From the Archives: March 30, 2019 Why Do You Practice Yoga?

Why Do You Practice Yoga?

I recently sat in on a book club meeting at a yoga studio. The book being discussed was A Way From Darkness by Taylor Hunt. It details his personal journey from addiction to healing through his Ashtanga Yoga practice. For the club meeting, the author himself skyped in to share in the discussion and answer questions. It was an inspirational afternoon. One thing in particular that Taylor said resonated deeply and has stuck with me. When asked how to remain disciplined in practice, how to continue to get up every morning, get on the mat, give energy to this practice, he answered that you have to find your Why. Capital W. 

We come to our yoga practice for many reasons. Maybe we are trying to get fit. Maybe we are trying to reduce stress. Maybe we just tagged along with a friend and ended up having a lot of fun! But if you practice for a while, you may find that your initial reasons cease to motivate you.

When you experience some physical restriction, an injury, pain, etc your yoga practice changes. It is hard to choose to get on your mat when you can’t do the same things you used to be capable of, when you have to move more slowly, or modify postures, or simply do less. Feeling good in your body is no longer a possible why. When the practice becomes challenging, you struggle with a new posture that you really want to accomplish, you struggle to build strength, or access greater flexibility, you find yourself being critical of your own efforts and self-judgment arises, difficult emotions that you just don’t want to deal with, difficult thought patterns and beliefs arise that you struggle to hold onto or struggle to let go of - a peaceful state of mind no longer seems like a possible why. When the friend that first brought you to class no longer attends, when you find yourself making different choices in your daily life so that you can take class, giving up late nights or that happy hour, or choosing a salad over that burger, you may wonder if the is practice still fun? Is socializing and having a good time still your why?

Find your Why. When you struggle with thoughts of “Why am I doing this?” “Is this really my practice?” “Am I really going to do this for the rest of my life?” it is time for some reflection. It is time to be honest with yourself about why you are choosing this practice. What is your Why? Capital W. In order to continue, day after day, through the difficulties, the challenges, the aches and pains, the emotional turmoil, the tedious work work work, the Why has to be big. Bigger than the pain in your knee, bigger than the tears, bigger than that cocktail, even bigger than that relationship. 

Find your Why. No one can tell you what that is. And it will be a reckoning you face time and time again as you continue your yoga journey. All yoga, every method, every practice is at its heart, a method of self-discovery, of self-revealing. If your yoga does not challenge you to look deep within, beyond the experience of the body, the mind, even the heart, it is not fulfilling its purpose. If you are struggling with this question, “Why am I doing this?” then you are deep within a truly transformative moment. Stay. Stay with the question. Don’t resist it, don’t judge its presence, or try to wish it away. Find your Why. The Why that makes everything else worth it. The Why that gives true meaning and purpose to the work. The question is your teacher. Settle into it, let it wrap around you and seep into you. The answer will come. 

Why do I choose this practice? Because I truly believe that there is a profound spiritual truth buried deep within my awareness and my daily practice is a slow and gradual digging and cleansing and revealing, like excavating an important archeological site with a toothbrush. My Why is the need to experience the true nature of my divine self. That Why is worth anything I might experience on my mat, it gets me through every difficult moment of doubt and feelings of defeat, it is bigger than all of my questions.

Find your Why.

From the Archives: January 25, 2018 Multi-Dimensional Yoga Practice

Multi-Dimensional Yoga Practice

There are so many different methods of yoga out there these days, and even more different types of teachers. And thank goodness for that, because there are just as many different types of students. I am someone who believes that there is a yoga for everyone, you just have to find it! It can take a while, sometimes years, before a student finds the right method, teacher, class for them. 

The key is to recognize how you approach your yoga practice, and then search for experiences that take you further. According to Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras, an ancient yogic text often considered to be the quintessential guide to practitioners, yoga is restraining the tendencies of the mind. Yoga asks us to identify our tendencies and get out of the groove of our comfort zones, what he calls, samskara. Yoga is a practice of self-transformation. There is no growth when we stick to what we know, what we have always done. It is in the unknown spaces that we discover ourselves. 

I see four primary ways that people interact with their world, other people, and themselves. They are Physically, Intellectually, Emotionally, and Spiritually. While we undoubtedly have a combination of these factors influencing our lives, there is probably one that takes the lead. Think about the environments that you feel most comfortable in, your career, your favorite school subjects, your hobbies and interests. Your influencing characteristic will also guide your choice of yoga class. Do you prefer a method that is more alignment based, or energetic? Something vigorous or something restorative? Do you prefer a teacher that focuses on anatomy or one that speaks of more metaphysical directions? 

It is easy to settle into a class that feeds our tendencies, the way we are most comfortable connecting to ourselves. We love taking classes with teachers whose sequences happen to be all of the poses we can actually do and enjoy doing! But then, where is the growth? If there is no space to assess ourselves through new experiences, we are missing out on the opportunity to evolve, and this is the true intention of any yoga method - to move beyond the self that we think we know, to get to know the true nature of the self. 

A truly beneficial method, teacher, or class, is one that provides enough of what is familiar to you to give you a sense of comfort and trust, to allow you to connect but also encourages you to experience yourself in other ways. The word “yoga” is often translated to mean union. The experience of yoga is a union of all aspects of the self - the body, the mind, the heart, and the soul. It may be a bit scary to step into unknown experiences. In fact, it probably should be! Certainly it should challenge you.

Yoga should aim to move you beyond what you think you know, to what you had no idea was already there. This may mean you discover that your body is more capable than you thought, or that you actually really enjoy meditation, or maybe that you enjoy studying philosophies and reading texts. You are more than your body, a collection of muscles and bones - more than your anatomy. You are more than data gathering and questions - more than your thoughts. You are more than your senses, your desires, and expressions - more than your feelings. You are more than philosophies and ideas - more than your beliefs. You are a combination of these and beyond them at the same time. You are a being having experiences, don’t limit yourself as to how you receive them. Explore them all!

From the Archives: January 5, 2018 A Time to Listen

A Time to Listen 

We are living in a challenging and powerful time. A bright light is being aimed at our shadows of racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, prejudice, violence, and hate. These elements of our nature have always existed, though sometimes they have changed forms, sometimes hid from view, sometimes remained visible but ignored. Systemic, institutionalized oppressions are being identified and called out. Claims of injustice are beginning to be taken seriously. Evidence via phone cameras brings horrors that have always been experienced by some to the consciousness of the many. Groups are collecting, unifying to bring about change. What certainly may be an increase in hate and violence recently is coinciding with greater illumination of what has always been there.

The marginalized populations have always known. Women have always known the degree to which they experience harassment, assault, manipulations of power dynamics. People of color have always known that systems of racism were alive, well, and strong. Trans people have always been aware of the dangers they face when confronted with fear and ignorance. Oppressed people are gaining agency in spaces where they had little or none. Now, those of us that have never been affected personally are becoming aware. And now, we are faced with choices. We can continue to bury our heads in the sand, deny and fight the truth, or we can join this building wave, support the voices demanding justice and change, contribute our efforts to something important and right.

My two children are biracial. While I think of myself as someone who always believed in equality, a feminist and anti-racist, having children that are directly affected by racist ideologies and institutions has certainly made it personal - to a degree. My first son was born six years ago, and at the time I had an idealized view of interracial relationship, and the biracial offspring born of them. My immediate community was diverse and had been for years. I had minimal negative experiences related to my relationship, my friendships, my work, etc. Of the very few I had, I was able to package them up as isolated, fringe, and atypical. Discussions in my personal life or online that became racially charged were a place that I felt comfortable standing up, speaking out. I would passionately share what I believed and then move on with my life. 

As the Black Lives Matter movement gathered strength, and my boys got older, and a new president was elected, I found myself speaking out less and listening more. I began from a place of desire to identify, to myself and others, as non-racist, or anti-racist. It took a while to recognize how self-serving that desire was, and that it literally benefited no one but myself. I decided to only offer my voice when it would benefit the conversation, when it would positively contribute to the fight. In conversations where I used to know exactly what to say, I found myself at a loss for words. I don’t want to say the wrong thing, to offend, to appear ignorant, or arrogant. I felt helpless. And I think this is appropriate. This has been a part of my process. I gradually came to recognize that I, as a white female, will never, ever know what it is like to exist in our culture as a man, as a person of color, as a non-cisgendered person. I came to acknowledge when and where my voice is not needed, not beneficial, not helpful. As I found myself in spaces, both virtual and real, where important conversations were being had, instead of speaking, I learned to listen. 

I listened to the points of view of bigoted, ignorant, racist people. I listened and heard their beliefs, I learned of their pain, fear, anger. I learned what I shared with them, how I was like them. I listened and learned from the privileged, from the saviors and light workers. I learned that people don’t feel comfortable exploring and acknowledging their darkness - that of their culture and that of their soul. I listened and learned from POC. I came to recognize how little I knew, how little I understood, and how great was my own participation in and benefit from  systems of inequality and dynamics of power and marginalization. 

I am still immersed in this process, but through listening I am coming to acknowledge when my voice should stay silent. There are organizations and forums and conversations where the voices of POC are strengthening and getting louder and finally being heard. In these spaces, my voice is not needed, or wanted, or beneficial. There is nothing I can add to the conversation from my perspective, from my life experience, that produces anything beyond a salve to my own white guilt and sense of helplessness. In these spaces, I can offer myself as a soldier at their command, an additional hand set to a task. I can offer myself as a support to their work. 

There are places I have decided I can affect change, where my voice can be heard. It is in conversations with other white people. There are spaces where POC are not invited, where their voices are silenced. Those people that would not hear a black person, might hear me. A message that would be resisted if coming from a person of color, might seep through the barriers when spoken by me. When I am in a white dominated space and racism is present, my voice needs to be heard. For too long, we have been silent as our uncles tell inappropriate jokes, when we observe our boss passing up qualified employees because of their name, when a random comment by a stranger in line at the grocery store is said a little too loudly. These are the places we should be speaking. Our silence is complicity.

Each day that passes and my boys get older, I become more and more unsure of how to raise them in this world. I mentioned above that this issue has become a personal one only to a degree. I am limited in my understanding of what they will experience by my whiteness and my gender. I have no idea how they will experience the world as children born of such different truths as mine and their father’s. What I can do now is listen: To the world as new voices and truths rise to the forefront, and to my boys, as they begin to share their world with me. Their experiences will form their truth and will inform my reaction which will, in turn, influence their reality. I will make mistakes, I have already made so many. But if I listen, I may continue to learn something along the way.

A spiritual practice, like yoga, asks us to be present. To face our challenges, to sit in difficulty and just breathe. We aim to find steadiness and peace in our discomfort, pain, and ugliness. As you struggle to find your place in this time of change and activism, I ask you to take this method of self-study beyond the mat. Stay in moments of discomfort, pain, and ugliness. Don’t avoid the darkness, in fact, seek it out. Join Facebook groups that you wouldn’t otherwise be a part of. Go to community meetings. Go to social venues that stray outside of your usual. Have conversations with people different than you. Stay, breathe - and listen. As you absorb the truths of another’s experience, you will learn where you fit. You will learn how to apply your unique circumstances, perspective, skills, and talents to something important.

*This was first published on Omstars. com

From the Archives: November 11, 2017 A Serious Relationship

A Serious Relationship

        Yoga changes things. Have you noticed that? Once upon a time you decided to start taking yoga classes, fitting it in to your schedule when you had some time or when you felt like you needed to move. Maybe at first, it was very casual. You thought to yourself, hmmm I have some free time, I think I will take a yoga class. Or a group of friends were going and it sounded fun, so you joined in. Maybe you even dropped out at times, going months without taking class, but then you missed it and got online to look at schedules again, to see when your favorite teacher was teaching. Then, maybe you started to follow that teacher, taking as many of their classes as you could. Or maybe a certain style really felt good so you started looking for those classes. Then you found yourself creating a yoga schedule. Something like Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I do yoga at 6pm. Boom! Now you are committed. Now you are in a serious relationship….. with your yoga practice.

This is when you start to really notice the changes. You rearrange other aspects of your life for yoga. Sleeping schedules change because you want to be sure you can get up for that morning class, or because class totally wiped you out and you crash at like 9pm, or if you are really blessed, you get in that mid-day nap! Eating habits change. You start to notice how certain foods make your body feel or realize that eating heavily right before class is a bit uncomfortable, to say the least. You start to crave water! Incense and essential oils hold a whole new magic and you start to use them at home and at work. You chase them around the house to put oils on your kids or your partner. A three day a week practice schedule becomes a daily routine. You start getting up before the sun, eating dinner before dusk and talking about yoga all. the. time. And your friends and family start to think you are nuts!

Now this is the hard part. Our friends and family like us just they way we were. They liked that person that would go to a late movie with them, but the new you looks at the time and says “I can’t. I have yoga in the morning.” They miss that person that would join them for a greasy burger with a couple pints of beer, but now you ask them to join you at the new vegetarian or - gasp! - vegan restaurant. Your friends want to gossip about their co-worker and you tend to try to explain the other person’s perspective with compassion and an attempt at understanding. 

You are different. The yoga has made you more self-aware, more disciplined, more connected. And if you have changed, grown, etc, then the people around you also have to change to allow space for you. Their lives used to hold a square space for your peg to fit right into, but now you have become hexagonal, so their space has to adjust. This can be very uncomfortable for them. After all, they didn’t choose to practice yoga, they didn’t choose all of these changes. They don’t understand. Find compassion for them, most of them will adjust for you, in time. Some may not.

Especially with our closest relationships we can be tempted to accommodate them, to sacrifice the things that have become important to us. I have gone through many phases of changing my practice schedule to make things easier for my partner, sometimes struggling to get it in at all. Everyone has to discover for themselves how to navigate this rough terrain, and it often includes a lot of trial and error. 

The key, I have learned, is to never feel guilty for how your life choices may be affecting those around you. Those relationships are important to you, of course, and taking the needs of those you care about into consideration is a loving, generous, and essential part of a mutual relationship. But I want you to think of your yoga practice as another, very important relationship that requires cultivation, nurturing, love and care. Your yoga practice is probably the most important relationship you will ever have. It is your relationship with yourself. In the end, it is the development of that relationship that will make you a better partner, parent, child, friend, and co-worker. Like Ms. Houston said “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all!” 

From the Archives: August 5, 2017 My Story

My Story

Each of us has a story. Many of you have probably read my bio: the highlights of my journey to this yoga teacher platform I find myself on. But of course there is more to the story. I always say that at the time I was walking it, my path seemed like a confusing zig-zag of changing directions, dropped threads, and aimless wandering. In retrospect, I see a trajectory of purpose - a clearly projected direction, if not exactly a straight line. 

From little on, I remember that I experienced my world through the physical. I moved. I loved to move! My moods were expressed in movement, my humor, my interests. I absorbed information through physical interaction. Not necessarily an observer or a contemplator, I was a doer. This became more intentional, more structured, more purposeful when I began to study dance. Into adulthood and professional dance, including college studies, choreography, performance, I explored how movement expressed reality, spirituality, and individuality. Through dance, I became aware of commonalities of the human experience. We all have bodies! Our bodies can’t NOT express. Isn’t that amazing! Even the effort to take expression out of our form and movement expresses something to our souls. The human self is not neutral - it CAN’T be. It is the physical manifestation of life itself! 

As a dancer I used to say that I felt the most myself while I was dancing. All facade, all labels, all constructs fell away while moving freely from some inner space of knowing and inspiration. When I began to practice yoga asana, that exploration of self found method. A movement method intended for self-discovery! Amazing! What I was getting glimpses of while dancing was the whole purpose of this movement practice. A journey of the self, through the self, to the self. 

While first being introduced to yoga through dance (some teachers used it as warm up) it was a heart devastating break-up and a best friend that would not let me wallow in tears that brought me to an earnest yoga practice. We started with Bikram, sweating out the previous night’s chemical toxins and poisons of youthfully poor choices. But it was when she took me to my first Ashtanga practice that I heard the angels sing “Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh!” I was home. I know that sounds dramatic but that is what it felt like. Like finally I found the thing my body and soul were searching for. The dynamics of Ashtanga spoke to the dancer in me. The structure and discipline spoke to the Capricorn in me. (Don’t get me wrong - discipline is haaaaaard for me, but I crave it! I thrive in it, when I can surrender to it) It wasn’t long until I knew without a doubt, that I wanted to teach - that I was supposed to teach. 

I did my teacher training with Paul Dallaghan in Thailand. It was intense! I remember after the first week or so, during a check-in meeting with him I said, through tears, that I didn’t think I could do it, that I wasn’t ready, that I was out of my league. He assured me that I could, that I was, and encouraged me to just keep going. I completed that course and didn’t realize until years later, when I first travelled to Mysore, India - the home and heart of the Ashtanga practice - how valuable that experience was. It was so strong and complete in establishing a solid foundation to a life-time practice. I returned from Thailand to Chicago where for four years I balanced waitressing, teaching, solo home practice of primary series (yes, I did only primary series for four years - there is no hurry!) and a partying lifestyle. I was in my 20’s - it was right, for me. 

As I approached 30, I took stock of my life and realized I was ready for more. More fulfillment, more depth, more work, more yoga, more self. So I quit my job, got rid of most of my stuff, put the rest in storage and went to India. I didn’t know where it would lead but I told myself “I will figure it out in India”. After my first practice, while standing outside the shala, floating on a cloud of post-practice awe, I met my future. 

During those 4 years of self-practice, two of my most significant teachers recommended that I practice with Kino MacGregor. They told me that my body type (flexy, not strong) would benefit from her instruction. Great! But she was a traveling teacher and I was not really a traveling student. But there I was in India, drinking a coconut, talking with a woman that I learned she was Kino when someone called her name. (This was pre-social media, I had no idea what she looked like) “You are Kino! I’m supposed to practice with you!” I blurted out. She told me she was opening a yoga shala in Miami Beach and invited me to attend a weekend workshop she would be teaching in a few months. By the time I left Mysore two months later, I had not only registered for the workshop, but had decided to move to Miami and convinced Kino to give me a chance as a teacher at Miami Life Center. I had figured it out.

Miami felt like a rebirth for me - a new life, certainly a new lifestyle. I realize it may sound funny, but I went to Miami Beach, a party mecca, and began a cleaner, more spiritual path. Kino became my teacher (beyond the relationship I had begun to form with Guruji, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, and his grandson, Sharath, the current head of the lineage). Along with guidance from Tim Feldmann and Greg Nardi, my yoga found a new depth, my practice more sincere, more focused and transformation was available. The three of them were teachers and mentors to me for five years and also became my friends. I still consider Kino to be my primary teacher (aside from Sharath) and even though I no longer practice with her daily, she is still there for me to lean on, ask questions, seek guidance. I still too reach out to Tim and Greg - and they are there. While teaching at MLC I developed sincere friendships with other teachers, including Alexandra, Patrick, Emilia and others. There is a bond that is created when you share this journey, supporting each other as students, witnessing each other’s growth as teachers, sharing life moments like parenting. Miami Life Center will always feel like a home base for me. The teachers and students that come from there and are still there, I feel some unbreakable connection to. It is a part of my personal lineage, the line of Parumpara that I come from, and I am forever grateful for those experiences, those teachings, those relationships.