Yoga Inspiration

originally posted in: Yoga Rants and Raves

Baby's Got The Bends(sssssssss)

I don’t like snakes or back bends. There I said it. But this is blog not fortune cookie so I’ll explain but since this is MY blog I’m not going to just tell you why I don’t like snakes or back bends. No no no I’m going to tell you a little story about my life and relate it to why I don’t like snakes or back bends…well no, I’m going to tell you a little story about why I should be doing back bends and becoming a snake hunter. Well not a snake hunter but… Maybe I should jut get on with it,no?

So here I am not liking snakes, not liking back bending, and house sitting. I’m house sitting for my doctor actually because I’m a dog person and I need a vacation but can’t afford one. So my Doc and his wife asked me if I’d stay at the house taking care of their beautiful, aging dog Emma and you know, other things like checking the pool chemicals and watering the plants and walking through the acres of gorgeous land they have and sweating out my depression in the sauna. Its hard work, no it’s not, in fact I think part of the reason they asked me is because they know I’ve had a really rough month and a half and needed a break. So the other day I was walking down the stone steps do my daily pool routine, the house is built on a hill with beautiful rough boulders forming “walls” to keep the earth back and cut in a place for a patio and a pool. As I rounded the corner of the steps along the wall I saw this:

That’s about 2 feet of shed snakes skin! My first reaction was a pulse of fear because where there is snake skin there was an actual snake. Of course there was a snake it’s a rock wall, cool underneath, not to mention full of chipmunks and mice and other critters snakes snack upon, and warm on the top perfect for warming up that cold blood in the hot sun. *shutter* Once that moment passed my next thought was, “Cool! Snake skin!” because yes, my inner child is part 12 year old boy. And really once that initial shock goes away you can appreciate the amazing transformation that snakes go through. They shed their skin, and yes we humans are constantly shedding skin cells, our tissue renewing itself over and over again. But snakes do it way better. They grow out if it, they slough off the pieces of themselves that no longer serve them without becoming something all together different. That’s still Joe the snake lingering (ever so creepily) under the rock wall, just a little longer (*shutter again*) and more comfortable. So after my shock and young boyish curiosity I thought to myself how I really needed to work on my back bending. And I did…not. So the universe or mother nature or whatever got a little more insistent. The next day I walked down the stone steps and rounded a corner there was an actual snake. Luckily I was going kind of fast so my momentum wouldn’t let me stop even though I made a strange sort of strangled gasping yelp sound and nearly took a header.

I did my pool routine and then turned to look up the stairs for Mr. Snake Guy. I crept oh so slowly back up to the spot where he was sun bathing and he was still there. Full Diclousure: it was not the snake that had shed it’s big old skin, it was a common Garder Snake like this one:

I know they are not poisonous! I’ve always known that, just like I known that there is only like 2 poisonous snakes species that even live in Wisconsin. I still stood there rooted to the spot asking, out loud mind you, that Mr. Snake Guy please crawl back under the rocks so I could go back up the stairs. Yes, the other part of my inner child is an 8 year old girl. I’ve dealt with it and I still don’t like snakes. Nor back bends.

I don’t like back bends because they are uncomfortable. I’m pretty long in the torso for someone kind of short, and my thoracic vertebrae have very ling spinal processes: (that’s the part that sticks out like a droopy finger in the side view:

So back bending doesn’t come naturally to me, it hardly comes at all. Over the years I’ve been able to get into full wheel and a deep camel pose but I just don’t like how I feel in them. And now because I have all this bad stuff I’m trying to recover from over the past 6 weeks I don’t like the way they feel even more. Because the thing about deep back bends is that they open the front line of the body, they expose your heart and all I want to do is protect mine. I want to keep my heart safe while it heals from a painful breakup, a painful move, and the most painful of them all, closing my studio (that’s another blog all together!). So I don’t want my heart open at all, I’m exhausted and scared, just like I felt asking that harmless garder snake to go hide to I could go back to the house. 

I took a step forward tired of begging the snake to move and he flicked his little snaky tongue at me. Smelling, I don’t know utter shame and embarrassment, he decided he wanted nothing to do with me and went back in the rocks. I went to the house. Maybe it was the adrenaline for the encounter but I was a little restless, so I did down dog for a few breathes, then I shifted forward into plank and lowered down through chaturanga. I held there not wanting to come all the way up into up dog. So dropped to my belly inched my hands forward to my shoulders and began to straighten my arms, pausing to activate my legs and pelvic loop and I gingerly made it into cobra. A few breathes in cobra feeling my body lengthen and my neck grow tall then I took a breath out and let my head fall back and there I found the light.

Ok granted it was the light from the sky light because it was sunny out, but it was lovely. I closed my eyes and let the light turn the insides of my eyes pink and green before pushing back into child's pose. I gave a quick gratitude for the light and the sensation and then got up and went about my day. It was lovely little moment and now I love back bends and snakes…NOT. I still don’t like either of them but it was a reminder that just because some things scare us or make us feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean they aren't good for us.

A Yogi Flies to New York

Ok, really want to test your yoga-ness? Travel. Seriously, between the ridiculous fares, baggage fees (don’t get me started…) overpriced refreshments and all around feeling like cattle or sardines or some other animal forced into tiny enclosed areas among high numbers of its fellow creature-kind. And that’s the little stuff.

For me travel presents two major challenges to my yogi lifestyle; one: the weather delay/canceled flight, two: my fear of death.

So number one: weather. There’s nothing to be done of it! nope, no matter how hard we wish, hope and pray the weather is out of our hands. So you’re flying to New York to see your brother in his first ever Broadway show, ever?! Great, how about a historical snow storm, one the likes New York hasn’t seen in over a hundred years? And if that wasn’t enough to ruin your day, your airline insist that they will get out tonight, even though they closed JFK, let me repeat” CLOSED JFK!, they stand by that they will get out tonight. So your flight time, 12:20pm goes by, then, 1 o’clock, then 2:30, then 3:30, then 5:00 before you give and throw in the towel. Or worse! You stick it out, board the plane at 8pm take off and make it 45 minutes out before LaGaurdia sends word tat it’s too bad to land and your flight gets sent back to Cincinnati and you wind up sleeping on the airport. (for the record, I did not sleep in the airport, I bailed at 5, but read on please…)

Now this is a situation that would test even the most balanced individual and in my past would have sent me into such a rage, a rage I was so embarrassed to display that I would be in tears and there by rendered unfit to find the best outcome for the situation. But luckily, now I have yoga in my life I’m able to keep the adult tantrum at bay and look around and just observe my situation. I look next to me and see my traveling companion; this person that I asked to accompany me on a vacation because I love them and I want to spend some time together. And here we are spending time together, keeping each other amused and laughing when life throws curve balls (or in this case, snow balls). I look around me a little more observing the pushy New Yorkers feeling put upon because they can’t get back home, or the pity partiers who spin their sob stories like they could make the weather feel sorry and change and then notice the counter agent and her calm demeanor as she deals with such people. You can instantly tell she is moving from a place of integrity, I listen as she calmly tells the people at the desk how the delays will continue but that she spoke to the pilot and he feels uncertain and all the while the airline is standing by the flight so she can not officially tell you there’s no chance, but she herself thinks the chances are slim to none. So I observed my situation in the present; past the gate and the terminal and the airport (and technically the state, because the Cincinnati airport is actually located in Kentucky), and I have relatives in Cincinnati, really nice ones too. So after observing the situation and talking with my traveling companion we decided switching to an early morning flight was best and to call my aunt and uncle that live in town and ask if we could stay with them overnight. And they were thrilled; I have a big family so we don’t get to see each other much, so the thought of having a surprise visit isn’t seen as an inconvenience but a gift. And to make it even better it was my aunt’s birthday. So yes, it was a bummer that I missed a whole day with my brother but in return I was safe, warm, got to see some sweet relative, had an awesome home cooked meal, and slept in a comfortable bed after a hot shower.

I know not all travel rearrangements work out this well but I do think that a little shift in perspective can go a long way to making things easy. And when you are responsible for your own actions sometimes the universes gives you a little something in return.

So problem number 2: fear of death. To this I have no fantastic realization. I have no idea when my fear of flying took hold of me so strongly or why. But every time that plane takes off my head fills with dread. My over active imagination plays a hundred deadly scenarios in a quarter of a second and I am reduced to weeping sadly until the adrenaline stops coursing so fiercely through my blood and I can relax. That’s what happens nearly ever take off of every flight, and it happened on this trip too. As I pulled my head from between my knees, wiping tears from my eyes I smiled weakly at my traveling companion, “ I need to meditate more.”

Fear is a head game, it’s there because there is something to be learned, a breakthrough waiting to happen. But fear is big it feels as uncontrollable as the weather but even if I never get a hold of it I know that if I stick with my practice I can change my perspective. I can see my fear for what it is, a wild raging out of context storm wreaking havoc on my mind and there may be nothing I can do about it but I can at least look around it and see the calm waiting on the other side.

What is Believing Anyway?

I have the word “believe” pasted on a collage in my yoga room at home, currently it’s situated on so that with every lift and swan dive I see that piece of art and the word ‘believe’ swimming in a sea of yellow. For the past few weeks believing has been my theme, I was in the midst of a great awareness and peace, and keenly attuned to just how many things were possible for my life. And then I got knocked off my game, I lost my peace and my sense of possibility. It was a low that took my breath away; as deep and dark as my previous weeks had been light and high. So what does a yogi do, practice. Sure my body was in pain and my brain was ticking like a metronome on speed but this is the work, this is the practice. So to the mat I went. I stood in front of that collage of all the things I hoped to manifest into my life and looked for something to dedicate my practice to. In this collage there are words like “keep is simple” “meditative state” “blessed be” and of course “believe.” I stared a that word for a few moments almost feeling betrayed by it, I felt the heat of anger stirring in my abdomen, like it was the believing that lifted me up only to drop me back to earth with vengeance. But ‘believe’ is only a word, so I closed my eyes, took a few deep breathes and began my practice with the simple breath mantra: “accept, surrender.” With every inhale I accepted where I am and the responsibility I have for where I am and with every exhale I surrendered to where I am and let go of the struggle to move forward.

So the yoga ended and sat for a few moments sealing my practice with a little meditation and what I felt was fear. I checked in with fear, which I will say is a very scary thing, to go into that fear to revel in it in hopes of understanding why it’s there. I took an inhale and accepted my fear, I took an exhale and surrendered and let the tears come forth. I had realized that it was fear that was keeping me from believing, fear keeping me from jumping off the cliff and believing I can fly. And for a moment I felt lifted, no I didn’t immediately fall back in to that blissful state of existence I’d been in weeks earlier, but this is the work, this is the practice. Every moment builds on the next, every time we touch on something good it gets a little easier to find out way back there. Just like in our physical practice, we work on arm balances and inversions even if we think they are beyond our reach. We practice, we accept that our feet or still on the ground and we surrender the effort we are making to lift off. I have had quite a few students come to the mat for the first time (or first few months even) with fear and over time I watch that fear transform into believing in their selves and their practices. And on really good days I see their first flight.