Autumn Lotus Yoga

When did movement become punishment rather than pleasure?  When did it stop being fun to live in our bodies & play? 

Really, I’m wondering — somewhere along the way from baby to adulthood alot of the freedom & ecstatic abandon gets put aside or lost or squished down into rigid patterns.  Sit, walk, run, stay contained, color within the lines… yoga & dance & pilates & cardio classes & all sorts of movement studies bring us back into our skin & retrain feeling & being present, but sometimes these just turn into another form of absolute control & restriction. 

We get a stick up our asanas.

So how about having some fun within our skins today?  Freeform it to some tunes, dance your dog!!

My body expressed a very strong opinion today: it wants rest.  The message started at the left ankle, working up to left hip flexor through left quadratus lumborum, with a side trip to right inner leg, upper back & general fatigue as a postscript.  Plus got about three hours of sleep last night, maybe four.  Something about evening assisting gets me wired up long after & I need to work clearing that energy out better. 

So there’ll be gentle practice, but I am respecting the message & resting.  I am also practicing mindful housework & watching most of Season 3 of Dexter on DVD.  Devilishly decadent.

The show actually has a lot to say to us as yogis & human beings.  No, really, hear me out on this one.  Beloved Husband won’t even watch Dexter because he’s a sweet sweet man who doesn’t like the idea of a serial killer (anti)hero. 

But I see the character as a device to initiate a really interesting discussion on how nearly everyone feels at some point that they must present a false self in order to be socially acceptable, and many folks also feel that they have a deep darkness within that others don’t have & couldn’t understand.

Much of the black humor of Dexter for me is in the dramatic irony of how Dexter is really more normal than he thinks & everyone else   also has their demons that he frequently doesn’t see because he’s so caught up in his own obsession.  And it uses Dexter to illustrate that being an ethical person, having healthy relationships, feeling emotions , sorting out your personal history & opening up can be damned hard. 

A few months ago, a friend & I had long conversations about identifying with Dexter.  And what broke my heart was that this friend believed that they were permanently broken, unfixable, condemned to live with demons forever. 

Fictional (or real, heaven help us) serial killers aside, it’s not buying into that belief that makes the difference.    The degree of darkness for everyone is different, but the shadow side is there for us all to address, on the mat or off.  I’ve met too many people who have survived & risen above to think anyone is permanently broken.  I still hold that belief for my friend, like this little golden egg of hope ,  and will have it waiting when & if they are ready.

I posted earlier today to reflect being in a bit of a mood & workin’ with it. Since then did teacher’s practice & assisted & all better now.  Seem to talk alot about whether & how to work with emotional states & continue to find it interesting. 

How to explain?  Buddha had his bodhi tree, Newton had his apple… I got to change my entire life, get everything I wanted, do exactly what I dreamed (bummer, hunh? only to learn that that I could still drive myself from zero to despair in under 30 seconds.

Point being: a lot of our experience of reality is concocted between our ears.

Caveat:  there is true external torment in the world.  It’s not all illusion.

But much of it IS just shadows on the wall.  Finger puppet shadows even.  All dependent on what we’re focusing on.

So, if you want to change the state rather than explore or wallow in it, what then?  First off, don’t insult your own intelligence.  Feeling suicidal will not respond to a hot bath and mug of cocoa.  Trust me.  Neither will abuse, addiction, trauma, eating disorders, other mental or physical illnesses. 

With time & professional help, any & all of those can be addressed.  Get the help.  Do it.  Now.   But what about all the other crap that flesh is heir to?  Self-pity, loathing, anger, misery, general crankiness?  How do we work with that?  And why the hell isn’t it taught in school??

Big surprise,  posture & breathing matter.  How you sit, stand, move & breath can help you feel better or drag you down into more suckiness (technical term there .

Another no-brainer (pun intended) — your self-talk matters.  Observe it, stop it in its tracks.  Ignoring works, so does rational argument.  But it has to be done over & over again.  Any of those automatic negative thoughts that show up have to be squashed every time they do.

Get distracted, get out of your own head.  Even for a few breaths can be enough to interrupt the cycle.

Finding a loving mirror helps.  Talk about anything, doesn’t have to be what’s buggin’ you if you’re not ready.  Just go to someone who will give you positive reinforcement.  Pets count.

And for god’s sake, choose to do something silly over something stupid.  Do cartwheels, dye your hair blue, listen to loud music, find a ridiculous movie.  Anything other than hurting yourself or someone else.

There’s also always yoga… which changes your posture, breathing, self-talk, provides a loving mirror from teachers & fellow students, gets you out of your head & doing something silly.  Shocker that it’s so popular…

The Good:

- Learned a new word this morning.  Mordant.  Means snarky or sarcastic.  Love it!

- One of the Back Bay regulars who took my class this morning told me at the end I was “the Amy Adams of yoga.”  That is one of the nicest things I’ve ever heard & we agreed that if I get to the Princess Gisele level where the local cockroaches & pigeons clean my apartment, I will send them over to spruce up hers also.

- Set a theme in class I felt I could authentically speak on. Usually I have a set lesson plan of the asanas I want to do but leave the theme til only a little before class so it can be something I really mean at the moment.  Today was using our practice as a tool to take care of ourselves. 

- It’s beautiful weather in Boston.  Clear, lightly warm but still crisp, sunny.

- Home on my midday break having a ginormous homemade smoothie. 

The Bad:

- Woke up with a mood mode of “anxious & insecure” which means that my default thinking goes directly to crummy, self-flagellating  pus.   This is a big signal to be aware of everything I’m telling myself & call BS ASAP. 

- As a consequence of the above, I could easily paw through & pull apart every detail of class/practice/past/future/life/cosmos in excruciating miserable detail.

- But I won’t.  I’ll go back and reread The Good & the go forward to

The Loud:

- Was playing Linkin Park at deafening levels earlier.   Am venting in this forum… externalizing angst always helps.

I will now continue on with my regularly scheduled day. 

I was no rock star on the mat today.  Kinda tight, unbendy slacker really.   Did 90 minute am & 90 minutes pm, both shortened, easy Forrest practices & tacked on an extra 15 minutes in savasana onto the second practice.

Resisted the urge in the course of the 1st practice to get all cranked out about not being especially talented today (but I WANT to do circus act crap, I whine to myself and focused on changing my state instead.

Sometimes you do gotta say “what the f*ck” per Ferris. 

Envisioned & went about having a fabulous day off the mat — magazines & TV, then a long homemade champange brunch out on the porch with Beloved Husband, followed by some cleaning & shopping.  Now that second practice is done, I do believe the couch is calling… if I listen very closely, wait for it, there it is: West Wing speaking my name!

The joy that happens off the mat counts too.

I’d like to keep folks reading & responding to “what yoga has done” for us posted below *(thank you, Tara & Bob!!!)* but it is a new day with more to share.

We’ve been in Cambridge 2 months now & are getting a sense of the patterns of daily life.  So I’m looking now to add a little more structure & practice to the day.  Big intention is to add a second regular practice & tie my practices more closely to specific times: 10 amish & 5pm ish.  And also to work for a more regular sleep/wake schedule since I’ve been all over the place on that & it just ain’t feelin’ right.

The second practice is something I’ve wanted to add for a while.  It’s a staple of the Forrest Foundation teacher training & closely mimics challenge-wise the schedule where you get a personal practice & are then teaching.  Since this year I get to take more time to focus on my personal practice, it’s a great way to supplement & hopefully grow.  Next reason is because I’d like to take advantage of the body’s tendencies early & late — usually stronger early & more bendy later in the day.  Final reason is my continuing desire to balance home practice with all the great class opportunities I have here… this helps me to do a class at the studio AND get my private time rather than being torn many days.  Hopefully over time I’d like to work into doing the 5:40 Forrest classes at Back Bay on the days I don’t assist & doing most morning practices at home.  Maybe.

This is something I’m just going to be working on, not obsessing over.   Today was the 2.5 hr Forrest MP3 from the final DC session in the am, and Heidi’s Gentle Forrest 1.5 hr MP3 in the pm.  Let’s see how it goes tomorrow…

A few posts ago, ( http://autumnlotusyoga.omblogger.com/2009/08/29/simple-gifts/ ) I mentioned that during Forrest yoga foundation teacher training, we made a “living list” of what yoga has done for us. 

I’m still a little wrapped up & not much for full sentences today (though I did get 2 hrs 45 min on the mat with most of my fave Forrest MP3, the Celebrate Your Practice!) so here’s my list…

What’s yours?

—————

Yoga Has Given/Taught me to:

-  self-esteem, liking myself

-  I can change and improve and make visible progress

-  take my self a little more lightly

-  less isolated and more able to connect with others

- reach out and touch people, literally and figuratively

- not mind getting older because I’m getting stronger and fitter and more grounded and capable

- not mind getting older because of really great role models for women aging in yoga (Ana, Beryl, Lilias, Vanda etc)

- a means to heal my mental/physical/emotional pain in concrete, real ways

-  take care of myself on a daily basis in healthy ways

-  value being authentic and genuine over whatever I think I’m “supposed to/should be”

-  keep going even when I feel I’m making a fool of myself because no one minds

-  value being happy and a good person over money, things or ambition

-  step outside, slow down and heal from the ground up

-  speak my truth, especially when teaching, because its powerful and worthwhile

- grow up and take responsibility for my attitudes and behaviors

- love others in a healthy way with a better sense of perspective and a little less neurosis : )

- take a deep breath

- enjoy feeling and staying in my body

- fantastic trips to fantastic places (Edinburgh, India, Mirepoix, Lucca, Wilmette : )

- means to overcome addiction and eating disorders

- accept myself

- creativity

- opportunity to learn anatomy, history, philosophy

- new clothes : )

- feeling better about my physical body

- not so reactive or panicky

- appreciative of other people’s insides — their struggles, whether similar to or different from mine

- helped me to learn to learn by going deeper rather than staying so superficial on a subject

- made me more confident and willing to try things

- helped me to live in the present and let go of the past

- helped me let go of my sense of inadequacy/insecurity/self-consciousness/lack of worth

- it’s given me more than any other single aspect of my life