Yeah, I know...I'm obsessing a little over this topic. ENOUGH ALREADY!!! But...I think it's worth a little obsession. I keep thinking I'm going to create a yoga class with this title. That's really what happens in a class after all, the effort of doing the poses followed by the surrender of Savasana. I'm not sure though that the lines are that clear cut.
I was thinking about this topic for this particular entry and already thinking about how it relates to willpower, and some misconceptions I think most of us share about what that means. And then I got lost.
No big surprise, given the name of this blog, but I haven't actually written much lately about getting lost because it hasn't happened to me for a while. Apparently, if you live some place for 17 years and spend lots of that time walking and taking the bus all over, eventually you're simply guaranteed to acquire some sense of direction. But if you're like me, you are still quite capable, thank you very much, of getting hopelessly lost.
Here's the story: I went to teach a lesson in a part of town where I've a)lived for many years, b)worked for many years, c)wandered and socialized and hung out and gone to events for many years, and (here's the best part) at a home where I've been three (3!!!) different times recently. I couldn't find it. And what was interesting about it was that I was in complete denial that this was even possible, so in my head I was having a little conversation that went like this, "This can't be happening. But it is. But it can't be. But it is. But it can't be..." and so on. And then as I realized that it was indeed happening and that I was now late for my lesson I added in a little refrain, "I'm an idiot," to the rest of my litany. (Isn't that interesting? I now have a hate mantra, as in the Peril of Pigeon Pose, and an idiot mantra.) Eventually though I had to realize that the chatter going on in my head was not even vaguely useful, tune it out, surrender to the ridiculous situation and call the woman I was going to meet.
And I think that's exactly what happens with what we call willpower. Often people use the term "mind over matter", but I think the truth of it is body over mind. It's that initial umph to dive down deeper underneath the mind's chatter to access the body wisdom of a situation. So I think about days when swimming was part of my after work routine. I would leave work feeling tired and just wanting to get home and park myself in front of the tv with a nice cup of tea. In my head, this is what was playing, "I'm really tired, really REALLY tired, I don't want to swim, my suit is wet already and I don't want to put it on, it takes too long, I'll get home too late, I don't want to swim, if I go home I can exercise in front of the tv, that would be just as good..." and on and on. In my body what was happening was this: I leave work and turn my body in the direction of the pool, I walk down the street until I get to the pool, I walk inside and pay the fee, I go in the locker room and change clothes, I shower, I get in the pool...and suddenly my mind has shut off its litany because I'm here already, I'm swimming in the clean cool water, slicing up and down the lanes, enjoying the pleasure of moving my body. My body knows that this is what I need and my mind doesn't get a vote.
I've read that discipline in yoga equals feet on mat or butt on meditation cushion and I think there's a wisdom there for any venture. All you need is that tiny push of effort to dive under the mind and the body's momentum will carry you if you're willing to surrender to it. Doing the poses themselves isn't the effort; that tiny little push to arrive is.
I had a yoga teacher who taught us how to do what he called "whine-asana". It's a very important yoga pose and it goes something like this: Plant your feet hip's width apart. Turn your palms out and inhale your arms up to reach up overhead. Then recite, "I don't want to do yoga! It's too hard! I'm too tired. I don't like this!" Tone of voice is very important–make sure you draw out the syllables and get them nice and whiny! You can bend your knees and bounce a little to really emphasize the whine. Try it sometime when you hear some negative self-talk going on in your head. Put it out there out loud on the breath with the body engaged. Give yourself some love and empathy but don't take yourself too seriously. Life is ridiculous and grand and aren't we lucky to be here?
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
Monday, July 30, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Don't Abandon Ship
I've been pondering those darn yoga sutras again lately. Oh, and what might those be, you ask? Good question! Written long, long ago and commonly attributed to Patanjali, they are some pithy Sanskrit phrases that basically lay it all out there: What is that yoga stuff anyway? (Sounds better in Sanskrit.)
The tiny, tiny bit that's written about the physical part of yoga says, in a nutshell, that the posture should be steady and comfortable. Huh. Not something people often attribute to yoga pretzel poses. Another way to interpret it is to abide with what is.
I've been thinking about that in connection with my obsession with surrender. Surrender is one of those big trigger concepts for me, something that feels really juicy and important, so I work with the concept a lot. One of the ways I like to work with it is to try and tease it away from other concepts that can feel similar sometimes but which take me to a whole different, and not so helpful, landscape. Abandon is one of those other concepts.
There are times when the two feel quite similar. When you throw yourself into something with abandon, isn't that the same as surrendering? I think there's a little edge there, a tiny separation, because I think that releasing yourself into whatever may come for me denotes that there's a part of me that has remained behind. Abandoned ship, so to speak. And, it has finally occurred to me, that I have BIG abandonment issues, so how can it possibly be a good thing for me to stand on the brink, hurl myself over the edge and wave goodbye? This is way bigger than wandering off in the wrong direction with all parts accounted for; this is getting really LOST.
For myself, I see this most clearly in relationships (of course). You know that feeling...you're crazy about someone, and there's something that feels good, maybe a little risky, but what the heck, what's life all about anyway? So you release yourself to go there (yesyesyes...ABANDON!), and then, oops! Bad idea and now you're hurting, so now there's yet ANOTHER part of yourself beating up on the first part. Now, you're telling yourself you're an idiot. And the big YOU (please refer back to prior discussions on the inner witness!) says oh boy, I'm out of here and walks away. Arrrgh!!! Abandonment!!!
Here's the tough part; this is where surrender comes in. What happens if the inner witness hangs around and does what it does best–witness without judgment and with curiosity and compassion? In other words, you now surrender to the whole experience and ride it out with all hands on deck. No one gets left behind or thrown to the wolves and we ride through the storm together. Abide with what is, and find a way to be steady and comfortable on the way.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
The tiny, tiny bit that's written about the physical part of yoga says, in a nutshell, that the posture should be steady and comfortable. Huh. Not something people often attribute to yoga pretzel poses. Another way to interpret it is to abide with what is.
I've been thinking about that in connection with my obsession with surrender. Surrender is one of those big trigger concepts for me, something that feels really juicy and important, so I work with the concept a lot. One of the ways I like to work with it is to try and tease it away from other concepts that can feel similar sometimes but which take me to a whole different, and not so helpful, landscape. Abandon is one of those other concepts.
There are times when the two feel quite similar. When you throw yourself into something with abandon, isn't that the same as surrendering? I think there's a little edge there, a tiny separation, because I think that releasing yourself into whatever may come for me denotes that there's a part of me that has remained behind. Abandoned ship, so to speak. And, it has finally occurred to me, that I have BIG abandonment issues, so how can it possibly be a good thing for me to stand on the brink, hurl myself over the edge and wave goodbye? This is way bigger than wandering off in the wrong direction with all parts accounted for; this is getting really LOST.
For myself, I see this most clearly in relationships (of course). You know that feeling...you're crazy about someone, and there's something that feels good, maybe a little risky, but what the heck, what's life all about anyway? So you release yourself to go there (yesyesyes...ABANDON!), and then, oops! Bad idea and now you're hurting, so now there's yet ANOTHER part of yourself beating up on the first part. Now, you're telling yourself you're an idiot. And the big YOU (please refer back to prior discussions on the inner witness!) says oh boy, I'm out of here and walks away. Arrrgh!!! Abandonment!!!
Here's the tough part; this is where surrender comes in. What happens if the inner witness hangs around and does what it does best–witness without judgment and with curiosity and compassion? In other words, you now surrender to the whole experience and ride it out with all hands on deck. No one gets left behind or thrown to the wolves and we ride through the storm together. Abide with what is, and find a way to be steady and comfortable on the way.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
Friday, July 6, 2007
What do you want?
When I was a kid we went to a local shoe store that had a real retired fire truck inside. The shoe store was only kids' shoes and the fire truck was for our entertainment while we waited for our siblings to finish fitting or for our mothers to finish paying. We all coveted that fire truck and we all believed that the best possible place to play was in the driver's seat holding the wheel.
In all of our trips to that store over the years I don't ever remember sitting in that seat. Oh, I loved that fire engine, but I'm not sure if I ever really touched it. I remember being up close and looking at it and longing for it–it was BIG, it was RED, it was BEAUTIFUL– but I don't know if I ever actually played on it.
I haven't thought about that truck in years, but I have been thinking recently about desire and poof! the truck appeared in my memory, still BIG and RED and BEAUTIFUL. Sigh. I also remember doing a photo shoot in high school with some firefighters and their truck. Honestly, I don't think I cared one way or the other about the firefighters, but their truck!! Well... I think for me doing that photo shoot fulfilled a long held desire for the truck of my childhood and for the opportunity I lost back then.
My last post was about keeping a promise to myself; this one is about desire denied. Not denied by outside forces: no, that truck was there in that store specifically to be played on by children. I denied myself. And when I consider the reasons I can come up with all kinds of things: there were too many other kids, I didn't really want to anyway, I was too old and mature for that, we didn't really have time, I'd do it another time. But I think the truth was, I was scared of the unknown and, even at that age, I had developed the belief that desire was bad and that having it was wrong and speaking it was even worse.
What do you want? What is your desire? Speak it at least to yourself, climb up on that truck and ride off in the direction of the blaze.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
In all of our trips to that store over the years I don't ever remember sitting in that seat. Oh, I loved that fire engine, but I'm not sure if I ever really touched it. I remember being up close and looking at it and longing for it–it was BIG, it was RED, it was BEAUTIFUL– but I don't know if I ever actually played on it.
I haven't thought about that truck in years, but I have been thinking recently about desire and poof! the truck appeared in my memory, still BIG and RED and BEAUTIFUL. Sigh. I also remember doing a photo shoot in high school with some firefighters and their truck. Honestly, I don't think I cared one way or the other about the firefighters, but their truck!! Well... I think for me doing that photo shoot fulfilled a long held desire for the truck of my childhood and for the opportunity I lost back then.
My last post was about keeping a promise to myself; this one is about desire denied. Not denied by outside forces: no, that truck was there in that store specifically to be played on by children. I denied myself. And when I consider the reasons I can come up with all kinds of things: there were too many other kids, I didn't really want to anyway, I was too old and mature for that, we didn't really have time, I'd do it another time. But I think the truth was, I was scared of the unknown and, even at that age, I had developed the belief that desire was bad and that having it was wrong and speaking it was even worse.
What do you want? What is your desire? Speak it at least to yourself, climb up on that truck and ride off in the direction of the blaze.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Rewards
I had one of those great ideas the other day. You know the kind, where in the cool of the evening hours when you're winding down for the day, you suddenly have this trickle of a thought of something that would be a really excellent thing to do on a daily basis involving early mornings and a lot of discipline. And the best part about it from your perspective in the evening is that it wouldn't start until tomorrow. So you have this great opportunity to feel all glowing with health and noble intentions but you don't have to actually do anything about it yet.
The tricky part comes the next morning when you just can't quite make it out of bed so now you feel bad about yourself. But that's not what this post is about. This post is about what happens when you DO get out of bed the next morning and follow through with your great idea.
Last week I had the great idea of getting up early, walking the mile down a bluff close to my house to the beach, and doing my yoga practice there to start my day. So I did and you know it really is a great way to start the day. On my second day of practice as I was walking to the beach I heard a big thump next to me, like something big had fallen out of a tree nearby. I started to walk over to investigate and suddenly only a couple of feet away from me an eagle swooped down out of the sky to scoop up the fish he had dropped (thus, the thump) and then flew away, pursued by a flock of hungry crows. I walked further down the beach to a nice sandy spot where 3 great blue herons kept me company during my practice. In honor of my bird companions for the day I practiced Heron and Eagle poses. I would have done Crow but wasn't sure I could balance on my hands in sand.
I don't go down there every single morning. For one thing, I can't do a really complete yoga practice in sand. And for another, I don't really want to always get up that early. But the times that I go I am rewarded greatly by a feeling of physical well-being, by a connection with the larger world, by the peacefulness of sand and sea, by the company of great beings who share the world with us. And most of all, by the knowledge that I have kept my promise to myself, made in my intention in the cool of evening.
Reward yourself. Keep a promise to yourself.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
The tricky part comes the next morning when you just can't quite make it out of bed so now you feel bad about yourself. But that's not what this post is about. This post is about what happens when you DO get out of bed the next morning and follow through with your great idea.
Last week I had the great idea of getting up early, walking the mile down a bluff close to my house to the beach, and doing my yoga practice there to start my day. So I did and you know it really is a great way to start the day. On my second day of practice as I was walking to the beach I heard a big thump next to me, like something big had fallen out of a tree nearby. I started to walk over to investigate and suddenly only a couple of feet away from me an eagle swooped down out of the sky to scoop up the fish he had dropped (thus, the thump) and then flew away, pursued by a flock of hungry crows. I walked further down the beach to a nice sandy spot where 3 great blue herons kept me company during my practice. In honor of my bird companions for the day I practiced Heron and Eagle poses. I would have done Crow but wasn't sure I could balance on my hands in sand.
I don't go down there every single morning. For one thing, I can't do a really complete yoga practice in sand. And for another, I don't really want to always get up that early. But the times that I go I am rewarded greatly by a feeling of physical well-being, by a connection with the larger world, by the peacefulness of sand and sea, by the company of great beings who share the world with us. And most of all, by the knowledge that I have kept my promise to myself, made in my intention in the cool of evening.
Reward yourself. Keep a promise to yourself.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
Sunday, June 10, 2007
You are a Superhero...Yes you are!
One of the most helpful exercises I've ever done for a class was to write a story about myself as a superhero. Once you get over giggling about what color tights you might wear, or blushing over your superhero name, you can find a sense of expansion and play in this exercise. And no cheating! You have to actually write the story, not just sort of think about it!
What is interesting about it is that you take characteristics you already have, or characteristics you almost have and would like to make more of, and then make them larger than life–heroic, in fact. Here's a tiny excerpt from my story, as I walk the streets of the city as the Queen of Calm:
In the station, she quiets herself and unfolds a piece of her, opening out into a quiet grotto, dark with moss and dappled light. She allows the people around her to come in, bring their anxieties and release them into the quiet dark before moving on into the day. And everywhere she goes she tells people the stories of their beauty. A story of weakness becomes a story of strength in her eyes, a story of fear in her becomes a story of courage. A story of loss becomes a story of spaciousness, a story of pain becomes a story of comfort. She walks in beauty and beauty is what she sees.
So what exactly does this accomplish? I know that my story allowed me to be tender towards myself, and to see myself in a different light as a noble figure in my own story. It became part of the dream I have of how I want to live my life and how I want people to experience me. It has become part of my work ethic and of how I like to teach. And it gives me inspiration and shows me what my life can be, how I can be satisfied at the end of the day and feel renewed in my purpose.
So...what's your story?
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
What is interesting about it is that you take characteristics you already have, or characteristics you almost have and would like to make more of, and then make them larger than life–heroic, in fact. Here's a tiny excerpt from my story, as I walk the streets of the city as the Queen of Calm:
In the station, she quiets herself and unfolds a piece of her, opening out into a quiet grotto, dark with moss and dappled light. She allows the people around her to come in, bring their anxieties and release them into the quiet dark before moving on into the day. And everywhere she goes she tells people the stories of their beauty. A story of weakness becomes a story of strength in her eyes, a story of fear in her becomes a story of courage. A story of loss becomes a story of spaciousness, a story of pain becomes a story of comfort. She walks in beauty and beauty is what she sees.
So what exactly does this accomplish? I know that my story allowed me to be tender towards myself, and to see myself in a different light as a noble figure in my own story. It became part of the dream I have of how I want to live my life and how I want people to experience me. It has become part of my work ethic and of how I like to teach. And it gives me inspiration and shows me what my life can be, how I can be satisfied at the end of the day and feel renewed in my purpose.
So...what's your story?
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
Friday, May 25, 2007
In the Beginning
Beginner's mind is a term that is often thrown around yoga/meditation/Buddhist circles and I've been thinking about it a lot lately in relation to what I've been writing here. For all the years that I've taken yoga classes, and despite the fact that I now teach it, I always took beginning yoga classes. I never really had a goal around yoga; I just liked how it made me feel. One year my teacher asked me why I wasn't signing up for the more advanced classes. She said she thought I'd fit in fine with them and encouraged me to move up. I signed up for two sessions and hated them. All of a sudden yoga wasn't giving me that special feeling I associated with it; it was making me feel yucky. Handstand without support? No thank you...it just made me feel bad that I couldn't do it. I went right back to beginning classes after that. I had realized that I didn't want to do my yoga practice to work my way through levels, or to please or impress anyone else. The levels, I saw, were an illusion and a distraction. I was happy to be a beginner forever.
My teacher's training actually carried me into a different level of ability just because of the sheer volume of hours spent doing it. This time, my beginner's mind manifested as an ability to play and have fun with the poses. The ability to do them wasn't the point; the point was the sheer joy in trying. However, I did notice that my emotional state went up and down, up and down, just like always. My improved ability really didn't substantially change my feeling about myself or my body. My self was still there, just as it had been in the beginning.
If that's the case, then why bother? Now I think that beginner's mind is something that you can learn to carry with you into any situation, and doing yoga helps me learn how to do that. Traveling alone helped me do that, too. In both cases I have the opportunity to watch my thoughts and emotions rise and fall, every time it's new, each ecstatic rise, each depressing drop–it always feels important! If I ride that wave too completely I can lose my sense of direction. But if I hold the waves in my beginner's mind, I can feel that my true being, filled with curiosity and wonder, is a still point. Every wave is new, but it has echoes of past waves, and I know there will be more waves in the future. I can be really interested in the waves but my real self is re-created whole and complete in every moment, full of every possibility, safe from any storm. I know that I'm not actually going anywhere at all: I AM everywhere.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
My teacher's training actually carried me into a different level of ability just because of the sheer volume of hours spent doing it. This time, my beginner's mind manifested as an ability to play and have fun with the poses. The ability to do them wasn't the point; the point was the sheer joy in trying. However, I did notice that my emotional state went up and down, up and down, just like always. My improved ability really didn't substantially change my feeling about myself or my body. My self was still there, just as it had been in the beginning.
If that's the case, then why bother? Now I think that beginner's mind is something that you can learn to carry with you into any situation, and doing yoga helps me learn how to do that. Traveling alone helped me do that, too. In both cases I have the opportunity to watch my thoughts and emotions rise and fall, every time it's new, each ecstatic rise, each depressing drop–it always feels important! If I ride that wave too completely I can lose my sense of direction. But if I hold the waves in my beginner's mind, I can feel that my true being, filled with curiosity and wonder, is a still point. Every wave is new, but it has echoes of past waves, and I know there will be more waves in the future. I can be really interested in the waves but my real self is re-created whole and complete in every moment, full of every possibility, safe from any storm. I know that I'm not actually going anywhere at all: I AM everywhere.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Letting go, Starting over
This weekend I was putting the finishing touches on a gift for the young son of a close friend who died about a year and a half ago. I thought my grieving for her was pretty much done, but, as I worked, I found myself weeping. And since I was hormonal and thus prone to excess, I allowed my grief to extend out and encompass EVERYONE I've ever lost. At first, I was focused on those I've lost to death, then I realized I was also grieving for people I've lost in other ways but who are still around, still breathing and living their lives, some of them in fairly close proximity to me. Letting go is clearly something I need to work on right now.
In recent months Buddha's Five Remembrances have been popping up in various ways for me, and after this weekend I thought, well, maybe I need to take a look at those. The Five Remembrances are basically: 1)Getting old is my nature and can't be escaped, 2)Getting sick is my nature and can't be escaped, 3)Dying is my nature and can't be escaped, 4)Change and loss in those I love and care for is the nature of things and can't be escaped, and 5)I have only my actions to stand on. So this morning I meditated on that for a while before moving on to my lovingkindness meditation. And the words of a teacher came to me in meditation, "If you find your mind wandering, bring it back lovingly and know that this is the heart of meditation–the practice of letting go and starting over."
I've heard that a hundred times (maybe more but my mind was wandering at the time so I don't remember) but this was the first time I really heard it, and realized that yoga and meditation are actually a way of consciously practicing being alive. Of course, we ARE being alive in every moment, but by rehearsing for it, we can get better at doing it in real life. In every breath we let go of the old air and start over with a new breath. With every step we let go of the earth beneath us and reach through the unknown to find it again.
It's almost impossible to stay that focused for very long on such tiny endings and beginnings, but we have them on a grander scale as well. From pre-school to my last year of high school, I attended 8 different schools and learned a lot about letting go and starting over, and got pretty good at it. My track record isn't so great when it comes to letting go of people and relationships; once you're in my life I want you there FOREVER. Sort of like the Hotel California... In running my own business, I've discovered that I have to be very nimble on my feet to be ready to let go of something that isn't working and start over with something else. My partner and I had one summer when we got to experience lots of letting go when raw sewage spewed over everything in our basement; suddenly, the question of whether to let something go became a lot clearer. Practice, practice, practice...
The other thing that I realized is that you can't have much of a gap between letting go and starting over in meditation. When your mind wanders, you bring it back. If you spend time beating yourself up over wandering, guess what? You're wandering again and you have to bring it back and start over. If you start thinking about why your mind wandered in the first place, you're wandering again and you have to bring it back and start over. If you start thinking about how much better you're going to be at this tomorrow, you're wandering again and you have to bring it back and start over. Now this can sound like some kind of crazy-making version of hell, but the miracle part of this process is realizing that you actually have an infinite number of chances to start over. Nothing you've done before and nothing you're going to do later takes that away from you. Those opportunities are always there and they never go away. In life as in meditation. You know how to let go and start over; you've done it already so many times, if you're breathing, you're an expert. Every moment is your opportunity to do it again.
So, when I think of my dead friend, I breathe in, I breathe out, I miss her, I remember her, I let her go and I start over with my living in the next moment.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
In recent months Buddha's Five Remembrances have been popping up in various ways for me, and after this weekend I thought, well, maybe I need to take a look at those. The Five Remembrances are basically: 1)Getting old is my nature and can't be escaped, 2)Getting sick is my nature and can't be escaped, 3)Dying is my nature and can't be escaped, 4)Change and loss in those I love and care for is the nature of things and can't be escaped, and 5)I have only my actions to stand on. So this morning I meditated on that for a while before moving on to my lovingkindness meditation. And the words of a teacher came to me in meditation, "If you find your mind wandering, bring it back lovingly and know that this is the heart of meditation–the practice of letting go and starting over."
I've heard that a hundred times (maybe more but my mind was wandering at the time so I don't remember) but this was the first time I really heard it, and realized that yoga and meditation are actually a way of consciously practicing being alive. Of course, we ARE being alive in every moment, but by rehearsing for it, we can get better at doing it in real life. In every breath we let go of the old air and start over with a new breath. With every step we let go of the earth beneath us and reach through the unknown to find it again.
It's almost impossible to stay that focused for very long on such tiny endings and beginnings, but we have them on a grander scale as well. From pre-school to my last year of high school, I attended 8 different schools and learned a lot about letting go and starting over, and got pretty good at it. My track record isn't so great when it comes to letting go of people and relationships; once you're in my life I want you there FOREVER. Sort of like the Hotel California... In running my own business, I've discovered that I have to be very nimble on my feet to be ready to let go of something that isn't working and start over with something else. My partner and I had one summer when we got to experience lots of letting go when raw sewage spewed over everything in our basement; suddenly, the question of whether to let something go became a lot clearer. Practice, practice, practice...
The other thing that I realized is that you can't have much of a gap between letting go and starting over in meditation. When your mind wanders, you bring it back. If you spend time beating yourself up over wandering, guess what? You're wandering again and you have to bring it back and start over. If you start thinking about why your mind wandered in the first place, you're wandering again and you have to bring it back and start over. If you start thinking about how much better you're going to be at this tomorrow, you're wandering again and you have to bring it back and start over. Now this can sound like some kind of crazy-making version of hell, but the miracle part of this process is realizing that you actually have an infinite number of chances to start over. Nothing you've done before and nothing you're going to do later takes that away from you. Those opportunities are always there and they never go away. In life as in meditation. You know how to let go and start over; you've done it already so many times, if you're breathing, you're an expert. Every moment is your opportunity to do it again.
So, when I think of my dead friend, I breathe in, I breathe out, I miss her, I remember her, I let her go and I start over with my living in the next moment.
copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles
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