Little Baby Burrito

When my daughter Lucia was tiny, a little 7 pound lump, I swaddled her in a contraption called the Miracle Blanket. The Miracle Blanket was nothing more than a super-soft, organic cotton, hippie-looking piece of fabric that could be folded strategically to wrap a baby like a little burrito. The theory behind the blanket is that it comforts infants to be contained and swaddled in a way much like they were in utero.

The Miracle Blanket was truly amazing. Lucia was wrapped about ninety-percent of the time during her first few months. My mother, when she first came to visit, worried that her muscles might atrophy from lack of movement. But I was dedicated to the burrito maker. Even when Lucia wailed, flailed, and kicked, I used the Miracle Blanket. The calm that came over Lucia when she was swaddled was comforting to her, but to me too. As a sleep-deprived, new mother, bloated with milk that responded to my baby's cry like a fire hose on a burning building, I grew to depend on the Miracle Blanket to make everything okay in the world. Calm for Lucia meant calm for me.

Today when I was practicing yoga, I thought a lot about the Miracle Blanket. My class this morning was a ninety-minute crisis management session. I saw stars, I held back puke, I blinked away eye cream that dripped into my eyes. If it wasn't one thing, it was another stupid little distraction feeding my anxiety. "If only I had the ability right now", I thought to myself as I hoisted myself to standing for another vomit-inducing posture, "to contain myself like the Miracle Blanket used to contain Lucia."

Most babies are lucky. Their parents swaddle them, contain them, give them the physical sense of comfort that induces calm. Most kids too. Parents set the rules, make curfew, control sweets, give them the sense that someone else is in charge, containing them, keeping them safe.

Not adults. We're responsible for finding that calm for ourselves.

Eventually in class this morning, I just sat out for a whole pose instead of trying to get up. In the eighteen years I've been doing Bikram yoga, I've had many hard classes. I always get through them, and I always go back for more. Once I removed myself from my self-induced physical pandemonium, my full-on drama about my nausea, my dizziness, my fatigue, once I finally lay down, it was clear what I needed. I needed a Mental Miracle Blanket. I'd been here before and I knew what I had to do-- stop fighting myself, let myself be contained. And it happened. When I let go of the struggle, I could feel it, the sense of calm, just like the little baby burrito.

Welcome to the Revolution!

Last week while we were cooking dinner, out of the blue, my seven-year-old daughter Lucia said, "Mommy let's make a revolution to not be perfectionists."

"Revolution?" I questioned, then clarified, "A revolution is like a protest."

"No. No. Not a revolution. What's that thing called when you make a decision to change how you act?"

"Resolution?"I asked.

"Yes. Yes. Let's make a resolution to not be perfect all the time."

My heart swelled and broke at the same time. I was so proud and happy to hear Lucia articulating herself clearly and openly, but devastated with the realization that she shares my affliction for perfectionism.

My head still spinning with images of the tortured life my poor little perfectionist would lead if I didn't do something immediately, I seized the opportunity for a teachable moment, "I think that's a great resolution Lu. No one's perfect all the time right? Every single person in the world makes mistakes. All the time. Every day."

"Yeah Mommy, like it doesn't really matter if you don't have the perfect boots on when you get dressed." Lucia lectured while stirring pasta. "You could be ready a lot sooner in the mornings if you didn't worry about your boots or your socks or your skirts."

Stab! Definitely a top ten bad mommy moment!

Later that evening while Lucia was practicing piano, an ongoing stressful event, she kept scolding herself for messing up. I reminded her about our resolution, "Shake it off Lu. Remember, you don't have to be perfect. No one is perfect." She wiggled her arms, took a breath, and tried again.

Since that evening, I've had lots of anti-perfection moments with Lucia and with myself. Like when I let go that my new green-striped Smartwool socks were in the laundry. My black tights would be fine. Like when Lucia read about Martin Luther King and mispronounced "Congress" repeatedly and I held my tongue. Like when Lucia and I built a magnificent snow girl and the head fell off an hour later. I started to run outside to repair our hard work, but instead I just said, "Oh well, she's a smushed snow girl now."(Smile Smile Wink Wink).

I'm not sure what motivated Lucia to make this 2012 resolution, but I'm grateful for the reminder to stand up and fight against the institution of perfectionism.

Welcome to the revolution!

Free falling

My brothers and sisters and I span 15 years. And, aside from being pretty hopelessly liberal, the other thing we all have in common is our love of Tom Petty. When I was 35, my then 20 year old brother gave me a Tom Petty's Greatest Hits for my birthday. Awesome.

When I think of Tom Petty, I immediately start singing "Free Falling."
"I wanna free fall out into nothin'. Gonna leave this world for awhile."

Most of the other lyrics are about Tom's latest love interests and exploits, but the idea of free falling is an awesomely poignant message. The ultimate letting go. Most people I know have at least one thing in their life that plagues them-- a painful childhood memory, significant loss, bad break up. An event that grips us and seems impossible to move out of. I personally know no one who doesn't have at least one "big one." Life is equal opportunity. It's hard for us all.

So why is it that sometimes we can let go and sometimes we cannot?!!! Tom Petty says it perfectly--- because is scary as fuck!! "Free falling. Out into nothin'." That's heavy. But, as any of us who have experienced a big one in life (and gotten through it), the only way to get through a life crisis is to really dive into the great unknown of what's next. If you don't dive, you just hover, holding onto "it", never knowing what's beyond.

None of this is to say that getting through crisis is easy. God no. It's about having the understanding that getting through crisis is possible. And, that there is life beyond. In my life, I've had two significant crisis moments that I was sure I would never get through, and I, like most people found comfort in the familiarity of my feelings within that crisis. Going anywhere different felt too scary--- more grief, more pain. No way! But then, when I finally did, when I started to free fall, started to leave that world for awhile, I actually began to feel lighter.

I see this fear everyday in Standing Bow Pulling Pose. Everyone hovers on the edge of the kick and stretch, afraid to fall out, and then one day they do fall out, and it's okay. And Standing Bow Pulling Pose is never the same again. It's new. It's different. It's better. It's "write her name in the sky" good!

Thanks Tom.

I'm not a great bike rider, but that was a great ride.

In October, I went on a 25-mile urban bike ride around Seattle with my friend Kate, her in-laws and a group of their super-biker friends. All of these uber-athletes were in their 60s and 70s. I was kind of dreading the ride. My own bike being a 20-year old piece of crap, I had borrowed a bike on which I was less than proficient. Knowing that these bikers are all pretty hard core (Canada to Mexico, the circumference of England, the Idaho Panhandle), I was a bit daunted to join them on this freezing cold Sunday morning. My one conciliation was that Kate, the only other party in my generation, was suffering from advanced pneumonia, and I was pretty sure I would at least be able to keep pace with her.

We all met in the parking lot of Mount Baker Beach. All the elders in their toe-clip shoes, blinking fog lights, spandex of various lengths, and rain gear. I improvised with running shoes, hand-me-down bike shorts and thigh-high disco pink knee socks to keep my legs warm. Kate's in-laws, the official bike docents gave us a preliminary safety lesson (which was incredibly helpful) and off we went. Lily, Kate's mother in-law volunteered to be the "sweep" bringing up the rear to make sure everyone (me, the clown rider, and Kate, the invalid) was safe and accounted for.

We headed north and immediately started climbing what our guide called "a gratuitous hill towards Leschi." I struggled up the hill with Kate and Lily close by, and when we got to the top, all the other bikers were patiently waiting. No one seemed testy or irritated or put out. I breathed a sigh of relief. These people were great cyclists, but they were also kind.

Though my vocation is Yoga Teacher, and yoga is my preferred everyday exercise, I am apparently pretty competitive. I have to really, really push myself to do things I'm not good at. But, like I say when I teach yoga, "It's the postures we struggle with the most that we probably need the most." I went into this bike ride with this attitude-- it will be good for me to push myself to do this thing that I suck at.

And I did suck. Lily had to help me put the chain on my bike when I misjudged shifting gears on a hill. And she did so with such generosity and grace, I couldn't even muster embarrassment or frustration. At one point when Kate's shortness of breath from her pneumonia started to feel like too much to take more hills, Lily, Kate and I took a shortcut for the last three miles and met the others at our planned ending spot.

This all brings me back to yoga. After the bike ride, I thought a lot about my role as a teacher as well as a fellow student. I hear students all the time say, "I am not good at that posture. I hate that posture." As the teacher, of course I encourage them, tell them to try to withhold judgement of their ability, to be in the process more than focusing on some unknown end result. As a student, I try to always bring an openness into my practice, refraining from any judgement of myself or anyone around me, including my teacher.

I am not a great bike rider. But like yoga, biking, or anything else I happen to not be good at, is about the process. Focusing on "being" any certain way with yoga or biking or anything takes away the joy of it. Just be in it, however good or bad you are, try it, do it. You'll be glad you did.

43 and Feeling Groovy

Yesterday I turned 43. I had a good day. I felt really loved and pretty calm, and genuinely happy. This is saying a lot coming from a woman who has a history laden with birthday anguish leading to bizarre behaviors ranging from crying in the bathroom from disappointment over a gift of leggings in my teens to hiding in a closet from anxiety over opening gifts (in my twenties). Yesterday, for maybe the first time in my LIFE, I received gifts with ease and without judgment. I'm not sure why. I have some ideas---I'm older. I'm a mother. I've mellowed out?

I practiced yoga yesterday, my last day of being 42. And it was good. The heat was raging and I was fresh off of a plane from New Orleans, so badly needed the detox. The class served me well. I embraced it because I really needed it. But today was a different kind of good. A great good. A good like I rarely get. Every once in a while, there is a mental connection for me that makes me feel like I'm Pema Chodron meets Michael Phelps. Basically, I love and accept myself and I kick my own ass. I talk about it sometimes when I teach. It's a voice that encourages you to work harder, give more, go deeper. The unique part of it is that the voice is welcome. There's a physical desire to respond to the voice, and while the body works harder, the postures feel almost easy. Getting there is challenging, often elusive, and for many of us, unpredictable.

When I have a practice like that, I can barely remember what it feels like to not want to practice (which of course happens all the time). It's like the beginning of a love affair. It's perfect and electric and easy. So why is this the exception rather than the norm? I doubt I could experience what I had today every time I practice, but I think I could have it more. I've been so dreading my advancing age. 43. That's pretty solidly middle-age. Wahhhh. But, maybe the older, wiser, mellower middle age is where I need to be. Drama free birthdays? Hallelujah yoga classes? Heck yeah. I'll take it.

Thanks for the latte!

This morning I found myself at a drive-through espresso shack in Naches, Washington (a tiny little town-lette outside of Yakima). The barista, a twenty-something dressed as a she-devil for Halloween, prepared crappy lattes but delivered delightfully engaged conversation. There was something about her. She was so open, so interested, so genuine. I left the drive-through shack feeling full of joy, a happy humming coursing through my body from this little jewel of unexpected connection in Naches, Washington. It's an energy that comes when two people, even complete strangers, are both open to connecting.

Had I been the age of the barista, I likely would have taken away only the fact that my latte sucked. But now that I am comfortably into my middle age, I have the ability to recognize and appreciate this kind of random connection more readily. Historically, this has not been my forte. Good friends who eventually made their way through the deflector shield I wore through my twenties and much of my thirties often told me that I presented as "aloof, judgmental, intimidating, unavailable."

Survey says, I'm no longer the Nellie Olson of my youth. My openness evolved over time, and with age, from a combination of experiences-- childbirth, motherhood, heart break, death of my father, falling in love, therapy. All of these experiences created in me a vulnerability I couldn't fight, and ultimately an openness that was easier to bear. The ongoing experience though, that keeps me open, is yoga. Yoga is a conversation between the body and the mind, the physical and the mental. In postures that are physically demanding, requiring great balance or focus, we have to draw from the physical and the mental. When one strength falters, we draw from the other, eventually finding balance. In Savasana, where we attempt to quiet our minds, we do the same thing, quieting the body to remind the mind to be still, stilling the mind to calm the body. Connection.

The ability to connect internally enables us to feel grounded, whole, stable in ourselves. It creates an internal knowing of oneself and consequently a comfort in our own skin. For me, this internal knowing has created the ability to be open to other people. And every once in a while, like this morning, there's a surprise. A fleeting connection that, for a moment in time, makes strangers feel a little bit more like friends.

30 Days of getting to know you.

Right now at The SweatBox, the 30-Day challenge is one-third of the way through. Students are walking around in states ranging from insane, slightly manic nutbags to semi-catatonic zombies. All who undertake the 30-Day Challenge experience ups and downs, peaks and valleys, periods of insatiable hunger and days of feeling the possibilities of existing on breath alone.

At the end of practice, whether we are practicing once or thirty days in a row, we experience the feeling of being depleted, stripped down, cut open, exposed, fried, tenderized. Shortly after these feelings, we may also experience great surges of energy, clarity, wholeness. But, there is a moment when class is just over, after the final breathing when everything is still for a few moments. Our bodies are no longer moving- contracting, extending, contorting, balancing. We get the chance to be still.

In this stillness, final Savasana, we have the opportunity to be deeply vulnerable. In our practice we are moving, sweating, listening to the teacher, but here in final Savasana, when the lights are dimmed and the teacher leaves the room, we are, for a moment or two, ourselves. I always tell students, get into Savasana right away. Don't let the door open to distraction. Just go right to it because the moment of being authentically, exactly who we are supposed to be won't last. Those after practice moments are precious, and fleeting.

For the students doing the 30-Day Challenge, the most significant gift they are giving themselves is the daily experience of these fleeting final Savasana moments. You will hear many teachers say, "if you want to turn your life around, practice every day." And for these 30-Day Challengers, this is exactly what happens. After years of listening to other voices, other ideas, other beliefs, they have the daily opportunity to get in touch with themselves. My favorite months of the year as a yoga teacher and student are March and October, the months where I get to watch the challengers dive deeper and deeper into knowing their true selves. Thanks you guys.