"bakasana effect"

Once upon a time, I taught a very small yoga class, and each week, we would work on performing the pose bakasana, or crane pose, as a way to overcome fear. In trying to find ways to get students to "go for it," the practice ended up being about, on one occasion, having the students purposely just fall over and land on their heads (cushioned by blankets, of course).

One of the magical things that came out of this was a wonderful cartoon by a student in the class. But that wasn't the end of it. Soon after, came a Brazilian yoga blog with a Portuguese translation of the comic (see illustration at left). I began to wonder how many yogis in how many places learned to overcome fears -- not just about arm balances, but about body image, and who knows what else -- from seeing the comic inspired by my teaching the very small yoga class (with sometimes just one person in it).

Have you heard of the butterfly effect? Here's a brief explanation from Wikipedia:

"The idea that one butterfly could eventually have a far-reaching ripple effect on subsequent historic events seems first to have appeared in a 1952 short story by Ray Bradbury about time travel although Lorenz made the term popular. In 1961, Lorenz was using a numerical computer model to rerun a weather prediction, when, as a shortcut on a number in the sequence, he entered the decimal .506 instead of entering the full .506127 the computer would hold. The result was a completely different weather scenario. Lorenz published his findings in a 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Sciences noting that 'One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings could change the course of weather forever.' Later speeches and papers by Lorenz used the more poetic butterfly."

What about internal butterfly effects, in which a simple change you make has a broad array of effects in other areas of your life? Or, would that be the domino effect? Here's the point:

About a month ago, I challenged myself to wake up at least an hour earlier each morning. It was really a necessity, since my very long workday still wasn't enough to get everything done. Not only did I find that I began to accomplish my workload with more ease, but I miraculously had more time to spare each day, less stress, and greater sense of control. But it didn't stop there. I became more optimistic, happier, and less irritable. New opportunities began to come my way, unasked for, and I cheerfully was able to accept other opportunities that I may have turned down due to burnout.

Here's another way of looking at the exponential-reward equation, from author and yoga teacher Ricardo das Neves. He offers 20 5% solutions that can equal happiness (and, in his case, freedom from depression). A number of seemingly insignificant, small changes can become much more than the sum of their parts.

What's your equation? Whatever the goal, try the most insignificant way to get there and see what happens.

best-kept secret: changing habits is easy

A follow-up to last week's post about changing from night-owl to lark.

Fear and apprehension: Can it be done? Everyone says it's genetic. I probably need a plan. And a back-up plan. And a Plan C, after months have passed and I'm still struggling.

The reality: It's very easy. Just open eyes. See daylight (or the beginnings of daylight). Slowly roll out of bed. Sigh. Yawn. Growl. Mutter. Done.

What if all of those other things that I think difficult are really this easy. It's about tolerating brief discomfort, that's all. Why didn't someone tell me this years ago? (I've been asking this a lot lately.)

The owl/lark dilemma is just another take on a previous post, fear of flying. Same concept. Change "fear" to "discomfort" this time.

These are the prisons we create for ourselves. And now that I've experienced how easy it is to change the pattern of my day by a few hours -- all it takes is a little discomfort -- I'm realizing how rigid I've been.

It's spring. I want to see how adaptable I can become in other ways, too. It's not all as serious and set in cement as I thought it was. Who knew? Why do we believe this stuff? I want to thaw out, loosen up, and continue to free myself from the nested cages of my own perceptions.

Anyone care to share what long-standing habit you've surprised yourself by changing, and how you did it? I love this! Yay!

changing from owl to lark: can it be done?

Alarm sounds. Middle finger hits snooze button. Sigh. Roll over. Repeat.

As my schedule gets busier (a good thing, right?), I find my lifelong night-owl ways severely challenged. My workday usually ends at 9:30pm, so it feels great to have at least a few hours to wind down before bedtime. And, after that, there's the favorite pastime of reading in bed, and, next thing you know, it's 2am!

Arising at 7am or earlier doesn't seem to work too well after all of that. Yes, it can be done, but not with a song in my heart. However, the rest of my world starts its day early, and I need to keep up.

So, for others of my ilk who may be experiencing similar challenges, here are a couple of resources:
Reset your body clock from Shape magazine
Do larks repress owls? from economist Robin Hanson's blog. Fun and interesting, but with much conflicting research.

Best tip so far, especially as it's now spring: Get out of bed immediately as the alarm sounds, open the blinds, and get some in-your-face sunlight.

But the real obstacle just might be my resistance to retiring early. There's a rebellious teenager inside of me who's throwing a fit because she doesn't like her bedtime. Yet, I know that my owlish nature will make the next day so much more stressful by getting a late start.

Bonus paragraph, apropros of almost nothing (from an eight-year-old Guardian story about shiftwork):

"Researchers following the metabolic rates of hibernating bats realised that the metabolic day-night rhythms of the inactive animals kept going even without time cues and regardless of temperature. Had the bat's rhythm been slowed down by cooling, it would have been assigned to some simple chemical cycle. The observation that it kept its own time regardless of environmental conditions suggested that there was an elaborate biological clock at work."

"Metabolic rates of hibernating bats" has such a lovely ring to it. Should be in a Cole Porter tune.

Solutions to my night-owl dilemma, anyone? Yoga teachers and personal trainers with early-morning appointments: How do you do it? Yogis, please share your wisdom. In the meanwhile, I'll be hanging upside down in my cave.

(Photo accompanying this post is a supermoon or lunar perigee. Extreme supermoon to rise this Saturday, expected to appear about 30% larger than a full moon at other times. A lunar perigee is when the Moon is closest to Earth during its monthly orbit. For a spectacular sight, watch from the lakefront as the moon rises this Saturday at 7:25pm Chicago time.)

swallow the sun

Tonight is Shivaratri, the night of Shiva, a time of enlightenment and transformation, so I thought it an appropriate occasion to revive this blog.

It's that chilly and dingy time of year when we can sense the scent of spring only in imagination and resolutions of the New Year are difficult to recall. But although we can't feel it, we know that a few weeks from today, we'll feel the warmth of the sun and see the first hints of green.

Where are you today on the continuum of your yoga path? Have you cut back on classes, or eliminated them altogether? Did you feel strait-jacketed by instruction that seemed too regimented, or that connected body to mind by only the most tenuous of threads? Is there part of you who wants to practice yoga your own way -- only, you're not entirely sure which way that is?

In this day of cheaper-than-cheap Groupon yoga, it can be difficult to find a practice that truly inspires you. But don't give up trying, because the answer may be -- guess where, and I bet you already know -- within.

Consider working one-on-one with a teacher who specializes in helping students develop a personal, at-home yoga practice that truly feeds you. A practice that's more than just an exercise class, but an expression of your being.

What if every practice session were an insight into how you're feeling and what you need on that particular day? And you could act on these insights in ways that calm and energize you and add to the joy with which you embrace each day?

Yoga can do just that, every time, when you create the practice yourself with the help of a knowledgable guide. It's ever-changing and ever-renewing, just as you are.

Are you in the Chicago area, and interested in an easy way to develop such a practice?

During the month of March, a two-session package of a one-hour initial consultation followed by a separately scheduled private session is available for just $80 (regularly $125). The second of the two sessions includes an at-home practice plan based on our initial consultation with you.

To receive this special offer, and others, sign up for the Yogam Saranam elist.

Swallow the sun next time you practice yoga. Receive everything that yoga has to give you.

blasting through limiting beliefs

Yesterday afternoon, I attended a fun workshop at Bodhi Spiritual Center, and it culminated with the participants breaking 1" boards on which we each had written one limiting belief that we felt ready to break through.

There was a lot of group energy and chanting of each person's name as he or she punched or kicked through the board representing the belief.

By the time my turn came, I had had the opportunity to hear what each person's belief was, as it was read aloud to the group. Then, the facilitator yelled to everyone, "Is this belief true?" And everyone screamed back, "No!" And, at that moment, it was time to symbolically destroy the negative belief.

It was great to be one of the last to do the exercise. I had the chance to see so many great people go before me, and I was shocked to hear what some of their negative beliefs about themselves were. It was obvious that none of these beliefs was even slightly true. People wrote things like: "I am fundamentally flawed." "I cannot achieve ________________, and still have someone who loves me." "I do not deserve a healthy love relationship."

Yet this was one of the most intelligent, attractive groups of people with whom I've ever participated in a workshop. How could they believe these awful things about themselves and their lives? How could they possibly carry burdens like this every day?

Then it occurred to me. If all of these people deserve happiness and fulfillment in life, and if none of their negative statements is even remotely true, then that means my self-limiting beliefs are equally false.

If I can believe in the goodness and worthiness of everyone else, it's okay for me to believe for myself, too.

So funny how it's easy to see the error in someone else's thought patterns, but so difficult to see the same thing in oneself.

What's your negative mental monologue? Guess what? It's not true!

Happy Monday. Let's all go out and let ourselves live.

do you feel alive?

Sometimes, it's difficult to make a bridge between the physical emphasis of yoga (doing the poses) and the feeling quality of yoga (being in your body and feeling alive through the dance of yoga). Students can become so focused on whether they're doing it right. And we teachers can feed into this by the plethora of alignment cues we give.

I've been using the following meditation from From Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now:

"Direct your attention into the body. Feel it from within. Is it alive? Is there life in your hands, arms, legs, and feet -- in your abdomen, your chest? Can you feel the subtle energy field that pervades the entire body and gives vibrant life to every organ and every cell? Can you feel it simultaneously in all parts of the body as a single field of energy? Keep focusing on the feeling of your inner body for a few moments. Do not start to think about it. Feel it. The more attention you give it, the clearer and stronger this feeling will become. It will feel as if every cell is becoming more alive."

What do you think? I originally used it at the end of class, going into savasana, but the more I think about it, it would be a great opening theme. This week, I plan to start class with this meditation and refer back to it several times in the course of the class. I'd be happy to sacrifice a little precision in the poses for greater sense of feeling and freedom. But maybe the two qualities aren't mutually exclusive. One should help lead to the other, it's just that students can become so hyperfocused in trying to "get it right." And, not just students, but we teachers in our own practice, too, since we're always students ourselves.

So, this week (and always), a reminder to myself to let the feeling come first.

prayer is the act of talking to God, while meditation is the act of listening

I didn't plan to write about meditation again this week, but meditation has been dogging me.

I'm in the midst of reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, after having seen the movie and feeling less than impressed by it. Interestingly, most of the reviews here in Chicago centered on the self-centeredness of Gilbert's year-long self-exploration: How dare she? What a feeling of self-entitlement? What an affront to the average person who could never afford to indulge herself that way!

On several different occasions, friends and students would say something like, "Well, she described (fill in the blank) so much better in the book than it came out in the film."

So I checked the book out from the library. Friends were right. To me, this book is a minor miracle, touching on so many of the same challenges that I'm now going through.

Here's an unattributed aphorism from the book:

"Prayer is the act of talking to God, while meditation is the act of listening."

For me, this is the clearest answer to the question, why meditate?

I do a lot of talking to God, but I'm not sure I've done an equal amount of listening. I was raised with the concept of "God helps those who help themselves," and I'm chronically challenged by sitting still.

But, if you tell me that by sitting still and calming the mind that I might hear the voice of God, the inspiration of the Self . . . wow.

Eat Pray Love was the result of one woman's decision to spend just one year (of the perhaps 80 or 90 years alloted to her) to truly live, to find out what is inside of her. To explore some of the things she most deeply wished to experience. Imagine a world in which everyone had the same courage to look within, whether by traveling or by any other means. For someone else, it might be a year of closeting oneself to practice the guitar. . . or, so many thousands of other choices. Why is this a less worthy choice than simply continuing to slog away at a job or career? Why is such a choice shocking and self-indulgent?

Here I am, halfway through this book, and I think the entire work is about stopping to listen, to hear what your deepest Self has to say. Don't you want to know?