2012 - a year for softness

I went away this year for New Year's. I decided to get away from the urban experience of New Year's - the busyness, the parties, the expectations and let-downs I always experience at this time of year. I traveled down to the Himalayan Institute (http://www.himalayaninstitute.org/) for a weekend of yoga, meditation, learning, and rest. I wandered in the forests that surround the Institute, ate fabulous organic vegetarian food, did gentle yoga practices and heard wonderful teachings that reminded me of the teacher and healer inside me. It was the most wonderful way to spend a New Year's, and a perfect way to welcome 2012. I returned feeling nurtured, rested, inspired, whole.

One thing that stood out to me, and has stayed with me, was something one of the teachers, Rolf Sovik said. He said (and I paraphrase terribly, because he is a wonderful, wise, articulate teacher) that the way we hold our body determines our health. When we hold ourselves tightly in our body, we can develop poor health, disease, pain. Dis-ease. I began thinking of where I hold myself. Where I grasp. I immediately thought of my belly. Since the age of 12, I've been aware that my belly sticks out, and, taking my cue from the flat bellies of Hollywood and fashion magazines, I began holding it all in. I also experience anxiety quite often in my life, and I can tell when my anxiety is ramping up, when I feel the tightness in my belly. Deep inside. A grasping and holding of everything in there, in an attempt to hold it all together and keep myself from falling apart. I think it is much more than a coincidence that I have suffered with Irritable Bowel Syndrome since I was a teenager, and have all kinds of strange things happening in my reproductive organs. And when I hear the health complaints of women around me, young and old, they often are in the belly region. OF COURSE!! Cause we're grasping, holding on, keeping ourselves tight and held in! And when we hold onto something, in the physical body, there is tension, and an inability to release and let go of toxins. Physical, and emotional toxins.

There are various places in my body I hold tension - my jaw, neck, shoulders. I'm sure you can scan your body right now, and identify where you hold, where you grasp. And the grasping comes from places of stress, anxiety, the desire to hold ourselves together. To keep on keeping on.

I also hold on, tightly, in my mind. In the revelations that have come since my little yoga retreat, I realize I've become quite a control freak in the past few years - I hold on to my schedules, to my rules, to my need to impress and be affirmed, I hold on to the thoughts and feelings I have, playing them over and over again in my mind. I grasp onto worrying. Oh, I worry and worry and worry like I think it's going to help me solve anything. And to be honest, my mind is pretty tired these days! With all the holding and grasping, it's exhausted. It needs a rest. I can't imagine the dis-ease that is going on in my mind. Or, rather, I can. It's symptoms are confusion, forgetfulness, anxiety, depression, a desire to escape, unkind self-talk.

So, after my time away and a wonderful reminder that grasping is bad for my health, physically and mentally, I'm setting an intention for 2012, to be soft. To rest in softness. To notice when I'm holding my belly, and soften into deep, soothing breath. To notice when I'm holding onto a thought pattern that brings me sorrow or frustration, and to let it go. To choose to say no to things, events, people, if there is tension and grasping attached. To choose to NOT plan and scheme and schedule, but to soften into whatever happens throughout my day.

And I have to happily report, in the first 10 days of the new year, as I have responded to things with softness, amazing things have happened already, things being taken care of that I would normally have worried and stewed about, and analyzed to death. As I soften, let go, un-grasp, things unfold beautifully, perfectly, healthily. [and, incidentally, non-grasping is one of the yoga principles - aparigraha - non-grasping! to read more about this, please see this great article: http://www.healthy.net/Health/Article/The_Ten_Living_Principles_Yamas_and_Niyamas/2410/2]

To 2012, to softness!!!

when things don't go as we plan...

Sometimes I think things are going a certain way. And then they don't. And then there is sadness. Disappointment. Grief even. And I think, hmmm, maybe I should learn this being-in-the-moment thing more, and not plan, and not anticipate, and not get attached to how I want things to go... because if there was no planning and anticipating, there wouldn't be this disappointment and sadness. But how? I struggle with that. How do you live life fully, in this moment, and NOT think to the future? Guess I need to do a little more meditation and reading and learning and sitting still. So for now, I am in this moment, sitting with my feelings of sadness and disappointment. And it's OK. I won't die from this. I know that this too shall pass. As with the seasons in nature, where everything is always changing, so there are seasons in my life. Where everything is always changing. And all I need to do is watch, observe, see the beauty, notice the pain and growth, and be very gentle and loving to myself in these times. OK.
Peace.

This Moment

This morning I was thinking about how much time I spend planning, anticipating, worrying, hoping, thinking about what's next. I observe myself thinking about what I will do in the next hour, what I will do tomorrow, what I should do in the next week. I find myself thinking "When this happens, it'll be better" and "When I've got that figured out, it'll be better" and "Once this is done, it'll be better". But funny thing... how do I know it will be better? What if I never get to that place? What if that thing I plan doesn't actually happen? Or, what if it does happen, but I don't feel that magical feeling of "oh good, now it's better"?


Do you recognize this, even in your yoga practice? I sure do. When I'm in Warrior 1, and my legs and arms hurt, and I think "I can't wait to get out of this, it'll be so much better when I can rest". Or when I'm in Triangle and I try to anticipate, figure out where my teacher is going to take me next. Or when I'm supposed to be sinking deeply into savasana and I'm thinking about what I'll throw together for supper when I get home, cause I'm so hungry...


And wonderfully, I hear that loving voice reminding me to come back to this moment. To connect with my breath. To allow my thoughts to float away so I can be present in this moment. Yoga practice is such a wonderful way to learn this skill.


And then I can try to bring it into my daily life.


When I start thinking how life will be so much better when I meet the man of my dreams, I can come back to this present moment, take a deep breath, make a reality check that life might NOT be better, that I might NOT meet the man of my dreams in this life, and I bring myself to the delicious awareness that life is really really awesome, RIGHT NOW!!! That each moment that I get to inhale and exhale is perfect. There is nothing missing.


When I start thinking about how I'll feel happier if I lose a few more pounds, I can come back to this present moment, take a deep breath, make a reality check that I might NOT be happier if I lose a few pounds, and bring myself to the delicious awareness that I can choose happiness right now, and delight in my healthy, strong, lovely body. It is perfect, just as it is, right now.


When I start worrying about my schedule for next week, how I'll fit everything in, how I'll be able to please everyone, how I'll make sure I get enough sleep (I love sleep!!), etc, I can come back to this present moment, take a deep breath, make a reality check that everything I planned for next week might never happen, and bring myself to the delicious awareness that this moment is all I have. Really, who knows what the next moment, day, or week will bring. This moment is perfect, and it is all I have.


So I will choose. To be present. For sure, my mind wanders and plans and thinks and hopes. And those are all lovely normal things for a mind to do! But when those things bring unrest and anxiety to my mind, I'll come back. To this moment. To my body and breath and spirit, in this moment. It's all I have, and it is perfect just as it is!

Here are some fun quotes for you:

Children have neither past nor future; they enjoy the present, which very few of us do.

Jean de la Bruyere

We steal if we touch tomorrow. It is God's.

Henry Ward Beecher

Today is life - the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today.

Dale Carnegie

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
Henry David Thoreau

Acceptance

It's a funny thing, acceptance.

In asana practices, we often set the intention to accept what is. Let go of any attachments you may have. Attachments to how you think the class should go. Attachments to how you think the teacher should teach. Attachments to how you think your body should move. Let go, and just accept each moment as it is, believing that you are exactly where you're supposed to be. Accept your body as it is, right now. Accept the strange, the unusual, the unknown, the uncomfortable. Accept what you perceive as your weaknesses, accept the emotions and thoughts as they arise. Try not to judge, try not to analyze, or figure anything out - simply accept. Be present, be aware, be the observer, and simply accept.

I don't know about you, but some days this is impossible!! I come into classes with expectations. I come to my mat with expectations.

Maybe this time I'll be able to hold my plank longer, just to prove I'm strong.

I really hope that this time I won't get so hot and bothered with the bow, cause I hate that sweaty, nauseous feeling.

I'm so terrible, my mind always wanders, this time I'm going to work really hard to make sure my mind doesn't wander so much in meditation.

Maybe this time the teacher will remember to give me a nice assist when I'm in downward dog, cause it feels so good, and I was so mad when she forgot me last time...

I try to keep a sense of humour about it all, cause really, it's pretty funny when we can track all the attachments and thoughts we have! And the truth is, that if we can experience even a few moments of acceptance in our practice, that sets up a beautiful pattern in our mind, that can carry into our lives off the mat. Imagine, living each day, just accepting as things come. Not planning, not worrying. Not judging our bodies or our thoughts. Not judging others, even if we don't understand them or they're driving us crazy!! Not hating on our jobs or resenting the tasks we're busy with. Just accepting things as they are.

Hmmm. Sounds really peaceful, really lovely, really impossible!!

But I will continue to believe that it is possible, and until I get to that place of enlightenment (haha!!), I will accept that I am human, I will accept that I do get attached to things, I will accept that I am great just the way I am, and I will continue to try to accept each moment as it comes.