We’ve moved a lot in the last six years and he’s been to several different schools. Each time he’s moved to a new school he’s approached it with gusto and optimism. He had the faith of a child; he was going to be accepted and liked because this is a well ordered universe and that’s how things work. But, he’s older now. He’s entering into the world of  “tween-dom” and the resilience of “just wait until they see how slick I am at Minecraft!” is waning. He’s becoming self consciousness. The idea of starting all over again was too stressful. It was clear that no matter how great the school may be for him, we needed to respect his wishes.

This is an important distinction, one that is often hard as a parent to make. Parents are supposed to make decisions for their children. We are supposed to figure out what is best for them, tell them what to do. However, as they mature, we also have to take into consideration their burgeoning sense of self. We have to allow them to make their own decisions and respect that they may actually know their own minds.

As a teacher however, I do not have to toe this line. As a teacher I have to do the opposite. I must accept that my students are fully in charge of their own experience. And believe it or not, this is often hard to do. In fact, one of the most common thoughts my student teachers begin their training with is “I am going to teach the yoga that transformed me so that others will be transformed the way I have been.” On the surface this sounds like a lovely, well intentioned idea. However, it is terribly misguided. A belief rooted in the assumption that everyone wants what we want, or conversely, if they don’t want what we want they are wrong, is a recipe for conflict and disappointment. 

Like a specialized school designed to address the talents of specific children, yoga isn’t meant to convert or change others. It is meant to clear the lens to whatever degree that lens wants to be cleaned. Yoga will absolutely allow one to expand one’s consciousness beyond the mundane experience of being in a body, but yoga’s validity is not hinging upon that happening to every student of yoga.

The teacher’s role is not to save. It is to facilitate. The teacher provides guideposts and opportunity, but the experience, whatever it is, depends entirely upon the student. Understanding, transformation, if it takes place at all, arises from one’s own effort and will.

B.K.S. Iyengar once said “How can you know god if you don’t even know your big toe?” What a great question this is! How can we know anything about anything when we don’t even know our own minds? To presuppose that you know what someone’s motivations are, is to grant yourself an omniscience you do not have. We teach our children to share and tell them not to bite because they literally do not know any better. But when it comes to the motivations of adults, we have no real way of knowing what’s going on. Any time we step into the arena of deciding the emotionality of “why” someone is doing something, it’s a distraction. We’ve stepped out of the arena of our knowing our own big toe.

So, how can you know god when you can’t even keep yourself focused on knowing your own big toe? How can you say what is good or right for someone else?

You can’t.

When we sit as judge and jury on anyone, even if we are literally being called to serve on a jury of our peers, we don’t actually get to define their experience. We can cast a judgment on someone’s life, prescribe a punishment for a crime, we can look at the physical body and make suggestions based on what we see, but the internal life of that person will always be in their hands. What they choose to do with their punishment, what they do with our instructions, where they go in their mind, is up to them.

“Why would someone do that!?” Oh how I regularly find myself asking this question! And each time I do I take myself away from the work of finding right action.

If you are called to teach, do it. You don’t need a reason to do any more than you need a justification for learning or loving.  That pendulum swings both ways – you can’t know what motivates others and they don’t get to dictate what motivates you.

Work to understand your big toe.

That my friends, is a full time job.

Ouch.

These are harsh from any sibling, but it’s especially harsh coming from a little brother whose adoration has always been absolute. My boys have, for the most part, enjoyed a pretty close friendship. The bedrock of this friendship is Jai’s unwavering belief that Jack is the world’s greatest big brother. Jai identifies himself as “Jack’s Brother.” That’s how he introduces himself, how he knows himself. To Jai, Jack knows every good thing in the world, has shown him every good thing in the world, and always has his back. Because of this, Jai has always been happy to step back and bask in his brother’s glow.

That is, until recently. Lately they are like two little tributaries, diverging off in different directions. Jack sometimes just wants to be left alone. Jai never wants to be alone. Jack finds himself annoyed and frustrated by his little brother. Jai is constantly being hurt by the rejection. My hope is that some day they will merge back into the same river, that they will find the same flow, but right now they bicker. They pick on each other. They yell and fight a lot.  

Over the break Jack’s best friend spent a few days visiting us. Jack didn’t want to share his friend.  He was mean, telling Jai to go away, not including him. To someone who’s always been included in every activity, who sees Jack as his best friend, this hurt. It hurt a lot. So, Jai went for the jugular.

“I wish you weren’t my brother! I wish Z was my brother instead!”  

Jack was crushed. And then, of course, he got mad back. “Jai is the worst brother in the world! I will never forgive him! Never!”

My older son is at a (highly dramatic) crossroads. He can choose to retaliate, to say something cruel, to punch his brother. He can go on excluding him, tell him he’s a terrible brother, that he never wants to see him again. All the anger options were on the table. And they all looked pretty good. Anger and Revenge always come ready to party. They bring the dishes with the best sauces and most delicious toppings. Dripping in buttery pools of contempt and sugary indignation, they are so very, very appealing.

That is why, when I pointed out the small, steamed, unadorned plate of empathy and forgiveness, Jack gagged. Where’s the sweet satisfaction of retribution in a small plate of humble pie? I want to carbo load on gooey piles of hot, steaming anger! Where is my righteous heartburn if I put myself in someone else’s shoes?

I tried to reason with him, “Try and understand where Jai is coming from. How would you feel if you were being excluded?”

As Jack railed against my logic and I continued to try and reason with him I thought “oh man, I sound just like my dad!” and I groaned a little inside. My dad had this “empathy and forgiveness” lecture/sermon that he usually delivered after I’d had a fight with one of my sisters. I would sit on my bed, staring at the bedspread patterns, twirling a loose thread around my finger, and meow out while he droned on and on and on about how important it was to let go of your anger, to try and put yourself in someone else’s shoes, to forgive.

Of course he wasn’t wrong. To give in to rage, passionate anger and indignation is a kind of suffering. We are the ones who have to struggle through it and if we don’t let it go, it stays with us. It compromises our peace. It wears us down.

In my years of recovery after my dad died, I spent many a bitter thought lambasting my dad’s philosophy. I saw it as his manipulative way of not taking responsibility for his past, for forcing us into “forgiving” him and never taking responsibility. But, what I understand now is that he wasn’t telling me “just forgive me so I feel better about me,” but “forgive so you feel better.” He was trying to tell me that he couldn’t do it for me. I had to make that choice. I could hold tight to my anger forever, nurse it for as long as I wanted, or I could chose to forgive. Either choice is viable. But, either way I must choose.

My little pep talk with Jack yielded exactly zero empathy result. (I totally get why my dad held me hostage for so long – kids are stubborn!) I let him go and an hour later all the boys were playing together just fine. Such is the memory of a child!

However, I am still here thinking about anger. Anger is a force, a power. It’s not bad per say. There are times when it can be useful. But it is a powerful force. It can rule us or we can choose to master it. I know that I often use it to distraction. I get mad for petty reasons, I punish unnecessarily. I use it as a default in many ways for dealing with the day-to-day mundane things I don’t like.

And that’s an abuse of power.

With the inauguration less than 24 hours away many of us feel pretty angry. Understandably so. It’s important that we remember why we’re angry and remain vigilant in our support of those working for social justice and our public health.

It’s also important to remember how much that anger and frustration taxes us, how much it takes from us.

So what to do? I’m not entirely sure. I do know that I need to lean into my practice more. Yoga teaches us to be comfortable in the uncomfortable. It shows us how to engage while disengaging from the ego. It helps us remain calm and practical. These practices are going to be vital in the years to come.

Since I can not control anyone other than myself, I will offer you my own personal “treatise” for the coming administration in hopes that it might help you too:

1. I will continue to try and engage in political discourse with those who do not share my views respectfully and with an open mind.
2. I will continue to resist social injustice and support those organizations that align with my morals and values.
3. I will continue to teach my children the importance of empathy, sympathy and compassion (whether they like it or not).
4. I will try to do all of this with as little anger as possible.

When I step up to the emotional table and take a look around at all of the offerings, I will try and remember to choose the healthier, lighter options. I will aim to take small portions of the gooey stuff and go easy on the gravy. Hopefully by the end of the meal I will be able to walk away from the table less bloated and a little lighter.

I hope the same for you.

I’ve sat down a dozen times to try and write the opening of this newsletter and I keep getting stuck. I find myself just sitting, staring at a confused screen full of jumbled thoughts and messy sentences. I don’t have adequate words for what’s been happening in this country and in my own personal life. I am entirely inadequate. I feel completely incapable of completing the tasks set before me. Where do we go when we feel there’s so much to do, and so many people to protect, and we’re so full of worry and doubt that we just want to flee? I don’t actually have an answer for that. Oh how I wish I did!

However, I do know that we have to keep plugging along. We have to keep trying to be the best, most loving, most supportive people we can be. And to do that, we have to refine our resilience skills. Because resilience, the ability to accept that things are going to be hard and uncomfortable, but to keep doing it anyway, will fortify us.

Resilience can be learned. And I know this because I was in my late my 20’s before I had any resilience skills. Before that every time something got uncomfortable, I quit. I simply didn’t know how to be uncomfortable. When I was “bad” at something, I assumed that meant I was bad at that thing forever and gave up.

So how did I learn otherwise? Yoga, of course! The routine of a regular yoga practice, of teaching myself to just show up regardless of how “bad” I was at it, slowly changed my mindset and taught me how to try again. This seemingly basic skill, learning how to start all over again, created the conditions for success and wellbeing. Thanks so much yoga!

Now, I’m not going to say that yoga will fix the current state of affairs. It won’t. We can’t fix community problems by going to a yoga class. But, yoga can calm the mind. It can help unbind bound emotions and give us a moment of pause. And in those moments we find a path, a way of being of service, a way to hold down the fort, to protect others. The practice itself won’t do the big things, but it will direct us to ways that we can. So, get on your mat again and again. Use it to reveal the path you need to take to muddle through these murky waters.

And then, get off the mat and do the things. Use the practice to teach you to be flawed, but dogged in your pursuits. Don’t give up, but also know that you are going to have bad practices. And then get up and do it again. Be redundant in your effort. Show up every day and stick with it.

You are proficient, powerful and have so much offer so get to it!

Every time I read an article like this I bristle. One, because, as the director and owner of a yoga teacher training school, I am the accused and the accursed. It’s irresponsible people like me that are creating the glut in the market. And two, because, while I think this is an attempt to shed light on how yoga is being taught and passed on to the next generation, it’s actually a commentary on the changing economics of pedaling yoga. The commerce of yoga is not the same thing as the study of yoga. And lumping the two together is, and always has been, the problem.

Both the teachers showcased in these articles were “successful” yoga teachers. Meaning, they made good money. They had their own studios, they were given products, featured in magazines, etc. Then the waves of economy shifted, there was a ground swell, and they got swept up. When something like this happens there is questioning and inevitably that questioning is answered with a lot of finger pointing, shaming and recrimination. Such is the way of the world.

But here’s the thing; when you create and participate in a culture that glorifies your beauty and your physical prowess, one day you aren’t going to be the prettiest girl in the room. Some day there is going to be a new, younger, prettier thing and she is going to take your place. That is how that system works.

What happened to the economics of yoga (which again, is not the same thing as Yoga)  is something that has been in the pipeline for a long time. This “commercialization” was not an amorphic sneaky force that popped up suddenly. Putting beautiful and highly accomplished athletes on the covers of magazines and on products, offering swag to teachers and promoting them as “rock stars” has been the norm for over 20 years. And we, the generation of 40+ year old yoga teachers, are the ones who created and perpetuated it. It didn’t happen to us. It happened because of us. The mirror reflects.

The idea that yoga teachers are entitled to a good job because we have a lot of years of experience is hubris. Since when was our education and experience a guarantee of anything? Sure it can be helpful, but it is by no means a guaranteed ticket to ride. Yoga owes us nothing. We are here to serve, to participate, to do, to be. The choice to make teaching one’s sole means of income is one’s own. If I commodify my experience I have decided that my self worth is driven by a dollar amount and I am responsible for that decision. This is not to say that we are right or wrong for doing so, but no one owes us the right to make it so because we want it.

Allow me to provide a very different kind of “yoga career” narrative; I’ve been practicing yoga for 22 years, teaching for 18. I have thousands of training and teaching hours. I am both a skilled and qualified yoga teacher and I constantly endeavor to become better at my craft. Nevertheless, of my 18 years of teaching, only 4 of them have been spent without another job. Four. Fourteen of the 18 years of teaching I’ve supplemented my income with another, non-yoga related job.

Teaching to me is a gift, a blessing, a chance to share something I love. Because of this, I don’t look at the commercialization of yoga as the reason I had to work a second job or why my little school has remained little. In fact, I feel the exact opposite. Yoga is more popular today than it has ever been. More and more people are discovering its benefits. The huge money machines that pump out the silly, glitzy, over priced products are creating a steady stream of curious students. People who might not have ever been exposed to yoga are interested in this topic because the corporate machine has normalized it and I think this is a good thing. 

Are there piles of bad teachers and terrible classes? Yes, of course. This is the United States of  America. Excess is our calling card. But scratch beneath the surface and we find so many people who are interested in this subject, craving connection to others, looking for a way to experience health and wellbeing. They are seeking more information. One of the teachers in the above articles spoke about how, in each of his “bad” teacher trainings, he was routinely confronted with a room full of people with little or no yoga practice. He was forced to un-train bad habits, and basically recreate the wheel. While I understand objectively how frustrating that might be, I personally find it delightful! I love sitting down with a new group of curious and eager students, helping them figure out proper alignment, to engage in meaningful discourse, to facilitate loving relationships with themselves and others. To me, a 200 hour course is, at it’s best, a primer, a first step into deeper learning. It should teach you how to study, to pique your curiosity and inspire you to keep learning. It is a platform, a learning tool. And it is in no way sacred.

The demise or sanctity of modern yoga isn’t really an issue. Yoga will continue beyond this iteration. These teachings survive because they are Truth. And Truth is not affected by commercialism.

It’s not yoga’s job to support me. It’s not yoga’s job to ensure that I am able to continue doing what I’m doing. That’s my job. And we are not entitled to a life just because we desire it to be so. As I’ve mentioned before, one of my favorite stanzas from the Bhagavad Gita is “You are only entitled to the action, never to its fruits. Do not let the fruits of action be your motive, but do not attach yourself to nonaction.” (2.47) So do the work. If you are successful, so be it. And if you are not successful?

Find something else to do.

He failed a test. His teacher had given them a pop geography quiz before the break and he only got 1 out of 7 correct. Other kids in the class knew all of the answers and were going on the next round of a geography bee, but he was not. He “didn’t even know where New York was!” In front of his entire class, he failed.

Watching him paced the floor like a caged animal while choking down tears broke my heart. What a small thing to be so tortured over! A pop quiz? Geez, I’ve probably failed thousands of those!

But, Jack never fails tests. Learning has always come easy to him. He was reading novels before he lost his first tooth and he understands abstract concepts and complicated math better than most adults (present company included). He’s a brainiac who goes to smarty pants school with other brainiacs and has no idea what it’s like to struggle to learn.

He was at a crossroads. If he’s not smart, what is he? How can he live in a world where he fails at the one thing he’s really good at?

Jack’s feelings of worthlessness and identity-lessness in the face of a small failure are not unusual. In a job market that is increasingly competitive, our children are being raised to believe that they have to be the best at all times or some terrible impoverished fate will befall them. Likewise, our social media driven world glorifies a glossy, photoshopped perfection. Success is, more than ever, measured by a very outward display of accumulation. We succeed when we are well groomed, eat well prepared meals and can do handstands in the sand. When stacked up against cyber perfection, it’s not uncommon for most of us to feel defeated by our flaws.

And while I don’t find social media good or bad, it’s also not the whole story. Social media is the equivalent of our living rooms. It’s the place to show the nicest, most “successful” sides of ourselves; our family photos and vacation slide shows, cyber nic nacs and tastes. But, it’s not the whole house. We don’t show our closets or cupboards on social media (nor should we) and our ability to be resilient, pliant, flexible or agile in mind and measure don’t photograph well. Nevertheless, each of our lives are filled with clogged drains, closets we are trying to sort through and unfinished projects. Our life houses are stacked, top to bottom, day in and day out, with little and big failures.

That’s why for the New Year, I suggest we get good at failing. We need to get big and bold about our failures!

Using failure as a New Year’s resolution theme may seems tragically defeatist, but I don’t really think so. It’s important to learn how to fail well. Learning how to fail is key to unlocking a truly bountiful life. Learning to fail means that we trust that our self worth is not diminished when what we set out to do does not go as planned. It is understanding and believing that we are OK regardless of the outcome of our efforts. It’s the faith that we are allowed to try again. It’s the way in which we make it past week two in our resolutions and how we get busy doing the work of doing. In order to be successful, we need to get comfortable with being “bad” at things.

In yoga we talk about the idea of accepting where you are. I’ve often misinterpreted this as “where I am is OK, because sticking with this will make me better.” This is not the same thing as allowing myself the option of falling flat on my face, of looking stupid and feeling silly. Detachment is not being attached to the fruits of our labor. That means not being attached to getting what I want to happen, as well as, not getting attached to the things I did not want to happen.

Getting good at being bad teaches us that the discomfort we feel isn’t the whole story. It is a chapter, a passage, in the novel of our lives. It brings us back to knowing our intrinsic beauty. When we allow ourselves to be in process, to be efforting, when we know we are not diminished when we do not accomplish goals, we afford ourselves grace. We give ourselves permission to try again. We continue to grow. And growth is our birthright.

No matter what happens, we are perfect, beautiful and allowed to be here. When we provide a consistent, reliable do over button for ourselves it creates a groove. It teaches us the language of forgiveness and love. It reaffirms that this moment isn’t any more important than any other. When I know I am “good” at something I identify with it and I can no longer be. If I can hang onto “I am” then I can “be” anything. I can try. I can fail. No matter what happens, I am. Messing up, failing tests, failing at relationships, crashing the car, breaking a bone, going bankrupt, saying unkind things, cheating on a lover, none of these things is the sum total of who we are. Because we are. I am. Flaws and all.

In each training I ask my student-teachers about how they feel about “western medicine” because I’ve found that people’s feelings about this subject are similar to their political beliefs; they do not change easily. How they feel about about medications, namely antidepressants and anti anxiety medication, will often dictate how they intend to talk to their classes. If they fall into the “no meds” camp, they are running a great danger of creating conditions for suffering in their students. Therefore, it’s important that we as a learning community suss out our feelings before stepping into a classroom.

The United States is a melting pot of split personalities when it comes to our relationship with mental health. We have the best medications on the planet, the best psychiatric care, we know more than we ever have about potential causes and triggers of mental illness, yet we persist in stigmatizing it. Psychotherapy is still the butt of cocktail party jokes and medications are largely condemned as the means by which Big Pharma gets richer. If you need help and accept help, there’s something intrinsically wrong with you. A kind of wrong that makes you “less than” those who don’t need help. Accepting help is often seen as a flaw, something to overcome. If you go through a rough patch and come out the other side, you are a hero, a warrior. If you need this help the rest of your life, you have somehow failed as a person. It separates you from the rest of humanity. It keeps you from being able to make friends, from getting a decent job, it isolates you. It can be a twisted, painful situation for someone suffering from a mental illness. A dirty little secret you can’t tell anyone. Just imagine what it is like to live in a world that says “here are things that can help you, but if you need them you are bad. Oh and don’t tell anyone you are taking advantage of these things because they won’t want to hire you or be your friend.”

My family’s mental illness pedigree goes back many generations. It is a colorful patchwork quilt of alcoholism, anorexia, depression, suicide, bipolar disorder, mania and PTSD. Each of us contributes to the quilt in our own special way, but some of us add more squares than others.  One of the greatest contributors has been my dad. He suffered from type 1 bipolar disorder. Diagnosed when I was six and in and out of institutions, hospitals and prisons for most of my childhood, his life was a roller coaster of manic highs and debilitating lows. He would regularly take his medications and regularly throw them out, both with varying degrees of success. At the time of his death he was being weaned off one medication and onto something else. This caused him to slip into a hypomanic state. In his hypomania, he walked into the woods, got lost and died from exposure.

His meds basically killed him. The first medication made things worse, the second didn’t fix it. If he’d never started on that one he wouldn’t have had to move him onto something else. If the second had been more effective, he never would have had the anxiety attack that caused his brain to switch over into hypomania, etc. He died because of the drugs.

So, I am violently anti-meds right? No. I am 100% pro meds. GO meds!

Why?

Because, although my father’s case is extreme, I still believe modern medicine saved his life. Because, I have other bipolar family members who have done amazingly well on meds. Because, without meds, these family members would be dead by now.

Because, no matter what I think about the pharmaceutical industry or about healthcare in the United States, no matter how many close family members and friends I’ve seen suffer, I still do not know what it is like to live with a chronic mental illness.

And because of all this, I know that I can not judge someone else’s life.

My student-teachers will often say “yeah, but you are talking about extreme cases. Those people are really, really sick. What I am talking about is the person who just feels sad and can’t deal.” And no, I’m not. I’m also talking about the sad guy who “can’t deal” and goes to his doctor and asks for Zoloft. Him too. We don’t get to pass judgement on the degree of someone’s pain any more than we get to decide someone’s sexuality. Their choice is not a reflection of our hurts or our recovery, it is not related to our friend who was on meds and successfully got off them or about the family member who committed suicide because of them. No matter the belief; whether it’s that we are an overmedicated society that is too dependent on drugs, or everyone should be on something, we are not the judge and jury of someone else’s mental health.

Yoga teaches us first and foremost that the practice is personal. The first sutra of The Yoga Sutras says Atha Yoganusanam (1.1), Now the exposition of Yoga is being made. Now, meaning this moment, we chose to take this audience. We chose to sit at the feet of the learning right now. Not “when you are ready, turn to page six” or “next week we will cover this topic” but we do it in the present. We make a conscious choice. The doing is done by us. We chose. The second sutra, Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah (1.2), The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga, means to practice yoga, we control our mind’s chatter. We learn to reign in our mind and focus it.

Now I choose to control my thoughts.  

Not; “Now I choose to control the thoughts of others.”

Even when I am sure I know what everyone else should do, I must come to grips with the fact that that conviction is a distraction. A distraction that keeps me from doing the work of knowing my true Self.

If you have a visceral reaction to medications, if you feel strongly that everyone can and should get off their meds, that the world is overmedicated, that is totally, totally fine. You are free to believe whatever you want. Go for it. But, know that how you feel about medication is just a feeling. Feelings, even strong ones, don’t make us right. They just makes us opinionated. Opinions are not facts. Opinions are not truth. They are distractions.

Whether Prozac and its brethren are a deplorable representation of the state of life in the modern age, a reflection of our inability to cope, or a need being filled, doesn’t matter. Because yoga teachers are not preachers. We teach yoga. That’s it.

Teach yoga and practice Ahimsa by holding your tongue. As Satchidananda says “If by being honest we will cause trouble, difficulty or harm to anyone, we should keep quiet.”  

And if you can’t hold your tongue, then don’t teach yoga. Your visceral feelings about meds will not help someone decide what’s the best course of action for him/herself.

Each time you think about commenting on psyche meds or making a statement like “you don’t need that crap” try and remember that there is a human being on the receiving end of that statement. A person who showed up to the mat. They showed up. That’s enough.

That’s all we can ask of anyone who comes to our class.

However, I do not feel the need to bring these two systems to a peace accord. I do not believe, as is often touted in yoga circles, that I can make my capitalistic career yogic. “Conscious Capitalism” is an oxymoron. It places morality upon a concept, a thing. Things are not moral or amoral. They are things. A natural disaster is a disaster in name only. Nature shines and produces, rages and destroys. That’s what it does. Our feelings about destruction are not shared by nature. Capitalism produces and consumes for profit. That’s what it does. Therefore, conscious capitalism is a distraction. It takes the responsibility of consciousness off me. It anthropomorphizes a thing, giving it a moral compass it does not have. This is the antithesis of the yoga practice. I can not rewrite the terms of capitalism because it makes me uncomfortable.

I can, however, get comfortable with the fact that, in terms of my yoga practice, choosing to participate in capitalism is an imperfect choice. I, being a sentient being with a mind and body to govern, must acknowledge that I am making an imperfect choice.

Imperfect however, does not mean “bad.” It simply means not perfect. Perfect Love, Universal Consciousness, the Ultimate, is a concept that is nearly impossible to conceive, let alone achieve. How many of my day-to-day actions reflect this kind of experience? Very little. Probably none. But that doesn’t mean I am bad. It simply means I am not perfect. I am not fully realized.

Ironically, this imperfection is the thing that assists in revealing the Perfect to me. This is the yogic paradigm. We have to be in the world, to use the world, to reveal the truth that is beyond the world. Accepting my imperfection, my limitedness, accepting that my experience is skewed by my misconceptions is the thing that will afford me an opportunity to change. Understanding my actions as being imperfect calms down the constant babble of “Oh no I am right for doing this because I want it. And because I want it, it must be the thing I need to do!” These thoughts keep me furiously racing in the hamster wheel.

However, when I start to think “Wait, do I need this? Do I want this? Does the thing need to change or do I need to change?” then I slow down. Once I slow down, I see that I can also moderate my pace. I can get off the wheel if I want. It’s not until I come to the point of realizing my imperfection that I can even conceive of the notion that I made a choice. I choose to run fast or run slow. I choose to stay on or get off. The wheel is just a thing. The wheel is there, but I choose my participation. If I stay, according to the yogic paradigm, I am doing so consciously. I am here of my own free will. I am participating in my own experience. I can not change the storms or stop the rains, I can not change the wheel. But I can change my relationship to the wheel. I can change the way I think. That is the only thing I can do.

Making money as a teacher is not a yogic act. Giving away my teaching for free is not a yogic act. I can be just as invested in my generosity as I can in my greed. Both are actions. What is yogic is how I manage my mind when I act. Krishna tells Arjuna “You have the rights to action, but not its fruit” (2.47). How easy is it to act without wanting a reward? This is No. Small. Task. This is a Big Idea. A big concept to wrangle with and work on.  In order to do so I must accept that I willingly make imperfect choices. In doing so I become aware of my desires, my attachments to the fruits of my actions.

As a “householder,” a mother, a wife, lover of chocolate and cheese, a teacher, a writer, I work trying to let go of my desires for romantic love, praise, stuff and try. Invariably I fall short, but that is not a reason to bemoan the effort. The efforting is the thing. Consciously accepting that I miss the mark keeps me from getting distracted with useless attempts at justifying my choices as valid or invalid. It liberates me. It allows me to be forgiving of myself and forgiving of others for doing the same stuff. I am in it too. Being imperfect opens me to the Perfect because I see that we are all, everyone one of us, doing the best we can.

I often joke with my students that I have no misconceptions about my place in the cycle of samsara (the cycles of reincarnation). If reincarnation is real, I accept that I am coming around again. I tell them, “So, I’ll see you next time. We’ll get together and have a coffee!”

My treat.

A significant part of my work is spent teaching my teacher trainees how to “see” better, meaning how to look at each class as a real time event that needs to be tended to in the present moment. Classes need to be organized around our understanding of what is going on around us, but to do that effectively, we need to cultivate better vision.  Part of cultivating better vision is simply learning what goes where and how. This is the grossest form of teaching.  Beyond that a teacher must become competent at discerning if what I say either improves or compromises the class. To do that we first look for misalignment, for grunts and groans, for caught breathing, for lags and peaks in the classroom energy, then modify our teaching from there.

To refine our teaching even further, we can work towards cultivating awareness by observing the world around us and creating classes that take into consideration the experience of our students in the world.  To do this well, it’s best to start with the basics.  Remember that human beings are both organic and social creatures.  As such, two of the biggest contributing factors in our lives, either consciously or unconsciously, will be the seasons and culturally significant events.  It has been my experience that these two things are the greatest classroom temperament gauges. The season and culturally significant events influence how we function together.  One dictates our biological response to the world the other significantly influences our interactions with each other.

Let’s take our current season, winter, and its correlating holidays. In the winter, the days are shorter and the nights are longer. In many places, the ground freezes and growing stops.  For some plants and animals, this season is required for them to reproduce or gestate.  The “death” of winter is often a necessary period of respite that allows for rejuvenation. The body, being bound to the earth, often wants to obey this rhythm. When the days are shorter and colder, the body metabolizes slower because it is striving to conserve energy and stay warm. Additionally, because there is less light, people may find that they feel blue or crave more sleep. This is a natural response to winter. No matter how modern we are, how completely turned into electronics we may be, when winter is upon us we feel the effects of it, especially when we are in a group environment. This, when approached with understanding and acceptance, is the boon of being born in a body, of being a part of the natural world and part of community. When we attend well to the effects of the seasons on us we will be comfortable and successful. We will be embodied.

Additionally, it is no coincidence that one of our most significant holidays is connected to the lessening and lengthening of daylight. Winter rituals at their heart reflect our desire to be close and cuddle. They represent our need to become more reflective and introspective. They represent our hope that we will move through darkness and back out into light. And, because Christmas in particular tends to be one of the most hyped holidays, expectations high, the push for spending is high, and over indulgence is expected, it is also one of the most stressful times of year for many.

Our classes should take these factors into consideration. Winter practices should be forward bending practices. Forward bending is a turning in, a folding and refolding. It’s the image of the earth during its death. It’s introspective and restorative.

Does this mean we take 3 – 4 months of only forward bending? No, that is silly. It means we create balanced classes with an emphasis on those practices that enhance our relationship to what’s going on around us. This is a tantric practice, an entering into the world to work through the world. In the Iyengar system classes are taught in a series. Each week has a different focus. One of the weeks is back bending. The back bending week would not be skipped over in the winter, however, the backbends are going to be different in the winter then they are in the summer. This is a good example of conscientious sequencing.

I recently attended a series of classes at a studio where their December “practice of the month” was back bending. Deep, intensive back bending and a month of deep, intensive back bending is not a winter practice. Of all the pose categories, back bending tends to be the most allusive to people because it is the least natural of all our body’s movements. In order to backbend well all the other parts need to be prepared. You need good vertical extension, a very open front body and the spine must be protected and strong. Additionally, there needs to be an understanding of the basic mechanics of the spine to back bend well lest the student take the brunt of the work in the lumbar. Back bending must be worked up to and warmed up to and therefore we need the long daylight hours, the open warmth of summer to bring us into the open mindedness of continuous, deep back bending.  When we are in a season of conservation, when the body is “hibernating” asking it to work against that is counter-intuitive.

Of course, the counter argument may be, “but back bending is enlivening! It opens your heart and wakes you up! It gets you out of that funk of winter!”  Who says winter is a funk? It’s a funk when we identify too closely with summer. That attachment, like all attachments, creates suffering. The practice teaches us to accept life as it is, to be receptive to things rather than working to bend it to our will.  Asking students to back bend aggressively during the winter season is too much of a “good” thing. It stresses out the nervous system and causes injuries. In fact, one of the teacher’s at the above mentioned studio commented that she’d noticed decline in class size as the month went on.  Her rational was that it was because people are afraid of back bending and so they were avoiding it. This is a common teacher mistake.  The student must be doing something wrong. It’s not them. It’s us. A decline in a class size during a “pose of the month” means we are not paying attention. We have missed the cues that our students are giving us and failed to modify our classes accordingly.

When students come to your class they come to be in community.  They come to be seen. One of the surest ways of guaranteeing that students know we see them is to acknowledge the greater influences around them. As teachers it’s important that we are mindful of that. In your on-going efforts to learn and grow, try and remember that life is playing a part in how your students arrive in class.  There is a teaming mass of activity going on outside the doors of our yoga space and although we want to be able to put that aside for the hour or so, class doesn’t exist in a bubble.  Our students are organic, social creatures who pulse with life around them. Work to see this, respond to this and you will be pleasantly surprised at how your students respond to you.

I attended a class awhile back where the teacher was talking about addiction in relation to the gunas. In yoga there are three states of being, or “gunas”: sattva, rajas, and tamas.  Sattva is purity, rajas is dim and tamas is dark. His hypothesis was that in order for someone to become addicted to something it has to be an acquired thing, that in our most sattvik state, we do not indulge in behaviors that make our souls dim or dark. Only when we are in a rajasik or tamasik state do we do things that are bad for us.

He then went on to say “I mean you only have to look at kids to know what is good for you. It’s not that hard. Kids, well kids are pure right? They will always tell you if something is good or bad for you. You give a kid scotch and what do you think they will do? They will wrinkle their noses and spit it out, right?”

Ah yes, the eternal “purity of children” speech. How many yoga classes have I been in where the teacher uses the impulsiveness of children as an example of our “true and blissful” state or, better yet, the lack of impulse control as an example of what we “should” do? Postulating that children intrinsically know good from bad/right from wrong because they are pure of heart is a trite idea. Believing that the only reason we adults make harmful choices  is because we had the audacity to grow up, to become tainted by our environment, time, experiences is, at it’s most banal, absurdly simplistic. At it’s most egregious, it is emotionally damaging and manipulative.

First of all, no matter how adorable and fun kids are, they do not have that “pure” filter people fantasize about. Leave a bunch of kids to fend for themselves for a period of time and I promise you it will be way more Lord of the Flies then Never, Never Land. Being a kid is not simple.  It’s hard.  Every day is an organizational mess. It’s a constant struggle of learning new tools, impulse control, of being dependent upon, yet wanting to be independent of those who protect them.  Their emotional lives make the Real Housewives look like a Zen masters.  They spend all their time trying to understand the world around them and learn new things all the while being frustrated by the constant stream of “no’s” and “don’t do that’s” and “be careful’s.”  Sure, they appreciate the small things, they play with abandon, think the world is their oyster, but not because they are more spiritually realized than adults.  They do so because someone has their backs.  A happy, healthy child is not an abandoned or neglected one.  A happy, healthy child has someone watching over him, taking care of his needs, helping him navigate the world.

And this is not to say “Hey what about us grown-ups? Let’s give a shout out to the real hero here!” but merely to say that childhood is not an end unto itself. It is not something we are supposed to sustain or better yet, aspire to. Childhood is necessarily transient. It’s a tipping off point. The place where we get the tools we will use to go into the world and either support or destroy it.

Second of all, when someone says “be more childlike” most often they aren’t fantasizing about the perfection of childhood, but rather cloaking sanctimoniousness.  Telling an alcoholic that “a kid will tell you that stuff is crap” separates those without suffering as “good” people who know better, from those who suffer as “bad” people who don’t. Even a little kid knows that stuff isn’t good for you. Why don’t you?

Suffering does not mean someone is good or bad, or lazy or stupid. It means he suffers. When we condemn pain as so simplistic that even a child could do better, what we are really saying is “be like me” or “do things my way.” There is no progress in that.  It only creates shame.

But, shame is powerful.  It’s the Alpha Male of the emotional manipulation pack. Shame makes people feel dirty, worthless and awful.  They will do anything to avoid having it bear down on them. It creates fear. And fear begets obedience. People will follow the rules of the shamer implicitly.  The shamer, full of conviction and authority, has power to either validate or invalidate everyone around him.

The only problem is, no matter how much power shame wields, it doesn’t support authentic healing. Blind obedience out of fear of recrimination isn’t the same thing as someone saying “I do not want this in my life anymore. I choose a different path.”

It’s hard to see human suffering.  It makes us uncomfortable.  It’s confusing and often disorienting. We’re confronted with our own limitations and our own lack of suffering. We’re intensely grateful not to be suffering, maybe even feel a little guilty that we’re not suffering. This may make us desperate to do something to make the uncomfortable situation go away. It’s so much harder to say “This pain you are carrying is terrible. This pain is confusing. But, this pain is not you. It’s not your punishment. It’s not your fate. Let’s sit together and see if this faith, this practice, this place, this medication, etc. can help in some way alleviate your suffering.”  So instead we offer up easy answers wrapped up in greeting card slogans.

Sadly, the remedies to suffering often aren’t very easy. Simple in nature maybe, but in practice? Not so much. Barring fundamental injustices like lack of clean water, food, shelter, clothing and medical care, most causes of suffering are complexly human. They are a combination of life experiences, physical limitations, economic restrictions, genetics, etc. The remedies are going to be as varied as the people suffering.  The “correct” action is not just one thing, but a collection of tools and supplies tailored to meet the person’s needs.

It’s like a house.  A newer house is going to need different attention then an older one.  If you want to strip and repaint the interior of a new home, you just get the supplies and do it. But, in an old home you have to take precautions. You have to seal off the room, wear specially designed protective gear and be meticulous about clean up after.  In the end both homes get a new coat of paint but how they get it is very different.

Rather than glorify one state of being, i.e. childhood, as something we need to sustain, or tell each other that we aren’t “doing it right” because the cure we found that worked so well for us isn’t producing the same results for someone else, why not create for grown-ups what we strive to do for our kids: safe, nurturing environments where we are free to explore, question and be ourselves.

When we encourage each other and remain open to different ideas, we create environments where the healing goes from a promise to a possibility. And it’s that possibility of being that lays the foundation for genuine, authentic change. It’s that possibility that eases suffering. It may not always be the right fit, but it’s active and participatory. It allows you to affect your own being, to remain flexible and interested in your own life.

So, you take care of your house. Choose tools, materials and contractors that prop you up and make you the strongest, healthiest and most structurally sound person you can be within the framework you’ve got.

this post was taken from Jen’s personal blog “The Inner Child” on 11/1/10. To read more, click here: http://yogajen.blogspot.com/

I also felt distressed and impotent. I wanted to help that little bird, but what could I do? The nest was too far for me to reach and even if I did somehow manage to scare the raccoon out of it, the damage had already been done. Clearly he’d had a very satiating meal of bird eggs.

Self-satisfied, tummy full, the raccoon, as if sensing mine and the birds’ dismay, rolled over and exposed his rump and went back to sleep.  It was as if he said “here’s what I think of your stress. Now please, leave me alone.”

When I showed the nest to my boys, my oldest assured me that in fact the raccoon did not eat the birds’ eggs. “Birds lay their eggs in June. Those baby birds have already left the nest. That raccoon built that nest all by himself. That’s his nest actually.”  His confidence was the confidence of nativity; making up “facts” that worked in his favor. Say it out loud, with great confidence and volume and so it will be!  My son simply could not accept that nature is both cruel and random.  For him, we live in a just and verdant universe. The bad guy  never gets away with it because the super hero always saves the day and all babies everywhere are well protected and cared for.

We adults know this isn’t true. Raccoons eat bird eggs, shove their butts in your face and tell you to “suck it” all the time while we sit here feeling completely and utterly helpless.  This past month however has felt a little like a role reversal.  It’s like we’re the raccoon and society is screaming at our fat behinds saying “Hey! You are in my nest! Get the out of my nest! Don’t do that!” From Robin William’s death, to Ferguson to the current Ice Bucket challenge, we’ve been bombarded with a new kind of imagery; one that is begging for us to pay attention and help each other out.

So, are we hapless, self- indulgent raccoons out for ourselves or are we something more?

Yoga points to more.  But, the practice itself does not mystically change the fabric of society. It is a tool that assists us in changing how we see and think. Yoga does not change who we are, it does not make us something different, but it does point us towards knowledge. And often it is the knowledge of what we are not. We are not alone, we are not separate, we are not more entitled, we are not better, we are not worse. We are connected and we are a powerful force for change.

As we head into the season of reaping and sowing I encourage you to continue to throw buckets of cold water on your heads and use that shocking sensation to remind you that you can do more. Write your congressman and tell him you want more money spent on medical research, that you want more funds ear marked towards mental healthcare. Volunteer in your community and encourage your friends and family to volunteer too (here are a couple great resources for finding volunteer opportunities: New York Cares & Hands on Portland). Donate more of your discretionary funds on a regular basis towards organizations that are working to fight disease, injustice and intolerance.  Read this blog and talk about race issues. Be kind. Be useful. And above all, use your practice to reveal to you how very, very potent you are.