Seeing Your Inner Gesture: Asking, Offering, Accepting

Reaching an arm outward is a physical action. If feelings are allowed to arise, they will. It is a trick of the mind to attach meaning to everything, meaning that triggers feelings, and feelings that in their responsive nature give us the next wave of action and reaction.

Just sitting in a chair and gently reaching a hand outward, extending your arm in front of you ... to the side ... above your head ... You can turn on the switch of being present with how you feel in the action. Are you holding a soft handful of air? Are you striving to extend back muscles and lengthen finger joints? What are you doing?

Each time you open your awareness to this, you will find something new. You, in this moment, and how you feel, can become more familiar and visible in your conscious view of yourself. That outstretched arm can introduce you to yourself. This is how the physical practice of yoga opens into a deeper understanding of the self, a path to acceptance of the range of feelings that are already there in you, a way to tolerate and release even painful emotions stored from past events, or to acknowledge and adapt in spite of fears of future events.

That elegant arm reaching out, the incredible hand extended... are you asking? are you offering? are you accepting?

If you drop your wrist and relax your fingers, your arm will still express your deeper feelings. You can release your hand to be the simple extension of this, allowing the unfolding from your heart. With the eyes of a warrior, soft, open, and ready for anything that might appear, let your yoga practice allow you to begin cultivating your view, your drishti, to accept what is already before you.

Midday Traffic: A Lesson in Equanimity

Driving down Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn on a repair errand, heading towards the neighborhoods that reach the sea. Double parked trucks and cars, impatient zoomers tucking in between the obstacles and cutting back into the reluctantly single lane of barely moving traffic. The bus here and there, lumbering in and out of the current; slow heavy construction vehicles grinding along methodically avoiding left turn lanes and thereby blocking everything else. A very hot day it was too, the sidewalks crowded with people from nearly every nation on earth.  What a heavenly enterprise! Imagining that I could take the short time between my teaching commitments and get this thing done!

When I felt a sense of time rise up, it turned into an endless hot open field. As a low slung car with Pennsylvania plates cut back in front of me for the third time, I burst out laughing. This driver is staying busy, I thought, moving in and out as if they are getting ahead, yet every time they end up right in front of me in my sluggish journey, steadily heading towards that specific authorized local repair shop on Quentin.  Any tension about my schedule shuts down my energy and my sense of good humor, so I let it go, figuring that I made this decision well informed and with every chance of success. Anxiety about the light changing to red before I get to it closes off my good will, which I feel towards the small car in front of me full of chatting young women. Why waste my time on that? I have watched them try once to get around the dump truck and ended up back in front of me. Eventually we both made it around that truck. They are occupying themselves with each other's company, so I choose to enjoy that too. Why worry about traffic lights as we wait for the green light in tandem?

When I take a revolved balancing posture in my practice, I know that my energy lines must be open in the same way as when I drive down Flatbush Avenue in mid afternoon. Ready for anything, steady of purpose, good humored about the flailing or throbbing or whirling outliers of body, mind and context. Keeping my energy openly flowing in all directions, without judging the wobbly foot or the tangled gaze, I can find spaces in my spine as I twist, and in my mind as I watch where the struggles arise.

Noticing that impulse to want the light to remain in my favor is the same as noticing that I want my left hip to allow the same twist as my right. It might, but the desire for that only clogs up my energy and shifts my focus from being fully present. I am much more likely to lose the integrity of my spine or my footing as I reach for conditions, or for judgment or for outcome. This turning of my inner focus towards equanimity happens all along Flatbush Avenue, and throughout my yoga asana sequence. The depth of the practice is what allows me to have good will towards what is happening, and to choose where to turn my focus, keeping my attention on opening my energy, noticing where it gets caught up. So from Flatbush I find myself turning onto Quentin, and in my practice, I hold steady with energy flowing towards foundational support and endless possibility.

Inquiry or Grasping?

Reaching for your toes, pulling on your hip, twisting your neck more to move that shoulder, bouncing on your feet to throw your legs towards the wall in an inversion.... Are these actions explorations of how the body works, about how the energy moves, about where the foundation really rests, or are they striving for that goal -- that shape -- that affirmation of self. How do we shift from the mind set of grasping into one where the goal is no longer the driver of experience? How do we allow the practice to move more freely from the dictates of the judging mind?

For me the grasping seems to come from a set of sources: Either I am challenging ideas of whether I am able or unable, which can also be seen in terms of judging whether I am good or bad; or I am responding to inhibitions based on fear. Every time I practice yoga I am faced with discomfort somewhere along the way. It might be in my hip joint on that first deep internal rotation. It might be in my mind in the form of disappointment as I release my attachment to Padmasana (Lotus) in Sirsasana (headstand). When discomfort arises, I watch my desire rise and take note where it is pushing me: to escape or to push through, to applaud my attempts or exaggerate my failures.

The pattern set by grasping is either holding on tight to something I don't want to release or of reaching beyond what actually is in an attempt to get somewhere else. What the practice teaches me every day is that I can see that pattern and not fall into it, nor do I have to react to it. I can nod at it and proceed to breathe up through my core into my upside-down self or make space around my racing excited heart. I might apply Ujjayi breath (ocean-sounding breath) to support me and search my body for clues as to where the resistance has really taken hold. Where there is desperation, I see it and acknowledge it. Where there is sadness, I see it and acknowledge it. Where there is determination, I see it and acknowledge it. These are aspects of myself and I do not reject them, but I begin to ask a new set of questions about them. How can I use that energy to open more fully, to see where the energy leads, without striving towards an end point?

The inquiry is a source of continuous growth no matter what the condition of the body. This is part of the magic of the yoga practice. My heart goes out to those students in yoga classes, desperately throwing themselves again and again in an effort to find an inverted posture. The support in the body is not available when jerked around by grasping. It is the release of the goal, the deepening breath, the softness in the foundation, the lift in the core, the open space between the collarbones, the clarity in the mind's focus of attention. It is the letting go into the twist, the inversion, the cross-legged position, the arm balance, the stressful meeting, the standing-on-the-platform-when-you-miss-the-train.

What I am doing there on the mat is the same thing I am doing off the mat. I am exploring. I am seeking a balance between discovery and failure, between being set in my ways and limitlessness. The practice of yoga offers the opportunity to explore what there is beyond the grasping, the striving and the judgments. It keeps me aware of my goal-setting tendencies, and helps me see the context in which I am driven to set those goals. It helps me see the goal as a marker of my own measuring, judging self, and that there is much more than that for me to experience, share, and enjoy. Nothing prevents the discomfort, but it is not so uncomfortable if I can see it for what it is.

This reminds me of breaking in new shoes. The practice goes little by little to stretch and shape around the truth of the foot, supporting and changing the foot a bit as it goes, until the exploration is free and natural. And when the shoe fits well, there is no end to where the foot can go.

OP-ED: President Proposes Stress Reduction Plan

Yes, I firmly believe that the President's proposals will lead directly to stress reduction in America. Putting some of the bail-out money in the hands of community banks to encourage local enterprise and job creation is a direct way of reducing stress in local communities. Approaching big banks with rules that will protect people's invested pension funds and IRA's is another direct reduction in anxiety and fear for those closer and closer to retirement age. Taking our future heat, transportation, electricity, ability to move and store products, to do just about any kind of manufacturing in our own hands by developing new technologies that loosen the grip of OPEC managers on our future is a huge step towards reducing the stress reactions of our nation -- uncramping those tight muscles, stomach aches, headaches and knee-jerk defensive actions that are using up our human resources in this country.

I teach yoga and stress reduction in a hospital, a woman's shelter, an apartment building, a yoga studio, a private home. There is not one student who is not suffering from stress that will be directly relieved by the President's new plans and proposals... Oh, and did I mention HEALTH CARE REFORM? Well, to me that is critical to reducing stress in this nation, to see that our elected officials understand that human welfare and health, care and compassion are the core of our nation? Well, there is nothing more important than that in reducing stress.

Thank you Mr. President. Take a deep inhale, and exhale fully. Just feel how much better things are already.

Sent to various newspapers at the request of "Organizing America" at barackobama.com

Stress? What Stress?

Just this minute I notice my weight is not balanced in my sitting bones. My hunching, my feet slipping forward, my tense shoulders are all part of this imbalance. Taking a moment, I draw my hips back in my seat, establish my ribs and shoulders over them, readjust my feet under my knees, inhale fully and exhale deeply. Then I turn my attention back to the gnarly scheduling dilemma I have been trying to untangle. Already my body feels more relaxed as my weight shifts down into the chair, to the floor and the enormously strong beams and supports below me. They, themselves, rest their weight on the earth below me. It took literally a moment to reduce the effects of stress on my body, and this reduced physical expression actually releases my mind from some of its clenching and spiraling.

The source of stress for me sits firmly in the realm of fear and the unknown. Usually this is a combination of anxiety over not knowing how something will happen or what the results will be, and a mixture of judgmental fears about whether the results will be good or bad; whether I, or a situation, will be successful or effective. Sometimes the fear in uncertainty is a result of my life experiences that cast a certain dye on patterns or behaviors, risks or situations. What happened earlier in my life might have been unpleasant and my anticipation of similar results will stand in the way of my clarity and view of this moment. Disengaging from that becomes part of the process of learning to focus on the present. Readjusting my physical alignment in conjunction with my breath is a terrific, immediate, accessible, free measure I can take any time I remember it!

Potential for stress is a constant of any human life, even that of a yoga teacher. Consider medical conditions, financial situations, family and relational complexities, work environments, struggles of all kinds to provide food, shelter or any level of amenity or certainty. Raising children can raise anxiety levels over the unknown from the most tiny detail (did they find the other glove?) to the larger details (will the school accept their application?) to the global concept (how will our nation's involvement in waging war change our prospects and way of being?). For some, just trying to squeeze a moment for a yoga practice into a busy life can bring more stress! Missing a class leads to disappointment, skipping a day or missing a month might add layers of self judgment and develop hesitations about practice.

The most surprising experience I have had in teaching stress reduction is that my students are fundamentally and profoundly willing to let their stress go the minute they join me in practice. I do not take this personally, rather see that all it takes is my invitation to take a minute on their own behalf, and they are able to do just that. "Inhale looking up slightly," I say, "and exhale letting your chin drift towards your own heart. Breathe there a few cycles, allowing the back of your neck to feel your breath, to release with gravity, and as you are ready, on an inhale draw your head back to a neutral chin position." There ... see ... how willing you were to let go, to give yourself exactly what you need? Just imagine giving yourself this small thing every so often... not that the stress will stop, but you will come to recognize it as something separate from your self, something that you can release any time, any where.

This slight change in perspective can have vast implications. One student asked "how to prepare for reducing stress?" My answer, "just let your attention focus on your breath and you have prepared and reduced stress all in one inhale and exhale!" In fact, take a few breaths, find your foundation (standing, sitting, walking, lying down) and know that as your body undoes the straps of stress that tie you to fears and anxiety, you can live more fully in any moment. Why not this one? When you turn your attention back to the argument, the mistake, the pressure, the impossibility, the unknown, your attention will be clear and your emotions much less stacked against you.

Addressing stress starts with acknowledging that, in all probability, you are almost always operating under some stress conditions. Gradually, learning to release the tensions and stress will help you see your patterns that are creating this stress reaction. Do you really need to feel so possessive of the supplies at work? Must you take that person's suggestions as criticism? Can you offer this suggestion as an opinion without telling that child what to do? Can you use words to explain what felt good or not good rather than shut down and add to the resentments in a relationship? Can you imagine that whatever happens you will have the where-with-all to see the possibilities available? All these little moments add up to a very heavy load to carry around. Give yourself a moment to let it go and see how different you can be. Even though the difficult times might last a while, your awareness and the effects you feel can change.