The Intimacy of Breath

When people ask what I do, I often say “I teach breathing.” For me my breath has been my purest and most intimate form of expression. As a child I was often searching to find my voice in a world that didn’t seem to make sense. Usually, the ways I chose to express my voice were redirected as inappropriate or dismissed as not being practical. 

Early on, I found out that when I sang, I was special. My singing voice was like my soul gliding over my breath. Sometimes as a whisper, sometimes as a scream. But always ME, even if I was singing someone else’s song, it was always in MY voice.

As I begin to develop my vocal craft, my voice became something that would always be there for me. Effortless friendship. One day a few years ago I had a rupture in my one of vocal cords and my best friend became an unreliable partner. Sometimes I go out to perform and I would have all of the notes I was used to accessing. The next day I would only have five or six notes in the well. Of course, that causes stress. As one of my teachers would say, “apprehension is a form of tension.” I became embarrassed to sing and humbled by life.

Luckily, surgery and rehab and phenomenal coaches and teachers got me back to 100%. 

When I look back at how I lost my voice, I had lost my connection to my breath. Breath is life, and my life was kicking my ass. In my life at the time, my voice was often the last to be heard. My body simply shut down. The purest form of me was no longer available. Once again, that kid who couldn’t express his voice showed up. This was a psychosomatic response to being “silenced,” it simply manifested physically.

I remember working with one of my voice teachers, and we were trying to access my ribs as I took a breath, and I couldn’t do it. Me as a lifetime singer and a current Yoga Teacher could not access his breath. It was mind boggling to both me and my speech therapist.

I’ve often heard the ribs described as the fingers of the spine, and mine were definitely clenched in two fists. I’m lucky to have had a good speech therapist, vocal coach, and psychotherapist to help me understand what was going on. I started shifting my Yoga practice away from breathing techniques, and more toward simply connecting to my breath.  I became curious about the WHY of my breath and less focused about the HOW off my breath. That approach totally shifted my practice and the way I teach.

You’ve heard me say this before, but we come into the world on an inhale, and we leave it on an exhale. We connect to our life through our breathing. We nurture our bodies with each inhale and exhale. And as Covid taught us, we share our breath with the space around us. 

Your breath can be held to recruit strength or to focus your mind. It can be slowed down to calm the body or sped up to give it energy. It can be a whisper or can be a shout. The relationship to your breath is the most intimate one you will ever have. When calm, it can caress and soothe you. When heightened it can give you energy and  pleasure. When strong, it can advocate for you and be your biggest defender. 

Your breath is not something you DO, it’s the thing you ARE! When you connect to your breath through meditation, music, Yoga, playing an instrument, running a mile, etc. you’re connecting to the Genesis of your being. The pilot light of your soul. Take a moment today and truly sit with that concept!

The Parable of the Vacuum

A friend of mine‘s parents have an old Electrolux canister vacuum. You know the kind that were real popular in the 60s. My mom had one and I used to vacuum my house with it when I was a kid. These things have a big canister on wheels in the back, a long hose, and a separate bulky attachment that you used to clean your rugs and furniture. 

My buddy was in between jobs and went back home to stay with his parents for a few months. He noticed his mom vacuuming with this old contraption and realized it wasn’t working. The agitator wheel was not spinning on the carpets, and it barely had any suction. 

My friend wanted to buy them a new vacuum, but unfortunately due to his current state of employment, he didn’t have any money to purchase one. I offered to buy one for him and have him give it to his parents as a gift from him, not me. 

The Amazon Angels delivered the new vacuum and my buddy was elated to be able to give this to his parents. Funny thing was they didn’t use it. It was modern, it looked different, and most of all it was not what they were used to. My friend’s folks crave order, sameness, and are very rigid with their routines.

Human beings instinctively crave familiarity. So it’s not shocking that we get stuck in our ways of thinking. I can’t tell you how many times as a yoga teacher I hear, “but I’ve always done it that way and it’s never been a problem.“ Most times things are not a problem, until they’re a problem. Just because something is old, or you’ve always done it that way, does not mean that it’s the best way to do things now. Life requires constant reflection. In life, they’re often many things like this old vacuum that no longer work that we need to set aside, or put in the trash so we can open ourselves up to new and more effective ways of being. 

Unfortunately, for my friend’s parents, their house is still dirty because to this day, they’re still using a vacuum that doesn’t work. They could have clean, carpets and sofas. They could work smart, not hard, with the new unit in their closet, but they’ve chosen to stick to their routine and their own private dogma.

What in your life is your canister vacuum? What are you holding onto because you’re used to it or it gives you comfort? What do you need to let go of so that you can walk more easily on your path forward? We all have things that we keep close to us because they give us some sort of familiarity. That familiarity can be a useful boundary for our psychological well-being. But when we hold on for the sake of holding on, and refuse to try something new, especially when it’s necessary, that is being stubborn, not smart, and it’s not helping our psychological well-being, it’s actually hindering it.

Black Snake Moan

I was out walking my dog tonight and as I turned around the corner I saw a group of people looking down at the ground. I live in a wooded section of the city, so I assumed they were looking at a snake. I then saw one of the guys in the group smacking it. When I walked up, I recognized that it was a black rat snake. “Don’t kill it!” I told them. “That’s a good snake!” But I looked down and the poor thing had already been chopped in three places and sadly was still moving a little bit. The group was truly shocked that I thought the snake was “good.” Angrily, I picked it up and moved it over into the woods nearby and walked off. I figured it could die in nature as opposed to being crushed on the asphalt by car or suffer another blow from their shovel.

That whole scene hurt my heart. I don’t know why I have such kindred connection with creatures like snakes. I’m sure a part of it is as a gardener and I understand their importance in our ecosystem. Maybe it’s because I grew up in more of a rural environment and I understand environmental conservation differently than my neighbors here in the city. More than anything, moments like this highlight how out of balance with nature we are. 

I do know that my soul is burdened by what I witnessed tonight. Because of my religious upbringing, I can’t help but think of the Adam and Eve story and how humankind was given “dominion” over the Earth. Giving a human being dominion over anything is never a good idea. And of course a serpent is the villain in that story too. But stories have power, and then this Biblical one, God set humankind up to fail. Our original sin was not biting the apple, it was the ignorance born from our ego.

It seems that we human beings have forgotten, or maybe we never actually learned, that we’re a fraction of the natural ecosystem. We don’t control nature, we’re part of it. We need each other to survive and we need creatures like this simple black snake to keep things in balance. Newsflash: The planet will be fine without us! Addressing issues like climate change and responsible resource consumption is about our survival, not the Earth’s.

Being at war with nature and ourselves will be our undoing. Maybe instead of giving humankind “dominion” over the Earth the word could’ve been “stewardship.” But even that fails. We haven’t been good stewards of our planet or each other over our entire history. Some cultures have done a better job than others, but overall, humankind has failed its duty to nature and itself. We have damn near wiped out every thing we have come in contact with. In every news cycle I am reminded of how we seem hell-bent on taking ourselves out. A question I ask myself often is, “Why do human beings have to kill everything we don’t understand?” Ideas. People. Snakes. 

The only way we really truly will change our trajectory is by stacking simple acts of compassion and understanding one on top of another. Those seemingly mundane actions are the building blocks of our future. But tonight I’m both pissed and sad, because the wise soul of a black snake was mistaken as a villain and my belief in a better future took another hit.

Waltzing In 4/4 Time

My friends often joke that I live on “rock ‘n’ roll standard time”. I’ve been a musician most of my life and so I keep a later schedule than most. I’ve also been self-employed my whole life, so I kind of dance to my own beat. My wallet is usually light, but my heart, for the most part, has remained full.

I recently traded in my entrepreneurial status for a “real” job. One of the places that I’ve been a contract employee for 7+ years, offered me a full-time position with benefits, etc. The outward reaction has been interesting. My older friends and parents are congratulating me as if I’m officially “grown up”—a well intended sentiment that’s actually a bit patronizing. My younger contemporaries are worried that my strong personality is going to have a hard time with corporate structure. Truth be told, I’m really out of sorts.

My sleep has been off. My purpose seems undefined. All of that is really interesting because I’m working in a place that allows me to teach yoga, functional fitness, and even work with the gardening program there. My coworkers are extremely nice and my students are some of the dearest folks in my life. If you could tailor make a job for me, this would probably be it. But there’s something about having the freedom to work at your own pace, and have the space and variety to work at different places, and interact with different personalities, that I am having a hard time letting go of.

Who knows, maybe this will pass? Or maybe this position, no matter how perfect it seems on paper, will not be as tailor-made as I initially thought. Maybe it’s simply that I’m 53, and my life choices have taken me to a place where my perceived value does not match up with the marketplace. Who knows? What I do know is, I’m trying to keep an open mind and also be in touch with with my intuitions and fears. I’ve realized through the process of writing this blog that I’m grieving. Not just around this situation, but about a lot of things. Grief is complex and difficult. I feel this in my bones.

I’ll post a yoga blog soon; this is more of a diary entry. Please know that I appreciate all of you and miss seeing your faces. Be kind to yourselves!

The Equanimity of Neutral

I like to use the image of a house when thinking about the construction of our bodies. Overtime, and with normal use, the structure of a house naturally changes. Maybe a little corner of the foundation settles and that in turn causes a crack or two in the ceiling here and there. If you go to renovate a part of this house, you will probably encounter walls that aren’t plumb and surfaces that are not level. More often than not, that’s okay, you simply work around it, and find relative level and relative plumb. The same is true with our bodies. My friend Kortni Campbell says, “We work with the body we have, not the one we aspire to have, or the one we had yesterday.” I couldn’t agree more.

Our body is the one home we will always have. Our bodies are unique, dynamic, and have normal wear and tear. In my opinion, moving from neutral is one of the most important concepts to discover in our movement practices. As in our house renovation example, neutral is relative to the individual. And sometimes it is relative to the day or even the minute. I will let the movement scientists argue the definition of true anatomical neutral over cups of coffee or on the Internet, but for our purposes, we’re simply trying to find efficiency through structure. Neutral is a dance between effort and ease and offers us a home base from which to explore.

Let’s use Mountain Pose as an example. My students are probably sick of me teaching Mountain Pose, but I feel like it is the cornerstone of any Postural Yoga practice. If you’re not familiar with this shape, or you don’t, practice Yoga, Mountain Pose is simply standing/sitting with structural awareness. It’s also a balance pose. I often say we are standing/sitting “with attention, not at attention.” Practiced this way, we are checking in with the body, not exerting our will over it. We become more aware of the relationship to both ourselves and the space around us.

Let’s deconstruct this shape for a minute. Our foundation begins in our feet. We first sense into the tripod of each foot. This space is the intersection of the arches and allows us to center our weight over a very stable structure. We might discover that our tendency is to take more weight toward the front of the feet and toes, or we may hold more weight to one side or the other, but most importantly, we explore and find our base. In doing so, we plug directly into our nervous system.

Next we move up to the knees. Are we locking our knees or do we have a bend in them? Are either of those things necessary for us to keep the weight balanced over our feet? Can we activate our legs a little bit or soften them a little to create more structure? Again, each student will have a different discovery.

We take our awareness up to the pelvis. I normally have my students do a pelvic tilt, tucking the tailbone under and then lifting the tailbone up. I tell them that somewhere in between those two extremes is neutral for them. I also encourage them to keep exploring and adjusting as they see fit. This way I allow them discover what feels the most stable for them and help them understand this process is dynamic. Subtle movement becomes a means to discover the sensation of neutral.

We continue working up to discover our next major movement junction, the shoulder girdle. A lot of times I will cue students to lift their chest, but some people get really rigid in their posture and then dump forward into their pelvis if I give that instruction. If I see that, or maybe as an alternate cue, I might say, “imagine someone is lifting you up by a few strands of your hair. Notice how that lifts your chest gently. Let your shoulders relax back and down. Imagine the shoulder pads on a football player, and like that, allow your shoulders to rest over the top of your upper spine.”

We then add our arms and hands to the shape. Incorporating the upper limbs gives the body a sense of wholeness. I give the students a chance to explore what hand or arm position offers them the most connection to both themselves and the space around them. Usually when I look around the room, there are people expressing multiple versions of the shape. There is no “one” way to practice. Yoga postures are concepts, not constructs. Sometimes we get too caught up and how they look and forget to be open to what they might be teaching us.

From here we go back down through the feet, revisit the knees, check in with the pelvis, check in with the chest and shoulders, and notice if we’re holding tension anywhere in the face or throat, or even the pelvic floor. We allow our breath to become a supportive component of the posture. One of the cool things about finding a relative neutral posture in our body, is that we create room for the breath to travel naturally with more ease.

As we explore other shapes or movements, I try to encourage my students to initiate action from a place of neutrality and support. A lot of the time in practice, and in life, we get in a hurry and forget to find our base before we move. A student gave me this feedback after a recent class, “It was helpful to focus on finding neutrality and keeping that awareness throughout the movement as opposed to rushing through without ever establishing it. The focus on finding physical neutrality drew the mind towards its natural equanimity.”

I challenge you to explore this concept in your practice this week–establish neutral and move from the awareness it offers. Whether you’re a Postural Yoga practitioner or someone who likes to garden or walk. Get curious about how you’re holding your body; establish your base and begin movement from there. It might mean you have to slow down a bit. But those pauses make space for the mind to become calm and your intentions more clear.

The Raft

There’s a Buddhist parable that has been resonating with me over these past few weeks. It goes something like this.

A man needs to cross a river. He can’t walk or wade across because it’s too deep. He could swim, but the currents are swift. He decides to build a raft and paddle across. It takes a lot of time and effort to gather up reeds, leaves, branches, and logs and weave them together into a structure that will float. But with persistence and time he gets his raft built.

The day finally comes and he hops onboard and toils across the river to the other side. It wasn’t an easy trek, but he makes it! Now that he has crossed the river, he is not sure of what to do with his one-of-a-kind creation. His back hurts and his hands have blisters and bruises. He has a lot of time and effort invested building this thing—sweat equity is an embodied currency. Should he carry the raft with him in case he needs to cross another body of water? Should he leave it for someone else who may need it to travel over this same river? Should he burn the wood and make a fire to stay warm for the night? What to do?

The thing is, if he’s going to be walking on land, he no longer needs a raft. It’s cumbersome shape will make it hard to maneuver through the woods and will surely slow him down. Like a lot of things in life, it’s hard to let go of something you have such an investment in. An asset that has been extremely valuable at one point in your life is hard to put down and walk away from, even if no longer serves you. That’s what our friend is struggling with. The raft represents his attachments.

Eventually, he decides to leave the raft and carries on with his journey, having the wisdom to understand that a vessel meant to travel on the water will be a burden if he continues to carry it on land. The tool simply doesn’t fit the job. When and if he encounters another river, he knows he possesses the skills necessary to build another raft…probably more efficiently.

This story is a nice metaphor for our lives, especially at a time of year when people are making New Year’s resolutions. Truth be known, I’m not a big fan of resolutions. They often are based in some sort of external expectation of behavior or are often driven by guilt or a negative self story. Maybe, instead of making a resolution, we simply decide what ways of thinking or being no longer serve us. And like the raft, we can understand that for a time these things had an important role in our story, but they are no longer appropriate for the chapters ahead. Wisdom requires discernment. Willful detachment and courage are required to change and adapt. Life is a series of adaptations. We don’t have to place a negative value on what came before, but simply understand that a new way of being is only possible if we allow some space for it.

Finding Rainbows in the Dark

I recently had a student ask me after class, “Why do I always feel like I want to cry?“ She said, “I spend most of my time in class trying not to cry.“ These sorts of things happen a lot in Yoga classes and I think we tend to not talk about them. A lot of the Yoga “woo woo” verbiage says to “vibe higher” and “think positive thoughts only,” etc. but happiness is not the only emotion we feel. And despite our best efforts, “happiness is not a mindset.” We don’t always leave our Yoga practice grounded. Sometimes we are hyper vigilant when we so wanted to down regulate. Sometimes we get get angry for no understandable reason. Others we feel a sense of wholeness and connection. It’s OK to feel a complex amount of emotions, especially in your Yoga practice.

When we move our bodies we stir things up. Sometimes it’s delicious cake batter other times it’s a hornets nest. Recently I was taking a Gentle Yoga class and literally saw my own death flash like a hidden image in subliminal slide show. When this happened, I just had to laugh. Who knows, maybe it indeed was a vision of my demise, or maybe it was symbolic of something going on in deep within my subconscious. I can’t control the thoughts that come in and out of my mind when I’m practicing. Years ago I would have been rattled by this, but therapy and somatic movement practices like Yoga have allowed me to observe my thoughts and not be so freaked out by them. This experience did make an impact, but not one I regret.

There was another time years ago when I was being stretched too thin in my personal life and had way too much responsibility on my shoulders. People in my world were reliant on me and many of them were sick or lacked the agency to take care of themselves so naturally that fell on me. This particular incident happened in a Restorative Yoga class when the teaching assistant put a weighted blanket on my shoulders. I immediately threw it off and burst into tears. I spent the remainder of class (about 30 minutes) crying. I had too much on my shoulders and that little bit of weight, which was meant to be grounding, turned out to be more than I could bear. The poor assistant was a Yoga teacher trainee and I hope she wasn’t scarred by that experience. Instead I hope she learned that you never know what people are bringing with them to their mat.

I cant say this enough—IT’S OKAY TO FEEL ALL OF THE FEELS IN YOUR YOGA PRACTICE. Our yoga practice is not always heart emojis and unicorns. And why would it be? We are way too complex for that. Our bodies have been present for every single thing we’ve gone through. All of our awake cycles, and our sleep cycles. Our traumas and our triumphs. The times you were drunk and the times you were sober. If you’ve ever had a surgery your body was present through it, even though your conscious mind was not. Our bodies and emotions are deeply intertwined and are not separate entities. And though the body is amazingly resilient, it does have a deep well memory and sometimes parts of that memory are awakened through movement in the form of tears, anger or anxiety. Other times it may feel like bliss, joy or calm. Be gentle on yourselves, and allow yourself feel a gamut of emotions. It’s so important to find the right teacher and a community where you can show up and 100% be yourself.

Teachers, allow your students to explore what comes up without managing the expectations of their experience. The easiest way to “honor the practice” is to respect the full weight of what our students bring into class. As Yoga teachers we are not here to lift that weight off of them, but rather to create a space where they can lay their burdens down and be human.

There’s a heavy metal song from the 80’s by the band Dio, “Rainbow in the Dark.” Maybe thats a metaphor for our practice. Things can be harder to distinguish in the shadows, but light is there, you just have to move to find it.

Podcast Interview, an Old Blog & a New Class

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of speaking with Emily Rex and Ron Baron on their “Yoga for real life“ podcast. When they reached out to me I thought we would be speaking about Adaptive Yoga, but after reading my “The Guru’s Ghost” blog they saw my interest in religious studies and wanted to explore my take on the religious dimensions of the modern yoga practice. This was a fun conversation over a late afternoon cup of coffee. I wish them the best on their podcast and I hope to flesh out some of the ideas we explored for future blogs. If you’re interested in listening there’s a link below. Also if you haven’t read “The Guru’s Ghost” it’s attached here.

Also for my Charlotte, North Carolina people, I am offering a new “Restorative Back Care” class at NoDa Yoga on Thursday nights from 5:45 to 7 PM. I’d love to see you join me for that or any of my other classes. Hope everyone is doing well out there and I’ll write something new in the next few weeks so please be on the lookout for it. Until then, be well!

Carey

https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/y00yyIhjcub

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/32-intertwining-yoga-philosophy-religion-and-adaptive/id1630682911?i=1000582873743

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2vy3az76UnhflbwlP2cJLY?si=CRSEgUwWQ3Se547b8VAJlg

The Guru’s Ghost

When I look out over the current Modern Postural Yoga (MPY) landscape, I can’t help but recall my childhood experience with religion.  I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household and by default most of my friends were evangelical Christians. Inter-denominational squabbles were often conversations started in the pulpit that spilled over to the dinner table where the keys to the Kingdom were linked (or not) to things like speaking in tongues, dancing in the Spirit, sprinkling versus immersive baptism, or what version of the Bible was most authentic.  Entire faith traditions were created over these differences.  Sound familiar?

MPY “gurus” like Bikram, Jois, Bhajan, Iyengar, etc. making sensational claims about the spiritual and health benefits of yoga harkens to a popular character from my childhood—the televangelist.  My parents go-to was Pat Robertson of the 700 Club, but my friend’s parents were particularly fond of Jimmy Swaggart. I currently live in Charlotte, NC, just a few minutes up the road from Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s Heritage USA empire.  Here the spiritual and physical body could be healed through the power of prayer, by making a financial commitment to the ministry, by purchasing articles blessed by the evangelist, or through the healing touch of the pastor. Good people were swindled spiritually and financially.  Unfortunately, the same bears true for many yoga practitioners.

When people are hurting, dangling hope in front of them is powerful.  Belonging is crucial to human health and development. Folks on fixed incomes don’t mail their money to people they think are con artists. They do so believing they are investing in the promise of healing in this lifetime or the next.  They wish to be seen, heard, and feel a sense of community. MPY practitioners share these same desires.  

My mystical bones were broken long ago, so call me a skeptic when I am asked to “trust the yoga” or hear comments like “the universe has my back.”  I really don’t need to intentionally hyperventilate to saturate my blood with oxygen. Linking Sun Salutations to the Vedas makes them sound more esoteric, but it doesn’t necessarily make them more effective.  Claims that Warrior I can correct a displaced uterus or that twists will detox and tone my liver not only make my eyes roll; they make me want to run far away from yoga.  Statements like these promise healing where none exists and prevent outsiders from taking the practice seriously. How much of the so-called gurus’ snake oil do we wish to carry forward?  Personally, I’m done selling.

Like me, numerous MPY practitioners have had negative experiences with other religious traditions and turned to yoga because it offered the warmth of a mystical fire without the fear of being burned.  I think this is part of the allure of yoga.  It’s often seen as a neutral canvas where practitioners can project their hopes and aspirations. MPY and its Hindu-adjacent and Buddhist-adjacent claims appeal to the rising “spiritual, but not religious” demographic. One can touch and explore the myths, gods, goddesses, and philosophies of Indian culture without the trappings of “religion.”  

MPY functions as a new religion for many where the yoga mat is a sacred space; the practice connects the body, mind and spirit; and texts like the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras are interpreted through different cultural lenses and given new spiritual authority.  Context ultimately defines how content is understood and assimilated. This is not unique to MPY; it happens in every religious tradition. Survival is predicated on adaptability.  

We have a lot invested in our practice and the myths surrounding it.  Even though a great many yoga narratives were repackaged for Western audiences by Indian evangelists and blended together with existing American mystical ideas, we continue to perpetuate them forward in the name of “tradition.”  I’d love to see conversations around what is “authentic” or “traditional” acknowledge that not only are we reimagining asana in modernity; we are also reimagining Indian philosophies and religious practices. 

I realize that religion is a loaded term that carries a lot of baggage, but I see the world through the lens of Religious Studies student.  My first foray into a serious study of Yoga started as an adult student at a local university. Religion extends beyond the bearded man in the clouds cliché.  It is a set of beliefs and practices that help us organize the natural world and our place in it. Our individual lives and group dynamics coalesce around its principles.  It shapes our bodies and how they are allowed to show up in the world. It differentiates the sacred from the profane. It also creates group boundaries, which are oftentimes exclusionary. 

In my experience in evangelical circles, “religious” was used to describe others outside of the faith.  Understood this way, Christians have a living savior and a personal relationship with Him, not a “religion.”  The term “spiritual” is equally problematic for similar reasons. A personalized spirituality is like a religious buffet where the practitioner picks and chooses little bits from this tradition and that tradition.  MPY is the perfect all-you-can-eat buffet where everyone can fix a full plate. But when we take only what we like, we miss out on important context and avoid problematic content. This is irresponsible and contributes to spiritual bypassing and cultural appropriation.  My hope is that MPY practitioners begin to acknowledge that what we are practicing is a new phenomenon—a bricolage of spiritual and bodily practices. With this recognition, maybe we will be more transparent, respectful, and less dogmatic when discussing the choices we and others have made to get us to this point in history.  

Yoga is at a pivotal crossroads.  The gurus’ pedestals have been broken, but their spectors remain.  We have inherited a great deal of misinformation packaged as “tradition.”  Many (if not most) MPY practitioners have profound emotional investments in these narratives and there is a lot at stake in unpacking them—spiritual wounds cut deep.  But do we maintain the status quo for our individual and collective comfort? Is that responsible? I think not. In order to forge a more equitable path forward our understanding of the past and present must expand.  Each time we roll out our mats, we have a choice to stay curious or stay comfortable. We can exorcise the gurus’ ghosts or stay haunted by them.

Smile, Yawn & Shine a light

In the summer of 2019, I was at a crossroads and unsure of my place within the Yoga community. At the time, the Yoga community was plagued with abuse scandals and I had grown disillusioned with many of the narratives being put forth by my teachers and peers. Luckily I had a moment in a Yoga Teacher training at Mind Body Solutions in Minnesota that was pivotal in helping me regain my footing.

Sometime in the middle of the workshop, our teacher Matthew Sanford challenged us with the opportunity to work with one of his students for a few hours on something specific. My group’s task was to work with breathing and our student/teacher was Sammy. Sammy is a long time student of Matthew and is quadriplegic. Yoga-type breath work for Sammy can be challenging because her neck and jaw muscles control most of her voluntary breathing.

Let me pause and say that I absolutely L.O.V.E. teaching breath. I think some of the struggles I’ve had in my own body and my experience as a singer definitely inform how I approach and teach breathing. So I was very excited for this challenge. I was also just happy to work with Sammy. In all of my trips up to Minnesota, we had never had the opportunity to work together. She beams and at that time I desperately needed light.

We lifted Sammy out of her chair and placed her on a mat with her upper body elevated by blocks and a bolster. I suggested that we start by massaging her jaw and neck. As one of my fellow teachers began the massage, I asked Sammy to yawn. This is something I do often with my voice students. When we yawn our neck muscles stretch and our soft palate lifts. What I hoped was that we might create relief in Sammy’s neck and jaw, but what I noticed was her breath traveled deep into her belly—something that she has a hard time doing on her own. I asked Sammy if she noticed that and she smiled a big smile and said “Yes.” Bingo, we have a connection. One of my peers said, “I’m just gonna step back and support this.”

So yawning became our breath practice. The other teachers lead her through some twists and different shapes and on occasion I would place my hand on her ribs or belly etc. and ask her to yawn and notice the breath traveling deep into her body. It was magical. She told me after, “I will definitely include yawning in my practice from now on.”

What this experience taught me is that having a specialized lens is good, but it can also be limiting. You need to be able to pan out and see the big picture. Your techniques are only good if they serve the student. I don’t claim to be a master teacher by any stretch, but I am damn good at paying attention to my students. Compassion and curiosity are my guides. If I had only showed up with my Yoga breathing toolbox, I most certainly would’ve missed this and Sammy would have too.

I almost didn’t make my annual trip Minnesota that year. It took a lot to get me on the plane and I’m thankful to my peers for keeping me grounded that week. But most of all, I’m grateful for Sammy. Sammy, thank you for being a wonderful teacher. This moment with you is one of my most cherished memories and is the most pivotal in my teaching journey—you shined a light on the path and kept my feet moving. I don’t believe I’d be teaching right now if it weren’t for you. I’m forever indebted!

Stuck In The Middle

“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.“ Who knew that the words from this Stealers Wheel song would be so poignant 50 years later. This is how I feel right now. A moderate in a polarized world. A yoga teacher that has just enough gray in my hair for my older students to trust me, and just enough gray in my hair for my younger contemporaries to distrust me.

Many of you have asked why I’m off of social media. I don’t need my work to become a commodity. I’m really not looking to be a yoga rockstar. I also don’t want to objectify my students by putting their pictures online to prove that I’m doing “the work.” I have done that in the past and I’m not comfortable with that going forward. A friend of mine recently said that, “Stating your beliefs is not activism. How you show up in the world is what matters.” I couldn’t agree more.

It seems we have lost our authenticity in this tech takeover. Who knows if the person that’s posting for your favorite business or yoga teacher is actually them. That’s performance, not presence. When we perform, there’s an urge to get it right and a rush to judge when someone doesn’t. Social media should have us connected, but we are more disconnected as humans than we’ve ever been.

Our social media platforms have allowed for some of our basic conversational etiquette to be tossed out the window. We used to avoid talking about politics, now it’s all people want to talk about online. Hell it’s a metric. Organized religion is on the decline, maybe politics is the new religion. Social media sure is the new bully pulpit. Conservatives and liberals are using it equally, mostly to no avail, except to get an amen chorus from the echo-chamber choir. Like I said in my last blog, you’re not going to shame people into actionable change. And constantly talking to like-minded people isn’t gonna change anything either.

I find it very interesting that the conversations we won’t have in person are the ones we will have behind the keyboard. Maybe we need to flip that script and show up in person with a clear sense of who we are and an open mind. Who knows, we all might change a little. We might have some empathy. We might see the person behind that viewpoint or vote. But that’s scary isn’t it? That means the soapbox we’re standing on might get kicked out from underneath our feet.

I don’t need to agree with you on everything to recognize your humanity. I might be showing my age, and maybe I’m out of touch, but I have to believe that our interpersonal relationships are the key to our survival. I know that in my yoga classes that’s where the magic happens, but it doesn’t mean much if we can’t bring it out of the classroom and into real life.

Ain’t That a Shame?

Around the time that I was born, my parents bought a lot in a new development outside of a small town in South Carolina. Their house was one of the first to be built there. Growing up, there were always opportunities to ride bikes and jump over big mounds of dirt or build forts out of bricks and construction materials that were being used to build houses. We would hunt in the nearby woods and fish in the large neighborhood pond. It was pretty cool actually … just enough out in the country and just enough suburban development to allow me to explore the wilderness and have the safety of home not too far away.

One day I was playing with a kid up the street—I can’t remember his name and I don’t know how old I was then, but we were both pretty young. He and I decided to get some tools out of his father’s toolbox and take them down to the neighboring lot to play. I got a hammer and drove one of his Dad’s screwdrivers into a fallen pine tree. Being a young kid, I didn’t realize that I wasn’t gonna be able to get that thing out of the tree. I panicked and in the course of wrestling it out, I broke it off. We were deathly were afraid of being caught, so we raced to put everything back in his father’s toolbox and swore not to tell a soul. His parents never said anything-we got away with it.

Looking back it wasn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I’m sure that particular screwdriver cost a lot more than ones you can buy at Lowe’s or Home Depot nowadays, but still it was not as serious as we felt it was in the moment. This should be a relatively benign memory from my childhood, but it’s not.

My evangelical Christian upbringing wouldn’t allow it to drop. I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. Secrets were sinful and the one I was holding would keep me out of Heaven. See I had been told that if I didn’t confess every sin (no matter how small) and remorsefully repent I would go to Hell. I remember distinctly sitting on my mom’s lap days later trying to tell her what happened and just breaking down crying. Sobbing uncontrollably, I was unable to speak. I got up, went to my room and never confessed. But I sure lived with the shame of my silence.

For several nights, I prayed for forgiveness. Was I talking to myself? Or was I performing like I’d been told I needed to in order to atone for my sins and keep everything right in the afterlife. My prayers those nights were rooted in fear. I was scuttling down the eternal fire escape to perceived safety. The whole experience took me out of my body and as a 53 year old writing this, I still feel a tightness in my chest. Over a flipping screwdriver!! Yeah, that’s how trauma works. It has taken me years to reclaim my physical body in a way that isn’t defined by the guilt and shame of my indoctrination.

Shame. It’s no way to teach if you want lasting change. It will leave an impact, but not always the one you are aiming for. As I overhear conversations within the Yoga teaching community and the sociopolitical ones outside of it, I can’t help but notice a stunning resemblance to the shaming in the name of an inflexible morality that rings all too familiar. And that’s a damn shame.

Let's Go Surfin'

My friend and colleague Sarah Henderson often says that “We are not teaching yoga, we are facilitating humanity.“ I caught a glimpse of that last Wednesday when she and I were leading a class for students with traumatic brain injury. Sarah and I flip-flop week to week with one of us teaching and the other supporting. Last Wednesday I was in the support role.

Midway through class, the caregiver for our student Charles shared with us that Charles had sailed from the East Coast to Hawaii on a sailboat. We know from our previous classes with Charles that he really likes the outdoors. Sarah quickly picked up on the ocean theme and started to create on the fly. Our movements and Yoga shapes became informed by scenes from the beach and feel of the ocean. She asked, “Charles did you ever surf?” And he answered “No, no, I never surfed.” Then she asked, “Well would you like to right now?” And he answered, “Right here?” And Sarah said, “Yeah, right here on our Yoga mat.” Charles said, “Well yeah. I’ll give it a try!”

She lead Charles through a series of surfing movements that from the outside might not of looked anything like “Yoga,” but she was guiding him through a sequence of Warrior II and Peaceful Warrior. Helping Charles extend and laterally flex his spine while simultaneously building strength in his legs. But that’s not all that was going on.

Knowing that Charles does really well with tactile feedback and loves sound, Sarah was creating the sensation of moving on the waves and encouraging Charles to visualize each wave coming in. She would often say, “Okay Charles are you ready? Here comes a big one,” encouraging him to make the sounds of the waves splashing against their body. When they finished that sequence Charles was grinning from ear to ear. It was a beautiful thing to be a part of.

On the outside most people wouldn’t recognize that this was a Yoga class. It was noisy, a bit unruly, and definitely not precise. There were no overt gestures to philosophy or conversations about the flow of prana and the alignment of the spine etc. What was present was human connection. What was present was breath, maybe not in a traditional pranayama type of way, but definitely in a way that created an experience in Charles’ nervous system. Charles showed up sort of low energy and left that class beaming.

You can’t do this work and have a rigid mindset. Presence is your greatest asset as a Yoga teacher. You must lean on everything you know one minute, and be ready to throw it all away the very next. Keep your heart open and be creative. I know last Wednesday, I left the studio humbled and amazed by what I’d witnessed.

Backseat Rider

I led an Adaptive Yoga workshop this past weekend and thought it would be nice to invite some of my regular students to come share their experience and wisdom with the teacher trainees. The common theme these students shared about my teaching was “freedom.” Freedom to move in and out of a posture, freedom to come out of a shape before the teacher cues it, freedom to close their eyes to focus, freedom to feel heavy and dark emotions. .

One of the biggest frustrations I have about how many Yoga styles are taught is that they replicate the systems of control that exist outside of Yoga spaces. We have so many top down power structures in our culture and unfortunately our Yoga practice is no exception—it’s a microcosm of the macrocosm. As leaders in the field of Yoga, we must expand the practice for the better, not replicate “systems”. Dogma in the name of tradition is still dogma.

Yoga teachers it’s cool to know all of the nuances of your Warrior I cues or to be up on your anatomy game as it pertains to the shoulders and hips etc., but that’s not usually where the rubber meets the road. Like my students shared this past weekend, the simplest things are often the most profound. My allowing room for, and encouraging, them to make their own choices was the most impactful thing they gleaned from me. When I teach, I simply think of myself as a passenger. I hop in the backseat and let the students take us to where it is we are going. After all it’s the journey, not the destination and I really don’t need to drive.

I'll Fly Away

There’s a sequence I teach in almost every class. For my students on mats, we lie on our backs and sweep our arms up and behind us while taking our feet together, really enjoying a gentle extension of the spine. We then let our arms and legs go out to the side kind of like we’re making a snow angel. In this shape we really embrace ease in the body. We explore five or six repetitions of this, linking our breath with our movements, and then land in rest with our arms wide and our feet wide.

I often think of my student Paul when I teach this. Paul recently passed away from the long term effects of Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s causes a rigidity in the body, and in Paul’s case, a strong inward contraction toward the midline. Creating the sensation of ease for a student with this condition can be challenging. For Paul, getting his body into the shape of our snow angel was hard. I would assist in placing his legs wide and he would “rest” there. Ease for Paul was relative.

At our studio, I teach students who are accustomed to practicing a flow style and often view postures like our snow angel as resting points or places to wait for whats next. I often remind them this is “what’s next.” I think of Paul and remind them that it’s pretty amazing they can put their bodies in a shape that creates ease and space without their bodies fighting them. This is not the shame anyone, but to highlight that there is equal value in effort and ease. We fail to notice that when we only chase intense sensation.

I didn’t attend, but I heard from one of my students that they played the old gospel hymn “I’ll Fly Away“ at Paul’s funeral. This same student shared with me that she thought of Paul flying away from his physical body and finally experiencing the freedom and ease he was craving. Rest Easy Paul, you were an angel to many.

Stronger, Calm, Safe

Compassion fatigue is real. Teaching has come with a serious emotional toll over the past couple of years. I’ve lost many students and others have lost family members or partners. Not too long ago, I was seriously wondering how long I could continue to do this work. But…my students constantly remind me that what we experience in our time together is valuable and that my place in their lives is important.

Friday’s class was a beautiful example of this. Usually after 20 or 30 minutes into practice I ask everyone to check in and notice subtle changes in their body, energy, and breathing. A student who has heart failure and practices in a motorized wheelchair answered by saying that she felt “stronger.” Another student who lost her son to gun violence and is often very anxious said she felt “calm.” And another student who has just been diagnosed with a life altering disease, said she felt “safe.” My eyes welled up. I’m not sure if anyone caught that or not, but it was a beautifully human moment and one I desperately needed to feel.

Your Breath Is A Miracle

We come into this world with an inhale. We leave it on and exhale. Every breath in between is a connection to the miracle of life. Our day to day lives often cause us to become disconnected to the wonder of our existence.

What if like walking through a beautiful garden or listening to a symphony, we paused to observe our breath? Not so that we can deepen it or slow it down etc. just simply to acknowledge the miracle occurring within us with every breath. Each breath is a connection to yourself and the space around you … a celebration of life itself.

Breathe, smile, you are a miracle!

Connection over Correction

What if when we moved our bodies and interacted with them, we made the conscious decision to connect with them as opposed to correcting them? This requires a practice of deep listening and patience. When we find places in the body that have tightness or intense sensation maybe instead of immediately trying to stretch or fix that place, we asked ourselves “What is that about?” This way we are not assigning a value to our experience and may discover ourselves patterning into certain movements that are yielding outcomes we don’t particularly like. Now there is the possibility to make another choice or take another approach. Ex: Often the places we stretch habitually need to be strengthened, not stretched, etc.

One of the main reasons I have issues with certain types of yoga styles is that many are too dogmatic, often idealizing postures and forgetting that a shape is simply a vehicle to explore ourselves. We are all pressured enough by expectations placed on our bodies that aren’t our own. Our practice doesn’t have to be another place we engage in that sort of dialogue. Move, breathe, reflect … it’s not that serious. Example: When you find yourself micromanaging your foot position in Warrior I or ask yourself “Why?” If it’s because you feel stable and grounded, or you’re relieving tension in your hip or knee, or you feel more balanced, etc … then great. If it’s because a teacher told you that’s the “right” way to do the shape, question that and see if it’s “right” for you. This is your body and this is your practice. When moving it ask yourself, “Am I connecting to my body or correcting it?” There’s nothing wrong with you. You are inherently whole. You do not have to be fixed or micromanaged. Connect to yourself and see what you discover.

Warm Lasagna: Sauteed Okra and Tomatoes with Carey →

Earlier this year, Carey let me bring my tomato plants by his place to give me a few pointers on the ins and outs of container gardening. Carey was patient and did not judge me, even though my poor plants were clearly lacking the water and nutrients they needed. Instead, he helped me re-pot my plants and gave me an overview on tomato care basics. Not only did he save my tomato plants from the brink of death but he also gave me a lesson on what it means to care for a living thing. Watching the precision with which he pruned his plants and the time he took to pat fertilizer into each container was extremely moving; perhaps because such thoughtfulness these days is rare. I went home with expertly-staked tomato plants, a bag of fertilizer, and newfound faith in humanity.

This episode, Carey shares a whole lot of wisdom with us - wisdom from the garden and from the sacred geography of where he's from, as he says. We talked about the function of food in his family of origin, and specifically about how this okra saute is Carey's present day take on tradition. We also talked about some of the grief Carey has experienced over the past six months, with the loss of income, shifts happening in the type of work he does, and the deaths of friends. We discussed current events and the necessity, through all life's challenges, of simply being.

"I think just being truly present with people and trying not to be judgmental and trying not to fix. Realizing that relationships require, just like the plants do, requires a process and a “being with” that can’t just happen from “let me go talk to you and tell you all my opinions and back out.” I think that’s something that right now, with COVID and some of the political dynamics being so polarized, it really made me aware that our human connection is so important." 

Carey is one of the most knowledgeable and skillful people that I know. He loves to learn. He has used COVID as an opportunity to ground himself and disconnect from social media. To get back into the garden, to try his hand at pickling and fermenting, and to reconnect with others. My favorite part was hearing him talk about the importance of deep listening and critical thinking.

“Binary thinking is easy; nuanced conversation is hard. When you interact with somebody who has a different life experience, you may understand how they got there. I may not agree with it, but I understand at least how they got there and what’s at stake for them to unpack that. It’s a hard thing to do, and I think that’s why we don’t do it a lot. It requires courage and vulnerability that sometimes we’re not ready for.”  
For more information about the contact hypothesis, as discussed in this episode, read this!

To follow Carey's adventures teaching accessible yoga, check out his website. And don't forget to check out his music!

All content © 2020 Warm Lasagna.