Why I Broke My Vow of Silence (And not for the reason you think).

** Trigger warning: discusses mental illness, anxiety and depression **


Today is the day I would have started my 10-day long vipassana course. For those of you that don't know, Vipassana is essentially meditation bootcamp; you spend 10 days with several other people in silent meditation all day, every day. I have been planning to go to one for a few years now, but the timing has never lined up. I recently cancelled my course I had signed up for due to scheduling conflicts with the next thing I had planned for the summer. I was disappointed about not being able to make it to the course, so as a compromise, I decided I would spend a week in silence. My plan was a bit different from Vipassana's; I wouldn't just meditate. I would read, write, make medicine (I'm a herbalist), go for bike rides, hikes. I would turn off facebook and not watch TV. Get up early and do yoga. Be with myself for a week, allowing myself to be present with everything that comes up, including all the uncomfortable feelings.

Sounds great, right? Yes, except that halfway through my first day, I realized there was a flaw in what I was doing. Essentially, I was dieting. You know when you've really outdone yourself over Christmas Break, and then for New Years you decide you're going to be a NEW PERSON and lose a bunch of weight, eat healthily, climb Mt. Everest, learn Spanish, and learn how to juggle? And then you never do those things? Well, what I was doing was more or less the same for me. There is a problem with this kind of deprivation: it isn't kind to yourself, and it doesn't last.

I'll let you in on a secret. This secret became blaringly clear during my one day of silence; it is something I have known almost my whole life but had never been fully upfront about, even with myself. I suffer from mental illness. I may appear to function in daily life, but take away my crutches, take away the busyness I occupy myself with, and my mind goes haywire in a mess of anxiety, overwhelm and depression. I'll let you in on some more secrets. What I suffer from doesn't necessarily have a formal name or diagnosis. I call it overwhelm. Extreme overwhelm. I suffer because to do most things takes a certain degree of fighting with myself to do it, because the thought of doing it makes me overwhelmed. The overwhelm largely comes from unbelievable amounts of pressure I put on myself. To sit down and read, or get up and do yoga, or practice the guitar, or write this blog post; for me to get myself to do anything on a regular basis takes an extraordinary amount of energy. I recognize a degree of this is true for most people; to do anything on a regular basis takes discipline and perseverance. Yep, I get that. But for me it is different because I can't just do the thing; I fight with myself that I'm not doing it right, that I need to be doing more, that really I should be doing this other thing. And to do most things requires me to get over a messy hurdle of anxiety, overwhelm, and sometimes depression. Some days, for me to pick up a book and begin reading it is a victory; it means I've managed to overcome a storm of overwhelm before actually opening the book to Page 1.

As I mention in my previous blogpost, I also suffer on a daily basis from a highly overactive sympathetic nervous system, that was hardwired that way as a baby. Undoing this hardwired behaviour will be a lifelong struggle for me.

So there's my secret. How do I deal with this, usually? Well, a number of different ways. The first one is school; it's one of the reasons why I have stayed in it for so long and keep going back. To have a structured system of learning, to have assignments and tests that have to get done, takes some of the overwhelm away. When the pressure comes externally, I seem to be fine, most of the time (depending on what it is). But otherwise, I deal with this by turning my brain off and numbing it out. I do this by looking on Facebook, scrolling my news feed, watching re-runs of familiar shows. These are not just crutches. They're my Xanax, my Ativan, my Prozac. Sure, they may not be the 'healthiest' ways of dealing with my struggles, and yes, I would like different ones, but they take the edge off, and sometimes, that's what's needed.

So how does this relate to my vow of silence? I begun to realize that what I was doing was actually likely to make my situation worse rather than better. By removing all of my crutches, I was alone with myself and my thoughts. This is kind of the whole purpose of that type of exercise; to be present with oneself and one's thoughts. While its true that I can see that exercise as valuable for many, for people who struggle with anxiety, depression, or other forms of mental illness, I would avoid it with a ten-foot pole, unless you have it more or less under "control". To tell a depressed or anxious person to be alone with their thoughts can be a very bad move, if not dangerous. And actually, in the end, not necessarily helpful or necessary. While there is definitely value  in being able to be alone with oneself, one must also be kind; its great to learn to be alone with oneself, if one can treat oneself well while alone. As someone who has lived with anxiety my whole life, and depression as well to a certain degree, what helps more than anything else is human connection, whether that's in the form of friends or TV characters (or occasionally book characters). In the frenzied anxious state, what you need is something to take the edge off, something to calm you down, before you can deal with your thoughts. For me, that's very often human connection that I trust. To remove that from the equation is like taking away a depressed person's Effexor before they're capable of withdrawing safely. It's cruel, and also follows a highly addictive binge-purge cycle.

Our culture lives in a perpetual binge-purge cycle. We live in a culture of excess, and yet many of us have become enamoured with states of deprivation. Due to a guilt complex over the excesses and indulgences, be that with food, TV, or what have you, we want to then 'purge' those from our system (hence the New Years resolutions after pigging out on Christmas dinner). As a result, we label certain items or behaviours as bad and others as good, and 'clean' ourselves up. As much as we love our donuts, French fries and slurpies, we also love our liver detox cleanses (please don't do this ~ whole other blog post), hard core meditation retreats, and Buddhist and Yogic teachings which, in some interpretations, emphasize a degree of deprivation. But the problem is, we in this culture run to these things having no lead up at all. We run from one extreme to the other, which, if you think about it, is unhealthy and ridiculous. Would you, for example, run a marathon having no physical training? Or play Hamlet after never having read a word of Shakespeare previously? No? So why do we want to put our livers through a detox after drinking and eating terribly only days beforehand? Or put our minds and hearts through a meditation and yoga retreat after only having meditated or done yoga once or twice before? If we want to change our old patterns and create new ones, we must do so slowly and with compassion; most people can't learn to swim by being pushed off the diving board into a pool of sharks.

This cycle is actually addictive, and perpetuates itself; we go really far to one extreme, then as a result bounce back to the other, and back and forth we go. Ironically, one of the most important tenants of Buddhism is the middle path; to live on the extreme of indulgence is unhealthy, but to deprive yourself of all the comforts of life is also that way. The best way is to find the middle ground; to not have too much, but also make sure you're being nice to yourself and giving yourself what you want (and need!).

Through my one day of silence, I realized something that I kind of knew all along: that many advocates of these spiritual or new age practices (for lack of a better word), while having their place, are often ableist in their approach. I was actually being ableist towards myself in my suggestion to remain silent and alone with my thoughts. In a group such as vipassana, you are with a bunch of people, and while difficult, you are also going through your difficulty surrounded by others, and are also able to engage in discussions with the teachers there. I was doing my vow of silence on my own. Mental illness is stigmatized heavily in our culture; those living with it are frequently told to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and carry on, to 'get over it'. In the spiritual, new age world, it sounds different, but has the same outcome; we are all told to 'face our demons', to sit and be alone with our thoughts, to feel the fear and run towards it anyway. This is great, unless you suffer from mental illness, and proclaiming those adages to someone who is, is disrespectful and discounting of their experience. Why? Well. Telling someone who suffers from depression to face their demons without adequate and professional support could be a fatal mistake. Telling someone with chronic anxiety and panic disorder to be alone with their thoughts or to run towards their fear is like tying a mouse to the end of a cat's tail. It would not end well. Those of us living with mental illness do not necessarily need to "face our demons"; we live with them every day. For some, these are great tools and in many cases, can help tremendously. But be careful who you suggest these tools to (including yourself), for to the obsessive mind and/or someone suggestible to these philosophies, it is not always the right solution. Its essentially a fluffier way of telling someone to keep their chin up, to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, or to 'get their shit together'. I'm not 'weak' if I can't go through with it because I need human connection. We are not meant to be alone; it's good to know we can be if we need to, but ultimately we need human connection and that's okay.

I swing to extremes in either direction very easily. It is really difficult for me to promise any kind of significant change in my life without becoming obsessive about it. And, if I'm not careful, what begins as a very easeful transition snowballs into a series of expectations I can't possibly live up to. I wanted to get to the root of my pain, to be present with the scorpions of my mind, and to be able to be alone with myself and be okay with it. While this is a worthwhile endeavour to some degree, to do this very suddenly, removing all of one's crutches at once, which I've labelled as 'bad', and do all of these things which I've labelled "good" (all of which are things which overwhelm me to do), is not actually being nice to oneself at all. In fact, I'd put it in the category of cruel. And there is a very fine line between challenge and cruelty. Thus, I decided to back out of my vow of silence, and instead, remove the things I don't want in my life, and add the things I do, slowly and gently, with grace and kindness. And I still want to challenge myself with a vipassana retreat; but trying to be silent for a week, on my own, was too difficult for me at this time. And that's okay.

May we all find peace and happiness on the middle path. Let's all be nice to ourselves.

**I will say, that if these extreme measures work for you, that's awesome. Keep doing what you're doing. My point here is only saying to be careful what adages and philosophies we've internalized, and that they're not for everyone in every circumstance. **

Birthday Beats: Reflections on My Birth, Neurodiversity, and the Highly Sensitive Person.

I began writing this post more than two months ago, but given the content it seems beautifully appropriate that I post this a few days after my birthday. I will kick off my new year by sharing this story with all of you.

....

In the last few months I have become more and more clear about the different way in which I experience this life, loving myself for that, learning to identify with it and work with it. I have had many conversations with friends this year about how knowing your limitations can set you free. Rather than trying to conform yourself to how others are, to how you think you should be in the world, accept how you really are and learn what you really need. Then you can truly live from your centre, because you have truly accepted and loved yourself for who you are, and not for what the world wants you to be.

We are taught in this culture to squash differences, whether it be with regards to body type, gender, or neurology. We are taught that there is a ‘normal’, and then there is ‘deviation’, and the deviations are often pathologized or plainly not understood. But really, what actually IS normal? Who sets this standard, and who actually fits into that category? Do people actually fit into those ways of being, or are they based on structures endorsed by capitalism to make us work harder, faster, and be more effective at making profit? Well that was your conspiracy theory lesson for today, but I think a lot of it is true. We expect ourselves to be either skinny (good) or fat (bad), male or female, smart or stupid, 'well-adjusted' or mentally ill. But as Krishnamurti’s quote goes, “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

In reality, we are all a little bit deviant. We all learn differently, we all have different bodies, different ways of expressing sexuality and gender. It is true that some are more capable of conforming than others, and we are not all created equally according to this structurally oppressive mess we have been born into. Some clearly have it easier than others in terms of how well they can pretend to ‘function’ in this profoundly sick society. But a lot of us, whether we know it or not, are faking it, in our small ways. It just may not be as obvious as others’ experiences. I am certainly not saying we are all suffering equally; that is certainly not the case. But the extent to which we are all slightly deviant is I think something we need to explore in our culture, and ultimately accept. We need to stop placing binaries on everything and begin to see our experiences on more of a scale. Someone who has trouble focussing because they cannot learn in the way our education system teaches is labelled as ‘hyperactive’ or has ‘ADHD.’ Someone who experiences anxiety, depression, or differing neurology in any way is considered ‘mentally ill.’ In a way, labels help, because we can identify with something that gives us some kind of ‘opt out’ ticket from having to keep up with the mainstream. But in other ways it pathologizes, which assumes that there IS a normal, a standard, rather than recognizing that everything, whether it be our bodies, gender, or neurology, has natural fluctuations and differences within it.

It is a popular theme in some New Age circles to say things like “you can do anything” and “don’t identify with your story.” I lived by these adages for a long time, until I came to realize that they don’t help, because it’s simply not true. First of all, you cannot tell someone who is quadriplegic that they can walk if they believe they can. So, why would you tell someone with paralysing social anxiety that if they believe in themselves enough, they can go to the party? New Agers I have known have been quick to say things like “you’re dwelling in negativity” or “you’re identifying too much with your story” when, in fact, I’m just being realistic about what I need. Of course, there are people who identify too much with their story and do limit themselves, perhaps. But denying your story completely, and trying to pretend that you’re capable of anything when you’re actually not—trying to quash your social anxiety and feel miserable at the party—makes the situation much worse, and, in the end, limits you and encourages self-loathing ultimately. Accepting your limitations is a radical and self-loving act, because from there you are able to identify and communicate your needs in your life.

One of my herbal teachers, Sean Donahue, has been speaking in our classes quite a bit to the concept of allostasis. In conventional medicine, and to a large extent even in alternative medicine, we hear a lot about homeostasis, which implies that all body processes should be working at fixed levels, and that the body is constantly trying to return itself to that standard. In reality, it is much more the concept of allostasis that is at work, where the body is constantly fluctuating and responding to its environment. Take the heart, for example. If the heart was beating at a steady, ‘regular’, even pace, the person is either in an advanced stage heart condition, or is on medication or has an implanted pacemaker. In reality, the heart is a sensory organ, that is constantly shifting and changing in response to its environment; so an irregular heartbeat is not always the sign of pathology. In fact, it often signals a healthy heart.

Allostasis is a perfect concept to apply to other spheres and experiences in the world, not just that of anatomy and physiology. Once again, I reference my inspired teacher, Sean, who in his blog discusses the idea of neurodiversity. This relates to someone who, for whatever reason, thinks differently or experiences the world in a different way due to differences in brain processes. This could be something that is conventionally labelled such as Autism or ADHD, or could describe an undefined situation which has left the person experiencing the world in a different way than most. In the latter situation, you could be talking about most people. Everyone, possibly. Everyone does think differently from each other, and we have all had experiences in this life that provide us with unique challenges and therefore, needs. Learning each other’s unique needs, whether pathologized or not, and treating them on a scale rather than a binary, is essential to understanding each other and ultimately acceptance. It is by no means easy, but ultimately an extremely satisfying task if done properly. I think we would all be a lot happier if we, first, understood our needs, and second, learned how to communicate them to our loved ones.

So with that lengthy preamble, I am writing today to do just that: communicate to all of you lovely people about my own neurodivergence (seriously, thank you, Sean, for that word), and therefore, my needs in this life, whether it be in work, sex, love, or what have you. This has been a powerful, necessary process for me, and though it is challenging I will do my best to explain it to you.

It all begins on a cool spring day in early March, 1987, in Toronto. And by 'all', I mean my life. I mean, the day I was born. It may seem ridiculous to peg anything that happens in your life to your birth story, that that one event could shape the way you are. But if you think about it, it makes sense. Birth is by nature a profoundly unsettling event.  It's exciting and necessary, but its a massive transformation of experience. You can do everything you can to make the transition as smooth as possible, but it's still going to be a tad unsettling, even if its only for a few moments. It is also your first ever experience of the world. So it makes sense that your experience during birth could have a significant hand in how you see the world for the rest of your life. I have denied my birth story for years, dismissing its effect on my life, and I thus went through my life with experiences and feelings that I could not explain. When I really began to look at the events surrounding my birth, I began to understand that they are very clearly the root of many experiences in my life.

My mother was older when she had me, and, in between my sister and I, had had several unsuccessful pregnancies, so when it came around to my due date, her doctor was understandably concerned about my survival. When I still wasn't showing any signs of budging, the doctor begrudgingly decided to induce my mother with labour using Pitocin (a pharmaceutical form of oxytocin to stimulate contractions).  I came out all in one piece at my birth, and everything was fine, until they took me home, and I began having seizures. My parents actually have video footage of one of my seizures. Essentially, I'm just doing my thing, being a baby, present in this new world, then all of a sudden, I would go completely still and zone out. It looks a little bit like I leave the planet for a few minutes, then come back, then go out again. In my pathophysiology class last semester, we talked about what is actually going on during a seizure. Basically, it is the nervous system going on a rampage; what you would call an excess firing of neurons. They can present in different ways, the most well-known being the 'grand-mal' seizures where the person flails and thrashes about. But there is another common type, called the 'petit-mal', where the person does what I did as a baby: just zone out for a few minutes, leave the planet, as a reaction to the nervous system firing excessively. I have never had a seizure since the first week of my life, but have been thinking a lot about how those seizures, as well as my induced birth, have had a massive impact on several aspects of my life since then. And it makes sense why, given that they were my first experiences in life, and they lay the neurological foundation for how I will cope with the world for the rest of my life.

The experience of my birth and subsequent seizures is a perfect little metaphor for the course of many events in my life. I can name a handful of experiences in my life that you could say are easily grown-up, non-physiological versions of the same story. I am either too cautious and stuck in indecision, or find myself in a situation without knowing how I got there, and freak out (which is, while not physiologically a seizure, following the same neurological map as one). It is unclear, from a physiological perspective, why I had the seizures. Other than the induction, I had an otherwise normal birth and my mother had a healthy pregnancy. My theory, given my knowledge of my birth experience and my understanding of seizures, is that my week-long epileptic state was a reaction to a traumatic event, that being my birth. Remember, seizures occur because the nervous system is firing excessively; it is a state of heightened adrenaline, norepinepherine, and fight, flight or freeze response. It is as though the body is under the impression that a grizzly bear is right behind it and is going to eat it alive. So essentially, my seizures were a response to trauma.

So why was my birth traumatic? From an outside perspective, it doesn't seem like it would be. I didn't have my umbilical cord wrapped around my head, and I came out physically healthy (minus the seizures). But remember what I was saying before about birth being a naturally traumatic experience? If you think about it, birth must be terrifying. You've spent the past nine months safe and warm in your mother's womb, totally oblivious to anything outside of it. All of a sudden, it's time to leave and enter the world, where it's cold, unprotected, and unfamiliar. To a vulnerable new person, who has no context for its surroundings or ability to communicate with language, I would imagine that birth is akin to riding a hundred-foot-high rollercoaster through a thunderstorm. However, in a "normal" birth, the baby kind of starts the whole process. They work together with the mother to essentially say "hey, this has been fun, but it's getting a little small in here": oxytocin, the love hormone, stimulates contractions and helps the mom and babe out in their first "bonding project", leaving the womb! In my case, drugs initiated the whole process. In short, I was pushed. Imagine the difference between willingly climbing into your seat on that stormy rollercoaster, and being forced to go on it from some scary looking guy you've never met, who had been lurking about in the theme park. I obviously don't remember my birth, but I would imagine that that's what it felt like. No wonder my nervous system fired up after that.

My first ever experience of the world was not in any way under my control. I was thrust, unbeknownst to me, into a completely different experience. I had no say. So how has this manifested in my life in the last 28 years? Well, first of all, I have lived with anxiety my entire life. When I was about 3-4 years old, I had a lot of fears. I grew up in a large city, where there were lots of things to be afraid of for a young child, but I was an extreme case. I was afraid of cars, trucks, cats, dogs, elevators, escalators, subways, and buses—essentially anything that moved. My mother toured me around the city of Toronto, helping me to face and eventually overcome each one of these fears. Another significant influence around the same time in life was that during my first few years of school, I didn’t speak in class. I was very timid and quiet, and terrified both of the teachers and of other kids in the class. This didn’t stop me from having amazing friends, but I was “diagnosed” with a condition called Selective Mutism, which is now considered to be an anxiety disorder. Essentially what it meant was that under certain circumstances—in my case, at school—I was too afraid and so shut down and didn’t speak. I had a teacher in Grade One that recognized that I what I was experiencing was fear (other teachers had dismissed me as ‘rude’), and really helped me to overcome this situation. She took me aside during class, and would tape me (yes, cassette, I was doing it before it was cool) reading stories, which she would later play for the class so the other kids could hear my voice. She gently encouraged me, without ever pushing, and eventually I came out of my shell and overcame my condition. I went from being totally silent in class to being called Ms. Chatterbox by the end of Grade One.

Those were the main instances in my early childhood where I exhibited uncharacteristically fearful behaviour. I say uncharacteristically because I was otherwise a very happy child. I had loving, supportive parents, good friends, I wasn't bullied. And at home I was quite happy and exuberant (and talked a LOT!) But in the outside world I behaved as though I had suffered a deep psychological trauma. And perhaps I did; perhaps many of my anxieties and fears through my childhood and into my adult life are a reaction to being pushed out into the world before I was ready. It certainly makes sense to me. In somatic therapy, it is believed that traumatic experiences in our lives are stored in our bodies. I have felt my entire life that there has been something in my body trying to find its way out, as my body has responded in ways that my logical mind cannot explain.

Though I have dealt with most-- if not all-- of my irrational fears from my childhood, some things have worked their way into my adulthood as well. Only this past year did I begin to deal with one of these fears that had followed me around my whole life, and have come a long way in a relatively short amount of time, but it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears. In some ways I have been lead to believe, though this process, that my body has been, in certain situations, perpetually locked into fight, flight or freeze. Every time I get acupuncture I am treated for yin deficiency, and this is likely because I have been in hyper-reactive mode my whole life.

After a whole slew of events, experiences and feelings last year, I began to more deeply realize how my birth and early life has affected me, and have subsequently begun to understand what this has meant for me and what I need as a result.  As I said near the beginning, radical self-care is about recognizing who you are and what you need, and communicating those needs to others. The first step is recognizing that you have these needs; for me, it took many years and many confusing fits of anxiety, before I realized that I just hadn't accepted who I was and what I need. So here I go:

1) I hate classifying myself, but I fit pretty well into the label of "highly sensitive person": in other words, I am someone who reacts with great emotional vulnerability and fragility to the world around me, who is extremely sensitive to physical stimuli, and who gets overwhelmed very easily. It is a profound gift in many ways, as it makes me a receptive and compassionate person, and provides me with great tools to thrive as someone who works with people. However, the boundary between self and other can sometimes be as paper-thin as walls in a college dorm. If you see me in this state, I am probably okay, I may just need a hug, or a lot of alone time.

2) I have suffered in my life from crippling indecision, mostly due to feeling overwhelmed by decisions, as well as being chronically worried that whatever my decision is will not be the right one, ever. Even if I feel like a decision is the right one, I will often experience several episodes of horrible self-doubt, as though wherever I am is not where I am supposed to be. This experience can make it very difficult to know if what I am experiencing is my 'intution' or debilitating and constant self-inquiry. If I am in one of these bouts of self-doubt, I may need just to be left alone, or I may need to be reminded of where I am and what is happening, and that it is not necessarily the truth of the matter.

3) The feeling I get that where I am is not where I am supposed to be frequently comes from an underlying need to feel in charge. Which makes sense, because I was not in charge of coming into this world. In many circumstances in my life, I felt like I have just ended up there, that the decision to be there, though technically made by me, did not feel like it was coming from my core of self-agency. It takes me perhaps a bit longer than most people to really know something, to make something my own, to be in the driver's seat and take charge. It might then take me longer to know what I really think or feel about a situation in my life, whether that's a relationship, a career move, how to structure a sentence, or what to put in a formula for a patient. I may need a few extra minutes to think about it.

4) All of these patterns come down to an inability to feel safe and settled in the world. I have struggled with this my whole life. A deep-seated unsettled feeling has followed me around since I was a baby. I have come a long way with this, but still deal with it on a regular basis. The place where I notice this happening the most is in romantic relationships. Being a highly sensitive person, plus my crippling indecision, combined with a general lack of feeling in charge or safe in the world, can make the emotional intensity of intimate relationships seem unbearably overwhelming. I have noticed that very often the only people I have fully developed feelings for are those who are (for whatever reason) unavailable to me, or who are actually physically absent or who are not even a significant presence in my life. When I was younger this would manifest as just a lot of unrequited crushes that were ultimately based on fantasy. As I got older, they became less fantasy, but still rooted in my heart chasing something it could never have. I fall in love, pure and chaste, from afar. After a while, this began to bother me, as it made no logical sense, until I realized that it did. When the person is clearly unavailable, or they are not present, the pressure for decision-making is taken away from me, there is no immediate emotional intensity, and my heart feels safe enough to explore feelings. The amount of hurt I will experience from that situation is already a measurable value; even though I know it will suck, my heart somehow figures that it's better than experiencing the emotional intensity of true intimacy, and then the massively uncontrollable unknown variable of hurt involved if that connection dissolves. All this made me understand what it is in relationships that I truly need: I need space to feel safe. It's not that I wanted to hurt myself in those situations, but that I needed the space to feel safe enough for my heart to unravel itself, even if it was for the wrong person. If you are a potential future partner, take note. I may be too utterly terrified to approach you. We may have had an exciting minute of conversation, but I had to quickly wrap it up because I felt too emotionally overwhelmed. I am working with this, trying to sit with that emotional intensity and open myself up to people I feel attraction towards, rather than curl up into a tiny ball and roll away. If we are actually dating, just know that I may need to take it slow. Establishing true consent may take a while. Historically, it has taken situations of no-pressure to allow for my feelings to grow. I need to feel my own power and agency to feel safe enough with you to allow feelings to develop. I need some breathing room.

Really, this whole post is a long-winded journey to radical self-care, where I state my need mostly for one thing: space. Space to breathe. Space to know what I want to do with my day. Space to know what I want to do with my year, or with the next five years. Space to know if what I am doing is my true calling. Space to see how I feel about being touched by you. Space was what was not given to me on my birthday, 28 years ago. And in my life as an adult, very often the person who has least given me this space is myself. Space to close my eyes, let go of the emotional overwhelm and ask myself,

"What is it that you really want, Lisi? Breathe. Take your time. Come out when you're ready."

Happy birthday to me. Thanks for reading.

Brahmacharya

Hey folks.

I realize I am a little bit late with my Brahmacharya post. I have been travelling and also perhaps avoiding writing on this topic. Or, rather, I have been a little unclear about what to write on with regards to this chapter. I still am a little bit. But I'm just going to write anyway, and see what comes out.

Ah, now you're itching to hear what the sutra is. Here ya go.

brahmacaryapratisthayam viryalabhah 

brahmacarya continence, chastity
pratisthayam well established
virya energy, vigour, potency, valour
labhah gained, obtained, acquired

When the sadhaka is firmly established in continence, knowledge, vigour, valour and energy flow to him. 

I would very much like to have "Let's Get It On" playing in the background of this blog post. It's actually oddly appropriate, now that I think of it.

Continence in this context refers to self-restraint of sexual activity, rather than controlling your bowels, just to clarify.

Ok, now that we've lightened the room up a bit, let's get serious and discuss Brahmacharya.

Traditionally, sexual energy and spiritual energy go hand-in-hand, and are arguably considered the same thing. As Iyengar states in his interpretation of Brahmacharya,

"The celibate transforms the energy of procreation into spiritual energy (ojas), creating lustre...Sexual energy is the most basic expression of the life force. It is immensely powerful, and it is essential to control and channel it. In no way should we despise it. On the contrary, we must respect and esteem it..." 

First I should mention, as Iyengar also does in his interpretation, that this idea of Brahmacharya as sexual control is often misunderstood. The idea is not that we abstain from sex at all in our life, but that we cherish and esteem it. For myself, I am interpreting it as using it wisely. Putting it in the right place, so to speak. Traditionally, in yoga, men lose spiritual energy when they ejaculate, so must be intentional with where they choose to express their sexual energy. Women gain sexual energy upon orgasm (hooray for us), but I think the idea of controlling and channeling definitely still applies.

Personally, I want to be intentional with where I put my energy, in all aspects, not just sexually. This relates a lot to my last post, actually. I have a tendency to become overly excited about a project, and give it all my energy before I sit with it and fully put my intention into it, before I know its what I really want to do. And then I realize I've taken too many things on, or I realize I may have wanted to do this initially, but upon reflection it's not actually the best use of my time and skills. When I realized this pattern in myself, I came up with a plan. Every time I have a potentially life-altering idea, or just a significant change of plans, I will not do anything about it for a week and meditate with it. I've realized that I need to ground myself in these situations, to make sure it's really what I want to do. Not to overthink it or discourage my spontaneity, but to feel my feet on the earth and move with intention. To save my energy, so I can best use it. In a lot of ways, this is brahmacharya.

Ok, time to get really personal. Cue Marvin Gaye.

This idea of keeping my feet on the ground and staying present applies to sexuality and dating as well. Enormously. I have frequently gotten myself into a nasty pattern of finding someone attractive, and then letting my fantasies about them get out of hand. What happens after that is either I get hurt, because I was projecting my fantasies onto the situation and it doesn't go anywhere, since the other person doesn't feel the same way, or I get with the person, and I realize they are not the person I fantasized they were (surprise, surprise) and I freak out. Either one is not fun. The third option, which I am playing with now, is completely letting go of the fantasy. Fantasizing is fun. It's the Disney, Hollywood-inspired love story we all want. But it's not real life. So lately, if there's someone I find attractive, I pursue them, but let them go. Attempt to stay present with what's actually happening, rather than engage in a fantasy.

I'll point out here that engaging in negative self-talk, such as "they probably don't like me in that way", or "I'm not good enough, who I am kidding?", blah blah blah, is also engaging in fantasy. Fantasy is anything that is not clear and obvious with what is actually going on. Not feeding any theory or grand scheme that is either a projection of what we want or a fear of what we won't get. So engage not with fantasies about all the amazing things or worries about the horrible things.

We've all been young and made stupid, drunken decisions at parties. I am no exception to that rule. I have been in lots of situations that are the complete opposite of brahmacharya. But you have to find out what doesn't work in order to know what does, right? I look back at some of the decisions I made about sexuality, and realized they weren't really decisions. I wasn't acting on intention. I was acting out of fear of being alone. Fear of "this being my only chance."  Or I was just drunk and not thinking. I was acting on impulse, but not in a good way. I didn't feel grounded in myself when I made those decisions. I somehow work myself up into a state of immense insecurity, almost paranoia, where I don't feel solid enough in myself to say no when that's probably what I want to say. I don't have the courage to be alone in that moment.

So instead of trying to achieve "getting with the person" on a date with someone, release my expectations and just be in the moment. Get to know the person. No acting out of fear or fantasy.

This reminds me of the idea of true consent. Hmm, just to be safe, I should say this part may possibly be triggering. Yes, there is something to be said for being spontaneous and having a fun night. In my early twenties that would have been okay, or I would have been okay with not being okay for a couple days. Now, I don't think I would let myself do that, unless it was very unusual circumstances. It's not that I wouldn't let myself sleep with someone I just met, but I wouldn't let myself go ahead with it unless it was something I felt 110% good about. That's something I used to do in my early 20s that I simply won't do anymore. So what does it mean to truly consent to having sex with someone? It's one thing to just say the word yes and another to really mean it, to mean it with your whole body, mind, and soul. Consent is a topic that needs to be discussed more in our culture, from an early age. To me, brahmacharya and consent are more or less interchangeable. We need to be teaching our kids (and each other) what it means to say yes, to anything, sex or not. Are we doing it because we really want to, or because we think we should, or because it's better than being alone? What are our motivations? We need to really listen to these answers in ourselves before we make these decisions. Because there is nothing worse than the moments after making a decision that was based on fear, and realizing I didn't have the courage to say no.

So how will I control and channel my sexual energy? Or creative energy? Or just, simply, energy?

Keeping myself grounded, first of all. Keeping my feet on the earth. Checking in with my motivations. Disengaging with fantasy. Acting out of desire, not out of fear. Get to know the person first. Take things slowly. Save it. Notice my excitement, but don't act out of a projected fantasy. Release expectations and attachment. Be in the moment. Only give my energy to people and situations that give back to me.

Feel my energy, enjoy it, but check in with myself before I act on it or not.

To conclude, I want to leave you with my amazing and talented friends, West My Friend. They have a wonderful song which I think screams brahmacharya. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-20BmZxt7HI

Namaste.

-Elysia

Asteya, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Moment.

It is seeming more and more that something is aligned with the universe with my focus on the yamas. Each week so far, something big has occurred that has brought the lesson of the yama I'm focussing on more deeply into my awareness on a personal level.

The third Yama, which I focussed on this past week, is Asteya. Asteya is the concept of non-stealing, but, as always, its meaning extends far further than that. I'll give you the sutra:

asteya  non-stealing, non-appropriation, desirelessness, non-covetousness
pratissthayam  well-established
sarva  all
ratna  gems, precious things
upasthanam  approaching, coming up

"When abstention from stealing is firmly established, precious jewels come."

Iyengar's interpretation of the sutra is as follows: "Upon the man who does not take what does not belong to him, all riches are showered. Being without desire, he effortlessly attracts what is precious, materially and figuratively, including the gem of all jewels, virtue."

What does it mean to abstain from stealing? Of course, as with all the yamas, one could read the literal interpretation: don't steal things. But stealing is so much more than just sneaking a grape in the produce aisle at the grocery store. A few words jumped out at me when I read this sutra. First, the word mis-appropriation. To me, this conjures up images of faux-moccasins, "Indian costumes", Lululemon...the list goes on: the famous cultural appropriation. I bring up the Lululemon thing because it seems appropriate given that I'm writing on Yoga. I have often wondered, as someone involving myself in yoga, how to best honour and respect the ancient practice and wisdom, as see it as something that is infinite in its scope and also something that I will never possess or own. I have often wondered, as someone who practices yoga and who now will embark on teaching it as well, how I am benefiting from the colonization of India. In the end, I believe the issue comes down to respect: I will not mis-appropriate the sacred teachings of yoga. I will honour the ancient practice and attempt as best I can to incorporate it into my life. I won't get into Lululemon here. You get the gist.

The word that jumped out at me the most while reading this sutra, however, was the word desirelessness. At first, it confused me. What does desirelessness have to do with abstention from stealing? And as soon as I asked the question I knew the answer. If we go so far as to steal something, whether it's an object or energy or attention, we desire to have it, to own it, to possess it.

What does it mean to own something, to possess something? Can we actually do that? It seems as though the desire to possess something is rooted in attachment, in ego. We want something more than what we have right now. I don't think it's bad to desire things. It's good to know what you want and feel hopeful. But it's an entirely different matter to be attached to the things you desire. How can we own anything? That idea of possession was obviously created by the mind and ego. It's an illusion. We are made of earth and stardust, and so are the things we want to possess, so how can we possess them? I don't own my bed, I purchased it with something called money, contributing to a made up system which somehow makes people richer and also causes much suffering around the world. The concept that I own it is illusory. It's not mine. We don't own anything. Not even our own bodies.

This concept of desirelessness stayed with me throughout the week, and eventually hit me like a concrete block. Well, at first the timing was fascinating as I read about the Black Friday deaths that happened in 2008. Apparently, if you agree to work at Walmart, not only do you get paid minimum wage, but if you're lucky you'll receive the ultimate perk of death by a stampede of crazed consumers. Unbelievable. Are our souls so deeply hungry that we will actually push a crowd into a store so hard that someone will actually die? To me this is so deeply sad it is almost funny. After reading about this, I wondered, what are our souls so deeply craving? Are we this far removed from our own humanity? We are like hungry wild dogs, smelling a fresh flank. Our souls are malnourished so we need to fill the void with every new shiny, plastic wrapped toy that comes our way. We're all little caffeinated drones, with spiked blood sugar, finding the next flashy thing to "need to have", to keep us entertained so we don't fall apart.

But it's not just about consumerism. Even for those of us who don't care about the latest iPhone or what have you, we are still subject to this messy cycle of looking into the future and desiring everything but what is in the present moment. I know I am. Even if what I'm desiring is a coffee, sex, a relationship, alcohol, chocolate, I am still taking my focus away from what is present and alive in this moment, which is, in itself, full. Not that I shouldn't want those things. But it's the needing to have them, the attachment, which consistently fails me. It's that feeling that I'm filling a void.

And this is where the concrete block comes in. Without getting into too many details, this week I realized that I have been entrenched in a pattern of creating grandiose plans that I cannot actually follow through on. I allow myself to enable my joyous enthusiasm for ideas and grand projects, and promise a whole bunch of things I can't keep. Anyway, long story short, I realized that these grandiose plans of mine are my version of the iPhone 5s. They are my new shiny toys that I see, want, then realize I can't do, and then throw away. This high, this excitement I feel from creating these plans, is what keeps me from what  I perceive to be the emptiness of the present moment. It keeps me from depression, from the dark thoughts that catch up with me if I am still for too long.

Anyhow, all this came crashing down on me the other night when I had two pretty massive panic attacks. The next day, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I was stiff, sore, exhausted and emotionally worn out from such a blow to my nervous system. Like people who survive a car crash or terminal illness, I felt as though I was picked up by a great windstorm, shaken up, and thrown mercilessly back down to earth. I was understanding the world the next day the way a baby would, taking in experiences moment to moment, because I was too tired to do anything else. When I observed the effect this experience was having on my body, I knew that if I did not break this pattern I would make myself possibly very seriously ill.

The answer?

Well, number one is always, forgive myself.

Secondly, no more grandiose plans. For the past few days, the moment I begin to daydream, to create plans that aren't rooted in what's actually happening, I close my eyes, feel my feet on the ground and breathe. It's good to have dreams, but if I'm not manifesting them into reality, then they just remain fantasies. Little castles in the clouds. Come back to earth, to what I can actually accomplish. Baby steps.

Next, I release drinking coffee. Sad, yes, I know. I love it so. But I realized that drinking coffee brings me out of my body and into my head, and gives me this false energy to dream up all these grandiose plans that I can't fulfil. It's also something that I am attached to in a way that I feel, at first, slightly sad when I don't have it. It makes me feel like superwoman, like I can do absolutely anything, without actually supplying me with any energy to do these things.

Finally, I will work on releasing expectation from my life. This is a big one. It's great to recognize what I want, but if I have an expectation for what that will be, then I will be blind to the amazing things that will actually come of it, even if it's nothing. If I go into a situation with no expectation or attachment, in a way I have nothing to lose. Of course, for me this keeps coming back to my relationships with people. Have you ever created a fantasy about someone, and in doing so created such a grand expectation of your relationship to them, that you cannot actually function in real life around them? I have been refusing to do this for a number of years now, but every now and then I find myself heading in that direction. When that happens now, I will consciously divert my mind back to the present moment. If I engage in a fantasy about someone, then I've created a trap for myself where nothing but the exact re-enactment of the fantasy will satisfy me. And perhaps the fantasy is not actually what I want, it's what I think I want. Perhaps releasing the fantasy and experiencing the actual person is a better option, because I will allow myself to be surprised by what actually happens, in real life.

And while I'm on that, doesn't releasing your expectations of something make the thing more interesting and enjoyable? I have a neighbour who I think is pretty cute (I think I've already mentioned this), and even though I know they have a partner, I am still enjoying my interactions with them. In some ways, I think because I do not expect an actual outcome of this situation, the desire for it is ruled out, and I can actually just be in the moment and enjoy it anyway. How freeing.

And hey, is it just me, or does releasing expectation, attachment and desire make you more bold and daring? I am more likely to say what I want to say when I have no attachment to what comes from it. Because the act of speaking my truth is enough of a gift. Each moment, in and of itself, is full.

If I have no desire or attachment, I allow myself to receive all of the precious jewels that Patanjali is talking about.

A fascinating example of what I am about to write about just happened. I finished writing my post a few minutes ago, feeling quite proud of it, then I pressed Publish and closed this window. I checked my blog to see if it had been published, and it had not. So I went back to the writing page and discovered that two-thirds of what I had written was gone, that the page had stopped saving it after a time. At first I was frustrated and angry. And then I realized, what a beautiful example of Asteya. It was amazing, at first I was pulling my hair out trying to remember what I had written, and then I realized, here is a perfect opportunity to just breathe with what is. So, began to write some of what I remembered,  as well as some other thoughts, but I released my attachment that it had to be exactly the same as what I had written previously.

I'm interested to see what happens next week.

Namaste.

Satya: "It's not my mind, but my cells that tell the truth, those little bastards"

I am a bit late for my entry this week, I apologize.

The second Yama is Satya. Satya is truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, genuineness. Here is the sutra on Satya from Patanjali:

satyapratisthayam kriyaphalasrayavam

satya   truth, sincerity, genuineness, honesty
pratisthayam  firmly established
kriya   action
phalah   results
asrayatvam  substratum, foundation, dependence

"When the sadhaka (practitioner) is firmly established in the practice of truth, his words become so potent that whatever he says comes to realization."

When I read this, I observed the goosebumps permeate my entire body. Not only because, holy crap, it's true, but because it resonated so much with what I am personally struggling with in my life right now, this week.

BKS Iyengar's interpretation of this sutra is none short of brilliant. He says, "If the stated intention is totally whole-hearted, not one cell dissembling, then we create the reality we desire. It is not our mind, but the inner voice of our cells which has the power to implement our intentions."

So, yeah, remember those goosebumps I talked about? They were more like goose-mountains when I finished reading that sentence. I re-read it over and over again, as it made so much sense to me, but I didn't really understand it intellectually (which is, ironically, what the sutra is telling me to avoid doing). It reminded me of my 5-week experience at Canada's National Voice Intensive. In short, the Voice Intensive is a deep exploration of the physical body and the voice, and how we may fully breathe into each experience and simply be, rather than organize or intellectualize it. I think this is in essence what this sutra is on about. Or, at least, what Iyengar's interpretation is on about. When do we really allow our bodies to tell us the truth? Our mind may say one thing, but our bodies tell us differently. If we really tap into what our body, our cells, are telling us, and we act with impulse and our body's intuition, then we are really being our truth.

How do we manifest our dreams into reality?

As a Pisces, with a so-called "water triangle" in my astrological chart, I struggle with this question every day. I have no problem dreaming my butt off about this or that, but when it comes to sharing those dreams, or making those dreams a reality, I could use a bit of assistance. That's why this sutra so deeply resonated with me. This sutra tells me that in order to create my desired reality, I have to simply be truthful. Iyengar goes further than this by telling me that in order to create my desired reality, I must fully embody my truth, not just in my mind, but in my cells. If every cell in my body is not fully on board with what I want, chances are lower that I will get what I want. Once again, the real truth of this Yama is deeper than what superficially meets the eye. Someone reading about Satya for the first time might think, "oh, so, don't tell lies. Say what you mean." Well, yes, this is true. But there's being "truthful" and then there's being truthful. What would it be to speak the absolute truth, speak everything our cells were experiencing, for one week?

I'll be honest, I didn't do that. In fact, that is one of my main motivators for writing. I had an experience this week that really brought home the concept and practice of Satya. I'll just come clean about something I'm struggling with in my life these days. Here it goes- I'll share my cells with the blogosphere. If I am in the presence of someone I find attractive, I observe my body retreating into sleep mode. I completely freeze up, something with the texture akin to cottonballs gets caught in my throat, I feel everything tighten, and I can't really speak at all, let alone let the person know what I feel about them. Yikes. So, here I am at Cornerstone Café the other day, sitting next to a young man that I've had several pleasant interactions with at this point. He came up to me several weeks back, introduced himself, said he recognized me from the shop. Anyway, here he is sitting next to me, we exchange a few words, laughs. It suddenly comes into my awareness that I could, at this point, ask this person out for a drink. I sit with that for a moment. A moment turns into a few moments, a few moments turn into an hour. I sit with this idea, the concept of this action that would undoubtedly alter my self-perception, perhaps make me feel awkward for a moment, but in the end, due to my capacity to release attachment to these situations, ultimately add jet-fuel to my somewhat punctured self-esteem around this issue. This action wants so badly to propel forward, but somehow I can't muster up the courage to turn around, face this person, and speak what I want to say, so it sits there. And this horrible feeling comes over my body, that I'm on the cusp of turning 27, and I still feel like a 12 year old girl when in these situations. My mind is racing, telling me things like, "Lisi, if you don't get up the courage to do this, you're going to get old with the knowledge that you lived your life in fear" and several other debilitating thoughts like that. Sara Bareilles' song Brave came to my mind, particularly the lyric:

              "Don't run, stop holding your tongue.
               Maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live,
               Maybe one of these days you can let the light in..."

That was a good description of what I have felt in these situations: like I'm in a cage. I feel like the terrified child I used to be, afraid of everything around me that moved, debilitated by anxiety. I overcame all my fears from when I was four years old: this is not really all that different. How did I overcome those fears? I wasn't tossed off the deep end and expected to swim, but I was gently encouraged to face my fears, one by one, and eventually overcame them. This is really no different.

Obviously the universe was trying to tell me something that morning, because while I was sitting there, stuck in my cage, another man I find very attractive came into the café. The funny thing about this was that I have never seen this person come into the café. I have only ever seen him and interacted with him in front of his house. I very much want to tell this person I find him attractive, even though I know he has a girlfriend. But I know that I want to express these things not because I have an attachment to the outcome, but because I want to feel empowered to say these things when I feel them. Through telling other people I find them attractive, I tell myself that I am attractive. But here I was, in the same room as two men I find attractive, stuck in my chair, unable to move.

So, what does this have to do with Satya, you ask? Good question. Well, I realized that Satya is basically the law of attraction: I attract that which I am. If I embody my truth, fully believing it to be true, not one cell dissembling, I will undoubtedly attract what I want into my life. This idea took me through a journey, then, of what my cells were actually telling me. I know intellectually that I'm attractive, that of course I am worthy of being happy and being loved. But what do my cells say? In those situations, my body goes into a state of fear, and, without even thinking about it, the thoughts that run through my body tell me I'm not good enough, for any number of bullshit-ridden reasons. Because most of my cells are telling me I'm not good enough, my body language is likely projecting that idea out there, and I'm telling the world "don't look here, you don't want this." That is when I realized that our thoughts become the way we are externally perceived. Holy crap.

When someone is truthful with their whole body, allow themselves to resonate in their truth, they may manifest whatever they express. If you are honest with yourself with what you want, and communicate it, you will probably make it happen. Perhaps not right away. But at some point, something will manifest. I have been on either side of this. Either I have communicated too much of what I think I want, before I've really checked in with the entirety of myself to see if its what I want, and have later regretted acting before I was sure. On the other hand, I'm honest with myself with what I want, but I can't communicate it. This is where I am with my situation in the café. Because I'm too scared to communicate what I want, nobody knows what I want. The truth that only resonates within a few of my cells would vibrate my whole body if I communicated it. Because I am fully being my truth. If its just my mind telling me I'm attractive, then most of my cells are communicating that I'm not. Ergo, my cells are vibrating that I'm not attractive. Those little bastards.

 Perhaps just communicating what I want will get me there. If I fully believe in my whole being that I am attractive, then I will be attractive. But the only way I will fully believe it, I'm starting to realize, is if I go act on my impulses and go after what I want.

Unless all the cells in my body resonate with my truth, I am not being truthful.

I leave you with that for the week. In short, Satya is awesome.

Namaste,

Elysia

Ahimsa: the subtlety of non-violence

ahimsapratisthayam tatsannidhau vairatyagah 
ahimsa: non-violence
pratisthayam: standing firmly, firmly established
tat: his
sannidhau: presence, vicinity
vaira: animosity, hostility
tyagah: forsaking, abandoning, deserting

"When non-violence in speech, thought and action is established, one's aggressive nature is relinquished and others abandon hostility in one's presence."
An important piece in studying the Yamas and Niyamas is looking beyond their superficial meanings, and looking at the intricate ways in which they play out in everyday circumstances. I thought about this all week when integrating the concept of non-violence into my life. And boy, it is subtle.
,
Well, what is violence, to begin with? The sutra says that if one understands the nature of violence, one can truly be non-violent. This means investigating the many subtle ways in which violence plays out.

Because I'm a word geek, and have a particular weakness for etymology, I looked up the word "violence" in the dictionary. It comes from the Latin violentia, meaning vehemence or forcibility. It comes from the roots vis, meaning force, and fero, meaning to carry. Thus, the original meaning of violence is to carry force.
The dictionary then gave me the definition of violence as "physical force used to inflict injury or damage", "a great destructive force or energy", "intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force", and my personal favourite, "vehement feeling or expression."

Holy wow. I wonder how many people see the word "non-violence" and skip over it in their minds, thinking, meh, I've never really hurt anybody, hey I've never caused physical harm to anyone, I'm good. I know I have. But this week really got me thinking about how many subtle ways there are to be "violent". It's not just hitting people. Of course, I've been exposed to this idea before, as I have some training in non-violent communication (NVC). Those of you who have not read Marshall Rosenberg's Non-Violent Communication: A Language of Life, I recommend you do so. It's an incredibly life changing book. It explores how by identifying our own and each others' feelings and needs, we move away from a reactionary, "violent" way of communicating, and towards compassionate communication. One of the most challenging yet rewarding things to do is to listen to someone and not judge, react, or give advice. Simply being a witness can be extremely challenging, especially for Type A personalities. Those of us who like to be in control, always be right, and fix everything, feel extremely challenged by "just being a witness to experience." As the sutra says, one must be non-violent in speech.

However, it is not enough to abide by the adage of kindergarten, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." If we want to work towards being non-violent, we must let go of the judgements that pervade our thoughts. Before I "don't say anything at all", I must first stop the judgemental thoughts that run through my head. Oh, and the word "judgement" doesn't mean a bad judgement. It just means an analysis of someone else's experience, thinking that we know something that they don't. For myself, I had to consistently fight that overwhelming desire to give sagely advice that I myself don't even act upon, rather than simply bearing witness to someone else's experience. It's removing an assumption that I somehow know better than someone else, it's wiping the slate clean and approaching another person's experience as a baby would. I have no idea how someone else experiences the world, what kind of a life they have lived, in order to be saying the things they say or doing the things they do. It's understanding that everyone is doing the best they can for where they are at, and to move away from judgement entirely. Even making the judgement that something is "good" can be violent. Heck, think about how damaging the mainstream education system can be with its external rewards system, getting a gold star every time we do something "good." Even then, I just recognized I made a judgement about the education system, rather than understanding where that system came from and why. And then I may judge myself for having a judgement, and the cycle continues.

This is not to say that we can never, ever have thoughts about something, or ever give advice. But for me, its being aware of the intention behind my thoughts or advice. It's stepping back and re-evaluating these thoughts and deciding whether its best to let them out of my mouth, or let them go and just be a witness.

This comes back to the definition and root of the word "violence", as a vehement force. Giving advice, or trying to change someone's viewpoint or action, is, in many ways, an attempt to force the situation. It's moving against the flow of the universe, if I were speaking in Taoist terms. Now, of course there are times in which this is necessary. If someone's about to hurl themselves in front of the subway tracks, I'm not going to say "meh, don't want to force the flow of the universe". Hey, I might even encourage someone to think differently about something or give advice once in a while. So what's the difference? I think it's my attachment to the result of my encouragement or advice. I have to accept that everyone is where they are at, and I personally am not going to change them. People only change on their own. They may be inspired by someone else, but the actual change occurs within, when they are ready to make that step.

This brought me to my most important conclusion this week, that I have heard over and over again in theory, but only really understood through examining ahimsa these past seven days. "Be the change you wish to see in the world" is a phrase that has been thrown around a lot, and one I've heard for most of my adult life without really understanding. Rather than preach to someone about how they should change, realize that by pointing one finger at someone else I point three back to me, and simply be in my truth and do my best to evolve myself. Let people do what they will do, unless it deeply affects you or others in some extreme way. Once again, I say all this within reason. Usually when I want to change someone's behaviour, it is something that I have not made peace with in myself, and is in fact something I need to work on. This is not only non-violent, but makes my life a whole lot easier to manage.

And then I came to the even more intricate and subtle elements of violence: that which we inflict upon ourselves. If we are inflicting violence upon ourselves, how can we practice non-violence toward others? We must first have compassion toward ourselves. How many times a day do I have a violent thought directed toward myself? How many times a day do I judge myself? Expect too much of myself? Not forgive myself? A whole heck of a lot, is the answer.

I'm not really, overall, what you would call a Type A personality. But there are some aspects to myself that certainly are like that. I can have quite extreme patterns that rotate in a binge-purge type cycle that goes on until the end of time. I lack patience for myself in making changes in my life. We humans are creatures of habit. We develop habits because they serve us in some way, and they are comfortable. We can't tell ourselves to pack all our bags and leave all of our possibly destructive habits at once. We can't, and yet I've attempted this several times in my life. After several days, weeks, months or years of lax eating habits, watching too much TV, laziness, not reading enough, etc etc, I decide to burst forth from my room and wipe the slate clean. I want to run a marathon, eliminate every so-called "bad food", write a novel, join the circus and of course, save the world. And then, after less than 24 hours, I'm even worse than before, because we humans simply are not able to change that much that fast. There comes a time, and for me that is my late 20s, when we can no longer repeat our patterns, because they are too damn obvious. Yes, I could make the argument that feeding myself food that isn't nourishing,  or sitting in front of a screen rather than reading or exercising, is doing violence to myself. However, it is also violent to expect myself to change overnight. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. Or, a thousand mile journey begins with a single step.

Make simple changes, Lisi. Not grand ones, because, remember all those other times you tried that? You bounced back. It didn't work. Be nicer to yourself. It's okay if you aren't perfect. If some of them fall through, don't worry about it.

So the other day, when I was too tired to do anything except lie in bed and watch TV, I released my guilt and enjoyed it. Actually allowing myself to do that for a day was actually what I needed. Yes, I could have been reading instead, or writing a Dostoyevskian novel, or working on my plan to solve world hunger, but my body needed rest. And the next day, I felt so much better, especially without all the guilt hanging around, too. Gevalt.

There are many ways in which we could look at the violence of our actions. This includes the way we treat ourselves, our friends, people we don't know. It also includes our consumer choices and personal habits. We are so disconnected from our consumer choices that we may be inflicting violence when we have no idea we are. I wanted to talk less about this because I've spent a good chunk of my life talking about the consumer choices we should make, and, frankly, I'm tired of it. Though it might be violent to eat factory farmed meat, it is also violent to yell at someone in a fit of didactic rage that they should be more conscious of their meat choices.  I would rather do that work myself and share what I've learned about how to practice non-violence in my thoughts towards myself and others.

Namaste.

Elysia

Yamas and Niyamas: An Exploration: Introduction

I am currently in the midst (or, rather, more toward the endst), of my 200hr yoga teacher training. This has been an incredible experience for me in a number of ways. I have practiced yoga for about 10 years now (holy cow), on and off, but this training has been a great way for me to deepen my practice, as well as just get to know better the philosophy of yoga on a deeper spiritual level.

Taylor Lewis, my housemate and great friend for 8 years, has inspired me, once again. He's embarking on an 81-week intensive on the Tao Te Ching. You can follow his blog here. Anyway, his blogging got me thinking. Yogic philosophy is extremely expansive and complex, and I would be writing until I'm 100 if I decided to blog about it in its entirety. Essentially, and this is an incredibly watered down explanation, the aim of yoga is peeling away the layers of self, from how we act in the world to our inner life, until we reach the glowing light that is in all of us, Atman. Atman is the divine light within each of us, the universe contained in our soul. I have always been slightly uncomfortable and disconnected from the words "God" or "soul", but I can get behind the idea that within all of us there is a place of joy, of connection, of non-attachment and of stillness. This is Atman.

In traditional Yogic philosophy, we peel away these layers of self so we may one day (in this lifetime, or the next), reach Samadhi. You may have heard of this as Nirvana, or Moksha, or enlightenment. This is where you have peeled away all the layers of self and come to the true self, or Atman. It is where Atman, the soul, unites with Brahman, which is the universe. In this state, we want nothing and do nothing except for sit in meditation and be with our Atman. Few people practice yoga anymore to reach this state. Personally, that is not my goal. It's not even really a goal. Samadhi cannot be reached by trying to reach it. Observing each layer of self and working through them is the goal. For me, the purpose is not to reach some divine state but to live my life more fully and presently, and to be a continually evolving human being, letting go and releasing attachment to habits, patterns, and thoughts. This is my version of Samadhi.

There are many aspects to this peeling away the layers of self, many explanations of the same thing. One of these paths is the Eight Limbs of Ashtanga Yoga. Most people think of yoga as just postures (asana), or, I shudder to think, a workout. It is actually only one of the 8 limbs of yoga that are the path toward Samadhi. These limbs include the Yamas (universal morality), Niyamas (personal observances), Asana (postures), Pranayama (breath work), Pratyahara (control of the senses), Dharana (concentration and inner awareness), Dhyana (meditation), and, finally, Samadhi (union with the divine).

For this series in the blog, I am going to focus on the Yamas and the Niyamas for now. When studying the Yamas and Niyamas, it is key to look past the superficial understanding of them, and seeing the intricate ways in which they play out in our actions, interactions, and even thoughts. They are worlds within themselves, I could spend my whole life focussing on each one, so I figure its a good place to start. They are the first layers of self. I will be sharing each one, then spending a week with it, observing and integrating it into my life, then at the end of the week sharing my experiences. There are 5 Yamas and 5 Niyamas, so this will take me 10 weeks, and into the new year. I have been spending the last two months working on Asana, so I figured I'd go back to the top and start with the Yamas.

The Yamas are universal codes of morality. They deal with how we interact with the world around us. If we can work to purify our actions with our interactions with the world, we can then more effectively move inward towards ourselves. Rather than provide a list of the Yamas, I will leave you with the first Yama, Ahimsa.


Taken from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, this is Ahimsa:

     ahimsapratisthayam tatsannidhau vairatyagah

Ok, you got that, right? Kidding.

ahimsa: non-violence
pratisthayam: standing firmly, firmly established
tat: his
sannidhau: presence, vicinity
vaira: animosity, hostility
tyagah: forsaking, abandoning, deserting

"When non-violence in speech, thought and action is established, one's aggressive nature is relinquished and others abandon hostility in one's presence."

See you in a week for my observances of Ahimsa in my life.

Namaste (the light within me bows to the light in you).

Elysia