I love you. You're stupid. Just kidding!

Looking down from Cape Flattery. Photo by Amy Baranski.

Yesterday during Savasana after Ustrasana (camel pose) my yoga teacher talked about how we might feel. When we first started our practice, she explained, "overwhelmed" is the label we may have assigned to that wave of feeling rushing throughout our joints and mind as we quickly transitioned from our knees to our backs and into Savasana.

Camel pose is the deepest backbend of the Bikram series and at times reminds me of standing on a ledge--a soaring seacliff above craggy rocks looking down on a tangly kelp forrest tipping out from the surf. 

Just the other day Bob asked:

feeling good?

yoga.

Just got back from day 13 of the 30 day challenge.  and i know i am passing judgement here, and setting my expectation on having a "good" experience, but man, today's class was great!  the past two days have been hellish.  i don't know if it was me, or the heat, or my lack of hydration...but something un-nameable was getting the best of me and i was totally struggling through class once again.  in fact, when i showed up today, i was quite nervous...i almost layed down during pranayama breathing, the very first thing we do in class.  my mind was darting everywhere, my feet were fidgeting in the crooked way i hold them together, and my eyes couldn't even see the straight line down the ceiling as i exhaled and looked back...because my mind had taken me far, far away into my fears.  i wasn't in the room.
and yet my body was doing the breathing, my lungs were filling and emptying, and somehow that called my mind back from another land, back into the room, back onto my mat.  half moon pose.  Ardha Chandrasana.  always breathing, slowly, in and out through the nose.  Pada-hastasana.  i went further into this pose than ever before.  and on i went, through every pose...with determination and strength.  sure it was still a challenge to do the poses, but i could breathe and do them, to the best of my ability.

so, day 13 was a good class.  and i especially loved when Meghan, our teacher this morning, shared how being in this heat and in an uncomfortable pose, using your mind strength to bear through it, to breathe through it...no matter how uncomfortable it is...this is one of the gifts we take out into the world.  we take this ability into our everyday lives and we can go through the inevitable uncomfortable situations that life brings, we can stay there and breathe and not run away.  and she shared how this leads to a more joyful life, in her experience.  totally.  and wouldn't you know, as soon as we got home (Jamie went with me today) we had a chance to work through an uncomfortable situation. it was over the fact that we disagreed on who got to use the car.  a simple spat, but one that had the potential to escalate...jamie invited me to stay with it and not run away.  and after a moment of thought, i stayed with it, and we worked it out.  now that is mind strength, cause i totally wanted to run.  avoid.  i actually had already opened the door to just walk away and go to Amy's upstairs.  but i didn't.  thank you, yoga.

meditation.

Yesterday I listened to disc 2 of the Pema Chodron CD How to Meditate, a Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind.  i was totally distracted, not to mention exhausted from the torturous yoga right before.  i felt guilty for not cleaning the house, for taking time for myself to go to yoga and then to sit a meditate for an hour.  i heard my phone buzz and it took every ounce of energy i had, not much, to not run and check it.  i was sure it was a dire situation that needed my immediate attention.  yet, i sat.  i have to say, i enjoy reading Pema more than listening and meditating with her.  probably because i can avoid my mind when i read...i get it all filled up with these great ideas and concepts that i don't have to sit and practice.  i get to keep reading, and feeling really great.  my mind is like, oh, yeah...totally Pema, i hear ya.  wow, you're awesome.  i get to not be in my mind.  so, today, even though i do have a ton of shit to do.  it's cooking by the way, one of my favorite things to do, so don't feel bad for me :)  i will take at least 15 minutes and sit.  no matter if i hear "mama mama mama mama MAMA MAMA!" or if i hear the phone buzz.  i can do it.

and I'll leave you with this from Pema's book, The Wisdom of No Escape.  (cause like i said, it feels so good to read, and I challenge you to take this concept into your life just once today.)

"There are two common forms of human neurosis.  One is getting caught up in worry and fear and hope, in wanting and not wanting, and things.  We continually try to get away from the pain by seeking pleasure (samsara), and in doing so, we just keep going around and around.  I'm hot so I open all the windows, and then I'm cold so I out on a sweater.  Then the sweater is itchy so I put some cream on my arms, and then that's sticky so I take a bath.  Then I am cold, so I close the windows, and on and on.

The other neurosis - which is just as common- is to get caught by peace and quiet, or liberation, or freedom.  This is what we all doing a subtle way.  If we have an experience of clarity or bliss, we want to keep it going.  That's what a lot of addiction is about, wanting to feel good forever, but it usually ends up not working out.  Sometimes that's expressed by arranging your life in such a way that it's very quiet, very smooth, very simplified; you become so attached to it that you just want to keep it like that.  You resist and resent any kind of change or noisy situation, messing everything up."

Sounds kinda like my desire for a "good" yoga class.
it is what it is.  keep breathing.
Just as I am.


peace, 
melissa

Ring the damn gong

Day 9 dude and I finally figured out how not to pull the stars and fairy-dust out of my tender shoulder. It's all in the hips. When I dip, you dip, we dip. I am now looking forward to the daily session at the little torture box on Capitol Hill, but it's been tough not living my usual rockstar lifestyle lately. Doing laundry and drinking a half gallon of water every night is seriously taking its toll. Tomorrow is day 10, which represents one-third of the 30-day yoga challenge. I raise my glass of wine water to that. Oh and guy-who-I-wacked-with-my arm-as-I-was-struggling-to-put my-sweatshirt-back-on, sorry about that.

Honest Shot Meditation: 
Now to the real assignment of this month, Meditation. I spent some time with "How to Meditate" by Pema early this morning before work and had the hardest time sitting still. Because all I really wanted to do was drink a decent Côtes du Rhône, smear some goat cheese on a tomato, wrap that action in a basil leaf, and kick up my feet to enjoy the party in my mouth. But no. I squirmed all over the floor trying to listen to some nun-chick tell me how to sit in a "correct posture" and think about all the things I "brought with me" and to "be present" with all of that. Then she said it's now time to start meditating. I said, damn girl I thought that was the meditation. And yes I was craving goat cheese and wine in the morning. RING THE GONG ALREADY, PEMA.

-Amy

staying on track....

Amazingly enough, I have been keeping on track this month so far.  and i mostly say that in reference to the meditation.  the yoga, as challenging as it can be, i have done before.  well, not 30 days in a row, but close.  the meditation on the other hand, i couldn't even do five minutes a day for a week when a friend of mine suggested we make a pact to do so.  But this week, i have made time to listen to my Pema CD, How to Meditate.

it is lovely to hear her voice and imagine i am in this meditation class with her.  her voice is more real, more human, less Buddhist nun than i imagined.  not that Buddhist nuns aren't human, i just imagine them as so far away from all the hustle and bustle that their voice softens to angelic proportions.  she sounded like the lady next door that maybe more from Boston thirty years ago.  So, i have done that a couple nights and i have meditated when i wake in the morning a couple times.  I stay extra long in savasana after class enjoying the quiet of my mind, my body melting into the floor.  i do find at home i am very distracted when i meditate.  i hear the kids, or i anticipate them barging in...or they actually to and just stand there repeating..."mama, mama....mama, mama...what are you doing?  mama, mama?"  i guess i am cultivating a strong mind....calm in the midst of family chaos.  but then, that is what i need, ultimately.  

and the 30 challenge.  today is day 5.  I plan on going to the AM class since i work in the evening.  Last night's class was super hot in the beginning, but it didn't bother me as much as a really hot class has in the past.  i think going everyday builds stamina, endurance, strength.  well, duh? right.  but man, it did seem to bother others, at least that was my story of what was going on.  one guy actually rolled up his mat and left. Never saw that before.  more people than ever went to the bathroom during class.  one woman even asked the teacher why it was so much hotter than usual, was that just her style?!  i couldn't believe it.  

sleep has been coming very, very early for me every night this week.  and i have been going with that, loving it.  and along with that have come many dreams.  a lot of them are about not making it to yoga, and missing a day.  i went to the 6:15am class the other day and i kept waking up, checking the time, because in my dream, i missed the class and it was the last one of the day and i was devastated that on day 3 my dedication was thwarted.  i just really want to follow through.  and on a side note, i also had a dream about my teeth falling out, this dream has not visited me in quite some time, but it used to often.  and it always feels awful, scary and very real.  and it followed suit this time, as my teeth fell out, one by one, i became increasingly upset.  until i realized, i had new teeth growing in underneath the lost ones.  this had never happened before, and i upon waking i took it as a good omen.  any dream interpreters out there have a clue?  then again, i trust my intuition...good omen indeed.

so, this morning, i blogged instead of meditating.  but after the kids go to school, and after yoga, and before work...I will listen to more of my class with Pema, and drift into my mind.  right on track.  (where does that saying even come from? )

xoxomelissa