Lost and Found

This is a pretty personal post, difficult to share my current vulnerabilities. But it is real

Four (or so) years ago my yoga practice was awesome! My execution of postures may or may not have been awesome … but my practice was incredible. I had time. I was disciplined. I was motivated. I felt good, most of the time. I was steadier than I realized at the time - mentally, emotionally, and physically. I realize it now, in retrospect, because right now, I am quite a mess. Since the times of my awesomeness, I have had two pregnancies and the resulting two kids. As mentioned in the previous blog, parenthood changed me - wiped me clean, stripped me down, essentially broke me. My sense of self was shattered, all identifying markers demolished. Shiva the destroyer did a number on me. Including my yoga practice. My youngest is now a year and a half and I am nearly back to practicing the progressive ashtanga sequences that I did BC (Before Child)  And it is far from awesome. Each day is a struggle to claim practice time and from there claim the luxury of practicing at the shala with a teacher. Once on my mat, it is a struggle to claim strength, focus, steadiness, endurance, surrender, focus, commitment … did I say focus? The teacher I am working with is a peer, a friend, and someone I have known for a long time. He has been moving me through the practice at a pretty good pace, knowing what my BC practice was. I trust him completely and surrendered to his guidance, accepting postures as he gave them to me, progressing as he saw appropriate. Some of the old challenges were hard again, but I was familiar with that work. Other postures were surprisingly easy. My greatest obstacles have always been related to strength. And this time around is no different. The postures themselves are integrating well enough, or at least as I would have expected. It is the overall tone and particularly the transitions that are a disaster. I am fairly easily distracted and fatigue sets in way too early. I am not feeling ease and steadiness, at least not in the way that I used to.
Last week I had to force myself out of bed and to the shala after an awful previous day, just one of THOSE days. I didn’t want to practice, I didn’t want to have to move my body, be aware of myself, feel myself, be with myself. I was the last person I wanted to be around that morning. But I went and I got on my mat. I just kept moving thru, one breath, then the next, one pose, then the next. Some tears were there, but I told myself to just get thru the practice. I knew it was the only thing that could shift my attitude. After wards I spoke to him about my feelings of self-doubt, wondering if I should really be doing the practice to this advanced level, that was struggling and felt that it must look horrendous. He was encouraging, saying, in his particularly charming way that he relates the postures to herpes - once you have them, they are never really gone. Ha ha! It echoes what I have also thought. I believe in the strength of muscle memory and established patterns in the nervous system etc. I have experienced it myself as I try a posture for the first time in 4 years and it seems surprisingly accessible. He assured me that my arctic was fine, to just keep doing the work.
A few days later, I find myself agonizing over this concept in a different context. I was driving to teach at 5 am following a long night of frustration with very little sleep, caring for my sick 3 year old. I was feeling like a far less than awesome parent, in fact, a less than awesome human being. What happened to me? I thought back to that girl with the incredible practices. I used to be so even in temperament. I used to be able to see the world around me with a certain mindfulness, maybe a hint of that non-attachment we all talk about in yoga. I intentionally tried to use Patanjalic principles in my relationships, in the way I interacted with my world. I was working the Yamas and Niyamas. I used to read and contemplate philosophical concepts then discuss them with my contemporaries over chai. (ok, it was usually a cafe con leche) I used to purposely work on becoming a better me. I meditated. I meditated! Crying in my car for an hour that morning, I grieved for the loss of that life and I wondered … if the asanas were always relatively available to us once integrated then how much of those subtler practices are also available. Does it work that way? I want a strong heart and steady mind. I want peace and serenity (not in my home - that would be an impossible request) within. I want to be a better mom. I want to be a better partner. I want to be a better person … again.
I think about what Guruji used to say about parenthood, about it being 7th series yoga. He is also believed to have spoken to students about taking their yoga out into the world. It is easy to have a strong and steady practice in Mysore, India where all you have to do is your yoga. There are no other obligations or responsibilities. The only distractions are the ones you choose and even that, on reflection, offers insight and an opportunity for self-study, a yogic practice. Taking your practice out into the world is the real challenge. Can you do all of that, what the world requires of you, and maintain your focus, your stability, your commitment and discipline, your buttery back bend? I am finally really understanding all of that - 7th series, householder yoga etc. Yoga is hard! It is hard to live spiritual /philosophical principles when you are sleep deprived, missing a shower, subsisting on coffee, the crumbs and leftovers from your children's snacks and meals, (oh and wine) When you’re just trying to make sure your little wild things don’t break anything, don’t spill too much, don’t hurt each other, but also have fun, explore their world, and learn something. When you are trying to stay at least a little connected to you partner, make eye contact throughout the day, maybe a kiss or two, and if your are lucky a good conversation every once in a while ( I am not going to say anything about the work it takes to avoid arguments) When you have a million phone calls to make, paperwork to fill out, schedules to remember, shopping, cooking, dishes, laundry, cleaning . . . Daily life is hard enough, where is the space to do the spiritual work?
I am realizing that it is, in part, a matter of simply making the choice, day after day, to carve out those two hours on my mat. Start there. I also need to claim my meditation practice again, establish consistency, commit. Beyond that - and this is the seventh series part, the part I am sure I don’t have figured out - approaching the day with the same intentions, perspective, and purpose that I did when everything was so easy. The only things that have changed are the things that are outside of myself. My SELF remains. The me that was once connected, mindful, conscious, is still there. This is my yoga: It is easy to have a spiritual practice and live philosophically when all you are responsible for is yourself. Now do that work with all of this other stuff too, and by the way, try to raise spiritually conscious kids while you’re at it.

Photo is during an attempt to capture a beautiful bakasana selfie - Ha!

here i am! . . . sort of

How do I even begin? It feels like this blog is an introduction, like it is the first blog I have ever written. I guess I need to just… begin. So much has happened in the past two years. I gave birth to my second son. We have been moving all over the galaxy, searching for “home”. I have been mommy - pretty much only mommy, with hints of Angelique tucked in to the crevices. That has been my yoga lately, a rediscovering of Angelique, a reclaiming of her, freeing her, giving her space and allowing her to be. The thing that I observed in my friends becoming parents, the thing I told myself I would never allow, the thing I thought I would be exempt from due to my yoga practice and starting a family a bit later in life than those I witnessed - I lost myself to mommy hood. It was a gradual process. A process of accepting the sense of another’s dependance, of choosing to fulfill their needs and wants over yours, essentially being what you believe to be a good mother. The days, weeks, months pass - breastfeeding your baby, changing diapers, pureeing foods, nap times, play times, walks, figuring out how to discipline, figuring out how to be cooperative with your partner, learning that you and your partner might not actually be on the same page on many issues, maybe not even the in the same book! For me, in the midst of this parenting thing, I found myself behaving in ways completely foreign to who I knew myself to be. I would ask myself “who the hell am I right now?” and struggled to answer that question, devastated by the answers I came up with. I tried to claim certain things that made me feel like myself again: Time spent with my sister - who knows the real you better than your twin sister? Getting back to a deeper commitment to my yoga practice. I looked back at the life I once had, only 4 years ago! - So frickin’ easy! All I had was me. My only obligations were to myself. I had a regular teaching schedule. I had a regular, intense, challenging ashtanga practice. I went to the beach, took naps, went out to dinner with friends. What a life! A life I would never experience again. At one point I accepted that I would never practice third series again. That was a time in my life and it had passed. I even questioned whether or not I was still meant to teach. Maybe it wasn’t a part of what my life was now supposed to be. Maybe it too was a time that had fulfilled itself and has now passed. I wondered if I would ever return to Mysore, India, the home and heart of the practice. The possibility broke my heart. I had been practicing, a bit, but it was more a going thru the motions. It was mostly shallow, distracted, unsatisfying, frustrating. Mommyhood had completely destroyed my ego, my sense of self. Every identifying marker gone. Those things were replaced by the egoic needs of the kids - which led to my personal crisis. I had lost my own sense of self into theirs, their view of me, which was only “mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy!” I had to finally get to a place of redefining. This is the moment I think I entered, or rather surrendered to, seventh series Ashtanga yoga. Guruji, Sri K Pattabhi Jois considered Ashtanga to be a householder practice. It was not designed for renunciates or saddhus. It was designed for people living in the world, with worldly obligations, including families. He referred to parenthood as seventh series yoga, following the six series of asana sequences that characterize this practice. I reached out to the community - the specific community of other Ashtanga mommies, particularly those that teach. From the words of this group I was able to give myself permission to take it easy - on myself. I was encouraged to just enjoy this time when the boys are young, to focus on them, as this time passes so quickly and then is gone forever. I was assured that the time to devote to a full teaching schedule will return, when the time is right - as will the time to return to India. I was inspired to just give attention to the practice, to let that feed me, strengthen me, remind me, redefine me. I began to fight for my yoga - again a gradual process. I wanted it to be easy, I wanted to be supported, encouraged, inspired. It was none of that. I struggled to keep choosing my practice over - well, everything else. I still struggle. Through practice, faint fingers of light dawned on my experience, I realized that my ego needed to be reformed. I could be a passive participant, letting my circumstances shape me or I could make decisions about who I wanted to be. I could let go of certain “shoulds” - those expectations, pressures, and judgements that all mothers face, from those around them and themselves. I could trust myself and make choices about the aspects of Angelique I want to express. My sense of self is returning but it is a brand new picture that emerges from the fog. I have recently been regiven the first few third series postures. It surprises me how much the body remembers, how the energy of my body - every molecule, atom, neutron - molds itself into those familiar patterns and shapes. While familiar, it means something new to me this time. It a testament to a deeper strength, to a longer story of my own yoga, than I ever realized, spreading back beyond my pre-child self to a self before even my own birth. It gives new confirmation to the calling that is my yoga practice and my urge to share the method. It is still a gradual process but I accept that, my practice reminds me of that every time I get on my mat. Slowly I see myself again, familiar but different.

the body is expressive - what story are you telling?

As a dancer, I became fascinated by the concept of interconnectedness, the idea the mind, body and spirit are inextricably linked.  Anything that occurs in one has an affect in the others.  Dance is an effort to express the broad spectrum and infinite variations of human experience through movement.  The body is the medium used by the artist to tell stories, show ideas, share emotions, and inspire dreams.  In a dance composition class, a teacher once said that the human body can't NOT express.  Even an attempt to make the body abstract (unless completely covered and unrecognizable as a body) is expressing something by its contradiction.  The human face, even attempting to be neutral is expressing something, interpretable by the observer because it is a human face void of expression.  Every person on the planet has experience with their bodies, whatever that experience may be, which gives them a frame of reference, a catalogue of memories, a store of emotions.  From this perspective, whatever they observe in the human body they are witnessing, they will recall something human within them.  For example, a body that suddenly turns its back you, could remind you of your father walking away and never returning or it could remind you of standing in line for your first movie, calling forth the emotions of these moments in your history.  Now, of course a dance composition would attempt to give context to the images in order to drawn out the intended response from its audience.  But this is possible because as human beings we have a shared language in that we all have bodies.  The body can then be effectively used by the artist to express the more subtle aspects of human experience, such as thought, emotion, inspiration.
In yoga, I have discovered that the same concept of interconnectedness is present and is in fact a thematic necessity, only the work is done in reverse to the way dance uses it.  Yoga asana functions on the belief that the work done in the physical will allow or even be a catalyst for transformation in the mind and spirit.  As we open and strengthen our bodies on the yoga mat, we are asked to be mindful, to be aware of the sensations that arise.  We recognize a sensation in the physical body, acknowledge it and breathe, the breath gives us the space to seek beyond the physical experience to the thought liked to the sensation.  Are we telling ourselves we can't do this?  That we are going to get hurt?  Is there a thought of stopping, giving up?  The mind saying, I just don't want to.  Is there self-judgment?  I'm so weak, I'm too lazy for this, I'm too short.  These thoughts then, if we stay with them and allow the observing self (the audience member?) to detach, lead us deeper to the emotions behind the thoughts.  Fear?  Doubt?  Anger?  Sadness?  As we experience an asana on the physical level we are given an opportunity to work thought thoughts and emotions expressed by it.  In yoga, movement allows us to discover the depth of our own humanity, the unhealthy or at least unhelpful thought patterns and emotional sticky places.  If we do the work with our bodies and allow that work to have an effect on the mind and spirit, then true transformation occurs.  We cleanse our way through sensations, thought and emotion and establish new physical and mental patterns, resulting in positive rather than negative emotion and a more pure expression of the self is freed.  

how an aching neck and smooshed nose reminded me who I am

For some time, I had been feeling that I lost a bit of connection.  To what?  my practice, my teachers, my routine, my life as I knew it.  I can say that I had been focusing energy on the ashtanga "7th series" - what Guruji called children and family.  Certainly, parenthood has taken a large priority role in my life, and also in 2012 we moved to a new city and I began a new teaching position - a lot has changed, a lot has been in flux.  I believed I was giving everything I could to my practice.  I was getting on my mat regularly, working my way back into my practice.  I was challenging myself - or so I thought.  Since moving, I have been doing a self practice, no teacher.  I believe and have said as much to many students faced with such an experience, that having a period of time that you have to continue your practice without daily working with a teacher has a lot to offer the ashtanga practitioner.  You can learn so much about yourself, what motivates you, what limits you allow yourself, where you complacencies are etc when you practice alone over a period of time. 
The catch, I recently learned, is that these lessons don't really become evident until you are again working with a teacher.  After more than 7 months of self-practice I made it back to Miami Beach to practice for a week with Kino MacGregor and Tim Feldmann.  Wow - what an eye opener.  While I have always believed it intellectually, it had been a while since I realized experientially how essential it is to do your yoga with a teacher.  Our personal samskaras, or habits, are strong and we can be succumbing to them without being aware.  That one week in Miami Beach kicked my ass!  I was made aware of how soft I had become in my efforts, how accepting of mediocrity, and simply, how lazy.  Kino and Tim pushed challenged me, they helped to me to see where I am more capable than I thought and where I need to really work - tapas! - in order to break free of my limitations.
The true and more profound experience was realizing the power of being pushed and challenged to face and overcome your perceived limitations.  For months I was aware that I was not feeling "myself".  I was on edge, short fused, grumpy...  Not constantly but certainly more than I felt was appropriate and natural for me.  I tried to blame it on hormones, on the exhaustion derived from the first year of parenting, even on my partner! It was in the midst of a dwi pada (a leg behind head pose where you balance on the sit bones) adjustment that I began to see the light.  I had mentioned to Kino and Tim that the balance has been a challenge in the pregnancy, and that I had gone through a prolonged neck, upper back pain, etc.  So, of course, Kino challenged me to stay in the posture for a long time.  As she is standing behind me, telling me to stay, my legs are becoming heavier and heavier on my neck, my gaze dropping, there goes my view of the wall, there goes my view of my mat, slowly collapsing into myself, my neck screaming to be released from this torture.  The words were on my tongue "my neck hurts! I need to come out!"  Then I swallowed them.  pause.  And Kino released me.  My neck was fine, but something within me shifted.  I didn't recognize it until a later practice when I was in pincha mayurasana (forearm balance) and to help me develop shoulder strength, Kino was challenging me to sift my weight further forward.  I felt myself weakening with every millimeter I moved forward, but I surrendered to my teacher, I kept breathing and shifting, more and more and more.  I felt the limit of my strength approaching and the I hit it, suddenly and dropped to my nose, and the rest of me followed.  I was huffing and puffing but smiling, Kino laughed a little, I think surprised.  I was elated!  It is a powerful thing to face your walls, to face your resistances.  Even failure includes a measure of success.  I had found more strength of body and mind and heart in that moment than I had maybe since giving birth and I was reminded of what a powerful person I am and what a powerful practice this is. 
The yoga practice is there to bring us to our friction points, bring us to our insurmountable walls and then demand that we scale them.  Oh, and not only scale them, but do so without succumbing to the desire to escape or complain or negotiate.  To do so with calm serenity and steady breath.
Sometimes in self practice, I thought I was approaching my challenges, pushing myself through them and gaining ground.  Maybe I was to a certain degree and maybe those small progressions were appropriate at the time.  my body was not ready immediately after having a child to be challenged in the way I was that week In Miami Beach.  But clearly, when I began to loose connection to my yoga off the mat, when the person I was began to revert to old patterns I thought I had done away with eons ago, that was the time to work harder, to give more blood sweat and tears to my practice.  And there was no way for me to see that at the time without the guidance of my teachers, who saw beyond my perceived limitations and saw what I was capable of more than I could.  Just from that one week, I felt myself change back into the person I had grown to be, back into he person I wanted to be.  Someone with more patience, less reaction.  Someone with more allowance, acceptance, tolerance and compassion.  Someone with absolute trust in the transformative power of this practice.

Is There Wisdom in "Want"?

Is There Wisdom In "Want"?

I recently moved from Miami Beach to Philadelphia and have been teaching a entirely new group of students since May.  It has been fascinating to me and also a challenge to adjust to the new yoga culture of this group.  Just like every one person has had their own experiences with the practice, every community develops a relationship with the practice based on their common experiences with environment, teachers, each other etc.  I am finding that I am having to adjust my teaching style and also having to access a different set personal experiences in order to connect.  In some ways it reminds me that as a teacher, I am continuously learning, but also reminds me that I do actually have many experiences to draw from.  In particular, I have noticed a certain trend in my students recently.  I find that many students are questioning the practice - "Why am I pushing my body this hard?", "Is it really important that I do it this way as opposed to that?",  "I have been doing this practice for years, why is nothing changing?"  My answers are usually related to the truth that I whole-heartedly believe in this practice!  I have passed through injury, doubt, physical extremes, emotional and mental extremes, etc and have made it, somehow, to the other side and realized that there is an amazing innate wisdom in the Ashtanga Yoga practice that I now cannot deny.  I believe that the practice itself, in its scientific, purposeful arrangement and yes, rules, knows what to do.  And if us mere humans, ignorant of any power beyond what we can see, taste, and touch, could just surrender to its plan, we will learn what it is all for.  We will reach the other side of this current challenge and, having overcome it, see its purpose and begin to trust.  But we have to begin.  We have to start the journey with trust and surrender and allow the practice to prove itself.  In this a teacher we can trust is important.  As a teacher I choose to assume that if you are in my class you are interested in being taught.  If you are choosing to be taught by me, I am committed to sharing everything that I have come to understand about this practice.  If I share information with you, it is something that comes from the practice itself as it was taught to me.  I will never give you information that is based on opinion without qualifying it as such.  I share the practice as I have experienced it because it works, it transforms, it is powerful.  In my recent experiences as a teacher, I am reminded of an article I read while taking teacher training courses almost ten years ago.  This was written by one of my first Ashtanga teachers, Paul Dallaghan of Centered Yoga and Yoga Thailand, Ko Samui.  Paul, if you catch this blog, thank you for these words that meant something significant to me once and now again bring meaning to my practice and I hope it is ok that I reproduce them here:

"Doing What My Body Wants"?

in other words, asana and pranayama practice dictated by your mood

Paul Dallaghan

A line often mentioned to me by students about their practice is that "I did as my body felt like today".  I believe it is good to listen to the body.  To be able to do so indicates a highly developed inner sense.  And if being done properly then one must have achieved certain levels in yoga.  At a basic level, I would say when the body is fatigued, when there is fever, then this is a time to understand this and adjust your practice.  What I have seen is students ignoring all signs that tell them practice today should not be done and more commonly, students using any condition to change or back out of practice.

Yoga is a powerful practice.  It is byond us, higher than us.  This is precisely the reason why it has been given to us and why we do it.  Our nature is covered up by many layers.  Our thoughts process and ability to comprehend things is thus clouded.  From ancient times, the practice of yoga has been going on, being taught by those who experienced it first hand.  It is a higher path, passed on to us to help clean us up and pull us out of this mess of confusion.  At its base are high scientific principles.  It is built on truth.  We all have this within us and need this system to help unearth it.

It therefore is self-defeating to say "I did what my body wants today".  Such an approach keeps one in the same rut, going around in circles without any hope of growth.  There my be superficial results such as feeling better in the body.  But this is what exercise is for.  It is also ego driven to think that "I" can solve this and go against what those wiser than us have passed on to us.  Most importantly though it is that this approach is usually emotionally driven.  Thus it is based on whim, your mood of the day or moment.  It is fair if one approached their practice like a scientist, following a course for a period of time, seeing its effect and seeing what needs to be changed or done next.  But when we go with inner whims each day we unfortunately achieve nothing.

In the Yoga Sutras, the authoritative text on yoga, Patanjali points out the obstacles that come in the way of your practice (I.30).  They are physical ailment, lethargy, unreasonable doubt, carelessness, laziness, undisciplined senses, imaginations, inability to reach higher experiences, and non-retention of the achieved experiences.  The whimsical practice of how I feel falls right in there.  To conquer them Patanjali advises the students to practice sincerely and with a focused mind.  Not just in the moment but over time.  A one-pointed practice done from the heart.  A practice the teacher has given you.  he acknowledges these obstacles will arise and we must practice to overcome them.  Even when injured apply this intelligence.  Perhaps a period of rest is necessary.  Then modification in practice while following the approach given.  Over a period of time this grows and the physical ailment is conquered.  The other obstacles aren't given space to sprout up and affect us even more.

It is the nature of the mind to rebel and lead us astray.  This is normal.  We should acknowledge it.  And then we should remember it when these mental moments come.  If I am weak or fevery then to limit or stop my practice is justifiable.  When not then it is of most benefit to follow the teacher's instructions and just practice.  Typically the mind wants much variation and is continually distracted.  The state of yoga is a calm, undistracted mental state, ultimately beyond mind.  More importantly though, as it is unchartered territory for the students, and the effects are very subtle, there is typically a complete lack of understanding of real inner process.  Only towards the end of a "clearing" is it then understood.  Changing or stopping in the middle is like pulling the cake out of the oven, not ready and inedible.  Put it back and let it finish the process.  This is also why a competent and experienced teacher is needed.  Ant not just that, but that they have spent time with a teacher who themself is connected to the vast teachings and rich lineage of this higher art and science.

So the practice of yoga focuses and calms the mind.  in essence it builds tremendous mental strength.  This can only be achieved when one follows the prescribed practice, daily.  If we pull back and look out over, say, a twenty-year period we will find much variation in practice.  Yet, we will see this it has come from progression.  A certain practice was followed, a stage achieved, the next step moved on to, and so on.  But we get stuck in the intermediate and suffer from this impatience and weakness of mind.

Simply, the truest and greatest benefit comes from following the teacher-given practice each day.  After a while a barrier is crossed and strength of mind is gained.  Through experience one learns the results.  When done on one's whim, constantly changing it around because "I feel this or that" will leave the student at ground zero going around in circles.  So fight the urge to play around.  Stick to your practice and watch the mind develop, the heart open.  Even when doing the same system for so many months in a row the experience within is constantly changing.  To benefit from yoga trust in the the practices and advice of those higher than us who have achieved its end.