Finding My Guru

May 19, 2013

Be Awesome

The Pauli exclusion principle is the principle in physics that states no two identical fermions may occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. Or as Lauryn Hill so peotically put it, “Two MCs can’t occupy the same space at the same time.”

I often think of this principle (and of this Fugee song) when practicing. I’ll admit without reservation that I often apply the laws of physics to my yoga practice, and to yoga philosophy. One because I’m a geek, and two because science always seems to strengthen my spirituality rather than oppose it.

Lately I’ve been fighting an internal battle, one that’s been going on for some time. Searching for a way to practice happiness consistently, and continually finding myself hitting a wall. Why can’t I maintain happiness? Why is it so hard to hold on to?

I finally came to admit this weekend that in order to maintain any relationship (spiritual or physical) you have to give it space to grow. You have to choose where to put things in your life, and you can’t have two competing forces occupy your time. If your happiness is continually affected by something, then that something has to hit the road. But letting go of the things that get in the way of your yoga, or your happiness isn’t easy.

Why? Because letting go of the things that do not serve you, often means you have to stop turning your back to them, and instead turn to face them.

Which my friends, sucks.

Facing the things that make you uncomfortable or scare you is far harder then you think. I don’t have any masterful words of wisdom about how to face them. No tips or tricks or cliff notes. You just kind of have to take the plunge, and do it. All I can share is how it feels.

“What does it feel like?” you may ask. Well, it feels like jumping into the pool instead of dipping your toes in, but 10,000x more intense. If feels like being the one to talk about the break up, even though you just want the other person to do it. Like leaning in for that first kiss instead of waiting for the other person to make the first move. Like allowing yourself to morn the loss of a loved one fully, without inhibition or constraint.

It crushes your insides and suffocates your heart. It’s a massive, immense and beautiful crashing wave of release. It’s a death grip of fear. It’s a state impossible to discern where one emotion starts and where one ends. It feels like free falling from 13,000 ft in the air, catching a pocket of wind and being suspended for a brief moment and witnessing the world below, all the while being reminded of how small and large you really are.

It is beautiful and horrific all at once, and I recommend it to everyone.

It’s important to remember that the happiness we all seek does not need to be found, but rather has to be given the room to blossom and grow. In order to do this, we’ve got to get rid of the things that are stifling it. Know that the space you create by letting go never becomes a scary void. It becomes a place full of love, strength, and everything awesome.

12:46pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrDNDxlLjwd-

(Notes: 1)

May 19, 2013

(via damewendy)

11:01am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrDNDxlLHz4R

(Notes: 664)

April 25, 2013

Thursday, April 25th, 6:10 AM

It’s 6:10 on a Thursday morning. The streets of the city in the EV are empty. I wait for the green light, and a black SUV pulls up beside me and rolls down the windows. I don’t turn to look. The light turns and I begin to cross the street; the black SUV honks. I don’t look back. The diesel truck I pass revs its engine as I walk by, the driver says something obscene. I try to ignore it as I continue to cross the street.

It’s 6:10 in the morning, and I am alone in the middle of the street with two people who don’t know one another, but who both think I am less of a person than them.

I turn down 2nd Ave towards 12th Street, knowing its a one way street and the SUV can’t follow me. It follows me down 2nd Avenue, stops at the light and I turn left, leaving it behind me. The driver shouts out something demeaning. I keep walking, I turn my headphones up.

It’s 6:10 in the morning, and this is how I react to the daily onslaught of sexual harassment that happens when the weather gets nice. Most of the time I don’t even have music playing in my head phones, they are just there as an excuse to not make eye contact.

Street harassment is not flattering. It is not attraction. It is not something that comes along with being a woman.

It is power. Power to degrade. Power to incite fear. Power to diminish a person as a sexual object that is owned. Power to control a public space. Power to shame, scare, and intimidate. It’s the power a man holds to say “I am entitled to you, simply by being a man.”

Just last week I was in an elevator with a man and young woman. None of us knew each other. We were all facing the elevator door, not making eye contact. To break the silence, the man said “You know, you are very beautiful.” The girl and I both turned around and he was staring directly at me, looking me up and down. His comment was malevolent. It was not a sincere or flattering statement. In a confined space, with no option for escape, this man had managed to turn a 15 second elevator ride into the most uncomfortable experience for two women. Why? Because he has the power to.

Because women and men all over the world feel the need to respond to stories like this with statements like “You are over reacting.” “Must suck to be pretty, comes with being attractive.” “I think it’s kind of flattering.” “Maybe you should walk a different way to work.” ”You just have to ignore it. Don’t take it personally.” “The more you let it bother you, the more control they have.”

I’m tired of hearing these responses. I am tired of shopping for spring dresses with an eagerness for warm weather, and a dark dread in the pits of my stomach knowing the back lash that will come with wearing the seasons newest fashions. I am tired of avoiding routes where there is street construction. I am tired of wearing headphones while I walk to anywhere. I am tired of being belittled and objectified. I am tired of years of hiding my femininity to avoid harassment. I spent the better part of ages 12 - 27 wearing over sized and baggy clothing because I was sexually harassed. Not until I was well into my twenties did I even have the courage to put on a tank top, and this only because my roommate essentially held my closet hostage when we would go out.

Gender bullying has many forms and is seen around the world in varying degrees of intensity. And while the world wants to see this as a “women’s issue” it isn’t. It’s a men’s problem. It’s a societal problem. It’s a problem with how we raise our children. A problem with how we victim blame. I can bet my lunch that when you started reading this post, one of the first thoughts that came into your head was “What was she wearing at 6 in the morning for them to honk at her?” I’m not telling you. Because it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter the color of my skin, my age, background, religion: the fact still stands that I am a person. I am not an object that anyone owns. I have feelings that are valid. I have a life, a family, people who love me and who I love. My purpose on this planet is not to sexually please every man that I come across, and it is certainly not to sit by silently while every Tom, Dick, and Dipshit harasses me from their garbage truck.

This morning was not a proud moment for me. I wanted to confront the man in the SUV and in the diesel truck. I don’t know what I would have said, but I wanted to say something. To speak up and take a stand, to just show that I was real. To show that I was really a person, and not some commodity.

But I didn’t because I was alone, at 6:10 in the morning, in an empty city, scared shit-less. Instead, I write and pray that next time I have the courage to say something, and that you do to.

“I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend,
that together we may succeed in building a better world
through human understanding and love,
and that in doing so we may reduce
the pain and suffering of all sentient beings.”
― Dalai Lama

8:23am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrDNDxjVdw2f

(Notes: 1)

March 7, 2013

So long as you are having fun

On March 7, 2012 I taught my first yoga class. There were 27 people in the room including fellow classmates, my best friends, and well known faces around the studio who came out to support the girl at the Front Desk.

I was a nervous wreck. I felt like my heart was going to explode out of every and any orifice at any moment. I walked around the room reciting my cues I had studied so diligently, and adjusting people with the most humble and serving mindset that I could muster.

I just wanted it to be perfect. I wanted to share with people what yoga had given to me, and was shaking at the core for it to happen.

After class my mentor came up to me and said “Monica, that was beautiful! You love your students sooo much! You offer them so much support, so much care and attention! You just need to relax! You know all your cues, all the adjustments. You are an amazing teacher!”

“Relax? Relax!? What do you mean I need to relax?! THIS IS NO TIME FOR RELAXING!!! Did you see me up there!? I was a wreck! I flubbed my words during the second standing series! I let go of cues during Tree Pose and just counted breath! I am almost certain that the fourth person into the third row hated me because I stepped on their mat. How do you have no criticism!? How do you not have a list of things I’m supposed to improve!? I need to be told I was horrible because I FEEL AWFUL RIGHT NOW!”

Ok, I didn’t say that. But I wanted to. Instead I cried like a litle baby because tears were the only thing that could come out. I broke down that I thought I was a horrible teacher because I built up this idea of what a teacher should be, and I didn’t meet that expectation. Her response was one that would haunt me for months. “You have to get out of your own way, and be yourself.”

And so it went, class after class, feedback after feedback from my mentor, the owner, my friends, my fellow teachers. The content and design of the classes I led was not the problem. It was Monica. Monica, or the lack of her presence in the room, was the problem.

I didn’t realize how much of myself was supposed to be a part of what I taught and how I taught. “Be yourself”, “Get out of your own way”, “Be more human”. I hated the feedback. No, I loathed it. I despised what I believed it implied. That my inability to be a successful teacher was my own fault, that I was my problem and no amount of hours of study would fix it. I had such a high regard and honor for what I was teaching that I could not bear to think that the content didn’t matter. I refused to admit the character defined the quality of the class. To an extent I became insulted as the thought crept in that maybe I was being myself all this time, but that my character wasn’t good enough. In reality I was uncomfortable with my character. I was battling with a lot of insecurities and had spent the last two years upholding a promise to be more true to who I was, to the things I loved, and honor my dreams. Being told to “Be myself” made me livid, nervous, anxious, and every other self damaging thought there was.

A few months ago, I embarrassingly asked a senior teacher “When did you become comfortable? You know…with teaching. When did you become comfortable being you and not like, this idea of what you should be as a teacher?”

She threw back her head and laughed in hysterics - “Oh GOD honey. It took a whiiiiiiiiiiiiiile.” She sat down with me and I found myself laughing with her, realizing finally how ridiculous I was being. She told me that eventually you just stop freaking out because it doesn’t matter. “I was a wreck for so long and then I decided that all the freaking out wasn’t helping, so I just said screw it and went in and had fun. And that’s when things started getting easier but even then it was still hard. It just takes time. Look, when you decided to be a Yoga Teacher, you signed up to be a permanent student, you always have to study yourself which means you never get comfortable, you just get better at realizing its not that big a deal. You’re still learning, we’re all still learning. Don’t worry about it. Have fun, that’s all that matters.”

I decided to take a step back and look at myself. I still had work to do being comfortable with who I was, and once I admitted that, I could I think about being comfortable enough to share that with my students. I wasn’t ever going to get to a place where I was “ready” to be a great teacher. I was going to grow into one, and my students were going to continue to grow as well. The only one judging me, was me, and I had to let it go along with all of the ridiculous expectations for greatness I had laid out.

So I started doing small things in class: sharing my stories, my life lessons, sharing my music and my singing and doing it in a way that was using my experiences to teach the sutras, the gita, the philosophy of yoga and its stories. I wasn’t talking about me, I was talking about yoga, and it started to make sense. I started to connect more with my students, started to let go of the idea of perfection and started to play and have fun. I remembered a card my boyfriend gave me for my birthday last year, “Happiness is not a state to arrive at but a manner of traveling.” So I began to travel, and not worry so much about the destination.

Fast forward to today, and its been a year to the day since I taught that first class. Since then I’ve spent over 200 hours teaching and led over 3,500 students through their practice. I’ve led classes with 4 students practicing and classes with 70 students practicing. I’ve had horrible days and wonderful days. Days where I felt like I was connecting to no one, and days when students were wiping tears away throughout the class. I’ve had mornings where I can wait for nothing more than to get on the podium and share what I know, and days where I am vapid and simply want to lay in bed and get sleep.

I have good days and bad, because I am human. Because I’ve realized, I am a person just like the students who come to my class.

I have hopes, I have dreams, I have ambitions. And to be a teacher means you have to live. You have to look at yourself to improve the quality of life you lead. The lessons you learn are the things you share with your students, and the more honest you are with yourself, the more they’ll believe you when you tell them the biggest truth of all - In the end, it really doesn’t matter, so long as you have fun while you are doing it.

9:40am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrDNDxfjMmCg

(Notes: 4)

Filed under: yoga teaching teaching yoga yoga yoga teacher memoirs memoirs of a yogi svadhyaya

January 24, 2013

Longing

I want sun. Shorts. Swimsuits. Un-abandoned nudity. I want ice cold water to be enjoyable. Cute flats. To see my dark olive complexion in the mirror. I want to run in a fire hydrant in my bare feet on a hot summer night, the kind you can smell in the air in the city. I want ice cubes on my legs at a table at brunch, mid-day. The joy of a cool breeze. I want grass between my toes. Tan lines on my low back from my bikini bottom. Tip-toeing in a sundress down the street at night, tipsy from wine, locked arms with my best friend, holding my heels, head thrown back in laughter and carelessness because everything is perfect.

I long for those days. I eagerly awake each morning, counting down the return of its rebirth, as my shoulders crunch into my ears hugging myself tight, tip-toeing on bare cold floors to the bathroom in the early darkness. I pretend soon enough that it will pass. I’ll wake up soon, to summer. And hug it, with every bit of my smile.

3:28pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrDNDxcYQ2fu

(Notes: 3)

Filed under: i miss summer

December 16, 2012

Breathing

I spent many days this year lost in thought, full of anger, that I did not have a Guru, some wise teacher to turn to in times of trial and doubt. I would ask myself repeatedly if I would ever find one; wonder whether one existed.

But reflection has show me that this year has been my greatest teacher. Every experience has been a Guru. I would be a fool to think that any moment I lived was not a lesson; a reflection of all I need to listen to, watch, accept, and address.

In this year I cried, meditated on people who’ve hurt me, meditated on people I love, became obsessed with physical adjustments, learned what a back bend actually was, decided I’d be alone for a long time, wondered why the hell everyone is obsessed with rocks, folded more towels and mats than I ever thought was possible, ate homemade buffalo chili with one of the brightest yoga teachers this side of the east coast, taught my first class, was hired as a teacher, bought rocks, wore rocks, made a lot of mistakes and learned from them, surrendered completely, quit my job of five years, went from being hired to the one who does the hiring, was inspired and so I inspired others, had someone cry in class for the first time, got a hug from someone after class for the first time, had absolutely no one say thank you after a class, stopped surrendering, hated teaching, loved teaching, hated yoga, loved yoga, hated myself and everything I was doing, loved myself fully, got another tattoo, got a new outlook on life, moved out of Chelsea into the LES, surrendered again, found the love of my life, felt my heart open, built a home with my best friends, stopped getting angry at the world, kept getting angry at slow walking people, admitted I was only human, admitted I didn’t know anything, became much happier having admitted it, hugged my sisters, stopped eating meat, started to sing at the end of class, became a better teacher, let go of the breath count, gained a family that loves me before they met me, got excited for Christmas for the first time in over 25 years, experienced injuries upon injuries, lessons upon lessons of love, patience, & kindness to myself and others, drank a lot of wine and coffee, spent time with the important things: music festivals, late night NYC bars, meditation workshops, trampolines, singing Adele, dupstep and shoulder rides, sliced open thumbs, Radiohead, gathering upset friends into a circle of love and inspiration, KiKi’s, KiKi’s, and more KiKi’s, friends new and old, handstands against the wall, building family dinner traditions, planning first dances, stealing lions, eating a lot of kale, saying yes to the right things and no to the things that didn’t make me happy, singing loudly in bars and subways, volunteering, learning to cook and loving it, sharing meals with friends, accepting Dharma, and practicing gratitude.

This year, because of all of these things, I have learned a valuable lesson - to live as you breath.

If you hold on to the breath you take in; if you do not let it go, you will perish. If you hold on to the breath you let out; if you do not take any breath in, you will perish. This is life. If you take something in, you must give in return. If you let something go, you will receive if you allow it. Live as you breath - fully, and with surrender.

For once in this life I feel as though I lack nothing; it is joyous to breath.

4:07pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrDNDxZUNMUH

(Notes: 4)

December 10, 2012

mumeditation:

“Silence is God’s first language. Everything else is a poor translation.” - Fr. Thomas Keating

(via fuckyeahyoga)

10:20pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrDNDxZ6RC0r

(Notes: 406)

December 10, 2012

Road trips

Oldsmobile with garbage bag taped rear window. Rusted doors and hood, you remind me of where I once was.

Eyes swell as distant memories of a past way of life come up like something forgotten below the surface.

Your pull up push down door locks. Your cracked door handle and leather seats. That musty smell of the foam crumbling out the tears in the cushion. Your trunk full of greasy towels. Squeaky windshield wipers, getting stuck on the glass in the rain. The tick of your turn signal; the gas gauge low. The chill that came in the passenger side window, because your roll up handle stuck.

Rusted boat of a vehicle, you remind me of where I once was. Once, when times were meek. Once when times were hard. Once, when I was sad; an emotion so far from where I am now. But I remember you, keep you at a distance now. Having found better things to hold on to.

I know now your cold fades, and spring comes fast. I have faith now that bleakness is an opinion. I fear no longer any desperation. I don’t find solace in your arms any longer.

There is hope now. Real love. A light that shines bright and deeper than I thought could be real, but in my dreams.

Oldsmobile, you are a ghost that I once knew. Your seats now empty; no longer a passenger; I can walk past you now, and go home.

10:10pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrDNDxZ6OBeg

(Notes: 1)

November 19, 2012

"Good teaching isn’t about technique. I’ve asked students around the country to describe their good teachers to me. Some of them describe people who lecture all the time, some of them describe people who do little other than facilitate group process, and others describe everything in between. But all of them describe people who have some sort of connective capacity, who connect themselves to their students, their students to each other, and everyone to the subject being studied."

— From “What makes a good teacher?”

1:47pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZrDNDxXcLoeO

September 11, 2012

Patience, gratefulness, and not smashing things

I hurt my shoulder yesterday and I’m angry. Just, simply, angry. I want to punch things, throw things at the wall, scream at the top of my lungs, fill myself with bad food, sit on the couch and watch horrible day time TV and sulk around thinking to myself “You suck. You suck. You suck. You suck. YOU SUCK.”

I could very easily do all of these things. I’ve spent the last month and a half battling injury after injury, none of which were caused by yoga, all of which were caused by me being careless. I have absolutely no one to blame but myself for these injuries, and yet I’m battling to not get angry at myself.

So I’m eating my favorite breakfast, listening to Paul Simon, trying to keep a positive outlook, and practicing gratefulness.