Yoga Archives - Francine Kelley, LCPC, SEP, RYT500

I laugh on my yoga mat. (Really, I do!)

Do not kill the instinct of the body for the glory of the pose. Do not look at your body like a stranger but adopt a friendly approach towards it. Watch it, listen to it, observe its needs, its requests, and even have fun. To be sensitive is to be alive…

To twist, stretch, and move around, is pleasant and enjoyable, a body holiday.

There is an unexpected delight in meeting earth and sky at the same moment!

-Vanda Scaravelli in Awakening the Spine

My last post described yoga as a feeling practice. When I read this quote by Vanda Scaravelli many years ago it resonated deeply, and I began to explore the idea of the practice being “an unexpected delight.” The result is that my yoga mat has become a really fun place to be. A place to be tired and energized; a place to be terrified and gleeful; a place to struggle and a place to find ease; a place to laugh.

Peter Levine, who developed Somatic Experiencing, says you can’t be curious and traumatized at the same time. And what is that if not the yogic principle of self-study (svadhyaya) combined with santosha (being with what is)? So for me, engaging curiosity on the mat has meant noticing what feels freeing and what feels constricting. The magic unfolds on my mat as I get curious about what feels right versus what is an imposed should – an external idea of how my body should be. Where is the prana (life energy) moving freely, where is it not, and how can I allow it to be free?

Every summer, in Chicago, I teach yoga to girls from West Africa who are in the US as part of Expanding Lives, an amazing leadership and empowerment program for young women. The girls have a blast on their yoga mats. They groan and exclaim when a pose is hard, they sigh and smile when it feels good, they bliss out when we’re “just breathing.” They have no sense that they should be serious and self-contained, so they just experience the practice.

When I started letting go of the shoulds on my mat, I began to also experience my practice as fun! Instead of struggling to make a difficult pose “right,” I decided to get curious and relax, and often the pose would feel better and a smile would spontaneously emerge. Eventually I chose to smile rather than struggle, and before I knew it I was laughing from the sheer joy of moving my body in space (or even just holding still).

Sometimes I laugh because it’s hard! It’s exhilarating to be able to hold a pose until my muscles shake and my heart beats fast – listening for when my body says “Ok my dear, that’s quite enough.” My heart delights at the lyricism of a slow vinyasa. It’s fun to fall out of a balance pose, giggling like I did as a kid. It’s exquisite sensory bliss to lay in savasana (the rest pose at the end of class) with yoni mudra (a hand position) over my navel and feel prana move.

The body is a sensory instrument. How much we miss when we don’t befriend it.

I do have to admit it’s a bit of a challenge in group classes – I have to giggle softly to myself or risk disturbing the class. I’m told I have a particular way of laughing, so busting out in class the way I do sometimes on my mat at home might not be appreciated. I’m not suggesting we turn group classes into a free-for-all, but this holiday season, I wish for you that your practice can be a “body holiday.”

Do you laugh on your yoga mat?

Namaste.

Are you feeling your yoga? Or just thinking about it?

Many years ago I met a yoga teacher who said that “yoga is a feeling practice.” That resonated with me, and at the time I realized that I was only feeling my practice some of the time. The rest of the time I was so involved with my thoughts that I was barely present with what my body was experiencing until my muscles started to protest.

On Thanksgiving this year I had the rare opportunity to spend the day alone and in silence. No talking. And the first thing I noticed was how much time and energy I spend thinking. So many words! Planning, contemplating, analyzing, theorizing, prognosticating about what other people might be thinking… On a silent retreat I wanted silence, but my mind had other ideas.

The endless rambling of the mind is easy to get caught up in, and for a lot of people, this constant spinning of the mind is what causes the bulk of their anxiety. Don’t get me wrong – we want the mind to be able to do the work it needs to do, but when it is just spinning in circles and causing anxiety, that is not effective.

The same thing can happen in our yoga practice. We may be moving our bodies, but our minds may be miles away in space or in time – or we may be judging ourselves. We end up doing the practice for its residual effects, missing out on the experience each pose can generate. Or, we move our bodies around with little regard for what the body is telling us it needs – we aren’t actually listening or collaborating with our bodies.

In any given moment, thinking is accompanied by our sensory experience. The physical body is a sensory instrument. Sights, sounds, smells, sensations on our skin, all this is happening at this very moment – even as you’re reading these words. Can you feel your fingers touching whatever they are now touching? What are you hearing at this moment? What are you smelling? What do you see with your actual eyes (versus your internal landscape)? What emotions arise as you pay attention to your senses?

On the yoga mat, while in a pose or even while resting, what do you experience with your sense of touch? What do you hear, see, smell, sense, feel? What is the immediate experience of now? How does it feel to be present here and now? Very often, when we come back to the present moment, we actually feel more relaxed, more “here.” When we quiet the endless rambling of the mind, we have a chance to experience what is actually ok in the present moment.

If the mind really wants to get involved, you might occupy it with the question: “Is this pleasant or unpleasant?” or “What feels good about this pose?” Let the mind be in service to the experience rather than spiraling out with judgments, shoulds, associations, plans or other elements that aren’t directly related to the experience you’re having now. Of course that spiraling might still happen, and you have the choice to follow, or to do something different. Instead of jumping on the “thought train,” you could acknowledge the mind, give thanks that it can do what it does, and then gently direct your attention back to the sensory experience of the moment.

Who knows? You may begin to notice that your yoga practice actually feels good. Before you know it, you might find yourself smiling or even laughing on your mat. (Yes, that’s allowed!)

Namaste.

Giving up the quest: Lessons in being present

A journey of a thousand miles can be altered by a single step. Most often, we don’t choose the steps that alter our trajectory – a chance meeting, a phrase absently spoken by a stranger, a quote remembered, something interesting that your partner stops to watch on TV. Sometimes you end up in a place where so many steps have converged that you can’t even remember where it started, or which one was the defining step. My wonderful teacher Billie Topa Tate says in her Loving Kindness Meditation: “All that I have done. All that has been done to me… has brought me to this sacred space in time.” And so it is!

Just before Christmas my husband got to a TV program he thought I’d enjoy. It was a comedienne who had become an atheist talking about the journey that had led her there. This I would enjoy? It turns out she was funny and I could relate to a lot of her issues with the Bible, the established Church, and even the New Age movement. What was most disturbing to me, though, was that in her conclusion she mentioned how free she felt after giving up the notion of “God.” I was so envious of her. I could feeling a small sense of her relief, and it was at the same time intriguing and frightening. You mean I’d have to give up God to be “free!?”

The yoga sutras talk about kaivalya – which is translated as liberation or freedom. I used to think that the key to my liberation (enlightenment if you will) was hidden in all that ancient knowledge. Somehow, if I knew more, studied more, practiced more, I would find the cure to this longing that, it seems, had always been here. Years ago I got angry at my husband because he said that all those books weren’t going to tell me what I needed to know. He said all the answers I needed were inside me. This week, and I guess through a series of steps over a lifetime, it has become clear to me that knowing more, learning more, or doing more will not get the answers I’ve been seeking.

As much as I hate to admit it (and I hope he never reads this entry!) my husband’s assessment was pretty accurate. It’s not that the knowledge in all these books I’ve read has not been helpful – a lot of it has been very helpful to me and to my clients and students. What I found, though, is that the more I read and the more classes I took, the more I realized I didn’t know and the more inadequate I felt. If gaining knowledge was the source of my salvation, then salvation was a long way away. Maybe I was broken beyond repair. Maybe there wasn’t enough time in this lifetime to get all the information I really needed. There was definitely no way I could read all those books on the shelf and the entire Sounds True and Hay House catalogs and all the books of esoteric knowledge yet to be purchased on Amazon.com. I realized that this collecting of knowledge had become a different kind of consumerism and that the void wasn’t being filled, it was only getting bigger. Maybe it was time to stop. That was the beginning of peace.

Everything can change in a minute. And then you realize that its been changing all along without you realizing – and that nothing changed at all. Thanks to a series of fascinating events I finally allowed myself this week to risk accepting the notion that I was never broken in the first place. I met my Self seemingly for the first time, and found she was delightful. There was nothing to look for, no more seeking necessary. This very place, this very me, is wonderful. How did I not realize this before when other people kept telling me? Because despite teaching about living in the present, I had been living in the future, constantly longing for a time when I would be fixed, perfect, realized. As long as I thought of myself as needing to be more, I always perceived myself as not enough. It was a subtle realization, prompted by the wise & loving words of others spoken at just the right time so that I could actually hear, and the refrain of my “higher self” repeating over and over Zora Neale Hurston’s famous quote “I love myself when I am laughing, and then again when I am feeling mean and impressive.” It’s a small shift and a big shift, and it has changed my world – but the me that was me is still the same me. It’s just now that’s okay.

Ranting about “Enlightenment”

I’ve been reading a lot about “Enlightenment” lately to the point where I may be actually getting tired of the word itself, if not the halo that seems to exist around those who discuss it, or claim to have it. Until recently I thought that this phenomenon was only something that existed in the East and that to “get” it you had to go “over there.” Even if I went there, I wondered, how would I ever know if someone was “enlightened?” A friend from the East (isn’t the “East,” actually West of us here in the U.S.?) told me that if someone was truly enlightened they wouldn’t be announcing it to everyone. Turns out that there is actually a whole menu of enlightened individuals here in the non-Eastern world for us to choose from. No need to travel overseas for enlightenment anymore. Our local Awakened Ones hold satsang and spend a lot of time talking and teaching that which apparently cannot be taught or described.

Preface the rest of this rant with the recognition that in recent years I’ve come to realize that “enlightenment/oneness/realization/awakening” is something that I’ve always wanted but wasn’t sure I could have in this lifetime. So much of this is the venting of my frustration that though we are all supposedly enlightened, I have yet to experience this awakening in the way it is written about and spoken about. View the rest of this therefore as the somewhat modulated temper tantrum of my wanna-be-realized inner child…

So, if you’ve never heard of enlightenment before, I’ll give a brief synopsis of what I’ve heard/read so far. Remember, I’m ticked off that I don’t have the real juice yet, I’m still a mere mortal, immersed in the illusion and using my mind, so if you want the full Monty from the horse’s mouth, you should probably get it from the Fully Realized ones at www.advaita.org or www.chicagosatsang.org or www.nevernothere.com or one of those enlightened places). First, nothing exists. At least, nothing that we seem to perceive as real (including ourselves) is real at all – it is all an illusion. If you can get past that you may be already reading A Course In Miracles, or a big fan of The Matrix. For most people, that’s the point where they go – “whatever!” and sign off. In real life their eyes glaze over and they start thinking of a reason to get away.

If you’re still here, then the essence of the teaching (depending on who you ask, and as my mind understands it) is that we all are just awareness. The notion of an individual “I” is based on a misperception. A yoga manual I read recently from Integrative Yoga Therapy describes an individual wave that arises from the ocean. If this wave had perception it might look around and see other waves, but without seeing the ocean imagine itself to be separate from the other waves. The waves in fact were never separate from each other or from the ocean. This is the essence of non-duality – no separate “other.” In the world of duality opposites exist. In the non-dual reality, everything is the ocean. Our “ocean” is described as “awareness” for want of a better word, because, according to those who perceive it, it is really hard to describe. Everything you see, all people and things, are part of this awareness (which my mind keeps referring to as “primordial ooze.” This is probably why I’m apparently enlightenment-challenged. Who would want to be one with “primordial ooze?”).

Apparently, the reason why everyone isn’t floating around aware of this ocean of apparently never-ending and awe-inspiring peace is the ego/mind – which I understand to be what the yogis describe as “asmita.” This creates a sense of “I” and automatically then a sense of “you” as well. It seems to be a side-effect of this earthly existence that we think of ourselves as separate from everyone and everything. Our minds are apparently designed for non-dual thinking. We are the ocean, but our minds think we are the waves. Some describe it as sleeping and dreaming the dream of duality. For this reason, enlightenment, or the realization of the one-ness of all being is also sometimes described as awakening.

Now, in the midst of my frustration, let me not give the impression that I think this is all nonsense. It actually makes sense in some deep part of me that may be not be my mind at all. It is like catching glimpses of something you think you see but then when you look closely it isn’t there. Another reason I don’t think its total BS is that in the presence of someone who says they really get it – not as a concept but as a fact of existence – there is a different energy, something palpable and difficult to describe. This is the purpose of satsang. When you attend a satsang – a meeting with an enlightened/awakened one – you experience what our “Eastern” friends describe as shaktipat – the transfer of that essence/energy, whatever it is. It is as if they are a doorway that you can begin to see through. Somehow their awakening creates a disruption/rift/shift in the illusion so that others can also experience a glimpse of the “truth.” For some this is enough to trigger their own awakening. Others begin to awaken but then on returning to everyday life. As one of my favorite teachers of non-duality Mooji says: “Stay awake. Don’t go back to sleep. Don’t stay asleep.”

So, to recap: we are everything but we think we are separate from everything. We can’t not be the ocean, but we don’t know that we are the ocean. It is alternately encouraging and maddeningly frustrating that those who claim to be awake also say that we are all enlightened, or that there is no-one who needs to be “enlightened” because all that exists is existence itself – awareness if you will – the ocean. Even more frustrating is that those who claim to have it also say that there is nothing you can do to get it, because there is nothing to get. There is no way to be more a part of the ocean than you already are. Add to that the frequently stated facts that the mind, by its nature, can only perceive duality; and that non-duality/oneness/enlightenment can’t really be described in words by those who have had the experience of it; and I personally am left completely confused. So why would nondual Awareness manifest itself into beings who are only able to perceive duality? When I asked that question (via my mind since I’m still using that until something better takes its place) the answer was: “Awareness becoming aware of itself.” For heaven’s sake (yes, heaven is part of the ocean too, and doesn’t exist) – did all this drama really need to happen just for awareness to realize its non-dual self? Couldn’t it just have pinched itself? Whoops! It would need a body for that I guess. Maybe all this was a side-effect of an experiment gone wrong. A pinch of DNA, a little bit of consciousness, some hormones… aw shoot! They’re beautiful, but they forgot who they are. No matter, budget cuts – let’s just use them as they are…

And so, this is the frustration of my mind/ego trying to perceive that which it apparently cannot possibly perceive, and I am left perplexed and somewhat aghast at the notion that I may never find the thing with which to perceive the imperceptible in this lifetime. Additionally, my mind ponders, if there is no individual self, then there probably isn’t an individual soul (a little thought I acquired while washing dishes) and so the notion of rebirth is thrown on its head. So this might be the only chance I get! How upsetting to think that I may experience an entire lifetime of being enlightened without ever knowing it. And then, I remind myself, as Suzanne Foxton said multiple times on NeverNotHere today – even that is just a thought.

What is your net effect?

A recent conversation about activism and self-righteous anger has got me thinking about how we really make change in the world. Many of us are “working on ourselves,” and at the same time, trying to make a difference in the world around us. As activists we are attempting to change the societal structures which promote inequity and injustice, to raise our children to be conscious and compassionate, to encourage our politicians & legislators to incorporate fairness and equity into our governmental systems. This can be frustrating work, bringing us face-to-face with opposition, rejection, skepticism and even abuse from people who would rather things stay the way they are. Sometimes in the midst of all this struggle, we can become judgmental and angry at the world and the people in it who seem reluctant to “see the light.” I have begun to wonder, if we do all the work we can toward making the world a better place, but do it from a place of anger, judgment and self-righteousness, what kind of change are we really affecting? Do we in effect cancel out any good we’ve done? Do we end up with a net effect of zero?

I’ve been reading Thich Nhat Hahn’s books as required reading for a meditation teacher training with the Elesa Commerse, and his work has me thinking about how much activism in the world must be combined with a deep self-inquiry and mindfulness. If our ultimate goal is peace and harmony for humanity, then the very notion of “fighting” for something is incongruent. Fighting implies aggression, and aggression may result in surrender and domination, but these are not the same as peace. Anger met with anger breeds more anger. Aggression met with aggression results in more aggression. Judgment of another feeds a sense of separation. Besides the obvious effect on others, anger, aggression and judgment also constrict the individual who is expressing them.

In his book “Anger” Thich Nhat Hahn describes the chain of effects that occurs when one person acts out their anger. I yell at you, you carry your anger to the next person who upsets you and yell at them, then they act angrily toward someone else, and pretty soon your anger has multiplied itself – grown wings and launched itself into the world. Am I saying you should hold it in and allow it to burn you up? Not at all. There is a middle way – mindfully and compassionately acknowledging your anger, making friends with it if you will, and allowing it the space to exist as a valid emotion so that you can learn from it without needing to direct it at others. Then you can release it, just let it go. Emotions can be very deceiving, and anger is often a way of resisting that within you which needs to be welcomed, acknowledged and released. Our anger toward others is most often the projection of anger toward ourselves. Taken as a mirror, the object of our anger can be a valuable teacher.

I’ve heard people say that anger is a good thing. For myself I know it isn’t. When I’m angry my perspective constricts, I stop being reasonable and I become caught in what the yogis call “asmita” – a pre-occupation with “I,” “me,” and “mine.” In essence, when I’m angry it’s all about me. I have no desire to see the other person’s point of view or even to think of them as deserving a point of view. In fact, I have no patience for anyone at all. Moreover, this anger blinds me to the fact that what has made me angry is probably the reflection of some issue or trigger within me that needs to be compassionately addressed. When I’m angry there is very little room for reason or compassion. Beyond this, I can feel that it is a state that is not good for my body – I feel a crawling sensation on the skin of my neck, my breathing becomes shallow and I feel my blood pressure rising. Therefore, in this state, not only am I at risk of hurting others through my words and deeds, but I am also limiting and hurting myself and creating unnecessary suffering.

The Universal Law of Resistance states that you attract that which you resist. This is also consistent with the premise that “energy flows where attention goes.” If we are constantly focused on that which we oppose then we are actually allowing it to have a hold on us and feeding it energy. How often are we in opposition to something without creating an equally strong vision of what it is we are for? As a simple example, I think of working personally on being less judgmental. I tried to be less judgmental, but every I’d find myself being judgmental my mental noise would be something like this: “Oh, I’m being judgmental again, that’s terrible, I have to stop that!” So I judging myself for being judgmental! Rather than being opposed to my judgmental-ness, I see my judgment as an opportunity to see myself in that person, to practice being compassionate and understanding. In the end, this is really what I want – not to be less judgmental, but to be more understanding.

So back to this notion of net effect. A Course In Miracles teaches that whatever affects us most in the world outside is a reflection of our deeper inner self that is in need of healing. As we work with our causes can we use that which we oppose as mirrors of our own processes? If we are opposed to political aggression against the opposition, can this be a mirror to the ways in which we are aggressive or opinionated in our own ways of dealing with others? In our willingness to heal the world, can we be also conscious of the need to care for our own inner wounds? Sometimes this is the hardest work – to see ourselves honestly and with compassion. It is easier to deny that which is in us and fight against it in the world. If you believe, however, that we are all somehow connected, then that fight is actually still against ourselves. All the work in the world outside will bring only superficial change if the inner self still has not been changed. Perhaps if we were all willing to face our inner selves with courage and compassion there would be no need to “fight” for anything at all.

Letting Go – In The Present

I have some of my best insights in the shower. Recently I’ve been thinking about my own resistance and this morning in the shower it came to me that our views about the future are shaped by experiences in the past, but we can only work to overcome any of that it in the present. Not rocket science, I’ve read Eckhart Tolle too, but I’d never stated this fact so simply in my own mind.

We talk all the time about letting go of the past, but how can you let go of something that has already happened? Really all you can work with is the residue of the past that still exists in the present. That said, some of that residue can feel pretty darn close to the original experience. As an example, you’re having a memory of a car accident, and it brings up anxiety, fear, maybe even panic. That anxiety exists now. Yes, it comes from a memory of something that happened in the past, but it is the present experience that colors your reality now. This is the only thing that you can really work with. The past is over, the future hasn’t yet happened. All we can really explore is our present experience.

Sometimes the way we remember and therefore experience an event now is not even the same as what happened in the past. That is why trying to let go of the past through “understanding the past” is not always effective. If anything needs to be “understood” it is the present experience, and even then, ‘understanding’ tends to be an analysis we do in our heads, and this process can also prevent us from really being present with the experience. The yogis talk about samskaras – the latent impressions (scars if you will) that influence our perceptions in the present. The more mindful we can become of our present experience, the more likely that these samskaras can be recognized and released.

There are so many ways that we resist or avoid our present moment experience. I personally have a tendency to dissociate into my head by thinking and analyzing – trying to ‘understand’ the experience – essentially making up a story about it. Or I might close my eyes and dissociate inside by blocking out the world outside. Another way is to deflect the intensity of the experience by blaming someone else (another story), or to escape into a distraction. Computers, TVs, cell phones, mp3 players –all these gadgets can provide us with distractions and allow us to separate from being mindful of what we are experiencing in the ‘real world.’ Addictions can be born of the constant need to separate from what might be a painful emotional experience of the present. The past is not what is being avoided, but the experience that lives now.

The future is shaped by the past through our continued experience of the present. The future can be shaped by the past through our continued avoidance of the present. Pema Chodron talks about the baby bird in the nest and the nest is getting dirty but the bird won’t fly out. Look around baby bird, it’s time to fly.

Becoming Strength

Several years into my yoga practice it occurred to me that I am strong. This was a revelation. At 5ft tall and 100lbs, I had always viewed myself as something of a whisp. Other people were strong, I was flexible maybe, but not strong. Later I realized that strength was more about letting go that it was about armoring. What caused my shift in perspective? Amazing teachers & my own willingness to look deeper.

Roger Eischens was an amazing teacher whose presence inspired confidence and whose work was as brilliant as it was challenging. His work was based on affecting the core through the periphery of the body, and I guess it worked for me.

Roger passed away before I realized the full effects of his work on my body and on my psyche. When I realized my upper body was strong, it was more than just a sense of physical strength. It was accompanied by a sense of power and possibility that I had never felt before in this diminutive body. People had said to me in the past: “You’re all muscle, aren’t you?” But I had never felt strong. This is when I realized that strength is much more than muscles that are well developed, but a sense of deep connection.

When I work in class on upper body strength, we work on feeling the strength of the arms from the press of the palms into the floor to the upper arm bones pressing back. This engages the lattissimus dorsi and the muscles across the shoulder blades and releases the tense activation of the trapezius muscles and the muscles of the neck. What I realized was that in my own practice I was also affecting my heart chakra with all this upper body work, and that the challenge was not to armor more, but to strengthen and support in order to open.

Sometimes we armor our bodies in ways we don’t realize when we don’t feel strong. This armoring translates into habits in the body that speak louder than our own perceptions of ourselves. A few months into this work, and feeling very confident about my strength and balance, I took a workshop with Kim Schwartz – another amazing teacher. Kim adjusted me in Half Moon. Saying “You’re going to feel as if you’re bowing” he adjusted my upper spine so that my lower ribs moved back and my shoulders forward. This simple adjustment took away that amazing feeling that I thought was strength, and brought with it a feeling of softness that was a little disturbing. Later Kim spoke of the thrusting forward of the lower ribs as indicative or arrogance, which was really was disturbing to me. Arrogance? Me? No way! I was not arrogant, I was actually shy – and here he was stripping me of the little confidence I had finally gained. He had to be wrong this time. Or maybe it was just the other people he’d adjusted who had that problem.

The magic of yoga is what the practice can reveal to you if you are willing to see. It is often the revelations that are most disturbing that contain the greatest wisdom. I couldn’t let go of that notion of arrogance, and when my resistance finally burned itself out, I had to admit to myself that he was right. I was very opinionated, and tended to become annoyed with people who didn’t hold the same opinions. And in many ways I was very pleased with myself at what I had ‘accomplished’ with my yoga practice. What also became clear was that this arrogance was the flip side of a deep sense of insecurity. The feeling of ‘bowing’ brought with it a feeling of being vulnerable. My armor had been taken away, and I wasn’t sure if what was left was sufficient. What was clear, however was that this place was much more open, much more receptive, and allowed more freedom than where I had been before.

In the body we thrust the lower ribs forward when there is a lack of strength across the lower thoracic spine – the third chakra/personal power area. This thrusting forward of the lower ribs is of accompanied by a lack of mobility in the side ribs, a closing in to protect the heart that also restricts the breath. When we can release the side ribs and allow the breath into the back body, the low ribs can settle into place and strength is accompanied by and inner sense of ease, a settling into the body, rather than a need to push forward. This, I believe, is true confidence – the ability to allow. I suspect this is also the place from which we develop the courage to truly see ourselves with compassion.