Thank You

Dear You,

This blog is about therapy for me. It is me just working through whatever is on my mind, to get it off my shoulders so my friends and family don't have to sit and listen to me constantly analyze every aspect of my life. It is essentially my journal, documenting this life change called Yoga Teacher Training. When I started it, I never really thought about the publicness of it. I just write for me.

However, lately an interesting phenomenon has been happening. I sit down to talk to my friends and they say, "yeah, I read about that in your blog." I meet random people through friends who say "you're the one with the blog!"  I have been getting emails and comments from people I don't know, cheering me on. Relating to me. Appreciating me. It is such a weird feeling, to think about others reading these words I write. To me, I just start typing into a blank white box and, upon hitting "Publish Post" my words get carried into a black hole somewhere. Never really thought about what happens next. But somehow, these posts are finding each of you. 

I just wanted to take a moment to thank each and every person who has read my blog. What started out as a selfish act is now connecting me to people on a level I never knew existed. It is such an amazing feeling, sharing with you all. Some of you share back - in terms of emails, comments, and the like. And I hang on every word because I want to know you as well as you are getting to know me. Some of you just read it and I never know unless you bring it up at some point. Some of you are helping me to grow by passing it onto friends and family. Some of you may read it once and never come back. Whatever group you fall into, thank you. Thank you for giving me a chance to come into your life, whether on a daily basis or for a fleeting moment. I appreciate every single person and hope I can deepen the connection with each of you. 

Namaste.

Jenn

B+

Here's a sample of my day yesterday:

3:45am - Wake up to make plane for a 1 day trip to Boston

5:30am - Park car at airport, grab shuttle and navigate security

6:30am - Board plane

7am - Told my connecting airport is grounding everyone due to weather so we wait, unable to leave plane

8:45am - Finally take off for my connecting flight in Philly

10am - Land in Philly and wait for next plane to Boston

12pm - Land in Boston

12:30pm - Finally make it to 11a site survey with the clients

2:30pm - Back at airport. Original flight back through Philly leaves at 6pm so get booked on earlier flight through Washington DC - should get me home by 7:30p (instead of 10pm)

5pm - Land in Washington DC

5:30pm - Wait in Washington DC for delayed flight back to Detroit

6:30pm - Still waiting in Washington DC for delayed flight back to Detroit

7:30pm -  Still waiting in Washington DC for delayed flight back to Detroit

8:30pm - Still waiting in Washington DC for delayed flight back to Detroit

9:30pm - Finally board buses to take us to aircraft about 100 yards away on tarmack

10:15pm - Still sitting in buses in front of aircraft as they check out some issues

10:30pm - Finally board plane home

12:30am - Crash into my bed

Here is what yesterday taught me - this yoga stuff is sinking in. 16 hours of my day were spent either at an airport or on a plane - all for 2 hours of actual client meetings. And never once did I feel agitated about it. My old self wouldn't have made a scene, but I would have been bitchy and impatient. I would have huffed and puffed each time they announced another delay. I would have rolled my eyes or something similarly passively aggressive. But I had a strange calm the entire day. I just went with the flow. It was what it was. It didn't occur to me to regret getting on the earlier flight home - even though it ended up bringing me home even later than had I taken my original flight. I made a choice and I was okay with it - truly okay with it. 

I passed the time doing some yoga homework - thankful for this time where I could catch up since I had fallen behind. I read a book, which felt SO good since I hadn't had time to just read for fun in so long. I listened to music. I people watched and analyzed "beauty" in my own mind (interesting observations - possibly a future blog?). I meditated, which was extremely easy when strapped to a plane seat unable to move anyways.  I barely said two words the entire day besides at the client meeting. I found all of these ways to get in touch with myself that I had been too busy to do recently. This day, instead of being a horrible trial in patience, instead was a blessing. 

I am so thankful for my yoga training. It is changing the way I view every day occurrences for the better. It is giving me the blender to make the lemonade. To take "bad" situations and just live through them, hopefully finding a lesson in there somewhere. I titled this post "B+" because I feel like that is what I earned on the test yesterday. I know we aren't supposed to grade (AKA judge) ourselves but I like to know where I have "got it" and where I have room to grow. If you were to give yourself a grade on how you handled the last difficult situation in your life, what would it be? Would it be a grade you were proud of? Or something maybe you could work a little harder on next time?

Mind Matters Most

Today one of our homework assignments is to write an essay on the statement "Mind Matters Most", so I'm knocking out two things by posting it as my blog today as well :)

The expected route is to tie this statement into yoga and talk about how your mind is what allows/limits your body's movement and when your mind is unfocused your breath/movement suffers and so on and so forth. But since I have written lots of previous blogs on these topics, I think I am going to go a different direction. Instead, let's compare and contrast two extremes unrelated to yoga....or are they?

My grandma was an amazing lady. She came over from Slovakia as a child and doted on being a wife, mother and grandmother. Her family meant everything to her. She never held a job that I knew of, but slaved for weeks before any holiday to celebrate in true Slavic style - meaning miles of food (and butter!) and rooms crowded full of relatives. She would teach us children some Slovak (jeden, dve, tri, styri, pat...) and tell us stories from her childhood. She lived for family.

Then it all changed. I am not sure how fast it happened - being so young I am sure my parents tried to hide it from us for quite a while. But I will never forget the time we visited her and she no longer knew who I was. I learned a big word that day - Alzheimer's. Something had come in and stolen the very essence of my grandmother - her mind. At first, it was her memories. Than one Christmas she couldn't remember how to unwrap a gift. Her body was still healthy, but her mind floated in and out of recognition of the life she once lived. I remember witnessing random moments of clarity, when she suddenly remembered something. It was almost worse because of the intense sadness she felt in those moments, knowing what was happening to her.

On the extreme opposite, is a man I am sure everyone has heard of - Stephen Hawking. Having lived a fairly normal childhood, he was diagnosed at 21 with Motor Neurone Disease (a form of ALS). This meant as the years went by, his mind stayed clear while his body deteriorated. Slowly his entire body worked itself into full paralysis and pneumonia even stole his ability to speak. Yet he used technology to overcome this physical handicap. His mind not only remained cognizant, but continued to sharpen as his body went the other direction. He is an esteemed author, professor, and researcher. His efforts have greatly advanced his field of physics. He is a certified Mensa genius as well as a husband and father. All of this accomplished without a working body.

Putting these two extremes side by side, I believe that Mind does indeed matter most. Your mind holds your memories. It gives you your opinions and connects you to other people. Without it, you become a shell.  Yet, so many people put priority on their physical body over their mind because it is something tangible they can touch. People take time to exercise and diet so they look good on the outside, yet can't imagine stopping to meditate for 20 minutes ("I don't have time for that!"). They let their mind get stressed - saying "no" to  something isn't an option. In a previous blog, To Scratch or Not To Scratch, I even found a study showing that just going through life with your brain on autopilot instead of actively engaging it can be a leading factor in Alzheimer's later in life. But to most people, their mind is just their mind - they either don't care or don't know they can proactively do things to make it healthier.  If they did, meditation, yoga and the like would be in every school and blasted from every billboard.

Take a moment to think about the above examples, and decide for yourself: does mind truly matter most? If you believe it does, what are you going to do to keep it nurtured and healthy in the coming years?

It's Raining Men!

Today in my 6:30am hot vinyasa class, I looked around and was astounded by what I saw - men. Lots and lots of men. My yoga center has always had more guys in a class than any other place I have been to, but never before had I noticed them outnumbering the females. We were in the small room that fits maybe 15-20 people, and I counted only 4 girls in the packed room, including myself. Huh.

So why was this such a surprise to me? I certainly don't think yoga is just for girls. But I do believe others feel that way, which is why I was so pleasantly surprised. I think there is a big misconception that yoga isn't truly a "workout". Most people in my life think it is just stretching - like something you do before or after a "real" workout. And since guys like to lift the weight of a small gorilla over their heads, that image just doesn't mesh with a graceful Pigeon Pose. This morning I was so grateful to see this stigma changing. 

In reality, yoga is whatever you make of it. It is probably the only form of exercise that truly every person can do. Not only can everyone do it, but they can alter it to a level challenging enough for them - wherever they are at. When you begin yoga, it is pretty "easy" at first. This isn't because yoga in itself is easy, but because people new to yoga don't yet know what to do with it. It is like giving an accountant a set of paintbrushes and a canvas. At first, it is easy to just slap some paint on the canvas and say you painted. But only once they start challenging themselves to create a masterpiece can they see how much more practice and skill they need to really do something great with these tools they have been given. 

In yoga, it is the same. At first, you move into each pose and say you did yoga. This might be the case for weeks or months or even years. But at some point, your mind stops thinking about what color you should paint your toenails and instead you can actually feel the heart pumping blood to different areas of the body. You start to recognize something inside yourself - that point where you resist and where you surrender. You start to differentiate between your mind resisting and your body resisting. You begin to understand the concept of "your edge" that the teacher keeps talking about. Maybe one time you notice your body stop at a certain point. You inhale to expand then exhale even deeper into the pose and feel a new sensation, something you have never felt before. When you release, a euphoria comes over you as the blood rushes into the space you just created.  You learn to use the poses to make your body stronger. You learn to use the poses to make your mind stronger.

The problem is, so many people give up while still in that "toenail paint color" phase of yoga. At that point, it IS basically stretching - which is where I think everyone gets that notion from. Until you engage the mind in yoga, it is no different than doing a few runner-stretches before getting onto the treadmill. Since guys usually need to feel it deep in their muscles - as with weight lifting - and they don't get to that point in their first few classes of yoga, they discount it as not a "good workout."

It is obvious by the amount of guys in this morning class that my yoga center has found the "secret sauce" to make people give yoga a chance to move beyond just stretching. I am so grateful to be learning how to teach from a place that has figured out a way to bust through that misconception. Their teachers have broken down that learning curve with a mix of flows, wisdom and music to expedite the process of engaging the mind. It is because of amazing teachers like the ones I am learning under, that yoga is becoming mainstream again and more and more people are benefiting from it. I am so excited to become a part of this community and to possibly, in the future, help someone cross over from thinking of yoga as "stretching" to realizing what an intense mind and body workout it really can be.