into states of "dis-ease". Yup...it can make us physically sick.

Ever had the experience of being verbally abused and ending up with a stomach ache? Ever had a pending deadline and when the work is done, you've got a pounding headache? That's what I'm talking about.

And this is the beauty of yoga.

Yoga is about bringing ourselves into harmony...all aspects of ourselves, not just the bits we like and gravitate toward. The good, the bad and yes, the ugly. Yoga teaches us to simply bear witness to the present moment. In this moment, I feel _____. OK, now in this next moment, this _____ is my experience. It teaches us to be ok with what is, to bring our breath into the experience and maintain a sense of balance and equanimity. Can I find my breath when someone is berating me? Can I open myself to what I'm feeling rather than shoving it down deep into the crevices of my being?

Emotions come up during our yoga practice, sometimes in the form of a giggling cascade of laughter, other times in deep heavy tears. I love the saying, "all emotions are valid" and our yoga mat is a safe place to have this ebb and flow of experience. I remember a client saying to me, "you put me in that pose and it made me cry". Well, I didn't actually make her cry, something arose within her own body, perhaps a stored, tamped down memory and her reaction to that physical experience was the emotion of crying. In other words, the pose was just the channel used to release whatever it was that needed moving.

I have had many emotional experiences in my yoga career ranging from the most hysterical gut wrenching laughter to the deepest of grieving sob sessions. And either way, I feel better for it. I feel as though I have allowed myself to release the need to "keep it together". I felt free.

Ordinary Joe

The power of one person can be astounding. This past week we saw a documentary film about a Vietnam veteran, Steve Sciacci, who was a medic during the war and hails from Long Island, NY. Since 1998, he has been returning to Vietnam once or twice a year to connect and support the most down trodden and least fortunate, usually children. Prior to leaving, he has a backyard fundraiser where people donate money (he was uncertain as to the total amount) that he then literally hand delivers to those in need in Vietnam.

Steve is a roofer by trade and as he said in the film, there are thousands of roofers in the States. At home, he can fix someone's roof but he doesn't feel he can truly alter someone's life, whereas in Vietnam, he feels he can. Two Hundred American dollars in Vietnam can make a big difference to families whose child is disabled or tragically ill. So, this "ordinary Joe", pays his own way and uses local connections to traverse the country literally handing out cash to the most heartbreaking and often ignored people. When asked why he doesn't associate with a larger NGO he replied something along the lines of, "because I want to be able to do it my way. It's not about the amount of money I give, it's about the connection that I make. My intention is to let these people know that someone cares about them".

I couldn't help but be inspired by Steve's intention, yet in a greater way by his action. Instead of sitting back and doing nothing he has taken the matter into his own hands and tried to make a difference. It would be so much easier to recognize that suffering exists and do nothing because it's "over there" - out of sight, out of mind.

My thought for the week is this. How many times have we been in a conversation about something that is awful, challenging or unthinkable? How many times have we taken the conversation further and investigated if there is some action that can and is being taken? And how often are WE the ones being the catalysts for altering the course of suffering? It's like being a "theoretical meditator" where we know about mediation and its benefits but don't sit on the cushion.

A first step is that we talk about an issue and begin to raise awareness not only for ourselves, but for others. But what will ultimately create a shift is if we actually do something about it. So take a moment to dive into your heart and see what spark has been lit...something that really gets you going and riled up. Then ask yourself the questions: Am I ready to do something about it? If yes...what action can I take? It has launched many altruistic journeys. Perhaps this is the time to launch yours.

Personal Retreat

Man oh man has it been busy! Not in a bad way, but in "I've had a lot on my plate" kind of way. Every weekend in April had an event, either for fundraising or my business (yoga retreat). In addition to that, it was the last month of the busy season. So all together, I've had very little time for myself.

Until now.

I am taking my own 3-day personal retreat as I attend Shakti Fest in the high desert of Joshua Tree. This will be my fourth such festival and each time is different, but they have all had things in common. Lots of yoga classes by well-respected teachers, lots of workshops, vegan/vegetarian food, groovy vendors, dry desert air, starry nights but mostly, I go for the kirtan!

Not heard of kirtan? I hadn't until I started digging into the yoga world more deeply and found it to be a fabulous way to practice devotion through music. A typical kirtan is a call and response, where the kirtan leader sings a line of a mantra and everyone sings it back. It often starts slowly and builds in tempo until you just can't help but move, whether it be vigorous hand clapping or full-on dancing. It can be ecstatic and whatever you were thinking about previously no longer seems important or in the forefront of your awareness. It's a way to "bliss out" without taking any substances except for a deep intake of oxygen. And believe me, past experience has taught me that I need to take time to reconnect to me and only me. It might sound selfish, but when my energy tanks are empty, I have nothing to give beyond the basics and for me, I like life to be a bit spicier than that.

This need I have to re-charge is of benefit to all and many people I meet and work with often tell me of how they have little time for themselves. So, as I try to live from a place of authenticity, I will take my own advice and do something for myself...aaaahhhhhh! Come along and experience the bliss with me in Joshua Tree!

I Think I Can, I Think I Can

Some stories from our childhood leave lasting impressions. "The Little Engine That Could" is one that seems particularly relevant at this stage of my life. You know, the little train engine that thought he was too small and lacking power to make it up the big hill. But, in a moment of great need, he set himself the affirmation of "I think I can, I think I can" and chugged himself and his load up the hill.

I had a similar experience when I was a young softball player who used to ride my one speed bike (hot pink with a floral white basket on the front handlebars) to practice. I used to meet my Dad, who also rode his bike to practice from work and we'd ride home together. Each week we would leave the elementary school's fields and be faced with a steep hill on our way home. I would always get part way up the hill and then the hill would defeat me. I'd have to dismount and walk with my head down the rest of the way to the top.

Then one day on our way home we arrived at the traffic light where I accidentally bumped into my Dad and knocked us both over. He yelled at me for not paying attention (he rarely yelled) which sent me off crying as we set up the steep hill. Much to my delight (and rapid change of mood), I soon realized I had cycled all the way to the top without getting off! I could do it...I just didn't realize I could until I changed my awareness (from not being able to get up the hill to crying, a definite distraction away from the usual "negative" babble of thoughts!).

This theme replayed itself more recently as I heard an amazing recount of a friend's 4-month hiking journey along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) that begins at the Mexican border and journeys through California, Oregon and Washington states to the Canadian border. He was saying that on one of his most trying days, where he was physically empty, emotionally drained with uncertain footing on a rocky path that he began the day saying to himself..."I can do this!". It was his mantra for the day.

One step at a time with the affirmation of "I CAN do this". This statement resonated once again for me as I travel along my own uncertain path of how will I raise $20,000? As different obstacles and challenges have presented themselves, I have found myself using the same phrase, "I can do this". It's an incredibly empowering feeling when you begin to change your dialogue to that which emphasizes your ability, not your lack of ability. By stating positively that I am capable, guess what? I actually begin to feel that way. So much so, that I'm thinking of dusting off that supergirl cape that's been hanging out in the closet!