#rebelyoga

the list of important things for today:

a .

listen to phantogram. on repeat.

two.

go to the beach and have long, intense-o, meaningful dharma talks with likeminded yogi housemates/friends/fellow-old-soul.

tres.

i went to the New York Yoga Journal Conference. i've been in... not a funk, per-se, but a... plateau. i've felt a little uninspired. a lack of sparkle a verve and passion and fire. which is not like me at all. i'm a constant schemer; i always have plans, ideas, banditry... i pretty much can't slow down because i'm so full of excitement to be in ACTION.

that's normal me. lately not so much. i've really been digging deep down to figure out what's all tied up, what's getting stuck somewhere. cause somethin' was feeling all sluggish and gross and slow... like i had molasses in the engine instead of gas.

i took a seane corne workshop... and she said something that really struck me. at first it didn't really clang the bell, but i've felt it over the past 12 hours creeping around in the back of my subconscious and that's a surefire sign that i need to look that thought dead in the eye, and either shoot it dead, or get real up close and personal.

seane was asking what trauma, hurt, pain, or unhealed parts of ourselves we needed to care for so that we can show up fully for the people in our lives and for ourselves. i've spent the majority of the past 5 years doing that work with myself.

it was not easy.

actually it really sucked. it was frustrating, and upsetting, and difficult, and draining, and i wanted to quit every single damn day. taking a good, long, slow, deep look at yourself is terrifying at worst, demoralizing at best when there's so much accumulated hurt. to look at yourself, when you're wounded, is to have to remember, deconstruct, and understand all the seemingly terrible things that have ever happened to you your whole life. have you ever cried so hard you cry yourself to exhaustion and pass out cold? yeah: its like that, pretty much all the time.

but i also recognize my privilege in even having the opportunity to sit down and think about these things, let alone having the time to heal, to deal with all the knots of pain tied up within myself. so every time i wanted to quit and take the easy route (easy route: quitting, being unhappy, settling into misery, being comfortable with what i knew even if what i knew sucked the big one, etc.) i remembered how lucky and privileged i am and to not take that for granted.

if you have the power, the opportunity, and the knowledge to do something that improves yourself or the world, you better not waste it. you better fucking take it and run with it.

so i kept doing that work. here is where i started: an addicted, ruthlessly masochistic, skinny, mascara stained mess of a person. bigger walls than berlin circa the 80s before the fall.

here is where i ended up: with a lot of scars.

with a lot of hope.

with a lot of faith.

with a deep, electrifying, bottomless well of love.

that hard work, the un-knotting of what the world has thrown at you, to look at yourself, to constantly address and deconstruct and say "sorry" and forgive yourself and to take ownership and do things even when they're so difficult it feels like an emotional ironman... when you finally feel finished? not even close.

because all that the world does throw at us, it leaves us scarred. those scars are reminders that it does not get easier. you don't do the work and then magically life sops being hard! bad things stop happening! everyone loves you! you love yourself all the time and there is nary a spot of rain or a cloudy day! nope. it is a life-long challenge. because after the wounds start to heal, those scars last for life. and you have to realize how deep they run. for me, i'm in a place in my life where i'm just recognizing how deep my scars run, and how my fear of getting hurt again still limits me.

seane corne asked us to look at what wounds we have... but i don't have any fresh gashes right now. what i do have are leftover fears all over the place. sometimes i'll be walking around my own mind, not watching where i'm going and i'll trip right over one. and tehre it is, the ghost of some wound of lives past that i'm still trying to negotiate around.

this weekend i finally realize that what's making me feel so sluggish and stuck -- are my own limiting beliefs. it's hard for me to see them, sometimes, but they're still there, none-the-less. it takes special hard-won black-eyed-life-prize-fighter vision to identify when one of those limiting beliefs are at work, but i'm getting better and better at spotting them.

my top two at work?:

being A Failure.

i'm not qualified to do that = i haven't earned the right = i don't want people to think i have a "big ego" or to think i don't know what i'm doing = i'm afraid of what people will think of me.

still! after all that work! i'm afraid, deep down, in two big ways, of what the outside world will think of me if i try, and then fuck it up. that was my biggest story, back in the day: i'm a fuck up. i fuck evvvvverrrryyything up. that's really what i thought. and you know what? part of it was completely true. i didn't show up for what i said i would show up for. i lied, to everyone, including myself, all the time. i lied about why i was doing things, i lied about who i was, i lied about what i wanted, i lied about what i thought. i was a big effing liar. i was irresponsible, i didn't get anywhere on time, i didn't Take Care of My Shit. part of dealing with the big mess of being a fuck up was taking ownership for my words, my truth, and the mistakes i had made. part of it was not making excuses for myself. and part of it was being more authentic and not saying "yes" to all the things i didn't really want to do. the biggest part of it was realizing my behavior made me feel like a royal fuck-up... but i was not a fuck-up. so i changed my behavior. inchingly, slowly i changed. slowly the people around me saw it. slower still, i started to see it in myself.

and even though i know i'm not a fuck-up (and i never really was), those scars are still realllll fresh. they have JUST healed over. and in the back of my mind is my limiting belief that if i go after something i want, people will judge me. they'll think i'm still that fuck-up girl. most of all, i'm afraid that i'll forget all the hard work i've done and think that i AM still a fuck-up.

and that limiting belief, buried down in there, has been holding me back from taking this world by storm. my fear is Holding. Me. Back. i could make this world SHAKE if i stepped fully into my own power and the opportunities the world is shooting my way. but when i let me fear hold me back, i don't step up to the plate. and guess what? you'll never hit the damn ball if you don't step up to the plate. whatever is holding you back is keeping you from ever finding out.

It has been a WEEK. OHHHH MAN. The moon has been messing with people's moods something fierce and there has been an eau d' crankiness goin' on like crazy-town.

One of the really spectacular gifts in being a yoga teacher is how much insight I get into the general mood of people. I watch them when they breathe, when they move, when they practice, and let me tell you: I can see when they get frustrated. They wear their bad mood like a giant heavy coat. And I know, because I do it too. I know what its like to be in a class where I am NOT enjoying it; not because the teacher is bad, not because its hard, but because I'm not getting what I need.

When I first started going to yoga classes and an instructor would ask me to do something that was beyond the scope of my ability, or I was too tired and couldn't do one more chaturanga, or when we were taking 100 child's poses and I need to SWEAT... I would throw a frickin fit. This Blissed Out McBlisserson Prayer-Chanting Life-Loving Yoga Teacher? Yeah, this little guy would have a tantrum. I would huff and puff and say to myself "UGHHHHH I CAN'T DO THAT SO WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME??? ARGGGGGGG." This was a while ago, although the occasionally ego-bitch-throwdown still occurs when I'm not being tuned-in to myself. And why would I mentally kick and scream? Because I felt like whatever was being asked of me was not what I wanted. And why wasn't it what I wanted? Because it was not what I needed to be doing for myself.

And I see the same reactions in others all the time. I say in class: "Take a Vinyasa" and you would think I had said: "Take a Jail Sentence" the way people growl and groan and generally freak the fuck out. Even through they always have the freedom to say: "I can't.", or the freedom to say: "More." But, a lot of the time, like I used to, they feel some deep panic that they are going to be pushed so far out of their comfort zone that they'll never get back. And they feel like what's being asked of them is beyond what they can give... because they haven't clearly figured out, articulated, and asked for what it is they really NEED. Or they have, and it still isn't being met (that's always a possibility).

Instead of dialing it back and checking in with themselves, they take that frustrating externally, getting annoyed with the teacher, themselves, the mat, the block... anything within firing range. Which I understand; it's tough to come to a yoga class, or to do anything, and get from that experience what you really need for yourself. Now when I go to class, if I need a child's pose, I take a child's pose. If I need to go a level deeper in my physical practice, or take a vinyasa to get deeper into my meditation or my movement, I take it, because I came to class to get something I need, and you better believe I'm not leaving without it.

It took a while to break that down for myself. It's a long, tough, messy process. But here is the basic breakdown of the self-inquiry I do every day.

A. I have what I need.

We can think of this as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (go wikipedia that if you don't know whati'm talking about because you didn't have to suffer through Psych 101 in college). But let's dig deeper into the practicalities of what that really mean. "I have what I need" is a tricky sentence to unpack. There's a huge spectrum of Need versus Want:

-What Is Actually Essential For My Survival -What Is Key For Me To Begin Thriving And Not Just Surviving -The Things That Are Lovely But I Can Definitely Survive Without and lastly, - Things That My Mind/Society/Ego Is Telling Me I Need But I Actually Don't

It's supremely hard to learn how to delineate where the things in our lives fall on this spectrum. it takes a lot of reflection, self-analysis, and deep introspection to figure out where things fit on this line: our car, breakfast, our best friends, our loved ones, hobbies, books, movies, dancing, pineapples, dating, jobs, that awesome bag we just saw, donating to charity, driving someone to the airport... Every single thing that enters our sphere and our lives belongs somewhere on this spectrum. And although everyone's essential needs truly are the same (breathing, water, a roof over our heads, etc.) the stuff that we throw into the column of What Is Key For Me To Begin Thriving differs so drastically between people that you wouldn't even believe it, even if they could be 100% honest with you and tell you straight-up to your face.

What we can see on the outside of people is not necessarily reflective on what goes on inside; below the surface human beings are complicated, complex, and multi-layered. And what goes on below the surface we call: "Below the Waterline". What goes on Below the Waterline, what people need to feel content, flourishing, valued, respected, creative, loved... we can assume, but you know what they say about ASS-U-ME.

Learning to figure out what those things are for ourselves, without confusing them with the last two categories is A HERCULEAN EFFORT. It takes guts to look deep within and figure it out. Sometimes it takes more than guts and we need a little life-coaching, a little goal-coaching. Sometimes is gets really confusing and we have to find a whole lot more patience than we thought we would need to muddle through our own crazy selves.

I recently had the pleasure of having the universe send me one such situation. I recently got rid of the TV we have in our house. I had been asking, for a while, to get rid of it: its loud, usually pretty vapid, and it doesn't contribute to the overall mental clarity I like to have in my home-base. Plus I can watch TV online for free. Free vs. Paid, you always know where I stand. A few days ago, I suddenly had an incredible urge to watch TV. The fact that I couldn't made me incredibly anxious and super fucking cranky. like I was a little kid being denied money for the ice cream truck. i was stomping around and starting to take my crankiness out on the people around me; even though getting rid of the TV was something I said I needed and wanted for my SurThrivalness. When I sat down to think about why I felt like my needs still weren't being met, I realized that what was really going on was 2-fold:

a. My mind was reacting to what felt like a lack of Freedom: the Freedom to do whatever I wanted, when I wanted to. What a brat.

b. I teach 4-5 days a week, plus my other jobs besides. I work with a lot of giving, and a lot of energy, and some days when I come home I just need to turn my brain into the OFF position. TV is an easy, knee-jerk way to do that; it sucks my brain right out of my body and into the never-never-land of girl sobbing on the Bachelor and Snooki peeing on the floor. No thinking required.

So what felt like crankiness was actually a new need; a new way to relax when I get home from work. And my crankiness was actually just my mind's reaction to the situation at hand, one which I had created. What did I really want? It wasn't that I really wanted TV, I just wanted an mental vacation, an escape. But there's plenty of other ways to get that, and from experience, I know that getting TV back again doesn't actually meet my Need or Want: its just a saccharine substitute.

Figuring out what the True Need or Want is... Phew. Good God. It takes a lot. And once we figure it out....

B. I clearly articulate what I need.

Although that we wish they were, our girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, partners, children, parents, bosses, friends, dogs... are not psychics. We expect the people around us will know what we need, what our deepest hearts desire... but we are rarely even willing to tell them. Instead, we assume they'll know, or we have unreachable expectations that they will, and then hold them accountable to that expectation. Which seems really fair. I, personally, love when I get back to my car and find a parking ticket on the windshield some street where there is nary a sign posted about the parking laws there. Its so exciting to just have to guess what rules and laws I am supposed to follow, and play Parking Roulette with whether or not I'll get in trouble for breaking the law! Except... that actually sucks (and it's illegal). And it sucks for a reason: holding people accountable to something without telling them, and then punishing them when they don't know is a set-up for failure -- yours and theirs.

Have you ever been in an argument with someone, and they yell at you: "Well you should just know!" And in your mind, you think: "Really??? And how should I just know that??? Was there a memo I missed? Did you send a message about that through Carrier Pigeon? Did I get bit by radioactive spider and suddenly develop telekinesis?"

If we expect others to tell us what they need from us, we need to also make sure we are clearly expressing what we need from them. Are you doing that? Are you even taking the time to sit down, breathe, and figure out what it is, exactly, that you need? And then being brave enough to ask for it?

C. _ I get mine_.

Yeah, you heard me. I. Get. Mine.

One of my favorite quotes is: "You save yourself or you remain unsaved." It sounds rough, but at the end of the day, we are responsible for our own well-being, our own health, our own needs. No one else is going to take care of you for you. No one else is in your brain and can figure out what will make your skin glow, the corners of your mouth to turn up and your heart to skip a beat. That's your responsibility. No one is gonna hold your hand and figure it our for you. And, at the end of the day if you want to make the world around you a better place, you have to start with yourself.

But, my little world-changers, universe-rockers, fire-starters... if you can't change yourself, if you can't figure out how to dig out the weeds and find the roots of your happiness and bliss, in other words, if you can't get your rocks off however you choose to do so in this world (without hurting other, of course), how can your contribute to the overall happiness of the world around you. I'll tell you: You Can't. We feel conditioned to think if we are asking for too much, we're being self-centered and selfish. Which, can be totally true if we don't go through step 1 and 2 first. If we don't figure out what we really Need versus what we just Want, then we ARE being selfish -- selfish with our thoughts and actions. And we can't know what we can give until we see what we have, and to do that we have to check-in and take inventory of what is going on inside.

My favorite teacher at Laughing Lotus Yoga NYC, Mary-Dana, used one of the best metaphors I've ever heard: when you're on an airplane, they explain to you what to do if you experience turbulence. The airmasks will drop down, and you put them on. But you know what they tell you to do if you have a little kid with you? Put yours on first. Why? You can't take care of someone else until you take care of yourself first. WHAT? I know, crazy radical talk there. But its the Triple truth truth truth.

And the best place to start to practice? On your mat, one step at a time, one pose at a time, one class at a time. Be brave enough to practice stepping on your mat, and finding, asking for, and getting what you need from your practice. And then see if you can take that... and experience in Real Time Real Life. To do it? You're gonna have to be brave. You've got to be audacious. You've got to have fearless honesty.

yours in the trenches of the sweat war,

This year, on January 1st, I committed to myself that I would practice Yoga for 366 days a year straight (well, I actually committed to 365 days a year before I found out it was a leap year). I knew that practicing, both physically and mentally, was a pretty hefty commitment. Honestly, I'm not sure if I can do it. The first three days are golden, you feel awesome and so psyched about your practice and you are such a CHAMP. You walk around feeling so Namaste to everyone and OMG I'm such a YOGI. And then day 4 your damn biceps are shot and you're hungover or just plain tired and your mind goes... ehhhhhh I'll skip a day! Its just a day, I mean... come on. I've done this before.

I've said I'll do something, or be somewhere... and then not done it. This year is different. I have been showing up on my mat, every day, no matter what. I have stopped making excuses. I show up even if I am tired (and maybe even force myself to take a nap in prep, ha), or if I am having a struggle doing a pose or just struggling in that day in life. Even if my yoga for the day means I do 3 sun salutations and then just kind of lay there in the fetal position. And honestly, I find that once I'm on the mat, I pull a whole bucket out of that deep well, that deep reserve of energy. I will also tell you, what has been going on in my brain, showing up every day on my mat, has been unexpected. It has changed how I show up in my own life every day.

Because the thing is: when you show up, again and again, a certain magic happens.

For one, your words become much more powerful: when your actions back up what you say, you gain a kind of credibility -- not only with others, but with yourself. Doing what you say and saying what you do is hella important. Nobody wants to be a hypocrite, and nobody trusts a hypocrite either. And when you say something, when you use your voice or your intention to commit to something... and then don't? You start to doubt yourself, you get down on yourself, because you're not showing up for yourself. But when you show up, JUST by showing up, no matter the result, you prove to yourself your own strength, and the strength of your will, and your words.

Because commitment is more than just saying you'll do something, or be something, or live a certain way. Commitment is about showing up, over and over. Even when you're tired, and cranky, or its hard and you're frustrated.

And most especially when showing up means "failure". That's the tricky part of commitment. I'm not just talking about the kind of commitment in coming to yoga class, or sticking to a resolution we made, or thinking before we speak; I'm also talking about in our relationships with our partners, our friends, or parents, siblings, children... EVERY relationship, no matter how big or small. I have a friend who is having a tough time negotiating the beginning of a long-distance relationship. She was telling me that in every other situation she's in, things are easy and she has a super awesome easy time being "yogic" and staying calm and focused and unattached to the outcome.... an easy time showing up as her true and authentic self. And in this case, she's struggling somethin' fierce to be that even-keeled uber-zen yogi girl she believes herself to be. She's getting frustrated, and that makes her even crazier. And then she feels crazy for feeling crazy... you know the drill. I know the situation she's in, and its the first time (in a long time) that she's really putting herself out there. Normally, she has relationships with guys, or friends, whoever, where she's sure of how they feel about her. Being sure about how someone feels about you instills a sense of calm confidence. You don't over-analyze their every facebook post, how long it takes to respond to a text, the tone of their voice on the phone (ps - does anyone even still use the phone???). But for my friend, this is the first time in a while where she might get hurt. She might really care about this guy and have it end in an apocalyptic tragedy where she has to eat pints of all-natural gelato and listen to Adele on repeat and cry in child's pose. So, I mean, big shockety shock that she's having a hard time maintaining that "yogic calm" she's so used to maintaining.

Cause yeah, its easy to feel really good, really successful at being this perfect, centered, totally easy-going, unattached, authentic yogi when there's no challenge. I can go to a level 1 yoga asana class and breathe through everything, smile, Om Shanti Shanti Shanti the living crap out of it and walk out feeling like I'm so GREAT at yoga, right? No sweat, literally. No duh. There's no challenge there. Do the things you're already good at and then you'll never have to feel bad about yourself! You'll never have to feel like a failure! Congrats!!! You've found the secret formula to happiness right there... except that's an illusion. That's not real happiness. That's not really putting yourself out there. And that's not really showing up for yourself and your life.

It's way harder -- and this is the yoga right here -- its way harder to SHOW UP when we might fail. When there's a challenge. When we're tired. When we're not sure. When we're scared. If I take a Super Hard Very Advanced Sweat Out 78% Of The Water In Your Body asana yoga class in the city: I guarantee you I will not be the most advanced in the class, even as a teacher. I will struggle. I will have difficulty holding poses... hell I'll have difficultly staying upright. I will doubt my ability to do things, and I will have to work through that doubt. I will stand up and fall, and then fall again. I will try some kind of crazy forearm stand into an arm-balance and fall flat on my damn face. And you know what? I'll probably have a few moments where I get real mad about that, where I feel like a shitty yogi. And I'll have to work through that too. I will have to work much harder to have patience with myself and my practice. I will have to work much harder to find faith in myself.

But where does the real work lie? Where does the real transformation occur? It happens when we COMMIT, when we SHOW UP, and when we do so KNOWING it will be hard. The yoga? Yeah, it IS in the hard-work. If we quit on ourselves, or on the people we love, on anything that is something or someone we've committed to in our lives when the waters get dark and churny... then we're not really showing up. And the transformation we're looking for will never occur.