Begin All Things with Thought and Grace

   So, after a long hiatus, I'm back. It wasn't a case of writer's block.  In the blogger archives I have 19 unpublished posts and my journals are full, but somehow the material felt more personal, less something to share.  Also, my life has really changed in the past year.  My younger son is in college year round and my older one graduated and has a job in another city.
      I look at this time as a great exhale.  In yoga I teach to exhale first, making room for the air you want to inhale. Relax first, then engage the muscles you'd like to use. It has been strange watching this in my life.  The old  things are slowly moving out, revealing lots of interior work to be done, but also making room for the new.  It gives me the time to do some things I have always wanted to do like going on retreat.
      Retreats are like meditation, they make your life so much better, but it is so easy to put it off to some later time, some time when I have nothing to do...  In May I went on an art retreat at St. Meinrad's Archabbey. It was wonderful and is bearing interesting fruit. The first fruit is the journal you see in the picture.  It is a compendium of quotes, poems, psalms and life lessons.
      Last fall I received an email from my younger son forwarding a reddit post about the 25 things I wish my parents had told me.  He asked if we had anything to add.  I thoroughly enjoyed the post, but didn't feel like I had anything to contribute.  When I saw the notebook in the gift shop at St. Meinrad's in May, I realized my contribution just needed a different format, a journal not just an email.
      A few weeks ago I showed the beginnings to him and he recommended that I add the creation of the pages and notes to my blog, so here it is:

        The fox on the cover captured my imagination.  On Memorial Day, my son and I were walking through Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.  Spending time together on Memorial Day got us both thinking about who we are and how we move in the world.  My son said the animal that best expressed his energy was a fox.  He is friendly, playful, and a bit tricksy.  As his friends would say, he's a "terrible person." In their parlance, someone that is fun to hang out with.

    On the inside cover is the best piece of advice anyone can receive.  "Every time you begin a good work, you must pray to Him most earnestly to bring it to perfection." Rule of St. Benedict prologue.
      Written over 1500 years ago, the Rule outlines how to live in community and it is still followed by monasteries around the world.  With this kind of testing for my first bit of advice, how could I go wrong?  Begin all things with thought and grace, allowing God to work through you to bring the work to its fullness. May this work be blessed and provide guidance.

Finding Your Why

         How is it that so often what we want to do, what we 'should' do is so hard?  Why is it that something we love uses up all of our willpower to just begin, much less finish?  For me the root motivation is always my "why?"  Why to get up in the morning, why to eat well, why to be kind to the telemarketer, why do anything at all?
        I wrote about the power of meaning in these three posts about ikigai (the Okinawan word for life purpose).  Somehow or another I just keep finding areas in my life that I have forgotten to apply this to.  Last week I discovered another neglected region.
       In January 2013, I became mostly vegan (here are my influences).  It was very intellectually satisfying and there is so much scientific evidence, but the buzz didn't last.  Another big factor is my commitment to the environment.  We have relatives living in New Jersey, and with each trip east there are more factory farms on the Pennsylvania turnpike.  Each time we travel, it reminds me of how detrimental this concentrated waste stream is to the local ecosystem (not to mention the animal suffering).  More about this here.  Again, day to day commitment was challenging.

     I had a major "Ahah!" moment last week when I was out running.  How do I see myself?  How do I make my life easier?  I'm not an environmentalist and my heart always beats my head in big decisions, so who am I?   I have always seen myself as an athlete and never heard the words "you can't" without saying "yes I can!"  I realized in the past I had read 3 books that provide my motivation.   Four days later, I purchased them and found my purpose again.
    Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness by Scott Jurek is a voyage.  He takes us through is life (as quirky as our own) that leads to health and purpose without discounting the struggles to get there.  There is a recipe at the end of each chapter, but the most important part, for me, is the reality of his journey.  He lets us in on the physical, emotional and spiritual pitfalls he has encountered.  It is so approachable.

      My next book is Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life by Brendan Brazier.  He has an emphasis on live, easy to digest foods the are portable and flexible.  Even better, the healing foods are interesting, piquant and right up my alley.  All of the recipes that I have tried have worked well and are to my taste.  Once I read that if you get three recipes from a book, it is money well spent.  In this book I have tried many more and have liked them all.
    Running with the Mind of Meditation: Lessons for Training Body and Mind is the final book.  I love to move and I love to meditate.  Over the years I have learned that often I need one to do the other.  This book gives easy and practical motivations for creating the peaceful mind inside the moving body.  What I love the most about this particular book is that  Sakyong Mipham, the author, approaches running as the secondary condition, and meditation as the primary, a completely opposite approach from mine.  It is great to see the world from eyes that are different, but a mind that agrees with your own.

     I leave you with one last motivation for my going mostly vegan.  It is Dr Greger's 2012 presentation about the leading causes of death.  All of the YouTube videos are fairly poor, but I love the talk.  He makes me laugh and what more could you want on a talk about the causes of death?
     So, here are my reasons for this one decision.  What are yours?

A Different Awakening

     This morning I was out running (bless spring and merely freezing weather), I had a thought and had the strongest reaction.  It really took me aback.  I thought about teaching yoga in my favorite shorts that I wear in my home practice.  It made me so happy.  I mean, seriously, joyous about looking so different? I already don't look like the ladies in Yoga Journal.  Weirder, seriously?  It was a wake up call that I needed.
      After I got home I spent some time thinking about this strange revelation.  With no clarity arising, I moved on with my day.  Later I picked up  50/50: Secrets I Learned Running 50 Marathons in 50 Days -- and How You Too Can Achieve Super Endurance! by, Dean Karnazes.  At this point in the book, he is running the Marine Corps Marathon on day 43 of  50 straight marathons

 (yes, crazy, but fun to live vicariously...) As he runs by the sculpture the Awakening, by J. Seward Johnson, Jr, he observes... "This giant figure seems at war with his greatest adversary, himself.  He appears to be struggling with the decision to follow what is in his heart, to buck convention and pursue an alternative course, a road less traveled.  The grimace on his face comes from knowing that his past may have been a numb existence, and that he will require great courage and conviction in the future if he is to avoid sinking back into the tomb of conformity.  There will be untold battles waged within himself..."

     Then I finally had my moment of clarity.  It was how I used to see life (and still often revert to).  Life is a struggle to be won, fought against the odds.  How this contrasts to what I believe in the front of my mind and what I teach to students of all ages!  At church I say 'no one gets out of heaven without gifts,' in classes and meetings I work to show others how they are so good for the world.  Doesn't this mean I am also good for the world, just the way I am?  Or, better yet, if I really let loose...
      Each time I write a new class (which is what I was thinking about right before the thought of the short round woman teaching yoga in shorts), I start creating the class that my favorite teachers would teach me.  Slowly, through many practices, I discard the parts that are not me and end with a class that I can teach very authentically.
    Let's just say a bit crazy and out of the box is so my style, but I love calm, quiet teachers.  My students like the humor and creativity, more like the Chihuly at left, than the sculpture above.  Maybe the uplift in spirit is exactly what I needed to finish my class...Meditation for Movers, anyone?
   

A Love Story

      What is love?  On Valentine's Day, it seems like an excellent question.  I have had a life surrounded by love (many thanks to all).  I have had the love of my family and friends and, of course, the wonderful love of my husband and children.  I have so many love stories.
       Last weekend's yoga class with Sianna Sherman is also a love story, though perhaps not it the way you would imagine.  For almost all of these classes with traveling teachers, I come alone.  It feels like everyone else is there with friends, except me.
       Now, I know this is not true, but our perception (not our intellect) is our reality.  So here I was, in this full weekend of classes that were going to be so hard, all alone.  As the class began to fill, a woman and her friend put down mats beside mine.  Sianna's classes are popular, so the room is very full.  There was about six inches between my mat and her's.
         So I introduced myself, she said "Hi, I'm....." and turned back to her friend.  Putting myself in her shoes, totally appropriate, but from my perspective I was now not one of the 'cool kids.'  I knew I was wrong, but there it was.  I spent some time feeling a bit hurt as they chatted their way through the opening moves.
         Then it was time to become childlike without being childish.  Children are open to all of the options, always letting life develop rather than freezing into one sad moment.  I decided that I would love her.  Just spend my practice time in love rather than in loneliness.  Through two and a half hours of serious sweat and heart-opening poses, I stayed in the feeling of love.  Nothing specific, but just the idea that we are all one and everyone is lovable.  It was a bit selfish.  If I am feeling love, I definitely am not feeling lonely.
         We broke for lunch and then it was back to two and a half hours of hip openers.  This means moving into one another's physical space, not more six inches separation and still no small talk.  I just kept loving her.  By the end of the class the barriers had slowly fallen, I had become a person. Now, when we fell it was funny and being so close was comfortable. When we laid down for savasana, as she relaxed her hand gently rolled out to brush mine and she did not move it away.
        I had this unbelievable experience of we are all one.   Everyone in the room was lifting me up and I was in turn lifting them.  Love didn't need to change everyone, all it needed to do was change me.  Happy Valentine's Day.

My Own Hero's Journey

Bhima from
http://openlibrary.org/books
/OL23365037M/Mahabharata

       I had the good fortune to attend 4 workshops with Sianna Sherman over the past weekend. I always look so forward to attending, but it's usually mixed with a bit of fear. People travel from all around just to attend, so usually I am among the least capable yogis in the room.  Add to this a fairly major fall when running two weeks ago (bringing with it a lot of stiffness and loss of strength), and let's just say showing up was a bit of a challenge.
      Our Friday night class was called Mythic Flow.  Sianna tells the class a story from one of the Indian mythic cycles then creates a flow around the lesson learned.  Last Friday it was part of the story of Bhima, son of Vayu, god of the wind.  The picture at left is very fierce, but our story was of a much gentler nature.  When Bhima was courting, he asked his love if there was anything in the world she wanted because he wanted to give her a gift.  She pointed across the field and asked him to bring her the white butterfly floating on the breeze.
        Bhima set off across the field as the butterfly slowly wafted into the forest.  He continued to pursue it ever deeper into the forest, never noticing in his single mindedness that he had completely left his world behind.  Unaware, Bhima began his hero's journey.
      As we began the flow of asana (poses), Sianna continued to remind us that we were on our own hero's journey.  Each move and each breath of the extremely difficult and very fun practice was playing our own edge, following our own white butterfly.  It was very freeing.  That voice of self-judgement is completely silent when life is journey not a destination.  It's time to lay the known aside and run off after the white butterfly.

Back on the Road Again, Part 1

       About two months ago, I began running, again, for I can't tell you the how many hundredth time.  For the past five years I have had one false start after another. After a few weeks I always began to get twinges (or worse) in my feet, ankles or knees.  It was so frustrating!  I'm way too young to stop moving. So I'd give it some time off and begin again. Today's post is about sharing one of the things that made my current 7 week running streak possible.

       I have very tight muscles (and no, a fifteen year yoga practice has not yet completely overcome my uptight personality).  Now, my theory was that these muscles were causing imbalances and hence my aching ankles.  The worst moment was when, less than a half a mile from our house,  I had to flag down my neighbor for a ride home.  Daily massages were not an option and no stretching regime had worked.  At left find the Sunpentown Healthy Swing Machine with Swivel Disc, my personal live-in masseuse.
      I must admit, I thought it was absolutely ridiculous when I first saw it. Really, swinging the legs such a short distance, how could it help?  What I did not understand was what a persistent little bugger this is.  It just keeps swinging for as long as programmed.  At first it just moved my feet, but as the session progressed it moved up the body.  As each lower region relaxed, more and more movement happened, until at the end, I can usually feel the gentle rocking all the way up to my neck.  If you figure $60 an hour for a massage, this has paid for itself six times over in the three months I've owned it.
         One day I forgot to use the machine before I took off for my jog.  I had to go even more slowly than usual to warm up and never really felt very good.  Let's just say I've not forgotten again.

In No Particular Order...

     In the past few months I have read so many books, it was hard to decide which to write about.  One book, however, has really made an impact.  It is not so much the deep research or useful metaphors, though the book has them aplenty.  Rather, it is the material is so simple to grasp and utilize it makes me wonder how I could have ever not known it.  The book is called Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence by Rick Hanson.
       The core idea is stated simply in the introduction "HEAL: Have a positive experience. Enrich it. Absorb it. Link positive and negative so that positive soothes and even replaces negative. (The fourth step is optional.)"  How easy, right?  The key is to notice being happy and roll around in it like a dog in the grass. Like the old song, I think the book could be renamed "If you're happy and you know it."
          So you could just read the introduction and be done with it, but then you would miss all of the interesting metaphors and unique ways to remember things gleaned from years of practice as a neuropsychologist and teacher.  Here are a few that I really liked:
 -    "Imagine that your mind is like a garden.  You could simply be with it, looking at its weeds and flowers without judging or changing anything.  Second, you could pull weeds by decreasing what's negative in your mind.  Third, you could grow flowers by increasing the positive in your mind."
-      "Since neurons that fire together wire together, staying with a negative experience pat the point that's useful is like running laps in Hell:  You dig the track a little deeper in your brain each time you go around it."
-       "(Since the parts of the brain have developed over time), it helps me to think of my own mind as containing a kind of lizard, mouse, and monkey related to the avoiding, approaching and attaching systems.  We meet our core needs for safety, satisfaction, and connection when we -metaphorically- pet the lizard, feed the mouse, and hug the monkey."
            There are many exercises and practices later in the book to teach the reader to enrich and absorb the positive experiences we all have.  I think the most important gift to us all from this book is  the knowledge that we are in the driver's seat of our happiness bus.  "On average, about a third of a person's strengths are innate, built into his or her genetically based temperament, talents, mood, and personality.  The other two-thirds are developed over time.  You get them by growing them.  To me this is wonderful news, since it means that we can develop the happiness and other inner strengths that foster fulfillment, love, effectiveness, wisdom, and inner peace.  Finding out how to grow these strengths inside you could be the most important thing you ever learn."