selfish on valentine's

This year will be my first valentine's day that I'm not dating someone since I was in high school.  The part of me that loves being with someone, caring for someone, making them dinner on February 14 is incredibly sad. Romantically, I am on my own for the first time in my adult life.



But there is another part of me.

The part of me that's been loving coming home from work to take my dog on a walk then ride my bike to practice yoga for two hours, before I come home and eat eggs and quinoa for dinner (this is my idea of an ideal evening). The selfish part of me that loves doing what I want, when I want, without checking in with anyone else. I love drinking my coffee standing in the middle of my kitchen.
I love blogging on a Saturday afternoon. I love taking two yoga classes in a row on a Sunday morning.



I have spent years dedicating my practice to something greater. Someone else, an idea, a goal, a thought, and cause. I ask my students to do it every week.  For the last few weeks I've been asking for something different from them and I've been dedicating my practice in a different way.  I've been asking myself and my students to dedicate their practice to themselves. Do what makes you feel good on the mat, nothing less, nothing more. Walk out feeling better than you did when you rolled out your mat. That is my purpose. Feeling better can mean mentally, physically, emotionally, whatever you need right now.

That's it. So simple.



It has brought me incredible joy to practice in this way. In the way that months ago I found myself crying in pigeon, now there are times when I just crack into an uncontrollable smile. I am so damn happy with my life its overwhelming. 


I hope you're having a beautiful heart cracking Valentine's Day. I know I am.

Namaste,
Rachel

PS. One of the things I love most about teaching is making a playlist, here is my Valentine's playlist. The perfect music to fall in love, get busy, and break up to. valentines yoga 2015

unsettled

 I've been in a bit of a rut of late, so I've been searching.

Searching for how to make my self happier, more fulfilled, the best version of myself.

A few weeks ago I was in a yoga class and the teacher started talking about santosha. It was as if an explosion happened in my head. "That's it," I thought, "That's what I'm missing." Santosha is the sanskrit word for contentment, satisfaction, fulfillment. Its a word that has always resonated with me - if nothing else what I want most for myself is satisfaction. For a while I thought about it all the time when I practiced, it was my intention, what I meditated on for months. At the end of each class, and even throughout the day, I would think to myself, "Yes, I am satisfied."

And then I started to let it go. I didn't think of it as frequently, it drifted and dwindled. At some point I forgot about it all together. I became absorbed with other things, life got busy, it got complicated, and I stopped concerning myself with myself.

So weeks ago when a teacher mentioned santosha again it hit me deep. I haven't been feeling that settled feeling that to me is santosha in a while. I did all the wrong things, I blamed every element around me for my unrest. I sunk deeper into the feeling that I couldn't be satisfied. I had begun to worry that the unhappiness I've been feeling might not be something I can shake. I had let that go on for months, never working on the root of the unrest: myself.

I'm someone who's almost always in a good mood. I love to laugh and smile. Of late everything has felt forced. I feel like a shadow of my regular happy self. I see pictures of myself smiling with sadness in my eyes. I cried during the entire last half of a yoga class last week (those hip openers man).

The biggest problem with feeling like you're dwindling is how hard it is to find yourself again. If you catch it before its too deep it seems like you can bounce back. I shot down that rabbit hole and found myself so deep in I forgot who I am. And I know now that's my own fault, no one forced me, no outside force is responsible for how I feel.

Now comes the real discomfort, even deeper than the unrest I've been feeling, now I have to go deal with it. I'm being gentle with myself, but I'm also engaging in what is most uncomfortable for me. I am letting myself feel lonely, feel exposed. It sucks. But I know it won't for long.

Namaste,

Rachel

asking for forgiveness

Over the past week I have talked to my classes about Yom Kippur, the day of atonement in Judaism, which is coming up this week. In the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we are supposed to ask our fellow man for forgiveness, but on this holiest day of the year we ask for forgiveness from G-d. I have talked to my classes about being their own Higher Power, asking themselves for forgiveness and then granting that forgiveness.

I have asked them all to practice with more, ahimsa, compassion for themselves, less judgement. And then I have asked them to take that feeling of self-compassion out of the studio, off the mat, and into their lives. Its a tall order I know, but as I speak about ahimsa, I can see what I'm saying is hitting home with so many of my students as they nod their heads along while I speak to them.

Increasingly I find myself awake in the early hours of the morning contemplating decisions I have made.  Don't worry my friends, I'm no longer lying on my mat in a crumpled little pile.  I've made it off the mat and back into the world, still knowing my mat is a little haven for me, and returning there with frequency.  As you can imagine accompanying all this contemplation of my decisions comes a range of emotions: regret, anger, self-satisfaction, pain, joy. And yet a lack of ahimsa.

I know I am my own worst critic.  I often think of it as being critical in a loving way, the way a parent pushes their child to do more, better, faster, stronger, I push myself.  It seems I may have found the tipping point of pushing myself to be better. I often ask my students to quiet the negative chatter in their minds when they practice, but I have been unable to do the same. I have found myself tearing apart every choice I have made over the past two years. And regretting a good portion of my choices.  I wasn't as loving as I could have been. I was selfish. I went to the library when I could have stayed and studied at home with my partner. I chose activities around campus rather than building my relationship.

I recognize the harshness with which I am treating myself. I haven't made all bad choices, but in this moment I'm having a hard time taking my own advice and treating my practice, my life, my choices, with ahimsa.

I would like to say that what I will do is spend more of my thoughts being compassionate to myself, but I can't promise that. I can promise myself that I will try for more compassion. I can promise I will keep trying to be my own Higher Power and to forgive myself.

Here is one thing that I know for sure, I'm good at asking for forgiveness. It can take me some time, but I can recognize when I have been wrong. When I get there I admit it and I ask to be forgiven.  So you can bet on Yom Kippur I will be asking my Higher Power for forgiveness, I will keep asking myself for forgiveness, and I will always ask the person I have harmed for forgiveness.

For right now that's the best I can do as far as ahimsa for myself.  I always tell my students that as long as they are truly trying the effort is what brings the benefit, I'm going to work on taking my own advice today.

Namaste,
Rachel

why laying in a broken pile on your mat is enough

Some days yoga is easy, your body asks you for it, begs you for it. Your mat seems to unroll itself and you float on to it.  You think about the ease of your practice and how yoga is so right for you and your life.

Some days it takes every ounce of strength you have just to put your mat on the floor. That day you lie in a broken pile on your mat, and that is your yoga.  You think, "I'm not sure if I can even keep breathing, but if I can that's my yoga today." And so you do, and its excruciating.  Every breath feels like a marathon.  The idea of leaving your thoughts off the mat that day is an impossibility. Your thoughts swirl around you and taunt you, refusing to quiet.  You laugh to yourself as you think "I just need to breathe louder than my thoughts."  Because your thoughts are screaming at you.

Today I am lying in a broken pile.  I don't even know how I made it on to my mat. But I know at 3am I woke up crawled out of bed and curled up here and I can't really tell you why I chose that this morning.

Yoga serves different purposes on different days. There are days its a workout, I just want to sweat so I practice.  There are days I need some introspection and so I meditate though my practice.  Today I don't know if I can do anything more with my life than just lie here, so that's exactly what I'm doing.

I've spent the past days barraging myself with positive ideas. When something good leaves you have space for something even better. Standing in the rubble of what once was is an opportunity to build again.  Fear of being alone is just that, fear, so acknowledge it and get stronger.  Thinking all those positive thoughts felt like the right thing to be doing right now.

But right now those positive thoughts aren't serving me.  You've heard me and a million other yoga teachers tell you, "Whatever isn't serving you today, just let it go." Well, today all that positivity isn't serving me.  Today I am served by feeling my excruciatingly deep pain.

Don't get me wrong, especially on a day like today I feel gratitude.  It's September 11th, and to not mention the tragedy that this country faced 11 years ago would be a mistake.  And so today, even as I feel like the pain I am feeling is deeper, and darker, and impossible to climb out of, I know deep down it isn't.  And that is when I feel a glimmer of gratitude and those positive thoughts start to trickle back in.

I know that in order to feel pain this deep and profound, to have my heart broken so completely means that my heart was totally exposed and I loved deeply.  The person I loved taught me how to love myself when I hated myself. I know that I loved someone more than I had ever imagined possible and that person loved me more than I even loved myself. When I think about it that way how can I feel anything but gratitude, what more can I ask for than to have had someone in my life who truely saw me and loved me?

Today it feels like I'm never going to pick up the pieces of my shattered heart. And so today I'm not going to.

Namaste,
Rachel

Day Eight: Yoga Means Union

Today was a LOOOOOONG day. I stared at 9am with a gentle yoga with Allaine then 10:30am power hot yoga with Pablo then four hours of teacher training. I was not into it today.  When your body has gotten used to one series of actions, taking a different route is really hard.  I'm used to biking to yoga and biking home. I have things I like to do after yoga class. Showering is one of those things. After hot yoga its a requirement.

That doesn't happen for me any more. I do yoga and then I sit through a teacher training for four hours. Its exhausting. Its also a little gross. Don't get me wrong I rinse off but I'm not getting the full scrub down I really need. Spending 8 hours a day at the yoga studio also means that I essentially don't do anything else in my life but yoga.

In fact I am officially getting burnt out. I haven't spoken to anyone in my family for more than 5 minutes and I haven't seen my boyfriend for more than a consecutive hour since teacher training started. That is why I made a bold move tonight.

I'm ignoring my homework, I didn't come home and roll out my mat and start practicing what I learned today in class. Maybe tomorrow I'll decide this was a bad choice but right now I'm watching a documentary, sitting on my couch, drinking an awesome bottle of champagne and cuddling with my two faves: my boyfriend and my dog.

 Yoga is a sanskrit word that means union. The fact is that my life has not felt very cohesive for the last week or so. I feel like I have a yoga life and a real life. My real life has ended. So tonight is the comeback of my real life.

 Starting right this second I'm going to make an effort to have a little more union, a little more yoga in my life. You know what that might mean? A little less yoga homework might get done. But I think thats worthwhile if I get to talk to my sister and maybe see a little daylight.

How does this relate you you? You're sane, you didn't take too much on to your plate right? Pardon my language but BULLS*$%T! We all have too much on our plates. We all take on too many responsibilities. We all ignore people and things that deserve more attention. We all need a little yoga. A little union.

Try it. It feels really good to say, "I'm going to say no to something in order to give the people I love a little more time."

In the meantime I'm going to finish my bottle of champs with my little family.

Namaste and Bubbles,
Rachel