Rewriting the Future

Sometimes you’re just traipsing through life without a care in the world then something taps you in the head (loudly!) and you realise that this path you’re traveling on is not really where you want to go.

For me, this thing was yoga.

It had been coming in and out of my life since I was in my early twenties.  Occasionally it would step away, but it kept coming back.  Like a very persistent suitor, it just wouldn’t leave me alone.  Even when I ran out crying or was so angry I wanted to bite through the mat, it kept coming back.  When I first realised that there was a relationship forming, I fought it.  I’d show up in my worse form – angry, hungover, drunk, reeking of cigarettes, ready to pick a fight.  Yet it still stayed, standing silently in the corner while I went through my little drama, giving me space and then moving back in.  Somewhere along the line, I stopped fighting it and we became friends.  Then, the realisation came that I was in danger of falling completely and utterly in love.

Now I’ve loved many things in my life, but this was the game changer and I knew it.

And like with all game changers, it was time to rewrite the future.

Why rewrite the future?

Well, if you keep going on as you are, your future will be exactly the same as your past.  You can get into a million different relationships, but until you stop and have a look at what’s going on with yourself, it really won’t be any different.  You can start six thousand new hobbies or go for a gazillion treatments but until you actually look in, the outside will remain the same.

Most people operate on a pattern that they’ve had for ages.  These are the lessons we have learned through life, either from our parents, friends or our own behaviours. In yoga speak, they are known as samskaras.  They are the patterns that have been repeated so many times that they have become grooves in the landscape of our lives.  Some are good.  A healthy eating habit perhaps or a past of being caring, but as we are all works in progress, we often find some bits that we want to chip away at to make room for something new.

You’d think it would be as easy as that.

Not quite.

This is one of the processes that take time.  It requires a lot of looking back into the past, considerable time alone, and meditation.  It is not a process for the faint hearted, that’s for sure.  Great memories will come back to you but along with them there will often be rage and despair, among other things.  There are moments when you are so frustrated you want to hit a wall, or chew through the floorboards.  There are moments you laugh at old jokes and the next thing you know, you are sobbing into your blanket.  It is so easy to get stuck in the past, where it is safe and dark, but time moves forward and at some point, you’ll have to emerge out of it.  There are parts of your life that you might need to cut loose, and sometimes, without you intending it to happen, you lose people who are dear to you.

My big process took about two years, and then I added 40 Days on top of it just to seal the deal.  Some people start with the 40 Days, or 21 Days (because that’s how long it takes to change a habit), but there is always somewhere to make that first step.  It requires a commitment to yourself more than anything else, and a burning desire to make things different, and to be different.

As with all changes, a big part of it is a solo journey.  You need that time on your own to reflect, perhaps to write, and to just sit in silence, taking note of the patterns of your thoughts.  However, no matter what journey you are on, there is always someone else going through something similar, and the universe in all its glory will often bring these people right into your path.  So even when you are traveling alone, you never truly are.

I saw this process with a beautiful group of people who took on a 40 Day Revolution.  It was a commitment to five days of studio practice, a day of home practice and a solid twice a day meditation practice.  Some might have started the journey just to get their asana yoga practice set, but through the 40 Days, things shifted.  They shifted.  I shifted along with them.  It wasn’t an easy journey, but it was a beautiful one.  These people showed up day after day in their courage and in their vulnerability, allowing for change to happen.  It was the courage of people who wanted something to change and making that commitment to change it.

The thing is, change is a never ending process.  You constantly have the chance to rewrite your future.  Sometimes, you’ve got your future written down, and then you meet someone you grow to care for.  You can play it safe and keep your futures separate or you can take a chance and write a future together.  Because you’ve already rewritten your future, you know it won’t be the same as your past, and you know this person is not the same as the persons you’ve tried to write futures with before.

The process of rewriting the future closes some doors; perhaps those ones that have held you in the past, but in place, it opens other doors allowing you to move forward.  It is a chance taken, a change made and a life open to ever more possibilities.  It is unsafe, unknown and oh so exciting.  It is letting go of the life you had for the life you want.

Throwing Out the Lists

He said, “you think you’re a lady, but I know you’re a woman….”

This morning, I find myself thinking of the first line of the song, ‘Love Puts on a New Face,’ by Joni Mitchell, thinking about the difference between a lady and a woman.  Is there even a difference at all? When I was growing up, there wasn’t much talk about being a woman. A girl became a woman when she got her period.

But a lady… ah becoming a lady required some effort beyond the physical.

What is a lady though?

According to Wikipedia it is a, “…civil term of respect for a woman, specifically the female equivalent to, or spouse of, a gentleman or lord, and in many contexts a term for any adult woman.”

When I was in growing up, being a ‘lady,’ was a desirable trait. It ensured that you were respected and that you ended up married to a gentleman.  Among the rules of becoming a lady included speaking well, having good manners, keeping your eyes open and your legs closed.  Sure I agree with having good manners and speaking well, but shouldn’t that be everyone?

As I grew up, I realised that these rules were just the tip of the iceberg, and that there were more lists to come.  All you need to do is open a women’s magazine, and it will give you all these lists – what to do to be such and such, what to say, how your romantic life should be, what to do on the first date, the games you have to play.  I’m not a reader of men’s magazines but I’m sure they are also full of instructive and useful tips.  To be normal nowadays, you would have read at least one self help book in your life, one that’s got yet even more tips. And of course, in the wellness world there are tips on how much you exercise, how often, and of course, what you should (or rather should not) be eating.

While we become a people who are intellectually intelligent, have we lost the ability to find things out for ourselves?

Let’s look at this. There was a time when there (oh my god!!!) there were no magazines to tell you what to eat.  You’d eat something, and then if you felt muggy, heavy or just not right in your body, you would not eat it anymore.  Same goes for a workout routine. Feeling a bit sore is great, feeling your muscles stretch and work is great, but you have to be aware of the difference of discomfort and pain. In a yoga practice, discomfort is something you work with. It’s your edge and as you keep working, the edge grows further away.  Pain… well, that’s that red flag that goes ‘ouch!’ and if that’s what you feel, adjust, or even find a replacement pose.  And instructor will get you to do poses, but you always know your body best.

And you do. You know yourself best. You know what feels right in your body, and more than that, you know what feels right said out loud.

When someone you like asks you out and you have the urge to jump up for joy, why not just do it? Jump. Cheer. Give yourself a high five if you want.  But oh wait… some magazine said that you shouldn’t be over-enthusiastic right? You have to play these stupid games so that it looks like they’re more into you than you are into them. That way, if it doesn’t work out, although your heart might hurt, your ego remains intact, right?

There’s that fucking ego again.

All these rules, all these lists, all these have tos , have not tos and don’t you dare do thats!?.

Why?

Maybe it’s because while we are following lists, things become intellectual pursuits. Once we let go of these lists and start feeling, then it becomes complicated. Lists keep things black and white, but once we go into sensation, there are a million colours in between and sometimes the colours blur into each other.  It’s fucking scary. There is no ‘scientific proof’ in the world of feelings, and sometimes things can collide.  Anger and love. Hate and compassion. Sadness and fear.  A lady and a whore. A mother and a lover.  A gentleman and a villain. Desire and distaste.

But perhaps, it’s simpler than that… Perhaps we follow these lists for the one basic thing – the fear of being unloved.

As for me, I’m going to give up trying to be a lady or a woman for that matter. I want to just be – to make mistakes and say stupid things, to just swear when appropriate (not at parents or elders though, that’s just basic human decency and respect), and to just be OK with myself when I’ve eaten more than 500 calories a day plus a bag of chips, when my dress size is not a 6, and when I fall over while demonstrating a pose in class.

Because you know what?

Sometimes a perfect life comes is made up of many imperfect moments.

So yeah, let’s all throw out the bloody lists and work on the areas between the blacks and the whites.

Edited by Cazz Eccles: http://lovewhatitloves.wordpress.com/

How the Fuck are YOU Doing?

We always know when people ask “how are you?” if they mean it or not, but nowadays it is very seldom that people ask the question as a question instead of a greeting. Really, who asks a question as a greeting? Well, a lot of people apparently. So much so, that I’ve given up on answering most of the time.  However, a few people I know are driven insane by my always asking things like, “how are you?” and “how do you feel?” Pregnant friends often get the latter. Sure nobody stops to wait for an answer anymore but call me crazy, I actually expect people to know how they are feeling. And not only do I ask, I’m quite happy to sit there and enquire not just of the big stuff, but of the tiny little changes like a niggle in a shoulder, or a slight change in appetite.

Do you know where you are right now? How are you feeling?

Honestly, ask me three years ago, and I would have had no idea how I was doing. The thing is, between greeting everyone else, and not waiting for an answer (because time is money and it’s all about how many people you can greet instead of the quality of your greeting) how many times a day do we check in and ask ourselves how we’re really doing? Is it hard? As Bryan Kest would say, “it’s simple, but it’s not necessarily easy.”  You see, sometimes checking in with yourself is the hardest thing to do.  Sometimes, you might not like what you see, or rather, that bit of you that’s known as the ego, constantly judging and raising an eyebrow, might not like it.

Les Leventhal in his classes often ask questions like, “how’s your breath?” and “how’s your life?’ Obviously in a yoga class you wouldn’t pipe up with an answer.  Well some people might, but after the fifth time when you’re sweating buckets you give up even trying.  However, in the silence, when you’ve got your foot in an unlikely place and an arm in an even more unlikely place, and you’re pretty much stuck there, you have no choice but to answer the questions to yourself.

I used to wonder why yoga instructors asked these questions, and to tell you the truth, it used to annoy me. I mean, how the hell was I supposed to know what I was feeling? Why the hell are we holding this lunge for so long? What rubbish is this hippy talking about? Converse with my body? How in fuck’s name would I do that? How the fuck would I know if my breath is speaking to me? Bodies don’t speak! Oh yes, a lot of pretty dialogue was going on in my head back then.  There was a lot of shit that I carried with me on to the yoga mat.  To be honest, I still carry some shit into my yoga with me today, but I think I’m conscious of the shit now so it’s manageable.

It takes a while (and occasionally your instructors go blue from repeating the same thing over and over again) but at one point, you get it. Nobody knows how you’re feeling apart from you (duh!).  Your instructor can tell you to put your hip somewhere and your arm somewhere else, but they don’t know how you’re feeling.  When do you start speaking to your body? When you pull back instead of pull out.  When you stop pushing yourself so hard that your heart is falling out of your chest.  When you know that line between pain and discomfort, and you just dance within discomfort. When you can actually smile instead of wanting to punch your instructor. When you start feeling instead of thinking.  When your ego decides to shut the fuck up.

Now that I’ve started trying to teach, I am always asking how this feels and that feels, where they feel the stretch, how their breath is doing.  Yes, I am the one instructing and teaching, but the best teacher is your own body.  Your body knows where it can go, and where it can stay.  It’s not your brain going, “yes, go deeper in the pose.” Stop. Feel. Muz would say that it’s like stepping into a hot bath. You don’t just jump in and scald yourself. You test the temperature slowly, and feel if it’s a comfortable before you lay back.  Sometimes it’s a smidgen too hot, but slowly your body temperature adjusts to it.  It’s all a habit of starting a dialogue with your body and with your emotions. At some point, you get used to asking yourself these questions, and you continue asking yourself through the day.  So please, stop, breathe, feel and consider – how’s your breath? How’s your life? How’s your heart? How the bloody fuck are you doing?