“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”

Are you aware of all the times in your day you talk yourself out of doing something because you’re afraid you can’t? Or maybe you just know it’ll be sloppy and you want to wait until you’ve got it all perfect. Or maybe you’re afraid that the risk will hurt and it’s just much more comfortable to stay where you are.

When we practice yoga and develop a habit of watching our thoughts, it become easier to see how much our brain thinks limitations and judgements on to us. And when we start to question our thoughts we begin to see that maybe our brain has NO IDEA what it’s talking about.

Look around you. What do you see? I’m in my room and I see pictures on the wall and books on the shelf. The pictures are of trips I took and things I experienced. Many of the books I’ve read before. So, they’re familiar. I look at them and think I know them. My brain files them away under the Remember-that-time… category. We do the same things with the people we encounter through our days. They remind us of someone we know, or they’re people we think we know well and we stop looking. Studies have shown that when people read, they really only take in the first letter and the last few and the brain assumes the rest of the word. Our brains take what we already know and use that knowledge to categorize any new information we have coming to us. And of course they do that – it’s not their fault. The brain in it’s knowing/understanding state is not where faith or the unknown can reside. It’s job is to know. So it tries to make the unknown known.

But is there any room then for surprises? For growth? For change? Not in our brains!

Maybe it lies in our hearts, or maybe in our hands. Or maybe it lies in the silence that comes when we get quiet and still and listen to all that cannot be said.

Even though being mostly self-employed (or a contractor) has brought up lots of my strengths and weaknesses for me to look at; and even though in my yoga practice I recently discovered a whole new way to engage my core which aligns my whole body differently and strengthens my weaknesses, for some reason it is starting a very small garden in my backyard that has my stomach clenching in fear and all my self-doubts bubbling to the surface. Not sure why…

But on a gut level – in my heart, my hands, and in the quiet – I know I need to have a garden. I need my hands in the dirt. I want food to eat. And I need a hobby to keep my brain occupied and limit how much time it spends drifting around and obsessing. So I question the thoughts, let go of some of the heavy meaning I’ve attached to the idea of having a garden and I go out, step-by-step, face the fear and prove it wrong.

First, get some beds together. Or pots. Then go get some soil. If you buy too little, you can always go back and buy more. Then get some plants and stick them in the dirt. When you end up with cucumber plants you weren’t expecting and an extra pallet lying around the backyard, go get yourself a circular saw and a hammer and some nails and make yourself some tiered pots. And when the angles are funny and you can’t quite get the nail in, or you accidentally hit your finger and you’re picturing all the neighbors watching you and judging your lack of expertise, just laugh – because everyone had to start somewhere and expertise is just the combination of experience and practice. Standing out in the backyard, covered in sawdust and with a new blood blister on my finger, I thought of Ms. Frizzle and what she always told the kids on the Magic Schoolbus: “Take chances. Makes mistakes. Get messy.” When you challenge yourself to do that things you didn’t think you could do, you’re working mental and physical muscles that will make you stronger, more confident, and more creative.

Know there’s always a possibility that you can behind the thought that you can’t.

Your breath: your legacy

“Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.”  – Kate Licciardello

You probably hear it a MILLION times in yoga. Or you see teachers (like me) walking around with shirts saying “breath.” Well, no shit. We all breathe. All the time, in fact. If we didn’t, we’d be dead. So what’s the big deal with this breath thing? Why do so many people pay to contort themselves into funny positions and have someone remind them to breath for an sixty to ninety minutes at a time?

Because it’s the quality that counts.

Ancient yogis believed that each person came into the world assigned a certain number of breaths and then they’d die. So practicing pranayama (breath control) and learning to deepen and slow your breaths was important to lengthen your life.

I don’t know if I believe that. But think about the attention and intention you’d give to each breath if that were true. Think about the gratitude. Generally, we take our breaths for granted. They come and they go and we assume it’s just going to happen like the sun rising and setting. But what if we allowed each breath to truly fill us up.

Take a moment to feel that in your body. To feel wonder, awe at the miracle that is your life and your ability to breathe. To feel the expansion of your chest or your belly.

Now pause at the top of the inhale and hold your breath. 

Viktor Frankl says: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  Feel the possibility of new opportunities and beginnings. When we stop breathing, even if only for a moment, our minds go still. There is a small death that happens in that pause – the death of our ego. We are drawn into a hyper alert state, which, without consciousness, can lead to fear.

So now let that breath go, but slowly and steadily. Don’t rush the experience. Getting empty is just as important as getting full. If we didn’t empty ourselves we would have no room for anything new. The next breath would be unable to come. There’d be no room for the next opportunity for growth, the next job, the next relationship, the next stage of unfolding in a tried-and-true relationship…

So often we deeply inhale, taking it all in and luxuriating in that privilege; and then we push the exhale out with no thought. That’s kind of greedy, huh? We want to take it all in, but not let go of anything. Or we don’t think about giving back – inspiring others with our breath. Or we don’t honor the things that were with us for a little while before we let them go, thus cheating ourselves out of closure and gratitude.

Take a couple moments now to breathe in and out, deeply, evenly and with total concentration. Feel the breath move your body. How do you feel? Probably calmer. Probably more present. Maybe your mind is racing a little less. In this moment, what do you need? Love? Peace? Clarity? Balance? They are out there for you. Just breath them in. And what do you need to let go of? Anger? Unease? Hurt? Stress? Limiting Beliefs? Some extra Love you wouldn’t mind sharing? Just let them go – with honor for the purpose they served and the lessons they taught and in appreciation of all new things yet to come.

Now pick up the pace of your breath. Make them shorter. Like a pant. Did your eyes just tighten up? Mine did. If you kept that up for a while, that tension would move into other parts of your body. Your mind would go back into that hyper alert state, but this time with less space between stimulus and response – with less consciousness. You would be in fight or flight mode – waiting for some threat to come at you.

Many of us spend a lot of our days with that constricted breath. We are often on edge, uncertain, waiting for the other shoe to drop – even f we didn’t know there was another shoe. Or that it was up high. Or that it might come down. Our bodies, minds, emotions, and breath are all linked. When we change our breath it affects all the other areas, too. So what is the quality of your breath? And how is that affecting the rest of your life?

This is why we go to classes to practice breathing. Because our lives will always contain good shit and some good shit will always turn to bullshit. It is our responsibility and our privilege to practice taking it all in and letting it all go with compassion, mindfulness and an attention to the quality of our life and our interactions. If in between each breath is a small death – what will be your legacy?

What does it mean to take yoga off your mat and into your life?

In my classes, I often say that your mat is a mirror. The way we show up there is indicative of the way we show up in life.

I came to yoga struggling with depression and with the feeling that somewhere along the way I had gotten lost and didn’t even know what it was I was supposed to be finding my way back to. All I knew was that things couldn’t continue the way they were going but there were so the ways I needed to change and ‘be better.’ It was overwhelming.

At this time, my physical practice of yoga was characterized by flexibility, but not a lot of strength. I had put on a lot of weight. I gave up on poses when they got challenging – backing off when I felt any kind of sensation. I lost focus in between poses and my transitions were sloppy and disjointed. I was very serious. I often cried during class.

‘Wherever you go, there you are,’ and I was showing up on my mat exactly the way I was in life – without direction, focus, or healthy boundaries; with fear, sadness, and judgement; disconnected from my body and afraid of feeling anything.

One day, feeling overwhelmed and sad as usual, something shifted. A little voice in my head piped up and comforted me, saying, “Yes. There’s a lot to change. But that doesn’t matter right now. Right now, all that matters is that maybe today you hold this pose even when your muscles burn.”

It had finally sunk in that the value of this compassionate mirror was not only that it showed me where I was hiding, shrinking, believing in a limited version of myself; but that seeing Limited Me could empowered me to choose differently… and ever so gradually these small adjustments culminated in big changes that transformed the rest of my life.

It was a miracle. Like so many others, I came to yoga for some physical benefits and found so much more. Our transformations cannot always be explained with the rational mind. They have to be felt in our bodies. They have to be believed with our hearts. For me, my extra physical weight gradually fell away and as energy shifted, so too did my emotional state. I got ‘unstuck’ and reconnected with my body so that my suffering and judgmental mind was no longer the master. I cried less and laughed more. The moment I started viewing my physical practice as a microcosm for the larger context of my life was the moment my feet hit the path I still (somewhat blindly and often clumsily) walk today.

As my experience has proven to me, the physical benefits of practicing asana (the physical postures of yoga) are great and lead to other, more subtle energetic benefits, too. But that’s not enough for me. We have to keep growing or we stagnate.

So every day I re-choose a commitment to transforming my life, to walking with discipline and faith, and to being a vehicle of empowerment and healing in the world.

To do that, I have to take yoga off my mat and place my personal practice and journey in a larger context. So how do I do that?

Starting on Monday, April 7th I will be leading a week-long digital workshop on the first of Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga – the Yamas.

These Yamas are a series of ethical guidelines – tools which, when applied to our social lives, lead to greater peace, healthier boundaries, and deep healing.

They do not come into conflict with any other ethical or religious belief systems, but rather offer us another set of lenses through which we can view our Shadow Teachers (as I like to call our ‘demons’ or vices) and learn to not only notice them, but honor them and then choose a different path – the path of Love.

When I started studying the Yamas, I began looking at my relationship with myself and with others from a different perspective. I more easily notice old, self-defeating patterns as they come up and when I see my thoughts becoming violent, greedy, non-truthful or overly judgmental I am very clear about what the consequences are of investing in those thoughts. Seeing the resulting suffering clearly, it’s not as difficult to choose differently!

If any of this has spoken to you, I hope you’ll consider joining me for this workshop. It will be a very community-oriented workshop, with plenty of forum for facilitated discussion and exploration. Each day, we will have opportunities to focus our practice on one Yama and to inspire each other with our triumphs and our stumbles. Practicing asana each day is an added bonus, but not the main focus.

We are always Students and also always Teachers. Together, we can hold the mirror up for each other with compassion, support each other as we encounter our Shadows, and empower each other to choose Love over Fear.

What’s the point of all being on this journey together if not to explore these questions in community? Let’s live yoga – on our mats and off!

Baby Steps: Lessons Learned from an Open Mind

He scooted around the floor, alternately crawling, spinning, sliding, and sometimes sidestepping. He wasn’t planning each move, thinking about it, looking around with eyes seeking to label, categorize, analyze. His eyes were often fixed on our faces. He laughed at things we couldn’t see. He moved in whatever way felt right to him in that exact moment – free of the self-consciousness of knowing the ‘right’ way. In him I saw a spiritual Being, laughing to find itself in its new human body, reveling in sensate exploration, and filled with love and gratitude for all the possibility it encountered.

When he bumped into something, he didn’t look at it in surprise the way we adults do when a bit of the sidewalk jumps up to trip us. You know, the cat-falls-off-the-back-of-the-sofa look we all do so well: intended to theatrically cover with humor our shame that we can’t do something simple (like walk)… in case someone were to notice our ‘failure.’ No. In his case, it didn’t even register as an obstacle. There was no frustration, anger or shame. He just kept trying to move in the direction he’d been going until something shifted, whether that meant the we moved it out of his way, or it moved, or his weight balance changed, thus altering his trajectory.

When he got to the stairs, he pulled himself to his feet and began crawling up. At the top, he turned around with a joyful look to share his triumph, and promptly started to cry because he couldn’t get himself back down to join the group. Following the path his new skills had taken him had trapped him, isolated, in a corner he didn’t yet know how to get out of. Yup, little friend. I’ve been there.

His mom went to him, gently turned him around, and showed him how to back down the stairs. “We’ve taught him this before,” she explained. “I guess it just hasn’t clicked yet.” And then she sighed because he had happily gone right back to taking all the tupperware out of the drawer just to feel it, stick it in his mouth, spread it on the floor, see if it made a noise.

Soon he needed to move again and his mom made a mad dash to pick up all the tupperware and put it back before he finished his circuit. We could hear him going up the stairs and she rushed to beat the clock, shutting the drawer and getting the tupperware out of the way just as his little fingers closed on the empty air where it had been. There was a pause and then we both registered that he had come down the stairs by himself. It was that miracle ‘clicking’ moment and we had practically missed it.

Later that evening and then again the next morning, he would spend whole lengths of time just going up the stairs and coming back down them. And it felt like a miracle to watch this little body and mind, so human and yet so different from ours: filled with wants and needs and an insatiable and completely unconscious desire to explore, learn, practice, and move because it felt necessary and good.

In the midst of this practice he went for the big climb – the main staircase in the house. The one he was not usually allowed to climb. I walked behind him, ready to catch him, but knowing he wanted this adventure. Imagine if we continued to support each other that way as adults; giving each other permission to fly while trusting each other to be there with the safety net in case we need it. If only we gave ourselves that support and encouragement.

Again, he got to the top and turned to face me with a huge smile. He tried to start down. I turned him around so he could back down the way he knew how, but he spun himself back around to face front, decisively grabbing my fingers as support while he hauled himself to standing and then started to come down the stairs front-first. Like an adult. The message was clear: he could do the other way on his own, but since I was right there to help him…he was ready to start practicing the next step. Even if his legs were too short.

In the approximately 15 steps to get to the bottom, he tried about that many different ways of stepping down; each time taking in the immediate physical feedback and then moving on to the next moment, the next effort – making do with what he had and doing it because to resist change, forward movement, diversity, and flow is to oppose growth, to stagnate. And a lack of healthy growth leads to disease, death. But knowing this and allowing this are two different things to us adults. I usually find myself thinking I know better – thinking I can control it all. Starting a business, I find myself constantly thinking I know where I should end up, what it should look like, and how I need to go about getting there. I had forgotten just how many different ways there are to walk down a set of stairs.

At least once a week, I make some kind of resolution to practice my headstands, to do exercises to build my core muscles, to exercise restraint when eating, to read books that will help me learn more and be smarter and better. And I almost never do them. They usually end up feeling like work. Or something that requires discipline I don’t have or time that could be spent doing something else.

Watching him, it reminded me of the joy that can come from simple repetition. The breakthroughs that await when we are willing to focus on the small steps and surprise ourselves when they culminate in big achievements. We hear it all the time: ‘It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.’ But what does that mean? Through the eyes of a child and his open, curious mind I caught a glimpse of that again.  It boils down to faith and trust: a not-knowing what the end result will be and a willingness to go on the journey anyway because there is, quite simply, nothing else to be done.

Forgiving myself for not being Perfect

This poem reminds me that I create my reality. I can choose my life. My quest for perfectionism is just a way to hold myself down. I, and I alone, can embrace forgiveness. There is no moment but this one and I am ready NOW.

I have made a lot of mistakes in my life and I will make more. But I just keep reminding myself that those mistakes aren’t what’s holding me back from achieving my full potential. Those mistakes actually show me the way because the let me see where I need to do more work –  what my limits and barriers are to keep myself from feeling peace and happiness. And in my case it is almost always this idea that I am not worthy or good enough.

I choose to recognize that it is my thoughts/judgements about myself rather than my actions or even my intrinsic worth that hold me back from greatness. Now… please help hold me accountable? Thanks!