More on transformation + #iquitsugar week 4

Tags

alternatives, doing things differently, Downard Dogs & Warriors, flow, habits, I Quit Sugar, joblessness, no visible means of support, sugar, Support, Surrender, Transformation, wisdom seeds, Zo Newell

I’ve had a few sugar cravings this week, which isn’t surprising according to Sarah’s ebook. I’ve also had my menstrual cycle to deal with, and oh, that pesky lack of employment. So yeah, I’ve had a few.

Mostly I’ve dealt pretty well with them, but I’ve occasionally dipped a teaspoon in a jar of Chocolate Coconut Butter. I’ve had this tiny jar for weeks and weeks and only if I’m desperate do I open it. Because it’s incredibly rich (almost over-powering), that’s really all I need. Not even a full teaspoon of it at a time.

More than anything, I’m noticing that eating something sweet is just another habit. Something I’ve learned to do over many years, and giving up that pattern of behaviour is more difficult than the physical withdrawal.

But I’m learning new behaviours. For example, a trip to the movies doesn’t have to automatically = eating sugary crappy foods. At a pinch, I can go to the supermarket and grab some good quality cheese and nuts from the deli. Or make my own popcorn (seasoned the way I like it) at home.

Then there’s things like this: a different kind of breakfast, adapted from one of Sarah Wilson’s recipes…

My version contains:

• Pumpkin (sprinkled with a little sea salt to help it cook faster)
• Carrots
• Peas
• Pepitas
• Black sesame seeds
• Shredded coconut
• A liberal dose of cinnamon
• Two eggs broken in the pan and stirred in
• All cooked up in coconut oil

This is a wonderfully nourishing meal and an awesome alternative to the usual breakfast fare. I felt like something other than poached eggs this morning and… voila! It’s brilliant. Not to mention sugar and grain/gluten free and super-tasty.

Anyway, this post is sort of about just that: alternatives. Doing and seeing things differently. In a really intangible way that you can’t measure or touch or truly understand with the logical part of the mind. Which makes it hard to write about, but I’ll try.

I still don’t have a job, and I’ve gone through about fifty modes of dealing with this unpleasant fact in the last couple of weeks.

If I pay attention to the stark reality of being jobless only weeks from Christmas and the no-hire zone of New Year/early January, I absolutely freak out. With heart in my throat and chest-tightening anxiety that is not helpful at all. Nor does it do much for my confidence or ability to think outside the box.

The reality about the digital industry in Melbourne is that it’s pretty small and still relatively immature. Surprisingly so given that this is 2011! Sydney has in recent times overtaken Melbourne in terms of numbers of digital jobs. Which just makes me want to move back there!!

Also recruitment agents here are more often than not, sub-par. According to one recruiter I spoke to, there’s a low barrier to entry for becoming a recruiter, many agencies are competing to fill the same jobs and my skills are quite specialised. So if the recruiter has no real experience in digital, it shows. Painfully. But sadly, these unskilled people are all too often the go-between for roles I’m likely to apply for.

But here’s what I’m discovering:

The more I worry about not having a job and when I might get one, and why didn’t I get an interview with that company etc etc etc… I feel like I’m missing out on something important, and it’s that intangible “thing” that I’m trying to convey here.

Today I finally picked up Downard Dogs & Warriors by Zo Newell. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for months and months. Very soon I’ll have finished reading it however because it hooked me from the first paragraph.

Early on, it contains the phrase: “no visible means of support”, which has a completely different meaning in the context of the story being told than the thoughts it sparked in my mind.

Because one could say that right now I have no visible means of support. Yet this does not mean I am unsupported. Not at all.

There’s the little bit of extra yoga teaching being thrown my way. The Self-Alignment Kit I was gifted with at the right time. The kinesiology appointment I was allowed to have on credit. The possibility of a little freelance work coming my way (setting up a WordPress site). And a good friend (who reads this blog, thank you darling!) who connected me with her friend to see if I could do any copywriting or any other work with her. Another friend who offered me some amazing natural skincare products including moisturisers and cleansers (excellent timing since I was running low).

The words of one of my yoga teachers also resonate right now: the Universe will always provide.

Maybe it won’t be the job that I think I want or need that comes through right now.

The support I really need is emotional and financial. I need money to pay my rent and bills and so I can eat. It just mightn’t come from the places I’m expecting it to. So I need to stop telling the Universe how to support me, and just let it unfold as it will.

Which is challenging when talking about my financial well-being. It’s counter-intuitive to not plot and plan and scheme and have a back up plan and a second back up plan. But it’s much less exhausting to trust in the process of life.

Tuesday night I went to teach my yoga class as I always do: with a mix of a half-formed plan and an open mind about what will happen in the classroom with whoever turns up. I have some amazing repeat students, and a bunch of drop-ins who float in and out. They all have their own physical challenges, and for some reason they love my class.

Last night I heard that one of my regulars has been “raving” to her friends about the school I teach at, and my classes. Which is always completely unexpected because I’m still such a newbie teacher. But then something must be working right, yes?

Quite often, what goes on in the room has little to do with me or my plan. Occasionally I find myself spontaneously offering tiny morsels of the teachings I’ve been blessed with over the years and sometimes, there are receptive ears for these wisdom seeds.

As I walked away from the school at the end of the class, I thought about how magical teaching yoga can be.

I started to wonder what life would be like if I approached it the way I do teaching. With surrender. I don’t feel the need to control every moment of what I teach. I don’t kick myself if the class plan I was thinking of goes out the window. I never worry about the number of people in my class, unless there are too many! I hate for everyone to be too cramped in my wee back room.

Basically, I let go. I allow my training to do what it will, and I use all of my senses to respond to my students. I know the class will work out, no matter what. It even works out when there are so-called “difficult” students in the room. I don’t try to teach everything I know about every given pose or aspect of yoga at any given time.

When I’m teaching and especially at the beginning and end of the class, I open up to the Universe and offer my prayers and thanks for being able to pass these teachings on to others. I connect to my teachers and their teachers and I ask for their guidance. I don’t expect anything in particular to happen as a result. I just let it be.

This creates flow, and when my energy is flowing everything feels lighter. Easier. Happier.

I know I’m asking a lot of myself to take this approach to my current unemployment situation, but maybe it might just be exactly what is needed.

So, let’s see, shall we?

~Svasti

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Soften. Relax. Surrender.

Tags

Anger, autoimmune disorder, completely heart-centred life, fire personality type, Hashimoto’s, Heart, hridaya, inflammation, Inspiration, letting go, Mark Whitwell, observations from the mat, Relax, relaxation, soften, Surrender, tension, vira, Yoga

King Crankypants needs to relax!

Yoga starts from the heart, spreads through your whole body, then to your loved ones, then to the whole world.
~Mark Whitwell

I don’t enjoy writing posts like my last one. Really. But sometimes I feel like they’re necessary.

I just read the above quote from the delightful Mark Whitwell and I realised that pretty much everything comes down to the heart – crappy Funny or Die videos don’t come from the heart. Those who actually think those crappy videos are funny? That sense of humour is not heart-centred. Being abusive towards someone who makes a stand and says what they think, is also not heart-centred behaviour. Getting stroppy with perpetrators of said abusive behaviour? Nope, not quite heart-centred either.

Increasingly, I know that what I want for myself is a completely from-the-heart life. Where everything I do, every action I take and every word that comes out of my mouth is coming from the heart. That DOES NOT mean that everything will always all sunshine and puppy dogs. I’ll still have healthy boundaries, be ferocious when required, and speak out about stuff I think of as wrong. But maybe not quite in the same way.

All of this is challenging for me as a vira/fire personality type. Like many people, anger has been the default response to things I don’t like for most of my life. I’ve done a fantastic job thus far at tempering that fire but there’s more to do. I mean heck, getting an autoimmune disorder is a clear sign there’s too much fire and inflammation in my system, right?

As such, I get the point of doing things like having a negative media fast. Still, I’ve got the heart of a protester and I aint afraid to call it like I see it when needed.

But reading quotes like Mark’s help me to remember to keep a balance. I reckon it’s okay to be angry about something when it’s needed. But letting go is important, too.

So as always, it’s back to practicing yoga for me

The best things I learn from my yoga practice aren’t about how to work my way into a more advanced version of some asana or other. Don’t get me wrong – that’s lots of fun but it’s not what keeps me coming back.

What I value most are the moments of inspiration in how I deal with myself, my body/mind and/or with other people.

Monday was day one of a new term – the second for me at this yoga school – and the bearer of new realisations, too.

Given that I spent most of the winter term rather unwell (with Hashimoto’s) and injured (torn right calf muscle), I was surprised last week to discover that despite all of this and despite doing a very basic kind of practice for the last couple of months, I’ve gained strength. It’s pretty amazing actually – every inversion I do feels stronger, more balanced and stable. Every balance is steadier.

In other words, a gentle and steady practice caused an increase in strength.

So I was excited to come back to day one of classes for the term, now that my energy levels have lifted a little and that after two long months, and I’m no longer limping.

One of the themes of Monday night’s class was the difference between tension and relaxation.

Without meaning to, I found myself sharing this:

What I learned from last term’s classes is that even when we think we’re relaxed, we can still be holding a lot of tension. It wasn’t until my teacher suggested a slightly different arm or leg position, that I noticed my previous one wasn’t exactly comfortable. We just sort of get used to holding our tension, to the point that we simply don’t feel it until someone shows us an easier way.

This is actually true for many things – yoga, our lives, or looking at our own behaviours and actions. We sometimes don’t see our own tensions, or limitations. We don’t get the easier way until someone else reflects it back for us.

Then we have a choice – we can keep doing what we were doing all along, and possibly do ourselves an injury in the process. Our rigidity might even hurt someone else. Or we can adapt to another way of being that flows better and requires less energy to maintain.

It’s up to us, isn’t it?

Like most westerners who spend too much time n front of a computer, I hold a lot of tension in my shoulders. So in my practice I have to constantly find ways to soften and release through my shoulders and upper back. I’ve also been learning the difference a 10 degree angle can make in the positioning of my arms over my head. If one position jams my neck, why do I persist in holding my arms up higher when I don’t have to?

Soften. Relax. Surrender.

Until we learn to treat ourselves this way, it’s impossible to show others kindness as a day-to-day 24/7 way of being. We need to let go of our anger and frustration (they’re actually the same thing) and soften the way we treat ourselves, first. Then, we can expand that out to others.

This is yoga, and this is life.

Here’s to keeping our hridaya (heart) centre in mind as we practice and move through our days.

It’s a process I’m in. What about you?

~ Svasti

Weekend vignettes

Tags

Acceptance, Antarctica, dumplings, jungle gym, Kinesiology, Nieces, peace and yum cha, picks the lock, San Francisco fog, Sunday lunch, Surrender, thyroid, ultrasound

winter blossoms

More yoga, of course. Waking early enough to be there, which is actually very good for my mind. Full class, gentle but firm postures that awaken the lightness of my body. Refreshed and properly awakened, walking to the tram. Sunny but snow-tingling icy-ness with no gloves, oops.

~

A quick shower and change, a short cycle to my main drag for a less enticing experience. Why are radiologists in charge of doing ultrasounds these squat unwashed-looking men with legitimate reasons to look at my naked breasts? Squelching on that gel like its sunscreen, asking intimate questions I don’t really feel like answering. You’re not my doctor; you’re just the guy taking the pictures. No, I don’t know what’s going on exactly. My doc, she was just being thorough I suspect. Here, wipe yourself off with the gown. Cold, slimy invisible gel. Does he enjoy it, I wonder?

~

Nakedness without intimacy creates a need for comfort. Dumplings! A special treat, okay? And it didn’t cause my gut any problems, not really. With tea in a large dark brown earthenware mug (I have one of these at home). Warmth. Space to breath in a recently renovated place of peace and yum cha. Before a different kind of encounter.

~

Kerry put me onto Amanda, because she’s successfully used kinesiology to heal her own thyroid issues and those of other women, too. Another person to explain my complicated history to, because it’s still relevant. Why? Because a thyroid condition doesn’t just occur. It has a history, too: my history of abuse, sorrow, pain and fear. It’s not over, because it’s still locked in my body. But with love and determined fierceness I’m gonna heal this body one way or another.

~

Some of the same old stuff, but new things, too. What happened when I was six years old? No, I don’t know. Childhood memories are scant at best. But I cry anyway, my heart rate increases and we try to work it out but I don’t know. It’s okay, she says, and we find other ways to figure it out in pieces. I still don’t know, but she works out enough to get started. It leaves me undone. Who goes to these places? Who picks the lock on these rusted doors? No one, that’s who. Not for ages. I don’t even know the way there and back anymore. Looks like we’re going to find out though. It’s important to this process that we do.

~

(I was right about the depression, btw. But I’m coming back out of it now. It rolled in like a San Francisco fog and back out, then in periodically because I hadn’t expressed the things that needed to be said, so I could understand just how ridiculous they were. This is the power of writing. Not to be scared by what we write, but to provide that escape hatch for things grown foul and fetid.)

~

Don’t bother seeing this movie. It’s stupid, pretentious and full of wankery.

~

Winds howling their way from Antarctica to my bedroom window. There’s still never enough sleep no matter how much I get. Snuggling with the cat and a text from my sister announces my parents will be coming over for lunch today, too. A slightly hi-jacked Sunday, then (thanks to my eldest niece who can’t keep anything to herself!). I’m still undone from yesterday’s kinesiology session. A bit panicked, a little freaked out but I drag myself from under the blankets anyway.

~

Sunday paper reading while the train rattles southwards. Keeping my head down and heart in my chest where it belongs, and not jumping out of my mouth where it’d like to be. Relaxing, relaxing. There’s about forty minutes to find some acceptance and surrender. And I do.

~

Small feet running and girlish voices calling my name. Hugs and kisses and I’m a jungle gym, presented with an upside down two year old begging to be twisted and turned and somersaulted up and down the length of my body. A four year old seeing if she has the strength to give me a shoulder ride but of course, only managing to stick her head between my legs while her sister demands more “upside-downs”.

~

The two eldest niece-lings have a (natural) obsession with my breasts and I make sure they know I’m okay with that through my actions (no flinching away from their touch). There’s giggles of enjoyment as they look down my jumper or hug me or rest their hands on my ample chest. I get the two year old to look down her own top and she gives us another of her stunning one-liners: Little bit, she says. Outbreaks of hearty laughter all-round.

~

You look better every time we see you, they say. That doesn’t mean anything, I want to counter. Instead I settle for: Perhaps, but there’s still a long way to go. I’m not better yet, not by a long shot but I understand that you want me to be. I understand that… oh, never mind.

~

She’s five weeks old and every day it seems she gets cuter. Like a polished gem stone, glinting her placid perfection at us. Later, her eyes open and they’re so wide. Hello world, hello people in my life. She’s eager and beautiful and there’s so much enjoyment in simply holding her while she sleeps, and talking to her when she opens those gorgeous grey-brown eyes that are destined to end up chocolate coloured, like her sisters and daddy.

~

It’s hard to leave but I know I’ve over-stayed because I’m already weary. The wind is even more biting as the sun vanishes, but my train is mercifully quick. And quiet. Except for the people I had to move away from, discussing the merits of animal testing, because if we don’t test on animals then who are we going to test products on, they ask each other. Humans? Yes! I wanted to say. But instead I move to the other end of the carriage. Words with Friends and a little more newspaper reading until it’s my stop.

~

There hasn’t been enough time for any cooking or shopping or being prepared for Monday and I’m falling asleep while I wait for the washing machine to finish. Clothes hanging, heater on against the bone-crunching chill and cat fed. Bedtime but once again, it’s never enough.

~ Svasti

The Workshop of Love – part 2

Tags

AC/DC, anahata, Asana, bandha, bhakti, bhava, Dinacharya, Hanuman, indifference, Intimacy, Krishnamacharya, Love, Mark Whitwell, Mudra, pranayama, strength receiving, sun salutations, Surrender, Valentine’s Day, Yoga

Photo liberated from Mark's Facebook profile 🙂

[Read part 1 first]

…You are a flower blooming in your own garden. Your first form arrived as one cell known as the heart. A spark of Life, initiated by male female, giving and receiving union of opposites, the catalyst of nurturing, your spirit took form and the source became seen…

Soft hands, suggests Mark as he levered apart my fierce anjali mudra. Soft like the heart, he smiles. His crinkly eyes smile at me, too. Whoah, that right there is a hit of the bhakti that envelopes Mark and all in his immediate vicinity!

We perform a series of sun salutations and the bhava is feeling, sensing, with no mention of strict ideas about alignment. Instead its – feel it, breathe it, and flow with the practice. Mark talks through the principals of Strength Receiving as we move and asks us to do our practice: Without drama or strain.

The end of the first day is full of anticipation of the next. The first six hours have already been so intense, but in a good way. A day of questions and answers, of movement and breath and most definitely, of heart openings. The kind that cause me to melt. This state of openness takes a little getting used to (every time) because my first reaction is always to protect myself. But here we are, ripping our chests open like Hanuman. On purpose. It’s both frightening and utterly glorious.

…For some of you this practice is too much, for others it’s not challenging enough. This is one of the problems with generic yoga classes. You need to find YOUR yoga – the yoga that’s right for you…

…According to the great “teacher’s teacher” T. Krishnamacharya, yoga must be adapted to the individual, not the individual adapted to the style of yoga. For your yoga practice to be most fruitful, it must be in harmony with your body type, age, health, and even cultural background…

Ideas to ruminate over.

I walk up to Mark to thank him for the last six hours but I’m almost speechless. He grins at me and envelopes me in a huge and long-lasting bear hug. ‘Nuff said!

That night on the other side of town, a few of us head out for dinner just down the road from Nadine’s apartment. But not Mark, who instead went with a friend to see AC/DC in concert. Yup, that’s right; he’s a rocker-yogi! Gotta love that!

Sunday afternoon – Valentine’s Day – we started the session with thoughts of a personalised practice, more questions and answers.

Having a yoga practice that is “mine”, and personalised to my body and needs is such an interesting concept. Especially when compared to the mass-market cookie-cutter approach of some of the stuff being sold as yoga out there.

I suspect that one of the reasons I was intimidated by yoga for a while there (many years ago now), is that I didn’t realise I could make it my own in this way, y’know? And then last year while doing yoga teacher training, I understood that on some level but still, no one ever said that explicitly and out loud!

But it makes so much sense! Bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and with all levels of mobility. The idea that you need to be flexible or picture perfect, or doing advanced poses to do yoga, is false.

I mean, some people report that they look around a class and find their competitive nature flaring up. Which can cause an attitude of feeling less than other people, OR feeling superior. Both are out of balance. Or perhaps a person will push themselves beyond their current capabilities in competition with themselves, which can easily result in injury. And despite what Mr Choudry might say, competition is not yoga!

Mark spoke about the male/female imbalance prevalent in most yoga classes (and by extension, in our communities). There are so many women in yoga classes, but hardly any men! And how that has to change if we’re going to make positive changes in the world. Generally speaking, men need to work at being more open and receptive, and women need to acknowledge their own power. Yoga is very good at helping people regain their balance in these ways. The surrender of Strength Receiving is both internal (from our Self, to our Self), as well as to between our Self and other people in our day to day lives.

And now that I think about it, “surrender” is a big part of the experience of feeling anahata chakra cracking open. The only way to co-exist with that state is to surrender! Essentially, indifference is a disorder of the heart.

One of Mark’s key teachings is around intimacy – with your Self, your body, your breath and your mind. And coming to terms with this concept as a part of my experience of yoga was interesting. I mean, my entire family for generations on both sides have shown no skill with expressing intimacy. It’s a long held, DNA-deep pattern, so how do you get better at intimacy when your natural pattern is to not really let people in? The answer of course, is that you have to start with yourself. And you have to give it a red hot go!

In yoga there’s a bunch of ways to do this – asana, pranayama, mudra, bandha, dinacharya, food etc. Intimacy with the self involves developing a sensitivity and awareness internally and externally and is therefore, inherently physical and sensate.

True intimacy isn’t about getting naked – although there’s nothing wrong with that! Instead, it is a quality that allows us to see, feel, know and realise in a very tangible way that we are but one heart, one organism, interconnected even as we appear separate.

Intimacy really starts to make sense within the context of yoga, as you move through your practice and use the breath to stay completely aware, moment to moment. The trick is that to really understand that, you have to do your practice and keep doing it!

Then you can extend what you’ve learned about yourself to how you deal with others. At least that’s the theory I’m working with so far…

…The ancient wisdom of yoga teaches that Life is already given to you, you are completely loved, you are here now. It teaches that we are not separate, cannot be separate from nature, which sustains us in a vast interdependence with everything…

It is true that we don’t have to go anywhere, or seek anything outside of ourselves in order to realise we are one and the same as god. However, I do think that for many people this message is too simple to accept. I know that twenty years ago, perhaps even only ten years ago I would not have been okay with that. Sometimes I think it takes lots of searching in order to realise there’s nowhere to go…

[Read part 3]

~Svasti

P.S. Once again, all quotes are from Mark Whitwell – things he said, his book and/or his Facebook status updates.

Uselessness

Tags

anti-heroine, bird eggs, blood kin, fairy floss, Family, helpless, Surrender, Truth, useless

Sometimes we say stuff, just to try and fill the gaps with a kind of explanation, even if it doesn’t make much sense. Not when you examine it properly.

What are we running from anyway? Are the words just a way to put some distance between things that cause us pain? Are they better than silence?

I’m a little confused and constantly surprised with all the strangeness, although I don’t really get why… I mean, if there’s one thing that’s predictable…

Can’t help but think of tiny baby bird eggs and how easily the shells are crushed. Which in a way is good… makes it easy for those tiny new birdlings to peck their way out when its time… but also means they’re quite fragile right up til…

Sand with crumbled sea shells, crunchy underfoot. So flimsy and yet remains in one piece, somehow. A piece of a larger whole. Thankfully. Well, at least for the time being.

The ache is heavy, dragging, spreading, stretching. Taking up space in my chest cavity leaving way less room for my lungs. Making it harder to breathe deeply.

Can’t blurt out what I really want to say, it’ll upset people. That’s not what I want. But what happened to being able to be really honest?

Perhaps it’s against the rules (no matter what they say) in this strange world where planning for the future is given higher priority than seeing the world straight up as it is, right now.

It is easier, sure, to just… not. Apparently.

But then I think – wow, it must look all-so different as you survey your version of this story.

I don’t belong here. But I can’t really get too far away – your story needs its anti-heroine, doesn’t it?

So you paint me shades of your discontent. A vagabond, in need of a proper frame of reference. According to you.

Tricky, tricky, fairy-floss-like melt-in-your-mouth confusion and not quite there-ness, and then, oh, just then you’ll say what I wish you’d said a while back.

But seems those words never come out when they would’ve been useful. It’s easier to look like you might be helpful, without having to potently act in that capacity, ever.

Alone, alone, alone. Always alone. Sitting around that table but there’s no warmth in your embrace. It’s a kind of a game.

And it’s silent. Can’t say those words. Just have to learn to say nothing. But then, that makes me like the rest of you, not what I want at all.

I’ve no idea what you think of this mess. Help is only help when it’s given freely, not when you make me beg.

Loving people in my life, it seems, is often a game of peeling the onion. Remove another layer, I just have to keep on shifting my viewpoint, because I’m never quite in the right position and that gets painful after a while.

Always, I try to forget what’s been, just to trust again afresh. But you never have anything new for me, just the same old same old…

I don’t belong here.

Where are the others like me? Those who don’t run from, but towards wounded people?

Certainly, I won’t find the answers here amongst blood kin.

Never have. Never will.

~Svasti

Sometimes…

Tags

Dhanvantri, empowerment, Fear, Ganesha, Healing, malarkey, Prayers, Recovery, Sanskrit, Spirituality, Surrender, Transformation, Yoga, Yoga teacher

I think I’m just afraid of who I might actually be, when I’m finally done with all this being afraid malarkey.

When I allow all the knowledge I’ve learned (and continue to learn), to be grafted to the very marrow of my being.

When I’ve practiced to perfection the incredible meditations and other teachings I’ve been given. When they’re as natural as breathing – so much a part of me I don’t need to think about it.

I’m afraid of that person I’ll become.

And sometimes I think… it’s the one significant thing causing most of the pain in my life.

Even while writing this, I’m avoiding doing something else right this very moment. Something I should’ve done already and that other people are waiting for. Something that’d be good for me to do. And I will eventually, just not before I’ve put it off time and again.

Til I can’t stand it any more.

At least this time though, the distraction is much more honest, less convoluted.

I want to scream, and I want to cry and grieve. For the time I’ve spent veiling my awesome, powerful, motivated and very real Self away, and letting the freaked out junior would-be super hero run the show instead.

All so I don’t have to give up my excuses.

Of course, like that smoker who knows they need to stop, I’m not ready to give my excuses up yet. Just because I can see them for what they are, doesn’t mean I’m stopping.

I’m still enjoying the whole experience too much. It mightn’t be good for me, but it’s comfortable. And it’s what I know.

Its life-changing stuff y’know, getting the things you want most for yourself, instead of sacrificing and sabotaging your own life. At least, that’s the realisation I’m coming to.

Sunday, I was at my yoga school doing my remaining cleaning hours for the week (still need the money til I get paid the week after this one). As I cleaned, and when I wasn’t chanting various Sanskrit mantras to myself, my teacher’s recent words filled the empty room.

You see, I only signed up to do the Hatha yoga practitioner certificate this year, not the first year teacher training. Mostly because I didn’t feel like I was ready. Which, as it turns out, is just more hiding and excuses, really.

As we discussed various maintenance tasks, she turns to me and says I think you should do the teacher training. I want you to teach here and help with future teacher trainings. You’re way ahead of the others on philosophy and related topics and I think you’ve got things you can teach them.

Just like that. And yes, it’s something I want. Plus, I know I’m ready now…

There alone, sweeping the floors, I thought about standing at the front of that room and… I laughed, while I coincidentally sang the invocation to Ganesha, remover of obstacles…

Om Gananam tva / ganapating havamahe / kavinkavinam upamashravastamam / jyeshtharajam brahmanam brahmanaspata a nah / shrinvan nutibhih sida sadanam…

Yes, it’s what I want. But to get there… I’m gonna have to give up a few things I’m pretty sure I know as ‘fact’ about myself. But guess what? Apparently, all I have to do is keep going towards what I want.

The transformation will occur in the doing, not the wanting of the doing… this was the message/realisation I recieved while sweeping, singing and laughing.

Okay… so, I kept singing, this time Sri Dhanvantri’s (the lord of Ayurveda/healing) prayer. It’s my very favourite thing to chant because it resonates best I find, when you’re singing from the heart.

Om sankham chakram jaloukaam dadhad amruta gatam chaaru dorbhis chaturbhih / sookashma svachchhaati hridyaam sukha pari vilasan moulim amboja netram //

kaala ambha uda ujjjvalaangam kati tata vilasad chaaru peetaambaraadhyam / vande Dhanvantarim tam nikhila gada vana prouda daavaagni leelam //

I still have my excuses and I’m holding on tight. For now anyway. I’m not even going to attempt to break them down just yet. As long as I keep moving in the right direction, then I reckon… its all good.

~Svasti

Euphoria & other things

Tags

abundance, Corporate-landia, Denial, emotional honesty, Employment, euphoria, Hanumanasana, Malasana, Meditation, nadi shodhana, new job, Reality, Release, samskara, Spirituality, Surrender, Yoga, yoga retreat

Of late, my yoga practice has been revealing inner layers of truth, ironically ‘visible’, during meditation. Especially post-pranayama.

The other week it was two words, pulsing and glimmering like a coin underwater – emotional honesty – yes… that’s taken a little while to understand.

I cast my mind back to Sydney, mid-winter several years ago, on one of the numerous yoga retreats I’ve attended. We were about to do some kind of serious meditation work, and it’s customary to do such things with clean teeth.

Before we started, my Guru looked at us and asked, So have you all brushed your teeth?

My first instinct was to nod my head, even though I hadn’t. Nod, and say yes, rather than admit I’d forgotten, be different and stand out.

I learned a great lesson right there, when one of my fellow students unashamedly shook her head. Go on then, we were told. I scooted out the door with a couple of others.

I’m not a liar as such, but there’s been many a time like that where I’ve lied rather than face a perceived ‘scary’ reality, no matter how minor.

Emotional honestly is not something I grew up with. Just… telling it like it is. Instead it was a constant stream of deny, deny, deny. Deny anything, deny everything. My blood was steeped in denial.

These days I’m much braver but still, I have my moments.

Today, sitting in near stillness, once I was able to ignore the constant stream of inner chatter long enough… I could see… wow, almost like the mechanism of grasping, desperation and neediness that drives my actions sometimes.

Briefly I saw how this force sometimes creates activity that causes me to behave in ways I’d rather not. And I saw that somewhere in there, is the capacity to set that aside. Maybe not today, or tomorrow. But sometime, sure.

Today in our yoga class, we did a lot of very deep forward bends ending with Malasana (garland pose) and Hanumanasana (the splits). Reaching into places that are usually left dormant, un-stretched. Moving slowly, repeatedly and determinedly.

It’s not surprising to find that yoga both generates and releases emotional states. Today’s asana class was highly, deeply and strongly moving and energising in the pits and creases of my body.

After some counter-poses, we eventually finished with nadi shodhana (alternate nostril breathing), which I always find very grounding and centering. It’s important to sit still for a while once you’ve finished and just… allow the sensations you’re experiencing to flow through you.

Right there, the chattering sufficiently ignored… I could see the ongoing suffering I cause myself through my samskaras (deeply embedded patterns of behaviour), and the choice we all have to step away from these patterns. Not without a lot of effort first, of course.

Leaving class, I felt incredibly euphoric and I’m still floating in that state…

Anyway, now for some other news:

Finally, after more than three long months, I HAVE A JOB!

I know… I should be celebrating this fact a little more. But I’m not. I am grateful – it came along right when I was about to have absolutely NO money at all.

However, it’s not my dream job. Sure, I’m working in my industry (digital media) but it’s a contract role (not permanent), its back in big Corporate-landia, and it’s really not the best money for a contract job either.

I also discovered the contract heavily favours the rights of the company (they can terminate my role with no notice – I’m sure a sign of the current financial times), while affording me almost no rights… except to get paid.

Then, the organisation I’m contracting through pays fortnightly, but it’s actually going to be three weeks until I’m paid for the first six days of work, leaving me with precious little cash (all I’ve got) to get by on until then.

However, the people there are nice. So I’m trying to stave off the sense of foreboding I feel being back in an uber-large company (it’s been almost twelve months since I quit my previous corporate gig).

Ironically, the day I was verbally offered this role, I was also offered another (less lucrative) contract, and an interview for a permanent role. Even more ironically, I had that interview at lunch time of the first day on the new job this week (Thursday). Then, on the Friday another recruiter rang with an interview request for another permanent role. That one will be Tuesday after work.

Feast or famine, right?

Usually, I’m very loyal to my employer, sometimes to my own detriment. But recent times have shown that’s not the most prudent course of action. So, given the relative lack of stability of my contract job (when is a contract not really a contract? When there’s a ‘no notice’ clause in it!), I’m taking a slightly more aggressive line.

I guess I’ll see what happens – could be I get offered neither permanent role (my fate in recent times) – but then again, I might. And I will keep looking.

In the mean time, I’m repeating my yoga teacher’s oft-repeated mantra – there will always be enough – while I prepare to live on a tiny amount of cash for a few weeks to come yet.

And, I’ll also keep attempting to disengage with the samsaric patterning I’ve just witnessed so clearly. If I can surrender that, and strive to live as emotionally honestly as possible, hopefully I’ll be open to new opportunities I might not otherwise have a shot at.

~ Svasti

How was your Sunday?

Tags

Bikes, Bogans, Cave in the Snow, Cycling, Family, Flat tyre, Hermit, Humour, Laughing at myself, Mona Lisa, Nieces, peek a boo, Spirituality, Sunday, Surrender, Tenzin Palmo

What to say to a day where you try to do a nice thing (for your 94 year old and increasingly senile grandma) only to be insulted quite rudely (by said grandma – we’re not sure how much dementia is ruling the roost and how much is just her), and then on the way home, discover a flat bike tyre as you get off the train, and the spare tyre tube’s faulty too (but you didn’t know til after you’d been trying to pump it up fruitlessly for at least ten minutes).

Argh!!!

When trying to repair the original tube, discover the hole is in the worst possible spot, and while waiting to see if one of the many things you’ve tried has worked, get approached by a totally drunken bogan who says… ooooh, hey honey, what do YOU neeeeed? …as you frantically pace around trying to work out how to/if you can fix the damn tyre tube at all!

Mumbling more to yourself than anything, Need a band aid or something that might work as a stop-gap to get home!

For some reason the long haired drunken bogan leans in and salaciously whispers, Ohhhh I think I really want yoooouuuu! To which you reply, That’s great but I DON’T want you.. (why don’t really cute guys EVER say things like that?). Standing too close still, Mr Bogan is smoking (a major pet hate) so you tell him to smoke elsewhere. Anywhere else!

Another dude on a bike wanders by to commiserate at which point, Mr Bogan again feels the need to stick his face right near yours, PLEASE get out of my personal space!

Damn bogan!

So you give it up. Put the original tyre back together, wheel back on the bike and resign yourself to more train travel (two trains) and wandering home from the closest station with your poor limp bike and its sadly flaccid front tyre squeaking in protest at having to roll with not enough air in there…

Thank goodness for adorable two year old nieces playing peek-a-boo with your hair and chanting 1-2-3-ready-not! (translation = coming, ready or not!). Giggling in a way even the Mona Lisa couldn’t resist. And three month old baby nieces smiling wide cheesy baby grins, highly infectious those…

Not to mention being grateful for some time to re-read a rather wonderful little book, Cave in the Snow (will do a write up soonish), allowing those latent hermit-like tendencies to quietly re-surface… twas enough, too, to make me laugh at the madness of the day.

~Svasti

Response to BlissChick – part 1

Tags

Abuse, Anger, Anxiety, Assault, Confusion, Depression, Family, Fear, Rant, Relationships, Surrender, Trust

In case you missed it, my world was well and truly rocked by BlissChick’s incredible post on depression, and some of her subsequent posts…

So here’s sort of an abridged version of her post (in italics), and my replies…

…People on anti-depressants are, from my own experience of them, still sad. Why? …Because they are putting a band aid on a broken limb…

I’ve never considered medication seriously, and the question has only been put to me once.

I understand there may be short term relief, but like you, I think it’s not something that ever fixes anything. So, I’m not interested in that path. Sure, it means things might be a little rougher for me, but I’m willing to tough it out.

…our souls are made of stories… They must be integrated into your essence or they will always be there. No amount of positive thinking will get rid of them. No amount of medication, eating “right,” supplements, herbals, or exercise… you will react because of them; you will be their slave…

I can see the truth this statement. Oh yes.

When I started writing my blog, I thought I was just writing about being assaulted. But what I learned along the way is, I’m actually writing about everything in my life that led up to that one fateful night.

Fateful, because it was a turning point, even if I didn’t start doing anything about it for almost three years.

…( (Honesty + Witness) + (Compassion + Patience) ) x Commitment

The hardest part of this formula is the first variable: Honesty about our stories.

We do everything we can to avoid this. We try to gloss over our stories… The first question to ask yourself is this: Who are you trying to protect by not being honest and why are you going to such lengths to protect them?

I was protecting both my parents, trying so hard to be who they needed me to be …a parent or both parents are exactly who most people are trying to protect…

I’ve really, really shied away from looking at my parents as neglectful. The physical abuse came from my brother, but it was ignored. And my parents were, and remain busy with their own emotional issues. It’s been that way for pretty much my whole life.

I haven’t wanted to admit these things so openly. I’ve wanted to accept them as they are and do what I can to compensate, because it’s cleaner, simpler. Because I know they won’t change. And because there’s nothing to be gained from blaming them for how they are.

…Regardless of someone else’s past, they were cruel to you. YOU were the child. YOU had the right to be the child. Your parents were not and are not your responsibility…

The crucial part, the part I’ve protected the most, has been to avoid admitting my parents were kind of shitty at their parenting job. I still have trouble with that.

I feel like, as a grown up, I should just take responsibility for myself and be done with it.

But perhaps that’s the point – how can the adult truly take responsibility when their inner child is having trouble being heard?

…Trying to understand your abuser is a classic psychological survival method… Your mind has to try to understand why this person is treating you this way, so you start to feel badly for them…

I recognise this. I do. My brother. My mother. My father. I never understood. I still don’t. And I feel bad I can’t be part of the “let’s all be close and loving” fantasy family relationship. I can’t be the “friend” my mother wants, either, especially considering she’s still self-centred and not interested in whatever I might be going through…

Every time my dad loudly has a conversation in front of me with my brother-in-law, about the importance of family (the same one on repeat), I want to be sick. Because he says those things and I KNOW he’s really chastising me indirectly for not being in touch a lot.

But heck, here I am on the brink of bankruptcy and where are they? NOWHERE.

When I was assaulted and hurting and hiding for years… THEY DID NOTHING.

What did they do when I complained again and again and again about my brother hitting me? MADE HIM APOLOGISE EACH TIME BUT NEVER STOPPED IT.

There’s more, much more. YES, they were neglectful and unsupportive parents. YES THEY WERE!!

And YES! I DO feel badly for them. I know they both had unhappy childhoods. I know my mother’s father was an alcoholic and her mother was controlling and manipulative. And that my father’s mother was the most self-centred person I’ve ever met. And my father’s father was adopted and emotionally vacant.

I expect less from them as a result. And yet, if ever I am blessed with children, I know I’d do whatever I can to make sure they feel loved and adored.

…You must be heard and seen… As an adult going through your stories and trying to order them and integrate them, a witness is the person who will give you that “real” feeling…

My witness, of course, has been Marcy. But I have also been graced with others…

Unfortunately I don’t have a ‘Marcy’ in my life. Instead, I write. And write, and write, so I can breathe.

But, those stories are slowly coming out on my blog. Which makes my blog readers my witnesses, I guess (hope you folks don’t mind!).

So witness this: I feel crappy about writing this stuff, like I’m betraying my family. Making a mountain out of a mole hill. It feels wrong and childish to sit here and write about things that have hurt my feelings over so many years and that, truth be told, still hurts my feelings.

And I’m not even half-way done yet! Not even close… however, I don’t know if it’s all for public consumption. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

Read part 2…

~Svasti

Humble pie

Tags

Bali, Love, Quicksand, Sanur, Surrender, Unemployed, Yoga

Surrender is actually what happens when we give up the struggle. What’s that they say about getting stuck in quicksand? Oh yeah… don’t move about, be perfectly still. If you struggle too much, you’ll sink faster.

But giving up the struggle can feel like dying, can’t it?

I’m still a little stunned by the stark and clear honesty in BlissChick’s post (which I haven’t managed to respond to properly just yet). If you haven’t read it yet, please go and check it out. Tell others about it too!

So, my heart has kinda fled to its little internal cave for now, to cope with having a few less layers of protective numbness around it. That’s actually a good thing though! I’m doing okay, but can’t quite explain how I feel, having read someone else’s account of a mirror image of my very own experiences.

Then… after my next rent payment, I’m not entirely sure how I’m gonna pay my rent. I am looking for a flatmate (had been hoping it wasn’t necessary, but, ah well…). And I’m turning somersaults to find ways to earn some cash.

This is possibly the most broke I’ve ever been in my life. I might be able to ask one of my best friends for a loan, but I’d rather not have to…

Currently I’m just praying/wishing that one of the many jobs I’m applying for comes through for me, and immediately. Feel free to send a prayer or two my way, if you’re into that kinda thing…

I’m feeling rather blessed though, at least in one way. I went to my yoga school today with a heavy heart, worrying that I might have to drop out of my course (the one good thing in my life right now). Truth is, I simply can’t afford to keep paying the remainder of the course fees, which are due in monthly instalments.

But the principal who runs the school is a really wonderful lady. She told me not to worry about the fees right now, that I can catch up on them later.

More – she’s suggesting all sorts of things to help me out. I now have a flyer for my business services in the window of the school. She’s also asked me to send her a copy of my flyer to put up on her website.

Then, she’s offered me the cleaning job for the yoga studio once a fortnight for as long as I need it (which wouldn’t be much, but it’d be something). And she’s just sent me an email saying she’ll talk to her friends and local contacts to see if there’s any work they have as well. She doesn’t even want me to put this money towards my school fees for now… she just wants to make sure I’m okay.

I can’t express just how overwhelmed I am by this support. She’s only known me a few months and yet she’s willing to do whatever she can to help.

To me, this is yoga; and this is love. This is extending beyond your own needs to make sure other people in your community are okay.

Kinda reminds me of an experience I had in Bali three years ago. Since the bombings in 2002, the entire country has struggled. Much of Bali’s income is derived from tourism, and Australians used to holiday there in droves. But people have stayed away in fear, and the Balinese economy (and people) suffered en masse.

There I was in Sanur in some shop. I bought a shirt – just a light beachy kinda thing. The woman from the shop next door begged me to come into her shop next. I had a good look around, but honestly couldn’t find anything else I wanted to buy.

That’s when the woman from the first shop suggested I could buy a second shirt like the one I’d just bought, in another colour. She handed that shirt over to the other woman, so her neighbour could get the money for the sale. I was touched, and bought the extra shirt.

And now I know exactly how that feels.

~Svasti