Sarcasm can be demotivating

Edited from a Facebook meme (cursing removed):

My thoughts: choose your words wisely if you like good company, good behavior, good friends. Few things are as demotivating being darned if you do, and darned if you don't. This rang so true for me as a parent, as reflecting back as a child, and in a family where some members cannot resist being snarky, either as an attempt to be funny, offer back-handed insults, or even be passive-aggressive (or all). My armchair psychologist stood up sharply and said "Oh my, I never thought of this way! It makes so much sense!" 

Do no harm, the yogis say - to oneself, and to others. Do we not see ourselves in others? Can we not forgive small transgressions? Can we be uplifting instead of destructive? Must we always tear down to release our own frustrations, or can we (use yoga) to dissipate that built up tension in other ways (more about that in another post).

I am guilty of being party to participation in this activity, and also been victim of it. I think we all have. It's time to recognize that, and work to be better. On both fronts, fully acknowledged.

Getting Political - about the value of human life

A wise friend, a lawyer no less, wrote this the day after a tragic event. She compassionately brings up a cultural lack of compassion, anger, disenfranchisement and dismissiveness, and in the face of the natural urge to place blame, speaks of trying to make a difference to help us move forward.

I quote her directly, and with honor.

I will tell you with 100% certainty that our schools are not equipped to deal sufficiently with the mental health well-being of our children and their classmates. And, early intervention is crucial. How about instead of funding a wall and more weapons of mass destruction, we prioritize our schools - the place our children reside 35+ hours per week - the place that is very often the only surrogate for a child's missing stable home? How about instead of pumping money and energy into our prison system, arming guards, and adjudicating criminal behavior post-event, we pump money and energy into bolstering compassionate care for troubled children and their families (who are often beyond desperate for resources and help)? So many of these young people are written off as bad, crazy, damaged, etc., when they actually are suffering horribly - often in silence - often unaware of it themselves - mental illness, early childhood trauma, attachment disorder, PTSD, you name it. How about applying early compassionate care in the form of emphasizing reparative health and training instead of emphasizing punishment and judgment? Instead of ignoring suffering children who are walking time bombs, how about believing in our ability to assist them and invest in them - hey, if we don't care about them, well then what about the lives of their future victims ? How about taking, dare I say, a more matriarchal approach? Think about how difficult life is for YOU, as an adult, with presumably developed coping skills. Now imagine life for a child with little support.

Positive Mental Attitude

Every Cell in my body

vibrates with energy

and health. Loving myself

heals my life.

I nourish my mind,

body and soul.

My body heals quickly

and easily.

Solidarity and Kaivalya

I just read my son a book called The Yellow Star - recommended to me by a friend at his school, who read it to their children. I think for me this sums up everything my parents ever taught me about "good" and "right" and being strong, and being a community member. It's how I always felt in my heart and how I want to teach my son to be. It's not just about "standing up for the little guy;" it's about being willing to put yourself out there to make a statement about justice. It's about knowing in your heart that you are part of a bigger community and you must act to support it even if you are not personally needing the direct support.

The story was the legend of King Christian X of Denmark. The book acknowledges that the story in it's oral and written history, nor the version in this book, were fully true, but adapted version of an allegory for solidarity and support for ones brethren. 

The author writes in the end notes:

And what if we could follow that example today against violations of human rights? What if the good and strong people of the world stood shoulder to shoulder, crowding the streets and filling the squares, saying ,"You cannot do this injustice to our systems and brothers or you must do it to us as well." - Carmen Agra Deedy, The Yellow Star

You've read about the family that hid Anne Frank, and you've heard of Schindler's list and the woman from Poland who rescued children from the Holocaust. Many people are offended by any reference to this horrid event with respect to current political issues in the US. But I think the larger point here is that some people are willing stand up for what they believe in not with violence and guns (which happens too) or a military coup, but by thinking clearly, following their hearts, and taking a risk...and this is important.. for someone else. 

For supporting others and ourselves we have terms like have ahimsa (non harming), seva (selfless service), bhakti (devotion), sattva (purity), satya (truth), and all the yamas (ethics) and niyamas (observances) at deal with self conduct/care and ethics.... and a new one for me - KAIVALYA.

In the yoga sutras, the fourth chapter talks about moving from "I" based consciousness to self realization - a release of ego to find enlightenment. The Sanskrit term for this liberation is kaivalya. The yoga path is designed to help us find our way to our truest self, so that we may free ourselves from the idea that we are individual, and rather we are all interconnected, part of one big universe - one divine thing.

In order for us all to be free, we must not only acknowledge that we are "in this together" (in the immediate but also metaphysical sense) but also that someone that affects one affects us all - and we are obliged by the deepest consciousness to support whatever needs supporting. To stand shoulder to shoulder (or mat to mat, or heart to heart) and say "we are one."

Love and light, Om Shanti, Shalom.

Yamas - a little Etymology, a little Philosophy

Yamas are the first of the eight limbs of Yoga; the first of the eight guiding principles for helping to lead a yogic lifestyle, or, more generally, to "calm the fluctuations of the mind" (for whatever purpose you choose).

The word "yama" comes from the verbal root [yam] which means to subdue or to control, which implies that these "yamas" are controls or acts of curbing or suppressing our behavior (towards others or the outer world) to help us become more "yogic."

There are five of these principles, or disciplines, in the yamas, as follows:

Ahimsa: non harming. Ahimsa is a term meaning 'not to injure' and 'compassion'. The word is derived from the Sanskrit root hiṃs – to strike; hiṃsā is injury or harm, a-hiṃsā is the opposite of this.

Satya: truth. Satya is the Sanskrit word for truth. It also refers to a virtue in Indian religions, referring to being truthful in one's thought, speech and action.

Asteya: non-stealing. Asteya is derived from the Sanskrit root word "steyn" which means ‘to steal’ to ‘to rob’. The word for a thief is "steynaH". "Steyam" is the word for theft. By adding the prefix "a" it becomes ‘asteya’ which means "to not steal or rob".

Aparigraha: non-covetousness. This word is derived from the root word ‘grah’ which means to hold or grab something. Adding the prefix ‘pari’ alters the meaning only slightly to mean ‘hold onto something’. Adding the second prefix ‘a’ negates the meaning of the word and thus ‘aparigraha’ is variously translated as ‘non-hoarding’ or ‘non-possessiveness’, non-indulgence’ or ‘non-greed’ etc.

Brahmacharya: virtue/vitality. This complicated concept is a merging of two Sanskrit roots: Brahma (shortened from Brahman) meaning "the one self-existent Spirit, the Absolute Reality, Universal Self, Personal God, the sacred knowledge;" and  charya which means "occupation with, engaging, proceeding, behaviour, conduct, to follow, going after." This yama can mean an overall lifestyle that helps the pursuit of sacred knowledge and spiritual liberation. It is a means, not an end, and usually includes cleanliness, ashimsa, simple living, studies, meditation, voluntary restraints on certain diet, intoxicants and behaviors (including sexual behavior).

Wanna talk about the yamas? Come visit me in a class this week... I definitely have yamas on my mind. http://byomyoga.blogspot.com/p/calendar.html

Coming soon: the Ni-yamas (restraints of the self)

Ahimsa as Non-Judgement and more limbs:

Is it judgement, as a trained practitioner /instructor, when you are a participant in a yoga class and you see someone doing something so wrong for their body that you want to reach out and say "wait - that's going to hurt...please don't." Or is it concern? Or busybodiness, or nosiness, or just plain invasive? What is the boundary?

I have to think about it in this context: If I was a nutritionist, would I stop someone who was overweight at a restaurant from dipping their french friend in cheddar cheese soup, drinking a milkshake then going outside for a smoke? But then again, coming to a yoga class to learn is different than coming to a restaurant to eat. If someone offered me bad quality food, I WOULD want another food specialist to speak up and say "that's not properly cooked chicken you might get sick" or even "those greens weren't washed - be careful." Maybe these analogies fail to describe the issue with which I'm struggling.

If the answer to the above hypothetical questions is "no, don't interfere" then who am I as a yoga practitioner to want to help someone out of a knee-torquing foot alignment in warrior one (time after time after time in a hot flow class) or a L5-S1 binding tailbone-up hip-flexor tweaking stance in utkatasana, 10 breath hold?

I've out-of-turn spoken up in someone else's class to offer assistance to another participant who asked for help and been told "I've GOT this" by the instructor. I promptly and sincerely apologized as I realized i had overstepped boundaries. When I'm a class attendee, I have to struggle sometimes to outwardly say nothing when I see bad alignment, or have an instructor doesn't seem to notice struggling students (self included), or cues sequences with transitions that seem to go against the grain with which I was taught - embracing ahimsa (non harming), going inward (pratyahara), balancing strength and softness, effort and ease, being mindful of how your body works, and not forcing it to do things beyond normal limits. In these situations it is supremely my challenge, my process to stay focused on just being in my practice, and filtering in the pieces that work, and out the ones that don't, trying not to NOT concern myself with what's going on around me. Essentially NOT judging the instructor or the studio, and trying to be grateful to have a place practice.

But it's hard. I feel like the message of yoga, the purity of it, the real meaning, gets lost amid the sweat and the "power" and the "pushing to your edge" as studios compete for business and market share and instructors are churned out with less functional teaching skill and more aptitude for making playlists and repeating scripts that are in practice hardly one size fits all.

Sure, I could practice at home and avoid the stress of having to be in a "less than ideal class situation." Frankly, I still find that hard to do, and I really do like group energy. I like the ceremony of walking into a place designed for practice, with sacred space, special lighting, candlelight, and no first world distractions - the biggest challenge not being doing laundry but not THINKING about the laundry I have to do when I get home.

So I go, and I try to focus (dharana). try to be content (santosha), try to flow and breathe until maybe just maybe I'm not watching someone else's warrior two, good or bad, aligned or not, but I'm in a sublime state, easing my way toward dhyana (flow of concentration).

Some studios, and some classes, I never have the struggle of watching other people, or critiquing the teacher. I"m not sure why that is, or what leads to that. is it something purely in my state of mind, the teacher the moon cycle or just fate? Regardless, I'm always grateful to have a class to attend, but I guess I just have expectations that really nicely appointed studios with well worded flyers are going to have skilled yogis leading classes, that I"m going to be educated a bit in the deeper aspects of yoga (not just asana). I guess the learning is more subtle than that, that it (aha moment) comes from within.

So, this post has been a bit revelatory, but I'm still a shade disappointed in the most recent classes I took. One specific example: an instructor actually said "grab your foot and use your leg as leverage to go deep into the twist and crack your back." But I have reaffirmed my path for making sure that *I* teach with integrity and heart, from the source of the eight limbs and not from ego... giving people information that helps them better their practice, not just sweat or pat themselves on the back from having forced their way into a pose.

An instructor with a very different set if teaching skills did pleasantly surprise me and enrich my morning by reminding me "you DID show up so that's the biggest step" True that. Satya all the way.

Emotional Bullying - let's try AHIMSA

So I'm thinking... bullying. yeah, it sucks. stop bullying in schools. Of course - teach children that it's inappropriate behavior to bully.

But the problem is, when it comes down to it, managing in LIFE is about managing bullies every step of the way, not just in school. Bad bosses, sleazy car salesmen, angry boyfriends/girlfriends, thoughtless drivers, indignant cashiers, frustrated teachers, ANYONE makes you feel "do it my way or ELSE I'll hit-expose-hurt-embarrass-dismiss-overcharge-belittle-ignore-undermine you.

Let's be honest - we ALL do a bit of huffy bravado chest thumping when we tell some customer service agent "If you don't satisfy me I'll NEVER buy your product again and I'll tell everyone you suck." We may be talking about a product, but someone reads that letter - someone is on the other end of that phone call. Have you given a sneer to the cashier at the grocery store when they weren't moving quickly. Yup - that's bullying, in a manner of speaking. What positive response can you expect to get form such haughtiness?

There's bullying on the global scale too - world politics is one big game of Who's the Biggest Bully - genocide, class struggles, interment camps, castes, republicans vs. democrats, police vs. the people, people vs. the people, government vs. the people.

Bullying, though I hate to admit it, is part of life. I mean, that's how animals assert dominance right? And we are animals. We cannot control human behavior any more than we can control any animal behavior.

When it comes down to it I don't really think we can stop bullying. BUT - we can modify how we act, we can adapt and learn from mistakes that have caused insult in the past. We can pass on lessons of AHIMSA (peace and love and gentility and non-harming) to try to make this world, even our small ones, a better place.

So what we do? How do we help our children, not just protect them but prepare them for the world where we can't always talk to a principal, or swoop in for rescue? Well it seems to me that is a three step process.

1) TELL them bullying is wrong because it hurts people's feelings.

2) SHOW them bullying is wrong by modeling thoughtful behavior ALL THE TIME. Even when someone cuts you off on the freeway. Even when you are in hurry and you want someone to drive faster. EVEN when you know you are right but especially when you know you are not.

3) TEACH them how to adapt, how to be happy, how to be strong, how to be self-confident and know when to engage in dialogue, and when it's smart to walk away.

Trying. In loving parenthood attempts, one day at a time.

Non Judgement

A sign at the gym where I was teaching read "Your body is a reflection of your physical standards."

That message alone would discourage most people I know from going to the gym. Is the gym implying that someone with a prosthetic or in a wheelchair or who had a congential problem or is trying to get fit but is overweight has low standards?

Now I'm sure it was just someone's attempt at being pithy and trying to garner memberships and they didnt' think about it too much. But really, that was pretty shallow and callous.

In a cheerful demeanor I suggested they change it to be less insenstive, less judgemental, less superficial.

I didn't state this but I would prefer (at least in the context of a "fitness gym"):

"Your state of mind has a direct relationship with the health of your body. Elevate the fitness of both!"

Pinatas, Ahimsa, and Charity

I take a small departure from the purely yogic world to talk about something that came up for me at my son's 6th birthday party yesterday.

Instead of a traditional candy filled pinata, we filled one with 720 ping pong balls, and told the kids that when the goodies fell out of the pinata, they were to collect whatever they wanted, and then put them in any of six boxes around the party site - 2 each for charities that Eli picked out. Ever ball was worth five cents toward that chartiy. Children were welcome to take some home as well. Though Eli thought the kids would be upset there was no candy, then scramble to shove ping pong balls into pockets and shirts and hands and pants seemed to entertain them well enough, as well as playing "basketball" tossing the balls into the boxes.

I was pleased with my cool new idea, saving quite a bit of money by not buying candy, and sparing parents and kids the sugar hang-over as well as reducing the "gimme more candy" scramble the invariably leaves some kids crying.

But it turns out my new "trend" isn't so new... at some point in history, pinatas were used to help children learn religious lessons, with one of them being Charity. From the interwebs ""Finally the piñata symbolized ‘Caridad’, Charity. With its eventual breaking, everyone shared in the divine blessings and gifts." (see http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/459-history-of-the-pi%C3%B1ata).

Which brings me to my point. With these sweet and celebratory roots of the tradition, it pains me to see children elbowing one another to get at the candy. Which is why did the HUGE quantity of ping pong balls AND made the kids use a wiffle bat (so that more kids had a chance to play, and EVERYONE would get prizes).

But I started to question the practice in general when I saw that children that were having a difficult time NOT punching and hitting the pinata long before we were playing the game because they KNEW (well, assumed) that there was a ton of candy inside. I heard them say they "couldn't wait" and "I really want to SMASH it" That bothered me. A Lot. I mean, it's just a little game that sometimes gets you some candy - why was it jacking them up so damn much?

When the game started it was innocent enough. But some kids were so riled up, they tried to use the bat to tear the pinata from its hangar, tried to punch through the bottom and stab at it with the bat. Then when the first gifts fell from our pinata, a few grabbed at it and started to aggressively tear the panels open so they could dump out the contents. And then it got ugly (uglier) - kids on the ground having fun picking up the ping pong balls, but what I was drawn to watching were the few that tore the darn thing down from the tree, using hands, feet and the bad to beat it into submission, to absolutely dismember it. When the ball gathering had completed, the (battle) ground was littered with little yellow streamer paper and shreads of cardboard, dirtied and damp, he whole thing discarded and dismissed, as they all went on the enjoy the party.

I'm being a bit (ok, a lot) dramatic here, but what I felt when I watched this take place was a complete oxymoron of emotions. One the one hand, the charity experiment was WORKING - kids were loving the game, parents were loving the game, and there was much joy as balls rolled all over the grass so kids were spread out and NOT climbing on top of one another.

On the other hand, I felt a sinking failure as a parent: that my son and his sweet friends would participate in a mob that was bent on destroying something innocent. That platiutdes like "oh kids will be kids" and "they need to get their aggression out on something" were running through my mind and uttered by others. That I created a scenario that encouraged aggression and unregulated release of it through destruction. That I had tried to teach Tzedakah (charity) and Tikkum Olum (healing the world) but Ahimsa (kindness/non harming) had been lost - or at least misinterpreted.

I should have said "please do NOT get all Lord of the Flies on the pinata - once it opens we'll get the goodies out but we will NOT be tearing the thing apart limb from limb." I should have, but I didn't. I didn't want to be that parent that ran into a feverish group of children yelling "STOP" and (probably) not being heard, because, well, "everyone does this."

When did this trend to "grab the goods and then tear that thing limb from limb" start? And why do we... why did *I* ....let it continue?

Studies show that even young children can be easily led to participate in mob mentality (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=mob+mentality+children+studies&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0CBwQgQMwAGoVChMIiamBvP33xwIVgtSACh1YjQxP)

And as adults we engage in it all the time in SEEMINGLY harmless ways: sporting events, rock concerts, piolitcal rallies. How often do WE just let our "spiritedness" out in what might be a less than savory manner - how often to we show our children it's ok to act out, to lash out, to lose self control, as long as (you think) it's not harming anyone, or if there is a reward (candy?).

Anyway, I'm more than pleased that in the end, a few kids really really liked the message, as did my friends. And i know that it's just a pinata, really I do. But the issue of "what do we teach when we aren't paying (enough) attention" seems to be something to which I'll certainly (try to )be paying more attention.