In the Flow

This morning I walked through my City of Sydney, drinking in the sights with these eyes for the last time before heading off for a month long adventure. In nine years, this will be the longest I have left this city and I am sitting here somewhere between being nervous and excited. It is a bit like going on a first date with someone who you’ve had your eye on for a while and you know it’s going to be a game changer. I am leaving my home, my cat, my students and my community but this is the next chapter of a story that started a long time ago. Finally, after three years of dreaming of it, I am hopping on a plane to undertake a 200 Hour Prana Flow Teacher Training with Shiva Rea in Greece.

It feels like I am standing here on the edge of change – ready to let go of what was, honouring what is and completely open to what will happen.

My first 200 Hour Teacher Training was done locally, with BodyMindLife in 2012. It was no doubt a life altering experience. So much changed for me during this time including a shedding of a long-term relationship and a huge change in career. I’m glad I had opted to do it part time to allow me the chance for slow integration into all aspects of my life. This time however, I am taking the plunge. I am immersing myself completely in the experience, limiting my contact to the outer world to a minimum.

Every time I go deeper into this path something of what I was, is stripped away so that I can become more of what I was meant to be both as a person and as a teacher. These events are magical even though they might not always be easy. They have a way of releasing an old way of being, a way of thinking that no longer serves us and sometimes even old relationships. Leading into this, I have been very careful not to make big commitments as I know that these are very personal journeys and it would not be fair to make a promise that I am not sure I will be able to keep.

There is so much to experience and so much to learn within yoga and we are lucky to be in Australia at this time as the tribe is continuously growing. We have had an influx of great international teachers including Ana Forrest, Maty Ezraty and Bryan Kest, each bringing with them a wealth of knowledge that has fed my own practice and my teaching.

Prana Flow however, has always been close to my heart.

This was a style that was introduced to me more than two years ago by Chanel Luck and Simon Park. Being an ex traditional dancer, something about the ritual and ceremony in combination with discipline, intelligent sequencing and the freedom of flow spoke to me. It was like the practice was telling a story and my body opened to participating in this tale that was being spun.

I am in love with how elements including the weather, the cycle of the moon and the energy of the students in the class are all welcomed into the space to create a complete experience. I am fascinated by how the more Tantric philosophies that honour the feminine are involved.   The way the flow is taught has given my body and soul a freedom that can only be found when my mind can get out of the way. There is an intuitive intelligence to it that can only be felt. There is a fullness and wholeness to it that feeds the soul.

And so we unfold.

When I decided to become a yoga teacher, it also meant that I had committed to a lifetime of learning. It meant a dedication to self-enquiry. Yoga is a lifelong process, a loop that keeps looping. We learn and we practice so that we can keep teaching. Sometimes we have to go back to our own lessons in life and in practice to be able to give. If the day ever comes when I don’t want to practice and feel that I have nothing more to learn, then it is probably a sign that I should stop teaching.

For now, the path is taking me deeper into knowledge of myself as a person. This is the knowledge that informs me as a teacher to be able to offer more to my students on their own paths and I am so grateful to the teachers and life lessons, hard as they may have been, that have brought me here.

So here I head into the next leg of this journey. It’s hard to be away from loved ones and the support that I’ve come to cherish from my community but we are in continuous flow and sometimes, the river has to take us in a solitary direction before we can come back to the sea. I look forward to returning to my city and my community with a new way of seeing things, more to share and so much more compassion.

Brahmacharya

In 2012, a few months before I went into my first 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training, I made a radical decision. I decided that for a year, I would observe Brahmacharya. Named for the state of searching for the ‘Great One, Supreme Reality, or Self,’ Brahmacharya is one of the five Yamas according to Yogic texts. In Vedic traditions in refers to the state of celibacy one chooses during the life stage of being an unmarried student and fidelity when married. In modern times, it is better known as a state of being sexually responsible. In Hindu and Buddhist traditions, Monks practice Brahmacharya their whole lives as it is considered necessary for their spiritual practice.

It wasn’t a decision that required a lot of consideration on my end. I loved the sound of the word, ‘Bharmacharya,’ and something about doing it felt completely right. I chose the more strict sense of the word, not only refraining from the sexual act, but also anything that could lead to it including kissing, extreme alcohol consumption and situations where I am alone with a man I am attracted to in a private setting.

As soon as I had decided on it, it was like I had donned a veil that made me sexually invisible. There was a sense of liberation in being able to let it go and practice my Yoga, learn my texts and most of all, learn more about myself. Once I had taken the whole dynamic out of the picture, I found a lot of freedom. I learned to walk in my own skin without trying to gather the attention or to please a dominant male figure.

A lot came up in that time but once the year was up, and as I was ready to lift the veil, my beloved father passed away. Now that opened up a whole other can of worms and Brahmacharya was extended. The relationship between a daughter and a father is always something pretty amazing. My father, no matter what he did was my hero. Whenever he was in a room, his was the only presence that mattered to me. We had our ups and downs of course. When we disagreed there were so many strong emotions running around that the charge was palpable. It was the love that was also the double-edged sword. When he hurt me, I would lash out as strongly but the love was so deep that when I hurt him, it was akin to taking a knife to my own heart.

My father was a bit of a narcissist in that he never saw how his actions hurt the people who loved him. Growing up I was used to him getting distracted either with a new relationship, a new love interest or a new work venture and he would disappear during those times. Those were the days when he didn’t return my calls, or was simply not available. Then when the thing that had his interest for the moment went to shits or he got bored of it, he would be back and I would welcome him. It hurt like hell but I was young not to see the cruelty and selfishness in it so it became the norm.

When he passed, the patterns that I had carried on from my relationship with him to my relationship with other men came to light. Of course, I never loved anyone quite as strongly. How could you love an employer, friend or lover as much as you love your own father? Not even close. But I did notice that in my relationships with men, I had been willing to accept a degree of cruelty. I’m not saying that the men in my life have been cruel, not all of them anyway, but there have been acts of cruelty that I had previously quickly forgiven and even sometimes apologised for.  In doing so, I had been cruel to myself and reaffirming the belief that I was not worthy and therefore it was my responsibility to hold things together.  That was a pretty big one to see and a bigger one to disprove.  Thanks goodness for the friends who see your light even when you can’t.

There is something to be said for not being in a romantic relationship and seeing these patterns. I haven’t been a monk where emotions are concerned. Of course, I’ve had crushes and emotional interests but the commitment to my practice has held me from getting into going forward with a relationship. I had nothing to lose. I’d spent my entire twenties almost continuously in long-term relationships. The thing is, when you are in one, you’re so caught up in the highs and lows of it that you can’t step back and say, ‘wait a minute, here’s that behaviour that I am repeating.’ I’m not saying the change is immediate but like with everything else, you have to notice the pattern to change how you act to it. That has been my greatest lesson.

I have many lessons to learn, I’m sure, but it has been three years and eight months since I committed to a state of learning these lessons on my own. This has in a way become a crutch to save myself from complications and the possibility of pain, but what is life without some complication. It might be time to opening myself to lessons that involve another dynamic now.

In about two weeks, I enter into my second 200 Yoga Teacher Training. The main teacher, the amazing Shiva Rea is a true Tantrist. This time instead of slow assimilation to practice, it will be a month away in an insulated situation, but once the month is done, I think it is time I consciously lift the veil of Brahmacharya that I’ve been wearing all this time.

To victory in facing fears, taking risks and standing in the discomfort of the fire until change is ready to happen. Jai!

Dating? Yeah… No

My best friend from high school just got engaged.

 

It is an amazing thing as they’ve been together for about 15 years now. Suddenly, I am one of the last ones in our group of friends who is single. I suppose, since I am making no active effort to change that situation, I can’t say that I am unhappy. It’s not that I can’t ‘do’ relationships. Like everyone else, I have things that I am particular about and some things that I am really relaxed about, and relationships after all, are learning to adjust with things like that.

 

The thing I can’t ‘do’ is dating.

 

It is a treacherous and ridiculous thing. My environment is made out of 80% females. Cut out the gay males and you’ll have about 5% – 7% straight males. Discount the ones who are either taken or in this job for the girls, and you’re left with about 1.7% of the population. Add to that the fact that I’m at work most of the time, I’m not your stereotypical yoga girl and that dating students is a self-imposed no-no (there’s this thing called ethics and I’d rather avoid going down the messy road of studating), it leaves me about a one in a million chance when hell freezes over.

 

Going out of the circle is even more insane.

 

The dating world in Sydney, like the corporate world and the rental market is in a word – fucked.

 

You are either there to fuck or you’re fucked over.

 

The corporate world ripped me to shreds and the dating world is just as treacherous. There is a certain aggression to things, a certain rush, wanting to ‘seal the deal’ and yet even on the first date, most people already have one foot out the door in case something better comes along. It is bright lights and lots of promise but strip it bare and there is nothing.

According to the newspapers, rent in Sydney is really high because there are more renters than there is good property. The newspapers also say that it is the same about men. There are a limited number of men and a lot of women. Again, exclude gay men, the unemployed men and the men who are under 35, and what’s left?  Online you say?  I think I’ve addressed that one here: https://azphoenix.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/online-dating-just-not-my-thing/

 

It could just be my thing. A lot of people like dating but even when I was younger, I never enjoyed it. And I’ve never once in my life been capable of having a few men on the go at the same time until I could decide on the ‘best’ one.

 

I quite like leading a drama free life. It gives me space to be available for everyone else when they have dramas.

 

As a teenager, what I really wanted was to fall in love once in my life. It would be someone I knew as a friend and he would know me as a friend, innocently and like the quote by Ann Landers, my love would be friendship caught fire. Oh young innocence.

 

There were some wee issues here. First, I am straight girl who went to a Catholic all girls’ school and secondly, my best friend was a female. Now she’s engaged so that’s definitely not happening.

 

So I’ve often ended up dating men I am stupidly attracted to. My nature is that I never get into anything unless I’m going to give it my best shot, so once I’m in, I’m in… When I say stupid, I mean totally brainless. I am often on cloud 9 until three years later when I crash. Often times I don’t even realise that I’m the only one holding the relationship up until I’m exhausted.  It’s like a long jump out of a plane, without a parachute into a forest fire.

 

The problem with going out with someone you’re electrically attracted to is that you are trying to impress, and when you get into a relationship, the initial veneer kind of chips off.  On my end, men are often attracted to me because I seem easy going and carefree. Underneath it all, I am a control freak and I quite like quiet nights. They expect me to be this ‘entertaining’ and ‘happy’ little minx all the time and when I’m not, they are highly disappointed. I on the other hand, am attracted to big buff footie player types and end up disillusioned because he’d rather smoke pot and drink than go for a walk.

 

Things get hard, and with both my long-term relationships, I found that we didn’t have the underlying friendship to help us through when they did. Now I look back and realise that had I not dated them, we would not have even really been friends.

 

Oh who knows with this stuff really. And who knows what might come. Anything is possible in this world. Maybe by some miracle, without actually having to brave the murky torrents of any dating scene, it’ll just ‘happen’. I don’t know how. Somehow. You’ll just have to believe that magic is possible sometimes.  Or perhaps my life will take on a different path. Perhaps I’ll adopt a child or have one on my own.

 

All I know is that if I don’t want to date, the world won’t end.

 

There’s a whole full life ahead.

“Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.”

Life – A Series of Crazy Experiments

My life, as some of you know, is a series of experiments.

 

It used to be different. I used to just do what I did and go on doing that. Then, I hit a wall, or fell into a well. One or the other. Either way it was really quiet down there in that chasm, and in the silence a voice said, “well, you’ve drank and drugged yourself into this state, and it’s not really working out is it? So how bout you try something else?”

 

The first time I heard that voice was in 2009. I thought it was just my hangover speaking, so I ignored it and kept going as I was – smoking, drinking, running around the hamster wheel thinking I was getting somewhere but really I wasn’t.

 

Then 2011, the wall hit me again. Of course it was the wall’s fault. I was getting nowhere so how could I possibly hit it?

 

This time the voice rang even louder and went on for a long time. And it wasn’t that I had nothing to lose. I had everything to lose, but the voice was right, what was going on was just not working out. If I didn’t love my own life and my own heart, who else was going to?

 

Change.

 

This fucking process of change.

 

It is tough work. It hurts the head. It hurts the heart. It is time consuming and damn scary.

 

And after all that work, sometimes you end up at square one again. That’s where I’ve been this last month. Not physically. That bit is fine. It wasn’t that I had a ‘fuck it’ moment, drank a bottle of bourbon, smoked a pack of cigarettes and then inhaled a KFC bucket for good measure, but I did hit an emotional slump.

 

There was a moment of hopelessness when stuff that was happening the whole month then the alert for my late dad’s birthday came up and I was just sad, and angry. Just so angry at him for all the reasons I should have been angry at him with before but kept inside because he was my dad, and I shouldn’t have been angry at him. I was angry at the legacy he left me, the half truths and lies.

 

With that anger came all the fear that I thought I had worked through – the fear of falling down, of a broken heart, not letting anyone come too close, the fear of actually letting myself love someone I liked because that would be too much, wanting to cover up all of me with my some spray that would move focus to my sexuality because that would keep the deeper part of me safe. So much, too much and it all hit me.

 

Then five days came where I met my physical, mental and emotional edge every single morning in gruellingly beautiful yoga practices. Day four was when I hit rock bottom and had a cry. Day five my body bounced back but inside who knew what was going on, and it wasn’t until later in the day that I found out. Something had been unlocked somewhere and it was ready to come out.

 

Series of experiments right?

 

Well, sometimes, you’re taken back to an old experiment from years and years ago that you’d forgotten the result of.

 

I found myself in a dark club with about three drinks in me, which is just a good time on the dance-floor with good friends in my now emotional state, but as I was visiting an old emotional state, it was interesting. Some random started dancing with me in a suggestive fashion. It was an invitation, and for a while, I replied to that invitation. He didn’t know me so the attraction was just physical and you know what? It was damn nice that someone found me physically attractive.

 

Then what happened?

Well he danced too close and I was jolted back to now and the realisation that although easier and less scary, it was really not what I wanted. Random meetings can be a nice distraction but I want to take the road untraveled before. I want to be known, as terrifying as that is for me. I want to walk into something with my eyes open ready to give it everything that I’ve got. This disposable ‘hi, you’re hot so let’s go out for a drink or five,’ thing just won’t fly anymore.

 

This new road won’t be as quick.

 

It is one toe in followed by a deep breath, then a foot, another deep breath, sometimes running back in fear, but then moving forward again. It is working through challenges as they come one at a time, awkwardness, fear, hearts beating crazy fast that they feel like they’re leaving our chests sometimes, it will be spending time apart and then coming back again and again and again, and then one day, just finding yourself there in that place you wanted to be.

 

Perhaps being there, upside down with your feet in the air and someone else helping you stay up will be the scariest space yet. So what do you do? You can run of course, but you can stay, taking it one step at a time, knowing that every day is an experiment in trust, in love, in knowing that as scared as you are, so are they, and that in this, you are together.

 

Every experiment has the potential to blow up in your face, but I keep doing them with the hope that one day, one of my experiments works out and a garden will grow, and I wish the same for you.

yoga,

A Lesson from Your Tears

Last Friday was one of those days that hit me unexpectedly, and again, had me crying in public.  I don’t really know when this public display of emotion started.  A friend who has known me since I was 19 once said to me that in all the years we spent together (from university through to our mid-twenties) she had never seen me shed a tear, even during the most difficult of times.

You see, I was brought up in an environment where crying was seen as a very negative display of emotions.  As a child, if I cried for no (obvious) reason, I was given a reason to cry.  As a teenager, my being upset would prompt my mother to tell me how upset it made her, and of course, I didn’t want to upset her, so I learned to keep it all in.  In my previous relationships, I dealt with various degrees of reactions to my tears from emotional bullying (kick her while she’s down), to flippant, to having the men emotionally retreat.  One even started cheating on me when I was going through a tough time.  Then there is that ‘crazy’ label used for things they don’t understand.  Asking for a shoulder to cry on, in my experience only led me to feel worse.  When a friend of mine said that her partner could just be there and hand her chocolate as she completely broke down, I was totally amazed at his maturity.  It never crossed my mind that anyone could just do that.

The thing is tears can be prompted by a whole range of emotions including those that are yet unnamed and just need an outlet.  I had become used to crying alone, and so, I had built this shell around me.  I would wait until I was completely on my own to break down.  When my engagement ended, I waited to move to another country to do the bulk of my grieving, filling the time between that end and my move with a fling that left me feeling worse. When my grandmother passed on a couple of years ago, I was in a relationship and yet, I dealt with it by crying into my yoga mat and just texting my then partner.  I didn’t expect him to be there for me, and he didn’t call. Somehow I felt that emotionally, he was ill-equipped to deal with my grieving.

I very rarely shared my tears with females, and even more rarely would do it with the men in my life be they relatives, friends and especially partners.

And then I took that crazy vow of celibacy: https://azphoenix.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/act-of-celibacy/.  It was an interesting and amazing journey.  However, just as I was about to step out of it, my father passed away and I retreated again into myself.  I am so grateful for the friends who were there for me during this time.  Although I tried to shut the door, they waited right outside, ready for when I could allow myself to need them.  It was a lesson on how there were people out there who are at the same time both gentle and strong enough to support you through your grief.

That is the thing about grief and tears. Most of the time, you don’t want someone to make it better and you definitely don’t want someone to make it about them.  Sometimes, all you want is for someone to hold you and to let you cry, or to hand you a baby to hold for a little while.

When my father passed away I was sad, and I was angry – angry at him for being the kind of father he was and angry at him for not telling me how ill he really was. Most of all I was angry at him for not being around during my moments of vulnerability, these moments of vulnerability when he, as a father, should have been there.  The last thing I wanted was to let another man in or even have one near me.  I felt that people in general couldn’t be relied on in times of grief, and more so if they were men.

I was wrong.

As my yoga practice has grown and my mask has dropped, I’ve learned that people can be there for you if you let them.  They might not be in a position to do something about it, but a hug is free and tissues don’t cost that much.  There are friends who will not brush it off if you cry for your grandmother who passed away 15 years ago.  There are friends who will bring you gelato and let you hold their baby for the warmth and comfort.  There are friends who will sit with you, waiting patiently for the sobs to subside and for you to catch your breath so you can tell them why you are upset.  And there are men.  These men who are just there with their gentle strength, neither running nor reacting to your tears, offering their warm arms so you can melt, even if just for a moment.  These men just listen while you open up with your emotions and although they might have that manly desire to fix everything, they don’t try to.  They are just present.

There are people who understand that sometimes emotions flow out in bursts before laying dormant for a while.  Then something triggers them, and there they flow again, and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

And there are times you learn that strong emotions can awaken different parts of yourself that might have been asleep.

For the first time in a long time, last week I wished that I wasn’t spending the evening alone.  I wanted to curl up on someone’s lap and let him hold me.  When I awoke in the middle of the night, I wanted to hear another person breathing beside me, to feel his warmth and know that comfort.

Tears are amazing.  They remind you that you are alive.  They are the physical manifestation of your feelings, showing you that your body and your emotions are connected.  They are the gateway, allowing things that might remain stuck inside to flow.  And sometimes they come only to tell you that it is time to let your guard down and write the next chapter of the story.

Detaching from Non-Attachment

For a while after my last relationship ended, I gave this whole non-attachment thing a go.

On the one hand, I get it.  Imagine being so attached to the outcome of getting into a full split that you literally split your hamstring at the seams, or me being so attached to the number of ‘likes’ I get to my blog that it loses all essence of me.  On a larger scale it could be getting so attached to the idea of “success” that you shut down your conscience.   Then there is the classic – changing who you are for the outcome of making a relationship last (been there, done that, still learning).

The lotus symbolizes non-attachment in some religions in Asia owing to its ability to soar over the muddy waters and produce an immaculate flower.

There is the other side of it though.  In order to become a monk, one must let go of all attachments.  This is not limited to iPods, apartments and cars.  These amazing individuals renounce EVERYTHING – their names, their families, and the thought of ever building a home with someone. Even outside the monastery, there are people who have adopted this philosophy of non- attachment – moving fluidly from place to place and relationship to relationship.  Hey, if it suits them, why not?

However, after trying it out, I wonder if it isn’t, in essence, a cop out.  What is falling in love if not allowing yourself to get attached to some degree? Allowing yourself to want another in your life for a certain period of time? This is not just limited to romantic love. It could be love for anything or anyone. Some people feel things like this strongly.  When they put their roots down, it grounds so deep into the earth that replanting would mean snipping off some parts of themselves.  When they love, they love fully, no holding back.  For such people, perhaps not getting attached in the first place is more a matter of self preservation.

Imagine falling in love with no holding back.  One moment you would be this solid entity and the next you would dissolve into the relationship you were in. Or finding a book you love, letting yourself just dive in, characters becoming real for you and for a few days, just disappearing into the story.  Fabulous isn’t it?

Unfortunately, being this also means that when you cry it is with abandon. Yours are not the pretty tears that can come and go in a second. In fact, you often need to make sure that you are alone when you are sad as it takes over you and you need a few days to get through it.

Compared to all that, non-attachment is the much safer option.

Then I remember what it was like to fall in love, and what it was like to even think about building a future with someone, dreaming, imagining.  The connections I made to friends and families.  And I think about the end of the relationships I had in my life – The sadness, the anger, the tears that flowed for days.  How everything broke open and left me a gaping wound.

And you know what?

I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Sure I am working on how to preserve myself a little more than I used to.  My mentor Mel keeps reminding me to hold my heart in a little bit because if I don’t I’ll end up breaking my back, both physically and energetically.  This is especially as a yoga teacher where putting my heart out there would just leave me an exhausted mess, no good for anyone in the long run.

However, it was the range of emotions that I have gone through that have given my life meaning.  It is the beautiful sunshine, radiance of light, heavy storms, winter cold and everything in between that has made me grow.  Even though severing roots hurt like hell, every time I rooted down, I was touching someone and making a connection that in turn, made my life more.  Total non-attachment to me is like living in a safe greenhouse while being connected is like being out in the elements, living life to its full range.

Although some of the people in my past were not worth it, my own growth was worth every bit of pain.  Every tear cried, every time my heart shattered into a million pieces, they made me more of me as much as the happy laughter and hugs.  So although I will continue working on holding on to my personal space, I do so with intention to allow myself the space for healthy attachment and connection because otherwise, what use would teaching and touching be?

What will you choose?

Dancing at Your Edge

Life pushes us. Sometimes it feels like it doesn’t stop pushing us, one thing after another after another, and then more to come.  You break down, and just as you’re about to get yourself together again, something else happens, pushing you back down into the darkness. Just when you think that there are no more tears left inside you, there you are, in a heap of tears on the bedroom floor: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a-pile-on-your-bedroom-floor-is-a-good-idea-julie-jc-peters/.  Sometimes you want to scream at the cosmos, at God, at the fucker who broke your heart and the mother who brought him into the world, but you just don’t have the energy to even whisper.

Photo by Robert Sturman: http://robertsturmanstudio.com/home.html

From the bottom of your wine bottle all you see is the broken and ugly, and all you feel is that you are broken and ugly yourself.  Drinking keeps the pain away or rather it replaces it with a more physical pain, a pain that you can actually explain.  This, this pain in your heart, this you can’t explain.  There is nothing rational about this. It just doesn’t make sense to hate and love someone at the same time.  And how can you feel angry, sad and empty all at once?  It’s against everything that you think is true.

Then there are well meaning friends telling you that you should go out more, see people, when all you want to do is sit in the darkness and weep.  The thing is though, after so many heartbreaks that went un-mourned, it feels like you’re grieving for all of them now.  Maybe, just maybe it’s time to do something different. Maybe it’s time to tell the biological clock, and that timer that says you only have so and so months to mourn before you’re back out there to fuck off.  Maybe it’s time to honour this experience, and most of all, it’s time to honour yourself.

What the fuck is she talking about, you say?  Well, my story is that for 10 years, I was chasing an imagined clock.  Sometimes it seemed like even before the door completely closed after someone had stepped out, someone else was stepping in. So much so that I have spent entire relationships (especially the short ones, and I apologise greatly to the men involved) drunk to avoid facing the truth that my heart was not really in it.  To be honest, I have been in short relationships where I can hardly remember any of the conversations that we had.  It was too hard to mourn my relationships so I went out, got drunk, got into other relationships.  Avoided.

Then I got on the mat, and there was no escaping the edge.   In the silence, you can’t run, hide or reach for a drink, as a kindly voice brings you to a place where you are a shaking (sometimes sobbing) mess, and then says, “stay for the exhale,” or “play at your edge.”  Believe you me, sometimes playing at your edge is not like playing at all.  Things come up while you’re standing there at the edge, and you have nothing but your breath to help you through.  You can only run for so long.  There comes a time when you have no choice but to honour your pain.  But you know what? It’s at the edge that the world starts to change.  It’s at the edge that you start to change, and once you live in it, breathe in it, and sometimes cry in it, the edge becomes your friend.  At the edge, you start looking at your samskaras, the patterns that are etched so deep in your life that you think they are a part of you.  The truth is, they are not.  They are just patterns. Changeable patterns.

You see, we are conditioned to avoid the edge.  To hide and distract from the pain and the anger, but Life, beautiful and complicated doesn’t just give up.  She takes us there time and again, and just when you think you’re going to go over, she pushes you just a little bit more, and that’s when you start to unfold, to find that jewel within your lotus flower https://azphoenix.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/jewel-in-the-lotus-flower/. She takes your hand and dances with you, only to fuck you over, this lady called life, and just when you think she’s done, she does it again.  The thing is she knows better. She knows your edge, and where you think you can’t go, she knows you can. It is her way of opening you to become the person you were meant to become.  It is her way of opening a door for you to start looking at you instead fo at others.  But like I can only invite you to your yoga mat, Life can only invite you to your edge.  The choice to play at your edge, to swear (under your breath or loudly) and just when you think you can’t take it anymore, to take three more breaths between the tears is yours and yours alone.  But if at some point you do, always, always stay for the exhale.

Mutual Masturbation

They met over a cigarette in the early hours of the morning. Both having had too much to drink, wanting to escape the noise of the pub but not wanting to go alone. After a short chat, and with whoops of encouragement from his friends, they left together. And what happened next was as to be expected.

The next morning, he wakes up and looks at the woman next to him, her hair spread over the pillow in a familiar way. For a moment, just one moment, he is filled with hope. Could it be? Is it her? Then she stirs, turns around and his heart sinks as he remembers the fumbles of the night before.  Awkwardly they both get out of bed. What was her name again? Should he offer her a cup of coffee? Breakfast? He just wants her to leave. As often as this has happened, he is never sure of what to do the next morning.

She gathers her clothes, getting ready to leave. The nice thing to do would be to ask for her number, but they both know that whatever made last night happen, it was not their interest in each other. Silently she dresses. Regret. She wanted something, but not this. She stands at the door, perhaps waiting for him to ask her to stay. He doesn’t. And the truth is, she doesn’t want to either. In the morning light, the chemistry of last night is gone.

He sits in silence once she leaves, and another girl comes to mind. A memory from the past. A smile like summer sunlight. A smile that he took away. A girl wish so much passion, who took every emotion into her, or rather, she stepped into the emotions.  Without fear. Without doubt.  She had made love to him with every breath, even when he was not with her.  She didn’t say much, but with one look, she could say everything.  She had loved him in a way that he could not understand then, with so much trust and so much faith. What did he do? He tried as hard as he could to not deserve her love.  One day he succeeded.

This morning, he wondered where she was. Was she happy? What was she doing? He always thought that she had to learn to live without him, but now, a few years later, he realises that the harder thing for her to learn was to live with him. She made it look so easy, like breathing, like how she just made things happen. Now he sees that it was never easy, not for her.

And he thinks now of last night. What had happened? Had they made love? No. Was it even sex? He had his eyes closed the whole time. She could have been anyone and he wouldn’t have cared. Did she care who he was? As painful as it was for him to admit, he knew she didn’t. All he wanted was to wash this stranger’s smell of his sheets. When he speaks to his friends, he will be “the man.” Hey, she wasn’t awful looking, even this morning, all hungover with her makeup smeared. And that’s what really matters isn’t it? What his friends think. As long as they think he’s over HER, he will be a man. What does it matter if it was making love, or sex, or just  two drunk people filling emptiness with mutual masturbation.

It Was Never a Failure

When my relationships ended, I had a view that they were “failed” relationships. It was also what my mother believed when her marriage ended.  Why? Because that’s what society has had me believe. We are made conditioned to believe that every relationship that doesn’t make it ‘till death do us part’ is a failure, and us failures along with it.  The pitying looks from friends, the “oh, I’m sorry,” the coupled up friends who constantly try to fix you up, the questions that are asked of you, they further substantiate this view.

You see, I had grown up thinking that the ending of every relationship (including my parents’) had somehow been my fault.  To me, if people don’t stay together, it means that they did not try enough, or that they were too weak to weather the hard times.  Because I thought this way, I ended up shouldering about 90% of the relationship.  I would try, forgive, compromise, and give in, until there was nothing left of me.  I realized that every time I got out of a relationship, I was exhausted from trying to hold it up. I believed so much in giving 100% that I forgot that it took two people to make the effort work.

Then I read this article: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/04/my-marriage-was-not-a-failure-but-a-successful-masterpiece/, where a woman speaks about the ending of her marriage. By taking a stand and saying that although her relationship had ended, it was, in fact, a successful masterpiece, she made me think of my own relationships.  Yes, I loved these men, but a big part of it was a fear of “failing.”  Part of my mourning the loss of every relationship was also me mourning my own failure.  I questioned myself until there was nothing left to question.

But who says that a relationship that ended was a failure? Yes, so you might not have made it to the altar or from the altar to the grave, but who sets these ideals?  When I took stock of things, it made me realise, that it was never a failure.  In every relationship, I had given a part of me, and at the end of them, I had learned a bit about me.  I had loved like there was no tomorrow, taken the time to really know my partners, and accepted them for who they were while still seeing everything that they could be.  I had had faith and belief even when they hadn’t. A lifetime had been spent in every relationship, and every single one had made an impact on me. The way I had handled each ending had also evolved as I got older,  I had come to the realisation that althought the journey together had ended, the love didn’t have to.

Yes there are scars, but scars only mean that you open yourself enough to get cut. The tears only mean that you cared enough to mourn a passing.  Pain can only come if the relationship matters enough to you to feel. Without pain, it was only time spent for no reason.  Every relationship is part of the journey that takes you to this point in life.  It is a risk, hope, you opening your heart to something greater than yourself, and letting someone else in.  No matter what you are made to believe, even though it was not forever, everything that you gave and everything that you learned makes it a great success.

Never Not Love

Here’s a statement that might cause some controversy in my family – I don’t believe that love means that you HAVE to be with someone forever. You could, but you don’t have to. And I don’t believe that you didn’t love someone enough if you don’t pine away and die waiting for them to come back.  I think up to a certain point, my mother did, and then after a certain point, she just believed that she didn’t love this man anymore.  I suppose it makes it easier when you think that way, when love is either black or white.  My mother believed that while she loved my dad, she could not have moved on. I’m hoping that she will fall in love again, but that’s a different story altogether.

It would be great if love could be put into boxes of extremes. When you can say, “I love him and therefore I am staying with him forever no matter what,” or if you can say “I’m leaving because I don’t love him anymore.”  Most of the time that is not the case.  Sometimes you walk away, but the love remains.  So my relationships ended, sometimes there were fights, but most of the time when I look back, the fights were only because we wanted really different things and both of us were not willing to compromise, or because one of us was tired of doing all the compromising, or because we wanted things to stay the way they were when it was time for things to change.

Yes, you can argue that if there was really love there would be compromise, but sometimes, you’ve just got two people that have taken the same journey together but just reached different points.  Sometimes, you just change.  And sometimes holding on to love too tightly can turn it into poison, especially when holding on to a lover means loving yourself less. We are all different. A yoga class is a great example of this. In a group class, we all start in the same position and we go down the same road, but based on a large array of factors, everyone ends up in different postures, or one would hope so if everyone was following their own truth.

The thing is, sometimes people who have made it to the altar, or the judge’s chambers, or even the three year mark, can get a bit smug.  To them, real love is that love, and that is not wrong.  What I have learned though, is that there is no standard mould to love. You can love without possessing. You can love and stay in one place.  You can love and spend a part of life together, or you can love and spend you whole lives together.  Sometimes love is like a raging fire that burns you to the ground, sometimes it hurts, sometimes it is as calm as a soft breeze and sometimes it flows like a river, smooth then turbulent. Sometimes you have it all with one person, and sometimes you have bits with different people.

Who is anyone to say what love could be, or should be, or will be? Everyone writes their own story, and has their own ideas.  Some people refuse to say “I love you,” because to them it means that it’s permanent, that it’s forever, some people just say it because it means nothing, and some people say it to the people they love. I didn’t use to be an “I love you,” sort of person, and I don’t think I will ever be the kind to say it the way some people ask, “how are you?” (what is the point of asking when you don’t really care?), but I do say it a lot more than I did, and I only say it when I mean it.  Love is no longer something I save for family and lovers because there is love between good friends too.

So if I say “I love you,” sometimes it doesn’t mean that I want to have your babies.  One day it might but sometimes it’s because you’re a good friend and I love you. Because in my eyes, and in my life, even though it might not be always good, or lasting, it was never not love.