True Self Yoga in Asheville, NC

By mado | Published: July 24, 2011

Welcome!  My name is Mado and True Self Yoga is the name for this blog because the practice of yoga helps us to know our selves more fully.  The awareness we develop through our practice has the potential to improve every area of our lives and this is why I love yoga!

I teach anusara-inspired yoga in Asheville, NC.  Anusara is an alignment based yoga style that incorporates yoga philosophy and a welcoming inclusive environment.  I offer public classes at the Asheville Yoga Center, Asheville Community Yoga, and the Town and Mountain Training Center.  Some of my classes are gentle and appropriate for people with physical limitations while others are geared towards a more general audience.  Please drop in and mention my website for a free class (local residents only).

My intention with this blog is to explore how the ideas and practices of yoga intersect with life in a way that is relevant and helpful to others. I post articles about once a month and news about my yoga retreats, yoga workshops, and free yoga classes as scheduled. I love to hear from you, please let me know if you have any topic suggestions or yoga questions you’d like to see answered on the site.

with love,
Mado

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Planting Seeds: Resolutions, Challenges, and Long Term Growth

By mado | Published: January 1, 2012

As the craziness of the holiday season begins to wind down, my attention turns to the possibility of growth upon the clean slate of a new year. For several years I became jaded by all the people who excitedly signed up for self improvement only to fall off the wagon again and again within a few short months or even weeks… Or do they? Sure, most of us don’t keep our new year’s resolutions, but is it really true that nothing changes? Growth requires sustained effort. Some people will quit smoking again and again only to have it stick on the fourteenth try. So even if we don’t fulfill our resolutions perfectly, does it really mean we have failed? Or is this ritual of self improvement in the new year a healthy part of our long term growth?

One sub sect of the resolution trend is the 30, 60, or 90 day challenge. This usually consists of a major lifestyle change for the specified period of time. It could be a dietary change, exercise-related, or something else such as sleep or computer time. The advantage of a challenge over a resolution is that since it is a set period of time, people may actually stick to it longer in order to complete the challenge. The disadvantage is that we might actually reinforce the deprivation-reward cycle that keeps many people from making lasting change by going back to our old ways with a vengeance once the challenge is over.

Cory and Shanna Duvall, owners of Crossfit Asheville, recently came down on opposite sides of this issue. Cory wrote a convincing article on their blog last week arguing that people should choose a challenge that they could imagine sustaining for the rest of their lives. At CFA new year’s celebration, Shanna offered an opposing perspective; that if you try a more radical lifestyle change you will experience a more radical effect. During a challenge, you may learn that you are capable of living in a way that seemed impossible beforehand. You may also discover just how good you are capable of feeling.

Last year, I did a complicated 90 day challenge that included diet, exercise, sleep patterns, and water consumption. I was astounded by how much energy I had during this time. Once the challenge was over I went back to my old habits in some areas and kept the new habits in other areas. Looking back over all the aspects of the challenge from the perspective of a year, I am surprised by how much last year’s challenge supported positive change in my life.

I was able to increase my water consumption a great deal during the challenge, but over the year my consistency with that has been variable. What did change permanently was my awareness of how much water I drink. During the times when I am drinking less than I should be, I am more aware of it than I was before the challenge and this leads me back on track more quickly.

Even with the elements that I was less than successful at during the specific time of the challenge, I gained a new awareness of them that lasted beyond that set period of time. For example, I didn’t change my sleep habits much during the challenge, but a seed was planted that it would be a beneficial step for me. Later in the year, I was able to successfully change my sleep habits in a way that I might not have without the challenge.

Before the challenge, I had become more consistent with my exercise habits and the challenge reinforced that and it has now become a habit that I hardly ever resist. I am not perfect, but whew, I don’t expect myself to be either. I never planned to keep up the diet after the challenge was over, yet it definitely changed the choices I make around food. I choose less grains, less dairy, and less sugar. Ok, that last part was a lie – especially over the last few weeks! That is why this year’s challenge is to go without sugar for a month.

While the entire package of the challenge was unsustainable for me, my lifestyle was nevertheless changed permanently. It is not realistic to expect any sort of challenge or resolution to 100% change us forever. However, they can be helpful tools in our continued growth. The most important thing is that we have fun with the challenge and don’t use them as a tool to bludgeon ourselves. Strive for growth, embrace yourself as a work in progress, and look at a challenge as a way to enjoy your life more – not as a deprivation. Approach your challenge with excitement and a light heart.  You may not be able to determine exactly what you will grow, but chances are it will be beautiful.

If you want support through your own challenge, please check out the 21-day lifestyle transformation course I am teaching with Samantha Pollack, personal trainer and health coach. Each weekday morning you will exercise, check in with your goals, and have a great time in a supportive and inspiring community of people.  This starts January 9th, 2012 — so get in touch asap if you are ready to take your life to the next level.

Sharing your intentions with others is a powerful way to make them real.  What seeds will you plant this year?  Please share with me in the comments below.

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How to become stronger than you ever thought possible…

By mado | Published: December 13, 2011

 My senior year of college I had the brilliant idea of writing and directing my own play. What I didn’t take into consideration was that I had never written a full length play before. I had no idea what goes into it or how long it takes to create a coherent story that works well on stage. What I had was a few scenes written in my play-writing class that had received a positive response from the other students. Since those scenes had been generated fairly quickly and the characters showed potential, I assumed I could do more of the same and whip up a full length play.

When rehearsals were scheduled to begin and the play wasn’t even remotely making sense, I decided that it was no problem – I would just workshop the scenes with my actors and use that to polish it up. Of course when you are busy working with actors, props masters, lighting designers, costumers, etc… there isn’t a lot of time or energy left to finish your play. And all of the other elements of the play hinge on having a finished script to go by. To make a long story short, opening night was one of the most painful nights of my life. Not just because the play wasn’t ready. Mostly because I wasn’t ready. When you put your creation in front of an audience and it is not up to your own standards… that hurts. Some of it was funny, some of it was real, and some of it was cliché. The audience laughed and cringed and presumably went home and forgot about it. But for me it remains one of the defining moments of my life.

Looking back on that experience with the padding of a decade, the pain has completely faded. What is left is profound gratitude and pride. That I attempted such an ambitious project. That I experienced the pain of failure. That failure did not ruin me, but made me stronger.

Every one of us has ups and downs, strengths and flaws, talents and weaknesses. The question is not whether or not we will struggle, flail, and fail but how we react to it. It is tempting to get caught up in either attacking our flaws and obsessing over them or being vanquished by them and not trying at all.
In order to develop a healthy relationship with our flaws instead, I propose that we actually pay less attention to them. First, consider your strengths. Own them, contemplate them, and decide how to use them frequently. Then apply them in service of something bigger. Using our strengths in service reinforces our sense of self-worth to the point that we are then able to face our weaknesses in a healthy way.

For most of my life I alienated people in my quest to appear as smart, strong, and together at all times. Little by little, I am learning to accept the entire package of who I am. I embrace my temper, my impatience, my jealousy, and my tendency towards extremes even as I work diligently to transform them. The more I learn to love my entire self, the stronger I feel. Your challenges may be different from mine, but if you are human, you are flawed. These flaws can either make you or break you. I believe the key to the former is compassion.

As we waste less and less energy on fighting or hiding our flaws, we can acknowledge them courageously and honestly when then appear – then practice compassion. To approach our flaws with compassion allows us to see them more clearly. From the vantage point of compassion we begin to see the possibility inherent in our struggle. From possibility comes creativity, perseverance, and the ability to serve others who share our struggles. And thus our greatest flaws become our greatest strengths.

What challenges have you faced in your life that made you stronger? Have any of your flaws helped you empathize with or even be of service to others?

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Attitude of Gratitude: the why and how of positive thinking

By mado | Published: November 21, 2011

Our life is shaped by our words, we become what we think.

–Gautama the Buddha

As we gear up for the thanksgiving holiday, it is a good reminder to contemplate and appreciate all the blessings in our lives. While each of us has things to be grateful for, we also experience pain and suffering. I am currently going through a difficult time with someone I love very much. I experience periods of deep sadness, frustration, and grief. However, these negative emotions pass and the feelings of peace, love, and joy return surprisingly quickly. I attribute this directly to the practice and contemplation of looking for the good that I have been steadily engaged in over the last several years.

According to the book “Buddha’s Brain” we have on average 60,000 thoughts per day. 95 percent of those are repetitive – the same thoughts again and again every day and multiple times per day. 80% of those are negative. That’s about 45,000 negative thoughts per day. Ouch. If we do indeed become what we think as the Buddha says, we had better figure out how to change those numbers.

The desire for freedom and happiness seems to be a universal human desire. Yet we are bound by our thoughts and often resist the very things that will lead to happiness. The term optimist carries with it some connotations of naiveté and folly. We’ve all met people who are relentlessly positive and while they do seem happier than the rest of us, honestly, this trait can be annoying. Trite platitudes like “it’s all good man” seem to lack compassion for the suffering. We don’t want to be fake or shallow, so we stick with our habits whether or not they are actually working for us.

The worldview that I am advocating is neither fake nor shallow. There is room within the scope of optimism for pain, suffering, and sadness. In order for optimism to be real and powerful, we must acknowledge these things and then specifically and purposefully orient ourselves towards the positive. We see it all with a wide angle lens, then sharpen our focus specifically on the beauty. No, we do not ignore the ugly. We address it as needed, as we are called to, and as we are able to. But let us not spend the majority of our thoughts turning over the ugly again and again until we begin to embody it.

Victor Frankl, a neurologist, psychiatrist, and concentration camp survivor says “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances – to choose one’s own way”. The ability to do this in the face of the extreme suffering that Frankl experienced is beyond my imagination, but it serves as inspiration to me in the moments of my own suffering. In each moment we have the freedom to choose from a myriad of perspectives. Each time we make the deliberate choice to let go of resentment, resistance, and self-pity, we are setting ourselves up to notice and experience more happiness in the future. And each time we do it, it gets a little easier.

A key practice for changing thought patterns is cultivating gratitude. By calling up the humble sensation of “thank you”, we begin to strengthen the muscle of finding a positive perspective on any situation. In order to formalize this practice, you can write down 5 things you are grateful for every morning and every evening. Make them little things and you will increase your ability to appreciate the subtle. Then throughout your day make it a game with yourself to see how often you can remember to say thank you. Let your painful emotions be reminders to this practice – every spurt of hurt, jealousy, fear, and sadness can be a motivation to practice.

Contemplative practice such as meditation is also essential for learning to direct your mind more skillfully. For years, I avoided establishing a regular meditation practice with every excuse in the book. I didn’t have the time, my back hurt, I was too tired, it didn’t work for me… If you’ve been going along unaware of all your negative thoughts and all of a sudden you start paying attention, you are initially going to be very uncomfortable. It is totally normal for us to try to escape an unpleasant situation, so a many people who try to meditate, decide that it doesn’t work for them. This is too bad because what they are really experiencing is how much they NEED meditation. Fortunately, I’ve been blessed to spend a lot of time with meditators over the last decade or so and their advocacy slowly wore down my resistance. If you’re inspired to begin or recommit to your meditation practice, the practice below is simple and sweet.

The word mantra in sanskrit means a tool of thought. Man means to think and tra is translated as tool (as in tantra, a tool for expansion or liberation). The practice of mantra meditation is repetition of sacred or meaningful word or phrase. First, the mantra replaces some of the automatic negative thoughts with something positive. Second, it becomes a backdrop against which our most pervasive thought patterns become apparent. Finally, the dedicated repetition of this thought begins to shape who you are in a purposeful positive way.

Some people prefer sanskrit mantras, since the words are said the carry the vibration of their meaning. Other people advocate for mantras in your native language since it keeps the meaning closer to the forefront of your mind. If you can get a rosary or mala beads, I find the structure of passing the beads through my fingers as I chant to be very helpful. The mantra that I have been using lately is the simple phrase “thank you”. If you’d prefer a sanskrit mantra that is easy to remember “om namah shivayah” can be translated as “I bow to my teachers within and without” or “I bow to my own potential”. Set a timer or decide on a certain number of times around the mala. Start with a very short, easily accomplished period of time and focus on frequent repetition.

Thank you for reading.

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Jnana Shakti: The Power of Knowledge

By mado | Published: September 27, 2011

Last weekend I was standing with a couple of friends discussing the way that the finer points of alignment in a yoga pose intersect with yoga philosophy when one of them sighed. “We’re such yoga geeks” She said. “Sometimes I wish I was a beginner again.” We all nodded our heads in agreement remembering the innocent pleasure of discovering yoga.

As a teacher, I can taste the giddy excitement of discovery when I teach beginners. The benefits and insights that arise from practicing yoga come quickly and copiously when you first begin to practice regularly. It seems that every practice brings new understanding and it lights up everyone in the room. Once people become more experienced they also become jaded. It is much harder to please a room full of experienced yogis than a room full of beginners. We want to taste the excitement of revelation, and we expect our teachers to deliver it to us again and again.

Jnana shakti is the power of knowledge. When we discover a new passion, the first thing we do is to educate ourselves. We learn everything we can, and then try to tell everyone we know what we’ve learned. It is jnana shakti that convinces so many passionate yogis to take a teacher training, whether we wind up actually teaching or not. Thrilled with the benefits of our yoga practice, we intuitively know that sharing our knowledge will give us more access to it.

According to the Samkya system of Indian philosophy (which greatly influenced yoga philosophy) there are 3 ways of knowing. Authority (someone you trust told you so), inference (logical deduction) and direct sense perception (your own experience). These run in order from most external (unmesha) to most internal (nimesha). Knowing something because someone told you is very different from knowing something you’ve experienced yourself.

Knowledge, while clearly powerful, is also limiting. The more knowledge we have about a topic, the more closed-minded we tend to be about it. As the Zen priest Shunryu Suzuki said “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” When we believe we know one thing, we often discard its opposite, though our world is one of paradox and complexity.

The stronger our internal connection (nimesha) to what we know, the more confident we feel about that knowledge. That doesn’t always translate to the knowledge being more accurate. The deep feeling of knowing often wears off over time. Some of the things we thought we KNEW when we were younger are embarrassing to remember now. A renewed humility arises when discover that what we thought we knew was only a part of the picture. Other times, what feel like deep truths in a moment are forgotten without direct relevance to our daily lives.

The teachings of yoga suggest that we already have access to all the knowledge we need through our connection with the one big energy that runs through everything. The forgetting that we experience as ignorance or suffering is a condition of our embodiment. Through this experience of forgetting, we are able to taste the sweet nectar of revelation. As we dive deeper into our chosen passions, we experience the same revelations again and again. Sometimes we had forgotten the previous incarnation of knowing, and sometimes the revelation is a deepening of knowledge we already held.

When we admit that we only see a part of the picture, we remain open to the mysteries yet untapped. True knowledge should open us more to the possibilities of our lives, not cut ourselves off from them. Consider the character of Yoda, full of knowing and yet playful and almost childlike, Yoda is a caricature that points to truth. We don’t have to be short, green, and talk funny to embody the essence of confidence and humility. We just have to keep seeking knowledge while remaining open-minded and open-hearted.

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icca kriya: the power of desire

By mado | Published: September 2, 2011

Everywhere we turn, advertisements are working to convince us that a product will finally satisfy our desire… until the next one. In a world where empty promises are as plentiful as drops in the ocean, many of us have become disenchanted with quick fixes and seek more meaning for our lives.

As we delve into seeking for this meaning, many teachers caution us to beware our desires. This caution makes sense when we see the illness of the world caused by greed and thoughtlessness. But trying to ignore, suppress, or quell desire is not the answer either. Leaving aside the question of if it is even possible to transcend desire, it also serves a valuable purpose.

Without desire, there is no action. What makes us get out of bed in the morning? What gives us the discipline to meditate or practice yoga? Desire calls our attention and spurs us to action. Desire is what brings us to life.

Even the most shallow desires (a fast car, fame, sweet foods) point to deeper desires (freedom, recognition of our light, the feeling of being fully alive). Instead of moving mindlessly towards our shallow desires, if we practice inquiry and discover what deeper desire is behind it, we will be pulled towards our true nature. We can then begin to fill the emptiness that spurred desire with what our heart truly longs for: a connection with the divine, with our true nature.

This is how my teachers describe the beginning of life: In the beginning there was one energy. This one energy was everything. Supremely powerful and completely free, there was nothing that this energy could not do. However, being everything, it could not experience anything. There arose a longing within this one energy to experience itself. When the longing grew strong enough, the one energy stepped down into many energies and created the existence we experience. It became you and me and all that we see. Through us, this one energy is now able to fulfill its’ longing for experience.

In this story, desire itself is the “big bang” of creation. And so it is in our lives. As a part of the one energy that created everything, it is our birthright and dharma (sacred duty) to create. Each of us, as a unique and imperfect piece of that creation, will create in our own way. When we follow our passions into living fully, we are living with intention.

The word intention implies the strength of icca (will) but it is tempered by jnana (knowledge). These together lead to kriya – specific thoughtful action. Intention is patient and flexible. A clarity of purpose allows us to accept the world as it is. Rather than resisting, we use what is as a springboard for what’s next.

When we create intention, it becomes the backdrop for our lives. All the small decisions we make every day are measured against this intention. In fact, every action we take can be infused with meaning. To act with purpose, no matter how small the action may seem is a quietly powerful practice. Through it, we awaken to the sacred in the every day and our own power to create meaning for our lives.

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A Tale of Two Yous

By mado | Published: July 24, 2011

Photograph by KatB Photography

Have you ever been nervous for a job interview or a date and had someone tell you to “just be yourself”? What on earth does that mean anyway? If you’re anything like me, the command to be yourself is likely to make you even more self-conscious than ever. We have so many different identities and often take on different roles in different situations. Think about what you are like around your friends vs your family. The roles we take on in a given situation can be useful, but they can also start to change us in unhealthy ways.

During my brief stint as a web project manager for a large multi-national corporation, I was called into the bosses office one day and given a talking to. Among several other offenses my two bosses told me that I was “very negative”. Wow. That threw me for a loop. When I first started the job, I noticed how much everyone around me complained. I decided that I would be a bright shining beacon of positivity in our gloomy basement office. Yet, little by little my determination to be the example of light eroded as I unconsciously began complaining in order to fit in with the corporate culture. Apparently, I went a little too far.

As hard as it was to hear, I was grateful that my bosses pointed out my stinky attitude. The change from Positive Patty to Negative Nelly had occurred so slowly that I wasn’t aware of it. From that point on, I made it an absolutely unbendable rule that I would not say anything negative at work. It wasn’t easy, but it was an incredibly helpful practice in awareness.

The building of such awareness is an invitation to question and explore the very nature of self. Who am I, really? The positive person I want to be, or the negative one I sometimes act like? Such questions have led many people onto a path of spiritual practice and I’m no exception. While I am influenced by many, the practices that have touched my heart the most are the ones that are descended from Hindu Tantra. The Tantrics describe two worlds woven together: the world of spirit (purusha) and the world of matter (prakriti). The world of spirit is unchanging and perfect. The world of matter is constantly moving, pulsing between concealment and revelation, ignorance and knowing, positive and negative. These two worlds are both distinct and real, and yet inextricably bound together.

The part of us that changes, including our thoughts, feelings, preferences, abilities, and aversions are of the relative world. Through the lens of this worldview, it seems perfectly normal for our personalities to contain contradictions. The part of us that does not change is the part of us that actually goes beyond self – it is where our individual self merges into the universal self. In other words, this is the self that we all share.

According to many spiritual traditions, returning to a full awareness of the universal self is the purpose of spiritual practice. From the Western individualistic perspective, the thought of merging with the one consciousness might seem scary and even undesirable. My first experiences in studying yoga philosophy left me confused. Why, I wondered, do we even have a personality if our goal is to transcend it? It was the actual experience of connecting with that deeper self that offered me an answer.

Through my practice of meditation, I have created a connection to and even a relationship with the part of me that is connected to everything else. When I sit, close my eyes, and relax it is like dropping into the embrace of the sweetest and most familiar friend. My struggles, my insecurities, and my doubts fall away and the boundaries of “me” becomes blurry. Over time, one of the biggest changes I have noticed and attributed to this practice is less worry about being right, being liked, or especially being cool. Not that I’m over those things entirely, far from it. But the more I practice connecting to the universal part of myself, the more comfortable I become in my own skin.

An awareness of the way that we are all connected offers freedom from the need to compare ourselves to others to look for superiority or inferiority. With a deep connection to the part of us that is perfect, our surface imperfections become a part of our natural beauty. We become willing to express our moment by moment truth without needing to convince someone else or even be approved by them. Thus, our self expression becomes an act of love for the miracle of diversity. We are free to create and re-create our selves spontaneously simply for the joy of it.

Practice: Close your eyes and relax your personality. Relax your preferences. Let all sense of self release. As you let go of your individual self, issue a non-verbal invitation to the universal consciousness. Allow your self to merge with all that is by simply relaxing into it. Rest here for several minutes. When you open your eyes, look around the room where you are with the awareness that every single thing you can see, feel, taste, touch is made of the same substance. Look for the beauty inherent in such variety. Each hard thing creates softness. Each dark thing creates light. It is only contrasted against each other that each shape, color, and sensation exists. As you walk through your day, take a moment here and there to marvel at the world you live in.

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Are we all connected or are we all alone?

By mado | Published: June 20, 2011

Photo by Louise Docker

I’m writing from the yoga mecca that is Los Angeles where I’ve come to recharge myself.  At first when I was planning this trip, I thought about trying to schedule some workshops or classes to teach, but I am relieved that I decided not to work at all.  Instead, I am making my own mini-retreat by cooking healthy food with my friends, meditating twice a day, and attending as many yoga classes as possible.  Although I am always looking for new ideas to take back to my own classes, I am also savoring the chance to just be a student again.  I try to walk into each class with humility, open to the gift I might receive from each teacher.  Often (quite often) I notice my ego flaring up for one reason or another.  The teacher knows everyone’s name but mine and therefore compliments everyone but me.  I hit handstand in the middle of the room and wonder if anyone noticed.  I breathe a lot and laugh at myself.  I am able to see my ego more clearly against this unfamiliar backdrop.

In a recent conversation with a friend, she was worried about how she was being perceived by her community based on comments they had made.  In that moment, it was easy for me to see that taking their comments personally was a waste of her energy.  We rarely know what someone’s intentions are when they say something that hurts us.  Yet, when I am the one who is hurt, that feeling overtakes logic and compassion.  We are often instructed to trust our feelings, but what about when our feelings lead to unnecessary suffering?  It’s not that we should be completely unconcerned about what others think.  In fact, I’m trying really hard to teach my daughter to care more about what others think and feel.  It seems that the challenge to find a balance between being aware and concerned of others and also self-reliant is one that begins in childhood and might never end.  How can we listen to the feelings, and then listen beyond them?  Recognize and own our feelings, then learn from them and let them go?

Yesterday, I was invited to a 2 hour teacher’s practice with local teachers.  I was surprised and  a little dismayed to find myself feeling nervous as I walked into the room.  Why should I be worried about what these people think of me?  Why am I not secure enough within myself to be enough just as I am without the approval of other?  It’s crazy how most of us are both self-centered and overly concerned with what others think at the same time.

Every one of us is at the center of a story about ourselves, where other people only play supporting roles. We see others though a very thick filter of our own experiences, prejudices, and fears.  So while the feedback and advice of our friends can be very valuable, it should also be taken with a very large grain of salt.  Whatever someone is telling you to do is coming from a very specific perspective.  Rarely are we able to separate ourselves from our own drama to offer unbiased advice.  So when advice appears to be insulting, it is usually just offered insensitively.  I should know.  Throughout my life I’ve been the queen know it all.  Offering unsolicited advice at every turn.  Doesn’t everyone what to know what I think?  Won’t they be impressed by how smart I am?  I’m even doing it right now by writing this post.  But I’m slowly learning to be more aware of others.  To offer my advice in a way that acknowledges my limited understanding of someone else’s situation.  And sometimes even shutting the fuck up and just listening.

My boyfriend said something to me recently that both struck me as true and also kind of hurt my feelings (ego again).  He said that everyone is essentially alone in this world. That sounds sad and lonely, but really it’s not.  While the connections we have with others can be nourishing and sweet (or draining and bitter), the connection that each of us must develop in order to be truly happy is the one with our own deeper self.  Through our connection to that source, we actually become more connected to everyone and everything, but in a way that bypasses the sneaky ego.  We connect to all beings equally, without expectation, without need.  In those moments, we are both completely alone and also fully connected.

How do we connect to source?  There may be as many different ways to do this as there are drops of water in the ocean, but many people who know about these things recommend meditation.  Through the steady, regular practice of sitting quietly by ourselves, we become self-reliant.  We learn to turn within to seek comfort, wisdom, and joy.  This does not make us cold or distant to the rest of the world, rather it allows us to open more fully to it.  To let go of another drop of judgement that separates us from each other and from ourselves.

Do you experience anything like what I’m describing as a connection to your source? Is there anything you do to bring about that state of connection or does it happen spontaneously?

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Meditation made easy(ier): 7 tips for making it happen

By mado | Published: June 19, 2011

I’d love to have a penny for every person whose told me that they wish they could meditate, but… (insert an excuse here).  I get it.  As simple as meditation is on the surface, it is a very difficult thing to do in this fast paced world.  The picture above is a lovely stereotype for how meditation looks and feels…However, when we first start meditating, it’s easy to feel like a failure because we don’t attain the above ideal.  It has taken me years and years of trying to actually develop a regular practice.  And honestly, I still fall off the wagon sometimes.  Here are some things I’ve learned along the way to help me get back on.

  1. Set a reasonable, do-able amount of time.  5 minutes?  10?  You can always go longer if you feel like it.  But if the amount of time feels daunting to you, you will find excuses not to do it.
  2. Set a timer so that you don’t have to think about the time.  Often you will be surprised at how quickly time goes by.
  3. Make sure you are sitting comfortably.  It is fine to use a chair or sit against a wall, but maintain good posture so you don’t get sleepy.  Experiment with different configurations such as pillows, blankets, meditation stools, etc.
  4. Meditate first thing in the morning.  If it’s the first thing you do, you won’t get distracted.  Don’t allow yourself to do anything else first (except maybe pee).
  5. Meditate every time you get a chance.  Waiting for a friend, in line at the bank, stuck in traffic.  The more you do it, the better you’ll get at dropping into it.  Tie a string around your wrist as a reminder to meditate whenever an opportunity presents itself.
  6. Meditate in a group.  I’ve found that meditating in a group is far easier than doing it alone.  This is especially true if you have experienced meditators in the group.  Many places have ongoing groups already established and that is obviously easier than starting your own group.  However, if you can’t find a group that works for you, even getting together with one other reliable person will be helpful.
  7. Go on a retreat.  Get used to meditating outside of your every day grind.  The structure and expectations set by the retreat can get you do actually do it.  Then you will at least convince yourself that it is possible and then have one less excuse to not do it.  As you begin to integrate your practice into your normal life, don’t expect yourself to meditate as long or as often as you are able to on vacation.  Use your experience as inspiration and follow the above tips to create a lasting practice.

What am I missing?  Do you have any advice on how to make meditating more accessible to people just starting out?

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Grace

By mado | Published: April 11, 2011

I bought my daughter her first pair of roller skates today. She is absolutely entranced with roller skating. I sit on the round carpet covered bench with too-loud music playing as I watch her make her way around the rink. She sticks to the center tonight. Saturday nights are kind of wild at the roller rink. Very sexy, very young girls careen wildly in pairs and groups of four, many of them in matching outfits. I can’t tell how old they are, they could be anywhere from 11 to 15. All I can tell is that they are very young, very sexy, and very graceful. I’m sure that my daughter will be one of them before I can blink.

Last time we went was on a Thursday night. They’re a much mellower crowd. In fact, that night was so mellow that the rink was closing early. They let my daughter in for the last 20 minutes without a charge. She determinedly made her way around the rink again and again. She’s very present in her body and picks up physical skills easily, but is still awkward and uncertain on skates. There was a couple figure skating – laughing, twirling, dipping, playing. Watching them, skating looked like the most exhilarating activity in the world. We talked to them after the lights came up and the music stopped. As skates were removed and street shoes gathered we found out that they had both skated professionally at one point in their lives and had met at the roller rink. I asked them what bit of advice they would give to an enthusiastic young girl just starting out.

“Pay attention to gravity, and learn how to use it, go with it, rather than resisting it.” It struck me that what the young man was so casually describing was grace. Grace means going with nature and the world as it is – and using what is to create beauty. If you try to fight against nature, the result is always awkward and uncertain. We are so much more effective at creating a beautiful world when we first accept and love the world as it already is. This is my practice currently. Whenever I encounter something I don’t like it the world…something hard, something ugly, something uncomfortable I try to give it some space. Space where I’m not resisting and just allowing and loving.

Last week I was at my daughter’s school for the second grade science fair. She had done her project all on her own (in about an hour) and looking at all the fancy parent directed experiments, I admit that I felt like kind of a loser. I don’t connect with many of the other parents and in fact have a secret fear that they all judge me as a bad parent. Because my daughter insists on wearing stained pajama bottoms and flip-flops even when it’s cold, because I don’t volunteer at school functions, because I won’t let her eat pizza or drink soda. All the awkwardness and loneliness of my own school experiences came rushing back. Unexpectedly, as the promised one hour event starts to turn towards two, I start to cry. It’s pretty subtle at first, but pretty soon I have to go hide out in the bathroom. I’m trying so hard to calm down so that I don’t ruin my daughter’s good time that I forget to try to fall in love with the world as it is.

I hurry her out of there as fast as I can, amazed that she doesn’t notice my red puffy eyes and the way I keep wiping at them. The funny thing is that she had a blast. She isn’t embarrassed at all. She thinks her project is great. That it might even place in the top 5.

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