Royal Yoga Studio

We are unique in the complexity of our language. Some scientists say that all memories (as we think of them) are based in language and until we have words to describe (define, limit, contain) ‘things’, they practically don’t exist for us. Examples sited are people raise in by animals or in extreme isolation and introduced to society late in life with no language. As they begin to be able to express themselves they each have an inability to remember life before they were ’saved’. The human brain it seems lives to a great degree in language. We reflect on our past in language. We sit in front of something and say, ‘Ahhh, what a beautiful sunset. Our futures are shaped by vague ideas we have working in the background about how life will be. All in language. We want to understand. There is an almost compulsive need to define, hold onto.

The idea of ‘not knowing’ is likened to death.

This of course is the great irony of the human mind. Though we think and communicate in words…they’re made up. They’re not real. When you see a cat, you’re not seeing a cat. You’re simply calling it a cat. No big deal. But what about when we confuse the thing that we call a cat with the idea/word cat. In other words, we think what we think a cat is really is what a cat is. When I see a cat, all the great positive life experience I have with animals like that thing come up and I feel loving. When someone else sees a cat, they may see an animal that scratches and pisses on everything and makes their allergies flare up to emergency room levels. The animal in front of us isn’t any different but the definition of cat is completely different.

Which is true?

In the biggest sense: neither of course. Its all made up! That cat isn’t good or bad, positive or negative. It isn’t even a cat!

In other words: the sign in the road pointing to Houston is not Houston. Its just a sign. That’s where we get confused.

I have an experience with a man and now all men are ______ (Bad, or rude, or cruel, or sweet, or loving, or oblivious or kind, or…) Which of course isn’t true, simply our view of the events in our life.

In a smaller or more practical sense: both cat stories are true. They are true because we say they are.

So what if you could get all your stories about cats out in the open and take responsibility for them? What if you could sit in front of a sunset and just see it, rather than a ‘beautiful sunset’? Then conversations get really interesting!!

The Power of Conversation.
What if everything in your practical life was created with language?
What if you committed so something radical (said you were going to do it and when) and did whatever it took to make it real?
What if you treated your word like your life?
What if you lived in a world where being honesty was more valued than being nice?
What if you cleaned up the things that weigh down your relationships with the power of your words?
What if you jumped into the game of your life and didn’t take yourself out of the conversation?

I notice in my life that nothing works when I’m not in the conversation and everything works when I am.

Share yourself with everyone in your life today this week. See what happens. Something will shift we get into the conversation of our lives.

With love,
A

New Weekly Classes:

Pralaya Yoga
Wed: 9 - 10:30am
Thurs: 6 - 7:30pm (begins 6/10)

Subbing:
Wed: 6:30pm Robert’s Active Intermediate (5/19,26; 6/2, 9)
Thurs: 6:30pm Robert’s 3 Hour Advanced (5/20, 27; 6/3)

Houstonian Club (Members Only)
Sat: 8:50 - 9:50am
Sun: 4:45 - 5:45pm

Subbing:
Wed: 11am Robert’s Class (5/19,26; 6/2, 9)
Thurs: 5:00pm Marisol’s Class (5/27)

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
Say it again!”

Picture yourself in a very cold room practicing yoga. Lets say almost freezing. There are two strategies we could use to get warm. First we could use our breath to generate heat as we practice, or second, we could simply do a vigorous physical practice to get blood-flow up. I’ve written before about the possibility of practicing in cold rooms without trying to warm your body up, but rather, just simply being cold. What is happening to your body as you imagine the cold? Probably tension in hands, neck, face, abdomen, pelvic floor.

I’ll put it to you that that tension is the result of resisting the sensation of being cold.

Now put yourself in a hot, muggy room practicing. Same idea. I can cool my body down or simply be hot. Notice any tension from discomfort.

I’ll put it to you that that tension is the result of resisting the sensation of being hot.

Remember your last nasty injury. Resistance.
Remember the last intense exercise. Resistance.
Remember the last time your heart broke. Resistance.
… being crazy stressed out. Resistance.
… traffic…you got it.

What could be more stressful than resisting life the way it is? Not-resisting is essentially accepting. And of course its often that we get hung up on the idea that accepting is the same as resignation. No way Juanita!

In my experience of yoga, the more I can let go, the deeper my experience of my life becomes. Frequently this shows up as noticing the thoughts that are chattering or whispering in my head, what they are saying, and giving up my listening to them. Or pinpointing the conditioned belief (programming) that belies the thoughts (e.g. this is hard, hard is bad, bad is scary, fear is death…etc). The letting go of either of these typically releases something in my body. So I can let go of the thoughts/ideas and get a physical release or I can let go of the physical tension and get a calming of brain activity.

Places to look for the latter:
Forehead
Jaw
Tongue/Teeth
Ears (inner and outer)
Sinuses
Neck
Throat
Shoulders
Elbow and Wrist Joints
Palms
Solar Plexus
Belly
Pelvic Floor
Behind the Knees
Ankle Joints
Soles of the Feet

Ahhhhhhh…isn’t that nice. I’ll put it to you that if those places can always feel soft and free, then the energy will flow in your body. That will give you more vitality, awareness (for feeling your limits and not getting injured), strength and serenity to name a few. Its a great list to just keep running over as you practice. Ahhhhhh…relax.

Now,
what other ways are you resisting your life?
I love that question! It points to what we don’t allow. Sexuality, honesty, difficulty, openness, empathy, compassion, action…these are just a few things I catch myself resisting regularly. And just like practicing meditation, just keep coming back to center. Get lost in your story about life, what’s happening, the future, your messy past? Great! And come back to center. Shhhhhhhhhh. Relax.

There’s nothing wrong, remember?

Much love,
A

Naughty implications aside, let’s talk about the opposite of self-hate.

From Cheri Huber’s ‘There’s Nothing Wrong with You’
”
Self Hate is buying a new care and not taking care of it.
(’Not taking care of’ is not taking care of yourself.)
Self Hate is eating your favorite desert, and feeling guilty the whole time.
Self Hate is the ultimate addiction.
Self Hate is torturing myself with ‘its not fair’.
”

Eckart Tolle would call self-hate, the pain body: the part of you that is committed to being a victim, creating drama, things not working, failing, whipping yourself for all of it. Your inner critic/judge/internalized parent/unloving voice in your head. When you’re trying to change yourself (self-improvement), that’s based in the belief there’s something wrong with you (the world, society, my partner, etc)…that’s self-hate, because of course, there’s nothing wrong with you. Or anyone else.

Living in fear…yup that’s self hate at work.
Being reckless…you got it, that too.
Over eating. Yup.
Starving yourself. Totally.

It has always been difficult to create for myself a regular practice of anything that is challenging. My forte has always been to create super powerful/potent/condensed practices that are as sporadic as they are transformative. We all know that if we practice anything every day, then mastery is a possibility. But of course, what better way to feed the deep rooted belief that I’m a failure then to fail to do something I commit to do (or know would bring me joy). Every time I don’t practice. Every time I don’t return that call. Every time I ‘become’ frustration…its all self-hate.

So what I’ve done is to associate work with self love.

Self love is getting out of bed to practice.
Self love is to practice before bed.
Self love is slowing down.
Self love is doing what I say I’m going to do.
Self love is show up as compassion.
Self love is choosing from love rather than from fear.
Self love is taking care of my children’s future.
Self love is being strong in the face of my fears.
Self love is feeling what is happening in my life every moment.
Self love is letting go.
Self love is committing.
Self love is letting someone love you regardless of what they do or say..
Self love is loving someone regardless of what they do or say.

Self love is what I create.

What would it look like for you to love yourself?
Or rather,
What would it look like for you to let go of your self-hate?

Its a tricky on to see. Like most other things I suggest working on, I say ‘give it a year’. Don’t worry about it right now, but explore the idea. Try it on. Hang it back up in the mental closet of new ideas. Try it on again in a few months. When next you’re stressed, depressed, struggling, angry, worried, sad, anxious, fearful, upset, notice what the voices in your head are saying. Think about your parents, your childhood, your dream job, next year’s finances, your romance life, your house, your friends, your enemies, your city, your government, your beliefs of how things ’should’ be (your ’shoulds’). Then simply spend some time with those little voices in your head. Notice what they say. Then notice if any of it is true. Are you left empowered? Are you left joyful? If not, what is getting created?

As a kid I used to love to trace my sadness or frustration to its source…’just to see’. Try it out. Let me know what you find.

Is any of this the same as working to change yourself?
Is there anything wrong with you?

In the blossoming love of springtime,
A

Ups and Downs in the Big Picture.

One of the things that makes good teachers is the experience of hitting bottom. Someone who has completely fallen apart or felt great adversity or pain has had an indelible experience of being fine and then being not fine. In hatha yoga, someone who has been inflexible or weak or injured (and gone beyond them) has much more insight into those experiences and getting beyond them. The same is true with life experiences. If I’ve lost all hope and come back from that, then when that desperate or scared person walks into class, I can feel it and I have something to contribute that may be of value to them.

Having been married early with kids and immediately having struggles in mycareers, my life felt like I went from high school straight into the pressure cooker. And believe me, my impurities (not all, but tons) came rushing up to the surface making the simplest conversation a mine field of mind conditioning, ego-istic responses. My divorce was seemingly inevitable and painful. It was by far the hardest period of my life, where all of my dreams and attachments seemed to crumble around me.

And the great thing about when your life ‘falls apart’ is: when everything is gone, there’s just you, sitting with yourself.

There’s not much in the modern American culture that promotes or supports the experience of actually feeling you. Who you are. Where you are. And all those little voices that sound off endlessly, clamoring for attention. Its the hardest thing to do to be with yourself, not just by yourself. Certainly one of the most unpleasant! But of course its a gift. Its a moment of access to what is real and true for you. All of those ideas about what has happened. All of those ideas about that person, about yourself, about life. Its always been there. Always working in the background driving your every decision and move. Now you have the chance to jump into the stream and direct your attention to the horde. Can you be curious?

I’ve notice the tendency of those that have a commitment to personal growth and spiritual growth there there are seasons of growth and entropy. I’ve seen it clearly in my life. There will be a period of searching for concepts or guidelines or teachers that feel ‘right’. Then we take them and work with them, evolving them, adding to them…aways changing. Then growth, sometimes profound amounts, including great insight, clarity, opening and power.

Then over time it become easier and easier to fall into the trap of knowing. By knowing what is so, proved out over years, there is an insulation to the present that slowly builds up and blind spots, sometimes huge ones are fed and blossom. Its only a matter of time till the poop hits the fan on some level creating a crisis. Crisis is never fun. It is the low point on the oscillating wave of the process of being human.

But it puts things into some better perspective. It shocks you out of knowing, into questioning, into un-knowing. That openness what your power in the growth cycle. Noticing. Presence.

Yesterday’s Breakthroughs are Todays Ego-trips! Isn’t that lovely! Or shocking. Either way it is a call to remember to create who you are every day, hour and moment, rather than rest on the laurels of gotting it figured out, i.e. knowing.

I don’t view the crisis of an hour, a day, a week, a year or a lifetime as a negative. Of course its an opportunity for growth (when you hit the bottom there’s only one real way to go, up), but more than that I think it is, like the winter, an inevitable, important cleansing and awaking moment that reoccurs again and again to break off the weak branches, so to speak. It happens to the best teacher and the most unconscious student alike. It won’t look the same, but its there.

I also don’t believe crisis is the only teacher, yet it has always been the principle motivating factor in my own life. A nice article with a similar view.

My teacher once talked about vomiting as an ayurvedic cleansing, noting that most people are afraid of that intense energy and try to not vomit when they feel the need. But its good! Whatever is needing to get out, let it out. I believe the same is true for discomfort and crisis. Stay present, yet don’t resist the poop as it gets hurled across the room. Like the food clogging the drain in your kitchen sink: reach on in and touch it with your hands and get it out!

In love,
A