Day 23 of 30 days of challenging myself to write again. I started blogging back in 2007 the day before I left on my first trip to India. I didn’t even know what a blog was but it was easier than emailing everyone so I gave it a try and ended up writing almost every day for years. And then suddenly it drifted away. I lost the excitement, the motivation, my confidence, my voice. I didn’t feel like I had anything to say at all. It was many things. Exhaustion and stress and overwork and trauma and bullying and self consciousness and everything. All the things that can happen when you are more and more isolated and deeper in you go.
This year I could feel strongly that I wanted to do something new, to teach, to get back into different projects, art, creativity... but I was just exhausted all the time and between maintaining my corporate job and friends and family I just had nothing left at the end of each day. I started seeing a therapist and a doctor to look at my nutrition. We modified my diet and now I keep a food diary and there was the EMDR. After starting the new year in Mexico I knew big shifts had to happen in order for me to feel centered again and to get my energy back. I Kon Mari’d as prescribed in one go over a long weekend. I was surprised at how well this actually did work. I pulled back from social media until it just was completely gone. And it is funny... All the things I was trying so hard to do...they just started happening naturally.
I started reading - easily - again. Journaling. Painting. New ideas coming and inspiration. But I had to shut out everything in order to find that. I had to drop out of everything that wasn’t absolutely required. I had to turn off my phone and delete apps and say “no” to invitations. I had to stop looking and listening outward and instead go inward. I didn’t realize how much I allowed my world to move in that direction. I now very seriously had to set up my environment so that my mind and body could go inward easily. A safe place to get the muscles back.
In that quiet space the memory of enjoying writing and blogging came back to me. I was curious. Is it something that I would enjoy now? Something that would bring value? Only one way to find out. 30 day personal blogging challenge.
And in the quiet the other candle that continues to burn in the background is the practice. Yoga. Mysore. The magic. The feeling of complete centering. The peak experience. I want to find it more and everywhere. It is there in some moments alone and with others in my living room and it was there in moments at The Little Shala (my program here in New Mexico). It was there when I dropped in in Phoenix and of course, in Mysore at the main shala. It is the silence. The sound of breathing and bodies moving through space. The feeling of heat coming off humans and the sound of hard work. No conversation, no bullshit. Just a space filled with people sincerely committed to transformation. It feels essential and primal and so connected to just being alive.
Right now I am taking a little break before my next teaching season. The Mysore room. I miss it.
My last trip to India was last year. It was my shortest trip so far... four weeks. Each day in the shala on my mat I would smile to myself. There was absolutely nothing that could disturb that absolute gratitude and joy. I would soak in the feeling of the air and the sounds outside of traffic and birds and students kicking of their sandals and women sweeping their front porches and the sounds inside of students moving and Sharath making little jokes and “one more!” I would silently thank each person who made it possible for me to be there in one way or another. And now when I get quiet, I can conjure up the feeling and I am there.
It feels like this.
Day 28, India 2018: I get the spot in the front corner. The one under the overhang where if I really stretch, my fingers graze the ceiling. Where all the air feels hottest and wettest and smelliest. The floor isn’t slick, it’s wet. The wall is wet. The wall on my right somehow feels more cramped than a wall on the left or people an inch away on any side. (This is not my favorite spot.) I’m boiling. Sweating at first only and then on fire. Soaked in sweat. And then anger. Nonstop anger. The violent kind. I’m so angry. Moving through my practice in a crazy fit of rage. I listen to the conversation in my head on how maybe I’m the villain, not the hero. And whatever. I don’t care.
And I do all the asanas, all the movements even as I feel like an angry brick of cement that burns down everything.
And then I get to third series, Advanced A. Maybe this is a fresh start? No. Anger. And then I get to my latest pose, urdva kukkutasana b. And I do it. With confidence. I own it now. I jump back. I jump through. I look back at whoever and am like “that’s how it’s done #@&$$?!!$”.” And then back bending and then tick tocks and then waiting for vrkshikasana and it’s so intense and now I’m crying.
Sharath comes after awhile. I’m in handstand and he puts my feet on my head. ‘What you did?’ I tell him ‘I did B but it made me cry’. He says ‘good. You have to let the emotions out’. And I am fully crying as we stand there. (We’ve been here many times over the years.) He does my backbends. He says ‘tomorrow you do galavasana.’ I say ‘galavasana?’ ‘Yes, without crying. You’re too happy to cry.’
Post-practice, Mysore 2018. That same day. Sensory deprivation tank.
Exit: “Sober to Death” Car Seat Headrest
This year I could feel strongly that I wanted to do something new, to teach, to get back into different projects, art, creativity... but I was just exhausted all the time and between maintaining my corporate job and friends and family I just had nothing left at the end of each day. I started seeing a therapist and a doctor to look at my nutrition. We modified my diet and now I keep a food diary and there was the EMDR. After starting the new year in Mexico I knew big shifts had to happen in order for me to feel centered again and to get my energy back. I Kon Mari’d as prescribed in one go over a long weekend. I was surprised at how well this actually did work. I pulled back from social media until it just was completely gone. And it is funny... All the things I was trying so hard to do...they just started happening naturally.
I started reading - easily - again. Journaling. Painting. New ideas coming and inspiration. But I had to shut out everything in order to find that. I had to drop out of everything that wasn’t absolutely required. I had to turn off my phone and delete apps and say “no” to invitations. I had to stop looking and listening outward and instead go inward. I didn’t realize how much I allowed my world to move in that direction. I now very seriously had to set up my environment so that my mind and body could go inward easily. A safe place to get the muscles back.
In that quiet space the memory of enjoying writing and blogging came back to me. I was curious. Is it something that I would enjoy now? Something that would bring value? Only one way to find out. 30 day personal blogging challenge.
And in the quiet the other candle that continues to burn in the background is the practice. Yoga. Mysore. The magic. The feeling of complete centering. The peak experience. I want to find it more and everywhere. It is there in some moments alone and with others in my living room and it was there in moments at The Little Shala (my program here in New Mexico). It was there when I dropped in in Phoenix and of course, in Mysore at the main shala. It is the silence. The sound of breathing and bodies moving through space. The feeling of heat coming off humans and the sound of hard work. No conversation, no bullshit. Just a space filled with people sincerely committed to transformation. It feels essential and primal and so connected to just being alive.
Right now I am taking a little break before my next teaching season. The Mysore room. I miss it.
My last trip to India was last year. It was my shortest trip so far... four weeks. Each day in the shala on my mat I would smile to myself. There was absolutely nothing that could disturb that absolute gratitude and joy. I would soak in the feeling of the air and the sounds outside of traffic and birds and students kicking of their sandals and women sweeping their front porches and the sounds inside of students moving and Sharath making little jokes and “one more!” I would silently thank each person who made it possible for me to be there in one way or another. And now when I get quiet, I can conjure up the feeling and I am there.
It feels like this.
Day 28, India 2018: I get the spot in the front corner. The one under the overhang where if I really stretch, my fingers graze the ceiling. Where all the air feels hottest and wettest and smelliest. The floor isn’t slick, it’s wet. The wall is wet. The wall on my right somehow feels more cramped than a wall on the left or people an inch away on any side. (This is not my favorite spot.) I’m boiling. Sweating at first only and then on fire. Soaked in sweat. And then anger. Nonstop anger. The violent kind. I’m so angry. Moving through my practice in a crazy fit of rage. I listen to the conversation in my head on how maybe I’m the villain, not the hero. And whatever. I don’t care.
And I do all the asanas, all the movements even as I feel like an angry brick of cement that burns down everything.
And then I get to third series, Advanced A. Maybe this is a fresh start? No. Anger. And then I get to my latest pose, urdva kukkutasana b. And I do it. With confidence. I own it now. I jump back. I jump through. I look back at whoever and am like “that’s how it’s done #@&$$?!!$”.” And then back bending and then tick tocks and then waiting for vrkshikasana and it’s so intense and now I’m crying.
Sharath comes after awhile. I’m in handstand and he puts my feet on my head. ‘What you did?’ I tell him ‘I did B but it made me cry’. He says ‘good. You have to let the emotions out’. And I am fully crying as we stand there. (We’ve been here many times over the years.) He does my backbends. He says ‘tomorrow you do galavasana.’ I say ‘galavasana?’ ‘Yes, without crying. You’re too happy to cry.’
Post-practice, Mysore 2018. That same day. Sensory deprivation tank.
Exit: “Sober to Death” Car Seat Headrest
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