Superwoman Monday

Tags

Bali, confession, Depression, internal saboteur, Retreat, sad face, schlepping, Super-Yogi-Woman, Superwoman, toute suite, yoga teaching, Yogini

Once again, I’m flying through time and space like… like… well, Superwoman. Or Super-Yogi-Woman, perhaps?

So wassup?

Well, there’s things to tell you! Last minute plans to organise! Way overdue articles to finish for others! Invoices to write! Clothes to iron!

And all before a 10pm bedtime after a day that started EARLY.

First up, a confession: none of my blokey yoga classes happened. NONE OF THEM. Each Thursday afternoon there was a different excuse (we couldn’t get the numbers/the guys are away sailing/everyone’s at the snow). Either these excuses are valid, or there’s another reason. Like perhaps their commitment to a 6:15am Friday morning class isn’t as strong as they thought it might be. Or maybe (and this is the one my internal saboteur keeps insisting on) it’s that I wasn’t their (cute/blonde) regular teacher, who was very surprised to hear of the lack of class attendance. I was disappointed, and I’m waiting to find out if the blokes in charge tell her another story. Yeah…

But I’m trying to just move on from that. Because as I recently wrote, my other class at Yoga in Daily Life was FANTASTIC!

Secondly, I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting to the retreat I’m meant to be going on in October. Not unless I suddenly win some competition with a cash prize that I forgot that I entered. Or something like that. I’m sad. Actually, I’m pretty bummed about it. I’ll miss very much seeing my Guru and catching up with fifty odd-friends I haven’t seen for two years. And I really, really coulda done with being secluded and focusing on my practice for a nice long stretch of time. Really.

I’ll be okay though. I mean, there’s a tonne of yoga stuff happening next month. And it won’t be the last chance I ever have to study with my Guru and see my friends. It’s just that this was the final year of seven years worth of study. That’s right – I’ve been doing yearly retreats for six years now! This final one is gonna be EPIC, and I can’t be there. *sad face*

Anyhow… time to change up the tone here and talk about some stuff that DOESN’T bring out my *sad face*:

• I’m very honoured that I’ve been included in a list of bloggy goodness: 101 Blogs to Help You Deal With Depression – of course, that’s quite a decent list of depression related blogs/websites, so it’s a very useful resource.
  ALTHOUGH, I was surprised that my Catatonic Kid wasn’t listed (note: she’s also writing another blog now called Treating Anxiety). And others (take a gander at my blogroll over —> there)!
  There’s plenty of others that should be there, but then that’s the way with lists, isn’t it? They always stop at a certain point, so there’s omissions by default. Anyway. Don’t forget to check the list out!
• I’m helping friends of mine promote a very cool sounding retreat in Bali early next year. Hopefully I’ll get to go as well. More on that one soon!
• Oh! At very short notice, I’m now teaching a yoga class tomorrow night at a laydee’s gym. And nope, I won’t be watering anything down for the gym-going crowd…
• As such, I am currently schlepping together a class plan toute suite!!
• Speaking of the ol’ yoga teaching thing, seems I’ve registered a business name, a domain and I’m in the process of setting up my website. Which I WON’T be publicising here, on account of the whole keeping this blog and my professional life a little seperate (the point of the whole nom de plume thang, y’know). I will be promoting my site via Facebook though. But yeah, I have a business name I LOVE, something that came out of a meditation experience.
• Oh and after spending another two weeks gainfully unemployed, I’m now working again for the next four weeks. Nothing spectacular, just some admin job that I took because it was there. But hey, given my current hot-cold job situation, I ain’t being choosey!
• Still looking for a more permanent job in my industry that’s interesting…

~Svasti

P.S. I think y’all should go and check out Suburban Yogini TV. Because she rocks. 🙂

Yoga is…??

Tags

debate, full-bodied reds, kittens, Meditation, pilates, wine tasting, Yoga, Yogini

Oh boy! Seems like there’s no end to the debate on the rights and wrongs, limitations, the age and ownership of yoga. Everyone has an opinion and reserves the right to be offended by the opinions of others (I’ve done it, too).

These days my view has relaxed considerably. While I still might think someone is stark raving crazy (haha) for having certain opinions (which they are of course, entitled to), I’m much less likely to get angry about it. We may not see eye to eye, but we can still be friends, right? Doesn’t mean I won’t get sucked into the odd debate though, *sigh*.

On the topic of what yoga is and isn’t, I really love Nadine’s latest post, since I very much resemble what she’s written.

But I was also reminded last night just how off-the-mark the perception of yoga can be from the “outside” (not even taking into account the fact that asana is only one part of everything called “yoga”). Sometimes this is the case even when a person has been to a few (or more than a few) classes.

That’s cool though; it’s kinda how it goes, right? In my first few years of yoga practice, I couldn’t have told you what yoga was either. And I’m thinking that’s no fault of the teachers I practiced with, because it can take a while to shake off the numerous veils and filters that cloud our perception and our thinking. In fact, I’m still working on that! But I do see yoga a lot more clearly than I used to. Which, y’know, you’d hope would be the case considering I’m now a yoga teacher! *giggles*

Last night’s conversation happened while I was at a ladies-only wine tasting session (because while I may be a yogini, I’m also a lover of fine wines. Especially full-bodied reds.). 😉

There was a bit of that “what do you do” question being thrown around, and when I mentioned my plans to start teaching yoga, one of our group asked what the difference between pilates and yoga was.

Before I could answer, someone else at the table piped up and described yoga as… “stretching”.

At which point, I looked that sweet young chicky in the eye and said:

No, yoga isn’t *just* about stretching. It’s a deeply profound practice that incorporates the body, mind and heart, linked by the breath.

But isn’t that meditation? she queried.

Well, sort of. Although yoga includes body movement, whereas meditation is generally done sitting still. But then, there’s also walking meditation…

And that was my five seconds before everyone’s attention span shifted to a discussion on how many pairs of shoes you really need in your wardrobe in order to be a) functional; and b) fashionable. I can only hope they at least registered the bit where I said yoga isn’t just “stretching”!! (heehee!)

So while those of us who’ve been around the yogic traps for a while might like to argue the ins and outs of the finer points, it’s good to keep in mind that there’s still plenty of people out there who have NO idea what we’re talking about whatsoever…

(Peace out, kittens!)

~Svasti

A yogini & an atheist walk into a bar…

Tags

atheist, Compassion, Empathy, Karma, kirtan, Love, Motorbikes, rainbows, Richard Dawkins, Tantra, Yoga, Yogini

In all seriousness, the title of this post is not the start of a joke! Okay, well maybe it is… 😉

C is one of my very good friends and a recent house guest – visiting Melbourne for a conference and then a bit of 4WD and motorbike fun. When he first asked if he could stay I kinda assumed his conference was to do with his job, and only just before his visit did he come clean about the Atheist Convention he was attending!

Which made me giggle. See when we first met, C was doing yoga and meditation which is part of the reason we had so much in common. We dated briefly almost ten years ago, and we’ve been good friends ever since. But somehow C veered into atheism and threw the baby/yoga out with the bathwater. Like many people, C didn’t have the best of times growing up, he has chronic health problems (which I suspect are related to suppressed anxiety), and one of his brothers passed away not long after we met. Outwardly he’s a very happy-go-lucky, adventurous, fun-seeking, kindly and generous person but when it comes to matters of the heart, I suspect he shut up shop long ago.

Over the years, it’s like there was a proportional relationship between my immersion in yoga and his into atheism. Nowadays he considers Richard Dawkins a hero, while I’m a fan of kirtan… But it’s cool. We love each other enough for that not to matter.

C added another twist to his Melbourne stay though. Two of his friends (a couple) were also coming to Melbourne for a few days motorbike riding (C drove to Melbourne with his bike and their’s on the trailer behind his 4WD) and I agreed they could stay at my place, too.

The only reason I’m mentioning their visit is because it meant I had to give them my sofa bed and C had to sleep on a blow up mattress in my small second bedroom. Which doubles as my yoga room – all decked out with my altar, many images of gurus, Hindu gods and goddesses, a huge sparkly print of Ganesha, prayer flags, chakra posters, incense and candles… And so the atheist had to sleep in the room in which I meditate, do yoga, chant and various other spiritual activities!! Not that he minded and I did warn him about my decorating before he arrived, but I still found it amusing (heehee!). Must be my somewhat childish sense of humour. 😉

Anyway… I took last Friday off work so we could hang out. We were meant to be heading out on his motorbike that day (we’ve a long history of adventuring around the country on his bike). But rain was threatening and being on a bike all day in the rain aint much fun (it worked out okay coz we went riding on Saturday which was awesome!).

So we took the 4WD on some very rugged back country roads. It was fun and very beautiful, and yet I felt a little uneasy. It’d been quite a while since we spent a whole day together and our views on the world differ considerably these days compared to when we first met.

Also, it seemed to me we’d both been carefully avoiding the atheist vs yogini conversation – personally I don’t have a problem with anyone’s views as long as they aren’t evangelising. However, I really didn’t want to argue with someone who’s been a good friend in my life for such a long time!

But on our 4WD trip C asked me about my “world view”, what I believed in. And ahhh… where to start when someone who doesn’t believe in anything asks you about your “world view” when you’re a yogini from a classical non-dual Tantrik tradition? Ahem!

We talked about karma for a bit (because he asked) and I explained what I could, including that most people use the term incorrectly. Generally speaking, of course. But that’s an entirely different post…

So I started explaining that my world view is an ever-unfolding path. That it’s not about “belief” for me – never has been. That what I’m interested in are my direct experiences and relationship with reality. And I told him I didn’t believe (as he does) that consciousness is just a trick of the chemicals in our brains, or that after we die there’s nothing. But I also said I didn’t know for certain, because that’s true. How can I know?

I’ve been given a lot of teachings over the past ten years and some of them are still just concepts for me. There are things I “believe” are possible – as in, they could happen – but I can’t say for sure they are true. However, some of those things have turned out to be true in my own experience. Which equals direct knowledge, and not just buying into a concept as it’s taught without any personal experience to back it up.

And sure, I understand the atheistic view – that those experiences I think I’m having could just be delusions. But how do you prove that I’m delusional? I mean, I’m an otherwise (relatively) sane person but whenever I have an experience that doesn’t match with the general consensus of reality, it *must* be a delusion? It sounds like a very convenient argument…

C asked what kinds of experiences I was talking about. But hey, those things are difficult to explain even to other yogis sometimes. So instead I talked about how what we think of as reality is really quite limited. For example, we generally don’t see light as the spectrum of rainbows that science proves it to be. And we don’t hear every sound that’s out there – things that a dog or a whale can hear. Our experience with reality is limited by our senses and just because we can’t see, feel, sense or logically explain every darn thing that happens, doesn’t make it not true. And that sometimes as a result of my practice, I find my senses expand (permanently or temporarily) in some way and I experience the world differently. Which helps me unfold/unpack reality a little more for myself.

I explained how my guru encourages all of his students to see Tantra and yoga as hypotheses, and our body and mind as a laboratory in which we can run as many tests as we like. Experience. Sense. Feel. Think. Reflect. Consider. Witness. Do. Be.

Don’t just take anyone’s word for it!

C asked me how any of what I’d been explaining can be used practically. So I got to the point – Tantra, yoga, meditation etc affords me the ability to see the world as non-different. The concept of non-dualism posits that nothing is really separate or different they way we tend to see things in day-to-day life, which helps me understand that not everything is about me.

For example, I was eventually able to see how some angry guy using me as a punching bag was not in any way personal. It just so happened that I was there and he was reacting to his own experience of reality and chose to get violent. Actually, it had nothing to do with me at all!

To get to that realisation is HUGE, especially when you’re crippled with PTSD and depression – it is NOT an easy path to come back from.

I told him how many people who go through things like I had, end up on medication for the rest of their life. Or they end up dead or destroying their lives in some way because they can’t cope. And that everything I’ve studied and practiced, hand in hand with therapy, is what helped me extract myself from the pit of hell I’d landed in. Therapy alone could never have given me the world view that I learned through practice and study.

And then I told C that actually, there is something I believe in: a (crazy) little thing called Love.

I believe that Love is pretty much the only thing worthwhile in this world. That getting to know your heart intimately and being connected to your emotions is important. That compassion and empathy and accepting people just as they are, no matter how different they are from you without expecting them to change… that that’s what I believe in, if anything… and I just silently hoped that my message of love was heard, loud and clear because even an atheist can’t argue with that, right?

**Update** @Skipetty asked in the comments how my friend C reacted. To be honest, he said very little. Possibly it’s because I said a bunch of stuff he didn’t agree with and he didn’t particularly feel like arguing with me, either. But I also hope I gave him a few things to think about in that science-driven noggin of his. And hey, maybe he took it all in the way I intended, which is not meant to be a threat to what anyone else believes. It’s all just my point of view in the end, isn’t it? 😉

~Svasti

On becoming a yoga teacher – part 2

Tags

Asana, Guru, Hatha yoga, initiation, Love, Sanskrit, self-confidence, self-knowledge, Yoga, Yoga teacher, yoga teacher training, yoga-ish insights, Yogini

[Read part 1 first]

It’s really only been in the last five years that I’ve started to understand yoga asana more fully. But until recently, I remained very unsure of myself as a yogini.

I can’t really explain why. I think that unlike RB sticking her hand up, my tendency has always been to shrink into the corner.

Around the time I took initiation into my Guru’s lineage, I decided I wanted to deepen my knowledge and ability with asana. But it still took me a while to do something (anything) about it.

As previously mentioned my therapist H, prompted me on what I’d like my life to look like at a time where I couldn’t see fifty meters in front of me. And surprisingly I found myself telling her I wanted to be a yoga teacher. I’d never told anyone that. Not even myself!

I signed up for the Hatha Yoga Studies Certificate course instead of the Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) even though I wanted to do the latter because I still didn’t feel ready (oh ye of little faith in oneself).

But for once I felt like I was in the right forum to ask those burning questions about asana I had trouble with. After all, I’d paid for the privilege of being in a small dedicated class where it was all about breaking down each pose and working through our challenges. For once I felt okay confiding my imperfections and getting the advice I needed to resolve them.

It was heavenly! Four to five hours of yoga – practicing asana and talking theory = my idea of a good time. Oh yeah baby!

Actually, it was only by doing the course that I realised I was ready for YTT (the two courses are identical until half-way through, so it wasn’t a hassle to switch). Still, I’m not sure I would’ve switched if I hadn’t been encouraged.

I’m deeply grateful for a number of things about my YTT.

First up, it was a 500 hour course. Not that there’s anything wrong with shorter trainings, but I really liked how that extra time allowed us to delve into some of the more esoteric aspects of yoga: the sort of stuff I’ve been studying for years and really enjoy.

Secondly, the course was paced out over almost an entire year. I know of others that are completed much more quickly! Some people even asked me why the course took such a long time to complete?! BUT there’s so much information to take in, and not just trying to memorise the Sanskrit names of asanas, or perfecting your practice (you never will!) or learning a little anatomy and physiology. Becoming a yoga teacher or any kind of teacher really… is a process. And the one important thing a process needs is time – to gestate, steep, mature, transform, explore, grow.

Also, I’m so glad I did my training at a school with heart. The heart very much comes from the woman who runs the school – M. She’s a great example of a yogini who takes her yoga off the mat and into everyday life. Not only did she help out many students who struggled financially last year (including me), but she also has a habit of donating to those in need. Something that is very close to my heart. And it shows in how she treats her students, as well as the quality of people who support her and teach there.

I learned many yoga-ish things (of course) in YTT, but also discovered a bunch of insights along the way, including:

• Flow in your yoga practice comes from confidence and self-knowledge. It’s not just about understanding how to sequence your asana. You’ve got to get a feel for what your body needs. Then, it can almost look like you’re dancing.
• Teaching yoga isn’t just about standing at the front of a class and giving instructions. It’s about making sure your students get what you’re saying. And sharing your love of yoga, your experiences and insights (where appropriate) and offering challenges for students and for yourself, too. In fact, it’s about being a human being, relating to other human beings.
• Without doubt, teaching is a learning experience. A reflection on your ability to be in the moment and put aside your issues with yourself. Because it’s not about you, the teacher, and you can’t be worried about your physical appearance or anything else while you’re teaching.
• That old maxim “those who can’t do, teach” isn’t true at all for yoga (and probably many other disciplines, too). Yoga teachers must practice yoga, must understand what they are asking others to do before they can even think of approaching the front of the room.
• Then, a yoga teacher must continue to practice – it’s not like you finish your YTT and you can suddenly do every asana perfectly! Or that once a pose is perfected, it will stay that way without effort. No way!
• Becoming a yoga teacher does not automatically make someone a perfected yogi or person: there will always be something that’s hard or seemingly impossible. Yoga teachers are simply sharing the teachings in the best way they know how, which is (hopefully) always changing and growing.
• To really teach yoga, one must attempt to remain humble and open at all times. It’s not about being an authority figure!

As well as facing down my depression and PTSD, the training also made me take a look at my self-confidence. Like… when I was first asked to practice-teach a class, I was terrified. Even if I was only working with one other person!

I was afraid of listening to my own voice, to be honest. Of sounding/feeling confident in leading someone through a sequence of poses. And of feeling comfortable enough to look someone in the eye while I instructed them in how to move their body.

It felt so intimate, and that’s because it is. It’s an extremely intimate and sensitive activity and it requires you to forget about yourself. Put aside your issues and whatever negative self-talk you usually spruik. After all, how can students in your care do the same thing for themselves if you’re busy giving yourself a hard time?

Also, putting aside your ‘stuff’ creates space for miracles to occur both for the teacher and the student. Miracles of love, of being able to master physical movements that have previously been out of reach. Allowing that open space to be free of self-doubt creates possibility…

Most of all, I think I’ve learned how to make yoga practical and doable for myself and others. YTT helped bring into focus something my Guru would tell us repeatedly: yoga isn’t about perfect form; it’s about synchronising your body and mind.

I feel that the repetition YTT over the course of an entire year is what sealed it for me. The fire was stoked in the first half of the year, lit when I switched to YTT and finally, turned into a brilliant source of light, warmth and refinement.

And now it’s up to me – what will I do with that flame? What fuel will I use to keep it alight?

That’s where I stand right now: one foot firmly on this brand new path with an open heart and a desire to share…

~Svasti

Illumination

Tags

clarity, full moon, Guru, Guru Purnima, illumination, initiation, kickboxing, kula, Muay Thai, sadhana, Samskaras, Yoga, yogi, Yogini

Clarity can come at the strangest moments. And the volume or quality of such a moment is hard to qualify – once it hits, it doesn’t fade, but damn, it can happen so fast!

The light of such clarity reaches into every corner of your being. Things that were complex and confusing become simple and 100% crystal clear.

Just as an aside, although it’s related… in my experience there’s a few rather disconcerting things that occur if you’ve found your Guru and have taken formal initiation (if you’re that way inclined).

For one thing, you become part of a collective energy body, connected, even if you’re on the other side of the world. And that means all kinds of weird and wonderful things. I could tell you about it, but you’d just think I was taking LSD or something!

I mention this because of the recent full moon, which also happened to be Guru Purnima – a traditional yearly festival where initiates pay homage to their Guru – and to the Guru lineage in general, actually.

Jaya Hanuman! Jaya Gurudev!!

Right now, some of my kula are hanging out in Thailand together, celebrating this event with our Guru. I was of course, there for the festivities last year. Sigh!

Whenever there’s a large gathering of my kula somewhere in the world, if I’m not there, I feel it anyway.

I get ‘zapped’ by the energy being generated. Others do, too. Often, I can’t sleep, which also happens for many of us in the lead up to any intensive retreat we’re about to attend.

Two nights ago I had the worst sleep I’ve had in absolutely ages. Woke up and realised, oh yeah… full moon… Guru Purnima!!

It’s always a very powerful time of year.

Though it wasn’t just me and my kula. A lot of people were reporting (via Twitter) this particular full moon was affecting them intensely.

Even though I felt awful when I woke up Tuesday morning, I also felt renewed. Almost like… a lot of ‘stuff’ had just been clawed away.

And I was clear – it’s time to stop leaking energy all over the place.

When doing sadhana over time, practitioners build up a lot of energy. It can be quite a heady experience, especially if you’re not ready to deal with it.

Often what happens to inexperienced yogis (definitely happened/s to me) is that you’re a bit like a sieve, full of leaks through which you lose much of the energy you’ve generated. Kind of like that hole in the pot.

Those leaks aren’t easy to control initially. There’s guidelines you can follow, to help you reduce and eventually stop any such leakages. But, there’s usually a few weaknesses (habits/samskaras) that are harder to stop than others.

And so you keep haemorrhaging energy until you can give them up.

Upon waking after my very rough four hours of sleep, post full moon/Guru Purnima, things were perfectly clear.

Illuminated, you could say.

Time to put away my emotional hooks and hang ups as much as possible. I know what they are – I crave feeling connected to others. I fear rejection because it’s been a theme in my life. I hate feeling alone because I’ve been alone much of my life. So I try to forge connections where perhaps there aren’t any. I seek kindred spirits, perhaps a little too intensely.

And its time to stop. No more allowing myself to carry dead weight – mine or anyone else’s. No holding on to people or things or ideas for the sake of it, hoping for change that never comes. Just… no more of that!!

Whatever happened this last full moon, I feel like I’ve been given a wakeup call. A very loud and clear surge of clarity and self respect!

Now, I feel like I’m rebuilding my yoga practice from the ground up. Starting with the vessels containing all the good health and energy I generate – my physical and emotional bodies.

So I’ve hauled myself into the dockyard for renovations, and not just a patch up job!

Time for me to start taking names (mine!) and kicking some ass (again, mine!).

Fittingly I’m also starting Muay Thai (kickboxing) again for the first time in over five years (a nice counterbalance to the stillness).

Its way past time for the fighter in me to come out and get rid of everything standing in the way of becoming physically, mentally and emotionally healthy.

Rock on!

~Svasti

Five sleeps…

Tags

Ceremony, Homa, Meditation, Namaste, Puja, Pujari, Ritual, Sanskrit, Sydney, Vedic chanting, Worship, Yoga, Yogini

As rough as things have been lately, up and down and round the freakin’ bend… I am, I’ll admit, feeling a little excited.

In just five more sleeps (including tonight’s – and yeah, I really shoulda been in bed a couple of hours ago), I’ll be back in my beloved Sydney.

As I might’ve mentioned in another post, in my experience, it’s not so much places as people that feel like home. Yet… some places seem more like home than others… and Sydney was like that for me when I moved there at the tender age of twenty-one. It’s also where the majority of my closest friends live.

I’m heading north on Saturday to complete some pujari training. And what’s that, I hear some of you asking?

Well, puja is a Sanskrit word referring to the act of worship. Ceremony. Ritual. And Hindu rituals are both intricate and beautiful. Truly. And full of gorgeous meaning and intent.

A pujari then, is someone who can complete puja. This level of training is for personal puja only. Later training might include being able to perform puja for other people, too.

By the way, in this context worship, although it appears to external… is really a way of projecting our own divinity outwards, where we can see it. We make offerings, worship and show love and devotion to our divine Self. Then, at the end of a puja, we draw that essence back into our heart.

Beautiful, don’t ya think?

We’ll be staying at the home of our favourite Brahmin priest – a good friend of my Guru’s in fact – who’ll try and knock some form into our puja. He’ll also be teaching us a little more Sanskrit, Vedic chanting, puja theory, homa practice (fire ceremony) and more.

Of course, there’ll be plenty of yoga and meditation going on too!

And if there’s any down time, guess we’ll be jumping in the backyard pool.

Nice, eh?

It will be very rejuvenating, spending time amongst my fellow Aussie yogis and yoginis. Most of them I haven’t seen since August last year. But a couple of others I haven’t seen for a year or two.

All very wonderful for a yogini who, for the most part, practices alone. And, I’ve always had an affinity with ritual – so its all good for me.

So anyways, posts could be a little light on this week and I won’t be back home til 1^st Feb. There’s plenty of half-finished posts, so if I get the chance I’ll sneak one out before I leave.

A big Namaste to you all…

P.S. Don’t worry about Miss Cleo the cat – a good friend will be house-sitting and making sure she’s fed and given plenty of attention.

~Svasti

Depression triggers – part 2

Tags

Back-story, Bali, Buffy, Bullied, Depression, Depression after surgery, Guru, Isolation, Lethargy, PTSD, Shiva nature, Surgery, Yoga, Yogini

In part 1, I talked about having a rather painful surgery in March ’06 and how that contributed to my depression.

So for a while, I had the convenient excuse of my toe to suppress what was really going on. It distracted other people too.

It was even a perfectly valid excuse to decline social invitations – as I didn’t want anyone to stand on my foot.

Two months later (May ’06) I was in Bali for that year’s yoga retreat, convinced I had the trauma and shock under control. [In case you’re wondering about all the overseas trips I seem to take, I save all year for them by putting money aside from each pay.]

I should say I was under the delusion I was in control. Not healed or recovered, mind you. Just in control.

That is, until I was in the presence of my Guru. He simply looked at me and said – I’m with you all the way. Something about the way he said it helped me see I wasn’t in control at all. I was disconnected, even from my fellow Aussie yogis. People I was close to – and I’d yet to tell them what was going on for me!

My Guru’s gift to me on this retreat – not that he gave me anything tangible – was revealing more of who he is as a channel for Shiva nature. Or God or the Universe, whatever you like to call it. (At some point I’m gonna explain more of what I mean by that.)

Basically I was able to see clearly for myself how little his external personality has to do with the essence nature he transmits to his students. Or maybe it’s just that I was finally ready to see him that way?

This retreat was seminal for me in a number of ways – but I’m not sure I want to talk about that. Not even here on my anonymous blog. But delicate energetic surgery was going on. Healing work. There just wasn’t enough of it to keep me going – I was only there for three weeks.

By the time I was in Bali, I’d stopped getting therapy. I wasn’t seeing my wonderful kinesiologist as she was so darn expensive. This wasn’t a good thing.

Post-retreat, it was back to the same old, same old. No social network, but working hard, yet having a tough time being productive. The sucking weight of depression was taking hold. Despite the energetic transformation I’d had in Bali. There was nothing else back home to sustain it.

I’ve mentioned this before, but as a yogini, I’d told myself I didn’t need any more external help. This is not my Guru’s view – it was entirely my own delusion. I had more meditation and philosophical tools than I would ever need, and numerous oral teachings of deep insights into human nature.

Surely with all that great training I should be able to work it out for myself?? Well, no. Not necessarily. Not if you’ve dug a deep groove in your karmic field. It isn’t so easy to suddenly ‘jump tracks’ from within one of those grooves. It requires a great deal of momentum. And depression is a momentum killer.

Something my Guru is fond of saying is – work right where you’re at. Not where you’d like to be. Yet I wasn’t. I was actively engaged in the fantasy that I was “almost better”.

Sometimes the drowning have no idea they’re about to go under.

I spent most weekends at home. Inside. I might venture up to the main street for food or DVDs, but ultimately I avoided people. Since I’d always been a little bit of a hermit I thought I wasn’t doing anything too different.

My time management skills deteriorated rapidly. My family couldn’t rely on me to turn up on time. Actually, they didn’t even expect me an hour later. I arrived when I arrived. When I could.

A friend of mine was leaving the country for a twelve month working holiday and I plain forgot when his party was after remembering an hour earlier.

Work sucked, because I had no desire to try. I couldn’t concentrate very well. My memory was shot. But the structure of being somewhere every day along with the mind numbing effects of having to think about other things… it kept me going for a while but ultimately it contributed to the repression of what was going on.

Also I had a new boss. The one that came in at the end of the previous year decided she needed another level of management and brought in a swag of “seniors” so she didn’t have to deal with the rest of us.

I dubbed my new boss “Scary Natasha”. My group manager and Scary Natasha both knew what I’d been through – I explained it to them because I’d mistakenly thought they’d take that into account.

How wrong I was.

There are some people in this world who view any weakness exhibited by others as an opportunity. These women were paid up members of the club.

They decided at my twelve month review (despite neither of them having been there for longer than six months) that my current work slump warranted my being put on ‘performance management’. Which means they would assess me closely and review whether I should be sacked.

Scary Natasha made a list of things she expected me to do daily, weekly, monthly and so on. And we’d meet each week, her large eyes bulging out of her pale skinned face with her severely blunt fringe an inch or so above.

In terms of my work performance, I probably deserved a stern word or two. But not this. Not being terrified and bullied on a daily basis by a cold and angry woman who’d clearly decided she didn’t like me. But I was in no state to stand up for myself.

So I spent my work days scared shitless I’d lose my job – the only thing that was keeping me afloat in my sea of sadness. And my weekends and evenings watching Buffy episodes, doing yoga and praying hard this would all come to an end some time soon.

Read part 3…