Yoga Rebel ~ Yoga. Art. Love. Life.

No matter how brief a relationship may have been, a heart break is always a heart break.

I feel as if a part of my body and soul has been ripped off and there is no way of retrieving it.

They say that once in a while you meet your soul mates. There are those who say that once you find your soul mate, you must protect and hold on to your mate at all costs. Then there are others who teach that once your Love is gone, you must let it go with grace.

My mind wants to practice the latter, be a good student of spiritual teachers like Osho and gracefully let go of some of my most magical moments in my life. My heart, however, struggles to stay present and be here in this freezing city, miles away from one of my most life changing relationships I’ve ever encountered.

And this battle between mind and heart tortures my entire soul day after day and night after night.

Yet, despite all of my sorrow and misery, I still express the deepest gratitude to the Universe every day for the experience that I’ve had.

That’s the thing about broken heart. Even in the midst of dreadful misery and deep sadness, it’s still worth it and it is always worth it. I’d much rather have that than drying up and die inside with quiet desperation or settle with meaningless “good-enough.”

  “You open your heart, knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day, and in opening your heart, you experience love and joy that you never dreamed possible.” ~ Bob Marley

  Up until this point, I thought I was fairly good at what yoga teachers often call “sitting in your own $h!t.” With my personality, like many other depression prone artists, I truly believe that sadness and grief actually produce much richer work. As a yoga teacher, my playlists are often fueled by my current emotions and my sequences are much more soulful when I feel deep sadness. What I find often is that once I let myself fully drown in my sadness for a while, I feel a little flicker of happiness or joy emerge ever so softly and unexpectedly. These little flickers do not take away my sorrow but lasts long enough to let me continue on with my daily tasks.

What I did notice about this heartbreak was that I was still dwelling in my sadness and not moving. Osho says that “to be miserable means somehow you are uprooted from the earth; you have become separate from the river, you have become a frozen block, an ice cube floating in the river but not with it.” So in the name of “sitting in my own” sadness, I was not flowing. If I were truly present and acutely aware of the present moment, there must be a flow because, as Buddhists say the only thing certain is impermanence. Even my sadness is not permanent, in fact constantly changing the degrees, shapes, and tastes, moment by moment. If I am not able to notice the subtle changes of my grief, I must be simply dreaming unconsciously and unconscious dreaming is neither productive nor graceful.

So I will not stop grieving until it leaves me naturally. And in the moments that I truly miss him, I will miss him and drown in my thoughts and feelings of deep longing. Until a flicker of light shows up and reminds me how beautiful that star filled sky was that last night as we sat and watched the moon light shine the rocks or how every single one of your touch made the whole world disappear or how much I adored listening to you talk about such random topics and made me giggle. Those were the moments of love and joy I never dreamed possible.

So today, I will keep my heart open even if it’s wounded, bruised and weak so that I continue to experience more moments of love and joy.

This article is not about typical problems of follow though with new year's resolutions. I think philosophers, scientists, anthropologists and Oprah have all talked about that and they have suggestions to sort that out.

The real pitfalls of goal setting is not that we can't follow through. We don't set goals right. 

"This year, I am going to do A, B, C" 

I've done this many times. 

I've even taken my time, meditated, and felt pretty confident that I have thought this through carefully and have created fail-free goals. I've even fulfilled many goals each year. 

Yet, something was not right. I still didn't FEEL fulfilled. 

The thing is, we think we know so much about what we really want. But the truth is, most of the time, I have no idea what the heck I want and what actually makes me feel happy. 

Growing up, my dreams changed so frequently my parents didn't really take me seriously most of the time. One week, I wanted to be a musician, another week, I wanted to be a pilot, then the next week, I was dead set on being an actress. 

I think I still do more or less the same thing. "This year, I'm going to be really organized." "This year, I am going to open a yoga studio." 

So......how would I set a goal if I didn't know what makes me feel happy?

"The question is of your inner feelings" ~ Osho

It doesn't matter whether I am a musician, yoga teacher, or a banker, had $30 or $30 million in my bank account. If I don't feel the way I wanted to feel, they're all useless. 

When I was in high school in Japan, I had a crush on one of the senior boys. He lived in the US for a year and had just come back to Japan. As I nervously sat down, sitting next to him as he talked about his life overseas, and I expressed my interest in living in Canada, he said "well, what do you want to do there?" 

I had no idea and it stopped me completely.....English was my favourite subject and I was really good at it. But what was I going to do once I finish college? What was my dream? I had been focusing so much on being accepted by universities or colleges in Canada that I missed the whole point. I was reminded that the point of actually going overseas or going to universities is to be able to actually do the things I want to do in my life and be happy. But what is it that I want to do? So I frantically made a list of things I think I want to do because those are the things that should make me feel happy: secure jobs to keep me stable so I can travel, buy clothes, get a car, and have secure retirement. 

so that turned into a every year list. "This year, I will be organized in my finances" "This year, I am going to cook more" "This year, I am going to lose/gain weight" "This year, I am going to run more". These things became my new "car" or "secure jobs". And I am the first one to admit that not all of them actually made me happy. They did for a short while and the effect quickly wore off.

I wonder if I could actually trust my feelings to guide me through the year? What if I still set goals to the best of my knowledge, realize that even my own goals are part of ever changing impermanent things in life so I stay open and flexible in my goals AND diligently follow my feelings? Would that work? I think I am willing to give it a try. What's your thought?

My wise acupuncturist said to me recently "To be awake is kind of like we are invited into the magical world and leave behind the muggle world. Once we enter the magical world, we can never go back to being muggles."

To be awake in the world is sometimes a curse and a blessing for sure. To be conscious of what is really happening in front of us instead of living in our stories of what might be happening. To simply sit and watch our minds that can be quite disturbing and ugly can be an excruciating thing. 

Some people are practicing being awake already. They are yogis, artists, parents and kids, doctors and many more. I tend to notice these people more amongst yogis and artists only because these are the people I hang out with often. But I know that there are so many people who are practicing being awake. Sometimes I regret knowing that I can work with my mind and watch as opposed to letting the current take my mind to wherever it leads and blame everyone else for it because that is much easier to do.

I have been in the prison cell of my own mind for as long as I can remember. I only recently learned that I actually have the key to this cell and I can break out of it anytime I want.  I can also let myself into this cell. 

Finally being honest with ourselves and letting ourselves be seen exactly the way we are takes a tremendous amount of courage. And it's helpful to have a circle of our friends and family who are also in the magical world and working with their minds. The ones who call on your shit and also look out for each other. We call those of us jokingly (but not so jokingly) the Wolf Pack. And I feel so fortunate to be in this weird little group and I feel so much love for them.

About 52min. I used this playlist as part of Advanced Vinyasa Assisting workshop. We had so much fun and loved every moment of it. 

Miles Away (Acoustic Edit)- Years Around the Sun

Hard Sun- Eddie Vedder

Best Day of My Life- American Authors

Roar- Katy Perry

Peponi (Paradise)- The Piano Guys

Human- The Killers

By the Grace of God- Katy Perry

Fake Plastic Trees- Radiohead

Maybe I'm Amazed- Jem

Heaven- Brandi Carlile

Inspired by various stories of love.

Electric Cunterpoint II Slow- Pat Metheny

Miles Away- Years around the sun

Peponi (paradise)- The Piano Guys

Towers- Bon Iver

Electric Counterpoint I Fast- Pat Metheny

Rolling in the Deep- The Piano Guys

Forcefield- Jont

Everything'll be Alright- Joshua Radin

She keeps me warm- Mary Lambert

Wonderwall- Ryan Adams

Try (Pink cover)- Damir Kedzo

Kiss Me- Ed Sheeran

When it gets too dark,

even the light is scary

because we haven't seen anything in such a long time

the sharp ray of light might slice our wounds wide open

When it gets too dark, 

we can't tell the difference between a soft blanket and a cheese grater

so we hide in the darkness

alone and lonely, scared and hardening

gentle stroke against our scabs

And what we've forgotten is how warm a real ray of light might feel on our skin

how it kisses your entire face without biting

how it melts our bodies from inside out 

When it gets too dark, 

maybe I'll step outside this time around

and we'll do it again, with our scabs and bruises

just to feel that warmth again

Love comes and Love leaves. Simple as that. 

In our society, we are taught to believe that there is that "one true Love" for everyone. So we go from one person to another, one job to another, one country to another, searching for that one true Love that was destined to be ours and once we find it, it is guaranteed to last forever. So our desperate search begins at our early age and lasts either till you decided that you found it or you die searching for it.

Some ancient teachers teach us otherwise. Osho in particular believed that love itself is eternal but love shows up in many different forms: Some as that one true love, some as that barista you have a crush on, some as your great friends you thought could be lovers but not, some as one night stands, some even as your pets. Love just shows up and he/she/it may leave the next day. But love itself is true and eternal. It's when WE decide that it was important to our lives and hold on to it, that love turns into suffering in our minds. When this happens, it shows that we were actually not in love with ourselves at all. If we are in love with ourselves all the time, then whether love shows up in another form and stay or not shouldn't matter to us. But because we are not in love with ourselves truly, we hold on to love that came in a certain form that is different from us. 

My friend who is a therapist recommends that we notice the minute details of our experiences when we are happy: smell, taste, sound, touch, who you're with, where you are, what you are wearing, etc. 

For me, that is when I practice yoga alone, when I paint alone, when I read my favorite books first thing in the morning alone. Of course time spent with others is also my happy moments. But those tend to be happy moments more often than time spent alone. It is important for me to notice things like that smell the acrylic paint fill my apartment, music I listen to when I practice yoga alone, the way my cat snuggles when I read alone. Those are the times I notice I do not need anyone else to bliss out. I am happy, alone. I have everything I need right here.