Since that last post, I've been experiencing a lot of... weirdness. I don't know if it is because I am slowly venturing into intermediate and that is opening up a lot of things that aren't just physical... or maybe it is the fact that it's that time of year again when the sun goes down at 4. Hurrah for solstice tomorrow!!!
But, since I wrote that I have gone through a lot of different things. After writing that, I kept going back to it thinking that I was being hyper-critical. Then, the more I read it and read it, I kept thinking, no, I'm not being critical, but maybe there is something more there. Yes. There is. Oddly, from that stage I began to become super critical of myself in a way that was almost damaging. Maybe strike the almost. Rather than opening up to myself and others, this has the effect of closing me down, of shutting things and others out.
Yet, as this was going on, I kept noticing how people seem to be oddly attracted to me. From out of nowhere, someone will come up to me in the store or wherever with a big smile and the next thing you know we're having a long conversation about cookie dough or something. And, yet inside I feel this sort of trembling, a sort of vulnerability, something that feels like it is very fragile. I think I've been here before. I can see that my criticism or any other negative reaction has the effect of pushing others away because I'm afraid of whatever that thing is inside of me will be damaged, hurt, injured if I open myself up. And yet, it is the closing off that is the most damaging, the most painful and causes the most injury.
Reading over my journal, I see that this is something that keeps coming up as I practice Yoga. There is an opening, there is fragility and then anger arises or some other negative defense mechanism to protect whatever it is. The choice is to either keep exploring it, to venture into the realm of "danger" or to allow it to close up, scar over and keep living in pain.
I'll keep practicing and see what happens.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Discipline, Acceptance and Auto-Ahimsa
I've been thinking about a blog entry I recently saw.
The message there is to "not be afraid of who you are." I think that is fine. But I also think that it can lead to a type of permissiveness. I understand the point about there is no good or bad and so on, but I also think this type of thinking can play into the New Agey type of thing that says anything goes. Or as the mantra of the sixties put it, "if it feels good do it." That feeling good led in someways to the coked out, disco era of the 70s for many. The question I think is to find what really does feel good and to do that.
At least what I have been finding is that with consistent practice you definitely start to choose things differently. Or at least I do. Slowly, certain things just fall away. In the "Damn Good Yoga" blog there is an old entry about how she just stopped smoking after she practiced yoga for awhile. It just sort of fell away. She had no withdrawals. When I first read about this happening with yoga I thought, "no way. There is no way that is going to happen with me and coffee." And yet it did. I guess the thing is that it-- along with other things-- just sort of fell away. I like that way of describing it because it wasn't like I consciously pushed them out or went through a 12 step program or something. I was not judgmental. I think that is where the blog entry is right, there should be no judging, simply acceptance. Here is where we can practice ahimsa on ourselves. I don't think of myself as a "good" person for having stopped eating meat or that coffee was evil and so I must stop drinking it. They were just things that sort of happened all on their own. Similarly, if someone eats meat, drinks or whatever, I don't think of them as a bad person or of myself as any better than they are. And with myself, if I do any of that stuff, I have to be kind to myself and forgive myself. But I also realize that when I do it, it doesn't feel that good in the long run. Because of that, the practice of eating sweats or whatever it is, slowly falls away. So I have to practice auto-ahimsa, or ahimsa on myself.
But the acceptance also has to be combined with a discipline of some sort. And I think that Ashtanga, for me at least, is that discipline.
The word discipline also has resonances with education-- in college you study a "discipline" or a field of inquiry-- just as it also means that you "bring something under control" or you train something or yourself to act according to certain codes. If Ashtanga is a discipline, then it is a way of controlling certain things, my breath, my movements, my thoughts, when I am practicing. But it is also a field of study. And the thing I am studying is the union of mind, body and spirit as I move through the asanas. I also study how I interact with things and people around me.
The message there is to "not be afraid of who you are." I think that is fine. But I also think that it can lead to a type of permissiveness. I understand the point about there is no good or bad and so on, but I also think this type of thinking can play into the New Agey type of thing that says anything goes. Or as the mantra of the sixties put it, "if it feels good do it." That feeling good led in someways to the coked out, disco era of the 70s for many. The question I think is to find what really does feel good and to do that.
At least what I have been finding is that with consistent practice you definitely start to choose things differently. Or at least I do. Slowly, certain things just fall away. In the "Damn Good Yoga" blog there is an old entry about how she just stopped smoking after she practiced yoga for awhile. It just sort of fell away. She had no withdrawals. When I first read about this happening with yoga I thought, "no way. There is no way that is going to happen with me and coffee." And yet it did. I guess the thing is that it-- along with other things-- just sort of fell away. I like that way of describing it because it wasn't like I consciously pushed them out or went through a 12 step program or something. I was not judgmental. I think that is where the blog entry is right, there should be no judging, simply acceptance. Here is where we can practice ahimsa on ourselves. I don't think of myself as a "good" person for having stopped eating meat or that coffee was evil and so I must stop drinking it. They were just things that sort of happened all on their own. Similarly, if someone eats meat, drinks or whatever, I don't think of them as a bad person or of myself as any better than they are. And with myself, if I do any of that stuff, I have to be kind to myself and forgive myself. But I also realize that when I do it, it doesn't feel that good in the long run. Because of that, the practice of eating sweats or whatever it is, slowly falls away. So I have to practice auto-ahimsa, or ahimsa on myself.
But the acceptance also has to be combined with a discipline of some sort. And I think that Ashtanga, for me at least, is that discipline.
The word discipline also has resonances with education-- in college you study a "discipline" or a field of inquiry-- just as it also means that you "bring something under control" or you train something or yourself to act according to certain codes. If Ashtanga is a discipline, then it is a way of controlling certain things, my breath, my movements, my thoughts, when I am practicing. But it is also a field of study. And the thing I am studying is the union of mind, body and spirit as I move through the asanas. I also study how I interact with things and people around me.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Sweet Fragments
It is funny. Since coming back from Thanksgiving in California with the family, my practice has been totally inconsistent and my desire for caffeine and sweets has really gone up. When I was in CA I practiced everyday except the day we left-- moon day--. Then, I get back home and I stop practicing at home. Too weird. It might have something to do with the lack of light-- sunset at 4:13 today-- as well as the cold. I don't know. But, I do know that practice really makes me feel good. It helps me shake off the winter blues and it makes it easier to avoid the not so comforting foods of the season. I have no idea why this is. But, at the same time, I am feeling pretty fragmented. It is difficult to settle down and study and do anything much except watch long hours of tube. Then my brain feels completely numbed out.
What is really odd is that all of these things that my body desires now are things that will, I know, make it feel bad. Yet, it wants them anyway... and who am I to say no? I guess it is just another aspect of the experiment with change. It has been like this from the start: Will I choose to go do yoga or not? Will I drink even though I know the slightest amount makes me feel bad? and so on. The interesting thing is that the relatively small amounts of pastry I am consuming, or the small amount of caffeine I take in, never really bothered me before. Last year, for example, I don't remember having this problem. I ate pretty much whatever I want. The same thing has happened in the past with alcohol. I could drink whatever I wanted, and it didn't bother me. The big difference is, perhaps, that last year I was not practicing ashtanga. Yes, I was taking vinyasa classes that were ashtanga inspired, but I was yet to start primary series. I didn't start doing that officially with any regularity until this summer. Maybe it is true, primary series cleanses your body. So now I can't put this stuff into it without feeling blech. So, I am going to look at this thing with diet and practice as another part of that puzzle. Which thing will I choose? Sweet fragments, or the sweet union?
What is really odd is that all of these things that my body desires now are things that will, I know, make it feel bad. Yet, it wants them anyway... and who am I to say no? I guess it is just another aspect of the experiment with change. It has been like this from the start: Will I choose to go do yoga or not? Will I drink even though I know the slightest amount makes me feel bad? and so on. The interesting thing is that the relatively small amounts of pastry I am consuming, or the small amount of caffeine I take in, never really bothered me before. Last year, for example, I don't remember having this problem. I ate pretty much whatever I want. The same thing has happened in the past with alcohol. I could drink whatever I wanted, and it didn't bother me. The big difference is, perhaps, that last year I was not practicing ashtanga. Yes, I was taking vinyasa classes that were ashtanga inspired, but I was yet to start primary series. I didn't start doing that officially with any regularity until this summer. Maybe it is true, primary series cleanses your body. So now I can't put this stuff into it without feeling blech. So, I am going to look at this thing with diet and practice as another part of that puzzle. Which thing will I choose? Sweet fragments, or the sweet union?
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Boy am I sore
Pain. Lately in my yoga practice I have been experiencing what I can only call pain. It feels similar to what I felt-- though not as intense or debilitating-- as when I was lifting weights. My hamstrings let me know that they are here even when I am at rest. This pain in my body has its counterpart in other places; my soul, my mind. Usually when confronted with pain or discomfort the response is to expel it, to get rid of it in someway. But, I began practicing yoga because I was uncomfortable, so where can I run now? If all is one, then I have to see this pain as something else, not as something that "isn't me" that I need to get rid of, but as something that IS me that needs to be investigated. "Anguish is a recognition that the path has opened." As Michael Stone says in The Inner Tradition of Yoga The cure begins with love, "this is not a personal love in the sense of new-age sensitivity or empathetic technique but rather the impersonal force that heals by extending itself to the most interrupted, broken, and ruined parts of ourselves" (19). We do this by embracing and breathing into those places that cause us discomfort waiting for them to complete the process of opening up and even letting go. Yoga practice requires "not a theological commitment but rather an interest in one's discontent and how to bring it to an end" (20).
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Back
I had deleted this blog because I felt that I was talking too much. Maybe I was, maybe I needed time to go inside. But, now I realize, that I need to do this and it isn't enough to do it privately in my journal.
As time has gone on my yoga practice is more frequent and deepening. I would say that the biggest shift is that I am now more focused on what I call the "invisible yoga", the breathe and the bandhas. As I move throughout my practice, I try to focus my attention on those things as well as the drishti or gazing point. If you do that, you can't really think about anything else. For the most part, my mind doesn't wander. At least it doesn't wander as much as it used to. The ironic thing is that as I focus less on how I can (or mostly can't) do certain poses, I am better able to do the poses. After not going to class for several months, my instructor remarked at how much my practice had deepened. Though, maybe she was talking about the fact that I wasn't looking all over the place and that my breathe was so erratic.
Before I really started practicing Ashtanga I didn't understand what Guruji meant when he said "practice and all is coming". Maybe I still don't. But for me, right now, it means to not worry so much about doing a certain asana or a certain number of them. Thinking that if I practice all will come makes me focus more on the invisible yoga; the breath, the bandhas and to not be so concerned about whether or not I will ever get to do Marychiasana D or not in this life time. When I started becoming more aware of my breath and bandhas, I stopped looking around the room at other people, and I stopped being so proud of what I could do and frustrated with what I couldn't do. It seemed to me that the really important thing was something no one can see-- breathe, bandhas. So, I just do what I can do as I focus on the invisible yoga. Ironically, as I do this, my physical practice seems to get better. So, I would say, don't worry so much, breathe, "practice and all is coming."
As time has gone on my yoga practice is more frequent and deepening. I would say that the biggest shift is that I am now more focused on what I call the "invisible yoga", the breathe and the bandhas. As I move throughout my practice, I try to focus my attention on those things as well as the drishti or gazing point. If you do that, you can't really think about anything else. For the most part, my mind doesn't wander. At least it doesn't wander as much as it used to. The ironic thing is that as I focus less on how I can (or mostly can't) do certain poses, I am better able to do the poses. After not going to class for several months, my instructor remarked at how much my practice had deepened. Though, maybe she was talking about the fact that I wasn't looking all over the place and that my breathe was so erratic.
Before I really started practicing Ashtanga I didn't understand what Guruji meant when he said "practice and all is coming". Maybe I still don't. But for me, right now, it means to not worry so much about doing a certain asana or a certain number of them. Thinking that if I practice all will come makes me focus more on the invisible yoga; the breath, the bandhas and to not be so concerned about whether or not I will ever get to do Marychiasana D or not in this life time. When I started becoming more aware of my breath and bandhas, I stopped looking around the room at other people, and I stopped being so proud of what I could do and frustrated with what I couldn't do. It seemed to me that the really important thing was something no one can see-- breathe, bandhas. So, I just do what I can do as I focus on the invisible yoga. Ironically, as I do this, my physical practice seems to get better. So, I would say, don't worry so much, breathe, "practice and all is coming."
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