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Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

~ Recovery from PTSD & depression + yoga, silliness & poetry…

Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

Tag Archives: Melbourne

A recipe shared + a give-away winner

24 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by Svasti in Fun, Life, Recipies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

coconut biscuit recipe, Evil Chest-Suppressing Lurgy, give away winner, Melbourne, poached eggs, Recipes

Greetings from mid-Wintery Melbourne with its gasp-inducing freezey mornings and evenings.

I was gonna write to y’all last week but instead I succumbed to the Evil Chest-Suppressing Lurgy that 80% of Melbourne seems to have, and spent three days lying on my excellently long couch with the cosy cushions, with multiple pots of tea, Buffy DVDs, poached eggs and… cravings. For baked goods.

Specifically, my own variation of my grandma’s coconut biscuit recipe. So, once I’d had enough of the horizontal resting and the snoozing I pulled a stick of organic butter out of the fridge to soften it up and got to it.

Baking while all fluey means two things:

  1. You have to eat ALL the cookies (omnom nom). Coz it’s unsanitary to pass on your baked-in germs.
  2. Much of the prep work – like creaming the butter – can be done sitting down. There’s always a work-around when you REALLY want a cookie!

So this I offer to everyone in honour of my recently departed and highly complicated grandmother (her recipe, adapted by me):

(Gluten/sugar free) Coconut biscuits

  • 100g organic butter (room temperature)
  • ½ cup rice malt syrup
  • 1 egg
  • 1½ cups of gluten free self-raising flour (or normal flour + baking powder)
  • ½ cup of almond meal
  • 1 tea spoon vanilla essence
  • 1 cup organic desiccated coconut
  • Optional: 2x teaspoons organic raw cacao powder (for chocolatey cookies)

Pre-heat oven to 220 Celsius.

Cream butter, then stir in rice malt syrup until smooth and blended. Mix in the egg.

Sift flour and combine with almond meal, stir in to butter/sugar/egg combo.

Add vanilla essence and coconut, plus (optional) cacao powder.

Make sure the mixture is on the dry side, instead of wet and sloppy. Add a little more flour if needed.

Grease baking tray, and drop small teaspoon-sized pieces of the mixture.

Bake for around 20 minutes only. Don’t over-cook or they’ll lose their coconutty flavour.

DONE! In no time at all, you have some very tasty and easy to make cookies that are delightful with endless pots of tea. 😉

 ~~~

On to the next order of business…

Give-away winner

Yep, I’ve been a little distracted so almost forgot to draw the winner of the Yoga Nidra give-away.

Being that I’m all fluey, forgive me for not doing a video to prove the integrity of my winning entry drawing process.

AND. The winner is…

***La Gitane***

Congrats! I’ll be in touch via email to get your postal address. 😀

And…a few lil updates from me

  • This year has involved massive amounts of change for the good. This is still going on, but harder to write about because I’m still in it.
  • My grandmother’s passing has brought others changes. Some that have already happened; others yet to come. Things I’d rather not talk about here but they are in the end, good things, too.
  • I wrote an article for Nadine’s blog on how to heal PTSD. I was overwhelmed by some of the positive comments both on the blog post and in Nadine’s Facebook feed.
  • I AM going to write an ebook on healing from PTSD. It’s coming. 😀
  • I am no longer in trauma. I’m. No. Longer. In. Trauma. There’s a post coming on that one really soon…

A happy mid-Winter/Summer to you all, wherever you are.

And if you make my grandma’s coconut biscuits, please let me know!!

~Svasti

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A visit to the Land of Winter Sunshine

06 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by Svasti in Life

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

blue skies and sunshine, manifest, Melbourne, Miss Kitty, South Pole, Supernatural, Sydney, Winter, X-Men: First Class

A little while ago – which might actually have been a couple of months back now, who can say – I had a very distinct thought. Or a feeling. In any case, it went a little something like this:

Wow, I’m really missing Sydney these days. I have this craving to see it again. Confession: I prefer Sydney to Melbourne in many ways.

So then the week before the one just gone, I find myself being assigned to two new projects at work (in my contracty role). These projects ensured that my contract was extended for another three months, and what do you know… most of the people working on these projects are Sydney-based.

And in one very quick teleconference, the decision was made that it’d be better if I was there in person for the kick-off meetings.

My offices are just to the top right, where the diamond shaped windows are

Licketty-split, approval was given and flights booked on my behalf (ooooh, fancy!) and before I could take my next deep breath, a two day business trip was planned to the land not of my birth, but certainly of my heart.

And oh, I could’ve elected to stay the weekend too, couch surfing with my friends but then I’d have had to re-organise things which would impact other things and so on. So, Thursday and Friday it was, then. And it was enough to sate my hunger for my second home.

(By the way, PLEASE don’t leave comments about how I “manifested” this trip. I honestly don’t buy into that game. The universe creates but for the most part, I think we don’t “manifest” stuff. But that’s another story.)

Anyway, so apart from having to get up at 4am on Thursday morning and leave my Miss Cleo the cat in the care of my neighbour (and worry about her having to stay in the house by herself overnight), it was all good. Very good.

You see, Sydney’s winters are just not as cold as Melbourne’s, not ever. Sure, Sydney-folk might complain about cold weather but they don’t have blasts of Freezing coming directly at them from the South Pole, do they? No, they don’t! So the weather is always milder than Melbourne’s and hip-hip-hooray, because for the two days I was there it didn’t rain. Instead, we were treated to brilliant blue skies and enough warmth that walking around during the day without a coat on, was possible.

Given that Melbourne has had an early Winter (Autmun 2011 = the beginning of Winter 2011), with much greyness and rains that haven’t really stopped since January, I was elated.

Also – I was back in my “other” home. Sydney has always been so good to me, from the moment I set foot in that place as a very green twenty-one year old. And it has that harbour and that bridge. Plus way more natural beauty than the town of my birth.

Honestly, even though I was there for work and only managed to catch up with two of my old friends, my spirits were soaring. I grinned at the airport, the familiar traffic jams and even the most ordinary of buildings, let alone the prettier ones.

More of Sydney's sandstone gorgeousness

The offices of the company I work for are very near Circular Quay and if you peek around certain corners, you can also see the world-famous Bridge. Work was okay, if busy-busy-busy. And I was honestly so grateful for the opportunity to be flown into Sydney that I didn’t mind one bit.

I got to meet a couple of old friends for drinks in Customs House – a wonderful old sandstone building at the Quay – which was participating in Sydney’s annual light and sound show (it gets better every year).

Customs House - which is usually plain sandstone coloured

Can’t say that I slept much on the Thursday night as I was too excited, but the hotel was ultra comfy and far too fancy for an old hippie chick like me. 😉

The next day was more work, but this time I wandered around at lunch time, reveling in the winter sun and that uniquely Sydney vibe, which generally includes lots of art, but this wasn’t part of the show…

Shiny!

What you’re seeing above – and what transfixed me – was the sight of one building perfectly reflected in the mirror surface of another. Looks amazing, right?

But this cool looking bear was definitely part of the street art on display – check out his metal ribs!

Actually, it was a bit warm out for this bear....

Literally, the city seemed to be buzzing and I enjoyed every minute of it. Of course, that meant that when I got on the plane to head back to Melbourne I was exhausted. Which means in my current state of health/dis-ease I was SUPER-EXHAUSTED.

So once I got home around 8pm, I promptly declared the rest of the evening “do everything in bed” night (and you can keep your f-i-l-t-h-y quips to yourself there!). Which included eating dinner, watching Supernatural on my laptop, drinking tea and being smothered by one Miss Kitty who clearly, really missed me (purr-purr-purr-purr).

The grateful purrs didn't stop all night & she couldn't get close enough to me!

My wee business trip made things very clear to me: my time in Melbourne is for all intents, done. As soon as I can get out of town, it’s time to go. Despite my nieces being here (whom I love to pieces), Melbourne is not my home. It’s just a place I’ve been hanging out in for too long.

But hey, seems I brought the weather back with me for the weekend – blue skies and sunshine on Saturday (a day of recovery, alpaca scarves, kindly people, good food and X-Men: First Class)…

Some lovely parkland near Clifton Hill station

And Sunday (walking and talking with one of my bestest friends in the chilly sunshine), followed by brunch.

Alexandra Gardens, just next to the "Tan Track"

Hope y’all had/are having a great weekend, too!

~Svasti

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Visiting Brits, kitsch-fests and teapot love

24 Sunday Apr 2011

Posted by Svasti in Fun, Life

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Anastasia and Olga, curvy yoginis, Dandenong Ranges, devonshire tea, kitsch, Melbourne, Miss Marples tea house, Russian dolls, scones, Suburban Yogini, tea, teapots

So in case you missed it, I had a very exciting and fun day on Friday – the one and only Rachel (of Suburban Yogini fame) was in town with her guy (Himself) and we all hung out for the day!

Meeting blog friends is awesome. Basically, you already share quite a bit in common and you tend to know an awful lot about each other before you’ve met so there’s a level of comfort and camaraderie happening from the get-go. I LOVE meeting blogging peeps!

I feel that it’s important to emphasise just how CUTE Rachel is in person. As much as you think she’s lovely from her blog, she’s way better again in real life. Himself is pretty awesome, too. He very politely put up with a lot of gabbing from Rachel and I, and wasn’t shy about joining in the fun.

My big plan for the day was to take them somewhere they wouldn’t probably go otherwise, and whisked them out of the city and up to the Dandenong Ranges (you can’t really call them mountains, Rachel!), to the east of the city. The drive out there is pretty boring but once up there in the hills, everything is a little magical with lots of curvy roads, ferny forests and a smattering of ridiculously cute townlets.

I had a few adventures planned but we didn’t quite get through them all because we were just so busy enjoying whatever it was we were doing right then. You can check out some of Rachel’s photos from the day over here.

First stop was Mount Dandenong Sky High Lookout – we got a great view for about two minutes, after which Melbourne did its usual four seasons in twenty minutes routine on repeat. Due to the weather, we opted to get some food at the cafe there (note: not recommended, really).

And then… errr, a not so great part of the day: at the table right next to us it seems an elderly gentleman had a heart attack! We were sitting there gabbing away, drinking luke-warm beverages and waiting on our ice-cold fries when… CRAP. That man is totally on the ground and unconscious, with all of his  female relatives sobbing. It seemed like the staff weren’t particularly trained for that sort of thing. No one rushed out with a first aid kit and they didn’t think to move any of the other patrons out of the area. Eventually the paramedics arrived and went to town on his chest with a defibrillator and CPR. We left before we knew what happened since between the very ordinary food and the heart attack, we’d kind of lost our appetites.

So. What’s a tour guide to do in that situation? Send out prayers for the man (done several times over), and attempt to steer this weird start to the day in a better direction.

There aren’t too many better directions than to head into the deep heartland of kitsch-ville, and that’s exactly where we went. First stop: Olinda. Actually, Rachel and Himself almost demanded that we stop!

There’s all kinds of wackiness in Olinda, but also, amazing little finds like:

These little ladies were in the window of one of the many kitsch-fest shops we wandered past...

More curvy yogini-ettes!

A little bigger than the size of your fist but at $100 per piece, a touch expensive. Never mind – photos are free! We also stopped into a ye olde time sweet shop where we each grabbed a couple of delicacies (and I do hope that Himself kept his word to share!).

Next: onwards to Sassafrass, home of the famous and delightfully odd Miss Marples tea house where there are no bookings allowed – you’ve just got to turn up and hope for the best.

Rachel’s very British word to describe the busy-factor was apt: the place was “heaving”.

Of course, I used my best “but I have guests here all the way from the UK” line, and somehow one of the ladies in charge took pity on us and squeezed us in. Sure, we had to wait around fifteen minutes (which we used poking around in nearby shops, including an outdoor old record shop!), but hey, we had one of the much coveted spots where many others were turned away.

And this is what we did there…

The Australian fascination with all things supposedly British is out in full-force at Miss Marples!

Right next to Miss Marples is another kind of tea house – a shop with hundreds of different kinds of tea and all sorts of tea and coffee related paraphernalia. The Brits were of course, in heaven.

And although I didn’t know it yet, I was in love with my new teapot. Folks, meet Anastasia and her little sister, Olga:

Anastasia

Olga, with Anastasia looking on

It was madness! Not only did I stock up on new tea, but this VERY fancy teapot. I can’t tell you how happy these girls make me. On the second day of use, I’ve settled in to using Olga moreso than Anastasia just on account of tea volume. Here’s Olga in action from earlier this evening:

Olga in action!

But I’m getting ahead of myself!

After Sassafrass I valiantly aimed to get us to our last destination – a lovely nature walk, but we only had fourty minutes left before the reserve closed so we decided to call it a day, and rely on my rather wayward navigational abilities to get us back to the city.

Hey! I survive very well as long as I have mobile phone reception to make the GPS in my iPhone work!

But never fear, I dropped Rachel and Himself off safely and let them prepare for the most important pilgrimage of their visit to this fine country: their Neighbours tour. For those of you who aren’t British or Australian and therefore probably have no idea what I’m talking about… well, lucky you!

Kidding! Okay, not really. Neighbours is basically a sloshy trash-soap opera that we’ve been flogging off to the Brits for years. It’s actually more popular over there than it is here, where most Australians consider it to be about as exciting as Paul Hogan (best left in the 80’s and forgotten about).

But hey – whatever turns you on, right? As a rather ridiculously vampire-obsessed person, I’m not in any position to be casting judgement on what other people enjoy as entertainment.

Anyway, that’s where Rachel and Himself were going today and by the looks of things, they thoroughly enjoyed it!

And while I know our  truly excellent adventure in the hills can’t compare to the Neighbours tour, I had a blast on our day out. Not to mention that I came away with another piece of practical and smile-inducing fabulousness for my home.

Oh Anastasia and Olga, where have you been my entire tea-drinking life? Sad but true: it’s love, folks.

And love and big bear hugs for Rachel and Himself! xoxo

~Svasti

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Breaking up with your yoga teacher – part 2

27 Sunday Mar 2011

Posted by Svasti in Learnings, Yoga

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

2 William Street Balaclava, Abuse, Anxiety, arrogant, ass, assume, breaking up, Bullying, detachment, humiliated, Louise Goodvach, Melbourne, reactive, rebuked, Shadow Yoga, shit-palooza, Stress, vairagya, Yoga Moves, yoga teacher abuse, yoga teaching, zero tolerance

Click on the photo to read Yoga Dawg’s brilliant rap/poem/song!

[Read part 1 first]

Act II: After-words

So that same night and before I’d even made it home, I sent her this email:

I am sorry to walk out of your class but I was feeling very angry and it seemed to be the least disruptive thing I could do right then.

I feel that you judge me very harshly. Your assumption that I have been trying to tell people what to do in your class is incorrect. Perhaps it’s the tone of my voice, but I am usually attempting to confirm something for myself rather than tell anyone else what to do.

At the beginning of the class you spoke of never really knowing what the cause of various things are. Yet you are so certain of my motivations that you chose to embarrass me in front of everyone.

That is what I found so incredible.

Perhaps you don’t think much of my previous training or my current abilities but I am only ever attempting to improve my own practice. Generally I tend to speak a lot and it’s something I continue to work on. But my verbalizing of my own thoughts on things is not ever meant to be instruction to others.

I am sorry if you thought otherwise, but I find myself very upset at your treatment of me this evening.

Unfortunately, I was in shock and I was stressed. My body has lost its ability to handle sudden stresses like that. So I didn’t sleep well that night and the next day… well, I wrote about it here.

It sucked. That part isn’t anyone’s fault. I’m doing everything I can do heal my body and mind but there’s stuff that just isn’t resolved yet.

Hello? And once again WTF?

I wasn’t sure if I was going to hear back from her at all, which of course added to my stress. Even though my mind was cool with things, my body wasn’t.

Sometime on Friday I got a reply, if you can call it that. It was just a single sentence:

See you next week.

Oh really?!!

That pretty much resolved my will I/wont I go back dilemma. So I wrote two lines back in response:

No you won’t. I won’t be returning to your classes.

I have better things to do with my time than be abused in a yoga class.

Say what you like about my own reactiveness, but I think her behaviour was both abusive and completely unnecessary.

Then, after reading (or perhaps dismissing?) my email, she did not acknowledge what happened or make even the tiniest of apologies. In fact, she blew me off. As far as I’m concerned, that’s both arrogant and a pretty poor business decision.

In the past I’ve recommended this studio to other people. On this blog, I’ve actively written about my experiences with and love of Shadow Yoga. I’ve been nothing but positive and supportive of this yoga studio and have never had any negative interactions with anyone there ever before.

Her reply to mine?

Take good care of yourself.

And with that we were done. No longer was she my yoga teacher.

[Full disclosure: I might’ve also sent her an email after that one telling her that I think she kind of sucks, and that I hope she one day learns to apply what she teachers to the way she treats people – harsh but ultimately not unreasonable, I think.]

In itself, that’s not a big deal. I’m not emotionally attached to her or to the studio, and I sure as hell didn’t have her up on a pedestal (been there, done that before).

I do love Shadow Yoga, and I’ll continue to develop my home practice. There’s a couple of other studios here in Melbourne that teach it, but they’re not terribly close to where I live. And unfortunately, when the founders of Shadow Yoga come to Melbourne, they teach out of her studio. Bummer.

Detachment doesn’t mean being a cold hard biatch

If you’ve been doing yoga for a while, you might’ve heard about “detachment” (vairagya), which is much misunderstood aspect of yogic philosophy.

Non-attachment is not suppression: Non-attachment is not a mere personality trait that one practices in dealing with the other people of the world. It is very easy to fool oneself into thinking that non-attachment is being practiced when what is really happening is pretending to be non-attached.
http://www.swamij.com/yoga-sutras-11216.htm

When abusing me in class, my now ex-yoga teacher was mean, unpleasant and VERY reactive. Afterwards, she was all icy-coldness and hey, maybe in her mind that’s what she considers detachment to be (once again, an assumption on my part – I have no idea what she thinks).

But detachment doesn’t mean that you don’t care, or that you don’t have feelings. It just means that you don’t self-identify with them, and you’re not invested in the outcome of a situation.

IF she’d really wanted me to come back to classes, a simple apology would have made all the difference, but that sort of thing should not have to be prompted.

Unless of course, her plan all along was to have me leave?

Keep your integrity close and your humility even closer

We all make mistakes. We all do things we kick ourselves for later (heck, I know I do!). But if our actions have upset someone, no matter what we think of the situation it’s generally good practice to apologise.

For me, that’s a part of being a good teacher and it’s something I’ve always admired about my own Guru.

As he unfolds his own spiritual development ever further, he’ll say things like: Previously I thought this was true, but now I know X, Y and Z. What I told you before was incorrect.

It’s perfectly okay to admit to mistakes, but of course you need humility for that. The more, the better.

And speaking of detachment, I know of no one with better mastery of it than my Guru. And yet he is warm. He will hug people. He’ll laugh, he’ll dance, drink, show anger and if he sees it’s required, he’ll apologise. He’s an awesome role model like that.

There’s nothing in this life that’s not a part of the whole. Nothing.

And if you recognise that you’ve made a mistake, then WOMAN-UP and apologise (shout out to Lo for that phrase!).

Be humble. Being a yoga teacher doesn’t mean that you’re always right.

Act III: Bottom line

I’m grateful for what I’ve learned, and I still love Shadow Yoga and will continue my practice. Just not at the studio of someone who won’t even acknowledge what happened or talk to me about it.

Perhaps I won’t learn as quickly as I might by attending regular classes but thems the breaks.

Change is the only constant

Another of my friends, Linda, reminded me:

It’s not always a bad thing to be betrayed. Many times it happens when we need to move on from a person, place. And of course happens with people we are close to so that’s why it hurts more. Betrayal is not necessarily “bad energy” because it’s “good” for change.

In my grand crazy plan for my future, there were only a couple of things making me hesitate about leaving Melbourne again (eventually). There’s my sister and nieces, and my Shadow Yoga practice being tied to this particular yoga studio.

I’ll always have my sister and nieces, even if I’m far away. And I’ll always have what I know of Shadow Yoga. Who knows? I might even move to a place where I can study with another teacher some day.

But I sure as heck don’t have to accept abuse in order to learn. No one does.

~Svasti

(Also, big thanks to CK, Nancy, Rachel, Cherie, Kimberly (as well as Lo and Linda) for their real-time support on Twitter while I worked through this shit-palooza!)

**September 2013 update: Ummmm, dear judgey and outraged people reading this post and deciding that I’m being ridiculous. A few things:

1. This post was written well over three years ago. So, y’know, as you can imagine, I’ve moved on since then.

2. I am entitled to my feelings and experiences. This is my blog. So coming here and psychoanalyzing me and telling me I’m wrong? Ermmm, HOW WOULD YOU KNOW? Coz you don’t know.

3. Unless you are me or the teacher in question, you’ve got no right to interpret the situation.

4. See point #1. This is O-V-E-R. Yeah, it’s an historical piece of writing on my blog. Get over it and go out and live your live. Be happy. I sure am!**

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Breaking up with your yoga teacher – part 1

24 Thursday Mar 2011

Posted by Svasti in Learnings, Yoga

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

2 William Street Balaclava, Abuse, Anxiety, ass, assume, breaking up, Bullying, humiliated, Louise Goodvach, Melbourne, rebuked, Shadow Yoga, Stress, Yoga Moves, yoga teacher abuse, yoga teaching, zero tolerance

The silent observer…

Act I: Unrequited and un-required abuse

Say you’ve been going to the same yoga classes and the same studio for around eighteen months. It’s a place you love, feel comfortable at and enjoy frequenting. It’s become your “yoga home” and you feel invigorated by what you’re learning.

This feeling of a home away from home is comprised of a few things: the yoga you’re learning, the vibe of the studio and the teachers you’re learning from.

So what happens if one day for no reason you can be certain of, everything changes?

The smack down

What happens if you’re in class and you ask a question (the first one you’ve asked that session), only for that question to be radically misinterpreted by your yoga teacher? You ask, but your phrasing is off. Instead of, “So how do you do this pose properly…?” you say, “So you do it like this, right?”.

Perhaps the end of the question wasn’t heard. Perhaps it was, and she just didn’t like your tone. Bit hard to say really. But suddenly you’re on the end of a rather nasty and public (class of 20+ people) dressing down.

It’s different for everyone. Until you can do it, you shouldn’t try to tell others what to do.

Okay, but that wasn’t my intention…

You’ve done it before you know.

You have?!? You bite your tongue and keep going, but combined with this little diatribe and your general sense of left-right confusion you end up doing the next pose on the wrong leg. Your yoga teacher reprimands you sharply for doing so. You laugh it off and go to swap legs but are still having a little moment of “which leg forward”, when she continues her previous (and loud) rebuke:

You really shouldn’t say anything at all until you can get it right.

At which point, feeling entirely misunderstood, unfairly rebuked, mightily pissed off, and somewhat humiliated at being verbally abused in a freakin’ yoga class – you choose to walk out.

Why? Well why the hell not? Why should you stay and continue to take instructions from someone who’s just (verbally) taken a big stick and thwacked you over the head with it?

As you go to leave, more attempted humiliation: (loudly) No [insert name], don’t do that…

But you do leave because, excuse me? This is meant to be a yoga class. You’re not ten years old and you haven’t just painted the cat purple. In fact, the yoga teacher has unfairly jumped to conclusions and punished you in front of the rest of the class.

For realz?

Yep! This is what happened to me last week at the Shadow Yoga school I’ve been a faithful patron of since October 2009.

My first thought as I left: “Well, that’s a shame”.

I was trying to work out if I would/could/should consider returning to the classes at all. Or if not to that teacher’s classes (who is also the studio owner), then to other classes there.

I sat outside the class for a bit, focusing on my breathing and probably looking something this (but less furry):

A somewhat confused yogi – adapted from: http://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/Yoga%20Yogi_95284

I went for a walk to calm down. I ordered some food. And I tried to make sense of my Wednesday night.

Nobody’s perfect

Perhaps she was having a bad night? Maybe I was? I mean, on the way to class that night I couldn’t shake the nagging bundle of nervous anxiety in my belly.

And maybe she didn’t hear the end of my question? Who knows? But WHY on earth would you talk to someone like that, no matter what the circumstances? It seemed highly reactive and downright mean.

Heck, if I was having problems with a student (or anyone) I’d talk to them privately, and I don’t think I’d ever publicly rebuke anyone like that unless someone’s health or life was in danger.

And despite her assertion that I’d “done it before”, this was the first time I’d been made aware that she thought that. Not once in all the time I practiced there was it pointed out that I was supposedly doing something “wrong”.

But the reality is that I wasn’t doing what she thought I was doing. When I attempted to say so I was cut short, and then I was rebuked again, and one final verbal kick in the ass when I chose to leave.

Incidentally: this is the very first time I’ve ever walked out of a yoga class in over ten years of doing all kinds of yoga!

A little background

Just a couple of weeks beforehand; this same yoga teacher told me that I “had to choose”. When I asked her what she meant, she told me that I shouldn’t do Shadow Yoga and any style of yoga because “it will be confusing for my body”.

Not that she’s ever said so explicitly, but these are impressions (possibly incorrect but it’s a feeling) I’ve gathered from her:

  • She doesn’t think much of my previous training
  • She’s convinced that Shadow Yoga is THE only yoga people should be doing
  • She doesn’t think I should be teaching because I really don’t have Shadow Yoga down at all

I could be wrong about any/all of the above, but her attitude and general snippiness towards me in certain situations have created this impression.

She asked what I was teaching, and I explained that I teach foundation yoga for beginners – which is all about the basics of body movement etc. I suggested there’s a place for other forms of Hatha yoga that aren’t Shadow Yoga and that not everyone wants a strong practice like Shadow Yoga.

She also asked about my teacher, so I explained my background with my guru as well as my teacher training. I said I’d send her links to information about him and she said she’d like that. When I sent her the URLs, I didn’t get a “thank you” email or any kind of acknowledgement at all.

The very next week was last week, when I walked out of her class. Were these incidents related? Hard to say but I have to wonder, right?

Perhaps she decided to “choose” for me, and manufactured the whole thing? I won’t jump to conclusions and assume that’s the truth, but I’m just sayin’…

Implied intimacy and trust

For me, being in a yoga class is very personal. I’ve found this both as a student as well as a fledgling teacher. There’s a whole bunch of intimacy going on.

As a yoga teacher, you’re instructing people how to move their body and when to breath. You’re working with your student’s fears as well as their monkey mind. In my limited teaching experience to date, I feel very much that teaching is a service. I’m not there to be a schoolmarm and demand obedience – instead I’m trying to get people to explore, feel, experience, sense.

As a student, I am trusting my yoga teacher to be a good person. A helpful person. Someone who is kind and considerate – at least while the class is in session. In a yoga class I open myself up and I am vulnerable physically, mentally, emotionally and energetically. I am shrugging off my baggage as best as I can and leaving it at the door. I am trusting you to be careful with me while I follow your lead.

In my books, it’s absolutely unconscionable to use your position as a yoga teacher to smack down one of your students.

You don’t have to take anybody else’s shit, no matter who they are

These days, I have a zero tolerance approach towards bullying and abuse.

I was both surprised and pleased to observe my very healthy boundaries when it came to dealing with her crap. It hasn’t always been like that, y’see.

Something my Guru has always said to his students is this: You don’t have to accept anyone else’s trip.

Look Guruji, I totally DIDN’T! 😀

Assume makes an ASS out of U and ME

I don’t know for sure what was in her mind any more than she knows what was in mine. Based on her reaction and what she said, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what she meant.

But she assumed my motives were different than they were. She didn’t check in with me to find out what I was saying, she just jumped right in.

Dear ex-yoga teacher of mine: you behaved like an ass.

[Read part 2]

~ Svasti

**September 2013 update: Ummmm, dear judgey and outraged people reading this post and deciding that I’m being ridiculous. A few things:

1. This post was written well over three years ago. So, y’know, as you can imagine, I’ve moved on since then.

2. I am entitled to my feelings and experiences. This is my blog. So coming here and psychoanalyzing me and telling me I’m wrong? Ermmm, HOW WOULD YOU KNOW? Coz you don’t know.

3. Unless you are me or the teacher in question, you’ve got no right to interpret the situation.

4. See point #1. This is O-V-E-R. Yeah, it’s an historical piece of writing on my blog. Get over it and go out and live your live. Be happy. I sure am!**

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Hangin’ with a Desert Chick

19 Friday Nov 2010

Posted by Svasti in Fun

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

AnthroYogini, CBD, Chinatown, Cocktails, Desert Book Chick, Gin Palace, hurricane, kindred spirit, margarita, Melbourne, Spicy Fish, tribe, vodka martini

Just after 6pm this evening in the post-work CBD chaos (reeking of desperation and celebration), this was to my right, part of Melbourne’s town hall…


And this was in front of me…


As I waited for the Chick From The Desert (aka Anthroyogini)…

Then, like a tiny yet furious hurricane she arrived with fierce hugs and oh…maybe a tiny little tear at the corners of her eyes (it was pretty awesome to meet after “knowing” each other by blog only for so long!).

Although she was in town for a short but intense visit only, and we had just a few hours to get acquainted in the flesh!

So I took her to Spicy Fish in Chinatown for a glorious dinner. Then, for something completely different for a girl from the outback, the Gin Palace (they’d apparently do well to open a similar bar up her way!).

A vodka martini for me, a margarita for her. And endless chatter. Oddly, we didn’t really talk about the blog world that much. But Amanda is indeed, a kindred spirit.

I left her at Collins St with more hugs and promises of more time, some time soon. Both visits to The Alice and more here in Melbourne.

And yayayayayay!! Because… I do believe I’ve identified another member of my tribe (I think they’re all spread quite far and wide)!

🙂

~Svasti

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Autumn creeps in on dusk’s shoulders

08 Thursday Apr 2010

Posted by Svasti in Life

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Autumn, Change, Collins St, Degraves St, enlivened art, Melbourne, sandstone, stream of conciousness, Trams

click the image for a larger version...

Running east to west through the main grid of Melbourne’s CBD, the buildings here on Collins Street are quite historical. There’s lots of sandstone (I have a thing for sandstone – don’t ask) and fabulously dramatic structures that look utterly beautiful most times of the day but especially at dusk, even interspersed as they are with more modern buildings. Much of the street’s profile hasn’t changed in about 130 years (perhaps longer), with its elegant tree-scapes running the length of this wide street, home to one of the busiest tram lines in town. Collins Street is enlivened art. Leaving work yesterday around 5.30pm, waiting for a tram in the center of the street, I looked up and somehow my phone’s camera was engaged and before I had time to exhale, *snap* I took this shot. It reminds me of Autumn, with the sun beginning to vanish so early in the evening once again. Soon, those leaves will change colour and sprinkle the depth and breadth of the street with warm golden hues, as if a tiny piece of the remains of Summer were embedded in each one. Come mid-Winter I may not be working here anymore. It’s possibly-probably time for change once again, but that’s cool with me and it might just be what I need anyhow. The good thing about working as a contractor is the reminder that change is constant and necessary, as well as situating me all over the CBD (in general, most of the jobs in my line of work are in the city). But it’s a pretty city, a smallish city. You can walk Melbourne’s main grid easily. It’d take you longer though, if you spend some time searching the laneway bars, cafés and shops this city is famous for (make sure you don’t miss Degraves St). And then trams can take you further and to more interesting outlying suburbs, but sometimes just looking up like I did yesterday, shows you the most interesting things of all. In this case, not right beneath my nose, but above my head…

~Svasti

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Yoga Or Die

24 Wednesday Mar 2010

Posted by Svasti in Learnings, Spirituality

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Autumn, carbon-based bipeds, Change, chanting, Chogyam Trungpa, Crazy Wisdom Dude, emptiness, gap-world, Love, Meditation, Melbourne, pas de deux, seasons, spaciously vacant, Summer, Yoga, Yoga Or Die

Summer is phasing in and out, performing its pas de deux with Autumn as Melbourne heads back at a leisurely pace into it’s grey wintry world. For the long haul. A blast of cooler air here. Dazzling sun rays streaking through a gap in the clouds looking like one of those paintings where the Big Man In the Sky talks to the people on Earth. A sudden downpour, followed by warmth and humidity reminiscent of early January. The flowers and leaves changing. Darker mornings and a lessened desire to get out of bed as a result.

In this world, I’m finding my feet more and more. And my balance and inversions, too. And discovering that for me at least, there’s no other choice. It’s a little bit like Yoga Or Die. Sure, we’re all dying anyway – don’t you know that the main cause of death is birth? But for me in this life there’s little else that’s important, so it seems.

Sure, there’s my teachers and family and friends and books and dancing and music. But I’m not that enamoured of fashion, eating in fancy restaurants, big cars, having the most toys or anything else. Go ahead and mock my lack of a fancy new flat screen TV if you like, I’ll just giggle at the supposed importance of that inanimate ‘must have’ object or anything else you think my life is lacking.

A simple life seems to bring me more than enough contentment. As long as there’s yoga and chanting, beautiful colours and poetry, candles and easy access to gorgeous natural surrounds then I’m pretty much all good. And hey, is there anything I can do for you? Anything that you need? Being of service fits in right alongside my simple needs, too.

I know that I’ve been a little slack on the frequency of my posts lately. There’s been my recent spate house guests and also, dropping into what that Crazy Wisdom Dude (aka Chogyam Trungpa) called “gaps”.

Yeah, it’s a little weird in here right now and any time I find out that that’s where I am, I have to remember the secret of functioning effectively here before anything else is possible (P.S. one of the key ingredients is LOVE). But more often than not, I find in that kind of space I don’t feel like doing anything in particular. Not even writing, much as I love and rely on it at other times. Much as I’ve got lots to say and plenty of draft pieces lying in wait.

And I know I’m sitting in one of those gaps when my thoughts turn to the complete beauty and yet utter pointlessness of everything. Not in a depressive frame of mind – I’ve had plenty of that and I can tell you this is WAY different. In fact, these days I suspect that some of those episodes of depression were in fact, gap-flavoured. Maybe that’s how some of them started off in the first place?

Because the thing about gap-world is that it feels starkly empty and spaciously vacant. And more often than not, that makes carbon-based bipeds with a tendency towards awareness feel rather neurotic or anxious or both. What’s wrong with me? we ask… (The answer, actually, is “Nothing”. But we rarely believe such home-spun truths).

And so we try to work out how to fill all that space instead of just letting it be.

But if you can keep your hands and your thoughts to yourself, it’s a bit of a free-fall at first, and quite terrifying. Kind of like falling asleep in the way we renounce control of our faculties (which is also said to be similar to the change of the guard when we die) except that we’re awake. Awake and yet not anywhere in particular. But of course that can be frightening!

Slowly, like Autumn’s certain advance, I find I begin to notice this emptiness is in fact not empty at all. It’s just a world apart from the usual busy day to day-ness of most of the rest of the time. And it’s not so scary afterall.

All the spaciousness that characterises gap-world is like an extended meditation where nothing is the focus and nothing is the result. However, it does leave room for an expansion of sorts. More often than not what I notice is the size of my heart. It feels like it’s grown at least as big as my entire body, if not larger.

And it speaks it’s very own language as it generates waves of love and compassion for everything in this world, including myself…

~Svasti

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Hanging out in Clear Deep Heart/Mind…

11 Thursday Mar 2010

Posted by Svasti in Learnings, Spirituality, Yoga

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Big Things, Clear Deep Heart/Mind, Essence Nature, flooding, hail, Healesville, koan, Melbourne, Motorbikes, non-conceptual meditation, Queenstown, Retreat, storms, Zen

Somewhere near Queenstown, New Zealand August 2004

Things are shifting rapidly for me once again. Or they are not.

I’m back from retreat of course, got back on Monday night and apparently missed a huge weekend of outrageously extreme storms here in Melbourne. So extreme that a friend in Sydney sent me a text to ask if I was okay. We’re talking massive floods only a ten minute cycle from my home, hail stones the size of your fist, thunder and lightning! You can check out some photos at this link…

Out in Healesville, we had storms but nothing severe and when I got home there was no damage to report.

I desperately need some time to sit down and write, but there’s not gonna be a lot of spare time til the weekend I suspect. And even then, I’ll have some house guests – one of my best friends is arriving Friday night (in his 4WD with motorbikes on the trailer!) and two of his friends will be staying for a couple of nights, arriving late Saturday night. I’ll need to shop and make sure everything is clean and comfortable etc… and then hopefully there’ll be time to put a little more of my recent adventures into words.

For now I’m just hanging out in Clear Deep Heart/Mind and chuckling at myself and recent revelations. My friend who made it possible for me to go on this three day Zen retreat? I owe him A LOT! I just thought I was going to a beautiful location to meditate and do yoga. I had no idea what else was gonna happen! For now, let me just say it falls under the heading of Big Things.

But it’s all a bit like that right now. I think I started to catch on last year and now, here I am… some of the stuff I’ve learned with my Guru over the past seven years is starting to come home in a big way. In part, that’s due to last year’s hard work and then my recent encounters with other wonderful yoga/meditation teachers who’ve reflected and magnified certain key points for me.

You could say there’s been a lot of Ah-Ha’s going on here and I suspect I haven’t seen the last of them.

As a bit of a teaser, here’s a few observations that’ll point you to where I’m at (kinda):

  • Sitting for non-conceptual meditation is one of the best and worst things in the world
  • If you do this for any length of time, everything hurts but never for the reasons you think it does
  • Just when you tell yourself “I’m so freakin’ screwed”, the bell rings and the world shifts all over again
  • The human condition of suffering, which is caused by our fight-or-flight reaction, wants us to turn away from pain of any kind whenever we can
  • Learning not to run from pain is desperately challenging but rewarding
  • Anger needs to be separated out in the mind from violent actions, thoughts and deeds against ourself or others – it shouldn’t be equated with violence because anger is a feeling, where violence is a response
  • Every single one of us can be an asshole (to ourselves and/or others) every day of the week if we don’t make this distinction for ourselves
  • Not being an asshole affords a capacity to laugh at ourself and fills the heart with boundless compassion
  • Awakenings to our true Essence Nature are closer than we can imagine – and there are many to be had!
  • You can never do enough yoga!

And finally a Zen koan: Nothing is as it seems, nor is it otherwise…

There’s so much more to say, but for now that’s gonna have to do. Because there’s so much re-stacking going on, and the above-mentioned busy-ness. And I really need to find a way to explain myself better than a handful of cryptic bullet points. 😉

~Svasti

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Punk’d by Spring

05 Saturday Sep 2009

Posted by Svasti in Life, Yoga

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Antarctic winds of discontent, beanie weather, Canada, cyclic baton relay of the seasons, England, Eskimo, Lightning, Melbourne, mucous, personal growth, sickness, Spring, Thunder, unpredictable, vexing

Fact: no one moves to Melbourne for the weather.

Well, perhaps if you’re an Eskimo or from England or Canada, so that when you come here you thank your lucky stars for the incredibly balmy temperatures. Heh.

The best thing I can say about the weather here is: “unpredictable”. I mean it.

Just the other day, it was all coy seductive hints of gloriously sunny warmth. Next thing, I’m looking up from my desk because of the really loud THUNDER and LIGHTNING, with a bonus hailstorm, before the return of the sun.

I kid you not.

Uncharacteristically, the first day of Spring bathed us in gentle warmth and the entire city celebrated. Because usually Spring comes limping over the line, tailing way behind Winter in that cyclic baton relay of the seasons.

It looked a little like this…

Spring cherry blossoms and sky

Then, just a day later, we were offered this…

Rain from the tram

Again, I kid you not.

Times like this make me wish I’d never left Sydney (my home for 12 years) because not only are the winters milder, but they’re just a tad more consistent.

I’m clearly disillusioned with Melbourne’s temperamental temperatures, especially because I have a rather unpleasant Spring cold.

Featuring more mucous than you could, well… let’s not poke anything at the mucous, shall we? A nasty sore throat, coughs (almost rivalling the serial cougher at work!), achy limbs, earache, loss of appetite, etc.

Just your run of the mill cold really, but in Spring!?! I mean, I got through almost all of Winter without much more than a headache. Right now, I’d like to be very old fashioned and use the word ‘vexing’. Yes, this is definitely a good time to use the word vexing.

Had a couple of days off at the start of the week. And lemme tell you, when you’re working on a contract, two days of sitting at home earns you zilch!

Felt okay enough to turn up on Wednesday and Thursday. Really, shoulda stayed home Friday though, on account of the writhing in discomfort I experienced late Thursday night (see rather pathetic tweet).

Friday started off alright but come lunchtime, Antarctic winds of discontent had descended. From the south I say, from the south!

In half a day, it was once again beanie weather (til well into Spring, Melbournites never leave home without a hat, scarf, coat, gloves & umbrella. Sane ones anyway).

Ah well, at least inside was warm. Which caused me to delay leaving the office. Ergh!!

Took a pic on my way home in that last 200 meters or so from the tram stop to my front door.

There’s an old cemetery to my right for part of the way and this was the view over the tall old brick fence, a few obelisks poking over the top as the sun set in a haze of yellows and blues…

Sunset over cemetary, East St Kilda

All this changeability of temperature has had me thinking about, well, life.

And how our progress/growth is never linear. Just as the days do not just get ever-more Spring-like each and every day, as the year moves forward (how does a year move forward anyway?) with nary a backward step… so it is with any personal change we’re going for.

It’s for this reason, we shouldn’t be disheartened if it seems like we’re going backwards. We’re probably not, though all evidence suggests otherwise.

And it’s the same thing with yoga – it’s why you can ‘suddenly’ one day do a yoga pose you never could before.

Progress is more circular, all-encompassing. Before you know it, you’re surrounded by the warmth of the sun again, blossoms prickling and new life arriving.

~Svasti

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