Monday, February 8, 2010

Time to Feel your Inner Compass

One of my colleagues is taking a semester abroad, and so I am teaching some her classes while she is gone. In my attempt to get to know her students, I invited them to come chat with me after class and let me know what motivates them to do yoga.

One of them said, “Well, I just know myself better when I do yoga.”

Another said, “When I do the poses, I feel things in my body that I didn’t feel before. And, I feel feelings that I might not take the time to feel otherwise.”

Ah. What treasure.

I, myself, have valued my yoga journey because of how it helps me feel things inside. I believe that each of us has an inner compass. Some of us can read this compass through thinking, some through images that come to our minds, and some through how we feel inside.

Once, my teacher, Sandra Pleasants, suggested that we imagine a garden hose. If there are kinks in the hose, the water can’t flow. So, she said for us to get in triangle pose, then see if each arm and each leg felt like a garden hose flowing. Or were there kinks? What did we need to adjust to get the flow going? Sometimes it was to rotate a joint, soften a joint, engage a muscle, or breathe differently.

Similarly, when we find ourselves in situations in life, we can ask ourselves: are there kinks in the garden hose right now? Perhaps you can recall a time when you made an adjustment in your life and suddenly everything flowed better?

Yoga helps us practice feeling this flow on a more and more subtle level, so that eventually, hopefully… whether in a yoga pose, a work decision, or family communication … we can be in touch with it, and it can guide our actions whenever we need.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Feel the Fear and ... then what?


This photo shows me doing wheel poses in the hills east of Berkeley. I had to overcome fear in order to learn wheel pose. I also had to overcome fear in order to move across the country from Charlottesville to Berkeley a few years ago.

Fear.

It often stops us from acting.

Is that useful?

Well, sometimes, yes it is. If it keeps us from hurting ourselves, the fear serves a good purpose. On a deeper level, if it stops us from doing something that isn’t true to our Nature, then it serves a great purpose. It is a healthy caution.

But what if it stops us from doing something that could be life-giving? Sometimes we are fearful of making a change, trying something new, giving up familiar habits. They are comfortable. But this comfort may keep us stuck. Our egos are holding the reins. We may miss out on the flow of Life. In that case, if we pause, listen deeply, we will probably hear a voice inside encouraging us to move past the fear.

Yoga poses help us practice making this distinction. Consider a room of thirty yoga students, a mix of beginning and advanced students, some healing from injuries. Imagine that I ask them to try bridge pose, or, for more challenge, wheel pose. Some will probably feel fear. One might be afraid of re-injuring her shoulder. Another might be afraid she can’t stay in the pose as long as other students. One of these fears is born of caution. The other is born of ego. When I teach a room full of yoga students, I say, “Listen to your inner wisdom. Let it tell you whether your fear is serving you.”

In life, similarly, when we slow down enough to notice that fear is holding us back, or making us act impetuously, we can ask ourselves the same question. Is this fear helping to preserve my well-being? Or is it getting in the way?

In yogic theory, fear is one of the forms of avidya. Recently, Chase Bossart, a teacher at the Healing Yoga Foundation, reminded me that vid is the root of this word, and can be translated as to know. So, avidya means not knowing. Fear is one form of not knowing.

Yoga postures, breathing, and meditation helps us be quiet enough to hear the small voice inside, so we can know what will be choice will be life-giving. May it be so!