Braiding Life Into Yoga Honestly, 06/25

A strand:

Years ago, a friend and longtime yoga client had a really difficult birth. All worked out well in the end but her birth canal was too narrow for the baby and so she had to have a C section. She fought really hard to make a vaginal birth work, to the point where, after pushing hard for hours, she nearly destroyed her uterus, seriously risking her baby. When things were getting visibly risky, she turned to her husband and me and asked why we weren’t cheering her on. She accused us of supporting the doctors in ‘giving up’ and having a section.

The truth was that no matter how good she was at breathing, meditating, and visualizing, the bones around her birth canal were not going to change. We knew it was time to surrender but she saw that as failure, not success.

This woman had drawn up a birth plan, spent hours in meditation, yoga, and visualization to have the ideal birth. When it did not work out as she had planned, she had a very hard time. She spent years trying to compensate for her daughter’s seemingly inadequate birth experience. It was as though she just hadn’t done enough to make it work out as she had wanted.

Another strand:

I am training a small group of magical women to be coaches and faculty alongside me in my programs. In our conversation last night I shared that I feel like a tumbleweed in someone else’s windstorm. In many ways, my life is feeling somewhat out of my control and my mantra of “I live with ease” is a little laughable.

I feel like somehow I should be able to be in a different place as opposed to where I am. Why is my weight up again? Why am I feeling back in familiar struggles of self-doubt and scarcity? I know they feed off of each other – fear raising cortisol which raises inflammation – but stopping the cycle is easier to talk about than actually accomplish.

I am learning how much I hold together and how little I trust others to share the burden. I am experiencing the after effects of living in a fairly constant state of brace, which is ironic considering how many people say that I am always so relaxed (apparently I missed my calling as an actor). I am now exploring other ways of being, but I have a long way to go to release the inflammation and tension that I have accumulated.

In my darker moments (can you say 3am), I find myself thinking that I am obviously not practicing enough and surely that means that I am a fraud. Gotta love that imposter syndrome! I am berating myself for not being ‘yoga’ enough to feel peaceful.

A final strand:

This past Solstice, I was in Algonquin Park at our cabin when a horrific storm blew through. I have never before seen lightning flash continually like a rave for hours on end. The air pressure was incredibly intense as all the air got pulled to the downburst or tornado that was brewing just a few lakes over.

All I could do was lie in bed and visualize a big safe bubble around our cabin. All I could think about was how the planet felt so angry, and I could not blame her. On Sunday, when the humidex was climbing beyond 40 degrees, I heard that, prior to that storm, Iran had been bombed by the States and it all felt like we were literally on fire.

I sat in despair at humanity’s seeming inability to make the choices necessary to save this beautiful planet.

Let’s bring this all together.

The Braid:

In my class on Tuesday, the sighs were fewer than I had expected considering the calamitous weekend we had just had. I knew people would need to release the after effects of a very stormy time and, after 3 decades of teaching, I knew that the mat would be a great place to do that. There were not enough yawns for me. I started to talk about anger and how yoga poses are really great for channeling anger and getting it out in a way that causes no harm. Backbend after backbend, we started to express. Finally in fish, there was release. Pranayama and asana unpacked and unwound the intensity of solstice 2025.

In that class, as with so many classes, we walked the fine line between the sanctuary of practice and the noise of the world. Yes, our practices ideally are peaceful but not because we exclude the noise. We must use our practices to be IN the world and the spectrum of emotions that life brings to our hearts. We don’t practice to deny ourselves but to truly know ourselves.

Do you remember when you first started practicing, how you became more sensitive? Maybe you were less tolerant of hot spice or you didn’t want the music to be as loud as before? Words may have stung a little more easily. The practice of yoga was shaving off the callouses that you had formed through life’s bumps and bruises. The body cast was unwinding. This unwinding is not an easy process, but it sure is a necessary one. It is also, I am discovering, a never ending journey. Like Nash the Slash (google him), the bandages unwind.

In the tender layers that are exposed, we have the opportunity to see our sweet selves more clearly and take better care.

Life will not stop throwing us curveballs and stressors. Now we are challenged to manage the noise of the world as before, but with a more sensitive skin and heightened awareness. How is a nervous system supposed to cope with that?

Well, one way is through getting to the mat to go into interoception. As we practice Pratyahara, we limit the input of stimulation. “Now we can see what is on the shelf and deal with it because we have stopped the rush of more flying at us,” I said to a client yesterday. Through sense withdrawal, breath practice, and then asana we are able to digest and release the holding within.

Doing a yoga class is not going to create world peace or take all of your troubles away. It will however, give you an hour or so to pull over and decompress. And that is really important to give you the energy to get through the next storm.

Practicing yoga is not a get out of jail free card. It is a ticket to your evolution and transformation as a soul. It offers tools that can help in self-forgiveness, compassion, and even love. But it does not guarantee the birth you dreamt of; the body you think you should have; or global or even personal peace that lasts more than the blink of an eye.

Do you remember in the 90’s when the manifestation movement really got fired up? Books like The Secret were released promising that anyone and everyone could have everything they wanted if they were simply able to visualize it. Suffering could end through a transcendental style of manifestation and visualization. Seemingly, if you are unable to get that Malibu mansion, you must be a loser at meditation and practice. If you were suffering, you obviously weren’t doing it right. It was also around this time that yoga studios started to crop up on every street corner promising an outer shine and a butt that looks great in yoga pants.

How did we get to the place where a Maserati and unblemished skin were evidence of a skilled meditator’s excellent work? When did it all become more about outer looks than inner stillness? Inherent in all of this is that those that have C-sections; other than perfect bodies; or whatever stress you would like to add here, are fundamentally failures. It is a failure of character that life isn’t smooth.

Are we missing the gift or the very point of it all? I think so.

The Curious Yogi women chose to read Pema Chodron’s book Comfortable With Uncertainty and I must say that I bow to their wisdom. What a book to read at this time of heightened uncertainty!

Chodron speaks of the Bodhichitta – the noble or awakened heart – as that which does not move away from suffering but toward it. The Bodhichitta allows the sorrow to flow through and be felt. The Bodhichitta is not looking to avoid or be ‘above’ this human story, but in fact deeply engaged in it.

Practicing Yoga should not be mistaken as a means to perfection or even ease. It takes us down the dark alleyways of our truth and insists that we act on our soul’s calling. The practice is designed to unwind the ignorance and illusions that we measure ourselves against as though they were Satya. You can’t unwind the ignorance and illusions without first meeting them and understanding them. You can’t discern between Maya and Satya without some serious interactions with both.

The more I do this work, the more demons I meet within me. However, the more demons I meet, the better I am at meeting them. Like Grover facing the monster at the end of the book, I know that the best protocol is not to turn tail and run, nor is it to raise my sword against the demon. The best path is to sit down, down regulate my nervous system, and pour a proverbial cup of tea for the one that has appeared.

As with all yoga practices, from pranayama to mantra, the only way forward is to expand my knowledge of this moment and the demon within it. And the demon is never evil. The demon is me, most often in the shape of fear. What I as demon really need is to be held, loved, and supported. That is the only path that can unwind this cluster of Maya. However, this does not guarantee that what I want will come. It only guarantees that I can feel less attached to whether it does or not.

I am a master manipulator. Being mostly water, I know how to move earth or move around it if it refuses to budge! If I want something but know that I have to befriend a demon to get there, I will sometimes try to steal the puck. Let’s say for example, that I really want X amount of income to arrive. I enrol in the Money Story course (super useful BTW); I change my behaviour around money for one day; and maybe I do some meditation and pretend to trust that I am always supported. Now, why isn’t the money here? Surely if I am a good girl and I do my homework, I’ll get rewarded right? Surely I will get the mansion in Malibu!

I will go into the process of unwinding a pattern, but I carry the attachment to its result. I don’t actually trust anything. I manipulate it. All this does is actually raise cortisol and monkey mind behaviour.

Do you do this?

Pema Chodron encourages us to show up in the imperfection without willing it to change. That is the truest goal of the seeker. And holy crap, is that ever hard!!!!!

The entire Bhagavad Gita is about un-attaching from the outcome. It is about doing the action for the sake of the action and its potential outcome. But then, let go! Trust!

My friend’s baby has had a healthy life. Although we lost touch years ago, I am sure she is a capable and successful adult. I am still the same level of teacher that I was last month before my body image started nagging at me. Nothing in my capabilities change because of a few pounds or stabbing a spike in my calf (longer story for another time). And lastly, our world is actually on fire. We are in a very unstable and uncertain time. I don’t know which way we are going, but I will continue to work toward the way I hope we are going.

We practice so we can remember that we are whole, magnificent, and so very loved. We practice so we can remember that this is a temporary housing for a spiritual being in a human body. We practice so we can remember to love this body, mind, and full of holes life.

We practice so we can let the suffering in and then let it out. Living is no walk in the park but practice brings the essence of grace and sweetness into it.

Let’s stop trying to be something we are not. Yes, be the best version of you, but don’t try to be anything that isn’t actually YOU. Sink in.

YOU are exactly where you are supposed to be.