What's (Your) Truth? (overdue day 21 of 21)

 We talk about truth (satya) a lot in yoga. It's also popular in todays' vernacular to broadcast being "authentic" and "real," but I'm wondering if while trying to express these things (to ourselves and to others) we don't just end up creating more stories that are still less than, well, truthful.

Imagine if you will, one hand you have "your truth" and in the other "your lies." Depending on your level of self-doubt, it is completely possible that what you think is truth might actually be a story you've conjured out of anxiety, depression, and/or ego. The hand holding the lie is actually the truth, and the truth is the actually lie. 

So here's the million dollar meditation point, all completely in my humble opinion. It really doesn't matter if you are going to announce your truth to the world or not. It only matters if you are going to be honest with yourself. So making sweeping declarations about the kind of person (you think) you are only have validity if you not only believe them but live them. If it feels conjured, then it's part of a façade. 

In Sanskrit the word for lie is the same as untruth: asatyam (literally, "not the truth"). Though this seems to linguistically imply there is only black or white, lie or truth, in reality it is one big gray area. Satya doesn't directly mean truth, it implies truth, or essence. or virtue. Adding the "a-" prefix changes the meaning to be the opposite of. So the context of the word carries the significance.

Same in English, though we do change the words to fit the context. We don't necessarily lie about our own story; we fabricate a story, we stretch the truth, we embellish for effect, we hide fact, we have the sin of omission, we gild the lily, we cast shadow of doubt, we prevaricate, we change tone to suggest we feel shame about something. So our truth carries altered essence no matter what if we aren't paying attention to simplifying, and seeing it through the most honest of lenses.

Sometimes it helps to be accountable to someone else when having a truth check in, like in therapy. Sometimes it complicates the process of finding truth. In yoga, our honesty process involves Pratyahara (withdrawing the senses), Dharana (concentration), and Dyhana (single pointed concentration), so it's very much an individual experience. There is no one else to validate/verify what you are finding. It's even more important then, on this path, to feel at home in your own skin, comfortable feeling vulnerable, and confident to feel, period. 

No one "muscles through" the eight-limbs physically or mentally, despite what modern incarnations that show short-cut asana mastery might suggest. No one need to supplicate or suffer at the hands of another, despite what some "gurus" might strongarm from their false pulpits. No one is incapable to doing yoga; there is a way to bring the practice to everyone if the teacher is truthful about their abilities. 

As for the practitioner, it is not for me to say by what truth you or anyone else must abide. When someone comes to the mat, all I can ask is that they consider that what they tell themselves may be as much a story as anything else, so just be in the moment and see if their perception of themselves changes. We need to be able to observe ourselves with open minds and hearts before we can know our truth. It's weirdly NOT intellectual. So we find out truth by following the path, by doing the work on the mat (and off), by releasing the need to hold on to any of the "not truths" and we peel back the pages of the stories we've written until we get a peek at what is deep down. We don't need to shout it from the rooftops, or write a song about it, or make some grandiose statement when we find it. We can just be essentially ourselves.

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.

Humility, a 8-limbs lesson

The last time I traveled to Sacramento I went to one of their local hot yoga studios. In fact, it seems like that's most if not all of what is up there, which is fine at least there are studios that I can afford.

Don't get me wrong I enjoy a good sweat just fine, and luckily after 11 years I (usually) know how to gauge myself to keep it real and out of potential injury (and I guzzle more water than probably two or three hot devotees put together). I'll usually position myself in back and just do the class a lot slower, because I know that if I build up too much heat I just pass out, or I render myself unable to stand up for a day or two because I've overstretched.

When the instructor asked who was new, I raised my hand as I hadn't ever attended one of her classes before. She started class with the usual "pace yourself, embrace the process" standard patter, but even though there were just a few newbies, neither she nor her unshirted mail assistant came by my mat for any adjustments or support. They both did seeme to pay repeat attention to a specific few regulars, one of whom was severe ectomorph, wearing a full arm sweater and full length leggings in a 95 degree room, bending her body in ways that in my training would indicate unhealthy wear and tear on joints.

Regardless, I was content just to have a place to practice that I could afford (and thank heavens for my amazing in laws that allow me the time to indulge by watching eli and letting me use their car).

After class upon exiting...wait, first I have to mention that more than one of their drippier students exited the classroom and sloshed through the lobby leaving sopping wet footprints across the very slippre tile floor, and didn't bother to mop up... so what did I do, I took my towel (and a few others from the dirty towel bin) and wiped that bodily fluid up, partly to prevent myself from slipping, partly to prevent others from slipped, and party to just call attention to it (gross) and hope someone would assist. Perhaps a bit passive aggressive, but it's just not appropriate to a) do that, and b) not fix that.

Ok, back to the story: I was cooling down in the hallway when a woman (a bit younger than I) said "Oh, you did really well for a beginner." I smiled and said thanks because any other response would have been, snide? defensive? egotistic? inappropriate in the face of what was supposed to be compliment? Mostly I realized she was trying to make a friend and had I said anything other than a genuine thanks I would have alienated the only person to try to make conversation with me

Those that have met me know I'm a bit of a chatter, a bit of an extrovert, very much vested in creating positive relationships (and sometimes too concerned with being liked). I have been told that "I'll talk to anyone" and know I get that from my very outgoing (and quite popular in his day) father and being someone that was TERRIFIED to open up to the world when i was an early teen, I LOVE that part of me now.

So when I had trouble engaging the front desk person in even business related conversation, and felt she looked past me my entire enrollment time to chat with her better knows, I was discouraged. And as a patron, frustrated, because she kept mixing up whether or not I had paid for and had been given a mat (no), a towel (yes), and a class (yes, and it turns out I already had a package of classes on the books that she didn't mention as she charged me for another series of classes).

In her defense, and before someone shouts "she was probably busy" I need to point out that I was the only person needing attention at the desk, everyone else just had to sign their name on a sheet so it wasn't much to ask for a BIT of focus, but oh well, I have my ADHD moments too.

So now that I have 10 classes at this place (and would feel petty asking for any money back), I need to bring myself back to a place a humility and:

1. be grateful that I have a place to practice, period;
2. be grateful that even one person did try to reach out to me and consider her words, truly, authentically, a compliment;
3. not mind if no one offers me an adjustment because it allows me to stay focused on me and maybe it means I'm actually in good alignment;
4. mop up sweaty footprints because it's the right thing to do;
5. being patient with the woman at the front desk because she's trying to do a good job, and well, I'm nice enough to not hold a grudge. 

In terms of the 8 limbs of yoga, this calls me to practice more on the Niyama facet of Svadhyaya which is self study and a whole bunch of non-judgement, as well as the limb of Pratyahara, or going in ward and withdrawing of the external senses (like, looking at someone else on their mat).

So, even though it's not my "ideal" studio, with my favorite teachers and familiar student faces, I am in fact getting an amazing practice sessions in yoga - far far more than just asana.