I haven't quite figured out how to write about my experience at my 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training in Bali. I took a break from writing in my blog during that month and instead wrote in my journal. I thought maybe one way to begin writing was to share some of the concepts I learned while I was there.
To do so requires some background on Yoga, which originated in India some thousands of years ago (probably, no one really knows). It's not a religious tradition, although it is somewhat entwined with Hinduism as they were both practiced in India, and so it can be more or less religious depending on how you study. What we think of a yoga (people in spandex doing complicated poses) is really only half of it. Or maybe less than half of it.
Yoga poses, words, and texts are 'written' in Sanskrit. I put written in quotations because the language was not written until recently, it was a language that was not even spoken really, it was chanted for spiritual reasons. Which means that it has an imprecise spelling (awesome for me!), and as with any ancient language translation the definition of the words can be interpreted in multiple ways.
Because it's the most obvious place to begin, I'll start with Yoga. Yoga literally means 'to yoke', as in to tie two things together, but can also be translated to mean 'to unite'. So what is it uniting? That is up to you. Some interpretations include uniting breath and movement, physical and mental (or spiritual), the body and the mind. In ancient practice the mind was far more the focus than the body, today, we usually think of it as the other way around. Oh, and those poses we think of as being 'yoga'? They were pretty much invented and formalized in the 50's and 60's. So don't get too excited about how important it is to master your crow pose or handstand. To do so is to miss the point.
So if Yoga isn't about performing each pose the best in your class, or sculpting your body to look really awesome in your yoga pants, then what is it? On the first day of class my yoga teacher introduced Yoga as 'the practice of cultivating non-judgemental self awareness'. One of the ways we can do this is through physical practice, by doing the asanas (poses), but it is only one part. Meditation, breathing, mindfulness, and introspection are all pieces of yoga.
Oh yea, I have a yoga teacher now. A quick disclaimer, he's not a guru, he's not perfect, he offers one interpretation of Yoga. There are many other teachers who have many other interpretations. I happen to like his because it does not include dogma or the search for perfection, superiority or status through yoga. His philosophy centers on self reflection, which inherently each of us can only do for ourselves. He offered strategies and practices to help along the way, but in no way mandated that our practice of yoga needed to align with his own.
So I'll share some of the basic principles of yoga, and do with them as you wish. I decided to devote three weeks of my life to this training because I was searching for better self understanding, and a more balanced view of the world we inhabit together and I think I found a piece of the answer while I was there.
So if yoga isn't about the poses then what are they for? The sanskrit word asana means 'pose' or 'posture' and it's used at the end of each pose name. For example Utitta Tadasana means Extended (Uitta) Mountain (Tada) Pose (Asana). But the literal translation of asana is 'the seat of the self'. And so, the poses in yoga are where we come to meet ourselves. To inhabit our own bodies. To unite our physical bodies with our energetic bodies, our emotional bodies, our spiritual bodies.
For those of you who have been to a yoga class, you may have experienced this unity. There is sweating and stretching, strength and flexibility, complicated instructions to follow and yet relaxation. Taking a yoga class requires total focus on the physical which calms the mind. It's a physical form of meditation. Walking out of a yoga class can feel like an amazingly rejuvenating nap. Your body may feel slightly tired, but your mind feels clear and energized. And so the asanas. They may be as simple as sitting, or standing, or laying on your back. They may be as complicated as twisting your limbs into pretzels. But they are all designed to require you to develop awareness of your physical body.
I think that's probably another post. But I do want to define another word before wrapping this one up.
Hamsa. Hamsa translates to something like 'I am that'. It is you. It is the self. The combination of all of our experiences, thoughts, and feelings, over our lifetime. And since yoga is about non-judgemental self awareness, it is about both seeing and accepting our Hamsa as it is, without the need to change it in order to love ourselves.
Of course, for most humans this is a difficult thing to do. We may love parts of ourselves, the 'good' parts, the parts that 'excel', the parts that look 'perfect', the parts that we've been celebrated for. But most of us do not love our whole selves without judgement. We spend our lives, conditionally loving ourselves, withholding love in situations where we do not live up to our own standards. Standards by the way we would never set for anyone else. Would you not love your child because they threw a tantrum at Target, failed a class, want to quit their sports team, or were generally an asshole to you all weekend just because you are their parent? Of course not, even though these things are difficult you love your children anyway.
So then why do we find it so easy to withhold love from ourselves when we throw tantrums, fail at things, want to quit, actually quit and act like assholes? (or all of the thousands of other things we judge ourselves for).
If you want to begin your yogic journey, it doesn't require even stepping onto a yoga mat. Just start to notice how you speak to yourself in your own head. Listen for the judgements and acknowledge they are there. How are you assigning worth for yourself on a daily, hourly, minutely basis? You will catch yourself saying something like 'I'm so weak, everyone else can hold plank for as long as the teacher asks but I have to drop down to my knees after 15 seconds.' (for those of you non-yogi's, plank is basically holding the top of the push up position). When you catch yourself judging yourself it's easy for it to quickly spiral into further judgement. 'Ugh, not only am I a WEAK person, terrible at yoga, a complete fraud for joining a three week course to teach yoga, I'm the worst person in this entire class, and now I'm ALSO judging myself. I'm not only failing at the physical aspect of yoga but the mental aspect too. I'm not supposed to be judging myself, but here I am fucking judging myself!' (This was a real internal dialog of mine on about day two of my yoga training in case you are wondering).
This is pretty much any sane person's response to trying to observe your self judgement. You will notice this for the first time and descend into this spiral. Then you will start to notice that this happens about 50 times a day and wonder how it's even possible that you've lived inside your own head this long.
Relax. It's okay. There is a strategy for not judging yourself about judging yourself (yoga is so meta). Notice the judgement and then say to yourself:
I am judging myself about _______ right now. Well, isn't that interesting...
And stop. Stop the spiral. Become curious about yourself. Why are you judging yourself about being weak in yoga class? Is it because you are competitive and don't like being the worst at things? Why is that? What do you gain from winning competitive situations? Is it to validate your ego? Is it a learned family trait? (how about yes on both counts). Or is it that since you were a tiny kid you've always felt bad at sports? Why is that? Not why did you feel bad at sports, you objectively were. But why did it matter that you were bad at sports? What told you physical achievement was important? Who forgot to tell you that you are 5 feet freaking 1 inch tall and short people are NEVER going to excel in sports the way tall people do? Fuck, is this why you are running half marathons now? (But also, yea! you are running half marathons now!) Let's go another layer deeper, maybe why you hated being bad at sports was because you felt helpless to change it. It's not even interesting to consider why humans hate feeling helpless, that's just one of those universal things of being alive, but it is interesting to note which situations make you feel helpless, and which ones don't. I can say something stupid in a big group and feel absolutely no angst about it, but I miss a pool shot and I turn into a complete self hating asshole (sorry Dad!). There are 3 or 4 more reasons I can come up with for why I was berating myself in that moment, which cascades to 10-12 different sub questions.
Yea, we're complicated. So why bother? Why take the effort to stop the self judgement?
Because by looking at the thing directly we take away it's power. If I can say that in situations that require hand eye coordination or physical strength where I first do alright and then make a mistake I get extremely frustrated with myself and then shut down and refuse to try again (hmmm... wonder where I got this from Mom?). But now that I see it, I can make a different choice. Maybe I won't, maybe I'll be playing bocce this summer and throw a terrible shot that should have won the game if I could keep my cool which results in me refusing to play another game the rest of the night. But maybe I'll be able to see myself. 'Oh, what a Kelsey thing to do to be upset about this... but no need to stop playing.'
I am that. Hamsa.
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