Month: November 2015

I’m right! You’re wrong!

Ooooo, it feels so good to be right!! Doesn’t it? Being right is brain happy food. “He is soooooo wrong!” I say, outraged (but somehow gleeful). When I’m right, I feel safe, secure, and wonderful. “I’ve got this.” Control maintained. Oh happy day!

And then my dad says, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to have a relationship?”

My dad: the yogi that has never practiced yoga.

See, according to yoga philosophy, there is no such thing as right/ wrong, at least not if we can step back and take in the big picture. We humans just get confused because our brains love to make comparisons. If I’m good, you’re bad. If I’m dark, you’re light. Tall/ short, thin/ fat…nothing in the world exists except through comparison. We love this duality; it’s how we make meaning. But to often we forget that duality is just a mind tool; it’s not what’s really happening.

According to Tantra, the Universe is Consciousness unfolding itself, simply for the joy and play (lila) of the experience. You are consciousness regarding itself (yourself), and regarding others as well. Your perspective or viewpoint (darsana) is uniquely yours, a special experience of consciousness knowing itself in a particular way. Verily, we are the universe in self-reflection.

Because we are all part of this self-reflection, everyone is an essential and holy component of this grand unfolding. From this higher perspective, we can see that every viewpoint has value, because it is. It is, therefore it is good. “Right” becomes a limited and egoic tantrum of self-assertion, a needing to prove that our own viewpoint is okay. But when we trust that our own perspective is intrinsically of value, the need to be right becomes obsolete.

Instead of right/wronging each other, we can become curious about someone else’s perspective. What have they experienced that it outside the marvelous sum total of your experiences that would cause them to think so differently? How marvelous! How eye-opening! How curious!

So no to right/ wrong. Let’s soften up our hard edges. Out of curiosity – rather than judgment – true compassion and learning are born.

Photo credit. 

Your mind is a beautiful cage.

Glorious, glittering, shiny, and infinitely complex…but a cage nonetheless.

From the time we’re children, we create an understanding of the world and live by the subsequent rules that we create. And for the most part, these beliefs go unchallenged.

• “I can’t sing.”
• “I’m not good at math.”
• “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.”
• “I can’t do handstand.”

We cruise along in our lives, blithely acting in accordance with these governing beliefs.  And because our mind is so darn persuasive, we often agree to its rules without a second thought.

But your yoga practice is different.

In yoga, we are asked to dive beneath the mind’s advice and admonishments and connect to the intelligence of our bodies and our breath. We deliberately create space from the mind’s relentless and well-meaning chirping (“You’re going to fall!” “You can’t kick into handstand!” “You’re not strong enough!”) in order to pry open some cracks in our armour.

We create space for self-surprise.

There is a part of my practice where my mind jumps in. It’s when I’m practicing handstand. My mind starts its whispering, “You can’t.” While I can’t silence my mind, I can choose to lovingly question its certitude. I focus on my breath. I set my mind’s chatter aside. And then I practice. Some days I fall, and some days I defy my own expectations. By focusing on our breath and letting our body find its own intelligence, we can begin to open the doorway to new possibilities. After all, our mind can only advise based on what it’s already experienced or imagined; new vistas are unimaginable and beyond its scope. The only way to blow our own mind is to create opportunity to transcend our known experience.

In our yoga practice, we experience new possibilities in the form of physical poses (inversion, forward fold, arm balance). We may say, “I never know I could do that!” Ultimately, however, the pose itself doesn’t matter. The pose simply reveals the truth: we don’t need to believe everything that we think.

How might this insight change our world off the mat? When our mind’s cautionary tales are exposed as fiction, suddenly new vistas emerge. Beyond our imagination.

So, say No to self-limiting beliefs.

And say yes to wild possibility.

Fora great article on NLP and limiting beliefs, click here.

“No rushing,” my yoga teacher admonishes sternly.  She’s helping me with backbends.  I’m moving too fast. I take a breath and pause. I slow down. “Good,” she nods, “no rushing.”

Ah, yes, as in yoga, as in life.

Rushing used to make me feel important. “I’m so busy!” I sighed dramatically, secretly thrilled by the sense that I was moving, shaking, and making something happen.

But rushing means autopilot.

Sure, it may look like I’m getting a lot done, but when I rush, I’m not present. So there’s no time to change the way I’m doing something, because the focus is simply get this sucker done. We’re one step ahead the whole way. So we have to run on our brain’s happy habitual grooves, doing everything exactly as we’ve done it before.

Ironically, this isn’t efficient.

When we rush, we forget our keys (our dry cleaning, our kids). We forget to feel (to breathe, to pause, to think, to experience). There’s no time to innovate (change, adjust, improve). We can only survive the rush.

Here’s the funny thing: despite what our brain may be telling us, rushing isn’t about time. Rushing is how we feel on the inside; it’s an internal state. And despite the feeling, it doesn’t get us anywhere more quickly. In fact, rushing often takes up more time, because we miss seeing the possible short cuts along the way.  I don’t have to rush to be efficient when I practice. And how I feel while on the journey is radically different.

This month, Say No to Rushing!

Instead, slow down. Be in the moment. And feel how time and possibility expands.

It’s the month of November and time again for this most remarkable time: saying no.

At first, saying no sounds bad, like a five year old staring at their brussel sprouts. “No! I won’t!” He sticks his tongue out. To me, saying “No” still smells like failure, like I’m a bad sport (bad friend, bad worker, etc.)

That’s why we gotta practice.

Because saying no is a way of saying yes. Saying no asks us, “what is our good stuff worth? And what can we shave away to get it?”

In yoga this month, we’ve said no so far to:

• being small (be big!)
• being isolated (recognize connection!)
• rushing (savour the moment!)

You can start small.

• Say no to the coffee date you don’t really want to go on
• Say no to the extra work project
• Say no to the free tea set that your mom wants to give you (“Nooooo, thank you.”
• Say no to riding the worry train
• Say no to habit

Go on, practice loving on your inner five year old.

Say no.

And say a big old YES to you.

 

Photo credit.

Props to go to my gal Shandy Rae, who came up with this amazing theme several years ago. Check out her most delicious juice bar cafe in Whistler, BC if you’re there.