Just Dance – Life is Well Enough as it is

When I went to yoga teacher school, part of the process was self-study. In fact the niyamas, part of the eight limbs of yoga includes the practice of svadhyaya which is a study of your inner realm. Yoga, after all is more than a physical practice. It is the life long practice of looking at yourself, finding your issues and working on them in the quest to becoming an enlightened being. With practice and time, the layers are peeled back to find our atma or higher self.

 

Now, as a teacher, I find myself in constant self-study and to add to it, I am surrounded by healers. It is great in a way, but in another, not so much. You see healers can sometimes see problems everywhere. There is always something that deserves a deeper look at, always something that needs to be fixed. Sometimes, it can go too far, like a person who enrols you in dance classes in a style you hate because you can’t get your steps in time with everyone else. It creates pressure and you end up resenting the dance even more. The thing too is that healers can be broken, and sometimes, in not wanting to be broken alone, there is projection, making their stories the stories of others, but it is not the case. It is never the same.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, and one of the things I decided in my 30s was that I would only surround myself with people I actually like, but some days, I grow wary of the digging. Being female, I am good enough at breaking myself down so having an army of people turning every action or non-action into an issue doesn’t really help matters. Sometimes all the digging is a bit like reading those useless ‘how to’ articles in female magazines, you know the ones, ‘how to meet prince charming,’ ‘how to live an awesome life,’ and ‘how to make a man love you,’ etc. If you actually just put the articles down, you might realise that your life is pretty awesome and that you are, in fact a shining star.  All these things that are there to ‘help’ sometimes just creates is this sense of not being enough or not doing enough.

 

The thing is, not everything needs to become an issue and every issue should definitely not be made into an excuse. We all carry scars from our childhoods and our youths. In their own way, they not only shape who we are but have also brought us to this space here and now. My heart carries the scratches and bruises of being my father’s daughter and the unhealthy relationships I have had in my life, with self, with people, with addictions. My heart might always wear these scars and perhaps, although she may never fully heal, it is fine, she can move forward and with time, she will get where she’s going.

 

All this poking and prodding and digging, how much does it really help? The emotional body is not quite like the physical body. My right hip flexor is sore and that can directly be traced back to my torn hamstring and how I compensated for that by doing things differently. The emotional things however, the deeper things, well, perhaps they are fine as they are. Perhaps, although there is a deeper story it is not for us to know yet. I am tired of how my being single becomes a dissection of how I am either not manifesting, setting intentions, putting it our there or the opposite, putting it out there too much. I am tired of how caring for someone means that I am not taking care of myself while they get what they want.

 

Life and yoga to me, is this great amazing dance. You dance on your own, figuring out your own steps, you dance in a group, finding ways of how that works and you dance with a single other at different times, in different ways, friend, sister, lover. You can help someone if they’re dancing with an injured foot, but who are we to say that people are not dancing the right way or to question their steps.

 

You might see two people dancing at opposite ends of the room with this amazing chemistry between them – she with just the right amount of softness to compliment his strength. Occasionally they dance close to each other but they move away again. Sometimes you just want to make them dance together, and when they don’t you start handing them pamphlets of dance schools that can help. I’ve learned that some dances, like the dance I dance when I’m alone, are not made to be shared. They are my steps to my tune. It is the same with a dance between two people. They each come to it with their own breaths, steps, backgrounds, rhythms and sometimes, it takes time to figure out how to dance together. They lose count, step on each other’s toes (sometimes on purpose) and they might even drop each other, but nothing is broken, nothing needs to be fixed. It is their own dance, to dance for themselves, not for you. And if you are the dancer on the floor, this is your dance, not for the world.

 

Life is a process.

 

Yes, we want to get there, wherever there is. We want that perfect handstand, we want to be loved, and we have so much love to give, but some things, the good things, no matter how you dissect or tear apart, you just can’t rush. Perhaps, there is nothing wrong with being fine with how things are not exactly how you want them to be. Perhaps, not liking having my feet of the ground is not some big character flaw that I have to fix and perhaps giving love not knowing if it is returned is not something that means I’ll spend my life pining while the ones loved just take.

 

There are always a million things that can be wrong, that can be fixed, but there comes a time when everything is just fine the way it is. Les Leventhal reminded me that a flower opens when it is time. If you pull the petals open, they break. It is the same with most things – your body in practice, your life in its journey and your heart. When it is time, nothing you can do can stop what is going to happen from happening.

 

So relax.

 

Live, love, cry, break.

 

Listen to the music and dance. This track might be shit but the next track might be fucking awesome.  What you do at that exact time is always the right thing, and if you decide that you want to change your dance, slow it down, take a partner, change the pace – there is always space for that too. Remember that in a dance, there is that strength, but also that ultimate surrender to the music. Most of the time, you don’t really know what music is going to start playing.

 

 

Broken

You know how sometimes the universe hits you once, and while you’re still reeling from that, it hits you once more, just for good measure?  You’re already down on your knees. Another hit and your chin ends up on the floor.  Some days it’s expected, but there are times when you’re just not prepared, but then, when are we ever prepared for life’s big events?

Think of those days. Perhaps when you’re in a prolonged extended side angle, knowing that the next step is to fly. The sweat is flowing freely from your body.  You ready yourself, walking that back foot forward, prepared to fly into a standing bird of paradise, and then you find, what’s this? That foot, the one you so want up in the air, simply does not want to get off the ground.  Fuck. You fidget, move, squirm, but it just isn’t feeling right.  Your body has detached itself from your mind and just won’t do what it should.

Then there are days when the world just doesn’t look great, when although the sun is shining, your heart is hurting.  Work is just doesn’t inspire you, or the baby can’t stop crying, or the spouse is being a pain in the ass, and there’s nobody to talk to because everyone is just drowning in their own crap.  And you’re pretty sure that if you spoke to someone, anyone, you’d just get pissed off anyway.

Now think of those days, and enlarge it to a grand scale where not just your body is not up to task, but your emotions feel like they’ve been put through a shredder.

Some times in life, you just want to tell the whole world to just fuck off because you have absolutely nothing to give right now. Beep.  Beep. Call back at a later date… you’re just a bit shattered at the moment.

You take one step forward, then the universe pushes you down the flight of steps, and your goal looks about as close to you as Mount Olympus does.  You’re just so tired that there are just no more tears to cry.

Some days are just a bit shit.

Some days are a lot shit.

So what do you do?  Grab the nearest bottle of strong alcohol? Go out on the town and pick up? Spend days in the stupor of being stoned?

Or maybe just bury it all in some hippy-trippy affirmation.

Or not.

The reality of it is just that sometimes, you’re just not happy. In fact, there are times when you’re just absolutely devastated and you’re not sure if you can make the effort to even breathe.

Our modern world dictates that we should be OK all the time, to work, to hangout with friends, to get on with life.  We life in a society where the dark side is often hidden under layers of fake happiness, but at the end of the day, you want to be real, even if it means being a bit raw.  Even if it means staying in child’s pose for a bit longer so our hearts can recover.

Because you know what?

That’s the fucked up reality of life, and perhaps it makes sense to be OK with just not being OK. It’s not all roses and rainbows.  There are days that are going to be dark and dreary, and occasionally, it’s just about sitting there in the darkness without trying to force a light.

Sometimes, there’s nothing left to do but to be broken and to be fine with it – And perhaps, somewhere in the broken pieces, life will reshape itself and move into the next incarnation.

In the Silence

“The silence is your canvas, that’s your frame, that’s what you work on; don’t try and deafen it out.” – Keith Richards

When I was reading Keith Richards’ biography, Life, the sentence above really stood out for me.  For one thing, it was really ironic that someone whose living consisted on making sound would say something like that, and on the other hand, it sounded very “yogic.” Outside of yoga studios, I suppose the understanding of yoga takes on two meanings, either the physical practice which we call asana, or the meditation practice.  Logically, you would think that there is no way that the asana practice could lead to silence.

Originally, I thought the same.  I mean, how could it be any different?  You have this instructor speaking to you through the class, and then you’re moving, and then there’s that infernal dialogue between your brain and your body and your body and your brain and everything that’s trying to happen at the same time and then you put one foot forward, and then the other, and then you’re on in a push up, then a back bend, and that bloody downward dog.  How could there possibly be so much going on at the same time when you’re just balancing on your palms and the balls of your feet? And who has time for silence anyway?

Well, we all should.

I personally had forgotten the importance of silence until last weekend. How? Well, I was hit by the most insane headache, the kind where you just want to throw up to relieve some of the pressure in your head.  It was like a pressure cooker in there, and the only relief I had (being someone who doesn’t take painkillers) was to shut the lights and sit in absolute darkness.

You know what I had done to myself to get into that situation?

Easy answer – overstimulation.

I had forgotten to honour silence.  In trying to do all the stuff I felt I had to do, my senses were constantly being stimulated. Of course for others it might be a legitimate illness, but sometimes, the solution need not be complicated.  In my case, I was pushing it. At any point in time, I was reading or watching television, or both, or reading and listening to music.  Add to that the stuff that just goes on during the day. Even walking up the street, our eyes, ears, sense of smell, sense of touch, sense of taste even sometimes, all of them are going.  And the thing is, whatever we perceive through our senses, the brain automatically process.  Although I meditate about 20 minutes a day, how could that be enough to offset the other stuff.   Through my lifestyle, I was making my brain process a lot more than was necessary at a given time.

What did that do to my nerves? Well, it fried them.

Then on Sunday, the 18th of November, I attended a talk on the effects of bass music and the effects of yoga.  Do you remember those nights? You’re there just riding this beat and you’re dancing like the world meant nothing, and then there’s the silence and your whole body is vibrating in this space of silence.  Inside there is no worry, there is only bliss, in that silence.  Of course, for some (myself included), there were drugs involved, but they weren’t really necessary.  That was a quick step to ecstasy when we are wired to produce these chemicals on our own anyway.  The thing with chemically induced highs is like anything else in extremes, an extreme high will be followed by extremes in the opposite direction.

I am often very guilty of trying to deafen silence out. Most of the time, it’s either because there’s something I don’t want to hear in that silence, or because I have gotten myself into a cycle of ‘busyness’.  But what teachers are trying to teach us in yoga classes is that there is silence and stillness in movement.  When the yoga instructor is coaxing you into these places where your body is trembling and your mind in screaming, the invitation is to find silence there.  When the music is shaking us up like crazy, can we ride it to that place inside which is just silent and still?

There is always silence.  Sometimes though, it takes a bit of work to get there.  Sometimes, we just need to face the ego, the blame, the conscience, the have tos and the musts, and everything in between and just sit.  It is there, in the spaces between our thoughts.