Consumed

The post that just IS

My boyfriend, my best friend, my love; he said it right, "well why change the habit of a lifetime of underachieving?"

It was in reference to the pass percentage I scored on my online TEFL course. I got a merit (that was between 80 and 85%) but I complained to him saying, "Oh, I didn't realise it was graded! ... I could have got a distinction." That was above 85%. And it should have been easy enough for me to do. But like all things I've ever committed to or studied, I got to a point where I was beyond caring about getting every little mark and just wanted to complete the damn thing. Get it done. Move on. Make a cup of tea. Next!

And that's what's dawned on me now, that I can feel like this... IN LIFE >>IN YOGA. I can sense this past the point of caring. And with that comes this depressing realisation of my underachievement.

Underachievement in my work,
underachievement in my relationships,
...underachievement on my yoga mat.

Maybe I'm being hard on myself. It a struggle not to succumb to the odd self-deprocating thought that creeps in...but part of me, the largest part of me *knows* it's actually true that I could (and maybe some people think I should) be achieving more. Doing more. Focussing my energy. Yet I see that's almost impossible amidst all the foggy confusion clouding my mind.

I'm grateful to my beau for saying these words (which he absolutely did not mean but rang totally true).  Because this means that I can move on from this feeling; now, with greater clarity and self-awareness I can begin to be proud of my achievements and the way I live. I may not be up to much on the surface of things but the the rippling activity of my days are full of joy and many lessons. Almost like I'm learning to live again.

Everyday I roll out my yoga mat; just like I wake and I practice life.

I'm not giving up or rushing or waiting for the end! 

Life, like yoga is without merit or distinction. You just do.

From here to here

Life is a constant flux of learning.

Lessons.

Some, I've documented here. Most, I've felt and then become.

Life keeps moving.

I observe.

Moving from here to here.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." - Helen Keller

Stop having faith in Something

In my last post I mentioned faith. I think I've mentioned having faith many times on this blog. But what I've come to realize is that I need to stop having faith in Something and instead have faith in Myself. This applies to having faith in yoga too. Yoga alone isn't going to fix me and make me the 'perfect' person...or the person I aspire to become. My choices to improve myself will help me to make this experience of Life better and yoga is part of that, even a facilitator to it but ultimately, the change will sprout from me.

It's only natural in uncertain times or during feelings of insecurity to ask for support or help. In a crisis when I was younger, I remember my mum praying to God for help. As an adult myself now, I'm likely to do the same in some form. And whenever I make Big decisions (life changing decisions) I want to seek out approval and for everyone to support me in my quest.

I should know by now that your expectations of people can not always live up to the ones you may have built in your imagination. Sometimes, the very people you think would want the best for you, actually seem to make things more difficult.
That's exactly when you have to believe in yourself.

Have faith in more than Something.
Have faith in you.


That is the test.

Fuck Yoga!

Believe me, I've questioned it many many times. Like, why bother? To list a few of the 'negatives' of Mysore-style Ashtanga yoga; early mornings, achey body, injury, tiredness, unleashed emotion(!)... Loss of your social life(!!) loss of friends(!!) loss of who you once were(?!!) ...

Returning to practice after being in bed with tonsillitis made me think about my motivation to get up and go to yoga six mornings a week...

1. It's a time that I devote to something greater than myself. I have a spiritual practice, more than just an asana practice.  
2. There's a whole bunch of people that I practice with whom I cherish. Great, fun, intelligent and inspiring people. I'm blessed to know them.
3. It makes my body more healthy. I believe I'm doing something good for myself and if I feel better, I'm more likely to be a more valuable asset to others.
4. It focusses my mind. It really does.
5. I have faith in this practice. 

I guess, you've got to have faith. Blind faith really. You can read/listen to other peoples' experiences but in the end, you have to believe in it yourself.

List of Joy

• watching people smiling alone in public...either looking at their mobile phones or just listening to their thoughts. Even better, seeing people laughing to themselves
• a really great film or TV show that makes me think/question out of my experience/connects to my experience
• content sleeping babies
• finding new AMAZING music -voices, lyrics...beats!
• my boyfriend - you make me forget myself  and all the other lovely friends and family I'm blessed to know
• DANCING
• writing when the words just flow tap tap tap
• blue skies and bluebells in April
• Buster and Poppy and all my animal companions
• singing ...and being told I can hold a note ;)
• feeling the warmth of sunlight on my face
• crunchy juicy apples
• giggling so much it hurts
• broad northern accents 
• lists
• looking back at all the moments/places/times I've felt such pure joy and looking forward to more of those

Downward dog in Paris

I really don't know where to start this post... I guess, by saying (admitting) that practicing in Paris was really challenging for me... on both a physical and emotional level.

So to give a little background, I've got a sore shoulder and hamstring which meant I'd not done my full practice for a couple of weeks before practicing in Paris. The hamstring issue is reoccurring but my painful shoulder is a new injury. I've been working on strength, maybe I over-did it? Or maybe it's just a culmination of shoulder stress and finally when it did go crack enough was enough and I was forced to slow down. Who knows...

The teacher in Paris identified that I needed to work on strength in practice and that my flexibility was actually a hindrance and that by practicing the way I do, I'm damaging myself. She told me that if she was my teacher she would have me only practice primary and make that solid before learning any second. She also said that after a year and a half of daily practice it was WAY too soon to learn second. She said she could see I wasn't engaging bandhas which acted as the brakes to protect myself from going too far in postures. She came from the prospective of staying safe in asana rather than experiencing uncomfortable places.

She told me my Chaturanga looked like an insect.

I'll leave it there, you get the impression, I hope. My practice was dissected. My attachment to my practice too.

So now I'm confused. I guess I'll talk to my teacher and gather her opinion.

All really hard shit to hear. But maybe someone had to say it...

MIAMI (more)

Kino prescribed me 10 push ups each afternoon to help gain strength. This after I moaned, "I'm so weak." *sad face*

Well do something about that then.

Makes sense.

But I never thought of doing extra to complement my practice. *light bulb ping*

And what else have I been (secretly) moaning about? I hate to say it (and be a typical woman)...but the extra pounds I've been chugging around lately (for the past few years). Too much creamy milk and sweet treats I think. So, I'm taking the reins there too. I need to be responsible for myself...I don't need so many calories.

Something that was discussed last week (I'm trying to scramble through it all and pick out the most prominent) was the importance of choosing your teacher and sticking with them. Placing trust in them, despite the ups and downs of practice on and off the mat and despite your (perhaps) fluctuating feelings towards them too. Knowing that that is all part of the process. This is learning to have faith in a teacher and letting go, surrendering to yoga. I recall, feeling blessed to have stumbled upon my teacher (and shala) in London by sheer luck or fate and for the cherished relationship I have with her.
Kino went on to discuss students becoming teachers when at some stage in their practice they were able to shine their own torch to guide others in the practice...which I guess is where I am now, covering classes. Though, I hardly feel worthy...just profoundly honored.

Tim told me on the first day, "So it's not flexibility that you need to work on, it's strength." Yes, I'm a very fortunate lady to have a naturally bendy body... I know now, I have to really work on gaining strength. In life too. With my boyfriend away for the beginning of March, it's my chance to check in with myself and access the woman inside who IS strong. I need to believe that too.

Tim (all knowingly) also commented, "It's your fear that holds you back in asana, your body is ready, your mind is holding you back."

Truth.

Time to be more bold, more here, in this moment. Let me remember what I learned on Vipassana...oh, they were good lessons.

The final reminder from Miami, that I want to mention was that it's all practice whatever it looks like. Advanced or Primary series, it's all yoga...and neither is better or worse. I guess it's hard not to place value on what it looks like but you could have an advanced practice one day and then with the onset of an injury lose all that, does that mean that you don't have a great practice still?! No because, yoga is more than just the physical...as Sharath said at his conference in London last year, Asana is the foundation to a spiritual practice.

I thank God everyday that I am able to learn this beautiful practice. Miami strengthened my love for the practice as it strengthened my love of life too.

And finally, more Florence. It really is a great album.

MIAMI

I remember thinking at some point, ahhh this is why people go on yoga retreats...

Before leaving for my first trip to America, I was honestly pretty down about my yoga practice. I'd been working hard man, getting up at (precisely) 4.17am to get onto my mat early enough only to practice a little more than half primary and my second series postures. I guess it was no wonder I was getting miserable when after that I was speeding off to work like the thousands of others in London rammed onto tubes, racing to get to work get there no more than a little late...returning 'home' spent and exhausted from the energetic chaos of a school day.

I want to write about what I learned in Miami and share how I felt too.

It wasn't all blissful sunshine, I came close to tears too. Finally, I've cried twice since returning. Once when I walking into the taxi door, whacking my head, that was a sweet (short) albeit painful release of pent up emotion then again, I whelled up talking to my boyfriend and the tears came on my bike ride home from his...listening to Florence and the Machine I can feel the pangs of pain again. I can't really say I'm happy to be home...I could have easily stayed in Miami, ideally always practicing at the Life Centre with those great teachers. Not that I am not grateful of my awesome teacher here and my shala community. Just that that place, those teachers, made me look at London with new eyes... I guess I love (and miss) the sunshine, the heat, the newness of everything, the excitement of walking into American supermarkets ;)

So here goes, what did I learn (in yoga)? I learned I was being pretty lazy...Kino (McGregor) and Tim (Feldmann) were quick to spot I wasn't ever really using my bandhas (umm, at all). That pretty much transformed the whole thing when I gave more awareness to the internal aspect of the practice. Tim also told me I should work on lifting my lower ribs, especially in postures such as Ustrasana and Kapotasana. That totally makes sense. Practice was INTENSE. Sweat was pouring out of me everyday...my yoga towel was rank. Tim told me I should do my whole practice, so all of primary + second...I was first to start and last to finish. It was a long haul but one that seemed shorter by the end of the week and it made me realize that I DO need to do the whole thing if I really want to get stronger and there are so many postures in primary that still need work (like ALL of them!). Huge thanks to Tim and Kino for instilling fresh inspiration and for pushing me so hard in postures...taking me to painful places in order to feel comfort and acceptance there...

Kino talked about yoga students coming to a pinnacle point in their practice where they realize that there is no escaping pain/suffering. I think that's when I found my daily practice: this, I have understood for a while. She said that the difference between yoga and psychotherapy is that yoga does not question why, it just accepts. There is no end to suffering...and in terms of the practice, maybe there will never be a day when it's not uncomfortable somewhere somehow in some posture or other...and in life, maybe there will never be a day where you're not scratching at mosquito bites, rubbing your tongue along your burnt mouth, having nosebleeds, too hot/cold, hungry/too full, physically sore (to name the few I suffer from at the lower end of the pain spectrum)...the list goes on. Tim took me to that painful place in Baddha Konasana and asked me to stay there. "How do you feel?" he asked. "Like my hips are going to rip apart," I said...when really what I wish I had the courage to say in that moment was, "Like crying." Huge sadness emerged in me...frustration and anger in lesser proportions BUT by the end of the week masses of LOVE too. I arrived in Miami in love but left more in love than I've ever felt. Stronger, more focussed and more willing to take control of my life too...



To be continued.

Sleeping in Brackets

Tick.

Write.

Listen to the murmurs of my mind and share the commotion.

Hold tight.

I'm at home in your arms. Softly, humbly, affectionately...i curl up next to you.

So much up in the air, you say. I know. You know, i know. Don't worry about it now, you say. Put it in perspective, you say. How can we make you feel better, you say.

I quit my full-time teaching position (again). I'm (we're) looking for a place to live (again). I'm wondering what it is I want from life (again). I (already) have everything I need. Have faith, i hear myself pray...things WILL work out. El Universo will provide (remember).

(Funny), I've never wanted to leave the yoga room more so than this morning. Can I just go now? I've had enough. Sack this. What's the point anyway?!... I'm here (suffering) so I can appreciate life out there better(!)...give me food, shelter, comfort, why do I need this (pain)?

Put it all in brackets. It (life) is changing (again). Life in brackets. Sleeping in brackets. (Home).

Who we are

I remember as a child I wanted to be called Jessica. And so, practicing writing my name, I started to write Jessica.

Jessica
Jessica
Jessica

Maybe, if I wrote it enough times, I would actually become Jessica and lose my Jennifer identity?! Unfortunately, my birth name kind of stuck.

As a teen, I recall my mum criticising/mocking me for not knowing who I was. My style changed so often. I didn't know if I was any of the labels kids were given then. I didn't really know my preferences. I guess my main influences have always been my friends. I see that I've been highly influenced. And it doesn't end in my past. Now, as the person I've grown into, I see that I've been moulded by a lifestyle/environment/choices influenced by others. But who am I beneath all this?

Beneath all the external influence what is it that I am? Who is Jennifer? Maybe I'm different to everyone who comes into contact with me? Maybe I'm different even to me? Maybe this internal narrator changes too!

So is it when you take away all this external/internal shit, we're all just the same chemical compounds? No me, you, I. Only we.

That would have been easier name to practice.

We
We
We

But maybe a bit WEird.

A Flame

A little bit of anger,
The fuel for the fire.
A frustration,
A spark.
Then a flame,
The fire crackles.
Things get going,
Everything heats up.
The fire glows.
Energetic and strong.

The realising moments.

There are moments,
Sometimes longer than moments.
An evening.
A morning.
A time. Any time.
When you make a big realisation.
Some birth of thought or reason.
They can be scary.
And joyful.
We change.
We renew.
We grow.
Like children, we transpire.
Everyday someone new.

Christmas Time

It's the season to take stock and reflect.

It's the season to rest.

It's the season to love and cherish.

It's the season to be compassionate.

It's the season to be creative.

So many words have gone unwritten over the past month. Oodles of ideas and thoughts have gone untyped. But that's okay...I'll start from here.

In Blackburn, sat in my Father's chair, using his laptop, the clock ticks, my fingers tap tap and the dog sighs. It's Christmas Eve. My past is all about, it smiles at me and haunts my dreams too. Old samskaras awaken. I'm glad to sit and practice my yogic values off the mat. My body doesn't ache. It is relieved. It sighs deeply too.

Christmas Day now. The clock bashes still.

How will you spend this day?

How will you show more love?

How will you make this Christmas Time even more magical?

Give thanks and praise to God.

This, we have been given the gift to choose...

No Yin. No Yang.

If every day was sunny, we'd surely complain?

It's the crappy days that make us appreciate those days that just bloomin' perfect...and almost MAGICAL. Moments of bliss teased out throughout a day of laughter, warmth, comfort...LOVE. On the contrary, the not-so-great days are grim, empty, void and can make us question our entire existence in their extreme.

Post a very short primary practice this morning, life is beautiful. The sun penetrates the carriage of the train and glistens on the metallic surfaces of tall towers that poke from the urban landscape. But the day before, on placement at a school in ever-so-dismal Dagenham, I wondered WHY was I here doing this? Why was I wishing time away? Wasting time. Ughhhh, wasting ENERGY. Both of which, are so so precious. I told my boyfriend at the end of the day that maybe everyone has days like this and it's 'normal'. Without the darkness we wouldn't know the light.

Change is in the midst. I just know.

(Brief) moments of discontentment can be just as enlightening as moments of joy.

This is Living.

Happier every moment I'm more aware.
Stronger every time I try.
More loving every time I breathe in.
More prepared every time I breathe out.

Having the Courage

courage |ˈkʌrɪdʒ|
noun
the ability to do something that frightens one : she called on all her courage to face the ordeal.
• strength in the face of pain or grief : he fought his illness with great courage

ORIGIN Middle English (denoting the heart, as the seat of feelings): from Old French corage, from Latin cor ‘heart.’

To be truly courageous, you have to be prepared to work hard I think; to have patience and persistence. You have to persevere through all the frustration, worry, angst, FEAR. Some pretty uncomfortable times are inevitable. You have to trust the choices you make. Like giving up my job. That was a pretty big decision and one that I celebrated. I had to have faith that I'd be able to make money to survive no matter what. I'm alive and happy! I had to take a risk.

In life, we have to push our boundaries to move forward, for change. We have to keep widening our experience. We have to have courage. We have to listen to our hearts and explore the possibilities. In doing so, we can only get stronger.

Space for me

Autumn fell suddenly. The leaves now shroud the ground. The sun dances between the spaces of the trees and dazzles my eyes.

My days have been busy. Long. Social. Full of fun. Though, I'm happy to be going away tomorrow to sit a 3 day Vipassana. I need this space for me. To grow. To re-connect with silence. To re-connect with where I am and how I feel. To re-connect with me.

Space for me is space for change, space for a new season, space to pursue.

It's not all doom and gloom

A friend commented the other day that he had started to read my blog and that he thought it was depressing.

Maybe that's partly true. I struggle to read back anything that I've ever written on here. Part of that is because I'm a perfectionist and I'm never fully satisfied with my writing and part of that is because it upsets me. My words are heartfelt and honest, sometimes it's hard to look back on my anxieties and frustrations without feeling sorry for myself (or myself back then). I SO want to move away from feeling sorry for myself. I certainly don't want anyone else to pity me either. So, I don't look back. I focus on what's ahead. Live and learn.

But hey, it's not all doom and gloom. I promise.

"He doesn't want to hold my hand."

Yesterday, I was sent to a nursery in Essex.

Observing a 3-4 year old little girl obsessionally follow around a boy wanting to hold his hand resounded with me. She moaned, "He doesn't want to hold my hand." I said, "Maybe he doesn't want to hold your hand." I asked the coy looking boy and he shook his head. I could see he was desperate to escape her advances but he was being tolerant of her persistence. I joked on my Facebook status: Story. Of. My. Life. This morning after practice, my friend asked "And how did you feel when you saw her doing that." I said, "Empathy." She said, "And did you not wonder why she was doing that?"

Why? We perfectly good women put our eggs in one basket? Investing our invaluable energy into one man who doesn't love us like we HOPE one day they might. All the while, they fly free, happy, content, eating their cake...smothered in love.

I've grown up from that little girl.

It's time to change that self-destructive path I understand now...now I'm 26!