Day Thirty - Observing

I took an actual vacation. So nourishing practicing at Mysore Phoenix.

I can't explain why I haven't written.  Perhaps it was because I told myself that all things were on hold until the 30 days were through.  After that I would decide where I wanted to put my energy next.  Perhaps that scared me.  Because there's so much on my mind.  And decisions that will have to be made.  And when I commit to one thing, I am saying no to everything else in the world. And I'm overthinking it.  Could be so many other things and reasons and excuses.  That one just seems the most available.  The first in line. Like I said, I can't explain. I search for why but the answer keeps hiding around corners just beyond my reach.

And anyway, I suppose that is what this blog -- the first 30 days at least -- that is what it is/was supposed to be about.  Attempting to write for 30 days.  Or 30 posts, as it came to be.

The trouble is overthinking it.  And getting distracted.  1+2= no post today for a few days now I suppose.  How easy it is to just give up.

But here we are.  All my writing notes and plans and ideas tucked away somewhere in a bag and I am just writing.  Just showing up.

These 30 days of trying a new habit, a creative habit, have reminded me of a few common patterns that we share.

1.  It is easy to get distracted.
That is what the mind does.  It moves to the next shiny, loud, dangerous thing because it doesn't want to get killed in the jungle, right?  We haven't changed so much.  I try to remind myself of this.  To not be so hard on myself.  To sit with what is.  To decide how to move forward, present in each tiny step.

2.  It takes time to adjust to change.
Habits start far in the distance.  With time they move closer and closer.  Arm distance.  Warmth distance. Skin distance.  The tricky part is they have to go inside your skin.  The deeper they go toward your center, the more likely they will continue as things change.  And things absolutely will change.  And we will move with the change and leave the habit behind.  And then we remember.  And then we try to bring the habit in again.  This is normal.

3. Give from your overflow.
Everyone always says to "fill up your cup" so you have something to give.  What happens when your cup is empty again?  Exhaustion, burn out, health issues, etc.  The part where I am convinced that I just don't do things as well as everyone else.  I'm damaged...  The math is simple.  You always keep your cup full and give from the overflow.  Even little things start to make sense.

4.  If you are used to your cup never overflowing then you will be confused when it nears the top.
You don't know what it is like to be full so you think that the increased vitality that you are feeling is overflow.  You know that this is the case when you commit to something and don't complete it.  Or not the way you meant to or you nail it but then are completely exhausted lying on the floor in the dark don't talk to me please.

5.  It is really hard to be honest, open, and vulnerable.
But we are all better off when we are.  We don't have time for BS in this life.  If something can be improved, healed, helped, we have to do it.




It isn't over.  There is a lot I want to write about.  I am just taking time with the words.  Message me if you have a subject on your mind.  That will help.





Exit: "A Silver Song" Conspiracy of Owls

Day Twenty-Nine - Time to digest

Me practicing Galavasana in third series.  I seriously thought this was physically impossible.  My teacher always believes in me more that I believe in myself.  The challenge of it makes the whole world disappear.  No thinking, just being.  

That last post on yoga teaching burn out took me a minute to digest.  A lot of things do.  That is something that I am noticing.  It is like when you eat breakfast and now it is time for lunch but you aren't hungry yet.  You still have not completely digested breakfast but you eat anyway and so it is just stuff on stuff on stuff.

We all need a minute to digest, process, absorb nutrients and eliminate toxins and waste.

I notice this need for time and space -- for pause -- after I host an event or gathering or teaching... the world feels as if it is moving so fast...  Everything spinning.  Like someone has two handfuls of glitter and then tosses them into the air.  They float for quite some time and then slowly begin to settle on the chair, the table, my arms, the floor -- or not at all.  They keep twisting and turning in the air and new handfuls are tossed up too and it continues on and on.

Life moves in cycles and spirals and waves.  I can remember times of great stillness and silence and moving from some sort of sage-like tranquility.  I can remember the exact opposite.  It isn't just one thing that tosses the glitter again and again.  It is always shifting.  Age, hormones, life circumstances, relationships, food, political climate, weather, where we are in asana practice, so many factors that are constantly changing and shifting all around us.

I am arriving on the beach after a riptide and a hurricane and general stormy weather.  I wanted to swim but I can't actually live in the water.  The morning ritual is there -- a steady, reassuring hum like the sun rising and like gravity.  I wake up and I am no longer wrapped in anxiety.  Things are changing.  I wake up and I get ready for my yoga practice and I feel joyful and I am covered in glitter inside and out -- almost.  The magic is coming back.

It is the day that is the trouble and the night.  I forgot my systems and rituals.  Space for new ones arriving.  I guess it is time.  I am rounding another 7 years in this body (kind of) and it makes sense.

The seeds for the rituals for both day and night are the same.  So many threads that can easily be remembered from years of yoga philosophy study ...  Effort toward steadiness of mind.  Yoga is the non-identification with the thought fluctuations of the mind. maitrī karuṇā mudito-pekṣāṇāṁ-sukha-duḥkha puṇya-apuṇya-viṣayāṇāṁ bhāvanātaḥ citta-prasādanam. व्याधिस्त्यानसंशयप्रमादालस्याविरतिभ्रान्तिदर्शनालब्धभूमिकत्वानवस्थितत्वानि चित्तविक्षेपास्तेऽन्तरायाः.  Yet the challenge is what to do when we are in it, triggered and hooked.

1.  Get in the habit of observing
-Food diary
-Journal
-Screen time monitoring
-Budget tracking
-Meditation

2.  Notice subsequent habits that work in any moment to allow the glitter to settle before moving on to the next thing.  From breath to breath, thought to thought, meal to meal, encounter to encounter, and so on.

3.  Notice that it is a way of life.  Like a road.  And at times you accidentally wander.  Notice and realign.  Move on.  Move forward.

For people who don't have a yoga practice (or an Ashtanga practice in particular) it is hard to explain.  It is hard to explain why me getting up at dumb-o'clock, and going to bed early like a child and eating a specific way... why it is so important. It isn't about something outside.  It is inside.  It isn't like brushing your teeth.  It is more like flossing.  All the things I don't know how to process any other way except through the asana, the moving and the constant redirecting of focus... That intensity of sitting with the good and the bad, the easy and the hard, the comfortable and the terrifying.  I need that.  Yes, I have to get through the whole marathon even when I don't want to.    And yes, sometimes my digestion is great.  Basic input output system.   One in one out.  And then the practice shifts and it turns into magic and becomes something else where there's energy to give.  So much energy to give.  As tantalizing as that possibility sounds, we need both.  The struggle connects us.

I remember hearing a talk by Pema Chodron years ago.  It was something about how we all think enlightenment is this pyramid going up but we have it wrong.  It is a pyramid going straight down into the earth with slippery walls and we all slide down down down into the mud and into the shit and how important that is.  Suffering like that. We look around and we see that we are all there together.  We are all suffering.  That's where the compassion is.

We've got to simplify yoga.  Not because we are but because it should be just enough to let all that we are shine through.  And we have got to simplify our lives because we are so much more than stuff on stuff on stuff.



Exit: "Tinfoil" Rainer Maria

Day Twenty-Eight - Yoga teaching burn out

Me, up at 3:45am, practice before teaching, before a full day of work at the office.

Maybe they do tell us...but I never listened.  If you are teaching yoga, you have got to have a serious self care practice or you will get burned out.  I thought if I ate well, practiced with my teacher, slept decently, kept to teaching, read yoga philosophy, did my yoga practice that that was all I needed to thrive.  Maybe it is enough for you but it has taken me over a decade to realize that it is not enough for me to stay healthy, energized and happy.

Krishnamacharya would say that yes, you need the asana and the philosophy and the food and a good teacher but you also need counseling at times and every other holistic modality you can think of to support the unfolding of your process. I am finally ready to admit that it is true — we have to be open to our current state and to change, whatever that may be.

Teaching yoga was all I really ever knew.  Yes, I did other side jobs here and there but teaching yoga has been my main profession for the majority of my adult life.  When it is all you know and people aren’t telling you or you just aren’t listening or you just don’t think you have the money or time you forget about yourself.  And maybe you really don’t have the time and money to take care of yourself and see no end in sight...maybe teaching yoga isn’t the thing.  And that is ok.

Let’s be clear.  Burn out does not mean that I am just bored with yoga or teaching.  Absolutely not.  Burn out is when I am working so hard and pushing myself to the absolute limits without break or rest or care for so long that all systems begin to break down.  It is physical and/or emotional exhaustion.

In my 15ish years as a yoga teacher, here is what I have learned...

You know you are burned out when:

-You haven’t made the time to take care of your basic health (you haven’t had a checkup, seen the gyno, gone to the dentist, etc. in more than a year)

-You aren’t saving for retirement

-You don’t have an emergency fund

-You are always sore or tired or angry

-You have no life outside of work

-You aren’t doing your own yoga practice

-When people want to talk about yoga you need to leave the room

-You don’t have patience like you used to

-You aren’t enjoying teaching or practice

-You feel uninspired

-You are having trouble sleeping

-You are getting sick a lot



How to get out of burnout/avoid:

-Make good sleep a priority.

-Keep a food diary and consider seeing a nutritionist.

-Do your own practice first.

-Find local teachers you can drop into once in a while.  I get it, maybe there aren’t any teachers in your tradition locally.  Still, just getting in a class and letting someone else drive once in a while feels so rejuvenating.

-Find other body movement modalities to participate in once in a while.  Just moving in a new way can have enormous positive effects on the body and mind.

-Generate income outside of teaching yoga.  It takes the pressure off.

-Budget track.  This is basic self care.  We need to start talking about money.  Knowing exactly where your money comes from and where it goes is key to understanding what kind of income you need to generate and zeroing in on how you can be more efficient with your time.

-Save for retirement.  Yes, you should be doing this.

-Start emergency fund.  Emergencies will happen.  I fell in the shower a few years ago and sustained a serious injury.  I did not have an emergency fund and could not take time off from teaching.  Don’t do what I did.

-Take a break and a real vacation.  Teaching a yoga retreat or travel teaching is work.  That is not a vacation.  Everyone needs time to rest, restore, and decompress at the very least.  Rejuvenate is even better.

-Make and keep doctor appointments.

-Develop other skills.  This will give you a sense of confidence, self, and identity outside of yoga.  Diversifying is most always a good idea.

-Get body work done.  This might feel indulgent but as a yoga teacher and practitioner, you basically need to treat yourself like a professional athlete.  Because you are.  This might mean massages or physical therapy or energy healing.  Just find out what works for you and be sure to shake it up once in a while.

-Explore activities that help you relax.

-Explore activities that bring you joy.

-Explore activities that bring you energy.

-Learn how to say “no”.

-Check in with your emotions and how your body feels regularly.

-Read a book.  Give yourself permission to have true downtime.

-Make sure you are getting paid fairly and if not, negotiate a higher rate or walk away.  Time is something that you will never get back.

Me, blissed out on an actual vacation in Tulum with my favorite -  Paletas! 

Exit: “Light” San Holo

Day Twenty-Seven - Facebook detox

Wow -- Facebook really triggers me.

This morning I noticed that the first thing that I reached for after coffee was a screen.  Any screen.  I don't know why.  I haven't written in three days - demerits.  I think I was searching for a writing prompt.  I picked up a book and put it down.  Stared at my notebook in the distance and didn't pick it up. Opened and closed email without even reading anything.  Opened Facebook.  Didn't even scroll -- just an onslaught of information and things that I missed and am not a part of and a whole world that exists, a secret club that I am not allowed into.  All the things that I failed to do.  All the credit I didn't receive.

After taking so much time off from social media, my baseline state is no longer a hardy mix of anxiety and stress. Instead, it is a neutral flow.  It has taken months, actually - even years, to get here.  And so when I gaze at the open Facebook page I can notice in a very real way how triggered I am.  It feels similar to when you are off sugar for a while and then eat a processed snack.  All you taste is plastic.

Facebook didn't originally have "likes".  It was just status updates.  I forgot about this evolution until I was recently reminded by an interview with Cal Newport. (Digital Minimalism is on my reading list.)   And then came the algorithm that made sure that you only got "likes" some of the time.  Essentially following the Vegas models that made sure you lost and won "likes" just enough to keep you coming back for more.

Should I delete Facebook?  You can download your photos and always start a new page...  But all of the modern marketing teachings echo in my head: remember that it is a useful tool that offers a place for us to build supportive communities, share valuable information, and stay connected.  The key here is using the tool rather than the tool using us.

The minimalist decision tree

1. Does it feel good?

      2.  No
           3. Is it necessary?

                4. If Yes --> Only in small doses
                4. If No --> Don't do it/buy it/keep it/think it

      2.  Yes
           3. Is it depleting, neutral, or energizing?

                4. Focus on energizing and neutral, minimize depleting

I should delete Facebook.  But I can't.

Belize 2019.  Off the grid and so happy.

Exit: "Farewell" Bob Dylan

Day Twenty-Six - No more bullying in yoga is allowed

As the spiritual decluttering continues and I am less numb and more willing to "sit with what is", old memories come up.  Samskaras.  I kind of wish that I could just do my practice and bliss out and connect with the infinite yay.  But I am also kind of glad that I am actually moving through these things finally instead of moving around them.

So there I am practicing and I am remembering how ever since I was a child people (adults) would remark "oh, you look so ethnic".  This was not a compliment.  How kids on the playground would make fun of my nose so much that my secret forever wish was to someday get plastic surgery.  All the times my body was different than everyone else's and I was called "fat".  The first instance was when I was little -- maybe 4?  Oh, and what it is like to be "developed" when you are a kid and everyone lets you know.  Now you are a sexual being, a woman, a temptation, a liability, a distraction.

I wish I could say that all that came to an end when I reached adulthood.  That society changed and we all evolved as humans.  Not exactly.

Yesterday I am in the middle of my practice and the thought of "fear" just keeps coming into my mind and as I explore it I remember so many times as an adult that I was bullied, shutdown, made fun of, discouraged, etc.  So much so that the first thing I see when I see images of myself in asana practice is a "roll" or "fat".  It takes my eyes a minute and sometimes a day to focus so that what I see is everything else.  Everything else that I see in anyone else rather than being hyper aware of anything that might be pointed out and made fun of. Strength, grace, beauty, hard work, ease, humanness, dedication...

We used to hate fashion magazines for depicting unrealistic images of beauty.  Now we have social media doing exactly the same.  News flash: most everyone gets a roll when they squish their body in one way or another.  Also, there's nothing wrong with having rolls. News flash: I know plenty of people who do "cleanses" or "eat light" before yoga asana photo shoots.  Maybe it is to "feel light" in their practice.  Maybe.

In the yoga community, I have been told that I am too heavy, that "life has caught up with me", I am too young, too old, the wrong shape, too stiff, too flexible, that my teacher disapproves of me and will kick me out of the shala, to stop writing, take down my blog, stop teaching, that I can't make it in India, my teacher made a mistake, that things just "come natural" to me, that I should stop teaching.  In this process of spiritual decluttering, I pick up each thing, realize it does not bring value and joy, tell it thank you and kindly discard.  What is interesting to me is that none of this bullying or negativity came from my teacher.  That I do have a select group of people in my life who are very supportive and when things get cluttered all I hear and remember is the hate.

Social media is a great tool to stay connected.  To encourage and build each other up.  To spread helpful information.  We need this.  Life can be lonely.  We need to support each other.  We need to raise the lowest common denominator and operate from a place of abundance rather than scarcity.  We need to be honest and truthful and consistent and respectful and move from a place of integrity.  We need to honor vulnerability, courageousness, bravery, generosity and kindness.  If we aren't doing these things, what are we doing?  What is the point?  We need to care for each other and for ourselves.  Nourish our bodies and our relationships and the planet.  Set boundaries and respect the boundaries of others.  Admit mistakes and make things better.  Follow the niyamas and yamas.  That's pretty basic.

Oh, and it is no longer cool to comment on someone else's body or creativity with the intent to cut them down.  Even accidentally.

I want to be recognized for the quality of my character and hard work and dedication and grit and for being consistent and fair and kind and taking good care of myself.  Not for looking a certain way or just being nice or popular or just going along with everything even if it isn't right.

And urdva kukkutasana b is really hard.  REALLY hard until it isn't.  And I tell you what... I eat dinner and have a "normal" job and grind day in and day out alone and for me what it took and what it takes each day is an extreme and crazy belief that I can do it.  That I am strong and capable and light and I am just moving energy.  I repeat this again and again so much that I believe it.  I shut out "you're too heavy you're not strong you ate dinner this is too hard for you you'll never do it".  And I go back to "I am strong and capable and light and I am just moving energy".  That I am enough. I repeat this again and again so much that I believe it.  For me, that's how much of this yoga asana challenge/plateau/impossibility has come and gone.  Nose, mulabandha, positive thinking, let energy move.  Simplify.  That's where the grace is.

Exit: "Bad Reputation" Joan Jett

Day Twenty-Five - Obstacles

When you go to Mysore, India to study at the shala you have your morning asana practice, chanting some afternoons, and the rest of your day free to fill as you see fit.  On my last trip I took yoga philosophy classes (my usual MO) a few days per week.  A group of yoga students climb the stairs in the women's dressing room, grab a carpet square, and sit cross-legged on the floor in an amorphous semicircle facing our teacher.  It is usually fairly hot and humid with mosquitoes flying around and my legs fall asleep and my hips ache and I'm fairly certain all of these things only really happen to me but I don't mind one bit.  I love sitting there with atrophied feet listening to my teacher walk through yoga philosophy from an Indian perspective punctuated by the birds outside, honking and laughing in the street, and the perplexed faces of students trying to make out his accent or English in general (because some of the students don't speak English at all) and whether or not the explanations he makes and stories he tells are real.

But this one is an easy one.  Our teacher is talking to us about a monastery in the north of India and how things are done there.  How we kind of don't understand what it is like to be a student and how maybe this illustration will give us a little bit of insight.  Maybe.  At this monastery students go and they wash the floors and clean the toilets and do all sorts of manual labor.  They do this for the "first few years" he says.  Once they complete this stage, that's when the yoga teaching begins.  "How many years is a few years?" Someone asks.  "Ten or eleven."

Last year I had to get a new Visa to travel to India.  Incredibly, my ten year Visa had expired.  I thought I had too.  Washed up maybe. Too something.  But when I heard that simple story in the women's locker room in philosophy class, I realized that the yoga was just beginning.

Me, in the thick of practice (dwi pada shirshasana which is a posture in the intermediate series), photo taken in my last apartment in New York somewhere between 2008 and 2011.

व्याधिस्त्यानसंशयप्रमादालस्याविरतिभ्रान्तिदर्शनालब्धभूमिकत्वानवस्थितत्वानि चित्तविक्षेपास्तेऽन्तरायाः॥३०॥

vyadhi styana samshaya pramada alasya avirati bhranti-darshana alabdha-bhumikatva anavasthitatva chitta vikshepa te antarayah

“Disease, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, sensuality, false perception, failure to reach firm ground and slipping from the ground gained- these distractions of the mind-stuff are the obstacles.”

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1.30 translation by Swami Satchidananda

Exit:  "Million Dollar Bill" Middle Brother

Day Twenty-Four - Rest day, you take rest

In the Ashtanga yoga tradition, we “take rest” one day per week from asana practice - usually a Saturday or Sunday.  I have always kept the routine of one day off per week (plus new/full moon days and first three days of menstruation). I figure if we are going to take the prescription we should follow the prescription.  In my process this year of coming back to my center, decluttering, minimizing, self-reflection - I am realizing that deep down I truly do not ever rest except for the weekly break from asana.

I am not a rule follower.  I do not do well with authority at all.  The thing is when I believe in something, I commit, and I go hard.  So when my yoga teacher says to take a day off each week from practice - that's exactly what I will do.  The end.

New Mexico is filled with an incredible variety of gorgeous natural retreats.  We found one deep in the mountains, past any road that the average vehicle would travel, so remote that phones were thrown deep into bags because service was so completely out of the question.  Roads unmarked and so questionable that we needed a local to guide us down the same road that we had previously attempted, but deeper.  Much deeper into the tall trees and wild grasses and fresh high altitude air.  Bear country.  Mountain lion country. Rattlesnake country.  As we continued deeper in, the only man made items were those that we curated.  Just the essentials. We instantly fell into the pace and simplicity and didn’t miss TV or books or restaurants or the convenience of anything.  I woke through the night terrified of the sounds of squirrels that I truly believed to be mountain lions.  We woke at peace and relaxed and completely grounded and present.

Hours later I realized that I felt happy.  And that’s when the guilt set in.  

I observed the thought.  It is a feeling that I am going to "get caught" or "get in trouble".  I asked "why?"  The answer that came was that I don’t believe that I am allowed to or deserve to rest or take a break or relax.  Again, I asked "why?"  Silence. Clutter.  System shut down.

Ok, brain.  Let's begin here.  You believe in your yoga practice, right?
Yes.
Do you think that maybe you could extend that to your life?
Yes, that's the point.
Ok, great.  So, take a day to truly rest.  Or just give yourself a break.
Yes, that's make sense.
Ok, great.  That's how we live now.  Also, you're simplifying everything, right?  And it feels good?
Yes.
Ok, great.  This one day off a week pattern seems to work and is established in one area of your life.  Why not piggyback on that with other areas so that you have a designated break?
Yes, that makes sense.
Ok, great.  One more thing.  Who establishes the benchmark for your success and expectations?
I do.
Ok, great.  Are you meeting all your personal benchmarks and expectations?
No.
Well, what's missing?
More blank space.  More travel.  More teaching.  More art and creativity and flow time and shala time.
Ok, great.  Maybe that's the guilt.  You felt happy and at peace and were feeling guilty that you aren't  doing that for yourself more.  That you aren't moving from your own inner space.  Could it be that?
I feel guilty again.
Ok, let's just work on more rest time.
Yes.  Ok.

Day Twenty-Three - Missing Mysore

Day 23 of 30 days of challenging myself to write again.  I started blogging back in 2007 the day before I left on my first trip to India.  I didn’t even know what a blog was but it was easier than emailing everyone so I gave it a try and ended up writing almost every day for years.  And then suddenly it drifted away.  I lost the excitement, the motivation, my confidence, my voice.  I didn’t feel like I had anything to say at all.  It was many things.  Exhaustion and stress and overwork and trauma and bullying and self consciousness and everything.  All the things that can happen when you are more and more isolated and deeper in you go.

This year I could feel strongly that I wanted to do something new, to teach, to get back into different projects, art, creativity... but I was just exhausted all the time and between maintaining my corporate job and friends and family I just had nothing left at the end of each day.  I started seeing a therapist and a doctor to look at my nutrition.  We modified my diet and now I keep a food diary and there was the EMDR.  After starting the new year in Mexico I knew big shifts had to happen in order for me to feel centered again and to get my energy back.  I Kon Mari’d as prescribed in one go over a long weekend.  I was surprised at how well this actually did work.  I pulled back from social media until it just was completely gone.  And it is funny... All the things I was trying so hard to do...they just started happening naturally.

I started reading - easily - again.  Journaling.  Painting.  New ideas coming and inspiration.  But I had to shut out everything in order to find that.  I had to drop out of everything that wasn’t absolutely required.  I had to turn off my phone and delete apps and say “no” to invitations.  I had to stop looking and listening outward and instead go inward.  I didn’t realize how much I allowed my world to move in that direction.  I now very seriously had to set up my environment so that my mind and body could go inward easily.  A safe place to get the muscles back.

In that quiet space the memory of enjoying writing and blogging came back to me.  I was curious.  Is it something that I would enjoy now?  Something that would bring value?  Only one way to find out.  30 day personal blogging challenge.

And in the quiet the other candle that continues to burn in the background is the practice.  Yoga.  Mysore.  The magic.  The feeling of complete centering.  The peak experience.  I want to find it more and everywhere.  It is there in some moments alone and with others in my living room and it was there in moments at The Little Shala (my program here in New Mexico).  It was there when I dropped in in Phoenix and of course, in Mysore at the main shala.  It is the silence.  The sound of breathing and bodies moving through space.  The feeling of heat coming off humans and the sound of hard work.  No conversation, no bullshit.  Just a space filled with people sincerely committed to transformation.  It feels essential and primal and so connected to just being alive.

Right now I am taking a little break before my next teaching season. The Mysore room. I miss it.

My last trip to India was last year.  It was my shortest trip so far... four weeks.  Each day in the shala on my mat I would smile to myself.  There was absolutely nothing that could disturb that absolute gratitude and joy.  I would soak in the feeling of the air and the sounds outside of traffic and birds and students kicking of their sandals and women sweeping their front porches and the sounds inside of students moving and Sharath making little jokes and “one more!”  I would silently thank each person who made it possible for me to be there in one way or another.  And now when I get quiet, I can conjure up the feeling and I am there.

It feels like this.

Day 28, India 2018:  I get the spot in the front corner. The one under the overhang where if I really stretch, my fingers graze the ceiling. Where all the air feels hottest and wettest and smelliest. The floor isn’t slick, it’s wet. The wall is wet. The wall on my right somehow feels more cramped than a wall on the left or people an inch away on any side. (This is not my favorite spot.) I’m boiling. Sweating at first only and then on fire. Soaked in sweat. And then anger. Nonstop anger. The violent kind. I’m so angry. Moving through my practice in a crazy fit of rage. I listen to the conversation in my head on how maybe I’m the villain, not the hero. And whatever. I don’t care.

And I do all the asanas, all the movements even as I feel like an angry brick of cement that burns down everything.

And then I get to third series, Advanced A. Maybe this is a fresh start? No. Anger. And then I get to my latest pose, urdva kukkutasana b. And I do it. With confidence. I own it now. I jump back. I jump through. I look back at whoever and am like “that’s how it’s done #@&$$?!!$”.” And then back bending and then tick tocks and then waiting for vrkshikasana and it’s so intense and now I’m crying. 
Sharath comes after awhile. I’m in handstand and he puts my feet on my head. ‘What you did?’ I tell him ‘I did B but it made me cry’. He says ‘good. You have to let the emotions out’. And I am fully crying as we stand there. (We’ve been here many times over the years.) He does my backbends. He says ‘tomorrow you do galavasana.’ I say ‘galavasana?’ ‘Yes, without crying. You’re too happy to cry.’

Post-practice, Mysore 2018.  That same day.  Sensory deprivation tank.
Exit:  “Sober to Death” Car Seat Headrest 

Day Twenty-Two - My first trip to Mysore, India

We all have our own story, our own legends.  I am remembering my first trip to Mysore.  India had not been on my travel radar but I was serious about yoga and so when an article on yoga popped up in Vanity Fair my grandma clipped it out and gave it to me.  I was so excited to see anything "yoga" and at the time there were not many books or magazines like there are now.  You kind of had to know what you were looking for in order to find it. 

I read through the article and a few pages in there is a spread on Ashtanga Yoga and how it comes from Mysore, India and Pattabhi Jois is still there, an octogenarian, teaching.  And I thought to myself "well, that's it... I have to go" and nothing else mattered.  The image was like looking back in time and I had no idea that I could be a part of that.  I asked my teacher for travel advice and in his typical fashion, he gave none because that's what they all had to do.  Just arrive and discover.  It is part of it.  Okay.  And in a way, he was very right.

Another teacher put me in touch with someone based in Mysore.  Once I bought my ticket, he gave me advice on a taxi and that I should stay in a hotel for the night (because you fly into Bangalore which used to be four hours away) and then head into Mysore where I'd stay for the first week at his bed and breakfast. So I get my visa to travel to India which at the time meant that you had to go to the Indian consulate and it was my first introduction to what it would be like in India.  The rules, not rules.  The feeling that absolutely everything would not be fine and then it would be totally fine don't worry except for those few times but that was magic too.  And I skip the shots because I only have catastrophic health insurance and I don't even know where to begin to find that kind of doctor and I'm sure it will be fine.  There wasn't Pinterest either.  I have no idea how I knew what to pack.

I arrive in India around 3am.  I later learn that this is normal.  And so will be being fully awake at that time. Not just from jet lag.

I arrive in India around 3am and it is just me and a bag or suitcase I can't remember.  I must have had some rupees because I walked outside into the dark completely unable to identify which cars were taxis.  I didn't know what a rickshaw was.  I had the name of a hotel that I was to stay at and the driver took me there.  I paid for a night even though my car was picking me up in just a few hours.  I didn't even have a watch.  No phone.  The hotel was over the top colonial - white with red textiles and gold trim.  I am escorted to my room.  I am exhausted. As soon as the door closes behind me I run toward the huge massive pillow cloud of a bed, leap into the air, and completely back flop onto the hardest, thinnest, best disguised mattress I have ever experienced in my life (up until that point).  I groan myself to sleep.

Even jet lagged and pretending to sleep in Bangalore I didn't know if I would be able to practice at the shala.  Back then it was called the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute (AYRI).  There was a website and the application was simple: you mail a letter explaining why you wanted to come practice and include a photo of yourself.  The AYRI would write to you if you were not accepted.  Otherwise, you show up.  I was so worried that maybe my rejection letter was lost in the mail.  That I had come all this way...  And maybe it was and maybe it wasn't.  I got to my bed and breakfast.  I registered for classes.  I looked for housing. I had no money as my credit card and debit card were not working in the ATMs.  My banks had shut them down.

That first month was very difficult.  Friends I made would tell me that I should probably go home.  "Some people just weren't made for Asia."  They are probably still right.  But being in the shala, practicing with Saraswati and Guruji and Sharath... it felt like home.

Exit:  "Wake Up"  The Arcade Fire

Day Twenty-One - Year of hibernation

A colleague was telling me that she had updated someone on my status.

"Well, what did you say?"

"That you worked a lot and are learning to say 'no' and that you are taking supplements with animal products in them and it is a big deal.  So, not much."

I kind of love this.




My year in pictures...

New Year's on the beach.  Talking to the ocean.  Being in nature.

Reflecting back during my Kon Mari weekend. Watercolors from 2013.

Reflecting way back during Kon Mari weekend to backpacking Europe at 17.  I couldn't stand high school.  Tried to drop out and got on an accelerated program instead.  Graduated years early (really I couldn't get out fast enough), shaved my head, grabbed my jansport and got on a plane.  This is a postcard from a friend I made on one of my last days.

Scene from The Little Shala.  Mysore in Albuquerque is way different than in New York.  It is harder.  The culture is more baked in and harder to work around.  Not impossible, just harder.  Each person who shows up is a hero.  The shared energy of everyone else really gave me the extra boost I needed for my own practice this winter.  

Made friends and friends moved away.  It is just like Mysore, India around here lately.  Magic included.

Found timeless connection where and when it was least expected.

And got lost in time in the desert.  

Quiet moments in Belize.  Nature.  Ocean.

Started painting again.

Slept in a real magic school bus.

Olive forever.

Exit:  "17" Youth Lagoon

Day Twenty - Never give up

We all seem to be on the same vibe.  The more I talk to people about what I am doing, the more and more I hear the same response -- everyone is reducing their phone use and social media use or at least questioning it.  We are all craving more time outside.  We are going analog.  We still want our phones and tech.  Our phones are calculators and flashlights and cameras and day planners and notebooks and mini computers and how we can easily stay in touch with friends around the world and much more.  As tools, they add incredible value.  We are keeping our phones.

But we are leaving the fear of missing out and the anxiety and the interruptions and the stress and the pressure and constant unbearable suffocating noise.  We are staying present at dinner and finishing the conversation with the person in front of us and reading whole books and we are happy with what we have.  We are content just as we are in our own thoughts.  A moment of pause is welcome.  It is an opportunity to reflect and absorb and process and daydream and imagine.  Wide open blank space.

Memory is increasing.  Creativity increasing.  Energy and possibility increasing.

And yes, yet again, this week I'm thinking to myself how impossible ankle grabbing is and how that's it for me.  I'm over.  I'm 6 pounds heavier with inflammation and grumpy and uncomfortable and nope it is just not possible.  But mula bandha is the same.  And I can look at my nose so that is the same.  And I can steady my breathing.  And I direct the thinking to one steady place.  And there I am, on my "worst" day and I have this feeling of just "whoosh" breaking past all of that and the energy is just moving and some things are always within our reach.  Consistency.  Faith.  Never give up.

Exit:  "Same Mistakes"  The Echo Friendly

Day Nineteen - Moon day vibes

On the first day of each month I burn copal that I picked up in Mexico.  They say burning copal cleans crystals and energy and is a powerful conduit to the spirit world.  It is different than incense.  It seems stronger somehow.  The scent is different, the smoke is different, even when you try to light it you realize it is more like lighting a fire.  The dried resin smokes and fills the room and your house and it is a new month with all the energy of a new year.  So far, that is how 2019 has felt for me.  Each month an entire year in itself.  Pretty soon a decade will have come to pass and one moment I feel so different and the next exactly the same.

But wait -- I still wake throughout the night and with nightmares... I'd say I am a terrible sleeper.  

But wait -- isn't that a massive improvement from not being able to sleep at all?  

But wait -- I've got some major inflammation happening right now so I'd say nothing is working.  

But wait -- isn't it much less than it was?  And isn't it only now actually correlating with normal cycles instead of just a continuous haze of confusion and uncomfortableness?  And what about the tiredness and anxiety and stress?  That's still there.  

But wait -- didn't you used to drink extremely strong coffees with 4 shots each throughout the day?  And have to workout on top of that?  And need to listen to crazy intense music to be able to concentrate?  And struggle with procrastination and finishing projects?  And every other legal self-medication strategy that made sense?  

Aren't you doing a lot more now on and with much less?  Now that you have decluttered?  

Ok, I guess that's true.

So right now here is life, decluttered.

1. Seeing doctor about nutrition

Taking supplements as prescribed, clean diet, food diary

2. Mysore practice

3. Journal

Schedule lives here as well as notes, idea, plans, etc.

4. Kon Mari'd house

5.  Social media detox

6.  Tech detox

7.  Tracking budget

8.  Office 

Decluttering the unnecessary and one thing at a time

9.  One thing at a time

Also, one project at a time

10.  Listen to body/mind

11.  Reading

12. Write for 30 days

And I guess it is true that I have noticed other things besides unresolved feelings...  My memory is getting better.  My attention span longer.  I am maintaining eye contact.  My creativity is coming back.  My voice...  I never realized how much they had all diminished.

FOMO is gone.

Noticing how much my identity is tied up in my yoga practice.  Somehow noticing even more how essential it is.

Exit: "Different Now" Chastity Belt

Day Eighteen - Burnout

This morning I spilled searing hot coffee on bare legs and considered downloading Instagram.  I imagined curating my feed to reflect a clean and inspiring deluge of color and ideas and how I’d post on occasion when it really felt good. And then I exited the idea factory in my brain and settled into my stomach and felt dread and fear and doom and anxiety. It should bring joy or don’t do it.

Too soon. Social media detox continues.

I wrote the above sentiment before my yoga practice.  I was hot and inflamed and groggy and feeling terrible. None of my yoga clothes available. Coffee made for me but not according to my direction.  All things bad all things bad all things bad.  And somehow somewhere something happens and one foot goes in front of the other and I’m greeted with patience and kindness and I just stand on my mat and ok inhale hands up exhale fold. And I’m sweating and I’m moving and everything is ok.

This is just it.  The yoga works.  But you have to let it.  You have to get out of your own way.  You have to keep showing up.  And once you do sometimes the decluttering has already happened.  You have already done the work.  And you just climb into a river of energy and plug in and flow.  Other times you have to do the decluttering and you just sit in your space and cry or you hold each object but there’s too much for just one session.  And sometimes you’re really lucky.  You’re in the worst place and you feel awful and everything seems heavy and congested and impossible and somehow you’re persuaded to practice and you do and you come out the other side.

I think this is one thing that I enjoyed about Instagram.  I had started posting some practice photos and videos and people would tell me that it inspired them during tough times. That’s pretty powerful stuff and to me part of what this whole internet thing can do for us — help us truly connect.  It would be nice to find a way to have that kind of impact without feeling absolutely energetically sucked dry.  Just to put that out in the universe. I am sure it has something to do with balance and an internal homeostasis which has a lot to do with residing in an internal world of unshakeable integrity and clarity.  It starts with this:

My time is valuable
I am valuable
My education, knowledge, and experience are valuable
Please be aware that when it comes to yoga and me that you have entered a no bullshit area
I am allowed to say “no”
I am allowed to be available when I decide
I am allowed to change directions
I am allowed to make my own health and needs my number one priority

Also, you are entitled to all of the above as well.  I respect you, your time, and your process.

I went to an energy healer when the stagnation, the tamas, got really bad.  She said she used to work in a crystal store and the energy was just so intense she had to constantly clear herself out.  She walked me through her meditation that she would use.  Part of it involves creating a dome around you.  Everyone that looks in is greeted with something comforting and warm like glowing lavender love.  And when you look out you see something nourishing as well.  The ocean kept coming up for me.  Every time I ever sat staring out at the horizon.  The waves, the color, the push and pull that has always been and always will.  I think this was Cancun.  Maybe 2017.

Exit: “Fuck things up” Dope Lemon

Day Seventeen - Some things last a long time

I am sitting here late on a Saturday noticing how strange I feel. I am thinking about a podcast I heard recently where someone was describing how their family reacted to their beginning stages of minimalism behavior.  “I realize I am getting rid of things and pulling away from some people but it is because I am removing things that don’t bring value as well as distancing myself from toxic relationships.  I am being intentional...not suicidal.”  

It is true - the distance between me and everything else that had become my daily life is widening.  It is happening on its own.  I gave myself permission to feel and to be honest and now I don’t have a taste for pretending.

In Mysore it is normal for someone to hide away in their house until the next practice.  Or just not talk to anyone at breakfast.  Or to have hours long conversations with strangers who become friends as the turning over of ideas continue from one day to the next.  Mysore is a little city in India where students gather from all over the world to learn yoga straight from the source.  I had no idea when I arrived on my first trip twelve years ago that it is also a place where people gather for deep transformation. They still do.

You can quietly show up for practice, talk to no one, cry on your mat, talk to no one, stay in your house all day.  Or show up to breakfast and talk to a stranger about childhood patterns you are trying to make sense of or lie side by side on your friend’s cold floor for hours trying to figure out what you are going to do with your life.  You get cracked open and you process and you look around and someone else is crying on their mat too.  And you have a pretty good idea what’s going on — some similar shade of realization, understanding, or transformation.

That’s what is happening.  My insides are recreating Mysore.  Yoga plus one.  Simplicity.  Getting quiet and empty and questioning everything.  In this space the toxins and pent up emotions and things we just don’t want to face and the things we hide away — they just arise.  And I’m crying on my yoga mat and going to the office like its normal.  As I write this and think of Mysore I remember that this is a good thing.  You have to let it out.  You have to feel and consider and sometimes you have to let go, leave, change, and say goodbye.  

You can’t be afraid of leaving something you might need just in case. You can’t be afraid.  You have to forgive yourself for the fast fashion and temporary fixes from home decor to relationships.  You have to thank everything and everyone and every thought as you let them go.  They were all there for you in one way or another.  You’re here now.  In the widening deep silence your job is to get in touch with who you actually are beyond all the shit you have collected throughout a lifetime.  And focus on that.  Big changes.  Sweaters that last forever.  Friends for life.  

Exit:  “Some things last a long time” Daniel Johnston

Day Sixteen - Journaling

Out of my head and onto the paper. (It has to be paper.  A digital note seems to just shelf a thought.) Something happens where I start to digest and process instead of an endless merry-go-round in my head. The thought jumps out of the skating rink and onto the paper and it is smaller and more manageable and I can see where it Tetris-es with everything else.  Or maybe I hold it and see if it brings me joy and whether to keep it or throw it out hopefully for good thanking it for the knowledge it brought.

This entry from my “journal” seems to reflect things I have noticed since detoxing my life and embracing minimalism, essentialism, whateverism...
Learn to say no - very hard and need to begin immediately
24 hours for a decision - the impulse “yes” is unnecessary
One in one out - know what I have, operate from a space of clarity
A million tasks - my tendency
Bookmarks - basically same as above
Articles - see above
Books - see above
Lists - see above. Why this pattern? Maybe I’m looking for something?
Picking at skin, hair - truth
Overeating - starting to notice
Picking up phone - uh huh
Adding activities - see “lists” above.
Food diary - helpful
Budget app - helpful
Screen time - helpful
Adding activities without finishing current projects - see “lists”
One thing you do - see “lists”
Subtracting creates and expands white space which elevates everything that remains