A little weekend message.

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I'm a daydreamer. Anytime, anywhere. Playing out little wishes and scenarios in my head. Spacing out of whatever is and whatever is around me.

But too much of that isn't very yoga, is it? Because more than being a guilty pleasure, it takes me out of the present moment – the life, the reality I'm in – and sets me down somewhere that doesn't (and may never) exist. 

Sometimes, I admit, when times are tough or boring, that dream space seems far better than letting my mind touch the earth along with my feet. But I've also let daydreaming become a habit, and I've even wandered the alleys and streets of Barcelona, picturing my life if I lived there. The metro. Espadrilles. Dinner deep into the night. What did I see? What did I miss? What did I eat? There are pockets of time where the answer is: I'm not sure.

Sad, yes?

As we go into the weekend, let's remember that walking and thinking in reality is the only way to be in the moment. Not only is there plenty to gain from good and bad, but it's also what us yogis strive to do.

 
 

Occupy Your Life.

All through dinner, I sat quietly. Went back and forth on what to write for this post. J chatted between bites of risotto. I heard his voice, but nothing registered until I felt a question hanging in the air. Emptiness where my answer should've been. And then came the realization: I had no idea what he said.

Sure, it's not startling. It happens (or has happened) to almost all of us. Our inner dialogue gets the best of us. Sweeps us away, and, in turn, closes us off from the connections we could making. The experiences we could be having. And the richness we could be cultivating. 

When you're preoccupied, it's hard to occupy your life.

Is time flying?

The wind taps against my windowpane.

Whispers.

Words like opportunity,

Possibility.

Pointing 

To new roads untraveled.

Signaling softly, quietly,

But persistently,

That time is flying by.

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Between work and chores and obligations, the days seem impossibly short. Momentary. Fleeting. Coming and going so fast, how will we ever catch up?

But the simple truth is: Time is not flying. We are. 

If you zoom, mind and body, through each and every minute, make today the day you slow down. Just a notch at first. You may find the span between sunrise and sunset stretches a bit longer than you imagined and that it is rife with beauties you never noticed.

After all, life is not about efficiency. And richness is absent from rushing.

Self help II.

The way we approach our asanas – the things we carry onto our yoga mat – reflects our negative samskaras, the repetitious ruts and potholes of our lives. But, in that reflection, is also help: Because asanas occupy the body and still the mind, each posture cultivates awareness. Physical. And mental.

The beauty of all that consciousness is: it opens tight places. Creates space, so that space can make room for insight. And so that insight...can spark ideas for change.

But sparks alone aren’t enough to lift us from bad scars and patterns. What is familiar is also powerful, and the ideas that come to us during asana are easily resisted or cast aside when we roll up our mats and return to everyday life. 

What to do? Set intentions. First, make it about your practice. Then inch it into other parts of your life. When you wake up. When you sit down at your desk. When you get in your car to drive down the road.

Though intentions are described many different ways, I believe them to be a self-promise. Something you’d like to embody. Devote yourself to. For a moment. For a day. Maybe even forever. Everything you then do is done with your intention in mind.

Grace and artfulness.

I want to be well.

No anger today.

Calm.

Ahimsa.

What’s beautiful about intentions is: When they mean something, you carry them with you. The feeling you created. The presence. The vulnerability and the hopefulness and the accomplishment. Suddenly, samskaras that seemed impossible to shed soften, and happier samskaras slowly take their place. On the mat…and off.

Self help.

Lately, except for moments of centering here and there, I've been letting myself get swept away – not just a corner of my mind – but all of it. Allowing it to follow someone's off-the-cuff comment. Chase an old idea. Circle back around my worries again and again, letting them take center stage.

Samskaras are powerful patterns, both emotional and physical. Scars. Good, like the taste of an early summer peach. And bad, like the time you pretended not to see someone in need. To me, it seems like the key to a clear mind, to self help, must live here, in our samskaras. Understanding our ways of doing, being and thinking that have, yes, lifted us up, but also where they have jarred us to the core – moments and life experiences that have carved ruts along our road. Deep potholes we are afraid to relive if we take a chance, step off the societal straight and narrow or even make the smallest, most simple of change.


To be continued...Helping the self get past samskaras.

The Wisdom of Yoga

Several weeks ago, my friend and I were instant messaging about Rudi, a character in Stephan Cope's The Wisdom of Yoga. This little piece stuck with me:

E:

i read a line in the book about rudi i liked. it's in my phone. one sec

rudi's happiness had a good deal of sadness in it

the happiness that embraces sadness

is it bad to relate to that statement? 

Me:

no. i get that entirely.

when you think about it, it makes perfect sense.

how can happiness exist without its opposite? how can anything?

The value of opposition. So easy to forget when life throws us a curve ball. When the going gets tough. Or when it feels like nothing will be right again. But without turmoil, peace would not be so gentle. Sweet would have no context without bitter. And, of course, with no sadness to call upon, happy wouldn't mean quite as much.

At the center of things.

"How many times did you center today?"

With the speed our culture moves at, it sounded like a lot to ask. Kids. Work. Emails. Commutes. Who has the time? 

But it's not centering that we can't afford. Going interior, even for just a moment or two, has a wealth of benefits – and you don't have to sit cross-legged to reap them. Standing or sitting, planned or unplanned, short, simple pauses throughout the day help us view situations from a different (and distant) perspective. Centering grounds us. Revitalizes our mental energy. Gives us space in a world crowded with obligations.

After all, we're not just doers. We're human beings. And sometimes, well, we just need to...be. 

A simple centering: Bring awareness to your breath. Offer it your undivided attention. Close your eyes or soften your gaze. Deepen your inhales. Allow the breath to fill the belly, expand the rib cage and touch the collarbones. On your exhalations, send the air out in reverse: from the sternum, the chest and finally, the belly. Then scan your body for tense spots, and visualize your breath traveling to each of those areas, a swirl of healing, unfurling the kinks with each exhalation.

The interconnectedness of all things.

In 2010, my husband and I spent two weeks in Montana. There was much to love. Small towns. Larger-than-life scenery. Idyllic mountains. 

Driving down a lonely highway, we spotted a patch of trees set well below the road. We pulled down a rock-studded path. Trees stood on both sides of the car, trunks white and striped with black scars. Shining gold like paper-thin coins, round, yellow-green leaves on every branch, quivering and shimmying with the wind. 

It was magic. 

Two nights ago, I came across pictures of our trip. And there they were again: my dancing trees. Quaking Aspens.

Yesterday, in the middle of our buzzing work floor, a coworker whispers, “Don’t think I’m crazy…but I fell in love with a tree.”

He’d been in Oregon.

I laugh. Raise my eyebrows and touch my fingers to the keyboard, ready to Google what he tells me.

“Quaking Aspen,” he says.  

And, there it is, right in front of my eyes. Not the image of the trees, but something too beautiful to call happenstance. Synchronicity. A small world.

The interconnectedness of all things.