Mind warriors

Tags

arch-nemesis asana, façade, flexibility, guard duty, in my head, keeping up appearances, mind warriors, Shadow Yoga, Shakti, strength, survival, Uddiyana bandha, Vahni, Yoga

When I first came to yoga and indeed even up until a few years back, it was just a physical/mental practice I did because I liked it. But nowadays, I find myself engaged with yoga on so many different levels. Some I’m aware of, and others… well, I’m not, or at least not straight away. Then, there’s the little hits of shakti that occasionally smack me right between the eyes during or after a yoga practice, revealing the truth as it actually is.

Like on Monday night. Oh yes.

I’ve noticed lately that a lot of my yoga blogging friends have been writing about their arch-nemesis asana(s). And don’t we all have them! Poses we’d happily never do again in our entire lives. Those we’d like to obliterate from the annals of yoga history if we could! Okay, maybe it’s not ever *that* bad or dramatic. Right?

Personally, I don’t want to abolish any poses. Not really. In fact, I enjoy taking on the challenge (most of the time) of working on asana I find challenging and discovering how joyful I feel when my body finally opens a little more until I find I can move into a pose with ease, when previously I’d thought it impossible.

My own current challenge concerns a Shadow yoga pose called Vahni.

I have this suspicion that in many ways, my body and therefore my yoga practice reflects my life. When dealing with PTSD, my attempts to protect myself involved trying to keep up appearances. As such, I’ve spent a lot of time mimicking the behaviour of others. Trying to look like I was okay even when I was a huge, HUGE mess.

I know I was somewhat successful in this, because there’s plenty of people I worked with who never knew. The reason I know this is because I’ve since told some of those people a little about what I went through and they’ve exclaimed their surprise.

I also know the balance in my body between flexibility and strength isn’t quite right. I’m really flexible in some parts of my body and not others. I have very muscular legs but they can still be very weak. And I think I’ve learned to adapt the way I move in some yoga poses rather than learn to do them properly.

But with Shadow yoga, there are no shortcuts (which is part of why I love it). And I find that every movement informs me of where I’m still struggling – I’m grateful for the struggle because it demonstrates what I still need to do.

If you take a look at the photo of Vahni above, you’ll see that the upper body is sitting on the back heel, with the toes flexed. The front foot is parallel to the back, and the feet are not very far apart. To successfully ‘sit’ in this pose, the body must rest on the legs and both legs/feet must be working. Uddiyana bandha is also engaged.

My problems with Vahni seem to be in my hips and the alignment of my legs. I don’t have slender thighs and there’s a voice in my head that tells me I can’t bring my feet as close together as I need to, because of the size of my thighs. As such, I find my hips twist when I’ve been sitting in this pose for longer than a few seconds. Once my hips twist, my knees do too, and then my front foot starts to slip and I fall out of the pose.

My teacher has been very patiently trying to help me with this, talking me through it in detail. But even when she put a little weight on my front foot, I still fell out of the pose!

That’s when she looked me in the eye and said: You’re too much in your head.

I looked at her and nodded, before continuing with the practice.

Then the inner dialog began.

Huh? What does she mean? And why did I agree with her? I mean, I never USED to be an ‘in my head’ person. Quite the opposite! Right? I’ve always been so embodied, as a swimmer and a dancer…

And then I realised why it was true. Because I needed to be in my head to survive.

Apu – the man who assaulted me – struck my body with his fists. He took away the safety I felt in my own skin. The only place he couldn’t reach (although he tried that, too) was my mind.

And how does one keep up a façade of being okay when they are not okay at all? With very stringent control via the mind. That’s how.

Oh.

These realisations bubbled up as the practice continued and I thought I was okay with it all. Until we got to the end of the session, when we slowed down to focus inwards. I felt the tears racing towards my eyes and (of course) I tried to control it. Tried not to cause a scene.

But as that small yet significant piece of the truth replayed itself over and again, I realised how much it mattered. And suddenly I couldn’t partake in the final closing movements. Thank goodness I was at the back of the room! I dropped to the floor, leant against the back wall and sobbed. Again, trying not to make too much noise, but I let myself cry and it was a great relief.

The class ended and I pulled myself together enough to leave, avoiding looking at anyone. Rode my bike home, crying some more. But they were good tears.

So what does this mean, I hear you ask?

Even though I don’t need it in the same way any more, apparently my mind is still on guard duty. Weapons at the ready. It’s a routine devised out of fear, one that will protect but not bend or change easily. However, constant vigilance limits flexibility by design. The capacity for letting anyone or anything in or out is also limited.

And anything that causes even a hint of fear in me is enough for my mind to pull the brakes on – Vahni is definitely one of those things. I fear I can’t do it, that I’ll fall over, that I’ll hurt myself. I’m sure there’s more fears there, too!

Seems I need to have a few words with these mind warriors of mine – ask them to stand down, take a leave of absence. Learn a new drill, one that’s only activated when I really need it. Relax, because the danger is well and truly over.

Except of course, that the danger of limitation remains. If I’m too much in my head, that means nothing gets out and there’s also no way in…

Stand down mind warriors, stand down!

~Svasti

It’s all in your head

Tags

Ahamkara, Chinnamasta, Cravings, Desire, Dreams, Guru, Headless, Ida, Kevin Costner, Limitations, Meditation, Nourishment, Pingala, Shakti, Shiva, Spirituality, Sushumna, Waterworld, Wrathful

Little known goddess Chinnamasta, a wrathful incarnation of Ma, who in effect is really Shakti, who’s Shiva anyway… is not as wrathful as she seems. Least, not in the way we Westerners tend to define wrath.

Looking so fierce and scary, she decapitates herself to provide nourishment for her companions, the three of them wandering as they are (but really, are Ida, Pingala and Sushumna).

The other two were hungry (spiritually, energetically?) and so without ego, Chinnamasta removes her head, providing the ultimate life-giving nourishment. In the process, ridding herself of an appendage that often gets us lesser mortals in strife. The ‘home’ of the mind (which has no home in the physical body), the ahamkara (I-maker/ego).

Headless… the very idea, generally considered gruesome, but I sorta know how she feels.

Or at least, my dream self does.

Vivid and seemingly non-stop in my formative years (circa primary school era), a series of dreams, a little bit like one of those American soaps you can pick up on ten years later – ever unfolding at snails-pace with lots of scenes repeated.

Everything submersed in water, a bit like Waterworld, except (thankfully) not starring Kevin Costner and my soporiferous thoughts occurred long before that movie regretfully saw the light of day.

Some water was deeper than others, but a fair bit was only chest high. The name of the game in this world – don’t lose your head.

Had to keep watch for the ‘knights’ (I don’t think they were knights, but they rode on horseback and carried swords). The thing to do if they were around, was submerge yourself fully, hold your breath and wait for them to go away.

Because, we all knew what happened to those who were caught: decapitation.

This water-covered world flooded my nocturnal landscape with frequency. But I’d be doing something a little different every time. Playing with my friends, at school or in some other part of the world I wasn’t quite familiar with. Each time they came, we’d duck. Or I’d duck, if alone. Each time we survived we congratulated ourselves.

Every so often, amidst this night-time play, I found myself in something of a predicament. Caught.

Then, my head was gone. My neck relieved of its weight, rolled off to who knows where.

Curiously, I did not die. In fact, with every passing moment I discovered the freedom of the headless. I could still breathe, and talk and think. I was not my head, my head was not me.

Running through my schoolyard, testing my new way of being. Found a horrified looking friend or two, and tried to say – look, there’s no need for your head! I’m still okay, I’m alive and now I don’t need to hide from the knights!

Was it terror, disinterest or perhaps disdain for something different? Or the lot? They weren’t buying it. They had no interest in this new, headless me.

Sure, it was strange but pleasant and yet, so lonely. No one else wanted to willingly have their head cut off, too. They kept up their ducking and hiding and their noggins on their shoulders.

And I… got bored being the only one with this kind of freedom. What fun is there, if you’re the only one?

So, by the powers of the dreamscape where all things are possible, I found my head re-attached. And life went on…

There’s much of life we think of as occurring in our mind. There’s much we create in our mind we think of as this world, much larger than it really is. Causing confusion and loss.

Loss – of a limb, an idea, thoughts or people from our life, generating heartbreak. We feel it in the chest region (at least I do, and cuttingly so) though that heartbreak is self-created and projected outwards, as though it’s happening to us, instead of coming from us.

Chinnamasta’s messages are many, but include the idea of self-love and self-sacrifice for the benefit of many, which in the end, benefits you, too.

Doing away with the need to duck and hide, and assuming the worst when, for all we know, there’s more freedom on the other side than we can ever imagine from this vantage point.

I know now, what it is I crave.

~Svasti