Practicing All Eight Limbs...At the Same Time
Ashtanga Yoga is not an Indian form of calisthenics or gymnastics. It is an eight-limbed path. The word Ashtanga comes from a text dating somewhere between the 4th and 1st centuries, B.C.E., called The Yoga Sutras. The Sutras--as they are affectionately known by yogis-- are arguably the most important 'how-to' compilation of terse statements about yoga for yogis. The word Ashtanga means eight limbs (ashto- eight; anga- limb). Ashtanga yogis don't just practice the second two limbs of this eight limbed path, asana and pranayama. They practice all of them...at the same time. They practice the first two limbs, yamas and niyamas, which are basically 'do's and don'ts.' They're the yogis version of the Ten Commandments. The fifth limb, pratyahara, is translated as 'the withdrawal of the senses.' The last three limbs, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi, are gradations of the various levels of absorption or concentration that can occur when we practice. The tradition my co-teacher, Devorah Sacks, and I come from has a unique spin on this eight-limbed path. As students of the renowned yoga master from Mysore, India, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, we’ve been taught that all we need to do is to work on asana and pranayama, and the rest of the limbs naturally and spontaneously will follow. But that's not to say we are to ignore the other six-limbs. Rather, the other limbs are to be considered benchmarks that give us direct feedback on the quality of intention we bring to our practice.
Getting Fit and Chilling Out
As a long-term teacher of Ashtanga Yoga, I’ve come to recognize that most people don’t come to practice in order to have a deeper connection with the yamas and niyamas. They come either to get fit or to ‘chill out.’ This is usually the first aspiration that shows up on the mat. If the new student is persistent and continues to practice through the initial phase of soreness, stiffness, and the difficulty of waking up in the early morning to get on her mat, she will more often than not begin to wonder about the philosophical aspects of the practice.
I cannot say for certain what it is about practicing breath and posture that elicits this curiosity, but I do know for certain that at least 80% of the students I have taught make it past the initial stage of just wanting to get strong and flexible. That initial aspiration doesn't go away altogether. It just becomes obvious that the goal of yoga is much wider and broader than originally perceived.
How the Eight Limbs Work Together
Within the yoga that Jois taught, the eight limbs do not follow a linear sequence. In other words, we’re not taught to master the first limb before moving on to the next limbs. [ref] I don’t doubt, however, that historically, there were schools of yoga in which that was how the practice was taught. Neophytes probably needed to prove themselves before the deeper, more introspective practices were taught.[/ref] In this tradition, the first two limbs, yamas and niyamas spontaneously arise out of the steady and continuous practice of asana and pranayama. Jois used to say that when the body and mind were cleansed of impurities, that following these rules was easy, natural, and obvious. And when the mind and body were gummed up with negativity and illness, to follow yamas and niyamas put the yogi at odds with herself and only created more tension.
And according to Jois, the last four limbs—which are, essentially, deeper levels of introspection, attention, and meditation—cannot be practiced. They arise spontaneously from the steady practice of the first four limbs. In other words, meditation cannot be practiced, according to this tradition. It just naturally grows from the continuous practice of breath work, posture, and the observance of certain morals and mores.
Focus on Asana and Pranayama And All Is Coming
Here’s the bottom line: essentially, Jois is saying is that all we need to do is to just practice asana and pranayama and the rest of the limbs follow spontaneously and naturally. By the way, his teacher, Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who is really the grandfather of modern yoga, said the same thing. So this isn’t idiosyncratic to Jois’ tradition. This is what all Krishnamacharya’s well-known students, including B.K.S. Iyengar, T.K.V. Desikachar, Indra Devi, A.G. Mohan, and Srivatsa Ramaswami, basically teach and taught.
Meditation Happens
If you look at this closely, it’s a pretty far-out idea. The tradition is saying that you cannot do meditation. Meditation cannot be done. Meditation just comes. It’s like that William Blake quote, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is – infinite.” So, as yogis, it is our job to cleanse the doors of perception through the continuous, steady practice of asana and pranayama. In fact, that is all we really have the power to do anything about. And so at the heart of the practice of yoga, we’re just cleansing and clearing away what’s in the way. Once cleared, the goal of yoga naturally and spontaneously occurs.
What's the Point of the Other Six Limbs?
So why even mention the eight limbs if all we can really do are asana and pranayama? The limbs are signposts along the journey. They’re there to let you know about the quality of your aspiration and intention in your asana and pranayama practices. In other words, if you take away the other six limbs, and all you had were the asana and pranayama, it wouldn’t be altogether clear where the journey of yoga were taking us. But given the fact that introspection, attention, and meditation “should” naturally arise along the path of yoga, if they’re not, it’s a good indicator that there is something askew with the way we’re approaching our practices. Likewise, if the yamas and niyamas become more obscure to us and more difficult to practice along the path, then that, too, is an indicator that our practice is not, in fact, supporting our transformation.
Behind the Scenes at My Yoga Journal Photo Shoot
This summer, I was asked to model some basic asanas for the November 2011 Yoga Journal magazine: As someone who has been practicing Ashtanga for 20 years, I expected the shoot to be an interesting experience, but fairly easy. These are fundamental poses that I've done thousands of times. The two-day photo shoot in a San Francisco Mission District studio turned out to be even more interesting than I anticipated.
I worked under the direction of the Yoga Journal Editor Jennifer Rodrigue, who comes from a very strong Iyengar tradition. (That's her voice on the video above.) Both B.K.S. Iyengar and the founder of Ashtanga yoga, Pattabhi Jois, studied under the same teacher—Sri Krishnamacharya. You would expect the systems to be quite similar, but while they share many of the same asanas, the approaches are totally different. Ashtanga is about movement and breath, Iyengar is about alignment and anatomical precision. Jennifer instructs with a keen eye for details that we don't address in Ashtanga. She kept directing my attention to the fact that I was pointing my floating ribs out. Each time she'd ask me to draw them in, I'd find myself unconsciously poking them out again. When I would draw them in, I noticed all sorts of things happening in my body that I'd never noticed before, including feelings of lightness, clarity, and a sense of calm.
So, the experience was challenging—a bit of a surprise. And while I'll always be a die-hard Ashtangi (the sequence of asanas and vinyasas helps me tap into a deeper consciousness like no other practice), this brush with Iyengar gave me some interesting perspectives.
I also gained a whole new appreciation for the level of expertise, detail, breadth and depth that goes into the making of Yoga Journal. It was a total thrill to be a member of a high caliber team of artists and experts who are really great at what they do: Jennifer Rodrigue (editor and yoga spotter), Lyn Heineken (stylist), Tamara Brown (hair and makeup artist), Charli Ornett (creative director), and Katrine Naleid (photographer).
Transforming the Sacred Wound Part 9: Integration
Once the pain of the emotion has passed, once we have completely and compassionately descended down to the bottom of the rock, we experience a sense of relief. We begin to widen, deepen, and expand to include the wound. It isn’t that the wound has disappeared. The point is not to disappear the wound, and it isn’t a one-time-fix. This is a lifelong journey of compassionately holding the wound so that wisdom, love, generosity, and goodness can emerge. The point is to transform it, to make good on it. This descent into the direct experience of it actually does that.Instead of holding the wound as something that needs to be masked, the compassionate, body-centered, present-moment descent allows us to begin including the wound into our being. Once the wound is included, we have a lot more space to become more of something.That ‘more’ can only be expressed by the wound. I often notice with my clients that if they’ve been regarding themselves as unintelligent, the pull of the self-sabotaging voices not only becomes less strong, but my clients begin to have compassion for the parts of themselves that they’ve previously disowned. In a way that 'more' is your genius.
Your Genius
Genius has two etymological understandings. In one sense, your genius is considered to be your “guardian deity or spirit that watches over you from birth,” as in genie. It’s also you power to produce, since gen- means to “produce.” Your genius is the energy that resides behind your generative capacity. I am not asking you to consider your genius literally as a “deity within.” Instead, I am asking you to consider your genius “as if” it is a deity within. This isn’t about creating a new belief system complete with gods and goddesses. What I am referring to is not that, but it’s about finding access to these latent energies within your being and learning to relate to them, as if they are a god so that you can start to activate your capacity to produce or create something new.
Sacred wound work is about learning to suffer with (com- with passion- suffer) our pain with a quality of patience and unconditional friendliness. As a result, something new emerges, something that is expansive, innocent, generative, forgiving, and playful. Our wound is calling us into a deeper alignment with our bodies, our hearts, and our minds.
Exercise in Learning to Stay
For the next hour, you will silently contemplate/meditate on one or two things you’ve been unwilling to be with. I encourage you not to distract yourself. If you notice that your mind is wandering in a million other directions, just bring it back to the task at hand, meeting the wound of what you haven’t-- up until now—been willing to be with. Please do not write in your notebook, speak to anyone, or do anything other than be with your wound. You can take a meditative posture, you can lie down—as long as you don’t fall asleep—you can take a walk outside or just sit on a park bench.The point is to reestablish a relationship with the genie within, that generative power within, to begin listening to it in a new way.
Transforming the Sacred Wound Series
This is one part in a nine-part series that explores ways to heal and transform your sacred wound. Be sure to check out the other posts!
The So-Called Tradition of Ashtanga
I have noticed that as the Mysore-style Ashtanga method becomes more popular over the years, the individual connection between teacher and student is disintegrating. The practice, which was originally designed to be individualized, has become increasingly supplanted by a one-size-fits-all approach. This is a natural outgrowth as more and more people both learn and are touched by the method. The unfortunate thing is that it misses the point of the Mysore-style methodology, which by its nature honors each student’s constitution, body, emotions, personal development, culture, etc. The problem is that as yoga becomes increasingly popular, the practice is morphing into something that alienates the practitioner from his or her own wisdom. In the Ashtanga world this change is being called “traditional” ; however, I want to posit the notion that there is nothing traditional about it; in fact, it is an unfortunate and new result of the popularity of yoga. And if we continue to alienate our student’s innate wisdom from the practice, Mysore-style yoga will become a practice for only the select few.
Unlike led classes, the Mysore-style allows for a relationship to arise between the student and the teacher in such a way that the practice can be made to fit the student, as opposed to the other way around. In led classes, generally speaking, it is difficult for the teacher to work much on an individual basis with the student because he or she has to ensure the flow of the class as a whole. Mysore-style, however, is the equivalent of a private master class with the support of group energy. In other words, a student has the opportunity to be inspired both by the intensity of the class and the direction and support of the teacher. When a student finds his or her yoga home, indeed, it is like coming home. Both the relationship with the teacher and the class as a whole cradles and supports them in achieving yoga, however the student chooses to define that word.
Breakthroughs
Over the years, I have noticed within the Ashtanga world that yoga has increasingly become defined as the mastery of asanas as opposed to the achievement of yoga. The goal of yoga has become the need to bind the hands in marichyasana d in order to progress through primary series or stand up from a back bend in order to move to intermediate series. Frankly speaking, milestones like this are not helpful. Many, many individuals will never be able to bind in marichyasana d because constitutionally they just cannot. What often happens is that people will compromise their knees in order to get into the posture. So marichyasana d becomes the source of a medial meniscus tear. Likewise in an effort to stand up from back bends, students often injure their backs. The result of trying to master asanas is often a long-standing injury from repetitive strain. As Pattabhi Jois used to say, “Health will result from good yoga, ill-health will result from bad yoga.” Clearly, this is bad yoga.
The myth generated amongst practitioners of this method that if we push through pain, we are likely to have a breakthrough known amongst so-called ‘aficionados’of this method as an “opening.” When someone says “opening” they mean the ability to complete a posture that they could not previously complete because something opened up or let go. Most so-called ‘openings’ that I have seen over the years are repetitive strain injuries caused by a blatant disregard for the body’s signals that what they’re doing is painful. I have to admit that I stand in contrast to most so-called ‘traditional’ practitioners when I admit that, generally speaking, I don’t believe in openings. I have wanted to over the years. There have been many, many times when I have told myself and my students that the pain they’re experiencing is just an opening, but I have seen enough ‘openings’ to know that the idea is wishful thinking.
The first time I visited Mysore, in 1993, I saw a friend from New Zealand get injured in janu sirsasana c. His visit to Mysore was shortened from a three-month stay to one-month because his lateral collateral ligament had been totally ruptured. What struck me about that particular incident was that my friend had been complaining of pain in his knee. Various prominent practitioners and member of the community had advised him to keep pushing forward, that he would eventually have a breakthrough. Essentially, he was discouraged from recognizing his own pain receptors telling him that his knee was in danger.
Ashtanga is a rigorous practice and injuries do take place sometimes that are deleterious, but to overlay the problem with a false statement, like “oh, it’s just an opening” is like putting ice cream on top of crap and saying that the whole thing is ice cream, so eat it up. That’s the problem when we disregard our own common sense in place of tradition. I am not saying that it isn’t useful to look at the experience of pain and injury as an opportunity to grow or develop in a inner way. Our injuries can be some of our best teachers. What I am saying is that pain is usually an indicator that there is something wrong. It is the body’s intelligence speaking. In all the years I have been practicing and teaching, I have rarely seen the notion of breakthroughs pan out
Tradition
We all want certainty. We somehow think that if we align ourselves with a lineage that is thousands of years old, that its wisdom will keep us warm on a cold night. After all, if we look at our modern lives in reference to more traditional cultures, we can see that in many ways we are lonelier, more isolated, and have a greater propensity toward feelings of meaninglessness . I think it's natural to want to align oneself with the old and great traditions in order to feel a part of something greater.
Unfortunately, more often than not, we see individuals clinging to traditions that are foreign or “other” who may in some sense find a connection but often are, likewise, cut-off from themselves. One of our students told me that when she discovered yoga and its teachings, that she was so enamored by the truth of the words that she heard and the practice, that she decided to park her old, lonely self at the door in order to embrace the teachings fully. Through our discussions together, she discovered that what she had done is cut herself off from sides of herself, wisdom and intelligence that had been cultivated for years before her introduction to the practice. And by parking her lonely self at the door, she cut off from those sides of herself that needed tending to. Since making that decision, she felt very satisfied when reading about, discussing, or practicing yoga, but her parked problems kept nagging her. Eventually through probing, she came to discover that the true test of the practice was to use them on those parts of herself that felt lonely and isolated as a way to discover the their actual power.
When I started yoga, I remember there being a sort of strict division between Ashtanga and Iyengar practitioners. Somehow for the Iyengar yogis, we had it all wrong. We lacked alignment and precision, and every one of us was prone to injury. And we thought they had it all wrong. Their practice was totally boring, static, and mental. As Ashtanga has become increasingly popular in the last few years, I have seen this division between practitioners within the method itself that is similar, either you’re traditional or you aren’t. This idea of being ‘traditional’ is a new creation. It simply didn’t exist until recently. Not that the method wasn’t exact. Indeed, it was, but because the room in Mysore was so small, each individual was tended to in a unique way. Many of Guruji’s old students, including myself, will tell you that he would tell one person one thing about a particular asana or about the method as a whole and then absolutely contradict himself with someone else.
This idea that somehow the method is monolithic, ancient, perfect, and precise is something we wish were true but isn’t. Pattabhi Jois said that he received the teachings exactly as he taught them from his teacher, Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who learned the method from his teacher, Rama Mohan Brahmachari, and so on. The idea is that at no time was the system tainted, but, instead, it was passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years in pristine form. The system is linked to a source text no longer in existence called the Yoga Korunta, which was supposedly written by a sage named Vamana Rishi and was imparted from Rama Mohan Brahmachari to Krishnamacharya. At some point the text was written on palm leaves, which were in the safe keeping of Pattabhi Jois, as the legend goes, but somehow insects destroyed the text. All of this description creates the myth that somehow the practice has some profound history and its transmission has been untainted from time immemorial.
But in purusing the notion of tradition a bit further, I came across The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace by N.E. Sjoman. Sjoman makes the following compelling argument: the yoga system taught by Krishnamacharya comes from a merging of gymnastics with yoga. The author drew his conclusions by mining the royal library in Mysore, where Krishnamacharya taught during the time he taught Pattabhi Jois. Krishnamacharya was appointed to the Mysore Palace in the early 1930s to teach yoga to the Arasu boys, the maternal relatives of the royal family. Through the patronage of Nalvadi Krishanarja Woodeyar, he opened a yoga shala or yoga school which continued until 1950. The author makes a very compelling argument that Krishnamacharya not only developed the Ashtanga system as taught by Pattabhi Jois during his tenure in Mysore, but that he drew on elements of gymnastics and Indian wrestling.
So, not only is it a misnomer that somehow the system has been perfectly sustained for thousands of years, it is easily argued that the system was created in the 1930s to some degree or another and has sources outside of the yoga tradition. And in the bit of history we have of Ashtanga from the vantage point of long-time Western practitioners, one can see that the system has been changed to one degree or another since 1973. Postures have been added and subtracted. The length or duration of holding postures has been changed. Even sequences have been changed. Third series today is only a fraction of the old Advanced A series and its sequencing has changed somewhat. Students who completed first were moved on to second without the barrier of getting up from backbends. Pranayama was taught after completing primary series initially. Then eventually, it was taught after completing intermediate series. Now, supposedly, it is taught after completing Third series. To say that the practice has sanctity through historicity just is not true. It is a living, changing phenomena.
The New Tradition
And as the method is being passed to the next generation of practitioners, it continues to mold and change. So to say that there is a ‘traditional’ way to practice doesn’t actually mean that there is this vast history that supports it. Instead, what traditional means is what is currently being taught in Mysore at the given moment. Pattabhi Jois’ family, essentially determines the ‘traditional’ nature of things. And as the torch has been passed on to Jois’ grandson, Sharath, he currently determines what, in fact, is traditional.
The notion of standing up from backbends in order to progress to intermediate series was created by Sharath. This is just one so-called ‘tradition’ that has recently been added to the practice in order to manage the influx of students coming to Mysore. So many people show up in Mysore today that it is increasingly impossible for the teacher to give much individual instruction. In order to counter this, every Friday and Sunday, led classes are given. Led classes, generally did not exist before Pattabhi Jois moved from his yoga shala in Lakshmipuram to his shala in Gokulam. In addition, more focus is being played on backbends than ever before. Essentially the tradition is going through another metamorphosis and is being influenced by the influx of people attracted to the power of yoga.
That being said, tradition is based upon agreement. When that agreement lacks discrimination the risk of damage can be great. I write this because the practice and community have meant so much to me. I hate to see Ashtanga Yoga go in this direction. What lead me to the practice, in the first place, was the fact that individuality was honored. Each of us who maintains the practice has a stake in maintaining its authenticity and longevity. My personal stake is that as Ashtanga continues to develop that it continues to honor the individual rather continuing to evolve into a one-size-fits-all method in the name of tradition.
Transforming the Sacred Wound Part 8: Cultivating Compassion
The real gift we have to offer to others is our compassion. Likewise, the real gift we have to offer ourselves is compassion. The place we often go to when we feel the pain of our wound is "beat-up." We often let our self-sabotaging voices run the show. We think, I feel this pain and then decide, "Indeed, I am stupid, ugly, or worthless." The etymology of the word compassion is 'com-' with or together 'passion-' to suffer. So when we feel compassion, we suffer together.We’re all taught that we should feel compassion for others. And if we had any religious training, we’re taught to feel compassion for others’ suffering. For many of us, feeling compassion for others’ pain is relatively easy. The compassion, we’re talking about here, though, is not compassion for another’s suffering. We’re talking about compassion for our own suffering. The way we do this is by offering ourselves compassion, warmth, goodwill, and kindness.
When we begin to have compassion for our own suffering, we short-circuit the self-sabotaging voices. How could we possibly agree with them when we offer ourselves a kind of warmth or a quality of kindness. That’s what compassion for self is. It’s a positive regard for self. When we offer ourselves compassion, on some level we are saying, “Yes, I have pain, but that pain isn’t me. It’s simply the pain that gets to be transformed into genius." And what's required is simply meeting it.
Making Friends with the Wound
Compassion for ourselves is really a sort of unconditional friendship with ourselves. It is much more common that we disapprove of our wound and denigrate it. It is about beginning to make friends with the wound. It’s not about thinking that it will come from the outside, from other people, from spiritual practice, from meditation, jogging. We look all over the place to make us feel good about ourselves. Affirmations are all about that. You proclaim, “I am smart.” “I am worthy of being loved.” And part of you says, “Yeah, sure.” How is this relationship created? It has a lot to do with the way we meet our pain and difficulty. The Buddha had a revolutionary teaching. He said that in human life, there is pain and that pain is inevitable. We all grow old, get ill, and die. The more that you love, and loving brings wellbeing, then the more sadness and grief there is at the loss of that person. If you put your hand in fire, it burns. There is a lot of discomfort in life. The fundamental teaching is not to struggle against the pain in life but, instead, to become intimate with comfort and discomfort, with pleasure and pain, with shame and success. Happiness is beginning to live your life in a way that opens up: your mind and heart opens. It includes victory and defeat, praise and blame, loss and gain. Happiness is about being able to embrace it all. That is the root of it all. Struggling against the wound and getting it to come out “perfect” doesn’t add up to a sort of compassion for ourselves.
The point is to discover your own human-ness. This is your connection with all people. This is the shared-ness of the human condition. It is about becoming intimate with that awful feeling of losing something that is dear to you, that part of you that wants to shut down. It is to be intimate with what it feels like to be intimate with the whole catastrophe. Our
Exercise
In the exercises that follow, we will learn how to regard our wound with compassion. The word compassion is regarded in two senses in the Western and Eastern perspectives. In the Western perspective compassion means to suffer with. In the Eastern sense, compassion is translated as loving-kindness. These two are very different, but both offer instructive ways to hold or regard our wound.
In the first Western sense, to be compassionate is to feel the wound. It is essentially what we did earlier today when we met the wound directly, unadulterated by storyline. We just felt it. We just noticed it. Nothing was added. We experienced a direct relating and relationship with the wound. The Eastern sense of the word compassion guides us into the notion of bringing a quality of kindness that is wide open, gentle, warm, and healing to our wound.
For many of us, feeling compassion for others’ pain is relatively easy. But what is it to bring loving kindness to ourselves, to our own wound? That’s what this next activity is all about.
Exercise
Click on this recording to learn how to bring some healing to your wound:
[gravityform id=5 name=Healingthe Sacred Wound title=false description=false]
Click on this recording to learn to how to bring loving kindness or unconditional friendliness to your wound.
[gravityform id=10 name=LovingKindness Meditation title=false description=false]
Transforming the Sacred Wound Series
This is one part in a nine-part series that explores ways to heal and transform your sacred wound. Be sure to check out the other posts!
Transforming the Sacred Wound Part 7: Practicing Presence
However unnerving the experience, we need to bring a moment-to-moment awareness to the wound. It’s important that we not get lured too much into the past or future storylines until we have completed the descent. A bit of past or future thinking can heighten and deepen the feelings so that the descent can take place; however, the descent into the wound is not a story-based experience. The story can help deliver us into the energy of the wound, but it won’t, in fact, heal the wound. Mostly, our stories just numb us from the wound. So, it’s important that we not go to our heads in this process. This is a kinesthetic, feeling experience that requires a presence, an awareness of the here and now.
Being here and now is really a practice in learning to stay. Because this is a lifelong process, you want to bring a quality of kindness and compassion to the process, kind of like training a puppy. If you’ve ever trained one, you'll know that beating them can make them obedient yet inflexible. They can become easily confused if everything doesn’t go a certain way. But if you train the puppy with kindness and clarity, it can be flexible and have a sense of humor. It can role with changes. Which kind of puppy do you want to be?
When the mind goes off, don’t hit yourself. Just come back. It’s like being very naïve. There is no big deal about it. Whatever arises, just acknowledge that its there, and just come back to the wound, here in the present moment. With that simplicity you just keep coming back. You are just training in staying with yourself.
Transforming the Sacred Wound Series
This is one part in a nine-part series that explores ways to heal and transform your sacred wound. Be sure to check out the other posts!
Transforming the Sacred Wound Part 6: Descending into the Wound
The transformational shift that can occur around the sacred wound feels a whole lot like a descent. It has a downward quality to it. It often feels heavier, stickier, thicker, and more difficult before it ever starts to feel better. In 12-step programs, they often say that one has to hit 'rock-bottom' before any real change can take place. When we acknowledge the emotion around the wound in a deliberate, conscious way, we take ourselves to a 'rock-bottom' place.
We expect and seek to create a sort of descent. At the bottom of the descent is both an acknowledgement and acceptance of the wound. People often report a sigh of relief. What they recognize is that those aspects of the wound that they’ve disowned becomes included into who they are. There is a very clear sense of widening, deepening, and expanding at the moment in which the descent has completed itself.
For many of us, this descent is unnerving. It has us feeling like we are going to head into a depression or it will just reawaken a wounding and there won’t be a resolution of it. For some of us, we’ve already done some sort of descent but didn’t complete the process, and, as a result, the descent only left us feeling more wounded. What’s important about this is that once the ride begins that we not get off of it until the ride is completely over. And as described above, the over process does feel like expansion or completion. When it happens, it’s clear as day. Before the emotion has completed, it feels half-baked.
Transforming the Sacred Wound Series
This is one part in a nine-part series that explores ways to heal and transform your sacred wound. Be sure to check out the other posts!
Transforming the Sacred Wound Part 10: The Genius
The Genius
And so what emerges from the initial aversion, resistance, and pain of the wound is something generative creative, playful, and sometimes even luminous or numinous. Marianne Williamson writes in her book A Return to Love that "our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us."
If we patiently and persistently relate to the wound in a compassionate and mindful way, what naturally emerges is our light. I often wonder why we have been told to hide our wounds and to pretend that they don't exist. And since I am in the self-help world, we're also taught that you can overcome them, master them, or fix them.
The sacred wound doesn't need to be fixed. It is perfect the way it is. What's required is a big dose of patience, some kindness, and awareness. What emerges over years--not days--is our light. And it is the transformation of darkness into light that Williamson is referring to. That's why society keeps teaching us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, to stop focusing on the negative. However, when we give room to be with our wound, what naturally arises is our powerful, innate genius.
Transforming the Sacred Wound Part 5: Handling Numbness
Oftentimes the starting point is just numbness, like there is nothing there to access. We can’t feel ANY emotion. We just sense a wall or a barrier. Instead of regarding numbness as bad or something to breakthrough or overcome, if we can regard the numbness as "good news," and be with it, it can start to unravel. Usually, the numbness is there as a defense, something that we unconsciously put in place in order to defend or protect ourselves. What we are defending is the sense of vulnerability we feel when we come into direct contact with the wound. In the past, having access to the wound only left us feeling defenseless and, ultimately, hopeless. So the numbness, the ‘no-feeling’ is just protection that was previously useful.
If we apply aggression or hatred to the numbness, we may have an initial breakthrough, but ultimately, we create a sort of aversion to it, which prolongs it. One way we could apply aggression to the numbness is to yell, scream, beat a pillow, do whatever we do to get the latent energy to start moving. Most research shows that these cathartic acts only prolong the emotion. They give an initial relief, but the emotion doesn’t actually transform.
Transforming the Sacred Wound Series
This is one part in a nine-part series that explores ways to heal and transform your sacred wound. Be sure to check out the other posts!
Transforming the Sacred Wound Part 4: Go to the Body
In order to identify the sacred wound, it helps to feel into the body for an emotional reaction. People often report a tightness in the chest, a nausea, a blockage in the throat. Our habitual reaction is to ignore the sensation, but if we will identify it, not in the intellectual sense but in the kinesthetic--by feeling into our bodies--we can start to distinguish ourselves from the wound. Mostly, we’re used to brushing over this pain when a pattern gets set off. We usually are so unconscious of this process, that we lose touch with the direct experience. So part of feeling into the body requires a slowing down. By slowing down, the emotion can begin to emerge.
Emotion = Energy In Motion
Emotion here is defined as ‘energy in motion.’ Allowing the energy of the wound to emerge allows the energy to move through us, rather than get stuck. When we allow some of the pent up stuck energy of anger, frustration, or anxiety to move, not only do we feel and experience less aversion to the wound, but we can start to have a dialogue and be in relationship to it. So it is at this junction in the process of being in the body that we connect to the energy or emotion that lies on the surface. To find the energy go to:
- Where the emotion is located in the body. Often times the emotion or the energy seems to come from a broad, general area, but if we place our awareness on the area, we can start to notice that the area is diffusely spread over a broad area and dense in a very narrow area. In other words, it may be located in the throat area and upper chest, but if we really pay attention, we will find that the densest area is the chest and there is a sort of bleed-over into the throat.
- What it feels like. Here it can help immensely to use metaphors. For example, it may feel like a wall. It can help to put some imaginary hands up to the wall to feel the temperature, shape, and texture of the wall.
- How it changes over time. If we begin to pay attention to the energy, we will notice that it changes. After all, emotion is energy in motion. We may notice that the change occurs rapidly and dramatically or we may notice that it occurs slowly. It can sometimes take days for the energy to shift. Grief is often like this. And we may also notice that the energy or emotion goes away altogether.
Just Notice
What’s required is just steady, clean awareness, as opposed to thinking aboutwhat's coming up. Another way of saying this is to ‘just notice.’ Being with an experience slows things down and gives direct access. Thinking or talking about experience has us hovering above an experience. It keeps the experience in our heads, and it keeps us in avoidance of the wound altogether.
I have clients who get anxious any time they notice their wounds. They start a plan of attack long before they've ever experienced them. Intellectualization, strategizing, or trying to understand is just another form of avoidance and actually prevents the transformation of the wounding. Our capacity to be with the wound, to give it space, and even to embrace it is what creates transformation.
Body-Centered Meditation
This is a meditation that will give you a direct, body-centered access to sensing your wound such that you can begin to transform into you genius
[gravityform id=7 name=Sensingthe Wound title=false description=false].
Transforming the Sacred Wound Series
This is one part in a nine-part series that explores ways to heal and transform your sacred wound. Be sure to check out the other posts!
Transforming the Sacred Wound Part 3: Stop Scratching
Few of us relate to our wound like it’s a form of genius in any sense of the word. We relate to it like we have to get rid of it. I have a friend whose father left her mother, and sisters when she was five years old. She has incredible wounding around this event. The wound continually makes her feel invaluable. In order to be valued by the men in her life, she’s become both incredibly smart and incredibly empathic. Now that’s the genius that lives in her. She has an incredible gift with people.
But up until recently, she’s been relating to the wounding of feeling unworthy due to her father’s abandonment as something she loathes. It’s an ache in her being that she’s been looking to get rid of. One way she tried to eliminate the wound is by seeking out men to tell her that she’s smart, beautiful, and needed. And each time a man complimented her, she wondered, “If they knew how screwed up I really am, would they say those nice things?” In each man, she was looking and hoping for a reflection that will heal the wound of abandonment. Recently, she's begun to recognize that no man or men will ever completely heal that wound. The real healing of that wound is an inside job.
Stop Scratching Even Though It Itches
Her whole orientation has been outer-focused. And because her orientation is outward in that she seeks men to fill the void, she keeps getting re-wounded. Each time she is brought face-to-face with the realization that a man won’t heal her, she is horribly disappointed not only with the man, but, especially with herself. So on top of being angry with the man, she’s angrier with herself for getting herself into more drama. And then it becomes a never-ending cycle of wounding, hurt, more wounding, and then more drama. This is what makes it addictive behavior.
At the base of all addictions is what Pema Chodron, a renowned Buddhist teacher, calls an itch that we long to scratch. Chodron likens our wounds to scabies. When you have scabies, and you see your doctor, the prescription is not to scratch it even though it itches, that as you continue to scratch, not only does it fester, but it spreads, too. As my friend continues to seek validation from a man, her rash keeps spreading. Like all itchiness, we sometimes don’t even notice that it’s itchy until we’ve scratched at it for quite some time. So in order to emerge from the wound or the rash, we first need to notice that we are scratching and to stop scratching. It is the scratching that is the habit pattern. And the more we scratch the more the wound grows. And what’s required is an inward gazing, a capacity for introspection.
We scratch the wound when we buy the storyline of our pain rather than meeting the energy of it. Behind the story is just a mood, tone or energy. Where we usually go is to the storyline instead of the energy behind the storyline. And so we tend to create drama out in the world in order to resolve the storyline. However, resolving the storyline doesn’t actually resolve or relieve the sense of wounding.
Inquiry
Spend 10 minutes with a pen and paper, noting all the places you've created drama in your life as a result of your wound. Look to:
- relationships that you avoid or cling to
- people and situations you won't be with
- missed opportunities
- addictions or habits that effect your health and sense of wellbeing
- ways that you avoid change
- belief systems that keep you stuck
- crises you constantly create
- relationships that take from you rather than nurture you
- avoidance of intimate, loving connections
Transforming the Sacred Wound Series
This is one part in a nine-part series that explores ways to heal and transform your sacred wound. Be sure to check out the other posts!
Transforming the Sacred Wound Part 2: Identifying the Wound
In my previous blog post, I began a discussion about the sacred wound. The essence of the message was that when we regard the wounding we experience in our lives as good news rather than something that we need to hide from, destroy, or numb, then we have an opportunity to transform pain into genius. It's actually our wounding and our pain that causes us to grow and transform. The people, situations, and things we come into contact with in the process of healing our wounds help us to discover our innate gifts. These gifts are our contribution to others.
The Promises of Sacred Wound Work
The point of this work is to establish a relating and relationship with the wound. The point is NOT to get rid of the wound. You may never feel wound-free. That's not the point. The point is to begin relating to it. Instead of trying to sweep it under the rug by pretending it doesn’t exist or by trying to “overcome” or “master” your pain, this work will teach you how to establish a loving and compassionate relationship with your wound. When you can find love and compassion for your wound, you can actually begin to transform it and in so doing, discover your genius.
Identifying the Wound
So for starters, it is important to be able to identify the wound or wounds. Below a recording that will help you uncover aspects of your wound or wounds. In order to really identify the wound, though, it can help to just look at the breakdown or discomfort that comes up in relationship to an individuals, groups or situations. These breakdowns can be used as entryways back to the wound. Each time you notice yourself angry, scared, hurt, sad, or shut down, follow the path of the pain back to your own experience. For the sake of sacred wound work, each and every experience can be used an access to a deeper relationship and relating with the wound. Once you have identified a breakdown or the sense that something is not quite right, start to feel into your body, into your emotional experience in order to develop a relationship to the sense of pain, to the sense of that something that is disowned, that hurts. You might notice shame come up or anxiety. Whatever the experience, just know that it is an entryway into the sacred wound.
Free Recording
Please download this Sacred Wound Meditation. On it, you will be guided through a 10 minute recording that will connect you and give you access to your unique and sacred wound.
Transforming the Sacred Wound Series
This is one part in a nine-part series that explores ways to heal and transform your sacred wound. Be sure to check out the other posts!
The Sacred Wound: A Doorway to Your Genius
Everyone carries a wound. No one is exempt.
The word makes it sound like one event, and sometimes it is. More often it's an accumulation. All the moments you set some part of yourself aside to stay connected to the people you needed. Each moment was small. You noticed what was welcome and what wasn't, and you adjusted. Most of them you wouldn't remember now. Together they left a mark.
Most of what we're taught about a wound like this is how to manage ourselves so we don't have to feel it. Get past it. Build on top of it. Put it to work. The wound doesn't cooperate with any of that.
My brother killed himself when I was a young man. That's one part of my wound. I can wish it away. I can ignore it for a few days. Then it's there again, and my work is to meet it: to feel the pain and, at the same time, some compassion for myself and for him. Not compassion instead of the pain. Both at once. When I can hold both, the pain lessens a little, and a little more of me is present than was before.
I want to be careful with the word sacred. I don't mean the wound is a gift. Losing my brother was not a gift, and I won't call it one. I mean the wound deserves attention rather than management. Every place you set yourself aside is held there, so it's also a fairly precise record of what you left behind.
Which is what the title means by genius. Not magic, and not some hidden talent the wound was guarding. Just this: the effort that goes into keeping a wound covered is enormous, and you've been paying it so long it feels like nothing. When the wound gets real attention, some of that effort is freed, and what you set aside to stay connected starts to become available again. Slowly, in my experience.
Mine is still coming back.
I wrote a book about that. The first chapter is twenty-eight minutes, read in my own voice. Enter your name and email and I'll send it to you.
Fifteen minutes with one moment of your own.
My Ashtanga Yoga Practice Was Boring Today
That's right. You read the title. Because I am an Ashtanga yoga teacher, I should ALWAYS be inspired by my practice and all things yoga. I'm not. At least today I am not. In fact, I had a very boring practice today. I tried to be inspired, to be excited to roll out of bed at 5am this morning, to throw down my mat at the studio and have an expansive, mindful, breath-full practice. But I did not. And somehow, I don't feel like I am alone. I think lots and lots of us have boring practices, but we don't admit it, at least not until we quit the practice. And that's why I am writing this blog today. I am writing because I am sharing the fact that it doesn't freak me out or make me want to quit because I am bored.
Boredom is normal. It's something that shows up in any commitment we have. There are lots of things that we do for awhile, get bored, and then move on. And then there are things that we try to convince ourselves aren't so boring, but end up quitting anyway. And then there are those things that bring boredom, but we stick with them. This is the essence of what commitment is to me. I have this crazy commitment to my Ashtanga yoga practice. It's crazy because I will endure good times and shit times. This practice is central to who I am. It's an integral part of my life. I was telling a friend today that my practice is my other wife. I am committed to both for the rest of my life. My practice probably won't look the same when I am 90 years old, nevertheless, it will be part of who I am.
And when it comes to a partner that you love dearly and one that has given boundlessly to you, you don't just up and go when times get rough. You stay. And you stay. And you stay. And you stay. But it's not like the staying that occurs when you're eating shitty food just to be nice to the host. There is a quality in which you continually search for and reach for the connection.
When my wife Melissa, and I are out of whack, I may initially shut down but at some point, I start to try a bunch of stuff to reconnect with her: communication techniques I've learned, cooking her a yummy meal, or, yes, doing the laundry. I will keep trying stuff until we reconnect. Often times, it takes giving something up, like admitting my fault in something or owning up to something. Sometimes it requires that she does that. Either way, I am committed to staying in relationship with Melissa. Whatever it takes, I am going to make it happen. And when it doesn't happen, I am not like, "Screw her. I am out of here." Instead, I just know that this shows up in marriage and this is an opportunity to learn and grow.
I suppose the same is true for my practice. It's not like I'm just going to say, "Screw the practice. I'm bored. I am going to Anusara class from now on." I may go to an Anusara to get some inspiration, but I am not going to all of a sudden become an Anusara devotee. My primary yoga relationship is to Ashtanga. So when boredom shows up, it's an opportunity to scratch my head and say, "Wow, here's boredom. I get to look at boredom." Instead of seeing boredom as this sign that my practice is all wrong for me, I get to just notice the boredom.
Boredom doesn't mean anything. I could make the boredom I experienced today mean that the practice is boring or that there is something wrong with me that I need to fix. I guess when you've been bored before, like I have in my 20 years of practice, it's not incredibly worrisome. I know that at some point, something will come along and I will be chugging again with excitement. I also have this intuitive sense that the boredom is giving me access to know myself in a new way. It's not like I am just going to wait until the boredom goes. I'm going to keep trying stuff, keep reading, keep looking for something to inject into my practice or take away. I will actively pursue an entrance into relating to my practice in a way that enlivens and excites me. So I actively pursue change while passively knowing that at some point change will come. It always does.
If there's one thing we can expect, it's change. That's inevitable. So you can be sure that when your practice is boring like mine was today, at some point, it won't be. And if you're loving practice today, at some point you will be ambivalent about it. It tests our mettle in terms of our commitments and it causes us to grow. In short, it's my hunch that boredom is a good thing and an opportunity for another breakthrough in my relationship with my second wife, but don't tell Melissa because instead of dealing with boredom, I will have to face jealousy.
The One Minute Meditation
A client of mine just forwarded this one minute meditation off to me designed by Elena Brower . What I love about it is that it quickly tune you in, opens your heart and quiets the mind.
Instructions
- As you finish reading this sentence, take a few healing breaths
- Smile
- Soften your eyes
- Imagine feel your heart to be as big, as alive, as open and as receptive as your brain.
- Stay with this opening for one minute.
- Feel how much softer it is in your heart now?
Your mission, should you choose to accept it
Bring this open, soft state of the heart-mind, no matter what the context, no matter how vexing or crazy it seems in front of you.
I dare you.
Castor Packs for Pain
The Problem with the Castor Bath
The first time I went to Mysore to study with my yoga teacher, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, in 1993, I noticed that he was often prescribing castor oil baths. He suggested that we lather our bodies in castor on Saturdays-which is the day we don't practice-- in order to detoxify the body from all of the heat or inflammation that showed up in our bodies from yoga practice and various other toxins that we took in, either through food, water, or any of the offenses our bodies experienced through living and eating in India.
The problem with the castor bath is that it is so darn messy. It stains your clothing and is impossible to scrub out of the shower and bath. And on top of that, in order to get the castor off of the whole body, you have to use gram flour or soap nut. Yuck!!! While I do think that a castor bath has amazing effects on the body, it's a mess. However, I know from experience that castor is an amazing tool to both detoxify the body and alleviate tightness, stiffness, and chronic pain. Used in conjunction with heat, Castor has a salve-like quality. It draws out toxins from the organs, muscles and skin. The heat dilates the blood vessels, thus increasing circulation through the area of discomfort. The combination of increased circulation and the salve-like quality promotes quick healing and really eases pain and inflammation, showing up as pain and stiffness, irritability, liver inflammation, loose stools and constipation, irregular menstruation, and cysts, and fever.
The Castor Oil Pack
The castor bath can be replaced by castor oil pack. Castor oil packs are made by soaking a piece of flannel or a paper towel in castor oil and placing it on the skin. The flannel or paper towel is covered with a sheet of plastic, a towel and then a hot water bottle is placed over the plastic to heat the pack. It is easy to do, easy to clean up, location specific, and very, very relaxing.
A castor oil pack can be placed on the following body regions:
A) The right side of the abdomen. Castor oil packs are sometimes recommended by alternative practitioners as part of a liver detox program. B) Inflamed and swollen joints, bursitis, and muscle strains. C) The abdomen to relieve constipation and other digestive disorders. D) The lower abdomen and lower back in cases of menstrual irregularities, uterine and ovarian cysts, and pain.
Safety
Castor oil should not be taken internally. It should not be applied to broken skin. It should not be used during pregnancy, breastfeeding, or during menstruation.
Materials
A)Three layers of undyed wool or cotton flannel large enough to cover the affected area. A paper towel will do, in case you don't have flannel. B) Castor oil C) Plastic wrap cut one to two inches larger than the flannel or paper towel (can be cut from a plastic bag) D) Hot water bottle E) Old clothes, sheets and towel. Castor oil does stain clothing, bedding, and towels.
Method
1. Soak the flannel or paper towel in castor oil so that it is saturated, but not dripping.
2. Place the it over the affected body part.
3. Cover with plastic. And place a towel over the plastic to moderate the heat. The more folds in the towel, the more separate the hot water bottle is from the skin. Heat should redden the skin but not burn it. The point of the heat is to dilate the blood vessels in the area, thus, increasing circulation to it.
4. Place the hot water bottle over the towel. Leave it on for 45-60 minutes. Rest while the pack is in place.
5. After removing the pack, cleanse the area with the towel. Be sure the towel is old because the castor WILL stain it.
Please drop a line to let me know how it goes...
Creating Authentic Relationships
For the most part, people take relationships for granted. We assume we know what the other person wants and needs, and they assume we know what we need. The main source of relationship breakdown is because we assume that they should know how we want to be treated. In order to have authentic relationships, it helps immensely to design them, both in the beginning and throughout. It doesn’t work to leave relationships to chance. When we design our relationships, we ask our friends, family, co-workers, superiors, subordinates, and community at large who they need us to be; what we need from them; what to expect from us; and what we can expect from them. This alliance creates the foundation for an authentic, real ongoing relationship. It gives the relationship freedom, responsibility, and commitment. It gives both people the freedom to speak to whatever is needed in the moment and to ask for what is wanted 100% of the time. It empowers both people to take responsibility for honoring the relationship, its growth, upkeep, and cleanliness. It asks that both people not skip over hard-truths, and that they wake up when they’ve gone unconscious. Finally, it creates a commitment not to tolerate or endure; to tell the truth; and to tap into and speak from authenticity without filtering.
It may seem a bit artificial, at first, to sit down with someone in the beginning or even in the middle of an ongoing relationship, however, the results are powerful, magical, and pivotal to a powerful and enduring relationships. People with emotional intelligence naturally do this. They also understand that once this conversation has ended, that the design is never over. In order for relationships to endure and for both people to experience one another in new and fresh ways, relationships are constantly being redesigned. In other words, the design doesn’t end after the first conversation. It is constantly being re-negotiated. That way relationship remain flexible.
Below are some questions that may give you a sense of how to design an alliance in your life.
1. What exactly do you need and want from our friendship, in our working relationship, and/or from this project(s)? What I need and want is… 2. How do you want me to be with you when you’re shut down, hurt, angry, and/or sad? How I want you to be is… 3. How do you do with saying, “no?” How I do at saying, “no” is… 4. What will really support you? What will really support me is… 5. How do you want me to handle you when you have taken a risk and failed? How I want you to handle me when I have taken a risk and failed is… 6. If our relationship were to have a huge impact in your life-personal and/or professional- what would it look like? What it would look like to me is… 7. What do you want contribute to our personal/professional relationship that is unique? What I want to contribute is…. 8. How do you get evasive? How do you want me to be when you do? How I get evasive is... How I want you to be when I do get evasive is… 9. How are you about doing what you say you will do? How I am is… 10. Where do you usually get stuck? When you are stuck, what can I say that will return you to action? Where I usually get stuck is… What you can say to return me to action is…
[jbox color="blue" vgradient="#fdfeff|#bae3ff" title="Complimentary Relationship Rescue Coaching Session"]If you are ready to make a shift in your relationships and want help developing a game plan, I offer a complimentary 60-minute Relationship Rescue coaching session. There's no obligation; I love doing these and hope you'll get in touch.
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Getting Real
I was working with a coaching client this morning, and he was pretty anxious. As we started to explore the anxiety, what we discovered was that he wasn't being real with himself. He wasn't being honest about certain things that were happening in his life. In addition, he was waiting for and anticipating a different period of time. He's not alone. All of us get stuck in the waiting game. We are waiting for the raise, for that special moments when someone says the perfect thing. Whatever it is that we wait for is what stop us. Waiting is a big fat lie. And most of the time we won't be real with ourselves about the fact that we are waiting.
What's important here is is that we stop waiting it's almost as if we have to create an artificial death sentence for ourselves to wake up. We need to create our own wake up calls. That's one reason people hire a coach. A coach is trained to see ways in which we won't be real with ourselves. It's only when we get real that we can actually start to make change.
So often we try to make change on top of what we already have. We don't see how we've actually been being. We just try to change. The change doesn't happen until we get real can. Getting real just means being honest. Seeing what's actually so and also seeing what's not so. It means giving up the lie, whatever lie that you're telling yourself about the current situation you're in. More often than not we blame our circumstances, someone or something else for our current situation. When you can get real, when we can get honest that, in fact, our circumstances are your own choice, then we can actually start to create change.
Stop “Should-ing” on Yourself
Below is a quote from the section of a book that I’m reading by Claudia Naranjo. Naranjo was a student of Fritz Perls, the well-known gestalt psychotherapist that led encounter groups at Esalen Institute in the late 60s. What I like about this quote is the distinction Naranjo makes around the subject of achieving goals. He describes how we often “should” ourselves when we have a particular goal or target in mind. Our “shoulds” really only act as self-punishing games. Moving forward on something important to us doesn’t require the “should” game. What it requires is simple, pure awareness. Read on...
A “should” is different from either a call or an ideal; “shoulds” constitute a way of being at odds with reality that cannot be other than what it is. When we blame ourselves for something already passed, for instance, we are indulging in a feeling that neither improves the wrongness we incurred in the past, nor provides anything necessary to do better in the future. Perhaps the only benefit of our guilt is that, at some level, it makes us feel “better.”The same may be said of our stance toward the present area our experiences and actions here and now are what they are and could not possibly be otherwise. Self–blame or self–praise do not make them more or less. And they certainly did not make us better. If there is a way towards the fulfillment of ideals, it is clearly not the practice of turning them into shoulds.
Yet, “shoulds” exist to the extent to which we do not believe the foregoing statement. We believe that we must “push the river”––that if we do not make things right, they will certainly be catastrophic. In this sense, shoulds are an expression of our control madness... Our catastrophic expectations usually takes the form, “what would become of me ( or the world) if it were not for my (our) trying?” People should, to keep out of trouble.
Awareness is enough... If we have a conception of the desirable, and we know where we stand, that is all we need for our movement to perceive in the desired direction. Perhaps a good analogy is that of a child learning to walk or to climb. Warnings of danger and criticism, however accurate, will only detract from his attention to the task at hand and make contents areas if chronic, such “help” will make him less secure and not more skilled. Just as the adult in overprotecting the child lacks trust in the child’s potential for learning and developing, we, in ourselves–manipulation, through prodding or blaming, lack trust in our psycho–physical organism.
-- Claudia Naranjo, M.D., Gestalt therapy: The Attitude and Practice of an Atheoretical Experientialism, Gateways Publishing, pp. 64-65
Hoping and Waiting, Waiting and Hoping
I just got off the phone with a potential client. He was feeling stuck in terms of his work. He’s transitioning from a service oriented job to an investment field. After a bit of exploring his ‘stuck feelings,’ he came to the realization that he’s been so busy learning and preparing for this transition that he hasn’t actually stepped into the actual act of being in his new career. He’s been waiting for that ‘perfect moment’ when he has all the information. That way, if he speaks to a potential employer or client, he has all the information.
The desire to have all the information before we step forward is the equivalent of hoping. We’re all told never to give up hope, hope that something better might come along, but the only power hope gives us is to wait…and to continue to hope…and to wait. What are we waiting for?
We’re waiting for Santa Claus to come down the chimney, for the day of judgement, for prince charming to wake us from our slumber, for the pill or the regimen to make it all better. I am not saying that none of these will happen--except maybe Santa Claus. I am suggesting that hope is no more than a waiting game.
Looking for signs of hope is like walking through an unknown house in the dark. Each step in the dark requires a degree of hope that we will get to where we want to go. We have to grope our way through the darkness and try not to trip. One step in the wrong direction may leave us in peril. So we start looking for signs that we are going in the right or wrong direction. When it feels good, we assume we are heading in the right direction, and when it feels bad, we assume that we are going in the wrong direction. Our prognosticators are our feelings.
The tricky thing about our feelings and our emotions is that they are great reactors and terrible prognosticators. I am not referencing our gut reactions, this is a different topic altogether. However, most of us cannot distinguish our gut reactions from our emotional roller coaster rides. The only thing you can be sure about your emotions is that they are never consistent. And yet when we are at the whim of life’s circumstances, hoping for great things to happen, we use the pleasant feelings to mean that we are on track and we use the painful or negative feelings to mean that we are off track. Frankly speaking, our emotions are a pretty shoddy radar systems.
There is only one method to turn on the lights in this mysterious house of darkness, stop looking for signs of hope. In fact the best methodology I know is to give up hope, altogether. Hope leaves each of us powerless to the circumstances of life. Hope rarely ferries us through the rapids of our lives. Hope cannot nurse us back to health. Hope cannot settle the debt. Hope cannot resolve the conflict we experience with another.
I am not suggesting that we just pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. Instead, I am positing that hope is the unwillingness to take responsibility for how life goes and how it does not go. When we won’t captain our own lives, we are left in the hands of fate, karma, self-help books, rising or falling incomes, pleasant feelings, and unpleasant feelings. When we take on our lives as the opportunity to fulfill commitments, we become the captain and source of all that occurs, we live from a very unusual space.
Our commitments arise out of a very separate space than our need to succeed in life. They arise out of the space of inspiration. When we are committed to something, that something breathes life into us. It regenerates us and continues to regenerate us. It makes life worth living. It brings meaning to our lives. It is our sense of purpose. Our commitments are what drive what we do and what we have in life.
Whether it feels good or doesn’t feel good, living life from our commitments, is a place stand in life that is unique and distinct from that of hope. Living from hope is like waiting to win the lottery. It happens only sometimes. Living life from the commitments that breathe new life into us is no easy task. It requires letting go of Santa Claus. It requires that we profoundly appreciate our responsibility for the way life goes down. In one sense, we stop waiting to win the lottery, for prince charming, for someone else to do it for us. And if we crash, hit another, or are hit by someone, we get to take responsibility for the impact.