What it means to be a certified Iyegnar Yoga Teacher

I just got the Iyengar Certification Manual in the mail. "The first step to deciding whether or not to go up for assessment," my teacher told us, "is to read the manual." This is what I learned... To become a certified Iyengar yoga teacher you have to pass your Introductory I and II assessments. Only then can you call your self an Iyengar teacher. The process takes about two years of preparation (or more) after you have already graduated from a certified two year teacher training program and requires a commitment that is not unlike one you might make to complete a Master's degree. Until I become certified, I consider myself an "apprentice" teacher in the Iyengar system although this is my made up term and not something you will find in the manual! During the two years preparing for assessment, I will study weekly with my mentoring teacher, Peentz Dubble, and also assist in her level I classes. I will also attend a monthly workshop, led by Peentz, on "Assisting and Adjusting in the Iyengar Method." I will be part of a study group with other "apprentice" teachers getting together monthly to discuss yoga philosophy and primary actions for the over seventy asanas (poses) we will be responsible for knowing. (70!!) In addition to these asanas, which we must be able to teach and perform correctly and systematically, we are asked to know their Sanskrit and English names, be grounded in yoga philosophy and have a basic understanding of the major muscles, systems, and bones of the body. (There are about eleven books on the syllabus which we are responsible for reading in part or on the whole.) After going through teacher training, it became clear to me that 1. I wanted to teach yoga and 2. that I wanted to prepare myself for Iyengar certification two things I wasn't sure of until near the mid-point of the training. The reason I want to prepare for assessment is because I want to be the best teacher I can for my students and I cannot keep learning what is a massive and profound subject without the mentoring of a senior teacher a community of practitioners. Why I want to prepare for assessment then is to deepen my own understanding and devotion to yoga for myself and those I teach. My own practice would not be as strong without the commitments to practice I need to make for my students and in obligation to my teacher. These commitments come from a deep devotion I have for yoga in its entirety.

Coming into Aliveness

Why do we practice? It is a question to consider when you bring yourself to the mat each day (or not as the case may be!) The answer, for me, has changed over the years. At first, I continued to practice because it felt good. I persisted because I wanted to get better at it, take on more advanced poses, build my stamina and strength. I wanted to look like my yoga teachers, elegant, long limbed, slim. During pregnancy and then the mothering of a young child, when any time to myself was rare and precious, I practiced when I could just to maintain what I had established and still because it felt good. And I was making new friends in my yoga classes. Recently the reason I practice has changed again as I have been able to devote more and more of myself to practice. Now my practice comes from the longing to turn inward, to still the fluctuations of my wandering mind, to find a still point in the swirl of life. I practice now to find what is unchanging within me (in us all), to strengthen and deepen that most intimate of connections with myself and through this to be connected more clearly and deeply with others. It is in that place of stillness I become open to and aware of my aliveness..through my practice I come into aliveness.

Spiritual Impulse

Rereading Donna Farhi's book "Bringing Yoga to Life" where she writes, "Whether we are hooked on food, alcohol, drugs, sex, money, work, or fame, the impulse to lose ourselves in these things can be seen as a spiritual impulse...We only have to read the works of people recovering from additions to see that behind the trappings of disease lies a mystical yearning that is as authentic and urgent as that of any pilgrim. Somewhere underneath bingeing, starving, exercising, drinking, hallucinating, climaxing, and purchasing, we are desperately seeking a way home to our self." Seen in this way, our harmful habits, compulsions, and addictions come from a deep desire to know home, a still sheltered place in the storm, where we experience belonging, loving kindness, unwavering acceptance and attention. These things we long for do not exist in the material world but because we live in a culture that tells us otherwise, we can get laywaid on our journey home by the siren's call to purchase love and affection in a bottle, through an exercise program, a promotion at work, or the internet. But like the siren's call, our attempts to fill our spiritual urgings through these materials means can only lead to dissatisfaction and depletion because spiritual hunger is fed through an inward journey. For at its most profound and basic, the spiritual impulse is to experience the most intimate of relationships possible in this life which is with the inner self. As my yoga practice invites me to draw inward (pratyahara), what I find is not always easy to bear. Being truly (satya) intimate with myself, I am learning, does not come if I only practice this intimacy when I am feeling my most composed. On the contrary, deep self-intimacy comes when I can bring compassion, kindness, and openness to the very feelings I feel most disdain and shame for. Then the experience of my inner self become rich and full. When I can bear what feels "groundless" in Pema Chodron's words, when I can enter that place of not knowing, confusion, despair, or pain with gentleness (also what Peman Chodron asks us to practice) then I find a quality of self-presence that is welcoming, still in the storm, loving, attentive, and accepting. I find my way home.

Unfolding, grief, and love

The local paper is chronicling an account of how a local family faced the challenge of living without a daughter and her child after their murder 20 years ago (GazetteNet.com). It is a brave thing to do to share such a deeply painful story publicly but a gift to all of us. In this intimate disclosure are many lessons about healing and caring for each other that usually remain hidden between us; our terrors, depth-less griefs, our loneliness, abandonment, and little hopes. How much we need each other becomes apparent in this story as well as how the losses that thread throughout our lives connect us together in ways we can forget. In her healing, the mother returned again and again to a place she called "the pit" which was cold and dark, lined with cement. "It was colder than a walk-in refrigerator. The floor was flat, with steps on two sides and no railings...in the intense cold, her movements were slowed. As her spasms of grief lessened in time, she found she could slowly climb the steps without falling back, the air warming as she rose." In her journey of grief, we are reminded of how slow and uneven the path is. Her therapist writes, "At some point the line (inside of the pit) would have run long enough for deeper healing to become possible, for a person to recover enough to do more than hold themselves together. But first, they get a little worse. People shouldn't mistake that flat line for recovery or adjustment." She told the woman, "I think you've gone as far as you will with getting better quickly. Now you're going to get better more slowly. You're not going to be at the bottom though it may feel like you are. Changes are going to come more slowly now." We need to help each other, in so many ways, to find patience with these necessary changes which move, at times, so slowly (and backwards) that we can feel so abandoned and lost, the grief implacable, the darkness never ending. Unlike the messages we receive (every microsecond) from the world around us to move faster, better, with more efficiency and progress, our inner lives unfold at a slower more uneven, natural, and organic pace. Cut off from the lessons of the geese, the wildflowers blooming after winter ice, the sun rising ever so slightly a minute earlier each day, we loose touch with our humanity, our true purpose in life, which is to both unfold and touch more deeply our inner soul. And to do this - to reach the warmer air - we need each other's help.

Off the Mat 1

I am learning in yoga class how easily I can get "offended" by others actions. I take things too personally. It can be crowded in class and hard to find a space enough to stretch myself into position. Lines can form as students grab extra blankets, chairs, and bolsters. Props can run out leaving me feeling quite perturbed, left out, and neglected.

"Take responsibility for yourself and others," our teacher tells us in class. Which means, take up only the space you need, make room for others, help your neighbor put away props, and watch where you put your foot. Being very attentive to where your body is in space is part of our practice. Through this I see how difficult it is for me to translate an instruction into action, "I though I was lifting my chin, straightening my arm, twisting at the ribs, making space for my neighbor."

In taking responsibility for myself and others in class, I see how many times I, in contrast, expect others to care for me. How I can feel offended when someone "takes up too much of my space", puts a foot too close to my chin, grabs the blanket I took down from the shelf. I do these things as well when I am tired, frustrated, angry, off-centered and without care to how it makes my neighbors feels. When my first reaction is to grasp at things, space, attention more tight in class, I am trying now to practice more graciousness and in this way find more ease and compassion, lightness in my body, in my life.

It is a practice I am learning to bring to my life off the mat. I try to leave early for appointments so I don't have to hurry in the car and feel the need to drive through the crosswalk, to let another car pass, to slow down when approaching a light. I notice more now how others make my way easier as well, slowing down when I am wanting to cross, letting me take a parking space, holding a door. It is a way to care for ourselves and others, to not interpret others actions as a personal affront, to find a way towards kindness to myself, to others.

I practice yoga

This has been my mantra lately.

When the dark pull of longing might take me away from myself I remember, "I practice yoga."

When I feel lost, numb, afraid, I tell myself, "This is my yoga practice."

When waves of sadness wash over me, "This to is my yoga."

I am breaking open to something new in my life and it can hurt. My practice offers me a way into the pain, the emptiness whose contours I touch, gently with compassion and in this way find spaciousness, freedom, choices.

In our backbend practice this week (up again and again and again our teacher urges us) I found a wide bright expansive landscape inside. Like the view from a mountain top on a clear day, all before me appeared with clarity, equanimity, poise.

"This is my practice," to remember this spaciousness even as storm clouds gather, the horizons thicken, to welcome the heavy rain into my dry soil.

My practice is yoga.

Why We Practice?

My teacher asks this of us from time to time.

Lois Steinberg, a Senior Iyengar teacher answered this way, "For joy and presence."

Here are some responses from others in my class:

For...Inner peace, Quiet, the Soul, Flexibility, Strength, Compassion, Self-reflection, Equanimity.

I am trying to practice every morning, with devotion, with focus (dhayana). It is a commitment I have long sought but which has eluded me. Over the years I have had a home practice; sometimes with the radio on, sometimes just a dog pose and one leg stretch. Over the past two years, now that my child is older and I have time in the morning, I have begun a more regular practice. But it has still been one that can lack devotion, focus, my loving attention. It has gotten repetitive.

But, now, I am letting go of thinking about having a more focus, engaging, concentrated practice and I am doing. Having an intention to practice is a first step but I find I need something to fuel that intention; especially on cold winter mornings when it is still dark when I rise!

Something more to get me up and to the mat, more than strength, a body that looks and feels "good", a nimble back; all things that may or may not be depending on the day. Something that is unchanging, dependable, reliable.

That something more I have found to fuel my intention, at least for now, is myself, quiet, calm, penetrated by a warm clear inner light; my soulself who is inside waiting for the muddy waters to settle with as much yearning to meet me as I have to meet her.

How to Stop Thinking

The stress that saturates the brain is decreased through asana (yoga poses) and pranayama (breath), so the brain is rested, and there is a release from strain....Not only do they (asana and pranayama) prepare our bodies, spine, and breath for the challenge of inner serenity....they bestow the firmness to live with equanimity in the vicissitudes of the world's hurly-burly. from Light on Life, BKS Iyengar

That the body needs preparation for serenity is a new idea for me. For most of my life, in contrast, I have attempted to use my mind to sooth my anxieties, worries, fears. I have sought comfort, pleasure, and the avoidance of pain through thought, endless ruminations, doing rather than being, and failed attempts to figure things out.

Pema Chodron writes that, "Wanting to find a place where everything's okay is just what keeps us miserable." But this is what my mind has craved; ease, rest, serenity.

What I am finding new through asana and pranayama are just these things; ease, rest, serenity, but through the body not the mind. The mind is quieted as my lungs are irrigated with deep breath, the spine loosened from thick plack, the hips and throat oxygenated with fresh blood. The body in this way prepares the mind to rest, to let go of doing, to rest in the full heart. Dualities of pain/pleasure, ease/struggle, calm/confusion dissolve into just what is; an ache in the chest, a tightness in the jaw, the release of heat in the sore hamstring. In this way, the body prepares the mind to find respite in paradox, unknowing, humility, compassion.

In Silence

This ability to still and gently silence the mind is essential not only for meditation and the inward journey but also so that the intuitive intelligence can function usefully and in a worthwhile manner in the external world.BKS Iyengar, Light on Life

In that silence, what does my intuitive intelligence tell me? That it is good to take time for myself, to be alone, quiet, and with nothing to do. That all feelings and experiences are worthwhile. That love and attention, to one another, to ourselves, not only envelops but penetrates, softens, and opens our hearts. To let go, let go, let go again of fear.

My Loneliness

Here is what Pema Chodron says about Loneliness: Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy. It's restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we rest in the middle of it, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a cooling loneliness that turns our usual fearful patterns upside down.

Almost every day, I seek escape, consolation, protection from my loneliness. I feel it approaching even before it is in sight, like the hot tendrils of headache before the pain. Daily, I seek a savior to rescue me from this dark hole. To my savior I say, “This is your fault that I am lonely. If only you could provide me with “enough” then I would not hunger so.”

Tuesday I found myself in a hotel lobby after the conference with that familiar smell of loneliness in the air. My loneliness likes to visit me when I am alone in hotels. I had been inside a windowless space for hours so went for a walk in the warm sun by the river. A short ways down the trail there was a playground and a sandy place where children and their caregivers feed bread to geese, ducks and gulls. I sat in the bright warm sun so unusual for mid October and remembered feeding ducks with my father, my grandmother. How fascinated I was by their squawking, their fast gobbling of the bread, their displeasure from greedy companions. All of a sudden, my beloved yoga teacher walked by! What a surprise. She lives near that path. I would see her in a few hours for class. She smiled at me, “This is one of my most favorite places to walk.” A gift sent by the universe, I thought, so that I might know I am not alone.

After, I was tired and hungry, for real, I realized this now. So ate a banana, drank sweet tea, sat in a large leather chair and let the loneliness engulf me. Despite the ducks and children, the warm sun, my teacher the loneliness was still in front of me. I entered the loneliness as fully as possible, felt with my hands the wet stone walls of this cave, the dripping mosses, the slippery planks. I sensed a spaciousness there and surprising room to breath. For a time the physical sensations and emotional sensations were so strong that I could not feel anything else. Only a part of me was still in the hotel so much of my gaze captivated by the inner otherworldly darkness, the rough stone walls, the damp air. I kept having to let go of wanting to be rescued by my saviors; desire, ruminations, thinking, doing. The pull of longing was so very strong until it wasn’t.

This journey ended well although this was not inevitable. I had yoga, afterall, and knew that the yoga would show me a way back to a warmer place, the inner path of connection. I don’t think I would have dared to go so fully into loneliness without this stop gap.

On Desire

The capacity to stay awake when gripped by desire is one of the great gifts that yoga can offer us. Sally Klempton

My mind flings me wildly and consistently from one desire to the next towards all the things I think I need to be okay. Whether that is a new pair of shoes, a nicer car, a better job, or a sweeter dessert, my needs can feel endless, infinite, never-ending. What I am discovering through yoga, however, is the existence of a desire underneath the desire for things, one that longs for love, the unconditional kind, that is unwavering, always available, not stingy, enough.

Moving towards this inner love is a creative process. In creativity, there is a merging of oneself to the unknown, the unexpected, the mystery. It is a beautiful dance between the deepest self and the universe. Everything seen, touched, and tasted becomes a colorful oil for your palette.

Still, I can forget all of this when I am lonely, tired, feeling forgotten. Coming into contact with my superficial desires, I can be propelled into fast action; to taste NOW the crispy donut skin, allow NOW the chocolate to melt in my mouth, to bow NOW on the stage before the applauding fans. My mind seeks refuge in a full bank account, a refrigerator stocked with food, a full gas tank, a healthy mother.

The practice of yoga helps me to cultivate the alternative; an unflinching mind that can watch desires come and go without reacting. I feel my spine in a pose, see the unbalance in the lungs, feel a heaviness in one thigh bone but not another. In redirecting the mind to the body, my mind pauses just enough to see the wave like flow of desire as it grows to a tremulous peak before falling apart. In yoga, I learn to surrender to the breaking waters rather than struggling to make them go away. In surrender, there is grief in the loss of what I had hoped would be as I turn to a recognition of what is.

Grief like a tap root the source of growth, creativity, union with the Soul.

Hamstrung

You learn so much from an injuryEileen Muir, Yoga teacher

For the last year, I have been struggling with a hamstring injury. A pulled tendon, right where the hamstring attaches to the sitz's bones, has prevented me from moving with ease in my left hip and leg. At times the pain has spread down the leg, through the buttocks, in the deep crevices of the hip joint. The uninjured hip seems to have suffered as well from my lack of ability to bend forward completely.

I have, in turns, been angry, sad, humiliated, prideful, impatient, and loving with my pulled tendon. I have felt better and then pushed too hard only to reopen the injury. I have backed off, backed into, backed around the pain. I have wrapped the leg in bandages and straps, massaged the muscles with arnica oil, pressed hot then cold into the leg. At many points throughout this year I was sure I would never heal. I worried the pain might forebode of some greater danger like arthritis or a hip replacement.

Through it all, I wanted to get better, for the pain to go away, to bend deeply forward again.

Then, seemingly "all of a sudden" something shifted. There was less pain when I walked, when I bent forward, when I twisted my hips.

"You learn so much from an injury," Eileen whispered to me in class last night. And she is right. I learned how hard it is to have compassion for my "injured" parts, how impatient I can be with my slowness and pain. I learned how much I yearn for wholeness, for a body that works well, for health. I learned how to move more in the belly of the muscles and not pull at the tendons to get into poses, to feel the embodied energy and heat in pain, to use the groins. I learned the humility and grace of imperfection and how pain can help us to love ourselves and each other better.

Truth in Others

No one person has the whole truth David Hartman, Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and Philosopher

No one person has the whole truth. That is why we need each other.

From my yoga teacher, I learn the truth of discipline, practice, surrender of the busy mind.

From my daughter, I learn the truth of love, change, vulnerability, the fierceness of growth.

From my parents, I learned the truth of my heritage, tradition, family bonds, sacrifice.

From the woman who walks now with a cane, I learn the truth of humility, courage, life as it is and not how we would like it to be.

From the stranger I learn the truth of jealously, of compassion, of misunderstanding, of grace.

From the girl who serves my coffee I learn the truth of dreams, unmet and hoped for, of youth, of possibility.

In seeing the truth of others, I find my capacity to learn.

With each encounter, I am a beginner once again.

Sin

Oh sinners let's go down, let's go down, gonna go down. Oh sinners let's go down, down to the river to pray.

Drapped in the white robes, I go to the river to pray, to be scrubbed clean, absolved, resurrected. Others come, through the woods, down the sloping hill to the river which is cold and deep this time of year. Late summer rains have made the river swell her banks.

The teachers are there to guide us, hold our hands, cradle our heads as we bend back into the waters. I am ashamed. I have sinned again, and again, against my family, my neighbors, most brutally myself. I have thrown myself away time and again to impatience, to wanting control, to stinginess, to sloth. To the untamed anger, to not having enough.

Still, I am welcomed here among the sinners. Bringing our imperfections with us on wobbly shopping carts, bulging canvas sacks, wicker baskets, cradles, and carts, we come together to the river to shed these heavy burdens we have clung to for so long. In this way, our sins make us humble, alive, creative, and most amazingly, holy again.

Goodbye Girl

There were many little children in the cafe this morning eating toast on mother's or father's lap, spilling milk, talking, pointing with sticky fingers at the pink topped chocolate cup cakes. One little boy about three years old sat happily in daddy's lap moving his hips in song, poking at the pads of butter on daddy's toast, laughing uproariously at the puppy outside. Moments later he was in tears, utterly inconsolable, frustrated, over blown by life (who among us don't have these moments still!)

I remembered having "one of those" little ones whom I could comfort with just the sound of my voice, my hand on her belly, her head on my chest. Effortlessly, it seemed, and completely, I could comfort the deepest hurts with just my body months before she uttered her first word.

A parent's bond with her child is most profound; one that I feel even today as mine takes the public bus home from school, can be left alone(!) in the house, can make her own dinner. She walks away from me now, decisively, angrily, in hurt, joy, or frustration. My body is no longer a solace for her pain.

I am penetrated by her moods. I still want to hold and see her every day, need to hear her voice to know she is okay. And so it is also for my own mother even as I approach 50 and she an even older age. So it was for my grandfather who at 94 could still think of my mother as a child, the one he needed to care for and would stand by even as his own hands could not longer hold a spoon steady.

I imagine him thinking, "I have lived almost thirty years more than you, held you in my arms before you could walk, slapped you when you smoked cigarettes, walked you down the aisle, held you while you held your own baby daughter. How can I ever say goodbye to you?"

"How do I say goodbye?" I asked a friend when my own father was dying, "I don't know how to do this."

"Tell him you love him, that you will be okay, that he can rest now."

And I did. These words and others came effortless and unbidden. I imagined my father knowing what I was saying even if I couldn't tell for sure by looking into his wandering eyes. I thanked him for bringing me into this world, caring for me in his own strange and quirky way, helping me to grow strong when such lessons were not ready made for girls. My words, I imagine, comforted him with the knowing that he had done his job the best he could, that I would be okay, that he would always be my dad, that he could rest now and find a way to say goodbye.

September Practice

Sally Klempton write, "This month is a good time to look at how the intense energies around us are affecting your own inner state, and to ask yourself how your practice can help you work with these energies. Times of upheaval ask us to practice. On one level, we practice so that we can stay centered in the midst of intensity and change. But on an even deeper level, our practice is what allows us to work with the forces at play in the world, and channel them towards our own awakening, and the awakening of the others in our lives. Practicing intensely, and practicing with intensity, we can actually use the energies of this time for radical inner growth."

I feel a new energy rising, in and around me, as the Earth begins her slow turn away from our beloved sun. Into the darkness, I anticipate the cold. Something about this season makes it easier for me to settle down into things. Perhaps it is because I want to savor what is for me a time a profound potential and possibilities. I am comfortable; there is not too much heat, cold, light, or darkness. The air is fresh and cooler. The lake, still invites me, with open and soft arms but not for long. My child is busy again learning, focused, surrounded by friends and new teachers. I can let go of my worries, if just a bit, as she is occupied in good ways with her own life.

What would I do with this newly found transformative energy? If god asks me, I would tell her of the friends and acquaintances, known and unknown, I long to talk with, solitary walks up high mountains, dips into to my favorite waterfalls. I yearn for September swims, pranayama, yoga, and meditation to help draw into the core of my being. I want to feel the sap rising, thickening, consolidating inside in preparation for the resting time.

This year, I promise to savor the fragrance and tastes of this season, to remember past autumns when those I loved were still alive. I shall seek my stories again.

With my practices, I become lighter. The Autumn energies urge me to let go, even just a little bit, of my grip of things that no longer serve me. Worries like my favorite waterfalls, flow more easily over the rocks. Be stingy now, the slanted sun whispers to me, with the energies flowing through you. They wlll make you strong and capable until you return again to me.

Love Poem to A Seventh Grader

I tremble sometimes for your happiness,\that ventures abroad on so many ships.\i wish somtimes that you were back inside me,\in this darkness that grew you. (Rilke)

I dropped E off at 7th grade today, my heart skipping just a beat as she took her place among the oldest children in the school. She held my hand (still) as we approached the familiar old brick. I got (and gave) a peck on the cheek.

I wandered by the kindergarten classroom when I left. So little! Eighteen pairs of little toes and fingers, squirming in the circle where they will start each of their next 180 school days.

"I used to have one of those" I told a passing parent. She wore dresses then and patent leather shoes. She clung to J and I for months each morning teary when we left. We passed her from our lap to a teachers and told her, "We will be back!" She was so hungry to read then and learned quickly and with a single mindedness we have known since she was born. She is a sturdy, curious, ambitious learner, still hungry to know, pursue, and create.

I am so grateful for this chance to watch her grow into the person she longs to be!

As Rilke writes, however, I long for her and tremble when she departs from me. The translucent thread that goes from my heart to hers tugs and pulls when she is away from me. I fear it might break. i practice letting go so the threads won't break so she can find her way to me (and me to her) when needed.

For Rilke, God was like the child who grows and leaves us. An everlasting longing for the beloved remains along with the brilliant joy of the bird in flight.

Breaking Waves

I like to think of myself as strong, sturdy, enduring, and secure. Like a large building made of steel and concrete, double thick glass windows that reflect strong light, a foundation without cracks. Like a skyscraper, I can withstand the strongest winds, the fiercest rain, shifts in tectonic plates. My inhabitants remain cool in heat, warm in cold, and dry in hurricanes.

To be honest however, I do not resemble a building in the least but am more like a wave that rises full and glorious before crashing into nothingness onto the shore. To see myself as the wave that I am - something I get glimpses of more and more as I age - is terrifying. How could I endure loosing myself time and time again, of everything I hold dear, everything that makes me what I am. Terrified of crashing into nothingness, I scramble to make steel and concrete from my watery self, an alchemy as foolish as trying to turning coal into gold. I exhaust myself in this process of keeping up appearances as a building, propping myself into a sturdy rigidity, looking like and acting like all the other buildings that surround me.

What I forget to remember, and must be taught over and over and over again, is that my wave is a part of something much greater than itself, something it cannot never know fully but that endures even after the wave itself has died.

While buildings can tilt, crumble, burn, and collapse, waves come and come again, rising up from an ocean that is infinite, life giving, welcoming; it is never separate from this source.

Finding

As I become more embodied, paying attention to the breath in the belly, the space between the vertebrae, the tilt of the pelvis, on and off the yoga mat, I find myself, more clearly as I am, and not how I wish myself to be.

My practice is to return to my body when the chatter in my mind would take me away. After a week long yoga retreat with no distractions from work, a house that needs cleaning, family, the dog, I had the chance to watch this mind and all the ways it tries to provoke me into leaving myself. "Go away into that small known space. The unknown is too painful, dark, tightly knotted. Don't open that door, those windows, that cabinet. Stay asleep, angry, grumpy, judgmental for this will protect you from all who care nothing for you." This chatter keeps my heart stiff, my jaw rigid, my legs numb.

In my everyday life, these messages have potency. Surely the driver riding my bumper, the co-worker's agitation, the child's demands are reason enough to make me wary, tired, and wrung out, in need of protection. But at our blessed retreat, nestled in the hills of Vermont, with nothing but myself to contend with, I could see more clearly this chatter for what it was which is a calling out from my small scared self for love and attention. Surrounded by a strong and steady teacher, the soft green hills, good food, and a band of women to lean on, I found ways to let go of the chatter (like a cool stream trickling down the mountain), to return to my body, the knots, grips, aches, and dust, to be curious about the darkness inside and the places I have avoided for eons.

What treasures are to be found in these neglected places!

In a short week, I found many different ways into myself, around stone walls, through mossy glens, over boulders left by ancient glaciers. Paradoxically, the more attention I gave to this journey inward, with all its obstacles, unexpected turns, trap doors and surprises, the more connected I felt to all others. For don't we all struggle, strive, forget, and give up trying to live in these bodies which at times fail us?

I am not only myself, then, but the woman with swollen feet pressing palms into the walker (such courage!), the mother cradling an injured child (open hearted), the man smoking outside on the hot concrete steps (breath).

Pain, Addiction, Relief

We think we have free will, she continued, but we are foiled at every turn. First our biology conspires against us with brains that are hard-wired to increase pleasure and decrease pain. Meanwhile, we are so gregarious that social systems — whether you call them peer pressure or politics — reliably dwarf us as individuals. “There is no way you can escape." From NYT interview of Dr. Volkow, Director National Institute for Drug Addiction

The brain craves dopamine. This pleasure hormone gives us an overall feeling of well-being, connection, self-efficacy, ease. Addictive behaviors are influenced by how well our brains absorb dopamine. If you have too few dopamine receptors, additive substances and behavior won't have much purchase but too many can make the addictive substance or behavior unpleasant.

Addiction, however, also has a social component. Volkow writes, "Meanwhile, we are so gregarious that social systems — whether you call them peer pressure or politics — reliably dwarf us as individuals. There is no way you can escape.” Which is to say that we are profoundly influenced by the people we spend our time with.

We can choose to spend more time with people who push us to go inside, connect with our deep selves or those which, for whatever reason, push us to negative self-judgements, shame, fear, disconnection. To experience deep connection and love for your inner self is a natural balm for pain. Heroin, alcohol abuse, overwork, and overuse of pain medications are also balms for pain, but in contrast to the soul are not of the life-supporting kind.

Pain whether emotional or physical is part of life. How we comfort ourselves in pain, with equanimity, curiosity, and compassion versus fear, aversion, or shame, is an individual, economic, cultural, and political choice.

As a culture, the US is not doing so well dealing with pain. According to the NYT, "The toll from soaring rates of prescription drug abuse, including both psychiatric medications and drugs for pain, has begun to dwarf that of the usual illegal culprits. Hospitalizations related to prescription drugs are up fivefold in the last decade, and overdose deaths up fourfold. More high school seniors report recreational use of tranquilizers or prescription narcotics, like OxyContin and Vicodin, than heroin and cocaine combined."