BALANCE - tying it all together

I started this blog with the goal of attempting to bring a bit of balance to my life and to do so by examining my experiences through the purusarthas - or the four aims of life: duty, wealth, pleasure and liberation. My hope was that these reflections would resonate with others and that they would find some comfort in reading them. Now, at the end of this year-long journey, as I comb through old half-finished blog posts, it seems fitting to share them with you, and to try and tie them all together.

KAMA & ARTHA - Secrets (February 2010): One day at my old job, I was on the hunt for some coffee when by chance I discovered a beautiful place across the street from my building. It was the lobby of the Palmer House, with its impossibly high ceiling, Grecian frescoes, and tall sofa-style chairs. The furniture was arranged in groups of four, creating an easy atmosphere for small groups to chat or drink. But I loved it because I could sit there and disappear. Many a lunch hour was spent huddled in front of my computer, creating blog posts or reading a good book, while watching tourists mil about the lobby. I began to refer to it as "my secret hiding place." It became my escape; the place where I did my best and deepest thinking. I told no one about it and because of that, it remained special. I think it's important to have a place like this, a hidden space where you can indulge that part of yourself that is inaccessible to others.

DHARMA - Saying yes (July 2010): When my friend Katie told me she wanted us to take a trip to Iceland, I thought she was crazy. But in the spirit of keeping my mind open, I said I would think about it. Not that I was actually going to say yes, I just figured this bought me some time to come up with good reasons to say no. Then I googled "Iceland," saw pictures, and realized that something about this place was magical. Like Harry Potter magical. So I said yes. Without over analyzing or thinking about it too much. This "yes" led Katie to pose more scary questions, such as, "let's go on an overnight hike with an Icelandic hiking group," and "let's climb a glacier," and then, "let's follow these people to their campsite." And for some reason, I kept saying yes.

Katie was right about Iceland. I've never seen a landscape that beautiful or dramatic before. And I would never have seen those wonderful things if I had not just jumped in. There was a moment while I was standing on top of a glacier, looking down on the world when I realized how liberating it is to let go of doubt and just say yes.

MOKSHA - Exits (November 2010): I hate goodbyes. Hate. them. If I could get away with it, I would just use the "french exit," and slip quietly out the back door without anyone noticing. However, I have been told that this is not "thoughtful" or "socially acceptable." So I muddle through goodbyes.

Exits have been on my mind lately as we approach the end of a year and prepare for the beginning of a new one. For as much as I abhor saying goodbye, I love the idea of starting over. I love making plans to rearrange life to look differently, love wiping the slate clean and beginning anew, determined to get it right this time. Love making lists of healthy habits that are life affirming, and vowing to leave behind the parts of myself that are not.

And so, as we approach the end of a year of blogging, I pose the question that applies as equally in yoga as it does in life, and has been the ultimate question in my quest for balance this year: What is more important: rigidity or flexibility?

In yoga, there are poses that require certain parts of your body to remain fixed and rigid, but other parts must remain soft and flexible in order to achieve the asana. It seems so much easier to distinguish between the two in yoga than in life. But really, it is no different. You know which areas in your life demand a certain level of rigidity - the places where you tend to excess; the unhealthy non-life affirming excess that tips you over and destroys any semblance of balance. But yet, too much rigidity also defeats balance, where in becoming too fixated on doing or not doing something, you insulate yourself from trying in the first place, and remain unable to move forward.

Neither is more important than the other: both rigidity and flexibility are needed to create balance. So how do you know which one you need? I think it requires belief that you will figure it out despite the not knowing. This year-long journey has not led to balance itself, but instead to the tools that allow me to work toward balance. I love being surrounded by people, but I have discovered that creating a special place where I can go to find peace is also necessary. Saying yes to new adventures sustains me and allows me to explore new areas of myself, but saying no to those things I recognize as destructive and self-defeating is equally as important.

So, thank you to those who have helped me throw my life out of balance this year and thank you to those who have helped me try and restore it. And mostly, thank you to those of you who have been following this blog. Your comments and encouragement have been the best part of this experience.

So, my wish for us all in the new year is to strive and struggle for sustainable balance, remembering always to breathe, laugh and be kind. Cheers!

(most special thanks to Alisha, Courtney, and Mia for their rigidity and flexibility and to Meghan for giving me space to breathe)

MOKSHA - Mysore

I have finally begun a Mysore style yoga practice. Ummm.... what does that mean? Great question...

Mysore is a teaching style of Ashtanga yoga, named for the place in India where it originated. In a Mysore class, beginning to advanced level students practice side by side at their own pace. Each individual receives one-on-one instruction from teachers who walk around and make adjustments as the students progress through a set sequence of postures, starting with the Primary Series, which is a series of about 75 asanas done in a flowing Vinyasa style. The entire series takes about an hour and a half to two hours to complete. It begins with sun salutations and moves on to standing poses, seated poses, inversions and backbends before relaxation.

This style of teaching is very different than the traditional guided classes that most of us are used to where an instructor calls out the positions and slowly leads you through asanas. A Mysore class, in contrast, looks chaotic and confused. Some people are standing, some are seated, some are moving through a vinyasa, while others hold a pose. The self-lead practice style allows each peron to set her own pace and to take time to work on difficult asanas.

In a Mysore class, each student can only go as far as her body will allow. When a posture proves too challenging, the student will finish that day's practice. The idea is that repetition will allow one to eventually access the posture and move on, which is why a Mysore teacher ususally requires students to attend at least 4 classes a week.

When I found out I was moving to DC, I decided that I needed to have a healthy way to deal with the change. And having just come off training for a half-marathon, I also longed for something that would challenge me. A close friend has been practicing Mysore for years and I have watched it transform her in wonderful ways. Selfishly, I longed for something that would work a similar magic in my life. So, I googled "Mysore and Washington, DC" and came up with two studios that offer Mysore-style Ashtanga.

Many people think yoga is yoga is yoga. But there are vast differences between styles of practice. Mysore is not that common and also requires a heafty morning commitment. Which meant that in order to actually start a practice, I needed to live within a close walk of one of these two studios. Which also meant that I would have an hour-long commute to work each day. I struggled with this at first, but eventually realized that chosing to live close to a yoga studio is no stranger than choosing to live in a place due to its approximation to an office where you are required to go each day: you choose what's important to you. It's more important for me to be able to practice this type of yoga than to live a stone's throw from work.

Most mornings, I wake up at 5am, have a large cup of coffee and head to the studio. By the time I get in, there are already a few people deep into their practice. I grab my mat, say a quick thanks for the ability to be there, and begin. I work my way through the series of asanas, gradually warming up my body and muscles, so that I can feel myself able to reach further in certain positions, can sense that my body is adapting to these asanas. Then I get to Marichyasana A. This is where I must end my practice each day, since I cannot yet fully get into this position. Click here.

I stop myself from continuing on and repeat this same position over and over. Each day in class, the instructors come around when they see that I am close, offer me encouraging words, prep me for the asana and often physically move my arms into the position so that I can grasp my fingers behind my back and feel what it's like to get "the bind." There are days where I get it and we celebrate; there are other days where I don't and we sit and talk about how the body can be fickle. Then I stop and rest and repeat the same mantra that I have been saying since I started practicing: "Praise your body for doing a wonderful job, your mind for letting it happen."

As I leave the studio each day, I am amazed at how alive I feel; how fully I occupy the space within my own body; how peaceful everything seems. Yoga makes me feel strong and connected to what's around me - even if it only lasts the few steps it takes to get back to my apartment.

DHARMA - Tough Days

You know what they look like. They start like any other day, but quickly morph into something heavy; cumbersome. You feel like every step is a fight to keep moving forward. Maybe it's a meaningful day; a sad anniversary, or maybe it's just Tuesday. No matter what, it's a hard day.

I had a tough day last week. It started out with me dreading the plans I had made; knowing that I had to go and ended with me just wishing I could curl up in my bed and forget the world. It was a day about fighting: me fighting the feeling of a tough day, someone fighting with me, two ninjas fighting behind a closed door....

A wise cousin told me before I left for D.C. that "every new beginning is hard." Oh, man, is this true. But the companion to change is discovery. And I have already learned so much about myself from the hard stuff. I can tell you for certain that I value my friendships, a comfy couch and decent cookware. I have also discovered that I have no use for cruelty that stems from insecurity or for half of my purses.

And I have managed to stop and actually appreciate some new stuff. Stuff that has taken my breath away or stopped me in my tracks: the sun rising over the Potomac, a deer running next to me in Rock Creek Park, a single, continuous 200 foot escalator at my metro stop. The stuff that fills us with joy or contributes to a realistic fear of getting injured.

Tomorrow is a new day. It is not a sad anniversary or a hard moment. It is a day of new beginnings where I get to start over and be me again for 24 hours. How lucky I am.

(Thanks to my favorite woman soldier for the "it's just Tuesday" reference.)

MOKSHA - Falling flat on my face

When I was in college, my good friend and I always set two New Year's resolutions at the start of each year. The first was concrete. This was the public resolution, the one you could easily share with others when asked. This year, my concrete resolution was starting this blog. There was always a second resolution, however. One that was more private, and not openly discussed. This is the one I want to share with you.

At the beginning of this year, I resolved that this would be the year I would fall flat on my face. I know. It sounds strange. Let me explain...

In a now famous commencement speech to the graduates at Harvard, J.K. Rowling surprisingly discussed the importance of failure. She said that one cannot go through life without failing at something unless one lives so cautiously that it is almost like not living at all.

This struck a chord with me. I recognized myself in that description of one who can live too cautiously. I am uncomfortable with the idea of failure, but risk is an important byproduct of living fully. So at the beginning of this year, I resolved that I would risk failure in all aspects of life and make this a year of really living.

And, Lord, what a year it has been! I have fallen flat on my face in relationships, in self-discipline, in my work life, and in making smart decisions. I have risked and failed. Tried and quit. Started and left unfinished. I have been reckless and allowed my heart to take me to dangerous places. I have cried, felt confused, woken up and kept going. But there have been successes as well. Wonderful treasures that sprung from great risk. This experiment in living has helped me shake off the extraneous parts of my life and allowed me to rethink what I am capable of.

We all have ideas about what our limitations are: I could never run a marathon, I am doomed to be a clerk forever, I could never go back to school. But what a magical moment it is when we shirk off the labels we set for ourselves and step forward to try something scary.

And so here I am, in Washington DC, miles away from the life I had planned out in my head, saying yes to new adventures. Yes to not knowing how it will work out, but just trusting that it will. Heading towards new risks and new loss and new ways to get my heart broken. Hallelujah!

DHARMA - Growing up

After college, I lived in a tiny studio apartment in Baltimore. My apartment was furnished mostly with college furniture. I mean that literally, as my friends and I had actually stolen some of the furniture from our dorm rooms at the end of our senior year. While I managed to accumulate a lot of stuff, I had very few “nice” things at that time in my life.

At the end of my second year of teaching, one of my student’s mothers gave me a beautiful glass pitcher with two margarita glasses. It was that heavy glass with a cobalt blue pattern woven throughout. It reminded me of summer and entertaining and sitting on a deck grilling and enjoying good conversation. Nevermind that I had no deck, grill or actual space to entertain. For me, it represented the hope of having these things.

When I got home, I carefully unwrapped the entire set from its mounds of packaging material and cleared a space for it. But when I tried to put it in my kitchen cabinet, I realized that the pitcher was too tall to fit. I can still remember the disappointment of that moment: all I wanted was to have one beautiful item among my hand-my-down IKEA dishes. Instead, back into the packaging material it went to be stored away for another time. I made a promise to myself, though, as I sat in that dorm room chair that I would start to make an effort to transition away from college into adulthood. And that I would do this by getting some nice things; just a few special items to make me feel like more of an adult.

A few years later when I was living in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Evanston (upgrade from the studio), my margarita set finally found a comfortable home in the cabinet above the kitchen sink. I still had no deck, or grill, or actual space to entertain, nor do I recall actually ever using the set. But whenever I opened that cabinet, I would remember the quiet promise I made to my 23 year old self. The cobalt margarita set served as a reminder that growing up did have a place in my life and that I needed to make a small space for it.

Then, one day, as these things tend to happen, my boyfriend was getting something out of the cabinet when one of the margarita glasses fell and shattered all over the floor. Now, please let me preface this by saying that I am not someone who freaks out about breaking glasses. Which is why my boyfriend looked so shocked when I began yelling about “destroying my dreams” before running into my bedroom and slamming the door.

I know. It’s just a thing. And it was a thing, I’ll remind you, that had never actually been used. But for me, this was a symbol of my first cognizant desire to be an adult; this item had bridged the gap between youth and growing up and now it lay shattered on the floor. It was kind of heartbreaking to me.

Here’s the tricky thing about becoming an adult, though. As you grow up, you begin to realize that tiny losses are a part of life: things break and fall apart and get shattered. You can choose to dwell on what you’ve lost, or you can look at your life, shift things around a bit and then continue on. You can mourn the loss of not being able to entertain two people with your nice things, or you can serve one person a very large pitcher of margaritas.

Since that day, I have used the pitcher countless times. Most recently making strong drinks for a group of women gathered at my house for an intellectual discussion that ended in a drunken bullfight and lots of pictures involving an eye patch. So, maybe I haven’t quite made the full transition into adulthood yet, but I like to think that for the moment, I have arrived at a nice balance.

MOKSHA - Evil thoughts

A friend recently confessed having thoughts she alternatively describes as “evil”, “bad”, and “cruel.” When she shared her secret, I was fully prepared to hear her describe a scene from a horror movie. But her confession merely revealed that she had been dealing with feelings of confusion influenced by hormones and rash decision-making: a pretty typical day in your early 20’s.

Although I have tried to assuage her guilt, she is afraid that confronting her feelings will only create pain for others. She has decided it is better to avoid them all together.

Problem is – avoidance doesn’t get rid of the feelings. They are still there, lurking under the surface like tiny landmines. I know from personal experience as well as countless romantic comedies that you can pretend all you want that you aren’t really interested in that CEO of a Barnes and Noble-type corporation or that guy who designs masculine furniture pieces, owns a dog and has a country cabin, but eventually you’re going to end up getting drunk and yelling “I love you!” outside his apartment or running into him at the park when his adorable golden retriever brings you together again.

Bottom line: every emotion you have is a valid emotion. Period. There is no such thing as a feeling that is good or bad, right or wrong. Feelings just are. Feelings strain against the cages of shame and guilt; they want to be allowed to roam around for a while, they want to cozy up to you on the couch and relax, they want to notify you of their presence and have you pay attention to them. That’s all. They just need to be given air and brought to light in order to fulfill their duty. When we start to deny them their birthright, we also tend to pick up unhealthy habits to help us continue the cycle of repression. Self-loathing and self-punishing behaviors that allow us to turn against ourselves because we feel undeserving.

So, how do you cross the gulf from self-punishment to self-acceptance? Face those feelings. Let them give voice to what they must say. They are mini-kamikaze fighters who must crash their planes into the ground and be done. Let them. And when the dust settles and you can open your eyes again, you can come out to deal with any destruction they have left in their wake. The important part is that you will be able to come out. You will be there to face the damage in front of you, instead of constantly waiting for it to come crashing down. You can begin to breathe again and rebuild.

“Sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.” Allow yourself to feel the range of your emotions and you will see your true self, complete with all your flaws and mistakes and hurts and disappointments. Lovely the way you are.

MOKSHA - Home practice

Starting one’s own yoga practice is a bit like starting one’s own blog: you begin with all these thoughts, but halfway through you have no idea where you are going.

Cultivating a self-taught yoga practice has been a pretend goal of mine since I started doing yoga. I say pretend goal because it should be a goal – it’s cheaper, you can do it from the comfort of your own home and you don’t have to worry about people seeing your boobs if your shirt flies up when you’re upside down.

Despite these obvious benefits, I have never really been moved to practice by myself. At first, I thought it was because I was kind of a slacker – that’s why I wouldn’t do all the poses, wouldn’t hold them for as long, would always opt to skip the vinyasa and just move into the next asana. But that’s only part of the reason.

It really has to do with energy and space.

There is a certain level of camaraderie with fellow yoga practitioners. Don’t get me wrong – yoga peeps are not a warm and friendly bunch. People will smile at you, say “hello” but ain’t no friends being made in yoga class. Even so, the presence of other people moving through the poses and focusing on their breath gives off an energy in the room. Everyone present can take from that energy and use it in their practice. When you first begin to do yoga, you may be too self-conscious to be aware of this, but once you are there for a while and can settle into the flow of class, you will begin to perceive a hint of gratitude flowing through each person. Gratitude for the space, the quiet time, the marvel that is your own body creating these movements.

There is also something special about the space itself. Entering a yoga studio is a bit like entering a church or a temple; there is a sacred feel to the space. You can put a treadmill in your second bedroom and run while your girlfriend is on the computer, but yoga cannot be practiced this way. It is important to not only have a quiet space, but one that takes you away from your world for a bit.

This week I attempted to replicate the energy and sacredness of a yoga class at home. While in supta baddha konasana, my dog came over and began licking my face, my brother’s alarm starting blaring and my dad yelled “hey, you want more coffee?”

You know, for now, I think I’m just gonna keep going to yoga class.