Top Ten Life Lessons from my students

1. Practice.

We all reach plateaus in our practice.   “I’ll never get handstand.”  “I’m afraid of bakasana.”  But with every class, their sun salutations get a little stronger, their bodies more integrated, and their feet a little lighter.  Then one day, we have the a-ha!  “I’ve never done that before!”  Watching my students inexorably progress in their practice reminds me to stay patient and wait for the inevitable unfolding – not just in practice, but in life.  Everything really does move forward.

2. Community elevates.

It never fails: doing partner work in a class elevates the energy in the room.  Given the opportunity to connect with our fellow yogis, we all become brighter, more energized, and more dynamic.   Helping someone else reminds us how much we know and how much we can share.  Take this into the world and we find that connecting with our community helps us to tap into our potential.

3.  Connection energizes.

There have been many times where I have arrived to teach dog tired and done.  But I never fail to leave a class better than when I have arrived.  The opportunity to connect with my students and share gives me energy.   Teaching reminds me that when I share of myself, I am also elevated, healed, inspired.

4.  Be yourself.

The best classes that I have taught are classes where I have not tried to be an “ideal teacher,” but have simply been myself.  While this may have led to some goofy moments (“make your butt like Beyonce” was a recent artifact of this authenticity), I have found that students immediately respond when I am genuine.  Being a pristine asana robot just doesn’t cut it; they want the real thing – goofiness and all.   They remind me that sharing my silliest parts is actually far more rewarding than trying to fit into a box of perfection.

5. Fall Down.

Sometimes you have to fall over in Half Moon to figure out where the boundaries of balance are.  I’m thrilled when students dare to fall down.  How else will we find out where our edges are?  They remind me that moving forwards isn’t always about looking pretty.

6.  Turn the Heat Up.

Having just finished the YHot training, I can attest that sometimes you just gotta turn the heat up, close the door, meet yourself in the mirror, and sweat it out.  Like life, sometimes we need to move into the discomfort in order to break through.  Dare to face the intensity.  On the other side is a great Savasana.

7. When it’s tough, breathe more.

In the moments where we hit our peak pose, the room will often go silent.  As we intensely concentrate, we forget to breathe.  But once the reminder is sent out and the room starts to inhale again, the poses actually become more integrated and find softness.  When we face our greatest challenges,  we can get out of heads and back into our hearts by simply focusing on our breath.

8.  Take child’s pose.

The most advanced student in the room is the one who takes child’s pose when she needs to.  While there can be great value in rallying into intensity, sometimes the practice actually calls for surrender.  Determining which path to take requires discrimination and self-love.  Having the bravery to practice self-care by softening can do more to propel us along our path than twenty chaturangas.

9. Feel.

One of the gifts of the yoga practice is to feel more deeply into our bodies, our breath, and our aliveness.  I love to see my students take an extra breath in downdog, give a deep sigh, or take the arm variation their body craves, because it means that they are feeling into their bodies and following its guidance.   Rather than simply doing the practice “right,” they are using the practice as a conduit to greater self-connection.  When my students feel their way through the practice – rather than just “doing” the practice – I am reminded that the body is a deep and innate source of wisdom.

10. We are all human.   

When I share a personal story at the beginning of class and see nodding heads, I am reminded that we have far more in common than we have divergent.  Each of us has dreams, regrets, conflict, hopes, loss, and love.  Each of us is trying our best to negotiate the waters of life with grace and compassion.  When we practice yoga in the classroom, we come together with a diversity of people from all walks of life.  On the mat, these differences drop away and we meet each other from the heart.   Out in the world, this reminds me to look for the good in others, rather than staking my ego on our differences.

Michelangelo’s Yoga

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” 

“Every block of stone has a sculpture inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

– Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

 

Michelangelo had the ability to see the form inside the sculpture.  He carved away that which was not necessary from the marble in order to reveal the beauty of the form already underneath.

We are like Michelangelo’s marble.

When we think of aspiring to be our best selves, we often think about slathering on more duties and obligations.  We feel that we have to do more – exert more – in order to reach some sort of far off potential.   But we’ve got it backwards.  Our best self is already innately inside of us.  The form is there.  Our highest creative calling is to discard that stuff that is getting in the way so that our best selves can be fully revealed.

What do you need to carve away?

For many of us there is the literal stuff.  Here’s some of what’s on my list:

  • Mom’s old pots
  • dress that hasn’t been worn in five years (because you never know)
  • crazy, high uncomfortable heels that I will wear….when, exactly?
  • cosmetics from the 90’s (seriously, this stuff is practically dangerous)
  • notebooks from college (makes me feel smart)

How is holding onto your stuff serving you?  Is is protecting you or holding you back?  What would spring cleaning look like?  After the initial pang, how would it feel to let all that go?

We  perform a similar kind of plaster job in our yoga classes by overlaying tension on our asana.  Rather than trusting ourselves to find ease and work less, we over-engage as some sort of admission price for advancement.  Not realizing that if we actually stopped working so darn hard, the yoga would have more space to emerge.  Now, I’m not saying we don’t work in asana.  We do.  Just like chiseling a rock is sweaty and deep.  But we want to do the real work and find where we actually need to be stronger, rather than simply engaging everything and hoping for the best.

A bit more tricky to identify our emotional baggage. The relationship that is no longer working.  The job that doesn’t allow us to express our best selves.  The habits we casually fall into that keep us from doing what we ACTUALLY want to do.

The Road Home

Rather than adding on more obligations to your day, get out your chisels, and start carving away what is not working from your life.  Start with the externals.  Do a spring cleaning.  Get rid of Mom’s old pots – she loves you even if you give them to Goodwill.  In your asana practice, start finding more ease so that the parts of your body that need to be stronger will actually have the chance to work.  And the parts that love to over-effort can finally find some space.  When we let go of what no longer serves us, the opportunity appears for the luminous parts of ourselves to emerge.  Sunshine appears through the chinks of the armor.

As we blow away the dust in our physical world, the emotional and mental baggage starts to become clearer.  The quiet whispered messages from your deepest self will begin to get louder.  You already know what you need to do.  Can you let go of what is getting in the way?

So maybe today you make a tiny tap into the marble, then tomorrow more of the rock falls away.  Eventually, if you keep chiseling, more of you will be revealed.

A Warning

Despite the fact that he is widely regarded as one of humanity’s greatest artists, Michelangelo’s works weren’t all that proportional or even always pretty.  Powerful, yes.  “Pretty?”  No.  David’s hands are too big and Jesus would never actually fit on Mary’s lap.   And it is exactly this unreasonableness that makes his works so genius.   Michelangelo wasn’t interested in “reasonable” art; he created from his soul.   Similarly, as we carve down into our most essential selves, what we unearth may not be “pretty” or “reasonable.”  We may not fit neatly into the social box anymore.  We may find that the old habits feel confining rather than comfortable.   Others may not understand.   Like Michelangelo’s works, you will be more than “pretty.”  You will be powerfully and uniquely yourself.

Pull out your chisels.  Make a small nick.

And remember: “I am still learning.” – Michelangelo

Kitchen Music: Second Hand Rose

Okay,  this one is a bit of a different style.  Broad, brassy, silly and Broadway.  I recorded this as a present for my Grandma for her recent 92nd birthday.  Back when I was wee (and had permed hair, see figure A), I used to sing this as a cabaret tune, and she’s loved it ever since.  Happy Birthday Grandma!

Second Hand Rose

 

“Kitchen Music:”  Music recorded literally in the kitchen.  No auto-tune.  No fancy mixin’.  Just me and my Garage Band and the sink.  (Caveat: This particular tune recorded in my Dad’s garage at a farm in Texas.)  Thanks for listening.

The Pleasure Manifesto

You have a right to pleasure.
Pleasure.  Say it.  It’s slow, it’s sensual, it has a lovely shhhhhhh sound right in the middle.
Pleasure.

You have a right to feel good in your skin.  It is, in fact, a divinely given right bequeathed to you via your senses, who, like tiny angelic messengers, are constantly bringing you a bounty of sensations upon which to feast.

Your breath |  Your skin |Your sight | Your taste |Your hearing | Your smell.

We live in a culture that is terrified of pleasure.  “It’s…sexual,” we’ve been told in furtive tones, “It’s just indecent!  If we let it take over, who knows what will happen next!” Our pleasurable responses have been strapped down and brow-beaten until they are anemic and sickly.

Because pleasure is power.
Wars are fought over the restraint of pleasure.  Women enshrouded head to foot, both sexes circumcised, emotions shoved down, sexuality twisted into dysfunction.  So when we do have the occasional pleasurable moment, we almost immediately revert to shame (“You shouldn’t have eaten that cake/ slept with that man/ bought that velvet couch”) or start dreading its imminent demise (“This can’t last/ I don’t deserve to feel like this”).  We don’t dare trust that we could actually feel good and not be somehow punished for our impertinence.

Bullshit.

You have a right to pleasure.

And not just sexual pleasure; you have the right to claim the subtle pleasures that are embedded in the fabric of every moment.  The pleasure of breathing and feeling your lungs stretch, the smell of your coffee, the feeling of your favorite sweater, the taste of your food, the sound of your children’s voices.  Most of the time, we rush past these delicacies and move on to “doing something important.”  I, for one, have eaten far too many un-tasted meals.

But we have to be brave. When we allow ourselves to feel, we get present to NOW and WHO we ARE, which is utterly exposing.  And feeling pleasure may open us to feeling other emotions that may not initially seem quite so appealing.  Fear, anxiety, sadness, longing.

But here’s the wild paradox: you can feel pain and  pleasure at the same time.   You can be uncomfortable, sad, even devastated –  and still marinate in the deliciousness of your life.  In fact, those emotional colors will actually heighten your ability to feel pleasure more thoroughly, more completely, and in every moment.

Imagine a world where we dared to claim our right to pleasure. Where we didn’t have to wait to be perfect, or pretty enough, or successful enough to embrace the sensations of our lives.    Where we are already beautiful, delicious, and fully sexy.  Feeling pleasure makes the preciousness of our life unavoidable.  Having a greater connection to our feelings leads to empathy, joy, truth, and deep relationship.  Ultimately, feeling pleasure will lead us to joy and peace.

We must actively cultivate our capacity for pleasure. 
We must practice opening ourselves afresh to the exquisite sensations of being alive.

The Pleasure Manifesto:

  • I am a delicious and miraculous child of the Universe.
  • I claim pleasure as my birthright and accept full-heartedly the gifts of my senses.
  • I relish my body’s aliveness, sensations, and vibrancy.
  • I discard shame as an antiquated social imposition, and I feel the pleasure of each and every moment.
  • I am brave and choose to live more fully, freely, and passionately NOW.