Overcoming Obstacles to a Home Yoga Practice

Having a personal yoga practice at home requires hardcore self-discipline.

Here are just a few whys and wherefores (and this is in no particular order) that some of us may falter.

1.    There is no teacher or class to hold you accountable.

2.    There is no teacher to adjust or align you better.

3.    There is no teacher to decide which pose to do next.

4.    There is no teacher to tell you when to stop a pose and transition to the next.

5.    There is no teacher to tell you to go deeper & challenge yourself in a pose.

6.    There is no teacher to teach you a new pose accurately and safely.

7.    There is no fee or class card to be forfeited if you don’t show up- hence you show up!

8.    There is no fixed “start time” and “end time” that is respected and stuck to by the yogi or her family.

9.    There is no barrier between you and your family (husband, children, dog, cat, neighbor) to inhibit disruptions.

10.  There is no room (in my case) in my house that is exclusive for the purposes of yoga and meditation.

11.  There is no sign on the door saying “please turn off all cell phones” (TV’s, video games, loud, annoying toys, what have you) to decrease distractions.
12.  If I say "namaste" there is no one there to say it back. 

Yet, despite all of this, we yogis keeping showing up.  We unroll our mat (if we can find it) and begin again…and again…and again.

It’s almost like quitting smoking.  Few and far between just quit the first time, cold turkey.  Most folks have to quit several times before it sticks. Same thing with a home yoga practice- you have to fall off the wagon and quit multiple times it seems before you can get a real rhythm going that is actually sustainable.

In the last two years as I’ve been making stabs at having a more consistent home practice, I’ve been exploring all 11 of the obstacles listed above in varying degrees.

Most recently, as I’ve been confronting the same ‘ol challenges, I’ve been coming back to this question about home practice:When time is limited, how do you decide which yoga poses to do?

Now, I do not believe there is one single answer to this question.  However, I have enjoyed checking out what others think.

For example, in the August 5, 2015 onlineYoga Journal article by Kathryn Budig, “10 Poses That Stand the Test of Time,” the author acknowledged that

“It’s only human to go through phases where you get distracted by the shiny, next, new challenge posein your practice—or on the opposite end of the spectrum simply get stuck on your favorite feel-good sequence.”

Having said that though, Ms. Budig also recommends that:

“While you definitely don’t want to lose sight of goals or the sweet sensations that keep you coming back to your mat, a critical eye to your practice now and then and look for the areas where you could strive for greater balance.  That’s what yoga is all about after all, and practitioners of every level can benefit from going back to basics regularly to reexamine the actions and alignment of foundationalstanding poses, backbends, forward bends, and inversions.”

Ms. Budig then gives a list of the 10 back-to-basics yoga poses that she recommends for any hearty home practice. These include:

1. Garland Pose

Malasana

2. Four-Limbed Staff Pose

Chaturanga Dandasana

3. Extended Triangle Pose

Utthita Trikonasana

4. Crescent Pose, aka High Lunge

5. Revolved Chair Pose

Parivrtta Utkatasana

6. Tripod Headstand

Sirsasana II

7. Supported Bridge Pose

Salamba Setu Bandha Sarvangasana

8. Camel Pose

Ustrasana

9. Head-to-Knee Forward Bend

Janu Sirsasana

10. Legs-Up-The-Wall Pose

As someone who appreciates the classics, vintage, and the general philosophy “if it ain’t broke, why fix it,” I found Yoga Journal’s article to be helpful in my quest for a meaningful yoga practice that is time-bound.

It reminded me of another approach that I’ve already begun to use which is toindividualize each home practice to a focused area of my body or to a particular emotional need.

For example, on Monday I might decide tofocus on my core and include a series of poses like Boat and Plank.  Then on Tuesday I might engage my arms in a series of poses including Sun Salutations and Tripod Headstand.

Continuing in this way, I may diversify the poses that I do for each part of my body over the course of a week in shorter home practices, rather than getting them all in in one single home practice of 90 minutes.

I have also considered using the meaning of each pose to help me individualize a briefer home yoga practice.

As a psychotherapist by vocation, I believe meaning-making is very powerful.  Therefore this belief sometimes shows up in my home yoga practice.

To stay with the illustration above, this allows me to then on Wednesday notice a need for a series of balancing poses due to the amount of multi-tasking and mental activity I’m engaged in to help me feel less scattered. This might lead me to do as series of poses like Tree and Crow. 

Recently, I did a little online search to explore this idea further.

Author Morgan Rush wrote in his October 31, 2013 article “Spiritual Meanings of Yoga Postures” that

“Fitness enthusiasts often seek yoga to tone muscles, achieve better balance and increase flexibility. But although yoga poses can help tone your biceps, flatten your belly and strengthen your quads, there’s a spiritual meaning underlying the poses that can add depth to your practice. Even if you’re not spiritually inclined, understanding the deeper metaphors behind the poses might help you power through them when you’re running out of breath or starting to feel tired.”

I’m not sure how I feel about the language “power through,” but I get the idea that I might I find internal resources I did not know were there to hold a pose longer when it is fused with a virtue or value that is important to me, and thereby allow that pose to work on me in a deeper way.

He goes on to give more metaphoric description to poses like: Mountain Pose,Child’s Pose, Warrior Poses, andSavasana, which is a Sanskrit term meaning “Corpse pose.”

In another Yoga Journal article, by Colleen Morton Busch, from August 28, 2007 called “The Heroes, Saints, and Sages Behind Yoga Pose Names,” this author gives greater complexity and profundity to each yoga pose by sharing the myth that accompanies the Sanskrit name. She says knowing the back-story may help you: 

“The next time your thighs are turning to Jell-O…or anytime life demands a great deal of you—you might want to invoke the spirit of the great warrior for whom this pose is named.”

Ms. Morton Busch starts by telling the myth behind Warrior II or Virabhadrasana II.

“A son of Lord Shiva (the Destroyer, considered the most powerful god of the Hindu pantheon), Virabhadra was born of unbearable suffering. After Shiva’s wife Sati was killed, Shiva tore out his hair in grief; from his locks, Virabhadra and the fierce goddess Kali were born. Shiva then made them commanders of the legions he sent to avenge Sati’s death. But…Virabhadra and Kali aren’t simply bloody warriors. Like Shiva, they destroy to save: Their real enemy is the ego. By cutting off the head of the ego, Virabhadra and Kali help remind us to humble ourselves.”

She then goes on to tell the tales of:

·         Vasistha & Vishvamitra

·         Astavakra

·         Hanuman

·         Goraksha & Matsyendra,

all either mythic or ancient historical figures who’s lives tell a lesson potentially helpful to the rest of us. 

These stories left me wondering how might my time-limited home yoga practice feel less superficial and give me more bang for my buck the next time I unroll my mat, if I hold each pose in a less purely physical awareness.

How do you engage in a meaningful home yoga practice when time is limited and the obstacles are many?

Why I Keep Going to Church

Going to church on Sunday is extremely inconvenient. 

When you and your spouse are working parents, those 48 weekend hours (assuming my husband isn’t working for over-time) are precious.

Between Friday night and Sunday night we try to balance:

        quality time with our two children,

        household chores like vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom,

        errands like picking up prescriptions and buying birthday presents,

        activities like play-dates and sports, and

        when we can squeeze it in, either some “alone time” for each one of us to decompress (e.g. a football game on tv for my husband, a yoga class for me) or

        a date night to remember we are more than just “mom” and “dad.”

As you can imagine, come Sunday night, everything has not been done.  How could it?  But “getting it all done” is personally not my objective.

It used to be, when my perfectionism was still steering the ship.  Now though, balance is my main objective.

Balance requires a constant series of prioritizing and re-prioritizing what tasks and activities will win my love and attention, and what will be moved to the back burner for another time.  For me, this includes going to church.

It’s hard to not think of the decision-point when I decide “yea” or “nay” on a particular weekend task or activity as through a competitive lens of winners and losers, but sometimes it feels that way.

Yet despite this feeling, I add yet another activity to my weekends once or twice a month, and that is church. 

Why do you do this you ask?

Well, it is certainly not obligation.  My faith and theology do not dictate a when and where for me to sustain a relationship with god.

No, I go for the 2 H’s: Hope and Humility.

The first “H” is Hope. This is probably the more obvious one. 

At times, I can despair about the horrific atrocities that go on every day, every minute, in our world.  Genocide. Childhood trafficking. Families without food to eat. People with AIDS having no medicine.  Girls having no access to school or education. African American teenagers being shot in the street. Destruction of Rain Forests for the purposes of cheap hamburgers. Dare I go on...Yes, I can slip down this rabbit hold.

And I know I’m not alone in this.  I think some people who choose to avoid news and world events, and thereby can appear ignorant at times to the very real problems that plague our society, are often folks who can slip into despair too.  But, because they don’t know how not to despair, they just stick their ostrich heads in the sand and say “I hear nothing. I see nothing.”

For me though, a way to not despair, or counter-act it anyway, is to go to church.

I receive an enormous booster shot of hope each time I walk in to the sanctuary of my church and I begin to recite in unison with the fellowship of other Unitarian Universalists, these words:

          Love is the spirit of this church

          and service is its law.

          This is our great covenant:

          to dwell together in peace,

          to seek the truth in love,

          and to help one another.

There is something very tangible, and maybe even primitive, about sitting with my body next to someone else’s bodywhile joining my voice with their voice, and proclaiming a wish for love, service and peace.

It’s not that I don’t generate feelings of hope from other avenues as well.  

Yesterday for example I re-watched the 5 minute YouTube Video by Brother David Steindl-Rast called “A Good Day” posted on his website www.gratefulness.org.  As during past viewings, I was easily moved by the message that I receive of hope.

And yet the virtual is not quite the same as sitting in church.  The visual flat screen of my computer with its audio narrative, is just not a substitute for the flesh and blood of real human contact- and that is a good thing.

Because when we sing ourselves into meditation and prayer with a song called“Spirit of Life” whose lyrics are the following:

          Spirit of Life of Truth of Power.

          We bring ourselves as gifts to thee.

          Oh bind our hearts this sacred hour.

          In faith and hope and charity.,

I feel not only a sense of hope, but also a sense of communion and unity. When I feel these three sentiments together, I get this unique, un-replicable experience that feels like the alchemy that is inter-connectedness. 

For me, this experience peaks at the end of the church service when we say our unison Benediction. This past week, I recited it directly to my 6 year-old son who sat beside me:

          Go out in to the world in peace.

          Hold on to what is good.

          Return to no person, evil for evil.

          Strengthen the faint-hearted.

          Support the weak.

          Help the suffering.

          Honor all beings.

Saying these words together with a group of dozens of other people gives me so much hope for humanity.  It’s like a big vaccination shot for all of the troubles and traumas I have viewed or witnessed over the course of the last week or month that can at times leave me down-trodden or melancholic about the darker side of humanity.

But each time I come back and sit down in that uncomfortable wooden pew, I look around at the men, women and children around me, and I am reminded that there are people out there who share the same longing I do for a more loving, fair and compassionate society.

The other “H” is for Humility.

Perhaps this is the less obvious reason that someone might have for attending church, but it is an important one for me. 

Interestingly this one does not require a lot of words to talk about it because it has to do with all that I don’t know- and that is a lot.

Growing up the word “humility” had a very shameful connotation to it.  But that is not how I see it now. Humility is permission and validation to be the limited human creature that I am, and this can be a useful reminder in the spiritual journey.

When most of your spiritual and religious life is primarily self-directed and done as a solitary practice, as mine is, I think it can be easy to forget about the fact that what we know and understand is about the equivalent of a single grain of sand on a 5-mile long sandy beach.

But this level of ignorance that we all share is not a flaw, it is part of our humanity.  Therefore, it is understandable that in a spiritual journey that is being steered predominantly, at least in the manifest realm, by me, it is going to be filled with blind spots that unintentionally shape my reality.

The danger of this however, comes in to play when we forget about our own ignorance.

What I’ve found though, is if I go to church, I not only open myself up to the possibility of noticing another grain of sand other than my own, but I am also reminded of the panoramic view of the beach itself. 

Hope and Humility- that is why I keep going to church.  How about you?

Birth & Death

This week I received news of life ending with the death of my childhood friend’s grandmother and life beginning with the birth of my daughter’s godfather’s own daughter.  Within a few days, one feminine spirit left our living world, while another feminine spirit joined us.

Earlier this year I came across this poem about what constitutes a life lived.  It was written through the wisdom of an 85 year-old woman named Nadine Stair.  It’s called: “If I Had My Life to Live Over.” 

The poet writes:

I’d dare to make more mistakes next time.

I’d relax. I would limber up.

I would be sillier than I have been this trip.

I would take fewer things seriously.

I would take more chances.

I would take more trips.

I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.

I would eat more ice cream and less beans.

I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I’d

have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I’m one of those people who live sensibly

and sanely hour after hour, day after day.

Oh, I’ve had my moments and if I had it to do over

again, I’d have more of them. In fact,

I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments.

One after another, instead of living so many

years ahead of each day.

I’ve been one of those people who never go anywhere

without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat

and a parachute.

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot

Earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.

If I had it to do again, I would travel lighter next time.

I would go to more dances.

I would ride more merry-go-rounds.

I would pick more daisies.

This week, as I contemplated the paradoxically mysterious and organic life cycle of birth and death, I wrote this responsive poem to that above of Ms. Stair:

We are but visitors here-

or maybe even guests.

We have only a handful of days,

years or decades to walk this earth;

though we are not told our length of stay when we arrive.

Except,

we know for certain,

it will be brief.

What will we do with our “one wild precious life?” Ms. Oliver asks us.

Will we be trite, by shouting “carpe diem,”

and telling others to go sky diving as Tim McGraw sings?

I know not.

Two truths I do know for sure…

As guests,

we are all welcome by god, and worthy of love and belonging.

And,

let the record show,

I do not plan to run this race in vain.

So, to our newest guest, a baby girl, I say, “welcome to the world.” And to the departing guest, an elderly grandmother, I say, “safe journey.”

Writing as Spiritual Practice

By age seven I knew I needed to write. 

I was on a trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts at the time to visit my mother who was participating in a summer program for her profession.  We were walking around a bookstore, one of many in Harvard-town, and I saw a display of journals. 

The journals were sitting so neatly on a shelf  in the store, and I remember I began to scan the cover of each.  I loved the way they looked,  and I couldn’t help but begin to pick them up one by one to feel how each book of empty lined pages actually felt in my hands.  In the end I chose a black journal with colorful fruit all over it- now I cannot tell you why.  But more importantly, that very day I began to write, and I have never stopped writing since.

I’ve done no formal writing. Only 31 years of journals, letters, emails, essays for school, this blog, what have you.  I’ve written two poems along the way.  

I used to minimize this form of writing.  I actually would not even have called it “writing” if you had asked. Because until a little while ago, I did not fully understand how important writing has been for me as a spiritual practice.  I did not understand how writing has been the primary mode of my soul’s expression.

About 5 years ago I was touring the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the 19^th century author of The Scarlet Letter, in Concord, Massachusetts.   The tour was led by a group of volunteers who were clearly passionate about the juxtaposition between literature and history. 

My particular tour guide was a middle-aged gentleman, a little on the hyper side but in a good way, who started the tour by asking who amongst the visitors was a writer.  A few hands went up, but not mine. The tour guide then looked directly at me, as we stood in what would have been the kitchen of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s home, and asked, “you don’t write at all?”

Feeling a little bit awkward now by being put in the spotlight, I let out a soft whisper, “I just write in a journal.”

“Just a journal!” the tour guide bellowed, “Henry David Thoreau just kept a journal, and that journal became Walden.”

I realized in that moment this tour guide had a greater agenda than merely showing us the rooms of the old house. 

I realized, and appreciated, that this gentleman was of the shared belief in this ancient  Zimbabwean proverb: if you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing; and I’ll add to that: if you can read, you can write.

Dancing, singing and writing are the vehicles for our soul’s expression of itself.  They are aneed, not a want.  Unfortunately though, in our modern American culture, these needs have been infiltrated with subjective judgment. 

How well do you dance? How well do you sing? How well do you write?  If you score an 8 or better on a scale of 0-10, then you may continue to pursue dancing, singing or writing.  If you do not…Find another way to creatively express yourself or suffer the consequences.

Now, for all of you professional and award-winning dancers, singers and writers out there, I mean no disrespect.  Undoubtedly, there is a difference between the expertise of my dance moves and those of J.Lo’s.  Between my singing voice and the vocal cords of Barbara Streisand’s.  Between my writing and the novels of Amy Tan.  Quite certainly there are differences. 

And yet, I truly do not believe that our creative soul, or god either for that matter, cares one bit about the quality of the dancing, the singing or the writing. They just want it to be expressed with the understanding that we are all worthy of love and belonging. And we at times have an energy inside ourselves that is generated  from the wear and tear of trying day in and day out to make sense of our existence in this complicated and confusing world; an energy that just has to be released in order for us to survive and thrive.

So I will keep writing. I’ve learned through times when life’s whirlwind has not lent itself to moments of pause, that I can’t not write. I can’t.  

When I don’t write I feel like a plumbing system that is getting all backed up, and the longer it goes, the worse it gets.  Not to be gross, but imagine a septic system gone bad. ..Yeah, I know! That is how important it is for me.

Because once I empty out all the words and phrases and sentences and ideas that have been filling up the space in my head (and heart), I actually feel a sense of being cleansed. I feel more free.

Therefore, I don’t write because I think I am a good writer.  I don’t even know what that is.  I was certainly not an English Major and I have no Masters in Fine Arts.

But I love to read. I love words. I love books.  I actually just carry them around with me in my bag or under my arm from room to room in my house for the comfort of what is inside of them.  And I love the magic that happens when I am able to take this force or energy inside of me, reframe it into words on the page, and then set it free like opening the door of a bird cage to let the bird fly away.  It can feel like a huge relief.

If you haven’t already, give writing a try today. Your soul will thank you for it.

Nuturing a Nonjudgmental Stance

Four years ago we had a terrible winter storm barrel through New England in October, when the leaves were still on the trees.  The unfortunate result of this, aside from thousands of people being stranded without electricity, heat and water for almost 2 weeks, was the loss of hundreds of trees.

Due to the unbearable weight of the nearly 2 feet of heavy, wet snow on top of the leaves, many enormous trees just fell right out of the ground- stump and all.

This was not true for all trees though.

This one, in the picture above, is a tree I walk by 2 times a day, 5 days a week on my way to and from work.  And in that terrible storm, this tree lost nearly half of it's core trunk.  It just split right off, and never grew back.  The miraculous thing is, the tree lived.

This left me in awe- still does each time I walk by it. 

Here's the funny thing though, just a couple of months ago, I was able to feel awe for a tree, but when it came to my fellow human-being at that time, I was caught up in critical judgments with little space for a compassionate stance.

Two months ago I was reflecting on the 20 year anniversary of the death of an important someone in my life who died of AIDS.  The person died in 1995, and I was a ripe 18 years-old.  As you can imagine, this experience shaped me in ways that are still unfolding.  Yet this year, I found myself in a pretty judgmental and righteous place about it for the first time.

As the anniversary was going by, I began to reflect on people in my life who I knew close up or at a distance who had had tragedy befall them too (experiences like being told they have a 90% chance of dying), yet somehow they seemed emotionally untouched by the experience. 

Untouched in the sense that, from the outside, it did not appear that the trauma of the experience gave them the gift of a wider more balanced perspective on life.  It did not appear to move the individual to a greater sense of gratitude for the small things in life, or the things that really matter. It seemed the miserable people stayed miserable.  And two months ago, I was questioning: How is that possible?!

This was not a compassionate questioning though.  I was looking down my nose with judgment.

Looking back, I feel some shame about my righteous indignation because that position is not in line with my over-all values.

As of late I have been visiting and re-visiting Omega Founder, Elizabeth Lesser's book Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow.  It has been helpful to read about the unbelievably dark places we as human beings can go, whether voluntarily or by force of life circumstance.  This spiritual reading seems to have softened me again back into the direction of compassion rather than judgment.

What has been particularly helpful though, is to remember that not all of us re-emerge from that darkness.  For some of us, the darkness takes us down.  And perhaps, just like the trees in that winter storm 4 years ago, there really is no place for judgment here.  Some will survive with their broken limbs exposed to the world, some will not.  And maybe, it is just a select few who will actually thrive. 

Maybe it is actually a smaller selective group who move through trauma and tragedy by moving down into the dark abyss like the rest of us, but they then re-emerge stronger, wiser, braver than before.

There is a movie that came out several years ago now called Bruce Almighty starring Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman as the character of god.  A scene from that movie that always stuck with me was Morgan Freeman's description of a miracle.  He says a modern miracle is not defined by something akin to the biblical parting of the Red Sea, but rather more like a single mother who is working 2 jobs and still finds time to drive her child to soccer practice or help with homework.  That's the true miracle he says.  Which leaves no room for judgment on the parent who doesn't or cannot.  

In this case, the exception does not prove the rule.  We can stand in awe of the  tree that survives a terrible storm despite all it lost and still produces gorgeous fall foliage, but we do not stand in judgment of the fallen tree beside it.

Instead, we offer compassion, we mourn, and we believe, with our whole hearts this one paradox: despite the fact that some of us may survive a tragedy, some of us will not, and a select few will thrive, each experience is still valid and valuable.  Because, as the famous saying goes, no [hu]man is a an island. The truth is, we have opportunity to break-open as Elizabeth Lesser suggests from not only our own difficult times, but also those of others.  That is the gift of an inter-connected universe. 

Individuals, families, communities, countries, and even planets have an opportunity to thrive in compassion, wisdom and bravery from the tragedy that befalls others.  Which means, if we can continue to nurture a nonjudgmental stance of others, it is possible to manifest learning and growth from the trauma and darkness of others.  If that is not a miracle, I don't know what is.