Pliable Edges

This week I seek to push against my own edges.

I heard from Rusty Wells that it's worth it: "Most people don't even know where their edge is." This was part of the answer to a question I asked:

What is the relationship between Ahimsa (non-harming) and pushing beyond the limitations of mind in poses?

This question was born out of my experience in his workshop at Moksha Yoga this past weekend: Rusty really encourages people to do more than they think they can, and sometimes it hurts to go beyond what you think you can do. But you don’t know until you try it. And when you do go beyond what you thought you could there is an incredible sense of accomplishment. So the experience was empowering for me, and I was just a bit sore afterwards.

And in life I do tend to enter into experiences that I am familiar with, which is fine. However, I do feel the call to go beyond that, but how?

Rusty also said that he practices before he teaches, and that he pushes himself hard. Otherwise he wouldn’t be okay with telling other people to do this hard work.

Pushing beyond what I know to be limits IS painful and scary. It proves that I don’t really know what I thought I did. But this is the kind of pain and fear that is good. This kind of pain might not be himsa (harmful). In fact it might help me grow beyond my complacency.

How can you even approach going beyond what you think you already know? The easiest way is when someone else takes you there. Like, a yoga teacher might help you to see that you can do a pose that you didn’t think you could.

But in a personal yoga practice, I guess I do it when I listen to the sensations in my body. I tend to get more sore in my personal practice than I do in most classes, and I think it’s because I’m better at being at my real edge in the poses when I’m practicing on my own. I’m also a lot more flexible in my own space and timing.

In meditation, I also seem to get opportunities to see a new angle on things, or when I wake up from a dream I might also have a revelation.

In my daily life I’d like to be better at recognizing the opportunities to see new things in people and places I already know. And I’d like to allow these fresh insights guide me out of my cloying comfort zone. Or more appropriately, I’d like to expand my zone of comfort to include trying more new things. And maybe I can get started by looking for the pliable edges. At the edge I can experience what I know and shift to experience something new, and adapt to that using the language I already am familiar with to start to describe and embrace something new.

Jai! This is how the classes with Rusty Wells ended. It means victory, or right on! Something like that…

The small stuff matters in inner work

The practice of yoga has recently brought my attention to some different layers in my experience. When I am in a yoga class there is what's happening in the present moment: yoga instruction and yoga practitioners, my body, my breath, my sensations, the room, sounds and sights are all there. Then there are also my memories that contribute to the experience, but they can also distract me from it: Memories contribute to my experience when they help me to build my poses, and they distract me when they might take me to a conversation I had just before class. I also might have an emotional response that triggers other thoughts and stories: One time I had a flash of anger come out of a groin opener and shot it at one of the teaching assistants (years ago). And at the time I knew it didn't make any sense to be mad at that person, but at that time I just sat with it, observing, and exerted effort trying not to shoot that person with evil eye beams. Pains can also call one towards thoughts instead of practice: I might feel pain in my foot and spend some psychic time in Jamaica where I injured it years ago.

Each person brings a unique mix of who they are into yoga, including the layers I mentioned above. Sometimes during a class certain aspects of the mix can come out. We might find a hidden tightness and we might find a hidden memory or desire. When we do yoga we are working with the WHOLE PERSON. So don't be surprised when these other aspects come up. They are aspects of who we are.

And just like we all have unique fingerprints, we also have unique patterns of tension in the body and mind. Luckily, there is enough overlap in these patterns so that group classes are useful, and very beneficial. Even so, there are things that are unique to individuals that can be discovered and addressed with yoga. One woman told me that the first time she did Warrior Two, Virabhadrasana II, she had had a strong recollection of physical abuse that she had experienced years earlier. The experience had been so powerful that she was afraid to enter the pose again. We were working individually and she brought up the courage to do it, and this time the pose became empowering.

A man in his seventies and fairly new to yoga, courageously shared that he felt layers of tension and also fear (releasing) in his legs in Supta Padangusthasana II. In yoga we are stretching, and enhancing our alignment and athleticism, but you don't have to look too deep to discover that you are working with much more than that in yoga. Our stories about who we are, both the ones we know about and the ones that we've repressed are written into the structure of our bodies, and when we practice yoga we have an opportunity to read the book of ourselves.

And amazingly, with regular yoga practice we also have the ability to work towards balancing ourselves from this physiological level that also affects emotional and mental aspects of ourselves. Just like a spider builds it's own web, we also have the ability to spin our own stories from the body level. And this internal structure that we learn to build and maintain, sustains us with a sense of continuity as we go through the many changes that life brings. 

With yoga, depressed posture can be transformed by the physiology of optimism with noticeable psychological effects. Traces of anger, gripping the bones together, can be transformed by being attentive to these sensations during practice. By noticing what kinds of attitudes relieve these feelings and which ones exacerbate them we can tinker in our inner workings with a noticeable effect, when we favor the poses and attitudes that go towards the desired effect.

Remember the next time you go to a class that everyone has a unique mix of these layers working in them at any given time. Everybody is a little different. Everyone has unique memories of the past (and judgements based on these memories that may or may not be correct) that affect their bodies and posture. Everybody has hopes and fears about the future. And every person has the ability to heal and move towards a greater sense of well-being: yoga practice is a tool that can be used in this way.

And when we choose this path the "small stuff" does matter. The flashes of fear running through the legs (that might be ignored in certain kinds of situations) can be a revelation. In this case I would say be sure to work with this often. Don't ignore the leg work if you experience the fear there (I feel it, too.). Yoga is an opportunity to relieve that.

Yoga Pain Playground

Situations in and around yoga can provide helpful learning points. It's not always just the practice, but also in the teaching and learning about yoga there can be opportunities for self-acceptance and emotional growth.

I was assisting in a therapeutic yoga class when the quick hand movement of a teacher caused a dense wooden brick to fall on my right big toe. When it happened I said, "Ouch!" Then I quickly covered up with: "I'm okay." I wanted to free up the moment so that we could get on with the session. But I was distracted by the emotional sense that I was hiding my hurt. The yoga teacher continued the instruction, fulfilling expectations.

My toe was fine, but my emotions were out of kilter! I wondered how I could balance myself without crying all over the student. So before the teacher left I looked into his eyes and said, "That hurt my toe."

And he said,"I could see that: I'm sorry."

Somehow this admission that I had been hurt, and that I had been heard and acknowledged, helped me to go forward with clarity.

When I was looking at the bottled up feelings, and feeling overwhelmed by them, it looked like feelings I had had as a kid--and totally out of proportion with what had happened in yoga on that day. This event brought up for me the time from the ages of about seven to eleven when there was someone in my life who had administered sudden painful punishments in an effort to control my behavior. Of course, I did not wish to be controlled in this crude and brutal way and I often didn't understand, and couldn't predict when these strikes were coming. So I learned to deny my pain in an effort to keep my sanity.

To keep a level head in situations where this person who was bigger than me was unleashing their anger without restraint, I learned to deny the pain. I now see that it hurt me so much, and that my truth--that I had been hurt--was important.

So when that inner pain came up in the yoga scenario described above, I was able to clear it by being truthful. And everything got lighter after that. Small interactions can have big healing effects.

Freedom from Pain and Sorrow

“In the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, which is the most important authority on Yoga philosophy, Sri Krishna explains to Arjuna the meaning of Yoga as a deliverance from contact with pain and sorrow. It is said:
‘When the mind, intellect and self (ahamkara) are under control, freed from restless desire, so that they rest in the spirit within, a (wo)man becomes a Yukta—one in communion with God. A lamp does not flicker in a place where no winds blow; so it is with a yogi, who controls h(er)is mind, intellect and self, being absorbed in the spirit within. When the restlessness of the mind, intellect and self is stilled through the practice of Yoga, the yogi by the grace of Spirit within finds fulfillment. Then (s)he knows the joy eternal which is beyond the pale of the senses which reason cannot grasp. (S)He abides in this reality and moves not therefrom. (S)He has found the treasure above all others. There is nothing higher than this. (S)He who has achieved it, shall not be moved by the greatest sorrow. This is the real meaning of Yoga—a deliverance from contact with pain and sorrow.’”
-B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Yoga, fourth paragraph of the Introduction.
**Gender inclusiveness added by me.

A few years ago I had a free session with a well regarded “healer guy” in town (I’m not sure what else to call him—a multi-modality psychic healer aroma therapeutic massage therapist new church energy healing minister approaches description.). So I went. The first time I went he had me waiting so long, I ended up in tears—I can’t really imagine why right now, but that’s what happened. He had just been chatting in the other room with his wife, and didn’t realize I was there, and the receptionist seemed to think that he knew and was coming soon. So I was in the waiting room listening to muffled laughter while stressing mildly(?) about making my next class on time. So maybe I SHOULD have been more suspicious. But he said that he was disappointed and sorry that he had stressed me out and offered me a second free session. And I went.

He had asked me if I wanted to be free of pain and suffering. And I said that I didn’t know because I was experimenting at that time with the notion that processing pain might be part of my purpose in this life. And if agreeing with his request were to take me away from my purpose, I wanted nothing to do with it. At that point I WAS suspicious that he might be practicing healing hokum. And I didn’t stick around for any more sessions.

Also there IS substantial legitimate scriptural evidence that someone can have a “deliverance from contact with pain and sorrow” as stated above. So what I think now is that while the physiology of pain in the body might not change, and situations that have the potential to cause pain might not change, what can change is our perception of how these events affect us.

In the past I interpreted this kind of offering (to be free from pain) as an invitation to escape. And it still could be. Like if you go to an MD for pain and come out with pain-killing drugs, which might be helpful, but doesn’t affect the underlying problem. You still have a problem—it just doesn’t hurt anymore…

So the question becomes: Can freedom from pain and sorrow look different from “numbing-out”?

I think a yoga student of mine is teaching me about this. This person has a degenerative disease, and while they have been doing very well there is evidence of the illness. It is a reality.

One day there was some talk—I was advising that perhaps it might be time to modify behavior to ensure physical safety in the wake of physical challenges caused by the disease. And the response was that this beautiful person didn’t want to give up their self to a disease. It made me think about how even the smallest gesture and utterance that a person makes is a cherished expression of who they are. In a situation like this there can be a fear of loosing one’s self and becoming the disease.

What is the option here? And isn’t this putting a story line to something we all face: loosing our selves to disease, injury or death?

The option I am able to see at this moment is the choice to live every moment to the fullest, to really wake up to the moments of one’s life, and not to settle for things you don’t really want. Most importantly, I want to use what resources I have: the amount of health, physical ability, and everything I can to express my love and gratefulness to be alive in this world. And even if I only had the use of one finger, I hope that I could let that finger move in expression of my unique being without hesitation or shame.

Releasing Resistance

“Yoga is one of the six orthodox systems of Indian philosophy. It was collated, co-ordinated and systematized by Patanjali in his classical work, the Yoga Sutras, which consists of 185 terse aphorisms. In Indian thought, everything is permeated by the Supreme Universal Spirit (Paramatma or God) of which the individual human spirit (jivitma) is a part. The system of yoga is so called because it teaches the means by which the jivatma can be united to or be in communion with the Paramatma, and so secure liberation (moksa).”

-by B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Yoga, second paragraph of the Introduction.

Yoga was discovered in India, and I, an American, can use it. And in order to understand it I do think that it’s important to study the psychological framework that made this discovery possible. An integral part of this is a foundational understanding that “everything is permeated by the Supreme Universal Spirit.” So there is something divine in everything. I translate this into my yoga practice by looking to all the cells of my body for their divinity, relying on their ever-present support. But, why stop there? My mat, too, contains this universal essence. And the room, and the other people in the room, and of course the whole building, the air, our friends and enemies, people we love and those we detest, indeed the whole world, and the entire universe is knit with threads of divinity, or maybe even a love-atmosphere.

In the yoga practice this can be a palpable experience, and probably at other times, too. I am referring to experiences where the world is perceived as love. I have sometimes wondered if, at times, pregnant women are in this space. Love relationships and drugs (I’m told) can also imitate this state of being.

The reason we’re not in this blissful state more often is because we are cloaked in sneaky types of resistance that accumulates over time. Releasing the resistance that grips around experience can help one to realize a euphoric state, and perhaps beyond that, clarity—a prerequisite for freedom.

And I’m convinced right now that an aspect of this at a certain point (not when a person is new to yoga) is confronting pain in practice. In a recent post I was thinking around pain I had experienced in a yoga workshop. And it’s also true that in the week following this intense, and even painful practice, that I have felt freer and more aware in my body. And with this increasing freedom comes increasing responsibility. As the body releases some of the “glue” that was holding it together as dumb stiffness and more flexibility comes in, one has to learn to support the architecture of the body with intelligent support—or more pain comes. So poses I might have just leaned into in the past while just learning to release the stiffness, now require intelligent activation so I’m not stressing my increasingly flexible parts.

Ideally, a person has connected to the bliss of yoga, so when it comes to the time where the pain is processed you already have the commitment and cellular understanding—the strong foundation it takes to go forward. So I don’t think it’s a good idea to go into pain unless you know what you’re doing, or you are with a teacher whose expertise you trust—even then be careful: It is YOUR BODY.

I’m interpreting the pain I’ve been experiencing lately in deep practice as a subterranean gripping in my body—subconscious unless I put myself into a pose that makes it conscious. I’m excavating the reactions to stresses I have experienced up to now. (It’s almost like releasing stuff from “past lives” because I’m in a different space now.) Certain poses make me aware of terrible, almost unbearable fear and anger, sometimes sorrow. But this past week I’ve worked with staying with it when this discomfort comes. I happened to also be in a class this week that put me into this kind of space. After the class I was in a state of high emotion, really stirred up. I went into the bathroom and released my tears. It was the coolest cry ever. It was great because it was a letting go. In the past I would beat myself up when I cried by telling myself how bad it was. Or I would have dumped my pain on someone else. But now the tears feel light. I understand that this pain is mine and I can release it.

Wondrous Weekend

I was at a party this weekend where a child was offering this dragonfly for everyone to behold. I just couldn't get enough of this sight, nor of the poetry the moment seemed to suggest.

It was a wondrous miracle to see the beautiful child holding this incredible representative of life. A perfect moment that reminded me of who I am. I saw myself as a child of eight years sitting at the edge of Horn Pond in Maine watching the dragonflies. I was fascinated with the movement of their flight. I remember seeing that some were flying attached to one another, and figured they must be mating.

I also thought of the time last summer when I was in my apartment, melancholy and alone and a dragonfly showed up at my window! At the time, it seemed like a symbolic messenger of a sort of culmination, as if my spiritual and physical journey of the last few years was going to arrive at a sort of maturity. This amazing creature shot me with hope.

And I just think dragonflies are cool.

I also did a yoga workshop with Laurie Blakeney at the Yoga Circle. We did some deep and downright painful work on the feet and legs. Some of it was inspired by the Virasana sequence in Light on Yoga. I think it's really good for me. So I do think that it's a GOOD IDEA to work out those painful bits in the feet, calves, hips and shoulders. BUT, I also found myself wondering how much pain I want to or even reasonably can include in my own yoga practice without becoming an angry maniac. I usually think that yoga soothes my inner beast, but holding these and other poses was bringing out an inner monster. That said, there were parts that I also enjoyed in a less-than-masochistic way. And I KNOW (know?) that it's good to release those painful nuggets, too. Also the group aspect as well as the extra expense of a yoga workshop makes it an atmosphere where I can put up with more. But--Eeeeyeeyeeaye. Those poses had me squirming!

And at the aforementioned party I felt like I was embraced in an atmosphere of acceptance and love. Many of my yoga students and friends were there and I felt their blessing. Good vibes suffused this busy weekend of training at the yoga workshop, partying in Michigan, and teaching yoga, too.