Nourishment

Particular words carry power. They act as a beacon providing guidance, a sword slicing through awareness, a mantra giving focus. Lately, the word “nourishment” has been this beacon. I found myself trying to describe what was lacking about a recent meal that was “fine” but not satisfying, and after searching about, I said, “It just wasn’t nourishing.” My companion nodded his head knowingly and instantly understood. I was reminded of a comment about pornography – that it is difficult to describe, but boy, do you know it as soon as you see it. “Nourishing” feels the same to me…a bit hard to define with clear boundaries, but something your body knows.

Freshly reminded of the power of the singular question, “Does this nourish me?” I discovered heightened awareness about what I took in. I noticed a craving for leafy green salads for the next seven days straight. I increased my intake of fruits and other veggies. I turned down meats, desserts, and snacks far more often – not because I was “supposed” to, but because I was super-tuned to how my body felt after eating or not eating certain foods. I wasn’t asking, “What do I crave? What sounds delicious? What do I have on hand?” I wasn’t even asking, “What’s local and/or organic?” I realized that all of those questions are far more cerebral. By asking, “Will this nourish me?” I was tapping into my body’s wisdom instead – a kind of mindfulness that I am not yet practiced at.

And now, I am just beginning to toy with applying the same question to aspects of my life beyond food. “Does this nourish me?” works when considering how I spend my free time, whom I spend time with, what we do and discuss.

Definition. Powerful questions as light posts.

"We can never be born enough."

E.E. Cummings stands among the ranks of great teachers in my life. I first discovered him as a student, and I became downright enamored with him when, as a high school junior, I faced the challenge of making meaning of one of his crazily enigmatic poems and was finally able to unlock it. I'm pretty sure I laughed out loud while tucked away in the stacks of the public library at the moment I "got it". This launched me on a love affair of sorts, and in college I thumbed and marked up the pages of his Complete Works until the binding broke. I finally decided to invest in a second copy after I began losing pages despite the rubber bands.

Although I enjoyed the puzzles and his playful approach to syntax and typography, that wasn't what held me over time; no, it was his way of seeing the world, his joie de vivre, his elixir of wise wonderment.

I look back and realize that his Complete Works is also what launched me into the habit of daily readings, and though it might seem obvious, only now do I see that this is a practice that keeps me connected to my spiritual foundation. I need this. Otherwise, it is easy for me to become untethered, distracted, borne up on the waves of busyness. 

And that leads me to give a shout out to another guru in my life, my colleague Steven Levy. I have the great pleasure of partnering with Steven as he plans a series of sessions on "renewal" for several school leaders in our network this summer. Renewal is a topic on which Steven is passionate and a model of good practice. After batting around some ideas with him, I sent him a link to one of those ubiquitous lists you find on the internet with 5 or 50 or 500 ways to take care of oneself. He replied: 

I don't think it is a lack of ideas that is keeping most of us from finding rest. There is much deeper mindset, very much rooted in this culture, that needs to be examined before the list would have any chance of taking root. I do believe there is something in each of us that already knows this, and we need to find a way to help people get back in touch with that inner voice, light, compass, true self, spirit, whatever you want to call it. If that true voice leads to something on the list, it has a chance of being effective. Without that foundation, any technique has very little chance of escaping the strong currents of our cultural sea. 

Look at that gift: a colleague so rooted in his "whatever you want to call it" that he had no trouble seeing through the surface-level list and cutting right to essence; a friend firm in his foundation because of his devotion to practice. Steven practices tuning in regularly and consciously, and because of this, he exudes the same kind of zest and delight I first discovered in E.E. Cummings.

At our most recent yoga teacher training weekend, we discussed the term "dharma", since it is repeatedly used in the sacred Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita, which we had just finished reading. The term brought up all sorts of angst. There is no straightforward definition for dharma, but that night, it was loosely defined as one's "true path" in life. Several people felt stressed about dharma as a perceived expectation that they should be able to discover and pursue their purpose in life.

I've pondered the term a lot since our last gathering, and I have realized that instead of thinking of dharma as a singular purpose/path, I resonate much more with the idea of it as a life-long series of check-ins with oneself - taking time to reflect, listen, and bend toward "right action" rather than being disconnected, distracted, numbed, or so busy that we lose our ability to hear and tap into the delight that can permeate our existence. 

Readings provide a form of renewal for me; they are a tool that helps me check my footing on the dharmic path, a reminder to wake up again and again.

We can never be born enough. We are human beings; for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery,the mystery of growing: the mystery which happens only and whenever we are faithful to ourselves.

 -E.E. Cummings 

Making Room for Joy

 

I am a week behind, but nevertheless I am delighted to report that this stretch of time has mostly been about living in JOY. Silly as it may sound, this does take practice. I find I am pretty conditioned to notice what's not quite right, what I wish were a little different...the classic story of a parent questioning, "What happened here?" with the one lower grade on a report card full of high grades.

I attended a conference for work last week, and I found myself engaged in all kinds of conversations: with people I love and don't get to see often, people new to me whose insights and perspectives moved me, and people who are experts in their fields - researchers, authors, speakers whom I would never usually have the chance to connect with. I felt unusually open, able to both listen deeply and ask questions that have been puzzling me. And because I felt open instead of withdrawn, these conversations were filled with joy. Because I wasn't afraid to show my ignorance and confusion (well, I was a little afraid, but I just noticed it and didn't let it stop me), I was better able to learn from these experts and drink in their words. When I let go of "looking smart", my passion was able to shine brighter through my genuine questions.

Also, though generally friendly, I don't usually open conversations with those around me. I'll greet my seat mate on an airplane, then stick my nose in a book. At the closing reception of this conference, however, I found myself standing in line at the bar surrounded by new faces. I struck up with the guy behind me, only to discover that he lives in Colorado, works at a school I'm familiar with, plays the banjo, and had just met a good friend of mine back in his home town. Five or six or seven connections later, we finally just smiled at each other with appreciation, gave genuine thanks, and went off happier.

Re-entering a normal work week, I find that the openness to joy has remained. I am in an intense period new learning (again), but instead of feeling overwhelmed, I am allowing myself to be smitten with it.

Meanwhile, Bruce is building a long-awaited new studio, and as a side benefit, we are organizing and moving other things. He kindly cleared out the "bunk house", a little room off of our outdoor patio that we were just using as a storage space, and we GOT BUSY - cleaning, painting, caulking, fixing, laying flooring, painting some more...and now we have our very own intimate yoga room, freshly dubbed "The Love Shack". Yup, making room for joy and inviting it in.

Increments

Increment: “A usually small amount or degree by which something is made larger or greater” (Merriam-Webster)

I think an awful lot about the formation and development of people’s habits. In my job, one of my deep areas of interest and study is about what beliefs and habits benefit students most. In my personal life beyond work, I have devoured books like Mindsets, The Tipping Point, A Whole New Mind, and The Power of Habit; and lately I have been actively working on shifting a few of my own habits. I have learned that habits reveal what you value.

Organizationally, this is pretty obvious. Schools, businesses, boards, working groups, and communities often have explicit norms or agreements about how they interact, and you can tell a lot about what the group values by the agreements they have (or don’t have) about how they approach their work together.

However, I find that it’s a little difficult to take an honest look at some of my own habits and realize what they reflect about my values. What do I choose to do and not do? With whom do I spend my time? How much effort do I expend on each action or interaction? What standards of quality do I have?

When thinking about yoga as an eight-limbed path, I recognize that I am entering the second stage of this path: self-study, which includes turning inward and concentration.

In one of my favorite yoga texts, Meditations from the Mat, Rolf Gates describes turning inward this way: 

“In my own life, this was the point at which I began to…cultivate and honor my own intuitive powers…. We can start by simply becoming aware of the process by which we arrive somewhere. Note the moment, the point, where your experience departs from resistance and moves into understanding. Begin to witness how it is you gain wisdom from your actions.”

Wow. This is big. I have read those sentences so many times, but understanding what they say, and then to applying that understanding to one’s life are challenging. For me, observing and reflecting on some of my habits has been a concrete entry point into self-study. Two habits I’ve been cultivating in the last several months are meditating most days and doing asana practice four times a week. Last week, I wrote about my resistance to meditating. The funny thing is, after writing it down, my resistance was diminished and my meditations came more easily – I had shifted into a place of understanding, shifted from compliance to engagement just by noticing and reflecting on where I was with the habit.

Our teacher Jeff said, “Minor adjustments can lead to big change.” He gave us the metaphor of an airplane making a tiny course correction to end up at a wholly different destination. I hang on to this idea of incremental change like a lifeline as I make slow, yet steady growth.

Taking Time to Tune In

"This being human is a guest house

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness

comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your

house empty of furniture, still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the 

door laughing, and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a

guide from beyond.” - Rumi

I marvel over how much practice it takes to follow this wisdom from Rumi. Mornings when I meditate, I see and greet my emotions, paying attention to who the “new arrivals” are each day. But when I skip morning meditation, it is much too easy just to roll into habitual actions that don’t demand that I pay attention, basically slighting the “guests” of my emotions. It’s like saying, “Oh, yeah right; you’re here! Help yourself to whatever is in the kitchen— hope it’s sufficient!” I would never treat a guest this way, so why do I sometimes treat my Self this way?

So, my first step is forming the habit again- being consistent with morning meditation. It’s the equivalent of “showing up on the mat”. I’m batting about 50% right now when it comes to AM meditation. I can do better.

And then there’s another step, born out of the first: making it a habit motivated by commitment to my own deep goal rather than a habit of just going through the motions. In the organization where I work, we often speak of students acting “out of engagement rather than compliance”. I find it amazing that I can slip into “acting out of compliance” even when I am my own teacher! I have to *allow* myself to engage. That probably means greeting some surprising visitors. I’m sure I’ll learn from them.

Being busy does not equal being alive. This being human takes practice. 

In & Out: A New Take on Breathing

“As I breathe is how I perceive. What I perceive is what I receive.” ~ Ed Harrold

One of the 8 limbs of yoga is mindful breathing. There is not a single bad thing about mindful breathing. On the contrary, the high-level list of benefits fills a page in our yoga teacher training manual. I sort of intellectually knew this to be true, but I had never practiced mindful breathing until about a year ago, when I found myself in a meditation class mostly by default and ended up really enjoying it.

Pema Chodron, the Buddhist monk whose writings I’ve been delving into lately, has quite a lot to say about breathing. I am learning from her  about Tonglen practice (which Pema describes beautifully in this post). In short, Tonglen is a form of mindful breathing where you breathe IN pain, suffering, struggle, fear—and you breathe OUT pain-soothing relief. 

This approach is antithetical to other messages I recall hearing, like “Let go; just breathe it out; exhale your pain.” Her take surprised me, so I’ve been trying it during short, 10-minute morning meditations to check my own experience of it, and It is making sense to me!

I am a beginner when it comes to learning about Buddhism, but Tonglen is an example of exactly what I appreciate about it and have to learn from studying it: Buddhism is oriented toward what is present and real, simple but not simplistic, generous in intention.

Tonglen exists as a breathing and meditation practice because there IS pain, suffering, and fear - and instead of denying or praying for different, this practice asks us to see it, look at it,drink it in. And then what we exhale and expel is soothing, loving. That is beautiful to me. It reminds me that each of us is capable of processing negativity to ease our own and other’s suffering.

Working On My Face

Our class of 24 aspiring yoga teachers had just completed our own 60-minute yoga sequences, practiced simultaneously in the same room, yet with each of us immersed in our own journey. During this time, our three teachers moved about the room, giving individual adjustments and noting patterns across the group on which to provide us feedback.

Besides some helpful pointers related to alignment, Kirsten noted, “You guys need to work on your faces.” We tittered—not your average piece of advice. She elaborated, “When you are a teacher, people will be tracking your expressions, looking to you throughout the class not only for guidance with postures, but also to channel your energy. Your approach to yoga shows on your face, and many of you are grimacing your way through your practice. Can you focus intently and still project calm?” She urged us to be aware of what we are coonveying in any given moment.

Her eyes twinkled as she described two students in a recent class doing tree pose: one, a woman striving to keep her bent leg pressed high on her thigh, face stern, brow furrowed as she held her one-legged balance; the other rested her bent leg on the floor like a kickstand, holding the “easiest” form of the pose, yet radiating a brilliant smile. “The kickstand woman, really doing her yoga - that makes me happy,” Kirsten beamed.

 It is one thing to hear Kirsten’s message loud and clear, and a wholly other thing to practice it. Though Kirsten’s feedback was to the group, I knew her message applied to me. Throughout my adult life, I have been given feedback that my expressions sometimes cause consternation. Particularly when I am puzzling something out or concentrating hard, I know I project a look that is off-putting to others, with downturned mouth and wrinkly forehead. Even though I’m “just thinking”, my look appears disapproving.

So, for the last few weeks, I have been practicing being aware of and altering my “basic” expression. When I am reading, walking, working on the computer, listening to something, driving, and yes, doing asana practice—I work on keeping the corners of my mouth turned slightly up instead of down and lifting my brows  as much as possible. Of course, I still catch myself forgetting often; I have years of habit-formation to undo! But what a difference it makes! I actually find myself laughing out loud more often while reading, being a better listener, and feeling more forgiving of myself during yoga classes. Though Kirsten’s original feedback was really oriented toward awareness of what we project to others, I am surprised at how much “working on my face” actually alters my attitude toward my self and the present moment. 

Image credit: Thank you, Bill Watterson, for Calvin.