Week 3: Judgment

I have a favorite poem of mine that I love to read in class. I first heard it when I was at my monthlong teacher training at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, MA.  At the time I had been actively judging myself for 30 years and at that moment was having lots of difficulty doing the vinyasa portion of a class that we were required to take. No matter what happened all the yoga teacher trainees were moving through these beautiful wave like motions of high to low push-up, chataranga, upward facing dog and into downward dog.  For me, I still needed to come into a modified low push up and was starting to hate that fact.  The more the teacher pushed us to do double chatarangas and the other teacher trainees were reveling in the challenge, the more I judged myself for not enjoying it and mostly because I couldn't do it! 
After the "toughest" class at teacher training was over, I silently walked very briskly back to my room to get my stuff and go out for a walk amongst the pines and in the mountains.  When I got to my room, I found a beautiful but simple bracelet left on my bed by a fellow student.  I had told her at the beginning of the month that I loved her bracelet.  Here it was now placed on my bed as a token of compassion.  My heart softened a little bit but still not towards myself and I stormed off with the bracelet into the quiet early evening mountain air.  The next thing I saw was one of the students smoking a cigarette by the shrine near a brook.  I was thinking to myself, "She can do that?!"  So I was judging her as well.  
When I returned to the school I decided to shrug the whole thing off for awhile and not think about it.  The next day was Saturday and that was the one day that we could do what we wanted during the day. The only unscheduled day. Most people did laundry and other rote activities since there was no time during the Sunday -Friday schedule.  I walked into the laundry room where the teacher trainees were marveling over the amazingness of the day before and the challenging yoga class. I chimed in right away and said, "is it okay that I hated the class? I mean why was the teacher being so tough about it and making jokes about how we're all going to hate her? Does she teach like this because she teaches in a prison?  Well, this is not a prison" and I went on and on.  Someone answered me with, "While vinyasa is not for everyone." It takes a lot of upper body strength to do the chatarangas etc,"   
I walked out of the laundry room that day with a new realization. 1.) I didn't have to LIKE chatarangas and 2.) If I really wanted to do it, I could just drop the judgment and work on my upper body strength.  This was huge for me.  Not once in my life was I able to separate the situation from being attached to my self-esteem.  My wise self or witness was there with me when I had this realization and from that day forward I worked more on staying in planks, ab work, and applied my strength to my chataranga.  My secret to this day went like this: as soon as I dropped the judgment, hate, and self-blame, I was doing chatarangas as beautifully as only I could do them.  They still didn't look like others, but they were a unique expression of me.  Just the switch in mindset is what I believe to have given me the strength to do the vinyasa sequence that I had always avoided.  I was doing them wonderfully a few days later! 
That's my story of catching myself in judgment, breaking down, and finally skillfully finding the means to support myself and let go of the story. 
Think about your story.  What do you tell yourself about yourself that keeps you stuck or makes you suffer.  How can you drop the judgment and find compassion?

By Swami Kripalu:

My beloved child, break your heart no longer.
Each time you judge yourself, you break your own heart.
You stop feeding on the love, which is the wellspring of your vitality.
The time has come. Your time. To live. To celebrate,
and to see the goodness that you are…
Do not fight the dark. Just turn on the light.
Let go, and breathe into the goodness that you are.

Week 2: Letting Go

 

What Can You Let Go of Right Now?

If anyone told you that "letting go" or "surrender" was an easy part of practicing yoga, chances are they had been practicing for hundreds of years!  Letting Go or letting things "be" is a life long practice and one that we use in our asana practice each day.  The list of what we can let go of can be quite lengthy when you really examine what you hold onto to "hold yourself together."  Yoga beckons us to "let it all fall apart" but how many of us are truly comfortable with letting our egos crumble, letting our judgments and beliefs drop, and truly being open to the way things actually are? What about hope and happiness? How hard is it to let those things go?

As I was thinking about this weeks lesson, I realized that I myself have been in a 3 years period of uncertainty when it comes to career, finance, and home stability.  It has been very scary to follow this path of teaching which I believe to be my Dharma (or life's work) but which is also not a stable enterprise.  My income depends mostly on who is coming to class minus the rent I'm paying.  I constantly seek positions that will provide a set amount of classes and a flat rate pay so at least I know what kind of paycheck I will be receiving in order to pay bills, rent, food, etc,.  What I have learned from this period of simply following my path step by step is that happiness has NOTHING to do with how many people are in class, how much money i'm making (or not making), whether I'll get a new class or not.   Circumstances are as they are and the only thing we can do instead of fighting them, is to simply "let them be."

So, my question to you this week is "what are you holding onto" what keeps you awake at night worrying?  These are the situations we need to pay attention to.  Here are some ways to think about where you can let go.

Physically:
1) Can you let go of the ideal body you think you "should" have and appreciate the one you're in today?

2.) Do you compare yourself to others?  Can you let go of thinking you should be different than you are?

3) Chronic Pain, Injuries etc,?  Can you practice letting go of wishing for a better circumstance? Not having the accident? Not living with this disease? etc,.

Mentally:

1.) Do you accept your intellect/intelligence level as it is?

2.) Do you put yourself down for "thinking too much" in meditation or not being able to "clear your mind."

3.)Can you accept your mind and all of it's distortions that are not based on reality sometimes?

Emotionally:

1.) Our emotions change like New England weather. Do you accept each state as passing or do you hold onto emotions such as "my sadness" or "my anger"?  Can it just be sadness?  Can you practice "sitting WITH anger?"

2.) Do you accept all of your emotions without labeling them as right or wrong?

3.) Can you let go of wanting things to be different, better, bigger, smaller, less painful, more happy etc,? 

As you go through your week I encourage you to be mindful of all the little moments when you can let go.  Furthermore, see if you can practice "Ishvara Pranidhana" :surrendering your problems etc, to a higher power or the universe.

Namaste,

Natalie