No Goal + Open Outcome = Experience

I set myself tasks, getting groceries, showing up for practice or for teaching. It is easy to put objects on the calendar and begin investing in how all that comes to pass, whether it does, and with what efficiency. The checking off of the list becomes another layer of goal. It is strange that I can so easily rely upon all of this to define myself. I can identify with having the capacity or not to do these things. But using this to define myself is as though assigning myself a meditation practice and putting my body on the cushion is the same as meditating. Looking at that straight on, it is so clearly not so. The setting of a goal may well influence the formation of an intention, but is not the act itself of doing and being.

The action of being present is not the same as aligning the spine. Aligning the spine can help with many layers of awareness, to be sure, and that’s where some confusion might enter the picture about yoga and the practice of yoga. A recent article in the NY Times about yoga and injury brought up questions among students and teachers these past few weeks. The article clearly describes the negative physiological effects in specific cases of repetitive overdoing or predisposition to injury in asana practice. It can happen even in meditation if a person insists on sitting motionless for many hours a day, disregarding physical best practices. These are distortions of what the practices demand, in my opinion, since yoga and meditation actually do make demands but more squarely in the areas of commitment, cultivating attention, and willingness to see patterns of behavior and reactivity and bring intelligent awareness to these patterns.

I have no intention of mimicking the life and practice of spiritual renunciates from previous centuries or even current times. Neither is yoga a weight loss program or a new age form of aerobic workout. Teachers who teach this way are grossly misrepresenting the depth and range of the practices in order to serve a client base who want this from them. So everyone takes some risks along with that approach.

Any body can benefit from connecting to their physical body, and from initiating a conscious practice of cultivating awareness, deepen the understanding of the interactions of breath and energy and apply some yogic principles and philosophy to their way of being and doing. Students of yoga can be young or old, able bodied or disabled. There is no requirement to achieve specific asana or lengths of meditative sessions. Asana practice certainly can develop strength, flexibility and stamina, body awareness and cultivation of energy use without participating in a sport. Meditation practice does enable the loosening of constraints of habitual ego patterns developed over years of responding and reacting, and gives insight into seeing conditions that continuously change with more clarity.

Perhaps seeing one’s own drive and emotional baggage when doing yoga is one of the first and greatest benefits of the practice. Learning to step back from the pressure we put on ourselves can help us see that there can be a less encumbered flow of energy for us to use. This is truly a saving grace. Good teachers are on this path, and can help students discover their own feet there too.

This Asana is Contraindicated for ...

me, and yet I practice. Listening to my own arguments, I hear fear and I hear determination. There is goal setting and there is wishful thinking. There is regret and self-doubt, and there is hopefulness and curiosity.

When I began practicing yoga I took any class that fit in my schedule. I was approaching 50 years old and I knew less than nothing about the lineage, names of luminaries, history, even potential health benefits. I didn't even know what shape I was aiming for in the Asana of the moment. I listened deeply, worried on the surface about mixing up my right from my left, and began breathing into a new space of awareness inside.

This fall my practice will be much the same as it was 10 years ago... I will be discovering that I can change the angle of my lower spine by remembering my big toe, and I will use the wall to prepare for Ustrasana (camel pose) just to see how much energy I can raise from my Tadasana (mountain pose) knees. There are many Asana I can explore in my practice, and of course, my practice does now include teaching which is a magnitude of exploration I could not have imagined in those first few experiences.

Every Asana has benefits that reach into the basic functioning of the body -- circulation, nervous system, muscular strength and flexibility; and the mind -- judgment, intention, challenge, determination, curiosity, resilience and focus; and the organs -- etc. Every asana has contraindicated conditions, for example shoulder or ankle injury, stages of pregnancy, frailty of bone, uncontrolled high blood pressure, etc.

As a teacher I may mention a few of the "if you have this, modify in this way" instructions, but I find it hard to say, "just don't do this." I find it especially hard to say it to myself. At the moment, I have two physical variables that would contraindicate nearly everything I do in my yoga Asana practice -- including what might seem simple like sitting in a cross-legged position.

So here is the secret: Do not hurt yourself. Follow the path of the breath and prepare your physical body for practice with an open mental attitude of exploration rather than goals and end results. Use props and find out what is actually happening in as full a way as you can in that moment. It is not getting into the full pose of Ustrasana that will help you if you have low back issues or rotator cuff problems. Yet many of the steps along the way will be exactly what your body can best use to mobilize, stabilize and strengthen, stretch and explore.

It is the mind that wants to take the full expression of Urdhva Dhanurasana (Wheel). Deepening and exploring a supported heart opener over a bolster or block, or using blocks to support your sacrum and your upper back in Setu Bhandhasana (Bridge pose) will give you more possibilities to experience your life than you could imagine.

So it can really help to find a teacher who can help guide your practice into the deepest places you can explore, and slow things down, rather than attending classes that continually show you what you can do to hurt yourself. It helps when you don't believe that everything rests in the final pose, and keep an open mind about what might open your practice.

Teaching with Myself as the Unknown

I am very curious to discover my teaching this week, since my own inner balance has shifted to be ever more obviously unknowable. I twisted my ankle a week ago as I walked on slippery sidewalks. The process of recovery has been revelatory so far. Aside from the literal experience of sensation and changing forms, of course I have had to change my behavior and expectations. I've chucked normal patterns and am observing how I react. It is using a lot more energy than I thought it would, just to watch all this, and be in it.

The coming week I have shaved off a few classes and obligations, canceled a couple appointments and spread a few things out over the week. The plan is designed to give me more time between everything to elevate the foot, to recharge my energy, to take the time I will need to travel slowly from place to place. Even with these changes I am going to negotiate carefully as I go teach this and that class. The getting to and from the teaching will be as much to learn for me as the teaching itself.

There is no way for me to know what will happen, how it will feel or what the progression of events might include. It amuses me that my mind keeps asking how I might find a solution in the form of someone else who might take away the uncertainty or the discomfort. I know that fundamentally it is my own body that will heal itself if I can stay out of its way. Exploring what helps that healing and what subtracts or detracts from that healing is really at the center of my attention.

I'm struck by how this is yoga practice as everything. Tenderly, non-judgmentally I am exploring the range of motion of the rest of my body, and consciously relaxing my mind in its tendencies to grip and attach, to project and to figure. I practice as I knit. Practice as I wait for help with something, practice as I step down each stair, practice as I move in my sleep. It is a fascinating process of integrating and experiencing. The shift in my view is what changes this injury from a deficit to a gift.

Sensations as Sensations

This morning I slipped on the icy shoveled sidewalk. One foot began moving away and the other ankle folded to catch my balance. Pop, twang, and back on my feet. All in a moment, yet in that moment I had a flood of sensations that triggered a heightened awareness. Gratitude that I was standing on a sidewalk, fear that I was injured, amazement that so little had happened and so much had changed, fear that I could not trust my body to function normally, curiosity about the condition of my ankle, pain, hesitation, gratitude the foot took my weight. This all took just seconds. Each momentary feeling took hold and let go, took hold and let go. Then the investigation began.

I have been using a meditation of noting sensation and allowing sensation to be sensation, freeing the sensation itself from the tag lines of feelings, interpretations, anxieties, memories and projections. For me, this means actually choosing not to name the sensation that arises, simply sense it. Each sensation has the potential to reveal the way I operate, attaching thoughts and feelings, assigning meanings, planning etc. in response to the sensation, which has by that time passed into something else. What remains is the construction I've built around it.

So I tested my range of motion, began tentatively walking, using leg muscles and experimenting with how I put my foot down, when to transfer weight to the heel, how high to lift the leg to relax the ankle before its landing, etc. Very slowly and with attention to each step, I got where I was going. It was an amazing journey.

Sometimes I speak about the space in each breath when we remember to notice. I have often spoken about awareness of how we transfer our weight to the earth. Today every single step is an experiment in awareness, letting the fullness of the sensations be just that, and watching the moment unfold.

A friend posted a quote on FB "Every setback is a detour to my goal." -- NFL Colts Head Coach '09 This is a marvelously subtle way of letting go of the steering wheel and the judgmental mind and allowing experience to be just that. We cannot get anywhere from here, we can only be here. By being here, fully, we are just where we need most to be.

I have canceled or postponed all my teaching for today and tomorrow to tend my new project, to experience my body and allow rest and healing to be part of every step. What a blessing my practice has turned even pain into curiosity, even fear into openness. The saying attributed to The Buddha is "Pain is part of life, the suffering is optional." My twisted ankle is such a good teacher!

Clearing Clutter

There are lots of jokes about solving how hard it is to live with our family or with conditions around us by adding in so much more hardship that when we take that away, the original mess feels easier. This is the "bang your head and it feels good when you stop" idea. This is a little backwards, in my view. Of course the weight is lighter after you put on more weight and then take that weight off. I think it's important to acknowledge both what it is that we are carrying around and the particular set of conditions or reflexes that chafe or grind. When we can see these objects and patterns that have evolved because of our own existing structures, we can begin to unpack the real load, and clear the true space ... not just try to trick ourselves into feeling differently about it.

In his notes to his introduction for his 1988 translation of the Bhagavad Gita, Stephen Mitchell quotes Maharshi Sri Ramanasramam. The simplicity of this thrills me:

"Peace is our real nature. We spoil it. What is required is that
we stop spoiling it. We are not going to create peace anew. For
instance, originally there is nothing but space in a room. We fill
it up with various objects. If we want space, all we need to do
is to remove all those objects, and we get space. In the same way,
if we remove all the rubbish, all the thoughts, from our minds,
peace will appear. What is obstructing the peace has to be removed.
Peace is the only reality."

That original space is already there, waiting for me to clear out the clutter. I watch my mind filling up like a floor with everything dropping upon it. With my attention focused, I can slowly clear away the stuff, filing it where it might be of use, putting it away as "stuff," or recycling it as material for some other time. The surface becomes clear and once again I'm able to walk, or stand, or even lie down upon that floor.

I feel this very directly in my asana practice. In order to reach my shoulder and release it from whatever is clenching it, I apply this idea of clearing out the clutter and focus on my breath, dropping the tension away from my shoulder joints. This focused attention and reliance upon the breath are key to everything for me. It is through this that I can separate the clenched jaw from the tight back muscles. Using the natural expansion of my breathing ribcage, I can release the shoulder to float on the existing structure, and let go of the holding and judging. Just acknowledging the fear I feel about moving the tight shoulder helps me to let it go . Seeing what is going on there (the piles on the floor), nodding at the worry about it (labeling the "fear"), discovering the way the elbow can shift the movement away from the shoulder joint (recycling what might be useful), exploring the possibility of doing less (putting things away to save for later) and allowing the deeper muscles of the breath to help.

Where my attention goes, so goes my energy. If I can focus on the breath and take apart the pile of junk clobbering my shoulder, I can find so much more space in which to be who I am, taking care of my shoulder and exploring all it can make possible.

Listening to Your Body's Wisdom

Yoga can be adapted to bring benefits to any body. When I first began my practice, every part of me had something to say after each yoga class! I discovered spaces and muscles in them between my ribs that I had just never known before. My legs would shake in standing poses, and my breathing would be slower than that which the teacher was directing. My shoulders were chronically tight. Gradually my body began to find its way into the patterns of breath and movements. After 8 years of experience, my yoga practice always begins with awakening of this deep coordination of breath and muscular activity. My hips stiffen every night, my shoulders need to respond to an exploration of their range of motion before I ask any thing else of them. Though my legs have flexibility, the big hamstrings need to warm up before going for a full forward bend.

The first aspect of a safe and healthy practice is to let the judgments of yourself go. In order to listen to my own body and use it fully as the vehicle for my practice, I have to be willing to notice its actual condition without the overlay of pre-set ideas about myself. My students quickly discover that it is their own knee and hamstring combination that will tell them how long a stride to take in their warrior pose (Virabhadrasana I). Whether long or short, it is the knee over the ankle that will protect their joints, softening the shoulders, finding the breath deeply moving through, and this is what will allow them to continue to explore the openness in their hips, and the ease of their spine. It is through this process of finding their foundation that begins to release into the support that allows longer holding of the asana and movement within it. Overriding their own needs, and over-reaching cuts off all the possibilities. As the body opens, so does the stride. Taking a posture to look a certain way without listening to your own body is not yoga.

So it's great to take a beginning class, a slow flow class or a more technical take-the-asana-apart workshop in order to work with a teacher who can offer the adaptations and reasons why using a block or a blanket will help you gain the benefits of a posture. Teachers usually explore a series of postures and preparatory actions that help open your body, your breath and your mind for the more advanced asana to come. At each step along the way, noticing what you can relax and release, noticing the source of your foundational support, and keeping your attention on the breath will help bring you deeper and deeper into your practice, no matter what "shape" you are in.

Limitations = Stories We Tell Ourselves

Sometimes when I teach yoga in a new place, I tell my students a little about myself. First of all, I explain that my yoga practice started late in 2001, and that I was never a dancer or an athlete. Many of my students see me in my role as yoga teacher and have already told themselves a story that explains me and the physical person they see. Needless to say, many are also surprised to learn that I'm in my mid fifties, already having definitions in their heads about age. I am amused by that, since my new line of work is giving me a healthier aspect than I even had when I was much younger!

I've chosen to take on a deeply physical job as I approach 60 years old. The work I am doing is changing my body, changing my way of life, changing my concepts. If I use the word "transformation" it sounds so new age, but in fact, yoga practice is a transformation. As my body ages, it is gaining strength, flexibility and ease. I can notice the muscle aches, the joint creaks, the dry skin, whatever it is that is naturally happening as I age, and at the same time feel so integrated, balanced, healthy, and sound. It's great to have work that makes me feel so whole, inside and out. The actual effort I make while teaching, the reading and research, the personal practice, the constant ongoing investigation, seminars and experiences, and increasing hours of work are all benefiting me, directly. This is definitely a case of loving what I do and doing what I love, but it is also an eye opener into the assumptions about aging and the "decline" I expected in myself. Of course my body has its limitations, the way a joint moves, the particulars of flexibilities and structure, and I am discovering this as I go, rather than expecting and assuming what I can and cannot do.

My students and peers are every age, and I love the open space in which we relate and connect. Each of us knows that every body has its limitations and structures. It is up to us how we allow our perceptions to define us. Perhaps surgery has altered something, or genetics gave me a certain set of conditions. These are as easily my strengths as they are my weaknesses. How I feel about it makes so much difference, and how I feel comes directly from what I perceive about it. As long as I remain trapped in definitions and judgments based on stories rather than direct experience, I will not realize the fullness of my being. I can remain stuck with being "old" or "not like I used to be" or I can stick with the open inquiry "what is this? what is this now?" Even previous experience can steer me out of my inquiry in this moment. Investigating a cranky knee can unlock the secrets to supporting the knee in motion, can eliminate the worst of the pain or joint degradation, can bring clarity to years of continued successful motion.

Each of us is unique in our questions and answers, but we are all on the same path, and the path is open. Learning to stay present in the inquiry is the transformation. Who imagined that a girl who could not do a cartwheel would be a middle-aged woman who can stand on her head?

Responsibility & Fragility

We are such amazing structures of skin and bone, so strong and yet so transitory. Yesterday I was remarking to my husband that I feel responsible for shepherding my elderly relatives safely through the ends of their lives. It is almost as if my hand is gently on the oar of the ferry boat taking them through their final transitions to the other side of existence. This sounded so strange as I said it, yet felt so true. I feel the responsibility to outlive them, in order to keep paying their bills, organize celebrations for their birthdays, keep them supplied with their favorite treats or experiences, sort out their catastrophes and health care debacles, and problem solve when their minds can no longer rationally cope. This is not a passive situation, as I am administratively responsible for two nearly 90's and in the heart responsible for two more of equal age.

In some ways, I approach this weight much the way I do in my asana practice when my knee feels fragile giving those warning twinges. All of this requires first and foremost the ability to see what is really there, be open to what might be so without judging, and not get swept away by conjectures, emotions, and the distortions that past experience might overlay. Clarity, compassion and action are at the core, allowing me to fully support the expression of fragile qualities.

Last night I got a call from my aunt that her name tag had been removed from the door of her assisted living apartment. She wanted to know if there was a change in her status, if she was being removed, if she should move out tomorrow morning. What did I know about it, and why would they do such a thing? She was hurt, furious, scared. To a stranger, this might seem obviously irrational, yet I know that her sense of self is fragile, her place on earth tenuous, her fear and anger justified by her deep family experience. The child of refugees, she hung on correct protocol to protect her, fashioning a professional career that was all about precedent and protocol, legalities and legislation.

I hold the oar lightly, but firmly, and ply it in the strange dark waters as I sense that boat below me, with this dear frightened person in it. Of course I reassure her that it is not personal, and I take the responsibility for facts, explanations and replacement. Just as I practice yoga with my complaining knee, I gently bend it, position the foot directly below it to transfer the weight, bring my awareness to the way my thigh lifts and my hip rotates, my pelvis carries the weight, my spine rises... in other words, the body in its entirety helps support the knee, not the other way around.

So often I think that fragility is frightening because I have forgotten to take responsibility for the support structure. Fear arises when I think something or someone dear to me is suffering or being taken from me, and yet as I grow older I find that although I may never be physically able to do certain poses, my abilities grow constantly in new ways I never imagined. Open to fragility, and responsible for supporting that, I am more and more available to myself and to others. Ah, once again, releasing judgment, letting emotion wash through with the understanding that the wave will come again, but the water goes way beyond the wave.

Dipping my oar, I continue to scan the waters around me, peering into the dark even as the light bounces on the crests of the waves.