Changing the construction

Tags

acceptance, change your mind, judgement, life choices, life lessons, meditation, yoga studio

Why doesn’t yoga always feel this peaceful?

Last year, our yoga studio moved to a new location. It’s in a shiny new building with nice bathrooms and freshly painted walls with no fingerprints on them…

…and it’s also got construction.

Lots of construction.

The space above us is being renovated, so there are drills and hammers and all kinds of loud things I can’t even identify. Sometimes I suspect they are doing shot-put with bowling balls for the hell of it. The yoga studio walls shake in savasana. It’s not ideal.

So, I sigh loudly. And I cringe. And I think This studio is my happy place where I come to finally get quiet and de-stress and why isn’t it all calm like doing yoga on a peaceful beach and DEAR GOD WHY???

The other day, one of my yoga teachers – who, not coincidentally, is one of the most enlightened people I know – commented on the construction. She said it made her crazy for a little while, but she just thought about the person who was on the other side of that drill on this Saturday morning. She sent out a little love and gratitude to them for doing their job, so that she didn’t have to work construction and she could be down here, teaching yoga.

Holy shift, Batman.

I was instantly dragged out of my own whiney issues and with such beautiful simplicity, the situation morphed into something positive. It was an opportunity to practice sending some compassion to another being that I don’t even know.

You know what’s really crazy? I don’t even hear the construction anymore. It was like flipping a switch in my mind. And when someone mentioned that the construction was going to be continuing for the next 6 months – I though, well, that’s not too bad.

Because really? In the grand scope of things, what is 6 months?

A mindful, open-hearted comment like that can cause such a shift in perspective. Instead of getting cranky about the construction and therefore ruining my own yoga practice, I can choose a different choice.

Of course, as with everything with yoga, this has been working beyond the mat, too. Instead of rolling my eyes when the lady in front of me at the grocery store wants to fight about the sale price of pretzels – I can change my mind and just be present and feel my feet on the floor. When I have to get blood drawn for my annual check up, I can change my mind and do some deep breathing instead of tensing up my entire body, and almost passing out for lack of oxygen.

Every moment is a choice and you are always allowed to change your mind. It’s shocking to see how often my initial instinct is to make something harder than it needs to be. So much of life is completely out of my control, it makes sense that I should at least choose to make my responses a little more pleasant. It is clear from experience that sending out bitchy, negative energy to a difficult situation is only going to make it worse. For everyone.

The construction is going to be there, whether I am ruining my yoga practice over it or not.

Not seems like a way better choice.

————–

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Hippos on the floor

Tags

Bikram yoga, gratitude, judgement, life choices, mindfulness, spirituality

After a yoga class the other day, a woman went up to our teacher and said,

“I was kind of surprised that you referred to us as hippos. It seemed mean and unlike you.”

Our teacher was horrified. “What? When??”

In floor bow, you said “arms up, legs up, everything up. Only hippos are still on the floor.”

Our teacher smiled and reassured her that she had said “only hip bones are still on the floor. Not hippos.”

And everyone laughed because it was a cute misunderstanding and we went on our way.

But something startling occurred to me. How ready are we to hear something terrible about ourselves? How quick are we to assume the worst and only hear the negative?

I am guilty of this. Give me 100 complements and I’ll only remember the one thing that was not so glowing. That’s the one that will wake me up in the night and leave me cringing and sweating at 2AM.

This is something that I am trying to change. It’s easy to go out of my way to see the best aspects of other people, but when it comes to myself, I tend to be deaf to any praise that might be aimed at me. I’m much more likely to assume someone just called me a hippo.

I love the Three Jewels and it’s part of my daily meditation and gratitude prayers. I especially love this part:

I take refuge in the dharma, the spiritual teachings. I commit myself to the truth as it is.

Because dharma can mean the words of the Buddha and it can also mean the absolutely clear nature of reality. We can make up all kinds of drama to go along with life, we can imagine that he gave me a nasty look or she called me the third largest land mammal on the planet. We can put a negative spin on experiences and get all worked up about them – or we can remove that lens and see the truth as it is.

Acknowledge, accept and then let it go.

It’s a choice.

And when I’m being mindful, I chose that joyful surrender to the truth. It’s way better than being called a hippo.

————————————–

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New post at Elephant Journal: Learning to be still

Tags

acceptance, acting, community, life choices, meditation, mindfulness, Monkey mind, yoga

Hello, yogis!

I hope all of you North American readers had a lovely Labor Day weekend.

I wanted to share my brand new article about meditation, which was just published in Elephant Journal!

Learning to be still

“It’s funny,” my therapist said, “most people get panic attacks about things that will never happen. You get panic attacks about something that happens pretty often.”

I didn’t think it was that funny.

Please click here to read more.

And as always, thank you so much for all your support – it’s never easy talking about anxiety and panic attacks in a public forum. But the open-heartedness I’ve felt here has made it possible for me to share and hopefully, be of use to someone who is dealing with similar challenges.

I hope you enjoy the article.

Peace,

Lisa

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Well. That was unexpected.

Tags

acceptance, Bikram yoga, gratitude, health, life choices

(This was a really hard post to write because I wanted things to be different. I wanted this to be a different post. But I have this inconvenient idea that it’s best to be ‘honest” about “my experiences” – so I wrote it. Here you go. Sigh.)

Sometimes things don’t go quite the way you hoped that they would.

I went to the Mary Jarvis workshop the other weekend. I was nervous but excited about the day. I was prepared that it would be LOOOONG. I lined up someone to walk the dog.

Husband and I arrived at the studio and the place was abuzz. Lots of yogis were in from out of town to take this class and the energy was high. So was the heat. So was the humidity.

The day was scheduled to be a Bikram yoga class, then a posture clinic afterwards. The Bikram class lasted for 3 hours. Mary was great and had interesting and profound things to say but I found myself completely overwhelmed and could barely hear her most of the time. The screaming in my own head was much, much louder than she was.

It felt like my first class.

No, I take that back. It was much harder than my first class.

I laid out probably 70 percent of the postures. My heart was in my throat, I could not get a handle on my breathing and I kept blacking out. To my right, a couple of my teachers were in similar flattened-like-road-kill poses. To my left, Husband collapsed into a pool of sweat on his towel. At least I was not alone.

After class, I sat with Husband and attempted to talk to him. This was challenging as I realized two things: I didn’t have the energy to make coherent sentences and he couldn’t hear me because he was so spaced out. Then he got up and stumbled outside into an alley across the street from our studio.

I got a cold washcloth and ran out to him, attempting to be a good wife. There he was, in bare feet and his tiny yoga shorts doubled over, heaving in an alley behind a fancy apartment building. I’ve never ever seen him so wrecked. This was not the Saturday that I had planned.

We sat in the studio lobby for an hour and tried to get ourselves together. It was futile. He was really pale and had a hard time keeping down coconut water. My hands were still numb. It was just too much. I could complain and justify and say a million things went wrong – from heater management to placement in the room (we know I love to blame external circumstances) but none of that really matters. The bottom line was we just were not having fun.

So, when Husband said that he needed to go home but I could stay for the posture clinic- I considered my options for about three seconds.

There are times to do yoga, and then there are times to not do yoga. I chose to take care of my partner. We went home.

I’m really bummed that it all went down like that. I had really been excited to learn.

Since then, I’ve talked to other people at my studio who said that the class was “crazy” but that they really enjoyed the clinic. I’m really glad. I wanted it to be good.

I’m not saying that all Mary Jarvis classes are like this – it wasn’t her fault.

It simply highlighted for me something that I’ve always known – I’m not hardcore. I love this intense form of yoga and I’ve done 30 Day Challenges but I’m just not the bootcamp kind of yogi. I feel great admiration for those who are and I absolutely love watching them to do their thing –  but I just can’t hack it. I’m okay with that reality. I don’t need to be the best, most bad-ass yogi around.

I wanted to learn. I wanted to have fun in the hot room while deepening my practice. I didn’t want to be so challenged that I was unable to participate. I didn’t want to see my Husband heaving in an alley.

It was an experience. Sometimes you don’t get to understand why things turn out differently than you expected. Sometimes you just need to accept the experience as it is given to you and be grateful.

I’m grateful that I stayed in the room and managed my panic. I’m grateful that I didn’t beat myself up for laying out. I’m grateful that I only cried a little bit. I’m grateful for my imperfect little yoga practice.

And here’s something else I’m grateful for – after a 3 hour class, a regular 90 minutes class feels like a walk in the park.

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You’re not a yogi just because you do yoga

Tags

acceptance, Bikram yoga, life choices

Just doing yoga isn’t enough to make you a spiritual being.

I was in class the other day with an experienced yogi from a different tradition. It was her first Bikram yoga class and from the moment she walked in it was clear she wanted to prove she was beyond this. She rolled her eyes at instructions and when asked to correct her grip she simply refused. She did completely different postures when she didn’t like the ones the class was doing. She kept glaring at the teacher defiantly as she stood sideways on her mat.

I tried my best to focus on my own practice but the sharp, loud sighs from directly behind me were hard to ignore.

After class as we all sat, happily sweaty on benches in the lobby, this student got in my teacher’s face, pointed her finger inches from her eyes and yelled something nasty at her before storming out and slamming the yoga studio door.

It’s OK if you don’t like this practice. It’s OK if you come from other traditions and think this one is bullshit because it’s different from yours. But when you go to a yoga studio, you are agreeing – for 90 minutes – to play by their rules, even if they flatly contradict the way you learned it. (I’ve gone to many yoga studios that use props and forbid you to lock a knee. It felt weird, but I did it.)

But mostly, there is no excuse for treating another human being like that.

It’s not just the cute shorts that make someone a yogi. It’s the ability to embrace the present moment, even if the grip in Standing Bow is not what you are used to. It’s the ability to feel compassion and see value in things you might not completely understand. It’s about making others feel that they are seen and valued.

Spiritual work is hard work; work that is frustrating and often less than rewarding. You can feel like Sisyphus pushing that damn rock up the mountain.

If it were easy, everyone would be walking around like Thich Nhat Hanh.

An awesome Balancing Stick is meaningless if you are a jerk. It’s great to let asana practice be your first step towards a kinder, gentler, more empathetic and understanding version of your higher self. Just don’t let it be the last.

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Social misfits: vegetarians

Tags

food, health, life choices, vegetarianism

“Vegetarians are assholes”

This was a comment on my friend’s Facebook wall.

Ah, yes. It’s barbecue season. Also known as picking-on-vegetarians season.

I don’t think I’m an asshole but I’ve felt that some meat-eaters expect me to attack them and throw red paint all over their meal.

Some vegetarians allegedly have a parade for themselves every time they order a salad, but all I’ve even seen is well-intentioned folks eating what makes them comfortable. All the vegetarians I know tend to keep their eyes on their own plates.

Yet, I have been relentlessly accosted about my choices at barbecues (among other places) while I quietly tend my own veggie burger. It’s usually some combination of the following:

• “You killed that vegetable, too, you know.”
• “Everything dies.”
• “We are biologically created to eat meat.”
• “Don’t you feed your dog meat?”
• “You are unhealthy because you can’t get enough protein.”
• “In the rest of the world, the only people who are not eating meat are the ones who are impoverished. They wish they could eat meat.”
• “Just have a little bite.”

They seem mad at me for not eating meat. I’m just lost on this one; I’m not mad that they don’t eat tofu. I would understand the hostility if I were forcing them to watch Earthlings while they’re eating a T-bone or something, but again — that’s never happened.

I’ve been vegetarian for practically my whole life…there are rumors that I liked baloney when I was two, but that’s all hearsay. Since I was 3 years old, no meat has knowingly passed my lips. (There was this one time when the server put down a small bowl of what looked like olive tapenade. After my first bite, I realized it was pâté. That resulted in gagging and spitting into a linen napkin, downing my entire glass of wine in one gulp and never going back to that place.)

Food choices are highly personal. What can be more personal that what you chose to put inside of your body? I don’t feel comfortable with the notion that an animal died for my meal, when I am perfectly happy with the non-sentient food choices available. It’s that simple.

What you do, is up to you.

But if you are one of those vegetarians who delights in detailing the final moments of the burger’s life to the person eating it; please stop. Leading by (quiet) example is always more effective, and you are making the rest of us look like assholes.

Bon appétit!

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Does yoga really change your eating habits?

Tags

health, juicing, life choices

Swiss chard. Yum or yuck?

I used to be able to eat a whole bag of Doritos for dinner and not blink an eye.

Now, I throw some garlic and olive oil on this leafy fellow and I’m in heaven.

Is it the yoga?

I know some yogis that still eat and drink like they did in college and they claim nothing has changed. But for me, my tastes are totally different; other than the occasional treat (mostly involving dark chocolate) my cravings have been totally turned around.

I love green juice now, something that even a couple of years ago I would have choked on. I also really enjoy cooking fresh, simple meals, whereas before I would have done anything to avoid my kitchen. I’ve always been vegetarian, but eat a lot less dairy these days because I just feel like it weighs me down.

Is this something physical the yoga is doing to me? Am I more sensitive to feeling like crap, because most of the time I feel so damn good? Or I am just falling into the stereotypical yogi lifestyle because I want to sit around after Bikram and debate the best kale recipes?

So, now I’m curious to know what it’s been like for other yogis….have you found a difference in your food habits since doing yoga?

And if you want to share your favorite post-yoga recipe or recipe site…I wouldn’t hate that…. 🙂

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In which I explain the difference between yoga clothes and underwear

Tags

Bikram yoga, life choices

Dear ladies,

It’s hot in a Bikram yoga room. We all want to wear as little as possible. Sometimes a whole shirt is too much, but it’s important to note that a sports bra is a specific item. It looks something like this:

It is not possible to subsitute this for the kind of bra that you might see in a Victoria’s Secret window. If the bra you are wearing is a push-up, has lace or underwire – it’s not appropriate to wear in a yoga class. Breasts are a thing of beauty, show some respect and dress them properly for the activity. While some cleavage is acceptable for a yoga class, displaying your areolas is not.

Dear sirs:

While I am not really familiar with the day-to-day management of your particular equipment, I have learned a thing or two since doing yoga in a really hot room with many of your kind. Specifically, I have learned that you also need support. The support you require is not offered by regular cotton underthings. Cotton stretches out in all kinds of awkward ways and does not offer the assistance you need while stretching and kicking and bending. While I am impressed that you are confident enough to wear just your jockeys in a group of 50 people, you should know that anything with a flap is automatically inappropriate. Please consider something fitted, like this:

Because while those nylon shorts might look nice and breezy it’s because they are breezy and things have the tendency to fall out of them.

So, let’s commit to keeping it all together. I don’t care if it’s Lulu or Shakti or TJ Maxx…as long as it’s not underwear.

Thank you for your consideration.

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Dreaming about the future without killing the present

Tags

Dreaming, gratitude, life choices

Where we live is pretty suburban. We don’t have a ton of the natural world around us and while I’d like to have more, it makes me appreciate the nature that does appear.

Like this fellow, who showed up on my porch last Sunday afternoon.

The day before our amphibian friend came to visit, we had gone out to the country to look at a plot of land and dream. Husband, Dog and I stood amongst the rolling acreage and debated the ideal orientation for the kitchen window. A gentle spring breeze rustled Grace’s fur as she trounced through tall grasses. It was glorious.

This relocation is not happening any time soon, which is something that I might have found very unsettling in the past. I used to be one of those people for whom dreaming meant an inherent feeling that the present moment was inadequate. But this jaunt to the country allowed me to dream about what could be in the future, while also appreciating where we are now.

While country life appears idyllic, living further out means a longer commute, being farther from necessities (i.e. yoga), doing more work tending the land and spending more money we don’t currently have.

The neighborhood where we live now is new and easy and has a startling amount of sameness which is either comforting or disconcerting. Neither the trees or the neighbors have had time to really put down their roots and become established. However, having grown up in Victorian houses, having a working HVAC system and windows that are not painted shut is an exciting novelty. From our living room, we have a panoramic view of the town I love; the town where Husband and I have created our life together.

Of course I am momentarily stabbed with the desire to have my farm now, longing to stand in the perfectly placed kitchen window gazing out at the three-rail fencing. However, I soon remember the joy in loving and respecting the wonderful things I have now; like the frog on my front porch. Living here is fun now, maybe rolling acreage and a long drive to the grocery store will be fun later.

Dreaming doesn’t have to create restlessness, it doesn’t need to rob me of peace in the present moment. It just opens up the world of possibilities. I am finally learning how to dream.

What are you dreaming about these days?

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Life in the sweet spot

Tags

life choices, mindfulness

My dad, golfing in Keswick, Virginia

When I was a kid, my dad had high hopes that I would be sporty. He is a talented golfer and tried to teach me. He soon realized I was more interested in crashing the cart into a garbage can and getting us thrown off the fancy golf course…so we moved on to tennis.

I wasn’t good at that, either, but I swung with passion. I’d pull my scrawny arm back and follow through to the point that my racket flew around and almost cracked me on the back of the skull. If I actually connected with the ball, my racket would twist and wrench my arm and the ball would fly all screwy through the air. That was tennis for me; it was bone shaking and unpredictable. I was fighting with every swing and I was suffering.

Then I decided maybe I shouldn’t hold my breath and with this one glorious swing, I hit the sweet spot. It was effortless. The ball flew straight and pure and I felt like I was flying with it. No teeth shattering reverb. No wrenched wrist. I was in sync.

I have those moments in my life, when I feel like I am in the sweet spot and I am doing what my soul was intended to be doing. For a fleeting moment, I can see my true self is steering the ship and I am not operating from fear or guilt or ego. Life flows with ease.

Usually, they are seemingly simple moments that evoke this feeling. Sometimes I get it walking out of yoga. Or writing. Or cooking dinner. Or walking my dog. Or sitting on my porch. Unremarkable things create this graceful moment, when I feel entirely aligned.

I’ve noticed the more present I am, the more often I have those experiences. They are still more rare than I would like, but when they do come, it’s blissful. It is the feeling of the universe giving me a quick pat on the back.

Unfortunately, no matter what I do, or how well I do it, not everyone will agree with my decisions and think I’m awesome. I don’t have a 24/7 cheering squad on the sidelines, celebrating me for following my instincts and supporting my life choices.

This is disappointing.

But that’s why I try to remember that those moments of being in the sweet spot are all the encouragement, support and reassurance I really need.

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