Salads are for winners.

“I don’t know why you do that, Katie.”

Mitch is across the table from me, eight candles burning between us because I like to pretend they create an acceptable (albeit hazardous) makeshift fireplace on gray, rainy days. I’m giving her my most recent sob story and she’s calling it like she sees it, giving it to me straight like so few people do. I have immense respect for people who can and will put me in my place.

“I know you say you don’t have your shit together but as an outsider looking in, trust me when I say this, you’re the only one who thinks that. I don’t know why you do it.”

She’s right, of course. We humans have this incredible ability to build up intricate lies in our heads about who we are or aren’t, who we like and who we don’t, what’s good and what’s bad. We have the capacity to build entire alternate realities for ourselves, and the really amazing thing is not that we can do this but that we almost always choose misery over happiness when we do. (See: Right or Happy? Your Move.) Why do we do this?

There’s a story I keep hearing in yoga and reading in books about this concept, about how things are not themselves by themselves. They are what we think them to be only because of what we make them to be. Bear with me.

Think of an object, any object, and define what it is. In yoga the example is a reed pen. A teacher holds a reed pen up to a student, “What is this?”

“A pen,” the student responds.

“No,” says the teacher. “What is this?”

“… A pen?”

“NO. What is this?”

“It’s a pen.”

“No. What is this to a cow?”

“It’s… food.”

The point is that the pen is only a pen if the seer thinks it’s a pen.

You could go further with the pen. What is it to a warrior? A weapon. To a child? A magic wand.

Try again. Think of a park bench. What is it? A place to sit? Somewhere to sip on a latte? What is it to the homeless guy that slept on it last night? A bed, maybe?

How about me?

I blew through my life savings and can’t get my head back above water. Or… I invested in my future with higher education.

I’m at the mercy of an impossibly full schedule. Or… I’m busy because I want to be.

I sell black stretchy pants at the mall. Or… I’ve met some of my best friends at a fun job that gives me free yoga.

I’m letting everyone down. Or… I’m doing what’s best for me.

I don’t know what I want. Or… I already have everything I need.

I’m lost. Or… I’m exploring.

I read How Yoga Works in the Bahamas and it focuses a lot on this concept of things not being themselves by themselves. There is one page in the book that I’ve dog-eared, underlined, starred and shared. It is this (page 179 if you’ve got it):

He shook his head tightly, forcefully. He almost saw, and he didn’t see, and it was killing him. I picked the pen up from his desk and held it up between us–my shining golden sword.

“Is this a pen; or is it something to eat?” I demanded.

He shook his head again, violently. Help me.

I leaned over intensely and slammed my palm into his chest. 

“Is this flesh–born only to die; or is it pure and loving light?”

He looked up at me, his face changing.

“And your wife, and your daughter,” I said, loudly now, thrusting my palm there, at his chest, where the highest compassion of all lies choked. “Are they dead and gone forever; or do they stand at your side, waiting to be seen, waiting until you learn to see them, be with them, be them?”

And then I slammed my hand down again on the desk and held the pen up between us. “Is it a pen or something to eat? Answer me!” I screamed.

“A pen!” he screamed back now, nearly across the border. “A pen!”

“No!” I screamed back. “Not a pen! Never a pen! Never a pen! NO COW HAS EVER SEEN THIS PEN, AS A PEN, AND SO…” I waited for him.

“And so, and so… they would say… cows would say… that there are no pens,” he finished, still thinking it out.

“The mind makes it a pen,” he went on to himself. “It is not a pen… by itself.”

And then he looked down, at his own chest, where my hand had woken him. “And the body… my body, this flesh…” he said, holding his own two hands there, with a look of wonder growing on his face. “It is flesh, it is flesh, because… because… and only because, my mind makes me see it that way.”

It’s just… enormous. This whole concept. It’s huge. It’s all I’ve been able to think about for the last two weeks. I keep telling everyone but I feel like I’m not explaining it right. I want everyone to read it and get it and, more importantly, do it. Make the choice. What do you want? Do you want to be right or happy? Are you flesh and bone here to die or are you pure, divine, immortal light?

It feels so very out there–a little too “yoga,” if you know what I mean–but I choose light. Definitely.

Fire hazard. Look away, mom.

Stay in that one pure thought, and never forget it. That single most important thing: things are empty of being what they are by themselves. Yoga sutra I.43A

Taco night at casa de Rachael

Last night I was in yoga (as I tend to be) and it was awesome (as it tends to be). I had ventured beyond my home studio because I figured if I’ll be doing my training there for the next six months, I should probably branch out and experience other studios whenever I can. I have this incredible opportunity available to me to learn from as many teachers as possible and I want to soak that up like the eager little sponge I am.

So there I am in this music-less, mirror-less studio (not my cup o’ tea usually) and the teacher is all “kundalini… standing splits… kundalini… standing splits… kundalini… standing splits.” You get the idea. Or perhaps you don’t… It’s basically a whole lot of standing on one foot. Crouched down with one foot hooked behind the other at first and then fully extended with the body folded over one straight leg while the other leg searches for the ceiling.

An uncomfortable burn builds up in the ankle and, as is the case in most uncomfortable situations, you have this urge to retreat. But that exact moment, as most teachers say, is precisely when your yoga practice really begins. That’s when it shifts from a physical practice to a mental practice. It’s a chance to control your emotions and just breathe through it.

“Learn to keep your feelings in balance, whether something feels good, or whether it hurts.” I.33D

I kind of wanted to drop my raised leg to take some of the pressure off my burning ankle but then I decided to just stand there and take it, to just feel it. And wouldn’t you know it, not 30 seconds later when the teacher called dragon lunge and my burning ankle released to the back of the mat, the discomfort ended almost immediately. “The burning is always temporary,” she said.

Life is like this, too. Bad things happen and uncomfortable situations arise and our instinct is often to retreat. But imagine for a second how it would feel if you were to stand there and just take it, just feel it. How fleeting the pain is, how inevitable and all-consuming the release will be. It may not happen quickly, and sometimes it may feel like it won’t happen at all. But whatever you’re fighting and wherever you’re hurting, just take it. Just feel it. Peace is always coming because the burn is always temporary.

“The pain you’re feeling can’t compare to the joy that’s coming.”

After class I went to taco night at casa de Rachael with my doting husband Mitch.

Viva la Rach

What a dreamboat.

And I felt really, really grateful for the miserable year I had–for my aching heart and my battered spirit–because it makes the current release feel that much better. I am overwhelmingly at peace with everything. I am so ready.

Photo: Wanda Koch

Money and time.

Those are the excuses I give when asked why I won’t commit to yoga teacher training.

I was actually enrolled in a program two years ago. But then I uprooted my life and moved. I thought I’d just commute back to do it, but then I went back to school and got really busy. I found a new studio and a better program here and thought I’d do that instead, but then I blew through my life savings to pay for school. So I thought more jobs might make things better, but then everything just got worse and I got crazier and my whole life fell apart and now I’m even busier trying to pick the pieces (and myself) up off the floor. And the whole time I’m thinking maybe next year… maybe next year… maybe next year.

So last week when I tossed my “money and time” excuse at one of my teachers, without hesitating she shot back with: “That will always be your excuse. What else you got?”

To be perfectly honest… I got nothin’. I’ve got a broken heart that will not heal. I’ve got regrets about the past and a paralyzing fear of the future. I’ve got an empty bank account and a surplus of neurotic cats. I’ve got a whole lot of anxiety and, consequently, a newly acquired wine habit. I’ve got an impossible schedule, unrelenting guilt and incapacitating doubt.

And all of that, I think, makes this the perfect time to throw myself into something that makes me feel so challenged and so powerful and so vulnerable and so alive as yoga.

So it’s on. It is so on.

Oh you got a fire and it’s burning in the rain
Hoped that it went out but it’s burning just the same
And you don’t look back, not for anything.

You can read my yoga rants from over the years in my yoga archive. There will be plenty more where that came from… Training starts January 6. Mitch is doing it, too. Of course.

This is mine.

This is a letter from my very dear friend Jack, promptly delivered when I needed it most.

“… Anyway, I know from the blogging (and that awesome haterade thread) that you have been going through a very stressful time and that its sometimes a bit of a roller coaster ride for you living paycheck to paycheck, making it in a city on your own, slowly building a life for yourself. I wish I could do something to help, or be there for you, drink with you and dance inappropriately, something! Alas that’s not in the cards. 

What I came up with is that I wanted to let you know how a little thing you did has profoundly affected my life for the better. Late last year, you had a contest on the blog for anyone who donated to a clean water project. I was won of the two winners and got a copy of Meditations from the Mat. Given the timing, I couldn’t resist doing a daily read starting with the New Year, January 1. Starting then, I’ve read an entry a day (catching up when I forget it traveling sometimes or just forget reading for some reason). I just finished part 4 Pranayama and am moving tomorrow into Pratyahara. It seemed like a good time to stop and reflect on what I’ve read and what I’ve learned. What astounds me most about that book, and about yoga, is it has an uncanny way of giving me exactly what I need.

At least one entry a week has me flipping out or getting teary-eyed at how deep it sometimes gets into my life, as if it knows exactly what’s going on and is writing itself for me as it goes. It has helped me through some really awesome times, and some really shitty times the past 9 months. I swear by this book now, just as I swear by yoga, something I also credit you for exposing me to. I taught my first classes last week, subbing for my regular teacher who was out of town, and it was an incredible experience. Its hard to believe I have been actively practicing now for over 2 years. Yoga has transformed my life, the book has really aided me in such a challenging year, and its all because of you.

Its far too rare for people to truly give thanks to those people in their life who have made a positive difference. This is my opportunity to tell you that your influence has made all the difference in mine. I certainly don’t send this message thinking that helping me should solve all your problems or worries, but next time you ask yourself “why?????” or you are having a rough day, or stressed to the max, just know that what your doing has really affected at least one person positively, and I’m sure many more.

Keep doing what you are doing, I believe in you and the great things that you have done, are doing, and will continue to do.”

Thanks, Jack.

Today was day 11 of my 70 days of yoga. I practiced twice–once at 6am and again at 7pm. In the night class the teacher welcomed us with a powerful story of gratitude in honor of the upcoming anniversary of his best friend’s death. He talked about what a better world it would be if we all walked around doling out gratitude. He started us off in child’s pose, told us to stretch long, to dedicate our practice to a spirit of thanks and to claim our space.

This blog is my space. It is not a democracy; it’s a diary. I started writing Sweet Tater for myself and so long as it is written, it will be first and foremost for me. That I have built up a small “audience” is wonderful and exciting and humbling, but I do not do this for traffic. (Would you believe me if I said I’ve all but stopped looking at stats?) I do this because I love the people I’ve met and the friends I’ve made and the things I’ve learned just being myself and sharing my ridiculous, cat-filled, F-bomb-laden, grammatically correct story. That I’ve picked up a few haters along the way is hardly reason enough to fix what ain’t broken.

This space is mine, and I’m so happy to have you here. Thank you.

That'd be an 11...

We're gonna have to puree this sandwich...

Let’s see… so far today I have:

• Thrown out my hip in yoga
• Rolled my eyes at no fewer than three “kids these days”
• Watched a riveting documentary about a rat plague that decimates a bamboo field once every 48 years (whaaat??)
• And “liked” Tidy Cats on Facebook

I am 90 years old.

It’s a surprise I was even able to gum down that sandwich to swallowing consistency without my dentures.

I don’t really think I threw my hip out in yoga. Maybe a little bit. The thing is that I have really tight hips and I’ve decided I don’t want them any more so I’ve been pushing them beyond where they would like to go and so sometimes afterwards they’re a little bit on the “heeeeeey now” side. You know what I’m saying? But I have to have these physical goals (like: “hey, I’d like open hips”) because otherwise my only reason for going to class is so a man will touch me. What? No…

What are we going to do with me?

[For the reasons I actually do yoga, see here.]

Soup on an old table

I have had the world’s busiest day off ever. And it has been lovely. I had two beautiful yoga classes, time to do my laundry FO FREE, lots of time outside in the sun and a lovely chat with a lovely new friend.

I started my “free time” bright and early with a 6am wake up call for hot yoga. I don’t sleep much any more…

Class was fantastic. Lots of assists, including standing drop back to wheel and return to standing (I looked nothing like that guy). I feel good about my practice right now. Strong but ready to move on and learn more challenges.

Because one class is just never enough, I met up with my friend Annie at Om Yoga for a lunchtime class, too.

Om Yoga, Baxter Village

Om is a wonderful loft studio closer to my old apartment that I used to visit before I moved up to Charlotte. Before it opened last year, there were no studios in that area. We were in desperate need, let me tell you.

Maria, the owner, teaches wonderful power hours and hot vinyasa classes that I love. In fact, today’s class wasn’t even hot but I was still sweating like a fiend. I also loved that she opened class with a story and a chance for a little group meditation. One thing she said that really stuck with me was this:

“Breathe and everything changes.”

Inside Om

To me, this has two meanings:

1. When things are bad, we can focus on our breath to move us through. By the end of it all, not only will the bad situation have changed to good but we ourselves will be transformed, too. In yoga you breathe through a tough posture and end up stronger and more flexible. In life you breathe through tough times and end up stronger and more flexible. Amazing how that works. Breathe and everything changes.
2. Whether you’re having a great day (or week or month or year) or a terrible one, it can all change in an instant. In one breath your world can turn upside down, for better or for worse. There’s really no stopping that. Breath and everything changes.

I had a “breathe and everything changes” moment today. Since I was down in that neck of the woods, I decided to stop by my brother’s house, which involves driving by my and Stew’s old house, too. It was not a great feeling being there. It brought back a lot of emotion that I feel like (just in the last week or so) I’m finally getting a handle on. And then I realized there’s just not a whole lot I can do about it. I took a breath three weeks ago and my whole world changed. It’s hard, but I know that if I take another breath (and another one and another one and another one…), it will all change again. Asi es la vida.

So anyway, my point is that I love Mari and Om Yoga. WINK.

My budget conscious self was smart enough to pack up lunch to eat at my brother’s house while I waited for laundry. I brought soup with quinoa and lima beans and some watermelon. (I ate an entire watermelon in 24 hours. Don’t hate.)

I also enjoy digging through my brother’s pantry and fridge whenever I’m there to see what kind of crap he’s eating these days…

Be still, my heart

Baked Cheetos?!? Baked Cheetos were only my favorite diet food in the world. I could eat an entire bag in one sitting, which, as you know, is why I do not condone the consumption of “diet” junk foods and no longer do so myself. Anyway, I ate one and it tasted like shit.

I also found evidence that he had visited my grandparents recently because a tray of “Dad’s favorite cookies” was on the table. And everybody knows only Grandmother Betty can make them… I snagged one.

Dad's favorite cookie

And then, as all good days should, my day ended with frozen yogurt and a chat session with Miss Katy Loves.

Katyyy

What a breath of fresh air this girl is. She moved up from Orlando the same day I moved into the city and we just now got together. Long overdue.

Hey behbeh.

I had: cake batter, mint coffee swirl and mounds topped with brownies, cookie dough and marshmallow cream. Hello.

Not this one...

I love yoga. This is no secret. But I especially love hot yoga. There’s something so cathartic, so cleansing, so rewarding about a practice that leaves you feeling completely used up. There is nothing quite like collapsing on the mat into a pool of sweat at the end of class after giving 90 minutes of everything you have to give. It’s the absolute best thing I do every day.

The other day after savasana my teacher said this: “Your cup is empty now. Be mindful of what you put back in it. You always get a second chance.”

After a really intense class, my cup is most certainly empty. I love being physically, mentally and emotionally drained. It’s like cleaning a slate and starting over every time I practice. And as my teacher has also explained, the point of doing the physical poses (asanas) is to distract us from our thoughts, to pull us out of our minds and into a sort of meditation through movement.

As is often the case, life mimics what happens on the mat. Right now, at a time when so much in my life is so empty–my bank account, my home, my heart–I find myself feeling a little helpless… or hopeless. But then I remember the rest of those words…

“Be mindful of what you put back in it. You always get a second chance.”

I’m at a point now in my life where I have nothing left to lose because, honestly, I feel like I really have nothing at all. On the flip side, though, I have a chance to refill my cup in any way I see fit. I have a clean slate. I always have a second chance and I’m in complete control.

What I’ve learned in my short time practicing yoga is that it is a safe place for me. It’s a place for me to take refuge, to escape my thoughts and to empty my cup, as it were, so that I can fill it back up again.

I’ll be mindful of what I put back in this time.

Spilling this.

I’ll tell you. Most recently, I’ve been spilling this green smoothie all OVER my new white desk.

Behold:

:-/

Before that I was getting my makeup did…

Heeeeeey

And before that I was practicing some new poses.

I don't know what this is called.

All this because I have a yoga photo shoot in T-minus, uhhh, THIRTY MINUTES. It all makes sense now.

The makeup makes me feel a little very ridiculous. I suppose my idea of “a natural look” is very, very different from that of a makeup artist. At any rate, it’s on and I’m not taking it off.

I’ll be “styled” in beat up jeans and a tank, which I think will be awesome. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do some awkward looking squats and lunges so I can actually move in this denim.

King dancer. Nay... queen.

My yoga practice has been lagging. This lack of commitment coupled with my triumphant return to running has left me feeling creaky and tight. I haven’t been to my “home” studio for almost a month because I’ve been caught up in activities surrounding the end of classes and the start of my new job. One of my biggest struggles in yoga is remembering that the practice is mine and about me no matter where I go. I have a tendency to get attached pretty easily. I fall hard and fast and don’t like change.

Not only does this lack of flexibility not work in yoga, it doesn’t work in my life either. At work we’re outlining our personal, professional and health goals for the next 1, 5 and 10 years. I consider this a rather daunting task. I don’t know what I’m doing 15 minutes from now much less 10 years down the road. I think the rigidity of my life has left me feeling a little stagnant and is halting any moves I could and should be making toward the future. The biggest challenge I find in writing the goals is that I’m writing them as broken, tired (and let’s face it) terrified me and, as a result, am crafting my future from within the confines of how I see and feel right now. I’m not pushing myself to get what I really want. I feel like I’m writing down what I know I could achieve pretty easily.

Peaceful warrior pose

So yesterday I went to a studio that’s relatively new to my practice and took a class with hands down one of the best instructors in the city. She was talking about how yoga doesn’t really start until we start to feel uncomfortable. When we want to fidget, release, fix our hair, scratch our heads, essentially run from the pose… that’s when the real yoga begins. “What good is a pose I already know how to do?” she asked. “It’s the one just beyond that I’m striving for.” So I guess where I am right now–uncomfortable, distracted and fidgety as all hell–is where life really begins.

In the class, we were practicing dancer with a strap. We don’t use straps at my studio so I set mine down and went into the beginner version of the pose as I know it. Safe, predictable, comfortable. The teacher walked by and said, “Try the full pose.” Having never tried it in my life I said, “I can’t.”

What’s cool about yoga teachers is they’ll never try to force a pose on you. So she walked away and left me to myself. When we got to the pose on the other leg an assistant had moved over to my mat. She asked if I was up for it and I decided to give it a try. What good is a pose I already know how to do, right? What would it look like to go one step further? The answer is the picture at the top of this page.

I’m excited about that picture and that pose. I’d never tried it because I never thought I could do it. What good does that do me? How many other doors have I closed on myself? I guess it’s time to find out.

CATS REQUIRED

Stopping. Nothing. Trust. Feel.

Tonight in yoga I heard something that really kicked me in the face, in a good way. The instructor started the class reading a series of complementary phrases to pair with our “in” and “out” breaths. There were 12 pairings total but four stuck with me and, I believe, will become my new mantra:

[In] I am… [out] completely stopping.

[In] I expect… [out] nothing.

[In] I trust… [out] my resources.

[In] I feel… [out] my support.

How perfect is that? Again:

I am completely stopping. I expect nothing. I trust my resources. I feel my support.

I can’t tell you how many days I go barreling through life, unable to stop, engrossed in expectations of what-if, doubting myself and feeling like I’m doing it all completely alone. If I take five seconds to recite this in my head, it’ll remind me that:

I have complete control over what I’m doing and where I’m going. I can stop any time I want. I can just be for a second.

I don’t have to know what’s next. Right now will do just fine.

I have everything I need to do everything I need. I am not without. Not without money, not without food, not without family and friends, not without an education, not without love. I have resources.

I am loved and supported and I’m never alone.

I just loved that so much I had to share. Do any of those resonate with you? Do you have a different mantra?

Protect and guard this self

Here’s a lovely sentiment from my 15th day of yoga readings from Meditations from the Mat (Day 199):

“When we see our self as the center and separate from everything else, we have to continuously protect and guard this self.” – Zen master Dennis Genpo Merzel

I get two things out of this:

1. A very “man is not an island” or, on the other hand, “it takes an army” kind of sentiment. We can’t get through this life alone and if we try, we’ll find ourselves constantly guarded, constantly fighting, always working to uphold our isolated self.
2. A realization that yoga has given me the freedom to let down my guard and just trust–people, myself, my body–both inside the studio and out. I don’t have to waste all my energy continuously guarding and protecting myself because I believe firmly that yoga does that for me. Every single day.

I see this transition towards trust in all kinds of ways–letting a stranger touch my filthy sweaty body to move me deeper into a pose, letting my head fall all the way back in camel, wheel, etc. and knowing it won’t fall off, letting my eyes move upward in tree pose and eventually closing them knowing that even if I do fall, it’s not that far to the ground.

Rolf Gates (the author) moves in a different direction with this excerpt, explaining this:

“One of the easiest ways for me to convince a new, athletic student that there’s something to yoga is to place her in class behind someone twenty years older than she is. Forty minutes later, the new athlete will be seated on the floor, exhausted, watching a woman old enough to be her mother breezing through her practice… The experienced student practices with an ever increasing level of surrender. None of her energies are spent upholding or defending her sense of self.”

I love that.

PS – I’m just $40 shy of my fundraising goal for the 25 Days of Yoga Challenge. If you can donate to The Water Project, please do so here. “Let’s show them the love that we’ve received.”

Namaste, little Weaz

If you’re participating in 25 Days of Yoga, I hope you’re enjoying it. It’s day 10 for me, and I feel great.

Here are some things that have jumped out at me this past week in my yoga readings from Meditations from the Mat:

If you need a better reason to give yoga a try…

“When I was a kid, there was a sense of magic all over the place. I used to love fairy tales. But you get into adulthood, and it’s gone. There was a real hole in my heart, and that started to feel like a hole in my life. Yoga filled the hole, and it renewed my faith. There is magic, there is guidance, there is spirituality, there is God.” – Natalie G., yoga teacher

If you think yoga is only physical…

“I came to yoga for the cross-training benefits, but after a while a few classes turned into more. I didn’t see the effects right away, but the, all of a sudden, I was doing things that I could never do before.” Vicki E., yoga student

“Again and again students say they come to yoga to work on their flexibility, or to tone their abs, buns and thighs, but that something else has kept them coming back. Something else has blossomed in their hearts. Yoga opens the door to the life that we have yearned to live.”

If you have trouble holding poses when it gets tough…

“The first year and a half of yoga was really hard, emotionally and physically, and I wanted to quit. There were so many painful things, I somethings didn’t know how I would get through class, but I stayed with it. I think some of what I was learning by sticking with yoga was also helping me to learn how to stick with my partner. I worked on not leaving when the going gets tough.” -Martha M., yoga student

If you find yourself jealous of more advanced students…

“Yoga was the one area in my life where I didn’t compete. I’ve settled into being a student. I am willing to learn, but it’s not about getting better, or better than the person next to me. Now I admire other students for their dedication.”

Namaste!

By Rolf Gates

At my old yoga studio, our teachers would often read passages from Meditations from the Mat at the beginning and end of class. Sometimes the words resonated with me and other times I didn’t listen at all. Kind of like class. Or church.

When they hit me, though, they hit me hard. As the cheapie I am, I refused to buy the book myself and instead carried around a borrowed copy from the library for far longer than I’m sure they would have liked until Stew took pity on me and bought it, as he so often does.

I used it as a guide during last year’s 25 Days of Yoga and am back at it again. The idea is to read one passage per day for 365 days. I’ve read the book in its entirety but never over the course of a year. Because I tend to revisit the first half of the book over and over and over again, this time I decided to start on Day 185… because that’s the page that fell open on Day 1 of 25 Days of Yoga 2010.

While I certainly won’t copy anything in its entirety because I think Rolf Gates did a tremendous job gathering all of the excerpts and organizing them into an inspiring sequence, I will share some snippets, my reactions and my best persuasive tone when I say, “Buy this book.” That sounds fair, right?

Some things I’ve enjoyed this week:

• “We can practice yoga simply as a means for physical well-being. If, however, we choose to make the asana [poses] an integral aspect of our spiritual path, the stakes become very high.”
• “If I am unwilling to give up a few of my rights–my right to potato chips and cream cheese brownies, for example, or my right to the money I can earn by overworking, or my freedom to stay up until three to finish a good book–then I will not realize my full potential on the mat. It’s that simple… When I am eating the wrong foods, my practice is directly affected… I lose strength, focus and sensitivity… I am forced to reconsider my definition of freedom.”
• “For each of us, sauca [purity] is a journey of discovery. What works for you? Dairy, no dairy; meat, no meat; lots of sunshine, very little sun; lots of stimulation, or quiet solitude; long ambles, or power walks. We each find our own way to health and balance.”

See my 25 Days of Yoga 2010 page for more information on my December challenge, and please, please, please consider donating to my fundraiser for The Water Project, which brings sustainable water to the neediest places in the world.

Warrior II with Ralph

I love yoga. This is a surprise to no one. I also love cats. No surprise there either. The combination of the two, therefore, should be magical.

Yoga + Cats = nope.

I haven’t been to the studio in the past couple days because I’m scared to drive my car since ramming it into another one on Thursday. So yoga with cats will have to do today.

I’ve been feeling pretty good about my practice as of late. When I’m sitting in class or at my desk, I have an overwhelming desire to be in a pose–to be twisted and turned and flipped around. Anything but upright in a chair.

Triangle with Weaz

Chaturanga with Ralph

I’ve been pushing myself farther in the poses I know and playing around with some I don’t. I’ve even been feeling my body begging to be upside down lately. Odd, right? Very. Especially since I am terrified of being upside down.

I can’t dive (never have, never will). I can’t do cartwheels. I refused to play on the monkey bars as a kid. On a personality test I took for work, I scored extremely low on risk-taking because all the risk-related questions involved bodily risk (like sky diving) rather than emotional or professional risk. This didn’t surprise me at all.

There are plenty of things I can’t do in yoga. I like this about it. I’ve been working on mountain climber and am inching along with that pose.

Not quite mountain climber

The biggest and most terrifying pose for me, however, is the headstand/handstand. Every time I watch someone do it, I stare in awe and think, “No chance. No.way.in.hell.” I sit quietly on my mat signaling to the teacher I will absolutely not be giving it a try.

Yoga teachers are cool like this. They’ll never make you do something you don’t want to. Especially when it comes to handstands. They always say that if it’s fear that’s holding you back, no amount of prodding from them will get you over it. That’s on you.

So since I’ve had this headstand thing nagging me for a couple months now, I decided it was time to play around with it in the comfort of my own home so I don’t have to risk paralysis in front of an audience.

Terrified, too? Start by using a wall.

Just to get used to being upside down (but supported)

You can’t see it here, but both my feet are firmly planted on the wall. I prefer this method of facing toward the wall (once you’re upside down) and walking your feet up it rather than facing away from the wall and kicking your legs up to meet it. That’s way too much unsupported air time for me.

Once you’re comfortable with this, start trying it facing the other way kicking one leg up at a time so you feel a brief moment of weightless balance. Once you’re comfortable kicking high enough, you’ll come all the way up and rest your heels on the wall.

After doing that just twice, this happened…

!!!

“That’s it?” I thought. What a stupid thing to fear. What a waste of energy to fear something so silly. As it turns out, most of the things I fear in life are this way. I was paralyzed by the fear of quitting my job earlier this year. Once it happened, I had the exact same thought… “That’s it?”

Yes. This is it. This is your simple, comfortable, safe life. Nothing is so scary you can’t face it.

I think what’s so cool about this pose for me is that I have never ever been in this position in my life. 25 years of upright living is cool and all, but finally flipping upside down is a welcome change of pace… almost freeing.

I’m not very far along in my yoga practice, but I can’t believe how far I’ve come in the time I’ve been working at it. I wish I had pictures of me when I first started so people would believe that you really can go from that to this and beyond. It makes me excited to see where else yoga will take me.

My thoughts exactly at the beginning

For fear of leading people to believe that yoga is all rainbows and butterflies and crying on your mat, I thought I’d share my experience with yoga from the very beginning. Back when you’d find me rolling my eyes and cursing the world. Back before I liked it.

Yoga can be an incredibly intimidating practice. We see people do…

This

... or this...

or this.

… and think, “Oh helllll no.” This is a normal reaction. I still think this when I see things I can’t do. All that has changed is that I look at things I can’t do and realize I can’t do it now, but it will come. With practice, it will come.

But it took me a while to reach that mindset with yoga. Before I started doing it, I thought yoga was THE stupidest exercise a person could do. I thought it was either crazy, impossible poses like those above or calm, simple stretching. As it turns out, it is both of these things, yes, but a whole lot more in between, too.

My very fist yoga class was at a very traditional studio. I hated it. Haaaaated it. It was slow and boring and my body didn’t fit into the poses. I made up my mind that I was designed to do this. I let it rest for a while and then gave hot yoga a try. I had interviewed a woman in New York for a freelance piece and off the record when we were just chatting, she started ranting on about how gloriously wonderful hot yoga is. I looked at her the way so many people look at me now, like she was a raging lunatic.

If yoga alone sucks then yoga with heat must be what hell is like.

But I couldn’t get her words out of my mind. “When the doors open at the end of class and the cool air rushes in over you… it’s like nothing else.”

Alright fiiiiiiiine. So I tried it. It was still uncomfortable. I still looked awkward. I couldn’t do most of the poses and I wanted to vomit about 15 minutes in.

But then I came back. And I came back again. And I came back again. Why? Because I was getting better. My chaturangas (pushups) that started as an inch dip on my knees got deeper and deeper until I was able to support my weight (all of it, off my knees) all the way down to the ground and then gracefully shoot up into upward dog like Ariel on the rock in The Little Mermaid.

My triangle started out crunched over and uncomfortable. I couldn’t reach the ground. I couldn’t hold it long enough. Slowly but surely my body figured out what I wanted to do. If you ask enough times (and politely enough), your body will catch on. It’s a little slow sometimes.

I hated peaceful warrior for a long time and ranted on about how that all changed here.

Camel was the worst of all. Oh, how I loathed that damn camel. I couldn’t bend all the way back and drop my head without getting a rush of incapacitating dizziness. I don’t know what happened (it took a long time), but finally one day it just worked. I do know that camel is a very vulnerable pose with an exposed throat and heart. Maybe I just wasn’t ready to be that vulnerable at first. If you fight yoga, it will fight you back.

My point in all of this is not to say: I hated yoga but I stuck with it and now I’m an expert. No one is an expert of yoga. We are all students of the practice, even our teachers. That’s what is so cool about it. There is always something new to learn, something to do better.

So if you tried yoga and hated it, give it another try (or several). It takes a while. If you’re starting out and are expecting an intensely gratifying and emotional experience, don’t force it. It’ll come with time. For now, laugh at yourself, understand your temporary limits and let your body catch up to where you want it to be. It’ll all fall into place.

Love love love

I thought about titling this post “That Time I Took LSD,” as this was my first experience in what my studio calls the Long, Slow, Deep class, but I’ve decided to shift gears and go the heavy route on you because I cried in savasana and that is kind of setting the tone.

I used to cry a lot at my old studio. A lot might be an exaggeration. More frequently than I should have. It was a rough time for me (as rough as times get when you are well fed, employed and loved, but you know what I mean). I didn’t like my job, but I didn’t know what else to do with myself. I didn’t have any local friends. I felt like a complete failure at 24.

Sometimes I came into the studio crying. Maybe work sucked or maybe I was just tired. I’d come in trying to hold it together and then lose it once I rolled out my mat and hit child’s pose. By the end of the class, I felt strong and refreshed.

Other times I’d come in fine and then be crying by the end. This was usually a combination of moving music, successful poses and a general sense of accomplishment.

Tonight’s class was kind of a combination of these two scenarios. I haven’t been practicing regularly because I’m too busy. This is an excuse that true yogis simply will not tolerate, but that’s all I’ve got. So I haven’t been practicing and that makes me sad. I haven’t been practicing because I have a billion things going on at once. I work from 6:30am to 12:30am, seven days a week. I do not stop. It’s not hard, necessarily. Just… constant. I am constantly doing something.

So when I made a promise to myself that I’d attend class tonight, I was already kind of emotional. I missed it and I was happy to be going. I had no idea what I was getting myself into with the LSD class. I assumed it would just be a slowed down version of a vinyasa (flow) class. Noooope. Not at all.

Despite my semi-regular yoga practice, I am surprisingly unflexible. I like the flow classes because when I don’t have to hold something for a long time, I can kind of just breeze over it without noticing my inadequacies. This was not that class. This was a class where we held all of the poses I hate the most for, like, 5 minutes each… for a total hour and a half. This was a class where your inadequacies stare you in the face. But it felt kind of perfect.

It was the first hour and a half in about a month that I didn’t feel like I was supposed to be doing something else. This kind of class is as much a mental challenge as anything else. I fidgeted a good bit but succeeded in clearing my mind on and off.

My teacher Tanner is the best teacher I’ve ever had… perhaps for anything. I can be slumped into some turd of a pose and he’ll come over and pull me in all kinds of directions and suddenly it’s like I’m in a new body, a new, gorgeous, graceful, bendy body. My body does things it probably should not when Tanner pushes me. I love that.

So here I am stretching and bending and fidgeting and sweating and maybe I don’t notice that I’m opening and releasing and renewing all at once. But when it came time for savasana just like always and Tanner draped a chilled lavender towel over my face just like always, I cried for the first time at this studio.

Some people theorize that yoga can make you cry because we hold emotions in our body, that the body holds on to trauma long after the mind has moved on. So we tense up and tighten ourselves into little stress balls and it’s not until those muscles are pulled and stretched that the emotion is released, perhaps in the form of a puddle of tears on a yoga mat.

I think that makes sense. But I also know that a yoga studio feels like the safest place in the world to me. It’s a good place to cry because it’s a safe place to cry. I remember being intimidated by yoga, but now I feel like I belong… even when I’m not bendy. I think anyone can belong in a yoga studio because it’s a place of calm, a place of support, a place of love and a place of strength.

Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” happened to be our savasana song and maybe that contributed to the tears. She says, “may you find some comfort here,” and I did. I always do.

My fruit basket runneth over, too.

Yesterday went something like this:

• 6:30am – 8am – freelance work / blog
• 8:30am – 12:30pm – Graduate Associateship
• 12:30pm – 1:45pm – freelance work / blog
• 2pm – 3pm – class
• 3:15pm – 3:45pm – grocery shop while on a conference call (truth)
• 4pm – 4:30pm – make supercharge me cookies for a potluck
• 4:30pm – 4:45pm – breathe
• 5pm – 6:30pm – turbokick class
• 6:30pm – 6:45pm – ab crunch class
• 7pm – 7:30pm – Student Dietetic Association meeting
• 7:45pm – 10pm – blog / email / freelance work
• 10pm – 1am – homework
• 2am – bed

But a funny thing happened yesterday as my mind was running nonstop and my body was running from one commitment to the next… I felt lucky. I felt lucky and capable and energized and all the things I haven’t felt since struggling to keep my head above water this past year.

I can’t keep up this pace forever, but on days when I need to I know I can look at my schedule as an opportunity rather than a burden. Yesterday, one of my professor’s read us an op-ed on how to drive your professor crazy. It included points like missing class and then asking if you missed something “important”, not acknowledging email receipt, sleeping in class, expecting special help and attention after missing class, etc. I agree with all of that.

And one of the most important things she said was that students need to look at schoolwork with the understanding that we chose to be there. We chose the institution, chose the major, chose the classes (to an extent, excluding required courses), chose the schedule. Some may have been limited to a certain institution due to finances or to a certain major due to those offered at the school or to certain classes that are offered in a term or to a schedule that fits their life. But even within those confines and with all those limiting factors, somewhere in there we each made a choice. No one can force us to be there.

It’s the same way with life, I think. We’re often limited by finances, social standards, work schedules, geography, education level and (sadly still) race and gender. But somewhere in there, we still have a choice.

It may not be something practical or tangible (workout or Jersey Shore? sleep or study? peanut butter or almond butter?? oh, the horror). And having choices doesn’t necessarily associate with an abundance of options either. So if you’re feeling without, try to find something within.

Today, regardless of my surroundings and schedule, I choose strength from within.

Today, regardless of my surroundings and schedule, I choose love from within.

Today, regardless of my surroundings and schedule, I choose peace from within.

We can’t control what goes on around us, but we can choose to control everything that goes on inside of us. When we feel least free to live our lives the way we want is when we are most free to choose how we interpret that, how we let it affect us and how we move forward.

How will you choose to make this day your own?

“Raise your hopeful voice; you have a choice. You make it now.“

Sigh

Remember that time I drove (almost) to Charlotte only to turn around and race back home because I didn’t know what day it was? Well, get ready for a second installment of: Katie is an idiot.

Today I actually do know what day it is. It’s Thursday and I worked all day today… and yesterday. Yes I know, woe is me. I worked a full two-day week and now I want a cookie or something. Ignore me.

The point is: I’ve basically been on a 3-month vacation and now I’m back to the real world and I’m adjusting slowly. As such, I wanted to go to yoga yesterday but I didn’t. This means that I desperately wanted to go to yoga today… so I did.

The problem with this, of course, is that I should have been doing something else during the time that I chose to go to yoga. It doesn’t matter what it was. All that matters was that I decided to go to yoga instead because that’s what I wanted to do and I do what I want.

Sadly, the gods frowned on this plan. Despite allowing myself a full hour to complete a 30-minute drive, Charlotte’s rush hour laughed in my face. Knowing I’d be late to my class, I decided to hop online and check the schedule for the next available class.

Siiiiiiigh

CANCELLED. The class I was trying so desperately to get to was cancelled. And the next one wouldn’t be for another hour.

So I choked back tears (seriously), turned around and am currently moping about the house. This is the second time I’ve done that in less than two weeks. The worst part? Now the schedule doesn’t say that the class was cancelled. Whaaaat? Whyyyy? I don’t even know, but I have photographic evidence that I’m not making it up.

The moral of the story is this: Don’t use yoga as an escape from responsibility because responsibility will find you trapped in standstill traffic somewhere off I-77 and smack you in the face.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

This morning I went to the 9:30am yoga class that I have never attended since I’m always at work. It’s so nice to start the day with yoga but I was entirely too lazy to get up for the 6am classes in order to get to work on time. So here I was at morning yoga, apparently very eager and entirely too early…

I like to kill time at the studio by reading the many books that the teachers read from at the end of class. Meditation would probably be a wiser, more yogic use of my time, but I am not all that wise. So today I grabbed a book I hadn’t seen before–A Guide for the Advanced Soul. It’s a collection of inspiring sayings from some pretty inspiring people. This one jumped out at me today:

“How much longer will you go on letting your energy sleep? How much longer are you going to stay oblivious of the immensity of yourself? Don’t lose time in  conflict; lose no time in doubt–time can never be recovered and if you miss an opportunity it may take many lives before another comes your way again.”

- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, A Cup of Tea

Peaceful warrior

I’ve talked about peaceful warrior before, but it continues to resonate with me so we’ll have another go at it.

I’ve been on a yoga hiatus for three weeks due to some wrist pain and an outrageous life schedule. It throws me off kilter to miss class, leaving me cranky, stressed and easily irritated. Suffice it to say, this has been a trying month. Nevertheless, I always know I can go back. And so that’s what I did today.

Allison taught a slow and mindful class tonight forcing us to move deeper into the poses and get comfortable with our weaknesses. (I had plenty of those after almost a month off.) Longer sequences means fewer poses, which allows you to really focus on what you’re doing. Sometimes this sucks a little bit.

Take, for example, my nemesis: exalted/peaceful/reverse warrior. It makes me anxious and uncomfortable. I can’t hold it. I look around… think around… and finally move around the pose. I feel like I’m doing it wrong. I just don’t like it.

Tonight Allison broke it down like this: Turn your raised palm toward your face and focus on that. Your empty hand is a symbol that you have dropped your sword, that you can stop fighting whatever imaginary forces it is that you’re fighting.

As always, yoga is an excellent metaphor for life. Well… Yoga and quicksand. Yoga and quicksand and Chinese finger traps.

Quicksand: The harder you fight, the deeper you sink.

Chinese finger traps: The harder you fight, the tighter it locks.

Yoga: The harder you fight, the more difficult the pose.

Life: The harder you fight, the more difficult (and less enjoyable) the experience.

Calm your breath. Clear your mind. Drop your weapon. The fighting only makes it worse.

Credit: Deirdre Summerbell (via womensenews.org)

Today I felt pushed to explore yoga beyond the standard studio class. I know that I love yoga. I know that it has transformed me–and I’m only just beginning my practice. I know that yoga heals but until a little exploration, I didn’t know just how powerful it can be or how people have been harnessing that power to help troubled children, cancer patients, rape survivors and more.

One story I found that was of particular interest is that of Deirdre Summerbell and her work with female survivors of the Rwandan genocide. I encourage you to read the full article at eWomen’s News. It’s an eye-opening look at the universal power of yoga to heal broken spirits, broken hearts, even broken bodies.

Says Summerbell in the eWomen’s News article: “I knew that we were onto something by the second or third class because one of the women came up to me afterwards and said that she had slept through the night for the first time in 14 years after the preceding class. And then more and more women began reporting the same results.”

It is estimated that an unfathomable 250,000 to 500,000 Rwandan women were raped during the genocide, many contracting HIV. Though Summerbell is able to work with only a fraction–250-300 women–she is making a powerful impact.

Photo from: www.project-air.org

“This was something below the level of thought, below the level of memory, below the level of conscious feeling even, but when it was sparked, it was as if–and I don’t know how else to put this–it was as if the women became able to feel again and to love again the life that was in them,” Summerbell wrote.

What a joy.

To learn more about Summerbell’s work, visit Project Air

Sigh

I park on the street. Apparently cars parked on the street are fair game for drunk drivers out for a joy ride on a Monday night.

One of the yoga sutras, vairagya, teaches non attachment. I certainly haven’t read all the sutras nor do I understand them (How can I practice non attachment when I’m so attached to yoga?) but I can grasp the concept of freeing yourself of material things.

In my world this doesn’t mean giving up material things but freeing myself of my dependence on and attachment to them. Today it meant not jumping to the conclusion that my life was over now that my car was dented. I simply called Geico, called the police, dropped some F bombs because it makes me feel better and moved on with my life.

It was definitely the least dramatic I’ve been about something like this in a long time. Thanks yoga.

Einstein

 

“A hundred times a day I remeind myself that my life depends on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give, in measure as I have received, and am still receiving.” – Albert Einstein

This is another quotation pulled from Meditations from the Mat by Rolf Gates. Gates uses one saying per day to highlight a point he is trying to make about yoga. He uses this particular Einstein remark four days in a row. “Yoga tells us quite plainly that an aim in life is to be one who is doing the work,” he says.

So here’s your Tuesday. Be the one doing the work. Holiday vacations start for most of us tomorrow…

Reverse warrior

One pose in yoga I can’t quite seem to figure out is reverse warrior–also known as exalted or peaceful warrior. All yoga poses are dynamic even when you’re standing still and they generally elicit some sort of physical or at least mental response from me. But when I am in exalted warrior I feel like I’m doing nothing at all.

Last week Allison explained the significance of reverse warrior and it has weighed on me the past few days. Reverse warrior is a powerful stretch for the side body but it is also a symbol of peace and surrender. The arm raised into the air represents the warrior’s sword. It points away from battle toward the heavens as a sign of peace.

I have not been at peace lately. I wake up every day angry and at odds with the world. I have no reason to feel this way. But I am constantly battling myself and my surroundings. I feel a general sense of disappointment and disinterest and it is affecting the way I move through my day.

I have no right to feel this way. I have an easy life. I have food, a home, a car and people who love me. I am debt-free and was educated on someone else’s dime (thanks, parents). Easy is the only way I know to describe it. A lot of people have it a lot worse and you don’t hear them whining.

And so, with my arm raised high, I am attempting peace in my own life. I have no reason not to.

“Do your best as an expression of love for your life.”

The Slow Down Diet

Sometimes I cry a little at yoga. OK, so I don’t cry cry like sob, but tears well up on occasion. It’s usually right at the beginning of class if I’ve had a particularly wretched day and start to let go or at the end of class if the teacher happens to read something that strikes a chord with me. What we do in that room is incredibly mentally and physically exhausting and when it’s all over I guess it’s easy to just release everything.

 The following is a passage that Deborah has read several times at the end of class. It actually comes from The Slow Down Diet by Marc David, which is not really a diet at all but a full lifestyle approach to eating for pleasure, energy and weight loss.

I guess it’s one of those “had to be there” kind of things because when I read it now it doesn’t move me like it does when I’m laying in a pool of my own sweat at the studio. Anyway…

“Before you test the chemistry of your body, taste your tears. Before you take a drug, meditate, reflect and pray. Before you limit yourself with a diet, expand yourself with love. Before you lose a pound, gain and insight. Before you exercise, be still. Before you attempt to cast out a bad habit, thank it for its teachings. Before you harm yourself in thought, word, or deed, pause. Before you allow someone dominion over your body, awaken. Before you seek advice, remember your wisdom. Before you speak, make sure it’s an improvement on silence. Before you’re intimate with another, touch the sacred. Before you fall ill, catch yourself. Before you lapse into fear, choose light. Before you believe in a world absent of a Creator, give birth. Before you remember your divine purpose, celebrate its imminent arrival. Before you eat, give gratitude. Before you sit for long hours, dance. Before you arise, bless everything. Before you sleep, do the same. Before you live another day, agree to be here in your fullness. And before you breathe another breath, choose eternity, choose love, choose now.”