Holding the Light

"...[T]here is no greater gift to give another than to hold for them a vision of their highest potential." 

--Kimberlee Gorgo 

The other day at yoga I was in the shower after class when I heard one woman say to another, "I can't believe you quit so early on."

At first I was horrified. How could someone say this to another person? Someone she came to yoga with? HER FRIEND presumably? 

Then I remembered, wait: I have BEEN that friend. 

Not directly maybe (I have never been that gutsy), but subtly, quietly, discreetly. I have made side comments and off the cuff remarks that have injured others and diminished their accomplishments or pointed out their weaknesses (sharing a poem I wrote in college about how I don't drink diet soda with an overweight friend holding a Diet Coke, regaling a fellow parent flush with the high of her first half-marathon with tales of my FULL marathon, I could go on....). I have begrudged another her success instead of celebrating it with her more often than I would care to admit. And I have kicked someone when they were down by pointing it out and commenting on it. 

I realized then that I had far more to gain from seeing this comment as a reminder from The Universe FOR ME rather than as an opportunity to judge another.

Later that week I was given the opportunity to test my new-found revelation: at a playdate with my son the mom was talking about her new business, this great opportunity she had to create the job she has always wanted. It would include travel and writing and opportunities for big bucks in the future. 

I found myself coming up with reasons it would never work: she doesn't have time for that, does she even know what she is talking about? She hasn't done this before how can this possibly work? 

And then I remembered to hold the light for her as I would want her to hold it for me. And I did.   

Who can you hold the light for this week? 


[Don't forget to check out my new venture with my sister, spiritual advice from The Soul Sisters. Also, today is day eight of a river of stones. You can read mine at: pebbles: another word for small stones. ]

YTTP!

“There will be no correct clothes

There will be no proper payment

There will be no right answers

No glorified teachers

No ego no script no pedestals

No you're not good enough or rich enough

This yoga is for everyone

This sweating and breathing and becoming

This knowing glowing feeling

Is for the big small weak and strong

Able and crazy

Brothers sisters grandmothers

The mighty and meek

Bones that creak

Those who seek

This power is for everyone.” 

--From the Yoga to the People homepage

I went to hot yoga tonight after more than four weeks off. I was worried that what little stamina I had built up during the two or three weeks I was going consistently would be gone. 

Surprisingly I felt better than ever, despite the fact that it was a night class and I was tired (and so tempted to skip it to watch reruns of Eli Stone).

I love this yoga for so many reasons. Because it pushes me beyond my comfort level. Because it works my mind as much as it works my body. Because of how I feel when it is all over.

Here are three stories from yoga that I would like to share with you:

Yoga Story #1

The last yoga class I went to before my trip to Paris I was one of three women in the room. Both were older than me, in their early sixties I would guess.

The first woman was fit and trim and looked like a marathon runner. She was quiet and kept to herself while dressing for class. The second woman was overweight and looked like a grandma. While we dressed for class she chatted with me about her yoga blog and how much she hated this yoga studio. The teachers were inexperienced, the room was too hot, it was nothing like HER yoga studio in another part of the city.

I wondered, but didn't ask, what the heck she was doing here given all of that, but I didn't say anything to refute or defend the teacher or the studio. I just listened and then went into the yoga studio determined to have a good experience despite her opinions.

As we moved into the first postures of the class it became apparent that woman number two was not having a good experience. She was stopping to rest, taking child's pose and breathing heavily. 

Whenever the teacher tried to assist her she refused the advice, letting us all know that she has been taking yoga for MONTHS and knew what it was supposed to be like and this was NOT it. The room was too hot, too humid, too something and her body was not used to it, liking it, or able to handle it.

Mid-way through the class she left in a huff, never to return.

After class I went up to the teacher and said, “Don't worry about her, she had the experience she wanted to have.” The teacher said, "Thanks," and that she knew that was true.

I walked into the dressing room feeling a little bit disappointed in myself. I had resisted taking the first woman's side against the teacher, but I had been unable to resist taking the teacher's side against the recalcitrant student. I had to admit to myself that I took a little glee in her inability to stay in the room after her rant in the dressing room and was happy to share that feeling with the teacher.

Yoga Story #2

Today's class was a whole different ballgame.

A night class, it was practically full when I got there ten minutes before the start of class. Twice we had to shift our mats over to make room for new students. We were practically hip to hip and toe to toe with one another in a VERY hot room. It was more than a little bit uncomfortable.

It was particularly uncomfortable because the majority of the students in the room looked as if they were from the local college and were MUCH younger than myself. This did not lend confidence to my feeling of being ill-prepared after such a long absence from class.

Nonetheless, I steeled myself and walked into the room, looking for a spot.

Two nice girls moved over and made a place for me, no doubt thinking that being parked next to me was going to make them look good. Or that's what I was thinking anyway.

A few minutes into class I realized that this was not necessarily the case. Not only was I feeling stronger and more flexible than I remembered or imagined, I had one thing going for me that these girls did not. Age.

At the beginning of every class they instruct you to work to your level, to find your own eyes in the mirror and to meditate on your experience only, not looking around the room, not comparing, not trying to best someone else's poses. I decided that would be my only goal for the night: to find my own eyes and keep them there.

I managed to do this pretty well, although I did look around peripherally while gazing straight ahead. What I saw was a bunch of twenty-somethings trying to keep up with each other.

In standing head to knee pose (Dandayamana-Janushirasana) you stand firm on one leg, keeping it perfectly straight and locked while you bend the other leg and hold your foot in your hands. The idea is to keep your second leg bent as long as your first leg (the one standing strong on the ground) is shaky or wobbly. You hold this pose for a full minute before shifting to the other leg. It is not easy.

In fact, it is damn hard. My standing leg was moving and grooving, shaking and wobbling, but I managed to stand on it for the full minute. 

As I looked around in the mirror I saw twenty-something girls who had fallen off of their standing leg move right back into the pose and right back into the more advanced position (in this position you kick out your bent leg until it is parallel to the floor, making the standing leg all the more unsteady), from which they fell again.

I felt great compassion for them because I knew that in my twenties I was that girl. The girl who was SO strong and SO flexible and SO well, let's just say it, COOL that I would do the most difficult iteration of any pose even if my body was screaming at me not to.

I started to feel good about myself. Downright proud really, for being comfortable with who I am and where I am.

From there it was just a small hop, skip and a jump to: "Wow, check me out, I am kicking these twenty-something girls' butts. I am the yoga QUEEN. I ROCK. CHECK ME OUT."

I lost my focus. I lost my straight-ahead gaze. I lost my eyes in the mirror. And I fell right out of my pose.

I laughed at myself and sent the Universe a silent message, “Message received. Back to the business at hand.”

I found my own eyes and I kept them there for the rest of class. (Okay once in awhile they veered to the VERY hot guy in the row behind me, but not for competitive purposes....)

Yoga Story #3

On the way out of class tonight I stopped at the shoe rack to grab my shoes and put on my coat. A bunch of thirty-somethings from the class were sitting there talking about running a half marathon and advising a woman doing her first not to run more than ten miles in training.

One of the guys turns to me and says, “You're wearing a marathon shirt, what do you think? How far did you train before you did the half?”

I paused and smiled to myself. Of course he assumed that I had gotten the shirt for doing the half. No one looks at me and thinks: marathon runner.

My Ego was tempted, but my post-yoga Higher Self was strong and I said, “I agree, you want to have something to strive for on the day. If you run the full thirteen before the race, the race can be kind of a let down. Good luck.”

And I walked out the door. I knew that I had run a full marathon and that was all that mattered.

It's HOT HOT HOT!

"As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." 

--Nelson Mandela

A few months ago my husband discovered hot yoga. He picked it up again recently and decided he wanted to go EVERY DAY. So he did. 

This was fine until one day he went to a class late in the day and did not come home for dinner, did not call and did not remember that he was supposed to take one of the boys to an activity that night. 

By the time he got home dinner was cold, our son was late, and I was FURIOUS. 

Now there were lots of reasons I was mad about this:

1) I had run an errand earlier in the day that I just barely had time for, thinking that if worse came to worse, I could ask him to pick up the kids from school at the last minute. Had I known he was not available, I would not have done that;

2) Less than a few weeks earlier I had not gotten dinner on the table in a timely manner and our son was late for the very same activity because of me. At that time I got a lecture about how if we were going to do this particular evening activity, I needed to make sure that the boys were ready to go when it was time;

3) Communication has been an ongoing issue with us. As a male primate my husband needs a certain amount of freedom to come and go as he pleases or he starts to feel caged in. While I understand this, I contest that once you have made a family with someone you owe them a certain amount of communication, especially if you are going to go AWOL for more than a couple of hours. Not asking permission mind you, just LETTING THEM KNOW. It's just common courtesy in my opinion. 

So, needless to say we had quite the "discussion" when my husband got home, covering all of the above and much, much more. 

But when it came right down to it, I had to admit that none of the above was really the issue for me. The truth was: I was jealous. And tired. 

Somehow his going to yoga every day just felt unfair to me. And it felt like the whole weight of the family had been placed on my shoulders, to bear all alone. 

Even though I would not want to go every day (I am just not an "every day" person. Every other day, maybe; a couple of times a week, sure, but there are just very few physical things I want to do EVERY DAY.), I was upset that he was ABLE to. 

He and I have had this discussion a million times before and we always end up at the same place. As the mother in a family there are just certain things you give up that the father in the family will never understand (and I know the same is true in reverse). "Every day" is one of those things for me. 

Even if I wanted to and made a Herculean effort, I am certain that I would not be able to do yoga every day for more than a few days. Inevitably someone would be sick, or have an activity, or a need that pre-empted my "every day" yoga plan. That's just that way it is. 

He doesn't understand this. His opinion is that if I REALLY WANTED IT I could make it happen - with his help, with babysitters - somehow I could make it work. 

I guess I have to concede that this is true, if I were willing to put whatever I was doing ahead of the family, which I just am not. And, aye, there's the rub. 

Whenever my husband starts to do something "every day" I feel like he is putting that thing ahead of us and I start to worry that if he had to choose between that thing and us, he would chose that thing and where would that leave us?

And I start to panic and worry and feel like it's ALL ON ME; and then it's a full-blown fear attack. 

Which is pretty much where I ended up on the night of this fight. So we talked and we fought and we came up with a plan which was that I would go to yoga the next morning and he would stay home with the kids until I got back. 

It didn't really solve the primary issue, but it was a start. 

And, lo and behold, what a start!

Hot yoga is amazing! So hard you think you are going to die, but afterward you feel so....AMAZING. There is no other word for it, you positively GLOW!

As I got up off of my mat to go home and take over for my husband, I felt a surge of love for him so great I could hardly bear it. I wanted to go home and force him to do yoga every day for the rest of his life because I wanted him to feel just like I felt at that moment. 

As I walked out of the yoga studio I saw this Nelson Mandela quote hanging on the wall and I froze. I had just been liberated from my own fear of lack and limitation and I was ready to liberate the world, starting with my husband. 

If you are interested in trying hot yoga, there is a great new studio in Seattle called Yoga to the People. Check it out!