Taking off the Armour

By mado | Published: March 28, 2011

Lately, I’ve been enjoying listening to Brian Johnson’s Philosopher’s Notes. In them, he condenses wisdom literature both old and new into their essential messages. He sent me to authentichappiness.com to take a test to discover my current top strengths. This is no vanity fair quiz; it’s 240 questions designed by professionals to unearth your greatest strengths. To my surprise, none of my top 5 were things I felt like came naturally to me. Many of them were virtues I had cultivated purposefully under the influence of yoga!

As a child, I was angry, defensive, and unhappy. I felt like it was me against the rest of the world. I had the sense that in order to be loved and accepted, I needed to be perfect. So I built a wall against the world. A shell to hide how imperfect I really was. I responded in anger when I was hurt. In sarcasm, when I felt dumb. Never, never show weakness.

In college, I majored in theatre. Originally, I had the intention of focusing on acting, but I soon learned that unlike in community theatre, here they expected us to be vulnerable on stage. No way. I remember a specific assignment my Freshman year… to write monologue that shows a part of ourselves that we normally keep hidden. Mine was about how there was no way in hell that I was going to reveal myself on stage like that. I didn’t get a very good grade on that assignment. And I began to gravitate towards directing and stage management. There, I could pretend to be perfect. I could be safe.

When I began to practice yoga, something in me softened. When I became a mother, another piece of my armor melted away. I remember one evening, looking into my newborn baby’s eyes and thinking “Omigod, she can see right into me. She knows everything about me.”. I actually felt embarrassed to be seen that deeply. By a baby! But I soon discovered that however deeply she could see into me, she did not judge. She did not expect me to be perfect. All she wanted was milk, warmth, and cuddles.

When I started teaching yoga however, all my old insecurities came rushing back. Nobody would like my classes, unless they were perfect, right? Slowly, slowly, the practice of getting up in front of a group and talking about yogic philosophy began to work its magic on me. In a way, the very malady that caused my misery helped me to heal it. In an effort to keep my classes interesting and rich, I studied yoga philosophy. And in order to be able to speak with truth, I began to practice what I taught. So began the most profound shift of my life.

“Look for the good”, I said. So I began to look for the good. “Don’t expect perfection”, I said. So I began to allow myself to be imperfect. “The darkness leads to the light”, I said. And I began practicing gratitude in the darkest times. “You are divine inside” I said. And, yes, I started to be able to feel it!

If I’m honest, I’ll admit that there are some days that these practices are easier than others. In fact, being without armor sometimes makes life hurt even more. But now I have an awareness around the pain. Awareness that it will not last. Awareness that it enriches my life and increases my capacity for compassion. And awareness that the darkness itself always leads me back to the light.

So thank you to all of you who have ever taken a class with me and a special shout out to those of you who show up regularly week after week, even when it’s hard. Each of you, by trusting me, has given me the courage to trust myself.

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Will you be my guru?

By mado | Published: February 18, 2011

My friend Kristin has a talent for finding and savoring the joy in life. No matter what circumstances she is under, she seems to be able to find something to be grateful for. Recently she stayed with me for 5 months along with her two kids and hyperactive dog. It wasn’t unusual for me to come home to find her in the bath. “How’s it going?” I might say. “Wonderful!” was almost always the reply, with a dreamy smile and shining eyes. This is a woman who appreciates a good bath as if it were the greatest gift in the world. This isn’t to say that she doesn’t experience darkness. As a single mom with minimal support who has been through several painful breakups in the past two years, she doesn’t have what anyone would call an easy life. But she moves through the darkness by experiencing it fully all the while trusting that it is bringing her into deeper and deeper connection with the light.

Kristin is one of my gurus. The two literal translations of guru are “the disperser of darkness” and “the weighty one”. I prefer the former, older, translation from the Upanishads.

The syllable gu means shadows
The syllable ru, he who disperses them,
Because of the power to disperse darkness
the guru is thus named.

– Advayataraka Upanishad 14—18, verse 5

In my experience, many people have negative associations with the term guru. This is because we tend to associate it with “cult leader” and the abuses of power by people in recent history who have called themselves gurus. As Westerners, we are highly uncomfortable with authoritarian power and many guru traditions emphasize the need to place one’s entire being into the care and trust of the guru. Certainly this has lead to many many disillusioned followers once the guru is revealed to be flawed, human, just like everyone else. But a guru does not need to be fully enlightened in order to bring light to others. There are people all around us all the time who help us see the light. I beleive that the disappointment comes from a misplaced emphasis in the relationship.

If we take the second definition of guru “the weighty one” and make that to mean that the guru is the important piece of the guru-disciple relationship, that is where I see the trouble starting. Whenever we look outside ourselves for happiness, fulfillment, light we are bound to be disappointed. The only reliable source of these comes from a personal connection with our true selves, with the divine. This is because whenever we see light outside of ourselves, it is merely a reflection of our own light. In tantra, we use the analogy of a mirror. The clearer the mirror, the more our light shines back at us. So a person might be an extremely effective mirror for us in any given moment, but all they show us is our own light.

I beleive that the important person in the guru/disciple relationship is the disciple, and even more important their devotion – not to the guru itself, but to the light. Any thing that helps us connect to our own light is our guru in the moment; it could be a baby, a tree, the sunlight. Treating the guru with devotion, with love, can only intensify the brightness because as near as I can tell light and love are pretty much the same thing. So the more we project love/light onto the mirror, the more we will feel it reflected back. And the practices of yoga help us to clear the dust off of our own mirrors – so that we can reflect the light of others back onto them.

Sometimes the mirror gets dirty. Our light doesn’t shine brightly. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t there, simply that it is concealed. When we have a commitment to the light, we can actually be present in the darkness. The darkness does not wipe out the light. It cannot. It defines the light. So the darkness that creeps into our lives is an opportunity for us to deepen our relationship to the light. The darkness invites us to grow stronger, to make our stories richer, and to become a more reflective mirror for those around us to catch a glimpse of their own light.

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Courage and Vulnerability

By mado | Published: February 10, 2011

Brene Brown studies human connection — our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk at TEDxHouston, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity.

Connection is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. Brown spent years studying the difference between people who felt connected and those who felt alienated.   This is what she discovered: in order to experience connection, you have to believe you are worthy of it.  Shame is what unravels connection. Shame is the fear of disconnection – unworthiness of connection. People who have a strong sense of love and belonging (connection) believe they are worthy of it.

Courage is different from bravery. Bravery is connected to a specific act, courage is an attitude.  The courage to be imperfect. The compassion to be kind to ourselves first, and then kind to others. In order to find connection, we must be willing to be vulnerable.

How can we live wholeheartedly? To let ourselves be seen, deeply seen?  To love with our whole hearts? To practice gratitude and joy in the moments when we are terrified? To believe that we are enough?

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2 key ingredients for lasting change

By mado | Published: January 5, 2011

With the new year comes the promise of new beginnings and the potential for change. Being a yoga teacher, it is easy to become jaded to the cult of self improvement that becomes the rage for just a month or so each year. Accommodating so many beginners who often come to classes that they aren’t ready for can be exhausting and takes away from the experience of those students who are there through thick and thin. Yet, there is a small portion of those people who start in January and actually develop life long habits. So I treat each new student as a potentially life-long student. We all deserve the benefit of the doubt. But what makes the people who stick with their new habits different from the ones who start strong and appear so passionate, only to drop off within a few weeks or months? I don’t beleive it is a lack of discipline or defect of any kind. I say this because I have managed to develop quite a lot of healthy lifestyle habits and I don’t beleive that I am particularly disciplined. Upon reflection, I have come up with two ingredients that I believe are essential for lasting change.

1. You have to be truly convinced of the benefit of your new habit. Changing for someone else never works because you will always rebel consciously or unconsciously. The change has to be for yourself and it has to have results you desire strongly. Sometimes this desire takes time to develop. Just because you tried to quit smoking three years in a row doesn’t mean that you won’t finally do it the fourth time.

2. Allow for imperfection. Perfectionism is the enemy of change. How often have You thought that you’d love to do something, but stopped yourself because you “wouldn’t be good enough”? Who ever got good at something without doing it? Think about how many times you fell down before learning to walk. This brings me back to those students who come to classes that are outside of their ability level and then get discouraged and never come back. It makes me so sad to see this. Not every class is made for every person, and even a class labeled as “all levels” requires a certain amount of agility (getting up and down from the ground with ease is a good gauge). This applies to every kind of habit that you might try to build.

Be realistic. Take baby steps. Allow yourself to goof and keep going.

Even after all these years, I get caught up in the energy of the new year. I have hope that each new person who comes into my class will find the practice they are looking for. And I take the time to evaluate my own life and where I can make changes. Life is a practice of constant refinement. We never reach the goal and in fact the goal changes and shifts with time. As one goal is accomplished, another appears. This is not a problem, it is the gift. The striving, the work, the journey… that is the real goal.

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To respond or to react?

By mado | Published: December 19, 2010

This time of year…the commitments of the holidays, spending more time with our families, even the cold and inclement weather can put us on edge. We find ourselves feeling out of control… our lives are pushed this way and that way by the weather, by the expectations of others and even more by our own expectations of ourselves.

When find ourselves in circumstance we deem negative, we react, we get whipped around and around, our way of being constantly fluctuating according to our circumstances. This has the experience of being very harsh. However, when we create a neutral space for ourselves, just a moment to step away from judging our circumstances as negative or positive, we can flow with the fluctuations of life with grace and more ease.

It’s like the difference between an expert paddler using the currents of the river to move her forward and a novice being pummeled by the whitewater. You’re not actually in control in either situation, but the expert uses the currents to their advantage rather than being a victim to them.

The less we resist, the easier it is… The less we resist, the more connected we become to the bigger energy. So we use these practices called yoga to a kinesthetic reservoir of spaciousness that we can eventually learn to tap into. When we are in that state, we are able to respond to the situation appropriately rather than react. From the neutral ground of being, we can choose the good, we can choose love. If we don’t come to neutral first, we very often forget that we have a choice.

For a moment, let go of your story. It’s not that your story isn’t valuable… but for this moment, feel what it would be like to be without it. As we let go of good and bad, there is a spaciousness. And within that spaciousness, ironically, there is feeling that is best described by the word joy. How is it that when we let go of the need to feel joy…it arises spontaneously? It is one of the great mysteries. Some people say that it is because this is our true nature. That when we let go of expectations, desires, stories, etc, when we empty ourselves of the relative, the idea of good and bad, then what is left is as close to the truth with a capital T as we can hope to get.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.
–Rumi

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Sensitivity + Intention = Balanced Action

By mado | Published: December 15, 2010

As we are in the thick of the Holiday season, it seems as though no matter how much I try to avoid it, stress rears its ugly head.  Seeing as my livelihood is partially based on helping others reduce stress, it is very obvious when it is happening to me.  And I feel so lucky to have the tools to handle it.

Taking just a few minutes to go inward and notice my breath gives me the space to open to a new perspective.  This reminds me that all of my stress is a matter of choice. While often cannot change the causes of my stress, I can almost always influence my reaction to it.  In fact, I have the potential to completely control my reaction to any given situation.  I know this because what is possible in the microcosm is also possible in the macrocosm.  When I succeed in changing my reaction to a small stress that is out of my control, I know that there is also the potential to do the same with a bigger stress.

Opening to my own potential gives me a feeling of empowerment.  This leads me to remember that I have choices.  The reason that the serenity prayer is quoted so often is that it cuts like a knife to the heart of the human dilemma.

God,
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

the courage to change the things I can

and the wisdom to know the difference

I would add:

the insight to find the gifts within each one.

I live in a world of infinite potential.  I have made a conscious choice to believe that anything is possible.  Why?  Because I have found it to be the most effective way to live.  I am well aware that sometimes life is hard and there is nothing we can do about it.  But once that is acknowledged, I choose to move forward and focus on what I can do, what I can change, and what I can receive from any given situation. The yogis call life the ananda tandava, or the dance of bliss.  We create this experience for our lives by focusing on the good, the potential, the opportunity.

There has been some backlash in recent years against “excessive positivity” or magical thinking.  I see this as a normal reaction to people who have oversimplified the practice, or taken out the gray area.  No, our thoughts alone do not create our circumstances.  However, they do create our reactions to our circumstances and that does influence many things in a very real and physical way.

Sensitivity + Intention = Balanced Action.

This is my yoga practice.  It is always first about becoming more sensitive.  Without sensitivity, there is no way to react appropriately to the world.  Perhaps this is so key to me because I was not born with it.  Yoga has given me a taste of what it is like to live life with sensitivity and I am hooked.

Intention comes from our deepest desires.  Many spiritual traditions disparage desire as the root cause of all suffering.  And this makes absolute sense when we are talking about shallow desires.  However, desire is also the root cause of movement and growth.  So for me, it is not about eliminating desire, but rather staying sensitive enough to discover what our deeper desires are.  These would be the ones that bring us closer to others and the world around us rather than separating us.  The desire to serve.  The desire to discover our gifts and use them.  The desire to know god.

Even these deeper desires can be dangerous, can lead us into suffering as easily as into bliss.  Once again it is our ability to be sensitive that leads to “the wisdom to know the difference”.  This is balanced action, and rather thinking of it as a static place, think of it as a dance.  Sometimes you’re the leader (intention) and sometimes the follower (sensitivity), but this dance with life is what you’re made for and it is the key to living the life the fulfills your potential.

My daughter Ciel frequently reminds me in a very physical way that life is about dancing.  If you need a reminder, watch this short video of her shadow dancing in front of the credits of a movie.

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Reflections on Sunswept Farm Retreat

By mado | Published: July 28, 2010

As I prepare to return to Sunswept farm for the second annual retreat, I wanted to share this short piece I wrote last year shortly after the retreat was over.

Even with a few days space, I can still hardly wrap my mind around the incredible experience of the retreat last weekend. As Meghan and I held the space and watched in wonder, people had transformational breakthroughs all around us. We were honored to be a part of the process. Despite the profound shifts occurring at an accelerated speed, the mood was light and celebratory. Laughing, singing, and conversation both irreverent and profound sprinkled through the air. The participants were committed to making the most of their time on the far and their sense of fullness permeated each event and task. From a failed cheese making attempt to (sometimes HOT!) yoga to a rocking kirtan, the attitude remained one of connection to the perfection of each moment.

I honor the commitment and openness that each participant brought to this weekend. You took the theme we offered and ran with it, embodying the essence of purnatva (fullness) more completely than we could have imagined.

If you’d like to join us for this year’s retreat please register ASAP.

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Purnatva

By mado | Published: July 2, 2010

I am enjoying the perfect days of summer.  You know, the ones where you look around and think “I am completely content in this moment”.  I feel so blessed to live in this town and get to teach yoga to students who are seeking a deeper and deeper experience of themselves.  To interact daily with people who choose kindness and awareness as a way of life.  And to experience an abundance in the natural world that mirrors the physical and cultural diversity of the people.

We have a tendency to seek happiness outside of ourselves and in the future.  So perhaps it is the perfect mate or the right promotion that we beleive will fulfill us.  And with this state of mind, we attach any current happiness to the current circumstances. With this comes the fear that what ever circumstances are making us happy will change.  And inevitably they do.  However, we have within us everything we need to be happy in each moment.  This potential for experiencing complete contentment and even bliss rests within each of us and cannot be taken away.

Happiness can be found externally — sometimes.  We can use the beautiful moments of our lives to set mental patterns that will train us to experience contentment in other moments. This occurs when we consciously appreciate our experience of any given moment, without attaching ourselves to the circumstances surrounding it.  Patterns of contentment will begin to pop up in more unusual circumstances.  We might be having a discussion with a friend, and that friend begins to get heated.  Rather than getting upset, we find that we are still completely content in the moment.  We are able to look at that person with love and compassion, clearly state our case (if necessary) and then move on.

Purnatva is the state of experiencing divine perfection in all things.  Inherently, the nature of the universe is abundance. “When the microcosm totally dissolves into the state of Macrocosm, as a sugar doll dissolves into water, ‘Purnatva’ is THAT non-verbalized state.” (Jinendra Swami)

Purnatva may be taken as a goal, or a state to which one arrives upon the completion of some preparatory measures.  We can also take the goal as the path, seeking first to perceive the abundant, perfect order in our bodies, in our evolution, in ecological systems, and in our relationships. With each moment we celebrate the already impeccable, orchestrated, complete experience, we plant powerful seeds (or mental imprints) to experience the same, over and over again, each time more fully.

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Weeding the Garden and Wiping the Mirror Clean

By mado | Published: June 15, 2010

As I stood over my recently weeded garden bed the other day, a feeling of peace and contentment came over me.  The rains of early June had given the weeds just what they needed to overtake my planted veggies.  With the weeds safely decomposing in my compost pile, the veggies I had carefully planted had room to breathe.  Within days they were obviously larger and their color more vibrant.

Why does it feel so good after we take a shower or clean our house (or weed the garden for that matter)?  One might argue that the impulse for cleanliness is a reflection of the purity that lies at the essence of each of us.  Whether consciously or unconsciously, we seek to remember the divinity at our core.

In his book “The Splendor of Recognition”, Swami Shantananda describes the world as a mirror reflecting our own consciousness. This mirror, rather than reflecting what is outside, reflects what is inside. “I am a mirror and my life is nothing but a reflection of my consciousness.”.

Our feelings of imperfection, of being less than, come from our urge to merge back into the ultimate freedom of supreme consciousness. In other words, we feel separate from God and we yearn to reunite.

There are three impurities that separate us from experiencing our true nature:

anava-mala causes us to feel separate from god.  This causes us to feel unworthy and alone.  The associated emotion is sadness.
mayiya-mala causes us to see objects and other people as separate from ourselves.  We begin to compare ourselves to others.  The associated emotion is anger.
karma-mala makes us perform actions to aquire some objects and avoid others.  This causes the impression that there is too much to do and too much to know.  We begin to feel overwhelmed and incapable.  The associated emotion is fear.

Our experience of separateness is a thought to be an impurity, dust on the mirror of our consciousness.  The science of yoga deals with how to clean off our mirror and recognize our connection to all that is.  However, it is essential to recognize and accept that our mirror will continue to become dirty as long as we live in this physical world.   The afflictions of the Malas are a given, a necessity even for functioning in this world.  An obsession with cleanliness (spiritual or physical) might be just as unhealthy as living in unconsciousness.

Within each of the Malas lies an opportunity.  We may temporarily transcend each affliction and know our true nature in a more complete way than might have been possible without experiencing the separation first.  In addition, our experience of the malas gives us the ability to be compassionate to others as we see them suffer, and even the ability to help them clean off their own mirrors and know themselves more fully.

When we feel our suffering increase, we can look to the Malas and discern which of them is causing our suffering.  From there, we can take action to clean the mirror of our consciousness.  Sometimes all it takes is washing the dishes and wiping down the sink for us to remember who we really are.

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Discipline

By mado | Published: April 14, 2010

Something happens, a wake up call.  Or perhaps we wake up slowly and one day we realize that we have a longing to follow our hearts.  So we decide to change.  To break free from our habitual lives in order to make time for the things that strike our hearts.  But how?  Our habits are deeply ingrained.  Without constant vigilance we fall back into self pity, television, co-dependency, drugs…whatever our personal habits are.

In order to create these changes without getting lost, without falling back into old destructive habits, we need to create a structure for ourselves.  This structure helps us to create new habits, positive habits, habits that nourish and sustain us.  This structure can also be called discipline.

Discipline is a word often ascribed to the virtuous.  Most of us secretly know that we do not belong to this select group.  We would like to be disciplined, it sounds so prestigious.  But we know deep down that we are not special.  Only ordinary.

Growth usually requires either challenging circumstances that force us to stretch beyond our previous capabilities or sustained, intentional effort over time.  Frankly, the second method is easier.  We cannot usually plan for the challenges that will force us to grow, and probably wouldn’t want to.  The sanest path to personal growth is one of intention and discipline.  We often think of discipline as something severe and austere.  We associate it with being bad and requiring punishment.  However discipline is really another way of describing a structure or container for growth.

What if the discipline I am describing was not something severe or austere?  What if we looked at it as an act of love towards ourselves?

In order to create a discipline or practice that sustains us, we must first examine our intentions for doing so.  If we decide to practice because we think we “should” or because we are expected to, our practice will be dry and painful.  We will soon find a reason not to practice, and when we don’t we will berate ourselves for our lack of discipline.

To create a sustainable practice, we must do it for ourselves.  Because somewhere deep down, we realize that we are worthy.  That we were born to live our lives fully and our current habits are keeping us from feeling fully alive.

Discipline is a gift you give to yourself.  Choose a practice that feels like a gift.  It will still be hard to do consistently, but once you get started you will remember.  Start small.  Start reasonably.  Take baby steps.  Be kind to yourself.  If you skip a day, also skip berating yourself about it.

Growth happens one baby step at a time.  Change happens one baby step at a time.  Take one today.

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