Sun Salutations

Honoring The Process

Since my mom's passing (in early January) I haven't had a lot of energy for sharing, or for interacting – I've only wanted to sit quietly with this blanket of grief wrapped around me and stay present with the whole full-hearted experience. And that felt fine to me. 

Normally when I feel uninspired, sad, drained, or find my thoughts filled with negativity, it's usually an indication that I've become contracted and need to decompress, unwind and receive the blessings that surround me; that I need to come home to my self - back to a simple and pure awareness. But with death, feelings of loss and grief are natural, healthy even. I wanted to honor that, to show up for it respectfully and not suppress, repress or hurry it along. I wanted to breathe into it and let it take its time with me. So I did... and it did. 

Recently, with the first stirrings of Spring, I started to feel like it was time to move out a little. I was checking the website at The Christine Center and I spotted the seminar “for and by women” and felt drawn to it. I thought it might be just the thing for me to break out of my grief bubble: to be in a welcoming circle of women.

The Christine Center is a beautiful facility and the women who run it have spent many long years creating the space in their own hearts and in the facility, to hold us each in whatever way we show up – contracted, grieving, fearful, sad, in denial or in our radiant truth, in hatred or in love, in anger or in joy... someone will always be there to welcome and receive travelers. And so they were, as I entered into that circle on Friday evening and shared what brought me there.

Endings often open a door for new beginnings. Throughout the weekend, different women approached me with hugs, genuine condolences, and their own stories of grief, loss and moving on. I felt held, accepted, loved. Together we laughed and cried. I felt my spirit lighten up with the support of the circle. The high-level joy and love that is my true nature returned.

I followed my instincts throughout the process with my mom and it's served me well. I know the grieving process will continue in many different ways and on so many different levels, and I am ok with that. My mom has always been welcome in my life, my home, my heart – that will never change. However she shows up; as a feeling of joy, a memory, or even a sad sense of loss; I will always welcome her.

I wonder, have you been to The Christine Center - for my seminars or any others? What was your experience there? Please share a little for those who have never made the pilgrimage. I'd love to hear from you. Better yet, I'd love to see you in person at my seminar Nurturing Presence In Life. Through a simple set of asanas I will share some of the best things I've learned about cultivating Presence - from my teachers and my experiences in yoga. People are already registering for it. If you're not one of them, why not get your name in there too? Isn't it time you broke out of your winter rut and welcomed back your inherent joy? Do not worry about old age, stiffness, or feeling out of shape... as always, you are welcome to come as you are. Come and let your heart unfold in the circle of love. 

Leave a comment below, then check out my website for more details on the seminar for March 28 - 30 at Christine Center. I'd love to see you there.

On Presence

My mother died on January 7 as two of my sibs and I sat by her bed, holding her hands and surrounding her with our love. It was a powerful and intense thing to witness the life force leaving her over the course of one week - right before our eyes, like a time-lapse of some kind – a high-speed diminishing of her animating spirit.

At one point in the middle of the week, things got more difficult for me. Although we had hospice and we were able to manage her pain levels pretty well, every little thing she wanted to say or do required monumental effort as the life energy drained out of her. It was intense to bear witness to that. At one point about midway in the week I became aware of my own growing angst. I wanted to ease her suffering, make her dying easier for her or make it go faster. I couldn't help but wonder how many times in my life she watched me struggle, willing but completely unable to assist me. I felt like some kind of midwife, “unbirthing” my mother.

I prayed “What can I do? How can I help? How can I be more supportive for her process?” The answer popped up so quickly, like it was waiting, just wanting me to ask: Be Present. Completely present. My suffering, in that moment, was an obstacle to full presence, awareness and love. She didn't need my suffering. She had enough of her own struggle to deal with.

“Oh mom, I wish there was something I could do to make this easier for you.” She opened her eyes and looked at me. With a breathy exertion she pointed a finger, as if to make her point and gasped quietly, “Honestly?... I'm going to be alright.” Whoa! That was a wake up call for me to get out of my personal drama and open to pure Presence.

I let go of being in control, of being the doer, (or needing to be the doer) and let the infinite guide me. When I open my heart in silence, I am no longer a vessel that can be drained but a channel, a conduit. A channel for what? Love, grace, clarity, inspiration, motivation, compassion, understanding. Otherwise I am working merely from my emotional and intellectual brain and I am at the mercy of whatever it creates.

This, then, is my religion, my most fundamental belief: the most significant thing we ever have to offer is Presence. To dedicate a life to being more fully present, clearly aware, fully awake and available is the greatest gift we can give to the world.

My next seminar March 28 – 30 at Christine Center (and all my offerings) builds on that. Cultivating Presence is a powerful direct route to a joyful life of depth and beauty,  free from suffering. More information at smilingyogi.com.

The Greatest Gift

I just ran across the results of a "Yoga in America" study, offered by Yoga Journal. I found it fascinating. The top five reasons for starting yoga were listed as flexibility, general conditioning, stress relief, improve overall health and physical fitness. Why did I find that fascinating? Because all of those things are merely pleasant side effects of a practice developed to offer treasures far more valuable and significant to the human condition than the sum of all of them put together. I don't mean to understate the value of overall health and I am well aware of how our physical, mental and emotional well-being are intertwined.

But yoga points to something beyond health and well-being. Beyond what we can even imagine when we first start out. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali has been invaluable to me in my understanding and practice of yoga. It consists of 196 concise, bare-bones observations on the nature of consciousness and liberation. It offers a map, step by step instructions for cultivating an inner stillness and clarity steady enough to free us from suffering of all kinds whether physical, mental or emotional. In that clarity and stillness we see through the veils of illusion to the nature of reality. We have the capacity to be pure, clear conduits for love. It's advantageous to keep that bigger picture in mind and to align with it all day long, everyday - whether your practice is strong, medium or almost non-existent.

The Sanskrit word "Abhyasa" means practice - being willing to rest in inner stillness and it is the first requirement. It comes way before yoga postures, yogic breathing or meditation. It refers to a willingness to relax your grip on your story, your fears, all your desires to be right, to be heard, to be loved or to be better than someone else - and return to a state of inner stillness. It means remembering that there is a practice, a reason to wake up from our conditioned responses and ways of seeing. The first requirement is to want that and be willing to sacrifice for it. That seems almost too obvious to warrant stating it as a requirement. Or so I thought. It's not as simple or as easy as it may sound.

I came face to face with this teaching a couple years after my 19 year old son was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. He broke both his legs, knocked out most of his beautiful teeth and endured a serious brain injury. I held it together to get through the ordeal but then a couple years later, when all the dust had settled and he was getting his life back on track I had a huge meltdown. All the repressed emotions came up in an enormous volcanic eruption one day and as I walked down a wooded hiking trail near my home, I felt an urgent need to get myself grounded. I literally curled up on the ground at the base of a tree and wept. I wept out all the tears I had held back, I wept out all the fear I had experienced, all the frustration and anger I couldn't show as I struggled with doctors, nurses, therapists and my son. When an acquaintance  happened by, she looked shocked and dismayed to see me in such a state of despair but I looked up at her through my tears thinking "you don't know what a relief this is - how good this feels!"

Some years later, as I described the moment to my teacher, I said "it felt like a birthright, as a mother, to have that moment... it felt like a drink of water on the desert... it felt like I had been a pressure cooker and I let some of the pressure out..." At that point my teacher, Francis Lucille, got quiet a moment, then thoughtfully said to me, "Yes, you could let the pressure out... or you could just turn off the flame." (Quit feeding the story!)

The most interesting part of this story is what happened next. My first reaction - my initial gut reaction to that was an almost physical clinging, a hugging in to that experience. My knee-jerk reaction was "No thank you! I wouldn't trade that for the world!" It was then I realized the magnitude of what he was offering me. By then I had spent my entire adult life mining the deepest yoga teachings, longing for liberation from self-limiting thoughts. How advantageous to have a teacher! Here he was, pointing precisely to the spot where I was to make my next move, and there I was, clinging to what I knew, to what I was familiar with, to my story! In the very next moment I threw my head back and laughed at myself and the folly of it. What was I saying? Of course I will sacrifice the drama, deserved or not, delicious or torturous, for the holy grail of inner peace.

This kind of dedicated yoga can be done anytime, in any circumstances, and the more you practice, the easier and more obvious it gets. Observe thoughts and emotions as they arise, from a place of openness and acceptance, from a place of stillness. Observe how often you choose to invest in your own suffering. Observe how many of your daily activities add to an inner restlessness and agitation that keeps the mind in constant motion; from television, radio and newspapers to your actions and interactions with others, to everything you read and say. Observe how many of your thoughts throughout the day - your auto-pilot mind workings, feed your suffering, add to your "story" and take you deeper into a sense of separation and suffering. And while you're at it, see if you can detect a certain kind of enjoyment in it. (It's oddly addicting!)

Relief can be as simple as letting go of the clinging to and identifying with your story. Abhyasa is remembering that there is a noble practice and choosing to cultivate inner stillness again and again, each and every day. If you don't have the time or patience for an asana practice, then this is the best place for you to start. Everyone has time for this. Everyone has time for remembering that there is something infinitely more valuable to invest awareness in. Remember that there is a map... remember that there is another way of being that is more awake, more aware, more alive, freer and more joyful than anything you ever dreamed of.

In the final analysis, it doesn't make any difference if you've come to yoga for flexibility or enlightenment. If you continue to delve into the teachings of yoga and skillfully cultivate your practice of abiding in inner stillness for a long, continuous time, you will enjoy the tremendous freedom from self-limiting thoughts that yoga brings. Who will you be without your story? Well, you will still have your story (we aren't performing a lobotomy!) but you won't be dragging it around like a ball and chain. You won't be held hostage by it. You won't have to define your life with it. When you don't have to care for your story, feeding it and wrapping yourself around it, acting it out and identifying with it, what's left is a great freedom in itself. You will be a conduit; a clear strong conduit for pure awareness and love. Dedicating your life to awakening, to awareness, to yoga/union to the greater whole, is the greatest gift you can give to yourself, your family, the world.

One simple thing you can do for your practice

If winter got the best of you, springtime is a perfect time to reclaim your inspired yoga practice. One of the things I've always loved about yoga is that anytime I wandered from my daily practice, I always felt completely welcomed back with no guilt, no shame, not even a setback. For me yoga has never been as much about performance of a certain position as surrendering to my inherent love of life.

The Yoga Sutras tell us that to really get the best of what yoga has to offer, we need to stick with it consistently for a long time. I wanted to share a little trick that works: one simple thing you can do to strengthen your commitment and insure consistent practice that lasts.

This is best done immediately following a really great yoga session. It doesn't make any difference if it's a yoga class, a retreat you're attending, or a perfectly aware, full session at home. Make sure you're not in a hurry to rush off to the next event. Bring a lovely piece of paper/stationery or a blank card selected especially for the occasion. If like me, you are a connoisseur of fine writing instruments, then bring along your favorite pen too.

After your next wonderfully rich, spot-on yoga session, sit quietly for a few minutes, or lie in savasana, breathing and receiving the many blessings being offered to you. Be still... open... quiet... and aware... Let yourself deeply and fully receive. Take your time. Enjoy.

When you are ready, take up your paper and write a note to yourself: the self that will invariably become distracted with all the many wonderful things to do, read, research, watch and discover in the world; the self that will decide NOT to do a yoga practice some mornings. From where you sit now, feeling what you are feeling and knowing what you experientially know right now about yoga, write yourself a note about why a regular practice of yoga is important to you. Essentially, it's a love letter to yourself.

When you are finished, place your LOVEly note in an envelope and place it somewhere you can easily get to, but won't forget about. If you have a little altar space in your yoga room, that would be ideal. I used to put mine under my yoga mat or under my meditation cushion. When I had to roll up my mat and put it away in a closet, I rolled it in my mat.

Here's the deal: promise yourself that any day you find yourself choosing to skip your practice, you will at least show up to read the note. That's all. It's beautiful. It's remarkably effective.

A note from your most awake, aware, alive, illumined self to your crazy, wild, spontaneous and sometimes distracted self. Just a note. Not a nagging note, not a finger wagging scolding note, but a love note, reminding you of the value of a promise you made to yourself. So if you don't stay to practice, simply reading your note will to some degree, shift you energetically, back to your expanded love-space while simultaneously serving to reinforce your commitment to sanity, clarity and higher consciousness.

And don't be surprised if you find yourself breathing slower, deeper, and with more awareness, maybe even finding a minute or two you didn't think you had for a standing yoga mudra, which may be followed by a few other spontaneous asanas, which may be followed by a slight change in plans... 

Do you have strategies you use to help you stay on track? We'd love to hear what works for you. Please share.

Here are a few more ways to bring a rock solid grounding and consistent balance to your life. Have you had any luck with any of these? Have you tried these crazy shoes? Post a note below and let me know your thoughts.

Sit back, relax and free up your feet to enjoy greater ease, grounding and balance in the standing asanas. Then leave me your comments or questions below.