My breathing and visualization and relaxation stuff didn’t work very well, to be honest. I realized, while I was trying to use them, that I’ve been holding my breath a lot. I haven’t practiced visualization in some time, and it was difficult to call on the skill when it was so rusty. And methods of relaxation? A glass of wine down the hatch would have had better results that my own efforts.

Someone was doing something to me that I was allowing and that was painful, and in the moment I was severely unpracticed at coping at all. And the most interesting part? I was fighting against it still with my anxiousness.

And I thought, wow. Wow. This is the ol’ universal skillet, hitting me on the head again so that I finally get the point.

How can I set myself up to be better able to breathe in difficult situations? Is there a way to practice and see, in my mind’s eye, a really fantastic outcome here? What do I do to relax my efforts, in this moment, to be more fully present?

Today I read this from Sally Kempton:

I’ve always found Guru Purnima, the full moon day of July, to be a time when both the blessing and the challenge of the Teacher are most fully present, most profoundly available. So today is a great day for inquiry. You might ask yourself, “Where is the inner teacher guiding me now? What is the next edge on my learning curve? How am I serving? How could I be showing up more fully for my life?”

Now, up until today, I had never heard of Guru Purnima. Even after twelve years, yoga is a constant learning curve for me, and teachers and students of yoga are always saying things like this that seem to knock me flat on my rear-end, making me feel awkward and immature. But on the other hand, in these moments there is such contemplation and intensity in the questions that I can’t help snatching them up and wrestling with them for a while.

And back to the vein of honesty, I had been wrestling with those questions anyway. So here is my personal challenge, and I want you to join me. It’s a month-long one.

Let’s find our stability.

No matter what school of yoga you love and are practicing, this is accessible. For instance, in Iyengar yoga, it’s working with an outer spiral of the lower legs and an inner spiral of the upper legs. In Anusara, it’s “shins in, thighs out.” For Ashtangis, it might be working the four corners of the feet to root the pose and engaging mulabandha, effectively organizing the pose. The most beautiful part is this. Figuring out how to stand effectively on our legs gives us legs to stand on.

Imagine.

Practice every day, even if for only five minutes in tadasana or uttanasana. When you start finding your proficiency, switch it up a bit by practicing utkatasana or virabhadrasana II.

I think once I get the hang of it in virabhadrasana II, I just might go back for another one of those deep tissue massages…

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1. Yes or nope.
2. Practice. At home.
3. How to order coffee, and the art of non-attachment.

credit: Kim Jones Photography

On Saturday, my almost-five-year-old tried to be quiet. And sneaky. And a secret keeper. He sat at the kitchen table, spooning up his honey-sweetened yogurt and cereal combo, and I could see his little wheels working. His thoughts are like carbonation; you can see them bubbling up as he wiggles and fidgets, and then he just lets them spill right out. He is just not a good container for all of that thinking to stay on the inside.

I was not very far away from him when I heard him “whisper” to my husband, “WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GO PICK UP MOM’S FLOWERS?” My husband looked at me with disbelief, which turned to an apologetic face, which finally resigned in a grin.

Sometimes, you just gotta go with it.

Rewind a day before to the “whispers” in a postpartum class that I am oh so honored to teach. Whispers-turned-sighs, slight smiles on the faces of new mommas who uttered soft phrases like, “Oh, I needed this,” and “This feels so good to my body.” Some of those whispers turned to tears. Little quiet tears that told stories of “I’m tired,” and “I’m so in love with this new person,” and “I’m really glad to be here.”

credit: Kim Jones Photography

Fast-forward to last night, deep in the middle of it, when I heard across the baby monitor little whimpers and lots of shifting around. There was a fever taking over the body of our 14-month-old. Those bottom molars are coming in and there were whispers of “something’s not quite right with me” and “please, please, wrap your arms around me and snuggle me away from this pain.”

Whispers are our way of releasing the deepest stuff. Stuff perhaps too fragile to weigh down with loud words. Stuff perhaps too precious to yell. Stuff, like tiny butterflies needing two hands to lift them up into the breeze and open their wings to the sun.

What would you whisper? Tell it to the wind…the grass…your best friend…your dog. Be brave and bold and really dig down deep into the stuff that is just trying to wrestle itself out of you. Ask the questions that need to be asked. Let out what needs to get out. And ever so importantly, beg to be held by those who are waiting to hold you.

Go on…

credit: Kim Jones Photography

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1. Yes or nope.
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I’ve taken a couple of days to digest the experience of the intensive. And I suppose there should be a preface to this post with a little background information.

I’m a wrestler.

I’ve wrestled a lot throughout my life with spirituality, duality, non-duality, alternative lifestyle, Christianity, yoga, and philosophy. I wasn’t raised as a yogin. In fact, I practiced asana diligently for about six years before becoming comfortable chanting the sound, Aum, though I’ve always loved being in a class when everyone else was chanting. I’ve never been to India and I don’t foresee a pilgrimage there in my near future, but I love to read about all of your journeys out there and vicariously live through you in secret.

I am what is referred to as a “householder yogin.” One who cannot afford the time or resources away from family for months at a time for immersions with teachers. One who balances soccer games and gymnastics for preschoolers, baseball games because I love them, and who colors her hair, and not with henna, because I’m afraid of going gray.

I wrestle a lot.

But on Sunday morning, I walked. In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, I walked as though my feet were kissing the Earth. No wrestling thoughts; just the gentle stir of a breeze, the sweet, sweet smells of spring, and the soft quiet of morning. A pause here and there. A peek over a railing and down into the water flowing by, which I couldn’t quite hear since the snowmelt in the mountains hasn’t happened yet. Passed by a furniture store that I’ve driven by for years to finally notice its name: Joyful Furniture. Joyful Furniture! Amazing.

And it brought me to this. This workshop was an honor. An honor to learn with new eyes how to see what people sometimes can’t say verbally yet shout through their bodies. An honor to sit with another’s joy and sadness and to taste curiosity and sweetness. To see strength, surrender, and innate wisdom. To become aligned with what is. Whatever it is. Whenever it is.

And, as one woman put it, to trust the dive.

Here are some photo highlights of the day.

De assisting a 3rd trimester momma in Upavista Konasana.

I love this picture.

Demonstration of Vrksasana in the 3rd trimester, using the wall for balance and opening in both the chest and hips.

Postpartum demonstration, showing how to twist in Jathara Parivartanasana with bolsters.

An explosion of heart! Can’t you just feel it? Upavista Konasana partner work.

Beginning to quiet down for closing the workshop.

Peaceful momma, peaceful baby.

To see the entire gallery of photos from the intensive, please click here or go to the Photos page.

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For many of us, there is a daily shift in our ability to be and remain open: to be stretched out – mind, body, and spirit. Sometimes this shift is huge, sometimes its so small that we can barely feel a tremor. But we’re constantly being called to it. I am both inspired and brought to my knees by those of you out there who can remain so undeniably honest in that shift and welcome it. I truly strive to be more like you, and I’d like to say that I welcome it but…it’s also kind of scary, don’t you think, because some days are easier than others and some challenges are hard. To remain true to the knowledge that life is this amazing teacher is, well, everything. In the face of those challenges, the author of the blog says, “Nothing else changes from the foundation of who we are.”

Powerful.

“Every time I begin to sink, I remind myself that I’m a rockstar.”

Very powerful.

“And rockstars know that life is beautiful.”

What else could I possibly add?

Well, I will add this: When you’re thinking that you have less, you actually have more. More of what you might ask?

Yep, you might ask that. Why don’t you?

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1. Powerful Panties, Part Deux.
2. Walk as though your feet are kissing the Earth.
3. Yes or nope.

Ok. Where’s my mom when I need her?

My response: “Well, He’s so big that He can be in all of the churches all at once.”

Immediately, God turned into a superhero. “Oh!” my son went on, “I get it! He’s so big that he shoots out little Gods and they go everywhere!”

Interesting, I thought. “So…He’s like sunshine? There’s one great big sun and it shoots its sunlight out everywhere to take care of everything?”

He agreed. I love his little big mind.

This turned into a fascinating conversation of light and dark, and how even though there are times when we don’t have the sun directly, we have it indirectly in the light of the moon and stars and the reflection of the sun. (We didn’t get into the large balls of gas, because this was a pleasant conversation with my preschooler that for once, was not about gas.)

When he asked why we aren’t able to see the stars during the day, I paused. Sometimes, you need the dark to see, I said.

Sometimes…you need the dark to see.

We’re emerging from our shortened days of the dead of winter. That time of year of introspection, tucking in, being quiet. On these very crisp evenings and cold nights, there doesn’t seem to be anything between me and those stars and that moon; it looks as though I could reach up and pull them down from the sky. It makes me feel really big and important but very small and insignificant all at once. I remember a few years ago getting up at 2 a.m. to climb Long’s Peak, and about two hours into the hike, I looked up and sat down hard. I had never seen so many stars. I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe. There were so many of them I wondered how they stayed up there without crushing me down here. And then, within an hour or so, they faded away and disappeared, the presence of them gobbled up by all of that sunshine.

Even in our darkest night, there’s light waiting to burst through. It’s waiting, reflecting, combusting. My yoga practice is teaching me this patiently. My cranky back is beginning to welcome backbends again and an intense twist to the right happens more freely. And as this unfolds, my heart center is urdhva mukha-ing (you know, not just upward facing but even lifting toward my top palate!). Those little pinholes of starlight are sure to give way to full sunshine soon, I can just feel it.

And I’m so, so very thankful.

How are you shining?

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I hadn’t used it in a couple of weeks in favor of my new dentist-provided old school toothbrush. Since I was feeling pretty feisty, I pulled out the electric one and fired it up.

Oh man. It barely spun. Oh no!

I turned it off, then turned it back on, and it gradually started to build up some momentum. After my allotted two minutes of scrubbing and polishing, I turned it off and smiled “that” smile in the mirror. You know the one. The I’m-gonna-see-how-clean-my-teeth-look smile. And I have a big mouth, so I can easily see all of my teeth. Yes, all of them. (Fact: In high school, my anatomy teacher measured all of our mouths and I had the second largest in the HISTORY of the high school. And it was the oldest high school in the city. I was simultaneously horrified and proud all at once. I’m sure the picture of the inside of my mouth still hangs in that classroom to this day.)

The point?

The point is this. So many times, I’ve dragged myself onto my mat, barely able to get my appendages and muscles and bones to cooperate. Sometimes this is after only a few hours from my last practice, but more honestly, sometimes it’s after weeks or a month. I seem barely able to spin enough to get everything going in order to “scrub and polish” within my practice.

I’m happy to report that most of the time it all still works. Some days not as fluidly. Other days without missing a beat. And at the end of practice, I can smile that goofy smile.

I have passed the smile on to the next generation. You're welcome.

You know the one.

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my son, saying a resounding "YES!"

About two years ago, our then near three-year-old had this hilarious habit of asking

questions and then immediately asking, “Yes? Or nope?” And we could really get him going with it. If he forgot to ask yes-or-nope, we would ask “yes?” and he would say yes-or-nope over and over and over and over and over and, yeah, you get it. It sent us, as well as innocent bystanders, into fits of giggles nearly every time.

So imagine that little pull of my heart strings when I opened an email from Anusara teacher Hillary Rubin that discussed a more timely idea of yes-or-nope. Hers was a reminder that when we come across a “no,” a “yes” is happening at the same time. There is a shift that we all too often don’t see, because we’re attached to the “nope.”

This hit home with me this past week as I was on a girls-only day on the slopes. Wouldn’t you know it, about the second or third run in I fell hard after hitting some ice and smacked my rear end in the same spot that I had badly bruised about six months before. A spot that I thought had healed was still taking it’s sweet time to get back to 100% and I was so afraid that I had really done some damage with that fall. And to make matters worse, I did it AGAIN on the next run.

The next day, with my tailbone between my legs (well, actually, it had jammed over to the left a bit and knocked my sacrum off kilter), I went to my chiropractor’s office and begged for mercy. In tears. Tears. Not tears of pain, because it truly only hurt on impact, but tears of anticipation of the impending answer to my question: “Should I still snowboard this season?” Her recommendation was, simply, nope. “Do you ski?” was her next question.

Nope.

BUT. I have new skis! They were my Valentine’s Day gift from my husband last year (yes, two days before our second baby was born, but that’s another story). And my “yes” door opened. I’m going to take a lesson. My thighs will be roasted and I will curse the day I got those skis, but I’m going to do it.

Finding the “yes” can be empowering, don’t you think? Can you be more open to the “yes” in your life?

Yes? Or nope?

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Doesn’t this happen in our practice? We become very attached to our particular style of yoga, the style in which we first became aware of our body and how truly unaware we’d been, and once we learn the language we don’t want to disturb it. I am so guilty of this. I love Ashtanga, but only from Richard’s studio or his teachers. My first yoga classes were taught by an Iyengar teacher, so there’s my alignment with, well, alignment (and Richard has a solid foundation in Iyengar, as well, so I understand him). And over the past few years, I’ve been taking Anusara classes when I can (because a lot of my Ashtangi teacher and student friends connected with it as well). But with other styles, I find that I critique them harshly and quickly ask, “Where did this teacher train?” “What style is this, exactly?”

We become fluent in the particular style that makes sense to us. And sometimes, don’t you think, we can become stuck in the familiarity and the safety of it. We shine there because we trust the system, trust the teacher. Opening up to our own vulnerability, we can really reach deep inside and begin to release our own creativity, our playfulness, our curiosity.

But I must say that when I have taken a class here and there with a teacher or in a style with which I was unfamiliar, I almost always learn something valuable. I hear an alignment cue that is different and opens my body in a new and fascinating way. Sometimes my knowledge becomes challenged by wisdom. And sometimes, the truth is, I don’t like the teaching at all because there’s no good foundation. But always, in reflection, I remember that I am a beginner and revel in that. It’s a fun place to be, this beginning spot, and it’s here that I can taste vairagya, or non-attachment, which is one of the “two core principles on which yoga rests.” It’s the balance of both never giving up and always letting go.

So with that, I raise a grande-soy-no water-chai to you and your own reflecting. Namaste.

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But even though the stories are fluffy and everything works out in the end, there’s a thread of something so precious, so fulfilling there. It’s the essence of community.

Why is it that when the idea of community comes up, it brings a sense of obligation? “Community service” is oftentimes a sentence, a punishment in order to restore to our society what we’ve taken.

But what about community that requires no payment? One that is, well, just the way it is? Paying forward, if you will. Giving to each other so willingly and without being asked so that we all have a piece of what we all have. It creates a history that we can share, roots that will strengthen us, and a tie that holds us steady.

This is our kula, our collective consciousness, our community. The pulsating energy that connects us, enlivens us, breathes us. You simply have to step in and taste it.

What are you waiting for?

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I love walking that hallway.

It’s filled with flirtation, laughter, orneriness, accomplishment, community, and family. There isn’t an emotional mask of any kind. It’s raw, naked, fun; proudly portraying deep laugh lines, wide open smiles, and hands grasping hands in a hedonic banter.

It’s purely and simply…bliss.

In Sanskrit, this is called ananda. This word, this feeling, goes beyond a personal happiness. It’s something that we share in common, as a community, without boundaries of personality or differences between us. I see this on a daily basis in my young children, and it’s evident in each of those pictures down that hallway.

So what happens to those of us in the middle of life? I came across this blog, which cited findings that we hit a hedonic low at midlife. I had to soul search a little bit because, well, that stung a little, since I’m in the female’s average age referred to in the article. But I think instead, I’m more in this spot, quite eloquently summed up by a Deepak Chopra tweet, of all things:

“True self-esteem is not the same thing as improving your self-image. Self-image results from what other people think of you.”

And that makes me feel blissful. Ananda. I’m moving from the outer to the inner, to discover our connection to each other. One foot in front of the next, because I want to hang in some hallway, in some obscure recreation center, laughing my butt off because I have on a silly hat and I’m riding a red bike.

Bring on the laugh lines. Really, really deep ones.

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