TAKE TURNS WITH YOUR EMOTIONS
MARCH 9, 2010: So I read this great article abou Gary Lauder's clever idea to reduce traffic accidents: a traffic sign that says "Take Turns". I love this. It's solo yogic! It's simple, cheap, smart and kind. And if 50% of traffic accidents happen at intersections it could save lives. The yogi in me takes this suggestion and applies it to our emotions. So imagine you approach the intersection of your emotions (just like you would in your car) and you look around and politely allow the emotion you are feeling to cross over. Then the next emotion takes its turn quite politely. Splendid!
Yet as human beings we often push back our feelings creating in the flow of our lives a flood at some point of pent of emotions. Or we deny what we are feeling trying to run away from it. Neither of these works. When we allow our feelings to take turns we are really CARING FOR OUR FEELINGS. As Rumi writes; "It's good to leave each day behind, life flowing water, Yesterday is gone and it's tale told. Today new seeds are growing."
This is really getting to the heart of a Tantric practice which encourages us to embrace all of who we are. The sadness and the joy, the tiredness and the vigor, the fear and the love. This is a nondualistic approach to see that there is not a winner/loser or bad/good that we don't have to battle our emotions, thoughts or feelings any longer. Running away from what we feel will only prolong it. And all of our feelings can be put into 3 buckets: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. So as hard as it might be to heal and remain in a state of being healed we are taught through yoga to embrace your feelings, care for them.
A great meditation from Thich Nhat Hanh suggest we take a feeling, let's say sadness, and talk to your feeling: say to your sadness "breathe - I am taking care of you now." Acknowledge this feeling is you and as you breath out, let it go. Then allow for the next moment to unfold and the next feeling. Breath into that one. Take one at a time and stay with the flow taking turns. Most importantly know that whatever you're feeling is part of your humanness, love and hurt co-exist, one is the compliment to the other so to prevent staying in a state of suffering it helps to embrace all you feel and care for yourself. We literally learn about ourselves as we experience emotion, feeling and thought. We also become expert through this in the human experience. We can by caring for our own feelings learn how to care for how others feel.
If we can take turns in our emotions we can allow others to feel what they need to feel and take turns appreciating them too for their humanness. Through this we create a more polite world. A world of peace and authenticity. Love yourself, Love your life! Silvia
WHAT WE LIKE, WHAT WE DISLIKE: FINDING CONTENTMENT IN ANY SITUATION
FEBRUARY 3, 2010: I went back to read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and what I was focused on today as I prepared for Yoga Teacher Training focused on Inversions and Arm Balances was where she writes, “You must be polite with yourself when you are learning something new.” This could be applied to any situation whether it be a pose or a relationship with our partner. That we be polite with ourselves and see each situation, each moment as new so we grow our insight.
It is easy to let ourselves believe that doing only what we like (same old thing) will make us happy and doing what we don’t like will make us unhappy. Yogic philosophy would have us understand that this is too narrow a definition of happiness and that it actually sets the stage for unhappiness because our degree of contentment becomes based on something outside ourselves. For instance, if our partner does exactly what we want (meets all sorts of conditions) then we will be happy. Or if we have chocolate then we are happy, or if we lose 5 pounds. However true happiness is UNCONDITIONAL. This is defined as a state where we find contentment in any situation (tough pose, stuck in traffic, our partners moodiness, no milk in the house, illness, job loss).
So on the mat we meet poses that are our nemeses. We actually make ourselves face our discomforts to come to terms with why we don’t like something. Is it fear, or worry or embarrassment? And how do we respond: ignore them and don’t try, approach them timidly, get overwhelmed, get angry, blame the pose? What is really going on?
I promise, if you practice yoga you will learn to find more effective ways to face the challenges of your life. (You know the nemesis moments, your dislikes). YOGA IS A STUDY IN HOW YOU DEAL WITH DIFFICULTIES IN YOUR LIFE. That’s it. And can you make peace with what life is trying to teach you? Lessons in patience, in humility, in acceptance?
If we don’t apply this then we will continue to live imbalanced lives thinking that true happiness alludes us because it is only as a result of doing things we like (or having our family members or partners or bosses or colleagues do it all our way.). Essentially what’s strong will get stronger (our ego) and what’s weak will atrophy. We need this practice now more than ever! Mostly because the world is not a game of solitaire, this is a group activity. We share this space ship we call Earth with a lot of other creatures and the sooner we stop blaming others for the quality of our life the sooner the whole world will become MORE POLITE WITH ITSELF.
Love yourself, love your day, love your life, love everyone in your life! Silvia