(You totally want one for yourself. Get it at www.imatoy.com.)

As small children, we learn self-soothing, the ability to calm ourselves down when we are upset. At a young age we need self-soothing primarily so that we can go to sleep without help from parents, but it is also an important skill to learn for life. Self-soothing allows us to successfully negotiate emotional landmines as we get older and can no longer cry for mom to come and fix the problem or take the pain away.

Some of us learn healthy self-soothing techniques as a child and are able to implement them as an adult. Many of us do not, and turn to substances outside ourselves to try and take the pain away, be it food, alcohol, drugs, or sex. Still others rely on those around them to step in and heal the hurt, and are continually disappointed when those needs aren’t met.

One of my favorite superheroes, Wolverine, has the ability to heal himself when physically wounded by regenerating skin, bone and muscle as if the injury never happened. This may not be possible for us ordinary humans, but as adults we can learn self-soothing skills we may not have had the opportunity to learn as children. The philosophy of yoga says, again and again, that the answers to our biggest questions will not be found outside of ourselves, but that only by looking inside will we come into contact with the peace and truth that we need. Successful self-soothing in times of distress are exactly that ability to find peace and truth below the turmoil.

The Hindu pantheon is filled with gods and goddesses – the original superheroes – performing amazing feats of bravery and self-sacrifice. Hanuman, the monkey god, leaps across the ocean to Lanka to save the kidnapped Princess Sita. That same Sita, when her loyalty is questioned, walks through fire to prove her trustworthiness and emerges unscathed. These acts are performed from an unwavering closeness to center, not from a place of self-doubt, fear, or attachment to pain. Of course, it is unlikely that we will ever be able to fly without an airplane or be left unburned by fire, but these are just metaphors for the bravery and strength we all possess.  We can be superheroes when we allow the truth at our center to come to the surface and soothe our pain, like balm to a burn.

This is not to say that we cannot ask our friends for support, advice, or help. It would be unwise to never allow ourselves to be vulnerable to others out of fear of pain or suffering – in fact the etymology of the word vulnerable is wounded – but the healing of our own wounds is something we must address on our own. In the end, we’re on this journey of life with just ourselves, and by reminding ourselves that we are our own greatest source of strength, clarity and love, we are well on the way to living as the superheroes that we all are.

“We can be heroes, just for one day.” – David Bowie

 “Our parents raise us to the best of their ability; we must raise ourselves the rest of the way.” – Manorama 

It didn’t seem out of place for the teacher to bring philosophy into an asana class, and I have since taught many classes that way myself. The practice of yoga is an integration of art and science. As such, it is completely appropriate to approach yoga with the goal of increasing awareness of both your physical habits (through pose adjustments from the teacher to prevent unhealthy patterns) and your mental ones (when the teacher uses yoga philosophy to illustrate a real life experience).

It strikes me as strange, however, that with all the different styles of yoga that are out there, it’s rare to hear a yoga teacher talk about muscles in the classroom. I don’t mean basic alignment cues, as in how much to bend your knee in Warrior 2, or to ground down through your big toe mound in Trikonasana (admit it: you’ve said that one. I have too). I mean actual names of the muscles that the students are using in their bodies at that very moment. Why is this?

I will admit, when I took my first teacher training, the anatomy module was an impregnable fortress of Latin surrounded by putrid swamplands of kinesiology, and I was miserable and confused. Over the years however, and in particular through studying with Jill Miller this past year, my teaching has changed to encompass as much anatomy as I can get away with, because I believe that physiology is as important to communicate to students as philosophy. 

Here’s an example from my class a few days ago: when in Warrior 2 pose, the abducted position of the arms requires two muscles to hold them in place, the deltoids and the supraspinatus. I don’t expect students to already know what or where these muscles are, but I respect them enough to know that they are intelligent and capable of learning by embodying this anatomy themselves, considering they all have bodies to practice with. So I turned around and touched the two muscles on my own shoulder and upper back, and I also demonstrated what commonly happens when the muscles that raise the shoulderblades are unnecessarily contracted as well.

I asked the students to lower their arms, and then with this new knowledge that they had acquired, to raise their arms to shoulder height again using only the two muscles they needed. Fourteen demonstrations of efficient shoulder movement followed, and it made me very, very happy. Will they remember the muscle names? Perhaps, or perhaps not, but they now know it has nothing to do with their neck, and I think they’ll remember that at least. This doesn’t have to live in a vacuum from teaching yoga philosophy, either: when I use that demonstration again (and please, use it too in your own class!) I could even tie it into one of the kleshas, and talk about having attachments to too many things when we can often do what we need with less.

I’m not saying that your flow class has to completely change into an Iyengar-style picking apart of every single pose, but I think taking a few moments here and there to impart some of your study of the body would be invaluable. And if you’re thinking to yourself “But all the muscle names are Latin, and they don’t speak Latin,” I would remind you that none of them speak Sanskrit either, and yet they have learned all the Sanskrit pose names through your repetition, as well as probably several other words that are practically ubiquitous at this point (Namaste, anyone?).

Yoga is a practice of embodiment. The human body is a humbling structure full of stunning, brilliant architecture. Why shouldn’t we learn and teach as much as we can of it to our students? Why shouldn’t students of yoga know as much as their gym-going counterparts, so that they can practice intelligently and avoid injury? Why shouldn’t we as teachers take it upon ourselves to continue learning, to hold ourselves to a higher standard than what is currently required of us (especially since future legislation will likely raise that standard anyway)? Why not, since we are working with people’s bodies, and in a therapeutic capacity, train to the level of a physical therapist? The worst thing that could happen? You might be mistaken for one.

Last week I was in the yoga room at the gym, chatting with a regular student who always shows up a few minutes early, setting up my music, lowering the lights – all run-of-the-mill stuff for a Monday night – when suddenly the door burst open and a sweaty man strode in. Assuming he was there for class, I asked him to please leave his sneakers outside, but he was too engrossed in his iPod to hear me. Without breaking stride, and without acknowledging anyone else, he marched across the room, opened the side door, and left. I had a moment of total confusion before I realized that he had used the room as a shortcut to get to the bathroom on the other side (In sneakers! The horror!) instead of walking around the room.

When you’re at a yoga studio, for the most part, students are aware of good yoga etiquette: don’t barge in during OM, turn your phone off, take off your shoes, make space for other students – the kinds of things that if you don’t already know, others will educate you about pretty quickly. It’s all in service of one idea, which is to be aware of yourself and how your behavior affects those around you, and to create a space that is sacred. However, sometimes this gets lost in translation when the yoga class moves to a different location.

This is not a rant about someone who dared to march through the sacred yoga space: this man was, in his mind, taking the most direct route to the bathroom, through a room that he probably assumed was just an empty workout studio. So it would be unfair to judge him for not knowing the customs that surround the practice of yoga. But it did get me thinking about my own blind spots, and where in my own life I lose awareness. It’s relatively easy to be present and considerate and compassionate, all those things that come through from our higher nature, when we’re surrounded by people who are doing the same. But what about the other 22 ½ hours of the day?

My not-so-compassionate self comes out when I’m driving. I’m going to blame this on my dad, who likes to yell at other drivers (“You, Dad! I learned it from watching you!”) and so set the tone for me. Generally speaking, I refrain from yelling, but I do enjoy creating a heavily sarcastic running commentary of the driving skills of those around me (sample dialogue: “Oh, so pulling in front of me without using your blinker and then slowing down seems like the right thing to do right now? Really!”) While none of them (fortunately) can hear me while I’m doing this, it certainly doesn’t create a serene state of mind for me, and is often followed by my own self-dialogue (“Wow, again with the talking to the other drivers. This does not serve you in any way.”) I take a little consolation in the fact that I do catch myself in the act, but I would rather get to a place where I don’t lose that much awareness.

So this is my question to you: where are your blind spots? And if you’re thinking to yourself, “If I knew what they were, they wouldn’t be blind spots!” then maybe it’s time to practice a little self-awareness as you move through your day. Does someone you work with make you nuts? Do you find yourself behaving poorly when confronted with certain situations? Can we all, maybe, start to expand our idea of where the yoga class ends, so that when we leave the classroom or the studio and walk out into the world, we continue to behave as if we were still there? Maybe if we trick our brains into considering the whole world as a yoga studio, we won’t have to work so hard at trying to stay self-aware! 

Purnam Adah

Purnam Idam

Purnat Purnam Udacyate

Purnasya Purnamadayah

Purnameva Vasisyate

That Fullness

This Fullness

Fullness unto Fullness

Fullness emerging from Fullness

Fullness indeed remains

The mantra reminds us that right here, right now, in every moment, fullness, completeness, wholeness is available to us. There is no greater richness than the ability to be in the present moment with whatever is taking place, whether we perceive it as good or bad, positive or negative, joyous or painful. Those labels that we consciously or unconsciously use to qualify our experiences disappear at the moment that we are able to come into the present moment and be there fully. Greater richness is not waiting for us next year, regardless of the state of our personal finances. There is not a more complete experience to be had later down the line when we are married, or in our dream job, or having a baby – while these can all be positive, rewarding, exciting experiences, they will inevitably disappoint if we do not bring our own fullness to begin with.

This is all very easy for me to regurgitate from the canon of yoga teachings, but what about the reality of trying to make it happen? If our minds are habitually navigating the past or the future and truly challenged by the idea of spending time in the present, then what are we supposed to do?

The answer, according to yoga, is practice. Now this practice may have to begin, for someone whose mind is deeply distracted or agitated, with taking a walk or some other physical activity. Our attention is so constantly drawn away from the here and now – and as a society, we are so actively encouraged away from the present – that for some people, the practice of sitting still that is an integral part of meditation is initially inaccessible. This doesn’t mean that they are beyond capable of getting there, but at first, the nervous system needs quieting. This was what the asana part of yoga was originally designed for – to release tension from the body and mind in order that we might be less distracted. 

When you feel you are ready, the practice becomes sitting quietly and breathing, without concerning yourself with doing anything. (Again, so easy to describe, yet far more challenging to do!) Feel how in that quiet, there is nothing wrong – as Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati described yoga, nothing is missing. There may be circumstances in our life that are upregulating our sympathetic nervous system (or in other words, bothering us) but with practice, we can learn to separate out the conditions of our world from the condition of our mind. The greatest satisfaction we will ever experience is right here, right now. If we can feel that: even for a millisecond – even just for the moment of reading that sentence – we are well on our way to being richer than we think.

[Mantra translation by Professor John L Griffin from his essay “A Consideration of Divinity & Consciousness 
With Qualities (Saguna) & Beyond Qualities (Nirguna), 
Focusing on Shiva as a Primary Mediating Symbol 
In the Process of Self-Realization”]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FtSP-tkSug

(Contains cadavers. You have been warned! Also contains Gil Hedley, my new geek crush.*)

What keeps me constantly engaged as a teacher and practitioner of yoga is the endless stream of proof that the body and the mind are not unrelated. As much we tend to walk around as what I like to call “a brain on a stick,” sending messages from the brain to control the body, without considering what the body might need (like sitting in front of a computer for hours on end), it is an unavoidable fact that our mental, emotional, psychological content (which manifests as electrical signals inside the brain and spinal column) directly impacts our bodies, our behaviors, our habits, even the way we walk down the street. I think Gil demonstrates this beautifully when he describes how he used to be a very still person until he realized the negative impact it was having on his body.

The mind-body relationship runs not only from brain to body (“I am a still person, therefore I will not move my limbs”) but from body back to brain as well – as the ‘fuzz’ builds, and our mobility is compromised, so do our attitudes stiffen and our interactions with the world around us decrease in flexibility. The grumpy old man stereotype exists for a reason!

More often than not, when I meet someone and tell them I’m a yoga teacher, their immediate response is “Oh, I’m not flexible at all!” This oddly confessional outburst usually makes me smile – after all, I’m not there to judge someone if they can’t touch their toes – but I think it overlies a deeper held belief. It is fuzzy logic to decide we are something, when that something we decide that we are can change. Obviously there are certain things that are immutable about us – even if I were to dye my hair black, it would continue to grow out red (more and more white, actually), but our ability to find movement and space in our joints is not one of them. Yoga practices remind us of this again and again by returning us to that spaciousness within using a variety of techniques for both body and mind. Our job is to hold on to that spaciousness, keep room within ourselves, so that we continue to reside in a state not of being any one inflexible thing, but simply of being.

“Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

*geek crush: when you have a crush on someone’s skills, talent, brains.

For the most part, we are fortunate enough to be sound in body and mind, and to be surrounded by a fair amount of creature comfort. It is easy in the midst of a crisis on Haiti’s scale to dismiss our individual sufferings as unimportant, and perhaps some of them are overblown, but as Daniel Stewart reminded me the other day in class, “It is not our feelings that are wrong, but our judgment of our feelings.”

I want to write about denial, because it strikes me as possessing a powerful, serpentine ability to wrap itself around any situation and squeeze the truth out of it. When a person undergoes a great tragedy on the scale of Haiti’s earthquake, the mind often enters a state of shock as a way to protect itself from the horror of its surroundings. In a less dramatic situation, denial can be our mind’s way of protecting us from a painful truth that we are not yet ready or able to deal with. We may convince ourselves that our partner’s excessive drinking isn’t a problem, or that our credit really isn’t that bad, or that the one that got away is still in love with us.

In my late teens and early twenties I grappled with an eating disorder, helped along by both a modeling career and a pretty fragile sense of self-worth. Eventually someone convinced me to go to a therapist, and at our first session he asked me what was going on with my eating. I gave some long-winded, run around answer about not having a choice because of work, and that I knew what I was doing, and how I had everything totally under control. I’ve never forgotten how he just looked at me and replied, “Wow. I should’ve given you a cane and a top hat to go with that tap dance you just did.” His brutal honestly was a great gift, because I knew he was right, and on some level I had been waiting for someone to call me out on what I was doing. It wasn’t the end of the struggle, but it was the start of my way out.

Like many coping mechanisms, denial works until it no longer works. As denial leaves the body, we feel the suffering we have been avoiding. As it loosens its grip on the mind and on the heart, and truth flows back in, we are flooded with feeling, just like the prickling sensation of blood flowing back into a limb that has fallen asleep.

We must be gentle in this process. We must commend our bravery, our willingness to look deeply and honestly at how we are in the world. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali tells us that future pain can be avoided, but the catch is that it’s not by trying to avoid it. Instead, as we slowly and steadily awaken to the truth of who we are and allow that truth to determine our future behavior, we will eventually and inevitably no longer need to go down that river in Egypt.  

YS II.16 heyam duhkham anagatam

Pain that has not yet come is avoidable.

(translation from The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Sri Swami Satchidananda)

I’m an absolute believer in the examined life, in making changes, in letting go of behaviors or attitudes that stop us from understanding ourselves on a deeper level than the size of our thighs. Yoga asks us to be unwavering in our attention to ourselves, not to become obsessive navel-gazers, but to step forward into our lives with a deep understanding of how our actions, words and even thoughts can impact the world around us.

But with all the emphasis on looking forward at this time of year, it’s tempting to sweep past behaviors under the rug and pretend they’re over and done with. Many years ago, I worked as an assistant to a writer, and one day she asked me to mail a copy of one of her books to someone. My desk was piled high with papers, other assignments and tasks, and the parcel soon got lost underneath it all. Every now and then I would remember it, and try to remind myself to deal with it, but in time I completely forgot that it was even there. Months later, my boss came into my office and saw a corner of the parcel sticking out from under a stack. It had been, of course, unbelievably important that the book be sent, and my error had caused a ripple effect of problems.

You may be saying to yourself “but that was a simple mistake, not done on purpose,” which is absolutely true, and also often the case in life. My point here is not about the assignment of blame, but of the value of looking backwards as well as forwards. Becoming stronger, deeper, more connected people does not come from hiding past actions under a pile of distractions, but from pulling them out, dusting them off, and taking the next correct action to fix the situation as best as we can. Running away, or hiding from the past does not make it go away, and if anything we’re more likely to behave the same way the next time we’re in the same situation. Not only that, but we’re likely to keep encountering the same situation until we figure out a better solution.

With that in mind: Look forward! Be optimistic! Set goals! Make things happen! But this year, maybe take a few moments to ruminate on where you’ve been, not just where you’re going.

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana

But I try to only write when I have something I’m excited about, rather than just writing something to meet some sort of arbitrary schedule, and sometimes I’m just more excited about a topic than other times. As much as we organize our lives around clocks and calendars, which unquestionably serve a purpose, it’s valuable to recognize that on a grander, macrocosmic scale, our lives flow in a different way. When we start to see how this movement of energy constantly shifts and changes, we get to ride it like a surfer on a wave, and take advantage of where it takes us, rather than fighting the tide.

Our asana practice is like this. Some days we are full of energy, free in our bodies, ready to take on whatever the teacher throws our way. Other days, we can barely muster up a downward facing dog, our bodies feel desiccated and ancient, and class drags by. 

This ebb and flow is reflected not just in our practice, but in every aspect of our lives.  We might become too single-mindedly focused on getting one specific job, doing everything in our power to try and make it happen, but to no avail. Or we may spend weeks trying to win back the heart of someone who broke up with us. Denial and anger over the death of a loved one may send us into a depression. All of these situations have the same kernel at their core: resistance to what life is presenting to us in the moment. When we resist what is in front of us, we suffer.

When it comes to our practice, we can use the greatest tool at our disposal – our breath – to act as a release valve for any drama that might build up in our minds as we navigate not only the poses, but our mind’s constant commentary on the experience.

This is the heart of yoga: if we are truly to find the union that yoga tells us is available to us, all the time, right now, we have to let the flow of life take us on our journey. The moment we give up resistance (and the 2 minutes we’re able to maintain it before we start resisting all over again) we experience a great relief, a great unburdening. What a load off to stop fighting against what our lives are telling us, and instead to go with the ebb and flow.

“The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.” – Ram Dass

“Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is...The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds.” – Dan Millman

“You have to stop the Q-tip when there’s resistance." - Chandler Bing, Friends

Proprioception is the body’s natural ability to know where it is in space, communicated to the brain through specific nerve endings, many of which are buried deep inside our joints. Here’s the dictionary definition of proprioception: “The unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation arising from stimuli within the body itself.” In other words, or in a yoga context, you can feel what your body is doing, and make minute, precise adjustments to your pose, without having to look down at yourself to do it. According to A Physiological Handbook for Teachers of Yogasana by Mel Rubin, it is as satisfying to the body to propriocept its location as it is for the eyes to look at a beautiful picture, or the nose to smell delicious food, or the ears to listen to pleasing music. It is a sense that we can develop with practice, but it is also one that many of us lose over time through disuse (our modern, technology-driven world doesn’t offer many opportunities to play with the anterior/posterior tilt in the pelvis). You don’t have to go to a yoga class to see how people have lost their proprioception; watch a few people walk down the street, and you’ll see limps, twists, and weird head positions that are entirely unconscious. The good news is, you can get it back: I’m working with a client who recently had hip surgery, and as we refine his new ‘walk’, he’s becoming an expert in feeling where his body aligns and where it doesn’t, and making the necessary adjustments.

But the greater metaphor at work here is the very goal of yoga: to realize and discover for ourselves where we are. So many of us spend countless hours pining for moments, possessions, or loves past, or dreaming of a perfect future where everything that is wrong with our present will be fixed. Yoga tells us to come back to the present, and to sit in that present place in order to understand, come to terms with, and eventually let go of everything else but the now. We will never move forward out of our idealized memories and start living in a peaceful present until we see how that past has led us to where we are. And we’re not going to make it to any idyllic future if we don’t know where our starting place is and what we’re working with. It may involve forgiving ourselves for past mistakes, or even mistakes we feel like we’re making in the present. It may require taking a good hard look at our own habitual behaviors and recognizing what we keep doing to prevent that idealized future from ever happening. It will certainly take practice, but just like proprioception for the body, with practice, we will undoubtedly improve our ability to know where we are in our lives.

I used to think this was how yoga worked. When I first started practicing yoga, my knowledge of the mechanics of the body was extremely limited. I think I probably knew that your hamstrings were on the back of your legs, and your biceps were on your arms, but that was about it. I couldn’t have told you the difference between a tendon and a ligament, and frankly, I didn’t see the need: I was enamored with the movement, the sweat, the opening, the psychological release, the mysterious power that yoga had to calm my addled brain.

I didn’t think that increasing my understanding of what was taking place would do anything for my body or my practice; and in the back of my mind, I carried some disdain for all those Iyengar yogis who would (as far as I could tell) spend 10 minutes talking about their big toe in trikonasana. Who cares about that? I thought. Let’s move!

I retained this attitude when I became a teacher, but I ran into trouble pretty quickly. Students would come to me after class concerned with knee pain or wrist problems and I would have little more to offer them than “Just don’t do that pose.” I knew it would only be a matter of time before my lack of study caused someone to injure themselves in class. If my motivation for becoming a yoga teacher was to serve people, I was doing them a great disservice by neglecting to adequately educate myself about what I was asking them to do with their bodies.

So I trained (and continue to train!) in different schools of yoga, and I came to realize that the human body is a wellspring of fascinating, mind-blowing, humbling processes. And I discovered that there’s no limit to how much you can learn, and that ongoing discoveries and advances in science mean that a yoga teacher can’t ever stop studying. I also discovered something about the magic of yoga.

When a magician performs a trick, the goal is for the audience to remain in the dark about how it happened. For it to be magic, we must be fooled by what we see. But yoga is the process of unfooling ourselves. It is a practice of uncovering, of discovery, and that discovery can and should include what goes on inside the body. Understanding the mechanics of Warrior 2 doesn’t detract from its potent effect on muscles and bones; on the contrary, knowing and applying the 72-second rule (that 72 seconds of healthy bone stress stimulates the osteocytes to create more bone, thereby staving off osteoporosis) can lead us to a practice that deepens our integration of all our body’s parts, that brings us to a place of balance, and that addresses our unique needs. Learning more about the importance of the oblique line in the body (and through my recent posts, forcing other people to learn about it!) has done amazing things for my practice and my daily physical and mental well-being.

Yoga isn’t a trick, and its enormous healing power doesn’t rely on ignorance and sleight-of-hand. It is a lifetime of learning. So become an expert in yourself, and trust that the magic will continue to work itself with as much potency as always.  And really, how immature of us to think that such an ancient practice would be rendered ineffective by a little muscle talk. We don’t have to take sides here: the muscles are the mystery, and we will never be done trying to find out “How’d I do that?” when it comes to our bodies.