to blog or not to blog.

this blog has been quietly calling my name over the past few weeks, in a kind of ghostly, weak, whispery voice. every time i hear it, i think, "okay okay, i'll blog!" but then i don't. what's this all about? hmmm. i think i'm avoiding something.

except i don't know if i'm avoiding anything, really. i mean, okay, honestly, let's just put it all out there. i practice yoga a lot, like at least 5 times a week. it's hard to sustain avoidance mode when you're on your mat that much. PLUS i am in psychoanalysis -- yes, i said it, psychoanalysis, by which i of course mean 4 days a week on the couch freudian style. i'm like betty from mad men. no, not really, but kind of. not really. anyway, the point of all this is to say that if i'm avoiding something that this blog is trying to wake me up to, whatever it is has to be pretty darn tricky and stubborn to escape the rigorous anti-avoidance routine i've got going on in my life.

and yet, i know it's there. i am avoiding something. blahhhhhh i don't know. i think i should maybe rename this blog to whinybeanieyogini.blogspot.com.

i guess one thing i've been thinking about a lot lately is my stories -- you know, my autobiographical stories that i tell myself and other people all the time. you know what? i almost just started writing them out here, as if i need to tell them AGAIN. honestly, i'm getting really sick of listening to my stupid stories (like about how i'm not good at THIS, or i always react a certain way to THAT, or i just repeat a certain pattern in my life over and over again and i'm stuck, waaah waaah). but then i get kind of confused, because part of me wants to say, okay that's it! no more stories! i am DONE telling myself these stories! but then on the other hand, i think, well, a lot of the personal trauma and anger and angst that came from these stories' situations are things i need to learn from, and maybe i DO need to go back and retell the stories so that i can piece them apart, you know? like, unwind and disentangle them so that i can really see what happened.

this is where i feel like yoga and psychoanalysis are complete opposites. yoga says to me, "enough of the stories of who you were. what about the new stories about who you are and who you are becoming?" psychoanalysis says, "tell me the stories over and over again and let's really get into the emotions so that we can find out what's really going on here." it's hard!

MAYBE this is why i was avoiding my blog while also being DRAWN to my blog. eureka! that's it. the blog says, "tell the stories. dive in." avoiding the blog says, "the stories are boring and they don't matter and they're just self-indulgent ways to keep the angst alive."

but i know that writing is good, and blogging is good, and i like blogging. i don't really know why i like blogging -- i think there are like 2 people who actually read my blog, and those 2 people already know everything anyway because i see them on a regular basis and talk to them about this stuff. sooooo really, i don't know. what is the point of any of this? i don't know what the point is but i think i have to keep writing. we'll see where it leads.

i love yoga

just came back from baron's class in brookline. something happened to me. i want to share it.

before class, i was lying on the couch in my analyst's office (yes, i am in psychoanalysis -- 4 days a week on the couch, okay?) talking about how so much of the theme of this past week has been about my voice. feedback from teacher training has centered a lot around my voice. i also noticed that in practice yesterday, i was shying away from any throat-opening postures that i might normally go for, specifically camel, which opens the heart and throat for me.

so back to the point. i went to baron's class today. he had us in eagle, and then we unwrapped our legs and stepped back into crescent lunge, keeping eagle arms. as i was doing this, he was nearby and did something magical to me, but man, i went back, my heart went up, my chest opened, and my head just dropped back, leaving my throat wide open. and the sound that came out of me? well, all i can say is it was a cross between a dying cow and an orgasm. i don't know how else to describe it.

so then, i came out of the posture and BAM started coughing. like a coughing fit. i dropped down to my knees and just coughed and coughed, and (if you're squeamish, you might want to close your eyes for this next part) i coughed up something REALLY nasty. it was gross. then i started crying and shaking, and i just stayed down for a little while.

the rest of class was incredible. i felt ALIVE and open and ready for anything and i wanted to sing! when i got into my car after class, i turned on martin sexton (the king of all inspirational music for me) and just belted it out all the way home.

ahhhhhhh. I LOVE YOGA!

here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo).

yesterday i was commenting to a lovely studio manager i know about how for the past few years, i feel like i've been dropping little seeds along the path of the my life. every time i drop a seed, i look down at it and say, "okay, seed, start growing!" but nothing happens -- at least nothing i can detect right then. but now, now, my friends, when i turn around and look at where i've been, all i see is this luscious, colorful, wild garden. those seeds that felt so insignificant have blossomed and bloomed, and things are really beginning to take shape. it feels... good.

it feels good! it feels authentic. maybe for the first time in my life, i feel that i'm achieving something by simply being me. no pushing, no conniving, no manipulating or forcing. in fact, the only way i've been able to arrive where i am right now is by stripping away those nasty ways of being -- those grasping, negative, desperate ways. and i'm only just beginning.

how many times have i heard claire say "set your intention, and the universe will conspire to bring you what you need"? probably over a hundred times. and now i know. she's absolutely right.

i'd like to share what i like to call a savasanallucination (savasana hallucination) i had last night in gregor's class. here it is. it's so perfectly obvious but i just love it.

i'm on this road, walking along, and it's kind of dark. on my right, there are all these men in suits. hundreds and hundreds of them, just standing there, expressionless, in their suits. so i'm walking, and i'm seeing them, and i'm thinking, wow, this is a lot of men in suits. and they all look exactly the same. but i'm okay with it. and i just keep walking. the road starts to journey uphill a bit and i can see some light starting to appear on the road ahead, so i keep walking uphill (not too steep, though), and suddenly, i see it. the sun. and it is breathtaking. the light is so pure, almost white, and i can look right at it without burning my eyes. it was the most beautiful thing i've ever seen. when i became aware of reality again -- that i was laying on my mat, dripping wet, with a towel over my eyes -- i realized that there were tears streaming down my face.

later on, i thought about how the sun is always there. even when it's dark, the sun is just around the corner and you simply have to wait for the earth to rotate so that you can see it again. and there's really nothing you can do to speed up the earth's rotation, so you might as well just breathe and have faith that soon enough, you'll start to see the sun's light kissing the road just ahead of you.

enter planopia

i don't know about you, but when i get an idea of something i want to do in my head, i'm like that coyote chasing the damn roadrunner again (what is it with me and those two?). i get fixated and a little obsessed.

in these moments of planstravaganza, AP likes to call me planopia.

it's fun to be excited about planning but there's always that tipping point, that place where the excitement turns to panic. i think i've ruminated on this particular process on this blog in the past. the excitement builds and builds, and then all the plans are in place, and then i feel like a chicken with her head cut off, still running around but basically about to drop at any moment. and then there's the gradual let-down of the planning being complete! and, i'm not afraid to admit, i have gone back to itineraries and just looked at them. yup, just looked at the itinerary. it's slightly ocd, i know.

so that's where i am right now. i booked a flight to LA to go to my beautiful cousin's wedding in november, and while i'm out there i'll be visiting another little chiquita banana whom i love and adore. and i'm super excited, but it's like... now what?

sometimes i think i'm really nuts.

little birdies birdies birdies

ok, quick post.

i'm at the studio and a bird just flew in and i can't get him to leave! i'm so afraid that he won't be able to find his way out and he'll be stuck in here.

also, on saturday when i was walking home from teaching a class in boston, a baby bird dropped out of the sky (really, he dropped), hit a car, and landed DIRECTLY in front of me, then hopped underneath a car. i spent the next half hour trying (with AP's help -- yes, i said AP, mr. lebsky) to shoo him out from under the car to save him, but to no avail. we had to leave him there and my heart was broken.

okay, so now there's a bird in the studio! and not only is there a bird in the studio, this little birdie landed his little grey self RIGHT ON TOP OF THE COMPUTER SCREEN and then flitted and chirped away and now i can't find him.

so what's with the birds and me? and why do they keep getting in precarious situations around me in which i have no power to save them?

what would freud say?

rain = safety

surprise, surprise... it's raining again! but this time there's thunder and lightning, which i think make the whole situation much more tolerable.

i have always always loved thunderstorms. i like being outside when they're happening -- i think something physiological happens to me. secretly, i envision myself as storm from x-men. doesn't she look exactly like me?


i mean, just LOOK at her. she's awesome! seriously, that is how i feel when there's a thunderstorm.

but there's a psychological reason why i love storms. as a kid, i was terrified of robbers and fires. every night before i went to bed, i had to repeat to myself my protocol in the case of robbers and/or a fire.

robbers:
i would take my telephone (complete with extra long phone cord specifically for this emergency situation) into my closet and call 9-1-1, then jump out my window (i was on the first floor) and run around the back to my brother's window and rescue him, and then we would throw rocks at my parents' windows on the second floor and wake them up, and they would jump down from their deck (never was quite able to figure out how we'd prevent broken bones, but i thought broken bones were better than death) and we'd all flee.

fire:
i would take three things:
1. murphy (my teddy bear, featured in photo below with me last year on a flight to europe)

2. my bathrobe
3. my slippers

and then i'd follow the same protocol for robbers in regards to rescuing my parents and brother.

so this was my nightly thought-ritual, and i felt pretty darn prepared for the worst-case scenario, which i was convinced would someday come to pass.

except that when it was raining, all my worries went away. first of all, what robbers in their right minds would want to rob houses in the rain? (yes, this was my rationale.) they'd get all wet, and any stuff they were trying to steal would get wet too. and if there was a fire? built-in protection from the rain! so in my kid mind, rain = safety.

these days, my nighttime fears are a little more complex -- i wake up in panics about what the hell i'm doing with my life and rarely freak out about robbers or fires anymore. maybe that's because last year AP and i were actually broken into (we weren't home), and so in some ways, the inevitable has come to pass so my anticipatory fear/anxiety is no longer necessary. as far as fires go, well, i did light my oven on fire trying to bake a passover cake a few years ago, and that was scary. but we survived.

but it's still the case that when it's night time, and it's raining, falling (and staying) asleep happens much easier for me. and, yes, i still sleep with my bear. :)

helllllllo, ego stuff.

warning: this post is long and ranting and you might think i'm a big whiner after reading it, but i think i need to post it anyway.

my goodness (another digital freudian slip there -- i typed "my goodnews" instead of "my goodness"), so much has come through my life in the past few days. instead of giving you a play-by-play of the past 5 days, i think i need to hash through this philosophical/psychological wall i'm bumping up against right now. i'm talking about the edge.

those of you who are familiar with baron baptiste and his philosophy know what i'm talking about. in journey into power, baron says:

"the edge is where we come right up against ourselves and what we can do and be. it is the boundary between where we are and where we grow - the place of comfortable discomfort where all growing, and healing, happens."

which i get. i mean, i get the idea of the edge, i've been there on my mat and in my life more times than i can count. for a long time, i reached my edge very quickly coming into camel/ustrasana and it didn't always feel good. because it happened so fast, suddenly i felt like wile e. coyote in that moment when he's somehow run off the cliff, and has a second to realize he's about to fall... yeah. that's how i used to feel in camel a lot of the time. shear panic -- ice cold liquid in my veins and hot flashes all at once. i'd shoot back up to a seated position and just wait for the rest of the class to finish with their posture.

but then something happened -- i caught on to this pattern. i asked myself what the heck i was so afraid of. "it's just a posture. what's the big deal?" i decided to stay with the panic moment, to stay with myself through it, to see what was on the other side. and (you all know how this story ends) what was on the other side was BLISS. yup, just plain old peaceful open-hearted bliss.

not surprisingly, all this asana struggle & breakthrough taking place on my mat was being played out off of it as well. at the time, i was in an exceedingly difficult situation with a woman i worked for. boundaries were being crossed left and right, and i found myself in drag-down fights with her, usually ending in tears and slamming doors. yeah, it was absurd. and emotionally exhausting on a daily basis. after about 3 months of this, i started having fantasies of quitting my job -- what really scathing horrible thing i could say to her on my way out the door, dead things i could send to her in the mail, etc. you know the drill. i was in a bad place with her. but every day, i'd leave work and go directly to the studio and work through my anger with her on my mat and in my practice. that's when the camel panic hit its peak. and when i had that breakthrough, i learned something about staying -- something i'd somehow managed to avoid learning for over 25 years. i learned that if i could stay with myself through a tough moment and not plot my great escape, i might find a peaceful, triumphant place right on the other side.

that, to me, is the edge.

but okay. so i stayed at the job. and the mean woman left a few months later. and it's been over year since she left and i'm still here. but i'm not happy.

which brings me, at long last, to the problem:

if the edge is a place where you come up against yourself, as baron says -- where things get a little chaotic inside and you feel like you want to run -- then what is the difference between the edge and just being really done with the thing you've been doing ?

baron also says:

"playing your edge in yoga doesn't always mean going for it or pushing yourself to do something that overwhelms you. that's ego stuff and it can lead to injury."

right. ego stuff. THIS IS ALL EGO STUFF. right now, i am a big bag of ego stuff.

ugh. i think i need to go to yoga now. being in your head sucks.

am i on the edge or am i past it? maybe i'm actually falling.

update:just realized something important talking to AP -- usually my ego says GO and my intuition says STAY. but right now it's the other way around. right now, my ego says STAY but my intuition says GO.