The slow passage of time
as I wait for you to appear to me. Deeper into the night I go
Searching… Searching
For your face o my Beloved.
Then slowly, too slowly for time
Your shadow emerges.
First, a glimpse,
Then clearer and clearer in the darkness.
Oh all this waiting was worth it,
For your flawed perfection.
For the knowledge,
That you were with me all along.
Though it took complete darkness
To know that you were there
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.
According to statistics, one in four children in the US have been sexually molested. I don’t know what the statistics are in other parts of the country, but that is a big number. It means that every fourth person you meet has been in some way or other, sexually taken advantage of. I don’t know what the statistics are in Malaysia or in the UK where it happened to me but it could be similar. And yes, it did happen to me.
This was 29 years ago, when parents thought that the world was a safe place and that you could allow children to play securely and innocently. He was an acquaintance of my mother’s, someone she was taking a course with in Manchester, UK. It was already a rough time, as my father had sent me to my mother along with a letter that he was leaving her for a younger woman. She was devastated and I was confused.
How does a six year old even begin to describe the situation? It was a public place, and there was no pain involved but something about the situation didn’t feel right. I couldn’t even find the words to say what had happened and my mother was already upset, so I kept it quiet. Keeping it quiet however, did not mean that nothing manifested of it.
I’ve lived my life panicking every time a man stands too close behind me, and when a man assists me in child’s pose, my initial reaction is to stop breathing and freeze up until the message gets to my brain that I know the person and that it is OK to relax. It took me years to get used to the assist in downward facing dog where someone grabs you from the hips and pulls you back. Even now, there are only a few men I can relax into the assist with and I am extremely sensitive to the intention behind the touch.
It was never spoken of, but it has always been somewhere in the shadows.
And it wasn’t until two years ago that I had a vivid memory of the experience. My abuser had come from behind and he wasn’t rough, but he did touch me in an inappropriate way. A child might not know it in their mind, but children are sensitive receptors of touch. It was a lucky thing that there were other people around on the other side of the room or it could have been worse. I wanted to look out the window and he carried me until I could see. It was subtle but I did feel violated.
The event has been playing in the back of my mind for all this time.
‘When the student is ready, the teacher appears,’ old Buddhist proverb.
And so I must have been ready as the right teacher appeared. She had been through a worse experience than I had, relived the memory and come out the other side. I remember being in her class over a year ago, and the feelings surrounding the situation for me came up. Even from the first class, she noticed that I had trouble connecting to my sacrum and was coaxing me to bring breath into the area. It has been a slow process and part of the thing that made is so was my fear to face the assault.
It takes a lot to face these things but last Wednesday, something clicked. Ana Forrest, my beautiful teacher coaxed us to go on a quest towards identifying the blockages that keep us from being whole. In case of a traumatic event, a part of you remains in that time until you go back and free them. Ana said the magic words, telling us that the worst was over. We had survived and we were alive.
That, I think was what did it for me. I decided at the beginning of class that I would chase this fucker down so he could have less power over me. That intention must have been potent because even from the beginning as I was bringing breath down to my sacrum and pelvic area, the tremors began. They continued through core work and most of the class. Finally, when we got into Shavasana, they took over, wrecking my entire body and causing me to panic to the point of not being able to breathe. Luckily Claire, Ana’s assistant, lovingly stayed with me, gently touching my head and cueing me to keep breathing. As soon as we were out of Shavasana, I was a sobbing wreck.
It did not finish there.
Through the day, when I got home, I would sit down, start breathing into my sacrum and the shaking would start followed by sobs. Emotionally, I had to revisit that time of being confused, scared and betrayed. That feeling of being left alone overtook me, and most of all were the very strong feelings that as this was happening to me, my father, the one who was meant to flex his muscles (he was an ex footie player) and protect me was busy starting a new romance. He had let me down, and that’s where my belief that men leave you when you’re weak started.
There were some positives to it though. I was finally able to speak to my mother about it and gave the six year old a voice. She has been a rock through these times. She continues to be amazing, caring, calling me and supportive in my determination to get through this. She’s stuck through me in my crazy quest and called every day since.
We women are so much stronger in our compassion than we give ourselves credit for.
On Thursday I went back. The tremors started early, and towards the end, we were in a compromising Frog pose with a big roll under our bellies. That’s when they fully took over my body. A big part of me wanted to leave the pose and run out of the room. Another part of me was absolutely adamant to chase this fucker out of my body. Ana stayed with me through almost all five minutes of the tormenting ordeal where there were moments when I truly believed that I might die.
But I didn’t and here I am.
I’ve been a gaping wound all week. The memories, and the feelings surrounding them rise and fall like waves. They take over me and I am a shaking mess all over again. Sleep has been sometimes easy but most of the time not. I’ve had nightmares and gone to some really dark places in my mind, but as much as it scares me, I don’t want to put a temporary salve on this.
This will be a tough ride but I want to live my life fully so I am choosing to go through this. The other option is to live my life behind a safe wall where ‘fine’ and ‘comfortable’ are good enough. They are really not so I am living the days occasionally getting thrown into my past knowing that only by facing the nightmares will I be able to shine light on them.
The first 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training I did, I was recovering from a breakup. This time, I will be so much more vulnerable as I head into another time of big change. Sometimes though, it is in times of darkness like these that you learn to find your own light. I could bury it and stick a positive affirmation on it, but that’s not where the work is done. There is greatness and magic in the world however, as what you need always gets provided to you. In my case, I have a strong and loving bond with my family even though they are far away, a generous and solid community that holds me in their arms, wonderful friends and a nuturing yoga practice.
I am also taking steps to protect myself now. Where I would spread my love without fear of backlash before, right now, I am a bit more cautious. Where I see threat of unnecessary hurt, I step back. Some friends will taper away. This is when you know the ones who are leeching on your life force, the ones who only want you when you are light and easy. If you have a partner, this is when you know a weak person from a strong one.
It is a process of riding the waves day by day, and a transformation through fire. At the other side awaits a stronger person with more compassion and so much more love for self and others.
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!
Thirteen years ago I stumbled into my very first yoga practice. It was at my local gym in Malaysia where the room was air-conditioned to be almost freezing and the teacher was jumping from one pose to another. In my second class with her, she got us to do drop-backs with a wall. The next day, my lower back felt really tweaky and uncomfortable. Needless to say, I never went back to her and resigned myself to the gym.
I am of the hyper mobile, super flexible variety of human being, whose primary physical activity in my youth started with dancing and cheerleading. I have sprained my left ankle about four times, my right one three times and have a dodgy right knee. Anyone who performs or does competitive sports would know that the nature is, if it’s in season and you get injured, you keep going. As a result my left leg is still prone to injury and my right knee has days of protest. It didn’t get easier as I got older. By my late twenties, I had a pretty back lower back and my right shoulder was pretty mangled.
Then someone suggested I try yoga. Due to my fear of chiropractors, physiotherapists and doctors in general, I gave it a go. It was a bit of a shop around to find something I could stick with. I tried Bikram, and although I loved the heat, hyper-extending legs did not work with my ankles and knee. Not only that, my fiery personality seemed to get even more so, which really doesn’t bode well when work requires you to interact with people a lot.
It was only by chance that I looked on Google and found a different studio near where I worked. It started with an Introductory Pass, which at the time was $25 for two weeks. It blew my mind! There was still the element of heat but being told not to hyper-extend anything made everything about a hundred times harder. I would go into this place with carpet that smelled horrible and big classes, and by the end of the classes I wouldn’t know which way was up and which was down. Shavasana came as a relief. By the end of two weeks, I was hooked.
This was Vinyasa.
It was in no way easy and every time I got one move down there was something else to learn. Then there were these teachers who would give me the shits by asking me to get out of ‘my spot,’ and on occasion move me to the front. Sometimes I would even cry in class. For the first time in ages though, my body felt good. I loved that no two classes and no two teachers were the same. There was personality in the practice. There was heart.
At first I practiced like a mad woman. The harder and hotter the class, the more chaturangas, the more I would push myself through it. What happens however, is when you get tired you lose form. I was tired in every way possible and one of the teachers sat me down and told me to take a break.
So I did, and went to do a week of Iyengar.
It was hellish! Sitting still was not my forte and I got really impatient with all the props involved. I would get into a pose and fidget like someone coming off hard drugs, but the precision of Iyengar is amazing! After a week my back felt fabulous and I went back to Vinyasa with all the new alignment points I’d learned.
Then three years ago something called me to do my first 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training. All I wanted to do was know more about this practice but the seven months of training were priceless and surprisingly, I came out wanting to teach. In December 2012 I finished Teacher Training, in January 2013 my father passed away and by February I had boxed my high heels and left the corporate world.
On the 12th of April 2013 (my 33rd birthday), I taught my first Community Class in BodyMindLife. Two years later, I am still there.
It was in no way the ending of a journey, but a beginning. In a world of blond, 6’ handstanding vegan yoginis who like kale smoothies I am most definitely different. Being more mobile than strong means that arm balances come very slow and one moment of not being aware means an injury. Flexibility is a great thing, but needs to be balanced with strength. My continuous work is in not going all the way into bendy poses just because I can and not to practice injured as it brings about other injuries. It is a lesson I seem to have to keep learning again and again. As I type this, I am recovering from two displaced ribs, and a hamstring and a wrist injury. Note, trying to lift a scooter is probably a bad idea on any day. After all my resistance, I am working a physio and have magically found the most amazing CrossFit coaches at CrossFit Black to help my strength conditioning.
Yet yoga continues to be my first love and as I teach and learn, I’ve discovered that yoga is not just asana. My practice has changed through the years. I still love those hot sweaty classes with 50 students breathing together, but I also love waking up in the morning and losing myself in an hour of ground based, deep Yin. Just about a year ago, I started meditating and even within that it keeps changing.
This practice has taught me compassion and love, and being peaceful in joy and sorrow. It has taught me acceptance and that it is OK to not be strong all the time. It has taught me that drama is just a distraction and a good life can be lead without the fluff. It has taught me that the tendencies I have on the mat are often the same ones I have in my daily life. It has taught me that things end but that doesn’t mean you discount what happened, and that new beginnings happen. We are ever changing beings and more than learning poses or how to sit still, we are constantly learning about ourselves. Within this practice I have found family, community and connection, and the realisation that between the blacks and whites of wrong and right, there are they greys of the in between.
I’ve realised now that it doesn’t need to be any one way. Some days you need that practice that challenges you physically and other days you just need to do the simple stuff and reconnect with your breath. Some days practice is easy and without resistance, and other days you go in with all this stuff and practice is a nightmare. Some days you go into practice and you’re laughing all the way and other days, you are a ball of sweat and tears at the end of the practice. But you don’t have to be any one way to practice, not a certain body type, or weight or age. You come as yourself on that day, in that moment and whatever you do is perfect.
More than the teacher, my practice is based on how I am on that given day.
And this in itself has been a journey. It is discovering that yoga is not one thing. I’ve had the privilege of learning and practicing with some of the best teachers in Australia and Internationally, and at the end of it, yoga is a journey of self-discovery. You learn from the different teachers but the magic is in finding your yoga. As a teacher I have learned that what I do and what I offer might vary. It is not my place to tell students about their practices, bodies or beliefs but to share what I know so they can explore. All we can do is try as much as we can to meet students where they are and move with them to wherever we can go together.
I still believe that there is magic in the practice and it is still my first love, but the journey continues and is ever evolving. As I teach, I am also learning and as students are learning in my classes, they are also teaching me. I am ever grateful to my teachers and to the students who light up my classes, and most of all my community for being there. I’m hoping that my learning never ends.
Next stop, Prana Flow in Greece, June 2015.
I am trying to write something that I can give to you but the words are taking their time. I am trying to reach out and touch you with my words, the same way I saw two friends touching each other the other day. There was so much love in that instance, it stopped me in my tracks. There was this giving and receiving, total trust and surrender. She moved the boundaries between them as she ran her fingers over his skin and he softened into her touch. The most intimate of moments, yet a moment so pure the connection between them radiated through the room.
Are we like that too?
When I lower my boundaries, stepping away from the world of social media and instant messaging to have a conversation with you is that what I am doing? Our friendship is the same as a million other friendships in this world, and yet, it is one that is unique to only us. We stand there, skin against skin and sometimes, I can feel your heart beating underneath this skin, inside this shell that is your body. Your voice has become familiar to me, and your touch, sometimes a challenge, but at other times a source of comfort and safety.
With you, I am learning trust. With you, I am learning that I can allow for moments of softness. I am learning that if I need you, you are there. With you, I am learning that there is more intimacy in the moments we spend together conversing and breathing than I have known with lovers in the dark. We know each other like this. You. Me. A knowing look, a moment shared between two people. I know how the skin of your hands feel, the rumble of your laughter, the sound of your breath. So intimate, so real, a solid entity in a world where everything else is air.
Do you know that to me, you are fucking beautiful. All the things you consider flaws, the parts that you hide from the world, the things that make you uncool – these are the things that make me love you. I know you have your mask on for a reason, as do I. It keeps us safe, but sometimes I wonder if instead of fearing the person behind the mask is unworthy of love, we are more afraid of someone loving this person. Not being loved allows us to remain in our little world, so we love people we feel we are unworthy of and we love people who are unworthy of us. Perhaps deep down we know that it is when love comes and is returned in kind that our carefully constructed worlds might change.
So we build boundaries.
We raise our masks.
We write stories.
We make the things that are already happening impossible. Yet here they are. Possible. Happening. We just choose not to see them. We find that one more thing that we have to work on before this can happen, we tweak and change, we make ourselves busy, leaving no space, so we can have just a little more time in this safety. We think we are not ready, but the fact that this is happening means that we are.
In a way that is unique only to us, we know each other. Before you say a word, I know that it is you standing close to me, a completely foreign but familiar entity. We’ve known each other for a while, yet every day we are just starting get to know each other. You continue to change as do I. Our lives continue to evolve, moving between emptiness and fullness, and yet, in these cycles, we are still here for each other.
Why are we fighting this gravity between us?
Why do we find that one more reason to not allow ourselves to just surrender to this moment, this thing that sits between us silently?
It is bigger than you and I together combined. It is that space that engulfs our two lives, creating a whole new space in the process. It is allowing the universe’s wrecking ball to break everything that we have built so far so we may rebuild again. It is allowing that final hold to drop and allowing our hearts to love, really love, to be uncomfortable, to be awkward, to find ourselves in a strange new land and to allow our separate universes to turn upside down.
It is the courage to let that raging person sitting behind the mask finally bask in the embrace of love.
Today marks the 20th day of Ramadan for Muslims all over the world. During this month, among other things, we refrain from food and drink from sunup to sundown. Of course, seeing as how it’s winter in Australia, it isn’t a very long day at all.
Like others in the world, I am also practicing Ramadan.
I have been practicing this since I was eight years old, but it wasn’t until I started living alone that I really understood the meaning of it. When you are surrounded by family, every night is a big feast and you end up eating more than you actually need because you’re not really being conscious. In recent years, this for me has become a month of introspective consideration, of early mornings, waking up before the sun for a solitary meal and revelling in the quiet of that time of day.
This year, Ramadan changed for me yet again.
It is the first year that I have really needed to manage my energy so that I could continue practicing, work, and still serve others in my yoga teaching. I must admit that the first two weeks were a bit of a trial as I was working six day weeks, running a conference where my shortest day was 10 hours long, and teaching on top of that.
A lot had to change just to remain standing those first two weeks.
Where I would previously go back to sleep after a cup of tea, a date and some water in the morning, this year I have had to carefully consider my meals so they may serve me through the day. I am lucky as I am not finicky about labelling my food as ‘breakfast food,’ ‘dinner food’ and so on and so forth as it gives me freedom to eat as I feel is needed. There have been mornings when I have had a bowl of pasta for breakfast, knowing that I would have a strong practice and a long day.
Where the bed beckoned before, this year I have opted for staying up after my meal (that’s from 4:30am for us here and let’s be honest, who can sleep after a bowl of pasta?). The mornings have been filled with silent meditations, writing in my journal and quiet contemplation in long baths. There have been many days when I have just indulged myself in long, slow home practices as the day slowly grew light.
My bed time has been modified too as I try to be in bed by 8:30pm or at the latest 9:30pm. If I wasn’t much into hanging out at pubs and bars before Ramadan, this month, the chances of that have been reduced to zero.
In Ramadan, life is modified.
And on the mat, my practice had to be modified too.
It was a great thing having Les Leventhal here during the second week of Ramadan. If you’ve practiced his classes, you’ll know that they are advanced classes on steroids. The heat is on, and you’re doing at least eight poses on one leg before you switch to the other. In equal parts, he will remind you to breathe and encourage you to go for it. Now, I’m not as strong as a lot of people are on a good day, and even less so this month but practicing a class like that teaches you things. You can go hard, end up in a heap halfway through the class or walk out because you get lightheaded, or you could modify your practice and make it through the duration. When your body says ‘no more,’ you always have the option of sitting in meditation enjoying the positive vibes around you.
There was also a lesson in managing the ego here – that voice which says, ‘yes, go for it, you can do that one more vinyasa! You don’t need child’s pose.’ Did I indulge? Of course I did and then I went to teach and I didn’t have the energy to demonstrate even the simplest pose, let alone support my students. The class left me so drained I couldn’t even hold a conversation after, which doesn’t help as people might have questions.
And then you learn to receive and be soft. I have amazingly supportive friends, so my life this month has not been lacking in terms of hugs, mini-massages, and even a 10 minute Reiki boost. People have been very understanding when I have not been able to show up for parties after a long day at work, and when I haven’t made it to brunch during the daylight.
In order to keep going, things had to be modified.
10 days to go and although I am tired, I am doing it because I want to. After all, who is to stop me if I decide not to fast? It is a lesson that we don’t need as much as we have to survive. The lessons of Ramadan work hand in hand with the lessons from yoga. It teaches you of patience and surrender, waiting for a time when you can just have a drink and knowing that the sun won’t set until it is time. It is a time to take note of when you’re tired and hungry, and how that affects you emotionally. You learn how your body works or how you react when you don’t have the energy to do as much as you are used to doing. You are living on less sleep and less food than usual and it is interesting to see how that affects you. And you start thinking about the people who live like this every day, and not just from when the sun comes up to when the sun comes down. In a world where it is all about having more, doing more and being more, it is a time for less.
Ramadan Mubarak.
There’s a moment in time when you need to pause.
You’ve said “yes,” to that which has moved you (https://azphoenix.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/yes/) and said “no,” to the things that serve you no more.
You know where you are going, but there is something saying, “no need to rush, what is inevitable will happen.”
And some things are just that.
Inevitable.
Like the light that comes after the night, and the warmth that comes after the cold.
Inevitable.
That word has been sitting with me for a month now.
In a way it is completely liberating but in another way, it scares the heck out of me because it means giving in to something I don’t know. I find myself resisting. Why? Well because nobody knows what the inevitable is until it happens. It is that thing which either is or isn’t yours no matter how hard you try. For someone who needs to always steer the direction of this ship called life, giving in to the inevitable is about as easy as brushing your hair with your toes. There is a slight tensing of the shoulders and a more than slight tightening of the hips. If trusting the known is not easy, trusting the unknown is the test of ultimate surrender.
In the last two weeks, I have sat in yoga class after yoga class fighting the resistance in my hips. I have been angry at my body for not doing what it usually should. Instead of the relaxed effort I am used to, there has been this tense, unrelenting strife. Every posture from standing, to balancing, to even melting has been a trial. Sleep has been a nightly battle.
And in reply, my anger awakens, like the boiler of an old steamer ship, rumbling. Instead of the steady flame that sits inside me, there is a roaring fire in the depths, ready to speed ahead and crash into anything in its path.
As things kept getting busier and busier for me, I just kept going. Plowing through one thing, then the next and the next, and then I crashed. In a heap of sweat and tears on my trusty yoga mat, and realized that although I thought I could not afford to stop, I needed to stop.
What’s coming could be exactly what I want, or it could not.
But what I needed was this moment between then and the future.
I needed the now.
I needed a pause.
Just like the first time someone takes your hand where you tense up before letting your palms melt into each other, softening but strengthening the bond. Just like that breath you take before you dive into the ocean, that tensing before your whole body melts into half pigeon, that holding of the breath in for just a second before releasing into shavasana. It is just like that slight pause, pulling away and looking at each other between the first brush of lips and the second, deeper kiss.
The pause allows you to collect yourself, to know that no matter how things come out the other side, you are whole.
It is what brings all of you into this one place – Knowing that it was the past that brought you here to the doorway of the future.
One moment in time between what was and what will be.
One moment to melt the resistance.
One moment to know that however it turns out things will be as they should be.
One moment to embrace the unknown inevitable.
Pause.
The third eclipse in this short span of time comes to us with the next full moon, and with it, is a time to say “goodbye,’ – a time to release, and perhaps even let a whole section of yourself die. Most of us are uncomfortable with endings and a lot more of us don’t like talking about death. It is the final end. The place where you can’t go back to what once was. It is that place where your footprints get washed away by the sea and all that is left is to go forward, into the unknown.
There is comfort in the old, a familiarity, a certain safety, and to hold on is so much easier than to let go and step towards the future. We might say that we don’t believe in these things, but sometimes, something greater just moves us in this direction. Without ever intending to, we leave the past and head towards the future. Something closes, something else opens. Like my teacher Mel would say of a backbend, “it is like everything in the past pushing you forward from your heart.” There is a beautiful sadness but also an excitement of what is to come.
It can be comforting having just that one string so that we can hold on to the past, but sometimes that string needs to be cut. In that space where there was left the faintest of connections, there needs to be just emptiness. The faint imprint left by a former lover is wiped away by the rain, allowing the glow of a new sun to spread it’s warmth on a clean foundation. Sometimes a lover becomes a friend, other times, even the friendship can’t be salvaged and the lover becomes a stranger. A friend or even a stranger becomes a lover.
You think your heart died the last time it broke.
Going back into that space where you allow things to enter seems crazy.
But something stirs again – Perhaps the tiny flickering flame of affection, growing into desire and in the future, who knows?
You died once when your last life ended.
And you are reborn into this new life.
The heart beats.
It lives.
It wants to soar.
It wants to go into the unknown.
You’ve found your centre and don’t want to lose it, but your heart, the centre of it all is ready to bring you off your axis.
It is time.
The final goodbye led to the first hello. And the darkness makes the light seem so much brighter. Something different, someone different, is scary. It is the possibility of your universe being flipped upside down in a way that is beyond your control. It is two movements in one – allowing something unknown into this comfortable and familiar space that you have painstakingly built while you yourself move into an unknown dimension. It is a doorway to another part of yourself, yet undiscovered. How do you know that you will like this undiscovered self? How do you know that you won’t?
Right now the questions are being asked and not answering is no longer an option.
Will you let go?
Will you let the past rest where it belongs?
Are you going to release fear and step over a threshold into a new life?
Can you allow a glance to become a lingering look?
When someone reaches out their hand to you will you take it?
Are you ready to immerse yourself into the unfamiliarity of the future?
A million questions, and the only answer that will make a difference is…
Yes
Every other day, someone in the wellness industry will put something up about being happy. It’s usually one of those cute little word poster design things, like the one below.
This is the world that I am a part of and I do love the people in this community but today, I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate to the ‘be happy,’ mantra. I suppose since this is an ‘industry,’ one would need something to sell, but I do wonder if selling happiness could be dangerous to the public. The way it is portrayed, it looks like being happy is the be all and end all of your purpose to life. You eat well, you exercise, you smile, you pick happy friends and that’s what life is supposed to be.
What about the other emotions that we, as humans have the capacity for? It seems to me that as we push the ‘be happy,’ mantra, we alienate the rest. Sure, the rest is not as pretty as being happy, but pushing things under the rug is just not healthy. At some point these emotions will bubble up in an eruption, and like larva flowing out of a volcano, it will burn everything in its path. Also, with the rich array of emotions that humans are capable of, happy seems to be a bit trite, and dare I say it, ‘fluffy.’
And what about the people who are going through a tough period? What if this whole idea that we are made to be happy just makes them feel like there’s something wrong with them? I have met so many people who go through a tough time and the first thing they do is think themselves ill, seeking psychological help, and medication. As the world reaches for this concept of ‘happiness,’ it is like being unhappy every once in a while is just not normal. (Note, I’m not talking about prolonged periods of depression here, but the times when one could be a bit down on energy due to any number of things including work, relationship or even physical health issues) Or worse still is the person who just doesn’t feel like going out, but with all the YOLO and ‘be happy,’ going around turns to party drugs. Why? Well, because according to the hippy trippy stuff, not being happy is somehow wrong. Because we are meant to be happy all the time. And when we are not, we are somehow lacking or unwell.
On the other side of the spectrum, there is this issue with surrounding ourselves with happy people. Sure it’s great. Happy people make other people happy, but what about that person who stuck with you while you were down in the dumps and is perhaps going through a prolonged period of misery. What if they just got divorced or if they just lost a parent? They have every right to be miserable and even angry for a while, but does that mean that you walk away because being with them makes you miserable? Does that mean that they are mentally unwell? Time is relative. Some people get over things in a month, others take a year, and it might cramp your happiness vibe but time is what a lot of people need.
I know most people mean well when they tell other people to be happy, but perhaps the message needs a bit of a revamp. Happiness is not a permanent state. It is balanced off with periods of disappointment, sadness, grief, anger, exhaustion and a myriad of other feelings. Life is like the ocean while we are this little sand castle on the beach. Sometimes you just don’t know what the waves will bring in. It can just tickle you or completely destroy you. These experiences and feelings, even though they might not be pleasant, do enrich our lives in their way.
Pushing happiness the way we do, is not honouring this fact that there are things greater than us. Actually, sometimes I feel like it’s the opposite extreme of drumming the Seven Deadly Sins in someone’s head. Difference is, the mantra, “you must not blah blah blah,” is replaced with, “you must be happy.” This idea of, “must,” “should be,” or “shouldn’t be” anything is always a dangerous one to have. It is too black and white, and if anything, as teachers, we want people to accept the greys in between.
Perhaps in this world where people come searching for something more, our message should be a kinder one, like acceptance, compassion and most of all, peace. To be happy all the time is to deny or even fight other emotions but to be at peace is to calmly accept any feelings that come with a lot of compassion and allow them to stay as long as they need to. It has an element of surrender and softness, but also a lot of strength. It is not denying or burying things in order to ‘be happy,’ but entering the space that is not happiness with a sense of acceptance. Because being human is feeling a range of emotions and we need to accept this in a way that is healthy and compassionate.
Smart man, Rumi was
Azzie's Blog 