My Tent on The Beach

So I believe it’s true that fortune, especially good fortune, works in incredible, mysterious ways.  My life has changed. And fortune is to blame.

My counselor says, “no….this is not fortune…it’s you finding your path.”  Normally I’d agree.  I love looking for my path and then talking about it in that very Tao-informed way.  But I’m not sure I can take any credit in looking or finding anything.  My life has changed because, and I completely mean this, the universe asserted itself and demanded that I respond.  And I responded…yes in a thoughtful way.  Yes in a responsible way.  But not because I wanted to…because I had to.  And lo and behold…I don’t know if the choice was “right”…but almost literally everything has changed.

Maybe this is a perspective thing: everything changed because some fundamentals shifted in this choice.  I now feel as though I can support myself and my near future is more stable.  Helpful, definitely helpful.  I now feel I have more power to govern some of the more toxic relationships in my life…I have new found weight to shift that I didn’t have before.  Also, very helpful.  I don’t hate what I’m doing…this is very good.  Never good to use “hate” as a regular descriptor in your day. But the effects of all of this seem exponential…If I’m a tree, even the tiniest little twigs are gathering in a new-found sense of life. It’s like I’m breathing again…after six years of not.

And here’s the crux, I suppose…I didn’t really have to do anything but make a choice…a choice which confronted me and not the other way around.  I just had to respond.  It is fortune, I think.  That mysterious hand that reaches in and intervenes when you, yourself, are unable.  It’s the answer to a prayer or the acknowledgement of a desperate cry for help.

Whatever it is…whew…it’s a life saver.

Yowza…let me talk to you a little about how my schedule has changed in the last 3 weeks.  For the past 2 years (2 YEARS) I was gifted, granted, held hostage by these fellowships I had which explicitly stated I could not work anywhere else.  Realistically, that translated into 2 years of wasted time…completely unstructured, completely free, completely solitary time to mess around with.  Some would consider that heaven and, in theory, it sounds good.  But doesn’t all theory sound good?  This blog has chronicled the actual nightmare…and it was a nightmare.

Enter Situation Today: yesterday I worked in my office at school for 14 hours.  In a given week, I have about 5 hours to play around with…the rest of it is spent either in a structured activity or getting to a structured activity.  I’m running. And it’s actually heavenly.  That’s right…heavenly.  Will it stay heavenly for long, who knows.  All I know…right now…it’s very good.

But there is one thing that I’ve reacquired that I’m not so thrilled about: the feeling like time is slipping away.  I have to schedule bathroom breaks; I know to the minute how long each light is on Lake Shore Drive; I have figured out how to whittle my morning routine down to exactly 30 minutes.  On some days that means choosing between mascara and toast.  As much as I like the structure, I’ve lost a little purchase on the whimsy, creativity…on the felicity of the open road of time.  I’ve gone from all options open (which is overwhelming) to one option open (which is fascism)…and once again I find myself pausing (for no longer than 14 minutes) to reflect on where the balance might be.

I was thinking this yesterday as I was walking home in the veritable fall evening and I thought of two possibilities.  One, I find the felicity in the moment (why does the answer ALWAYS seem to be in the moment…it’s getting annoying….damn Buddhists, they know everything apparently).  I’ve noticed I already do that.  Even though I’m scheduled as I used to be, I’m utterly not stressed about it.  I think that’s the effects of yoga and Tom (don’t know Tom…yeah, get over it…you won’t know Tom).  Two, I’ve found a lot more surprises than I expected to people-wise.  My schedule forces me to get out of my own way when it comes to allowing people the chance and the time to initiate contact and express a desire to hang out.  I’ve been jumping the gun for years now…now that I’m forced to give people a chance to do what they will, they’re doing it…and it’s fantastic.  Who knew.

As it turns out, time is not on my side.  I’m working against the clock all day long, starting at 5:30am and ending about 9:15pm (and even at 9:15 I’m fighting…Just one more chapter in this book and I’d be ready…).  What is on my side is the hard work I’ve done to CHILL OUT, the effects both physical and mental, stemming from yoga and the fact that I’ve been reintroduced to the fact that I have to be plugged in to the greater world out there…I’ve got some work to do that has nothing to do with nuns, IRB, or the word “problematic.”

Lesson Learned: Keep the fellowships, folks.  I don’t want ‘em.  No, I can’t want ‘em anymore. (That’s a quote from a musical…of course I won’t tell you which one).

That is not my title.  It’s actually a book I’m reading right now that is really changing my life.  I love that books have the power to do that…if we heed them…well, some of them.  I think this particular one is brilliant because it falls into that “magical realism” genre in which everything and nothing makes sense all at the same time. It’s a story for the ultimately story-teller…it seems it’s completely unreal…until you start trying out some of the ideas and then watch as what seems impossible merges with possible.

It’s goofy and profound at the same time. A rare combination, I find.

So anyway, one of the ideas I stumbled across that’s really amazing is this push/pull situation he introduces.  I’ve always struggled with the idea of “letting go.”  That sounds terrifying to me.  Letting go generally means that for 2 seconds you feel weightless and then are introduced to a world of fantastic pain…that last longer than 2 seconds. In my book, letting go has always meant giving up.  Instead, in this story, I ran across this idea which has revolutionized my way of thinking: when something is pressing you in a particular direction, instead of pushing against it, why not pull?

Wait.  What?

That sounds absurd.  Won’t I just be falling then? (And I always envision this as happening with a door such that I’m pulling, they’re pushing, and I’m falling backwards.  The answer is actually no…you’re not falling necessarily.  You’re just not spending so much energy resisting the flow of things.

Wait. Whaaaaat?

I’ve never, EVER considered this idea before.  Whenever I’ve approached letting go, it’s always ultimately been temporary…probably because that’s the way I envisioned it.  Just thinking about it required an overwhelming amount of change on my part, so it seemed.  I like to hold things.  So just to let everything go is completely ridiculous…and not doable.  But the push/pull scenario…well, that’s event-related…I can do that…and it’s fairly small scaled…and it makes sense…and it seems easier.

And it is.  I’ve just tried this in small ways throughout my days over the past week or so…it has literally changed the fabric of my life.  Shockingly, nothing concrete has changed…I still walk in the same direction, my goals are still my goals and the troubles still my troubles. But there’s none of the weariness in dealing with all of it, a symptom brought on by the degree to which I was standing vigilantly and waiting to resist things.  If I’m pulling, not only do I not initiate the action but I also don’t work hard to stop it.  (This is ultimately “going with the flow”…but that always sounded condescendingly “new agey” to me.  I’m not a river…what does that even mean?!?)  But, like Liz Lemon, “I’m a pusher.  I push people.”  Turns out, being a puller is way better.  If pushing is trying, then pulling is being…I think.

I’d rather just be.

I’ve been doing this for a couple days and the degree to which I can breathe more freely and feel and see things more clearly astounds me.  Of course, like any good crash diet, the devil is in the maintenance of it.  Can I sustain it?  I’d venture to say only, “I don’t know.”  But my experience with crash diets has been the loss of the will because the demands are just too great to bear.  I’m not sure I’d lose motivation with something that makes me feel so whole. This may be a crash diet I can get behind.

It’s the Path of the Peaceful Warrior…the book, I mean.  That’s the title of the book.

A friend of mine who shall remain nameless cracks me up with his yoga malapropisms.  Let’s just say he’s not a yoga practitioner…and because of that, I love when he humors me and asks about how yoga is going.  The other day he opened with, “So…how’s downward-seeking dog coming?”  This is a hybrid of mockery and sheer not-knowery, but the actual pose is called downward facing dog…which makes the new title a darker, perhaps more morbid version (although more closely connected to my actual experience of working in downward facing dog which is just generally sheer torture).  Although, I digress…I don’t want to talk about downward facing dogs or even yoga.

I want to talk about the insights I’ve stumbled on this week…and they’re really about going inward.

Oh this single, solitary life.  Oh this PhD, dissertation-devising life.  I think I can imagine no situations more isolating…put them together and…well, you’re the equivalent of a hermit…no, you’re the troll that lived under the bridge.  At least a hermit sounds, in some faraway place, honorable.  But the troll…just warty.  And that’s what this summer was for me…warty and horrible…and friggin hot.  So it’s not coincidence that within hours of it cooling off, I’ve come back around to some of my senses.  But not without effort and a commitment to cleaning out the dark little corners of my life that I’d rather forget are there….the places I retreat to when I feel warty…and thus breed more wartiness.  If I wanna get out from under the bridge, I gotta start clearing that stuff out.

When I started to work at clearing out the underbrush, I realized a really interesting (and potentially devastating), nasty little habit I have.  When warty, I spread myself really thin.  Not with work or not enough sleep…I call and contact everyone I know in a (often futile) attempt to “be acknowledged.”  “Hey guys, I’m Heeeerrrrrre.  No, over HEEEEEERRRRRE.”  I’ve always thought that keeping social contact would soothe the wounded soul.  As it turns out, not really.  In fact, in this experience, it’s not unlike the Horcruxes in Harry Potter. Though not intended to make me immortal, each little speck of social interaction I would try to create would spread me out literally too thin.  No one was home.  People weren’t answering the phone.  I was getting the “text message response” (you know the one…when you’ve called and they return the message not with voice mail or a call but with a text…regardless of what it says on that phone, just the action says, “riiiiiight….I’m not going to talk to you today.”)  “No one cares. I’m insignificant. I’m an afterthought,” says my warty, trollish internal chatter.  Thus ensues more panic, frustration…ultimately isolation.

So, on this last round of wretchedness, out of nothing other than just not wanting to talk to anyone, I sat with the silence.  I sat with the aloneness.  I actually moved away from people.  And it ended up being a strengthening experience.  In a myriad of ways.  When I stopped flailing around in a panic, thinking I was moving toward making a better situation, and just was there in my world, in my moment…things actually transformed.  People responded in new ways.  They met my change with changes of their own, changes I had hoped to have but could never see how I’d get them.  It was incredible, actually.

I think my struggle in yoga with downward facing dog is not a coincidence to this story.  The whole spiritual point of that pose is strengthening in places that we don’t often use for protection.  When we protect ourselves we cover our vulnerabilities with our stronger parts.  We turn our shoulder into oncoming force or use our shoulders to fully absorb the weight of force, whether it’s our bodies falling or hitting into something.  We tense the neck and turn the head.  We firm our hamstrings, preparing to spring into action.  We cover and run.  Downward facing dog requires you to kind of reverse all of that…you’re deeply stretching your shoulders and hamstrings, thus rendering them not the strong points but the stretched points.  You open your chest to the floor, use the muscles of your torso and upper and lower arms to push you away from the ground…you relax the neck and jaw.  You open…you uncover…you dis-cover…or if you’re me you start sweating profusely as the muscle fibers in your shoulders and hamstrings audibly rip.

Interestingly, though, it mirrors what has to happen in order to be an inward seeking dog.  As I have to open my chest and torso in downward facing dog, I have to open myself to being alone, by myself, quiet, not panicking.  As I strengthen those tiny little muscles (that kill to the 12th power when you pull them) around your back and ribs, I also strengthen my resolve to emotionally support myself and not need to outsource my troubles.  As I learn to breathe through the hellfires burning in the backs of my legs and shoulders, I learn to withstand the heat of that panic that tells me, “no one cares what happens to you.”  It’s a journey that has to be settled into…and one that requires an acceptance of the challenges and an acknowledgment of the good sure to come, even if in the present it hurts like sideways facing sonofoabitch.

I am an inward seeking dog…and I think I’m in the process of learning to be okay with that.  But I already know this much.  Inward seeking dogs aren’t really warty…not warty at all.  Let’s put a “w” in the win column on that insight.

Confession: I pay attention to my horoscope.

I know, I know.  It sounds awful.  In the best possible light it can be it sounds new agey and crunchy-granola-esque.  On the worst side, it just sounds like I’m giving weight to pure hokum.  I have no answers for you; there’s just something about it I’ve found fascinating for years.  I probably don’t consider it totally out of whack just because a whole portion of the ancients (the ones we like to forget existed like the Egyptians and Incans…the tribal folks) had it work for them.  It only doesn’t make sense in the post-Enlightenment world which embraces scientific rationality.  And listen, it’s based on the stars and their natural cycles through their orbits…so it’s the same brand of hokum as biorhythms and some of the more Eastern practices of medicine and wellness.  It’s a spirituality which Christians can be awfully judgy about.

Anyway, this is not intended as apologetics for astrology.  I don’t base my life or decisions on it–the same as I don’t pray for financial stability or seek answers to very practical questions in church.  BUT, I do find comfort in it sometimes and today’s really works for me.

Earlier I wrote about the Inevitable.  I still stand by everything I said.  But it’s funny how time further and further away from a moment of intensity or renegotiating or the inevitable becomes more tenuous.  In the moment, I had a grip on what was going on.  It’s been a couple days now since that intense moment and the grip is gone and I’m alternating between frustrated and angry, between hopeful and despondent.  I’ve found some comfort in distraction but distraction is a tool of the Hunker Mentality.  “Just don’t think about it,” you tell yourself…and nothing gets solved…you just wait for the feeling to pass without really feeling it. Experiencing the inevitable introduces other inevitables…ones you hadn’t thought about…and all of those are changes.

So, in yoga this morning I was asking the Great Expanse for some answers…guidance actually.  And what came back to me was: Don’t Question it.  Stop asking questions.  Stop trying to find answers.  Just be with it.  Truly, I was overjoyed hearing thing.  It made sense and felt good–a rare combination–because I think it taps into a Truth we can lose track of: thinking there are answers is a ruse.  There aren’t answers about the future; all we have is now, which, if we’re experiencing it, is being answered now. No need for questions.  I felt a wave of relief, hanging out there in Warrior I, a wave of power and resilience.  “I can not question it,” I breathed to myself. “Yes, I can…Si se puedo.”  And then I walked off the mat, out of that studio, and lost the moment.  Lost the magic.  Questions, questions, questions for miles around.

So, here’s the kicker about my horoscope today.  I came to school to get some work done and enjoy some AC (as it’s back up near 90 again today here in tropical Chicago) and as I sat down at the computer I just thought to myself, “I need a little inspiration.  I’m not sure where to find it.”  Of course, as part of my “I’m going to think about writing” ritual, I checked Facebook for all the good dirt and my daily horoscope was there. Lo, it said:

The stormy arguments and narrow attitudes that have been coloring your home or working world come to an end soon; and all because you finally put some healthy boundaries in place.It’s a day when logic and pragmatic decisions need to take priority. After the day’s work is complete, a little self-indulgence is in order. A confidence that no matter what happens today, it will all work out for the best. Having some faith in yourself and others is exactly what will make that come true. Any long term plans with your partner that will benefit you both in the near future is best worked out together today, rather than as a surprise.

Surprisingly, it’s what I needed.  Because this whole week has been about making boundaries (even the syllabus I’m writing for my culture class is filled with discussions of creating boundaries and why that’s important).  And the second part was my realization from yoga today; while I don’t have “a partner” necessarily, my life is shared in a lot of directions.  It was a relief to read it; whether or not it’s “true” or “predictive” (which I don’t think it is), I felt vindicated in my insight this morning, which is really all I needed.  A little validation from the Great Expanse itself.

Thanks Great Expanse.  And by the way, when did you get on Facebook?

I often walk down the street wondering if people think the same thoughts I do.  Clearly, not the exact same thoughts so much as the types of ideas.  I’ve come to a point in my life that is not a crossroads so much as it is a need for clearing out.  I cleaned my room (I was trying to think the last time I had a clean room and, with the exception of a couple days, I think I’ve never had a clean room).  I’m filing and organizing all of the shit that’s accumulated on my desk for the past, oh, year.  I’ve been asking myself everyday as I walk to and fro, “What, exactly, do I want to do…today, this week and year, this…life.”  As far as I’m aware, I’m on my 4th mid-life crisis.  And I actually think that’s okay.  I don’t trust people who seem to know exactly what they’re doing; that to me is always a sign of a lack of introspection.  And it’s because I’m realizing for the first time, truly, that it’s hard work to just be who you are; it’s really so much easier to just be who everyone thinks you are.  And then you can go home and watch Burn Notice and no one will bother you.

It’s the same conundrum I find in yoga literally every day.  It’s so much easier to jam yourself into a complicated pose, hold your breath, and wait out the pain for a minute than to find ease in whatever it is you’re doing.  I’m fascinated by the fact that the simplest poses–mountain pose (standing with your feet together, hands at your heart), seated cross-legged pose, forward fold–are really very hard to master.  Because they are “easy” poses–ones that require ease…one’s we often don’t have enough time–or courage–to really do correctly.  And I think it’s because they require introspection, they require quiet and a commitment to looking for what’s really in there when all the flashiness of complicated, complex, and achievement-driven falls away.  These poses are who you are when you’re standing, sitting, and folding.  Seems like they would be the resting poses; I am wasted by them repeatedly.

This is what makes me wonder what other people think as they walk down the street.  They look so self-assured so many of them.  And they’re going so fast and with so much stuff. The clacking cadence of heels, the amble of a dog walker, the unsteady gait of the grocery-laden–they’re going somewhere, they’re doing something–what are they thinking? Because as I’m flip-flopping toward home at what, for some, seems an uncomfortably slow pace…I’m thinking about what it means to be me today.  Maybe my pace reveals my lack of answers or the burden of the question…but that’s okay.  Because I don’t trust the quick clackers or the scurrying laden ones.  Industriousness, to me, says distraction. I’ve known a lot of fast walkers in my life; to this day I’m not convinced that any of them really knew where they were going. I think I’m judging them; wait, yep, I am.  That’s okay, too. It’s not like I haven’t been judged for my snail’s pace…I’ve actually been yelled at.  Water under the bridge, I suppose.

But I always feel solidarity with slow walkers.  I believe in my soul that the weight of the thought determines the ease of the walk…and I’m working hard to walk with as much ease as I can muster. Wherever I’m going will just have to wait.

This is what the world can look like if you let it.

I’ve been really scattered lately.  Sometimes I notice that when my blog entries fall of it’s for usually one of two reasons: either I’m overwhelmed by ideas and can’t decide which one to pick that day OR I’m underwhelmed by my entire life and I’d rather stab my eyes out with hot chopsticks than keep thinking about it.  Thankfully, the recent problem has been the former. My brain has actually been “whizzing” around…stuff’s getting started and I’m thinking in 27 directions.  In the past I would just consider that busy; but I’ve actually been having inspiration in 27 different directions…thus the Thousand Points of Light. That’s a literal reference.

I think I’d be robbing you of the experience if I didn’t include a couple gems just to illustrate my point:

*I’ve been thinking all day about the dream I had in which I met Bernadette Peters at my local McDonalds for lunch.  Then we met Elaine Stritch across the street at Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee.  I’ve spent hours just on this one dream.  I’m both fascinated and a little proud that these women are in there.  Nice.

*I had a “breathing” realization the other day; all the time I think I’ve been breathing deeply…I actually had about 1/4 more room than I thought because I was holding my neck muscles so tight.  So now I’m really breathing deeply and I wonder what all that extra oxygen is doing to me.  Maybe the thousand points of light I’m seeing are actually warning me that I’m ready to pass out from over oxygenation.

*I was talking with Anna, my jewel of a yoga teacher (Anna Schabold, YogaNow North…check her out), today after class and she said the most amazing thing: that we experience the world physically and mentally and emotionally at the same time. [Pause for mind blowing.] I realized I’ve worked pretty hard to separate the two out.  So, every time I’ve experienced pain caused by my physicality (whether it be spraining my ankle or being rejected because of my physical being), I’ve only just “shut off” or isolated the pain.  You rehab the ankle or strengthen the tendon, but what do you do for the emotions that come with that?  I’ve done zero.  Thus, today I’m a mess.  Similarly, when I have emotional or mental stress (this &#*$ing graduate degree), I isolate it there and forget about the physical toll.  It was actually the latter that led me to yoga (b/c my hips and shoulders were killing me) but I think the bigger work that lies ahead for me is reconciling all of the pain my physical body has caused…and releasing it.  I shake like a leaf when I’m doing yoga…huge trembling waves…(it actually looks totally nuts…like a giant muscle spasm)…and Anna’s always like, “don’t come out of the pose…the trembling will stop…it’s energy being broken up and being released”…and by god if it doesn’t stop eventually.  Then of course, my muscles are burning like a raging fire, but no more trembling…and that’s when the work can really start. Anna and her crazy forrest yoga are changing my life. That’s like a supernova point of light.

*I want to Feng Shui my apartment.  Turns out that’s easier said than done as I can’t control the layout of the windows and doorways which apparently is central to the whole thing.  However, I’ve spent time Feng Shui-ing my bedroom and, as crazy as it sounds, I feel better.  I do.  I’m trying to comprehend this change while still trying to figure out how to reconcile all the dairy I eat which, supposedly, blocks energy.

*I saw the move Inception Friday night and I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s the rare movie that caught my imagination and will not let go.  Now I walk around wondering if people are trying to plant thoughts in my dreams.  Maybe Bernadette and Elaine aren’t so random after all.  Maybe they’re using inception to suggest I need to go to New York and see them together in that show.  Or maybe, they’re telling me that McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts ain’t so bad after all.  Either way, I’ll tell ya, if Thomas Hardy is the one behind the inception, he can root around in my dreams all he wants.  That, in itself, is a dream.

See.  That’s just 4…I have hundreds of these ideas running through my head all at once.  But they’re positive, so I’m not going to work especially hard to quiet them down. It’s sometimes nice to see light, even if it is whizzing past my eyes in the style that the “Big Wheel” on the Price is Right whizzes around (thankfully, my thoughts don’t make that beeping noise or I’d go permanently insane).  I’ve been futz-ing around in the dark so long that I can say for sure that futz-ing in the light…infinitely better.

Today is one of those days.  You know the kind…my brain is just churning out a lot of thoughts that are good but really disjointed.  So, for instance, as I was waiting for my post-yoga raisin toast to prepare itself via the magic toaster this was my train of thought:

I wonder why yesterday the toaster burned the toast and today, without touching the toaster or doing anything differently, the toast is perfect? Where did I leave my flip-flops? I wonder if an all-girls high school education actually made me more masculine than many men I know? I should take a shower. Almost done with IRB. That breeze is cool. I wonder how other people experience pain?

Literally…that was in two minutes.  I walked home from yoga this morning; it took about 25 minutes and I had a lifetime’s worth of conversation with myself.  Going in 25 directions.  Whenever this happens I feel the distinct need to write everything down as quickly as possible.  There could be good nuggets of something in there which only time will reveal.  But despite this mental chattering, there was one thought I kept coming back to, I think because it didn’t originate in my brain.

In the 2 or 3 moments in between crazy shooting thoughts, I actually felt compassion.  I’ve been reading this book by Pema Chodron called The Places that Scare You and I assumed it would be a lot about fear.  It’s actually more about the opposite of fear, which as it turns out, is compassion.  Who knew?  Maybe this is where I’ve gone wrong all these years. Here’s a picture just in case you want to read (and you really should…what else are you really doing?)

Anyway I usually don’t feel ideas; I think about them, dissect them, think more about them, start to worry about them, get anxious about them, then am exhausted and can’t sleep.  That’s usual.  But, I’ve really been working on “heart opening”–I interpret it more as willing myself to feel things rather than approach them intellectually.  It’s given more dimension to my ideas; we all think a lot about love or anger or hurt.  We ultimately want to manage them, so we approach them as events and then get a plan to deal with them.  But I’m learning that if we feel them, they actually have textures…things we can grip onto a little bit and push our edges.  In other words, I think I’m learning that if we feel things, we can grow in ways that thinking about them cannot approach.

But, back to compassion.  So, I think “heart opening” is working a bit.  I was practicing feeling compassion which isn’t empathy or sympathy.  In those, we place ourselves in the shoes of others (sympathy) or recalling when we’ve actually shared the experience of another (empathy) and felt with them.  Compassion, I think, is the following step.  In compassion we stay in our own shoes, recognize the place of another (be it filled with suffering or joy), and then love them as only we can.  It’s not sharing the experience; it’s just opening our arms and loving, regardless of what happens to us or what we’ll get out of it.  I think compassion is the act of giving away love unconditionally.  We always approach that idea from the receiver’s end…I haven’t really even imagined what it feels like to give it.  I think it’s a good thing.

So this is what I’m feeling about today.  Even writing this down has slowed the chatter.  And it makes me think that in order to give this…dude, you gotta tap into a kind of strength that you just have to trust you have…because I think it’s tough.  You may hurt in the process.  But its completely worth it, I think. I mean, I feel.

Ha-HAH. Caught myself there.

Did you know that the hips are one of the areas that can hold the most tension in the body?  Because I sure didn’t…and I can’t say I was surprised to hear this.  My hips are tighter than [insert image of something very tight...if you think of something good, write it in the comments].  My whole body is muscularly tight…I always attributed it to the 15 years of piecemeal weight lifting I used to do for various sports in high school.  You know…you do the stuff that’s the easiest (like calves, quads, hamstrings) and skip the other stuff (upper body).  What I’ve ended up with is a full set of seriously tight joints.  I never really thought tension itself was to blame.

Given this hip “issue,” I’ll tell you my life can really suck sometimes.  Sitting hunched at a computer for long stretches doesn’t help.  So, this is all a long way of saying, tight hips in yoga means pain (and not just stupid pain but gut-wrenching, fiery, scorching, lightning bolts of pain up the front, back, and sides of my legs)…in nearly every pose possible.  I can’t touch my toes, sit on my knees, or hang out in down-dog without trembling…why…you got it…hips.

So I’ve been really focusing on these things.  And you wanna know what I’ve come to conclude is working…thinking about them.  It’s Harold Hill’s “think method” from the music man.  I swear it’s working.  I’ve been thinking about my hips loosening up…and I think they are.  And here’s why I think it works.  Whenever I approached them as so tight, I think I would brace myself for the ensuing pain.  And it was real…because the bracing was a tension.  Today (and it helps that it’s about 90 degrees here), I felt like they were more open before I even bent anywhere and guess what…palms almost to ground.  Magical.

But so what?  Who cares about my hips?  Even I don’t care about my hips.  But I did think it’s an interesting lesson if applied elsewhere in life.  Imagine what would happen if every time we approached something we dread, instead of bracing for it and expecting scorching pain, we just thought about things as “looser”?  We might have a chance at being much happier and generally cooler than we have ever been in our entire lives.

I like the “think method.”  I think it could work.

So I think it would be fair to say that this spring was a tough one.  Use whatever metaphoric imagery you like, it was long and full of bumps in the road.  Doors were slamming and no windows were opening.  Mountains kept popping up left and right.  I ended up on a very stuffy mountain range of problems.  And of course in the cosmic scheme of things, my problems were relatively small.  Was I starving? No. Was I homeless? No. Did I have no shoes?  No.  Was I even walking to school uphill both ways?  No.  But while I appreciate the fact that my life could “function,” I was “less” in a lot of ways.  Vision-less, hopeless, sleepless, restless.  And some of these still persist today, but certainly not to the acute degree or the breadth that they did just several months ago.

I attribute the change to a couple things but most centrally…yoga.  It wasn’t so long ago (2 months, actually) that I regularly started taking yoga classes (not half-heartedly doing DVDs in my dining room…which I refer to as my ‘yoga studio’).  Somehow, the interaction with a teacher and other students began to work away at some of the anxieties that had built to the point of all of my ‘lesses.’  And in a way that doing yoga “at the gym” as a “workout” could never touch.  A return to the breath–the present moment–was and is the most holistically therapeutic thing I’ve ever done.  So much so, that I feel it has spurred “returns” in other places that, frankly, I thought were long gone.

“What the hell are you talking about Katie?” you must be thinking.  I understand that…the notion that enduring the burning, searing pain in my hamstrings created by a forward bend or working through the panic that arises right in my throat when I maneuver my way into a handstand or headstand could actually manifest itself in very real ways outside of the yoga studio (in this case, not my dining room) seems bizarre and crunchy-granola new agey (this is my own system of classification, just for the record).  But here’s how I’m seeing this work out:  old friends I haven’t spoken to in years have popped back up in moments that I really needed them.  (What freaks me out is that if I think real hard about it, it almost seems like I’ve “summoned” them to me…I know, I know…I’m in a panic about it myself.)  School which was an absolute albatross in February has returned as a true interest.  My financial situation–always tenuous at best–that was positively dire three months ago has positively worked itself out…and not just as a “hey I got a job at Best Buy” type of scenario but as a “hey I’m a fucking sociologist…now pay me to teach it” kind of way.  (Again, if I look hard, the Universe has clearly…CLEARLY…steered me back into the classroom in a very definitive way…and has arrange a payment system that is better than I’ve ever encountered before.)  I’ve been granted closure in the situations that were tearing me apart emotionally.  I’ve been granted insight into the most difficult challenges.  I’ve actually found in a new way what compassion means…especially in approaching myself and others with compassion.  And it’s because of those fiery forward bends and the heinous twists that make me feel like a real failure on the yoga mat.

It so interesting to really begin to understand what yoga teaches.  Everyone thinks about the “flexy-bendies”–you know, those people (usually women) who can lick their shins and turn themselves practically inside out and afterwards talk about how being a human pretzel gets them to a new level of enlightenment.  I have a new respect for them…yoga’s made them that.  But focusing on the physical stretching is just too one-dimensional; yoga has to also stretch your mind and your heart too.  Otherwise, we should call it calisthenics and be done with it.  No, yoga builds spiritual muscle-memory; it teaches you to endure, to dare, and to deal with emotions as they come and in a way that allows you to learn control and mastery of them.  Yogis talk about it in terms of detachment.  I just call it sanity.

But I’m glad I’m plugged into it.  It seems whenever I really focus on it, the Universe responds to me and returns me to exactly where I need to be.  And gives me things like this as a sign that I’m doing okay.