Body Language

Whoever came up with the notion that the mind and the body could be separate? The very notion is absurd -- even if you define "mind" as "brain function," the brain is in fact an organ of the body. And even if you define "emotions" as something a little less tangible, we experience them with our minds and our bodies. The body is the vehicle that we have come here with to experience this life, so we should be very interested in understanding its language.

Certainly this is not so easy. We say "listen to your body" in terms of knowing if we're hungry or tired, or if we get a "gut" feeling to do or not do something. But understanding how conditioned thought patterns and emotional patterns manifest somatically is another matter. I was convinced that the back pain I've been experiencing for more than a year now has psychological roots. I had some ideas of what it was about but nothing I did or thought seemed to affect it. A year is a long time to go with pain, but then again, remember me and the heat! Recently, as I've been working on moving forward in my life, I've realized there are some deeply emotional issues I haven't dealt with as explicitly and I need to. The other night I was thinking about them and feeling the emotions and at the same time moving around trying to do something about this back pain when -- crack! I felt a big adjustment (somewhere in the upper spine) and I just knew that I'd affected my back. Sure enough, by the next morning, the pain was significantly different, maybe 75 percent gone! It's still there, reminding me that I need to keep listening but the relief is profound. Once again I find myself in awe of the way the mindbody continuum expresses itself. Keep listening!

Everything is Everything

In some ways, I think I have always been a Yogi. Ever since I was young, I always noticed how people and concepts were the same, rather than how they were different. This fundamental perspective led me into social issues-based college journalism, later into social work and education, and, over the past decade or so, into Yoga. Now, finding myself at one of those junctures in life where you examine the past and meditate on the future, I realize that Yoga is indeed a way of thinking, seeing, being and feeling in the world, rather than any set of practices or techniques (like meditation). In questioning what your purpose is, you discover that you bring your fundmental truth to everything that you do, and the approach defines the quality and result of your efforts much more than the activity itself. This is enormously liberating, especially if you tend to judge yourself critically for not doing something "enough" -- e.g., you don't do enough asana practice or you don't eat enough vegetables. Through Yoga you reside and abide in your fundamental truth, a unified, holistic state of being that is evident in your work, relationships and pasttimes. In this way you realize that everything is everything -- or, Yoga. Om shanti.

If You Think Something, Say Something!

The OneSelf Yoga web site has been up for nearly a year now (hard to believe) and I can see from my tracking system that there are indeed folks out there who are checking it out. I don't know who most of you are, where you are or what parts of the site you are looking at, but if you happen to check out this blog, I hope you'll consider adding your two cents. I'd love to hear what you think of some of my posts, what your current interests in Yoga are, what you're wanting to know more about, etc. I believe you have to set up a Google account to participate but that is free and easy enough to do. I hope to connect more directly with you in cyberspace!

Peace, Karen

Turning Down the Heat

My friend Claudia wanted me to write a post about this recent experience I had. Being lucky enough to live in a well-maintained New York City apartment building, my apartment gets a lot of heat in the winter. In particular, my bedroom gets very hot. I try to sleep with the window partially open, but because the winds can be very high and noisy (or because sometimes they cause the door to bump around in its frame, also noisy), I often have to sleep with the window closed, making it even hotter. Ever since I moved here, I've had a small fan attached to my mirror, pointed at the bed,to offset the heat, and I use it every night, even in winter. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it's still too damn hot.

The other night, as the temperature rose outside, it was SO hot I couldn't stand it anymore and I did something I never did before.

I TURNED OFF THE HEAT.

Did I mention I have lived here for FIVE years?

I am indeed the kind of person who can tolerate a lot of things for a very long time without change -- but why the unwillingness to make a simple shift that ultimately makes life a lot more pleasant and bearable?

I wish I could find a great spiritual lesson in this one, but I'm afraid it might just be an example of one of my less attractive eccentricities.

If you do want to take any lesson from what I've said here then I would urge you...if you get too hot...turn off the heat.

Enough said.

A Note on Guidance and Faith

Today I saw a blind woman carrying a newborn baby navigating her way around the chaos of the Times Square subway station with the help of her seeing eye dog. If that's not an exercise in listening for guidance and having the faith to follow it, nothing is.

I watched them briefly (she moved fairly swiftly and for me to stand around would have found me swept up in the chaos myself) as the dog narrowly missed the crowds and the columns and she simply held the leash and the sleeping baby in her shoulder pouch and followed. I realized she must have had to practice a lot with that guide, and it was a process of communication -- she had to learn her guide's cues and vice versa and they probably had to do a lot of conscious traveling together in order for her to feel confident enough to trust him with not just her safety but that of her newborn. I love a good metaphor, but really, we're doing the same with Yoga, aren't we? Learning to listen, testing it out in small ways and developing the faith to really let the guidance take us? That's my interpretation anyway, and if I can borrow from her courage (or any of the brave folks I've met lately) then I'll be lucky. Om shanti.

Blessings in Disguise

If you were diagnosed with a brain tumor, do you think you would say it was the best thing that ever happened to you?

Billy did. Billy took my class at Hope Lodge yesterday, a class I volunteer for cancer patients and caregivers. Afterwards, we spent some time talking and he told me about all the amazing things that have happened in his life since his diagnosis. Meaningful people have come back into his life, including one of his children, who had not been speaking to him for some time. Events have lined up and doors have been opening, and his perspective on what is important now and what he wants in his life once he finishes his treatment (which, thankfully, is going well) has understandably changed. His sense of appreciation is humbling and his attitude is nothing short of remarkable.

We didn't talk about what is enabling this attitude or this course of events. It could be, at least in part, a true sense of surrender to the flow of the universe, combined with a willingness to see the best of everything. Oh yeah, wait a minute -- that's YOGA, right? Hmm. Let me wake up a for a minute and once again acknowledge that teachers and the teachings are everywhere if you just open your eyes, ears and heart. Blessings in disguise. Om shanti.

When You Give, You Get

I think my favorite thing about teaching Yoga is the amazing people I've gotten to mee, and yesterday is the best example of all. I was teaching my volunteer class at Hope Lodge, a residence for people from out of state who need a place to stay during cancer treatment. Few people come to this class but yesterday I had the privilege of meeting Barbara, a 72-year-old immigrant from Poland who has been battling cancer for 19 years, through five different places in her body -- colon, uterine, both breasts and now lung -- and who is a Holocaust survivor. Since she had surgery a few days ago on both lungs and can't move or breath very well, our Yoga was extremely gentle and she spent most of the time sharing her incredible experiences with me. How a person has the strength to withstand a lifetime of such intense challenge must truly be from a deep, hard-wired instinct. Later on in the session we were joined by her husband of 54 years, Abe, also a Holocaust survivor, who had survival stories of his own to share. Barbara and Abe live in Florida and they go around to high schools there talking about their experiences. They were gentle, sweet and humorous, and it was deeply moving and humbling to have them share themselves with me. It reminded me once again that so often when I give through teaching, I receive so much more. Om shanti.