On change, letting go, and lighting up your life

The equinox has passed, the Earth is shifting on its axis, and everywhere I look, change is in the air.

In times of change, we ourselves shift on our axes. Perhaps, unawares, we simply begin moving to a different rhythm, but it may be that we find ourselves questioning, doubting, or resisting the shifts in our bodies and minds. Perhaps we are clinging to the way things were before. Perhaps we are grasping at a future that has not quite manifested.

The changing of the seasons brings changes to our routines. As householder yogis, a change in the season will almost invariably bring about a change in our asana practice. We may find ourselves unable to practice as much, or practicing in a different way. As I browse around the blogsphere, I notice a degree of anxiety about these changes. I read words from bloggers who are hard on themselves, who judge themselves, who "beat themselves up" in their minds if they don't practice long enough, hard enough, if they don't do that pose. Now, we have all been there, and maybe this is part of the process that we all have to go through in order to let go of our egos, but it makes me think that it is easy to get too attached to our asana practice.

Now, wait, isn't that what yoga is all about? Well - no. In times like this I remind myself that asana is only 1 of the 8 limbs of yoga. I remind myself that the fundamentals of yoga are the yamas and the niyamas (the restraints and the self-restraints). They are like the roots of the tree, the soil that nourishes the soul, and they are a practice in themselves.

The yamas and the niyamas ground us when the road is smooth, and guide us through the bumps of transformation.  Like all ethical codes, they are there to help us handle hard choices. Most of all they are a lens through which we are asked to see ourselves - and this, of course, is the hardest journey of all.

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The inspirational Nadine Fawell is no stranger to hard journeys. She has had to confront the emotional scars of childhood abuse and the damaging cycle of fear and self-sabotage that it left her in. She dug deep, and emerged on the other side with a profound insight into how to use the transformational power of yoga to "cut through your emotional B.S., get strong and comfortable in your body, and learn the art of radical self-acceptance."

And the best part? She wants to share it with YOU.  She has taken what she has learned and created a 4-week e-course called Light Up Your Life.  Combining yoga, yoga philosophy, journalling, healthy eating and relaxation techniques, Light Up Your Life is designed to help you identify the areas of your life, or yourself, that you want to shed light on - and to realise that desire.  I think what she has put together is amazing, and I am super-proud to be an affiliate of the course.

Does lighting up your life sound like just what you need this fall/spring? Head over to her website and bring on the light!

When elephants fly, or, how a non-religious yogi interprets "Ishvarapranidhana"

I am not usually one to re-post old posts. But I came across this one from my archives the other day and couldn't help but re-post it.  

When you begin to dive deeper into the philosophy of yoga, some of the first things you encounter are the ethical principles that serve as guidelines to a 'yogic life'. Known as the Yamas (abstinences) and the Niyamas (self-restrictions), these principles are the foundations of any practice of yoga that goes beyond the physical body.

As a person with no religious upbringing, the ethical code of yoga both inspired and daunted me. And since I have never had the inclination to devote myself to a deity or God, I initially struggled with many of the devotional aspects of yoga philosophy, and with teachers who are on a devotional path. It wasn't that I didn't respect their views - I simply couldn't relate to their journey or understand their explanations of things. One concept in particular that stumped me was the requirement, as expressed by the Niyamas (which every yoga teacher must sort of 'swear' to uphold) of "Ishvarapranidhana" - Devotion to God.

So if you, like me, struggle somewhat with this concept, perhaps the following story about a loveable, big-eared elephant will speak to you, too...


Ishvarapranidhana: When elephants fly

Yoga is about transformation. In yoga philosophy, the five Niyamas, or "self-restrictions", teach us how we can prepare ourselves to receive this transformation, to become the change in our lives. By cleansing our bodies and our environment (saucha), we get rid of what is unhealthy, making space for positive growth. By accepting ourselves as we are and feeling gratitude for all our blessings (santosha), we are able to appreciate even the smallest transformations in our lives as a gift. By being disciplined and putting in effort (tapas), we turn wasted energy into the fire of transformation. By studying ourselves (svadhyaya), we strip away the ego and allow our True Self to manifest.

The final Niyama is "Ishvarapranidhana", or "devotion to God". It is a concept that I have struggled with, not being, or ever having been, of any religious creed. So for those of you who may also struggle to untangle this concept, I offer you the story of Dumbo. Yes, Dumbo - the baby elephant with the enormous ears.

Because of his huge ears, Dumbo is a social outcast. When his mother tries to protect him from a judgmental mob, she is imprisoned as a mad elephant. The people who run the circus make him an object of ridicule, dressing him as a clown and forcing him to fall from a high platform into a vat of pie filling. But then, Dumbo is given a magic feather and told it will make him fly. Desperate to change his situation and get his mother released, Dumbo grabs the feather and flaps his ears. And sure enough, he flies!

The next night he takes the magic feather to his act, but at the last minute he loses it. As he plummets down, Dumbo finds out that the feather has no magic at all, and, finally believing in himself, he opens his ears and soars through the air. The audience is thrilled, the circus loves him, and his mother is freed.

The moral of the story is that the feather never had any magic powers - it was the power of Dumbo's belief that allowed him to go beyond the limitations he was stuck in, and perform miracles.

Ishvarapranidhana, then, for me, is not about devotion to God, but about devotion to the Self. It teaches us that if we believe in transformation, it will happen, if we open our minds to the possibility of new patterns, we can manifest them. If we have faith in ourselves, walls can crumble, barriers can come down, and we can be free.  If we devote ourselves to the process of change, then miracles can happen and yes, even elephants can fly.

Readers, how do you interpret Ishvarapranidhana in your yoga practice?

Taking Yoga (Injuries) Seriously

I usually don't weigh in on the heavy yoga debates, and I'm not about to start now. I have the curse of always being able to see both sides of an issue. But this article about how a woman quit yoga after an injury has been making the rounds and caught my attention.

A few bloggers have criticised the author of the article for quitting, but personally, I don't see that as an issue. Yoga is a personal practice, not a panacea. It's not right for everyone and not everyone will like it. Some people will quit.  So what? The author of the article made her choice, learned something about herself in the process, and found a physical practice that she thought suited her better. It sounds like a happy ending to me.

The issue that I have is that this woman was medically diagnosed with high blood pressure and was not aware, or made aware, of the potential impacts, or told that she shouldn't be doing inversions, especially not intense inversions like headstand and handstand.  The resulting injury she suffered led her to quit yoga, rather than to quit inversions - which is her personal choice and it's really not my place to judge, opine, or argue with that. It's a free world, as they say.

From my perspective, reacting to tales of yoga injuries by denying them, defending yoga, or attacking the injured person or their teacher is not a constructive response. Yoga-asana is a physical discipline and the possibility of injury is always there. Find me one yoga practitioner who has never felt the twinge of over-stretching a muscle, fallen over while attempting a balancing pose, received a bad adjustment, or simply wound up feeling dizzy or nauseous while practicing. I think it's our responsibility to acknowledge that the risks are there and to do our best to become safe and knowledgeable practitioners and teachers. We need to remember that the principles of Ahimsa (non-harming), Aparigraha (non-grasping), and Satya (being truthful), among others, are more important to a yoga practice, or teaching yoga, than the asanas.

Being a pragmatist, I have tried to draw out some lessons from this story, and here are a few that I can think of.

1. If you have a medical condition, discuss it with your doctor and your yoga teacher, and do your own research, so that you can make safe choices - and then make them! (Ahimsa!) Don't make the mistake that this woman made, of keeping silent about her new medical condition and finding out the hard way what the consequences were. If neither of them know what to tell you, find a new doctor or a new teacher! And of course, do the research yourself - including drawing on your personal practice - so that you can make safe choices. Everyone is different - it's ok to explore and test your boundaries and find out where your personal limits are - but don't ignore them (Aparigraha - let go!).

2. If you are a teacher, know your contra-indications and always state them. (Satya!) In the reality of teaching large-group classes, we can't always know the medical histories of each and every one of our students. But we can take 10 seconds to make sure we talk about the contra-indications of the classes we are teaching and the poses we are instructing.  Especially with "higher-risk" poses like inversions. [I say higher risk because in a person with untreated high blood pressure, holding a long inversion could potentially lead to serious medical complications, possibly even a stroke. And that deserves to be taken seriously.]

• Because students often come in late, what I have found best is to make a short announcement after the opening meditation or when I bring the class to standing for the first time. I talk about the level of the class, and if it's a physically demanding class (as I usually teach), I warn people that it might not be appropriate if they are pregnant, or have medical conditions or injuries. 
• When I talk about contra-indications, I often say "please". As in, "were going to do shoulderstand now, but if you have high blood pressure, please don't go into this pose straight away - just relax until I can come around to you".

This also means learning about conditions that might affect your students as they age - more and more people are practicing or even starting yoga in their golden years, and it's worth the extra study to find out about osteopenia/osteoporosis, high blood pressure or Type II diabetes, for example.
 

3. If you are a teacher, create a safe space, and actively encourage people to acknowledge their bodies' limitations and explore alternatives.  This doesn't mean you can, or should, force people to stay within artificially drawn boundaries. But you should be able to set the foundation for your students to make informed choices, and create an atmosphere where nobody feels pressured to go too far. (Ahimsa again!)

I'd love your comments and thoughts... Readers, from your experience, what would you add to these suggestions?

Following the signs

Royalty free image from: www.inmagine.com

Following the signs... That's what Suburban Yogini did this week, as you can read here.

We have all been through those times when it seems as though the whole Universe is pointing us in a certain direction.  It starts as an idea, that like a seed once planted begins to take root and push its way inevitably upwards.  We water this seed with our dreams, our ideas, our gut instincts, until finally it pushes its delicate head above the surface, blooming and blossoming from an idea into a definitive path, a signal marker pointing the way.  All that remains is to start down the path.

Yoga helps us to recognise these signs.  And by putting us in touch with our selves, Yoga also helps us to make the choice to follow them.  For me, this is Satya - truthfulness - the desire to be true to yourself.  Yoga helps us to realise that we are always choosing our reality - choosing how we act, whether or not to react, how we perceive a situation and what we do as a result.  Yoga helps us to live more mindfully by going from a reactive frame of mind to a proactive frame of mind.  So instead of letting our bodies, emotions and minds make choices for us, we are mindfully choosing how we experience life as it comes to us.

Where are the signs pointing for me?  Well, you'll have to wait a little longer to find out!  But there are things in the works, so stay tuned!!

Readers, what are the signs in your lives telling you?

Eat Pray Love - the Island behind the book

Jamie at On the Mat recently posted a nice review of the book/movie event, Eat Pray Love.

I have to say that the book fell a bit flat for me, although I did read it until the end.  I enjoyed the bits about Bali because I go there often and recognized many of the places, but I couldn't really relate to Gilbert's character, and I didn't find myself warming to her.  Maybe that's because I've never been through a divorce.  Maybe I'm just a different kind of person in the way I deal with hardship in my life.  I did like the wise words of the Texan yoga dude though.  I wish HE would write a book!

Anyway, as a spin off to Jamie's post, I have definitely been affected by the side affect of this book that she mentions - the people who are now going on copy-cat vacations and yes, you guessed it, ending up in Ubud, Bali, one of my favourite and often frequented (it's only 1.5 hours away by plane) vacation spots!  Not that there's anything wrong with that - Ubud is a tourist mecca and not exactly private anyway! - but really, there are only so many western women looking to find themselves (and a hot Brazilian second husband wouldn't hurt...) who can hang around in any one small Balinese town! ;)

I guess the thing that bothers me is that some of these visitors are traveling to far-flung places but are not really as interested in discovering those places as in finding themselves.  Now there's nothing wrong with soul-searching, but if you are going to come to someone else's home, why not learn a bit about it?  Get to know some of the locals? Learn about the history and politics of the place, the struggles and joys of its people?  I know Gilbert did this to some extent in her book, and that's great, but I have met people in Bali who don't even know that Bali is part of the Republic of Indonesia!  Really.

Last time I was in Ubud I met a woman on one such soul quest.  When I told her that I lived in East Timor (blank look), an island south-east of Bali, she looked at me and breathily oozed: "oooooooh, is it just PARADISE?".  I hardly even knew how to respond.  The words sort of stumbled out and I mumbled, "oh, it's not as nice as here", and moved off.  It wasn't her fault that she wasn't aware of the poverty, hardship and suffering (or existence at all), of the people in East Timor.   But what I wanted to say was "no... and neither is Bali".

Because Bali, while it may seem like paradise (and I'll be interested to see how it comes across in the film), is just a place like anywhere else.  Behind the glossy tourist facades, there is a harder life, too.  Corruption, harsh political realities and the constant struggle against poverty are just as much a reality here as many other places in the Indonesian archipelago.

Just sayin...  Satya, they yogic principle of truthfulness, is also about seeing the world as it is, in all its multi-layered complexity.  Not seeing only what you want to be true.

Wherefore art thou Yoga?

Ok, before we go any further let's clear up that old misunderstanding.  Juliet is NOT asking for the current location of her Romeo (this was, after all, the days before GPS iPhones and such).  She's asking "why are you Romeo".  As in, why is he a Montague and she is a Capulet, and therefore their love, instead of being joyous and free, is forbidden and doomed.  Deep stuff, that William Shakespeare. ;)

So what I'm asking here, is, what is in a name?

Lately I have been feeling that the yoga community has picked up a pattern of being quick to judge.  Maybe it's a natural consequence of how many different styles and opinions and trends there are in yoga nowadays, but for me, this train of thought comes from a few unconnected places:

• An encounter with an Ashtangi whose eyebrows lifted sky high as I said that most days I do an abbreviated selection of primary series poses so that I can fit in my pranayama beforehand and still start work by 9.  Maybe I imagined it, but I felt that the look said "how can you call yourself a yogi if you would rather do pranayama than a full primary practice?".
• Snippets around the blogosphere that label yogis according to things like what they wear or what gender/race they are... as if suddenly there is this entire demography of young white women wearing brand-name yoga clothes whose pursuit of yoga is somehow made invalid by their choice of wardrobe...
• Supposed body-love sites on which people rant against thin women, as if they had done something wrong by being born small-boned, or by working hard to be slim and strong, and that this perhaps excluded them from spiritual transformation in some way.  Of course I take this personally because I just happen to be one, both by the random accident of my DNA (thanks mom and dad!) and with a fair amount of hard work added in for good measure, too.

So my question is, why do we find it so important to define our Yoga?  To put walls around it, to make it an include/exclude club?  Why do we feel the urge go forth and proclaim that x form of yoga is not true yoga while y most certainly is because...?

Is it attachment? Do we need to validate our own practice, our own bodies over those of others, in order to make us feel safe and strong?  Do we need to create superiority in order to justify our choices, e.g. not to wear or to wear brand-name yoga attire?

Is there any way that such things can contribute positively to the larger discussion on Yoga or are they like quicksand, a mass of confusion that sucks us in that we find it hard to get out of?

When I did my YTT my teachers emphasised a principle that I have always embraced here on this blog and everywhere in my yoga life, which is never to make negative generalisations about any other person's yoga, any other style of yoga, or any other teacher of yoga.  Keeping in line with the niyama of Satya, truthfulness, this stems from the notion that we cannot project our opinions as truth.

To give an example:  I may share with someone that I read a convincing article that doing 'hot' yoga does not really lead to greater detoxification than other types of yoga because the body does not detoxify through the sweat glands but rather through the inner organs.  That much is fact.  I did read that article and that is what it said.  But I would not say that hot yoga is therefore "wrong" in some way.  Actually, not only do I really not care if you do hot yoga or not, but if you like it and it brings you what you need, then I am absolutely happy for you!

Yoga really can be a community... But not while it is fractured, divided, polarised and happy that way.  Then again, every community needs a moral compass...  Think I need to bust out my sutras again, or my YTT late-night philosophy discussion notes. :)

This is a rather rambling post and unstructured.  I'm not trying to judge the judgers or blame the blamers, just trying to muddle my way through some of these thoughts.  Maybe it reflects more on me that I am so sensitive, than it does on the people I perceive to be judgemental!

Peeps, what do you think?  Does Yoga by any name at all still feel just as sweet?

The Yoga of Dumbo

Yoga is about transformation. In yoga philosophy, the five Niyamas, or "self-restrictions", teach us how we can prepare ourselves to receive this transformation, to become the change in our lives. By cleansing our bodies and our environment (saucha), we get rid of what is unhealthy, making space for positive growth. By accepting ourselves as we are and feeling gratitude for all our blessings (santosha), we are able to appreciate even the smallest transformations in our lives as a gift. By being disciplined and putting in effort (tapas), we transform wasted energy into the fire of transformation. By studying ourselves (svadhyaya), we strip away the ego and allow the True Self to emerge.

The final Niyama is "Ishvarapranidhana", or "devotion to God". It is a concept that I have struggled with many times, not being, or ever having been, of any religious creed. So for those of you who may also struggle to untangle the same sticky philosophical threads, I offer you the story of Dumbo. Yes, Dumbo. The baby elephant with the enormous ears.

Dumbo is a social outcast. Ridiculed by the circus where he was born, he is taunted and turned into a clown. His mother tries to protect him from a judgemental mob, and is imprisoned as a mad elephant. His circus makes him an object of ridicule, forcing him to fall from a high platform into a vat of pie filling. But then, Dumbo is given a magic feather and told it will make him fly. Desperate to change his situation, not out of ego but in order to get his mother released, Dumbo takes a leap of faith and flaps his ears. And sure enough, he flies! The next night he takes his magic feather to his act, but at the last minute he loses it. As he plummets down, Dumbo finds out that the feather has no magic at all, and, finally believing in himself, he opens his ears and soars through the air, amazing and delighting the audience of thousands.

The feather never had any magic powers - it was the power of Dumbo's belief that allowed him to break through the barriers in his mind and perform miracles.

Ishvarapranidhana, therefore, teaches us that if we believe in transformation, it can happen. If we set our minds to change our situation, we can overcome obstacles that seemed insurmountable! If we truly believe in ourselves, we will create our happiness. And most of all, if we put all our efforts together, we can inspire others to also witness the unforgettable moments of magic in the world, the glorious liberation of transformation, when barriers are destroyed and miracles happen - the moment when an elephant flies. :)

The Niyamas - without ethics, "all is just circus"

It's hard to know where to begin this post, having recently come home from a 3 1/2 week teacher training retreat in beautiful Bali. Since the real purpose of Teacher training is to recognise the teacher within, and in Yoga the discipline of looking at oneself is expressed through the Niyamas, I thought I would start with that. The Niyamas are the second of the eight 'limbs' of Yoga, and are key observances or self-practices that are like beacons, lighting the path back to the true self.

Saucha – purity
To live Saucha starts with oneself – taking care of the body, which is our temple, our vehicle through this life, the mind, and the soul. Yoga gives us helpful cleansing techniques, or Kriyas, which are practiced every day to keep the nadis (energy channels) of the body clean and balanced. In a borrowed metaphor, Yoga is like a process of renovating your house (transforming your life). So once you have knocked down walls, broken through barriers, smashed what you no longer want or need, you must sweep away the old to make room for the new. After all, who decorates a dirty house?

Santosha – Contentment / Satisfaction
Santosha is the principle of accepting what we are given in life as enough. But it is more than material contentment or detachment from the material world. Santosha is to realise that all that we need, we already have, within ourselves. All the tools for our liberation are there, waiting for us to remember how to use them. To live Santosha is also to accept your limitations of the present moment. In our daily practice of the Ashtanga primary series at the retreat, each of us has to accept the limitations of our current practice, as we are allowed no further in the series if we cannot perform a pose. It is frustrating because our natural tendency is to look ahead at poses to come, and measure ourselves against them. But by learning to live with our limitations we also learn to be satisfied with our state of being as we are.

Tapas – Effort / Self-Discipline
Tapas is more than just 'effort', it is 'transformative effort'. Tapas is the ability to see the silver lining in your hard work, even when it feels like it is going nowhere. Literally “fire” in Sanskrit, Tapas is the ability to burn through your negative thoughts and make room for the positive. The Ashtanga Primary Series (literally called “Yoga Therapy” in Sanskrit) is the embodiment of this transformative process. It is a rigorous, challenging series that cleanses and balances the body. It requires discipline, commitment, patience and humility, and when practiced thus, it will indeed rouse the fire that can transform you and move you to another level.

Svadhyaya – Self-study
One could say that this principle is the embodiment of Yoga. Whether we know it or not, to practise Yoga is to embark in a journey of self-discovery. As one of my teachers said: “the mat is like your battlefield. Here you confront yourself. And if you can rise to that challenge, do battle with your ego and still maintain a steady breath, what in life can you not do?” Our Svadhyaya on the retreat was further intensified with the observation of Mauna, or “noble silence”, for the first 7 days when not in class. Imagine 25 people walking in silence, eating in silence. It was intense! The Mauna was like a cleansing process – breaking the habit of “chit-chat”, of speaking without thinking, of being on social autopilot. Bringing us to mindfulness, bringing us into ourselves.

Ishvarapranidhana – devotion
Literally this Niyama means “surrender to God”, but for me personally the idea of devotion is not that blind following that I associate with my limited contacts with modern religious institutions. The devotion here is to a higher purpose, yes, but that purpose need not be sought without, for it resides within every one of us. Call it what you will: the soul, the consciousness, our inner light, our divinity, our inner nobility, our True Self. To be devoted to finding this inner light is a lifelong commitment. It requires us to peel away the obstacles of humanity (ignorance, egoism, attachment, hatred, to name a few) in search for that which is already within us. Ishvarapranidhana is the humility to look truly at oneself, the courage to accept change, the discipline to transform our lives so that we can live every moment of every day as our true selves – so we can be free.

And so, those are a few of the lessons I have been learning of late. It is good to remind ourselves of these fundamental principles, which are after all the foundations of all the rest of the limbs of Yoga, with the Yamas. This is crucial because Patanjali is telling us: to achieve liberation, one must live an ethical life. Without this, in the famous words of Pattabhi Jois: “all is just circus.”