Category Archives: Yoga

Knowing When Your Body Needs a Day

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I’ve written about this before (here, for example), but I think it’s a topic worth coming back to.  I know that I continue to struggle with it on a daily basis, and judging from things like this post from my wonderful Ironwoman friend Maria, I’m not alone.

Photo: ButterflySha

Sometimes, it’s just not easy to tell what it is your body needs.  I woke up this morning with the same stomach ache that I’ve had for almost three weeks (due to iron supplements – long story – I’ve been living on crackers and the occasional toast).  My left hip was killing me and I hadn’t slept well.  My right shoulder is also being screwy and started giving me pain as soon as I got out of bed and gravity hit.  And, for a little extra woohoo, my head hurts.  Yeah, I’m a pathetic mess.  But, here is the catch, I’m trying to go to yoga on Saturday mornings.  I used to be able to go on Friday mornings, but this semester I teach too early to do that.  Friday night is an option, but last night I had an event to attend until 11.  That leaves Saturday morning.  So, I got out the yoga clothes and went downstairs and made a cup of tea and some toast.  And then I sat down at my desk to check email and work on convincing myself to go to class.  That went on for about an hour.  And then I gave it up.  I admitted to myself that going to class was not the best choice, and that my body was in no shape to complete a full vinyasa class in any manner that would really bring me closer to peace and union.  But, I can’t lie, I was still (am still) not happy about it.  A bit later, when I napped for a short period, my dreams were full of what a horrible yogi I am.  Clearly, I still have some things to work out.

In some ways, I wonder why this respecting the needs of the body is so hard.  But, in other ways, I know.  We are taught, so early, to ignore the body.  We eat and sleep at prescribed times and not according to the body clock.  We feed the body food that has been processed so much that it is without nutrient instead of the foods it naturally needs.  We spray it with chemicals to prevent it from smelling even remotely like a human mammal body.  We push it to be a certain size because that is socially acceptable, regardless of where the body’s natural set point for size might be.  We shut the body up and shut it down in so many ways; it’s no wonder that we have trouble hearing it even when we want to.

Photo: Andrea Parrish - Geyer

My challenge is, and perhaps will always be, to practice ahimsa with my body.  To hear what my body has to say without judging it.  To take its needs and requests seriously.  To give my body a “day off” when it needs it.  And to let myself be if my body doesn’t always match up to what I want it to be and do.  As I sit here at my desk writing this post, noticing that my work schedule is going to prevent yoga on Monday and trying to avoid letting that put me back into a bad place about not going today, I know that this is likely to be a lifelong practice.  Perhaps this journey is my destination.

Maybe I Don’t Want to Open My Heart

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Art by Gosia Janik

Upward facing bow, or urdhva dhanurasana, is a beautiful pose.  Just seeing it makes me sigh with a feeling of joy.  It’s a pose that I want to be able to do, and something that I remember doing as a child, just for fun, when I was the child that rarely ever did anything physical.   But, something isn’t right in my practice when it comes to this pose.  The same thing happens to me with camel pose (ustrasana) and bow pose (dhanurasana), though not quite to the same extent as with wheel.

It’s not that when practice starts I am thinking “oh, I don’t want to do wheel.”  I really don’t think about it until it gets close to backbend time in the class flow.  And, then I start checking how I feel, trying to decide if it’s a good day or a bad day to try one.  I double check my plans after class, knowing that a lot of backbending does seem to affect my ability to sleep (so, if it’s too close to bedtime, maybe I can reasonably opt out?).  I also hope, more than just a little, that the teacher just won’t say anything about doing urdhva dhanurasana at all. And then, we go into bridge pose.  All good.  I can do that.  Not a problem.  But next… DUM DUM DUM, wheel.  Crap.

I bring my hands back by my shoulders, and immediately something feels wrong.  I’m not sure they are quite in the right position.  Why are my fingers pointing off to the side a little.  Should they be?  No, that’s too much in.  Ok, check the elbows.  Fine.  You know, maybe I just won’t go up.  Maybe I’ll just stay right here.  I could stay right here.

And I push up, and my body remembers how to get me into that position.  And then, within a second, I start to feel this struggle in my chest.  I’m pretty sure that I’m still breathing, but there is a sense of body panic.  I immediately start to wonder if I can come back down yet.  I try to focus on what my alignment is like, knowing pretty well that my feet are splaying out and I need to bring them in.  That pulls me together for a second or two, and then the panic comes sweeping back in.  What is that?

Image from My Yoga Online (click for page about U.D.)

I keep wondering whether this is about my physical body or my emotional body.  Is the issue my inability to do a good wheel, or is the issue my fear of opening up my heart, of exposing my soft underside to the world.  Maybe, in this shape, I feel a little bit like a turtle that’s been turned over on its back and all its protection is gone.  Perhaps this is also related to my tendency to round my upper back and pull my shoulders in, creating a little protective cave for my front body.

Or, you know, maybe it’s none of that.  Maybe it’s not about anything psychological at all and my sternum, ribs, and abdomen just don’t like to stretch in that way.  Maybe six or so years of yoga just isn’t enough to get that opened up on me and I need to not over think it and just keep at it.  Or maybe it’s not a pose that is meant for me and I need to stop worry about it.

I just don’t know.  And that, for me, isn’t the most comfortable place to be either.

Just Because It’s Called the Universe Doesn’t Mean It’s All About U

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You know how, when you are having an argument, occasionally the other person will say “I don’t think you are really seeing this from my perspective.”? Well, he/she is correct. You are not seeing things from his/her perspective. Because, as a human, the only perspective you can fully “see things” from is your own. The only way a person can experience the world of stimuli is with the self as center. Sure, you can try to take the perspective of the other, but ultimately, in doing so you are using your standpoint through which to attempt to replicate the standpoint of the other. The only eyes you can see with are yours. The only ears you can hear with are yours. The only brain you can process stimuli with is yours. The only set of experiences through which you can understand what you encounter is yours. Functionally then, you are the center of your perceptual world. Everything else radiates out from you.

However, that perceptual reality leads us to, sometimes, feel that we really are the center of the universe. And by “we” I definitely mean me. Think about the small situations that happen in life where someone – maybe the boss at work – announces that _____ has been occurring and must stop. The first response most people experience, “It wasn’t me!” Or when we flip the channel and catch the weather report and realize it’s going to be really cold tomorrow, it’s pretty rare for our first thought to not be about how that impacts us individually, even though it’s likely a far more serious issue for someone who is living on the streets.

In online communication, it seems like this can become even more heightened. When the conversation with the boss happens, if there are other people in the room, perhaps that reduces the immediate need for self-defensiveness, because it leaves a small window of possibility that maybe the boss isn’t really talking to you. But, if you are sitting at home, alone, reading that facebook message or blog post that seems to be talking directly to you, it’s easy to forget that there are many many readers and that the writer may not have intended it for you at all.

This might explain, to some degree, the level of defensiveness that happens in online discussions, even on sites that are ostensibly about building community. A writer talks about overly self-righteous yogis and individual readers feel accused and respond from that perspective – even if the writer does not know them and doesn’t seem to be saying that ALL yogis are that way. A mother who is using formula feeding for her infant reads an article about the cognitive/emotional benefits of nursing and feels personally attacked. A man who eats based on a Paleo diet reads a blog post about research on health impacts of animal protein and feels that the author is somehow saying he has made a poorly reasoned choice and responds with anger to the post. And the examples go on and on. I can certainly admit that there are times when I’ve read things online that are positions contradictory to mine and immediately had a defensive or angry response about that claims being made “about me,” and yet the claims really aren’t about me as an individual.

Right about now you might be thinking, “So, what, Lorin? This is all very philosophically interesting (or not), but why should I care?” The underlying point here is that, while the individual-centeredness of our perceptual experience may encourage us to slide into this view of self as the center of everything, when we can’t see it happening, and we respond to messages that contradict our own viewpoints with defensiveness and anger, we lose the opportunity to even approach limited understanding the perspective of the other. And without that, we reduce our potential to grow and change, and the ability to create connection.

The Internet gives us an amazing wealth of opportunity to open our mind’s eye to the experiences of others. We can, however partially, get a glimpse of other ways of being in the world that are vastly different from our own. It’s one of the biggest advantages of this worldwide participatory communication medium. Through online conversation, on discussion forums and blogs and community sites, we have a crazily wonderful potential to widen our perspectives through communication with the diverse other. But, it requires us to be open to “hearing” things that challenge us.

Confirmation of our own viewpoints is a nice thing. And, sometimes we need it. But, without experiencing some non-confirming information, and some alternative perspectives, we stagnate. We can’t develop as individuals or as a community. We risk forgetting that at the end of it all, the universe is about the unity, not about the u.