What is Kirtan?

Kirtan is a form of both meditation and devotional, Bhakti Yoga, practice. It is done through chanting mantra (Sanskrit: “mind tool”) to bring focus to the mind, both soothe our energetic system while giving a boost to energy, and can also be a practice of devotion to the Divine. A singer, or group of singers, will share a philosophical discourse, an act of communal praise, or even tell a legend together.

A person leads, a kirtankara (or kirtankar), and the community, the Sangha, sings the words back. These gatherings often will include one ore more musical instruments as well as the community of singers.

The Chants

Chanting is done call in response, the Leader chanting a line once, then the community chanting it back once. The Leader repeats the same line once, the community repeats it back. Then the Leader repeats that same set of lines over again. There may be a second “verse” or a new tune to accompany the words.

You’ll find a translation to each chant, the words, with the Leader’s lines in boldface type and the community’s lines in regular typeface. A guide to phonetic pronunciation is in Italic typeface.

Ganesh Mantra

Translation: *Ganesh, Essence of Consciousness, hail Ganesh, Essence of Consciousness.
Ganesh. Ganesh.

*Ganapati is a familiar, sweet way of saying Ganesh’s name.

Ganapati Om Jaya Ganapati Om (2x)
Ganapati Om Jaya Ganapati Om

gah-Nah-PAH-tee OHM Jai-YAH gah-Nah-PAH-tee OHM

Ganapati Ganapati (2x)
Ganapati Ganapati

Gah-Nah-PAH-TEE-EE gah-Nah-pah-tee

Shiva Mantra

Translation: Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, *Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva.
Great Deity, Shiva. Great Deity, Shiva.

*Shambo is another, sweet way of sayingShiva’s name.

Shiva Shiva Shiva Shambo Shiva Shiva Shiva Shambo (2x)
Shiva Shiva Shambo Shiva Shiva Shambo

She-vah She-vah She-vah Shahm-Boh-Oh She-vah She-vah She-vah Sham-BOH

Maha Deva Shambo (2x)
Maha Deva Shambo

Mah-Ha Day-vah Shahm-Boh-Oh Mah-ha day-vah Shahm-boh

Divine Mother Mantra

Translation: Oh *Mother, Protect Me/Us.
Oh Mother, Defend Me/Us.

*Mother indicating Divine Feminine Energy.

O Ma Pahimam, O Ma Rakshamam (2x)
O Ma Pahimam, O Ma Rakshamam

Oh Mah Pah-hee-Mahm Oh Mah-Ah Rak-shah-mahm
Oh Mah Pah-hee-Mahm Oh Mah-Ah Rak-shah-mahm

O Ma Pahimam, O Ma Rakshamam (2x)
O Ma Pahimam, O Ma Rakshamam

Oh Mah Pah-hee-Mahm Oh Mah-Ah Rak-shah-mahm
Oh Mah Pah-hee-Mahm Oh Mah-Ah Rak-shah-mahm

I was fortunate to get to travel with a friend from Portland and share some costs with. We spent Sunday evening and part of Monday in Puerto Vallarta, not nearly enough time to explore! I know I will want to return, with more time to wander at leisure through this vibrant town. Reminding me of the Kailua-Kona side of the Big Island and New Orleans, with a flair all it’s own, Puerto Vallarta is a place where everyone seems to go to have fun, locals as well as foreigners. Families with young children, hip trendsetters looking to get noticed, folks just there for a little sunshine & sand, and lots of older folks; everyone there to enjoy the views, the food, the music, the waves, and the sun.

We were there in the nine days leading up the the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe. This means a procession winds through town to the beautiful Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe every day; we waited on our way to the hotel for one. Fireworks can be expected to randomly go off, any time, night or day. People gather at the cathedral daily to pay their respects to the Virgin. I made a point to offer my thanks for a safe journey when I popped into the cool of the church for a moment to admire the interior.

In the afternoon we all gathered at the airport before heading to the private nature reserve and small resort, Punta Monterrey.  I enjoyed simple, wonderful meals in good company, and spent my nights listening to the sounds of the waves just steps from the doors of my little cottage. I was grateful for the abundant time to rest and integrate the work we were doing.

The training itself, with my teacher Molly Lannon Kenny, gave a boost to my skills, gaining more insight into working with medically fragile folks to provide support. I have started to reach out slowly to people about my plans to work in this area. Once I’ve begun sharing my intention to offer support around end-of-life care I’ve noted there’s no shortage of people around me who’ve recently experienced loss or are dealing with parents who are entering last stages with terminal illnesses. I’m letting the path to how I’ll do more of this work unfold over this year.

In between the deep work I was doing with my new friends in practice, there were moments of profound, and every day beauty that continue to nurture my soul. Moments like walking amidst butterflies after breakfast ever morning as they fluttered around the multitude of flowers growing in abundance everywhere. The sound of dragonflies in the evening as they hunted mosquitos while the sun set and the surf pounded. Then there was the unexpected wonder of seeing baby, Olive Ridley Sea Turtles on our last morning there, while making our way down to the beach for a final ritual together, making it feel all the more precious for the tiny miracles we’d just seen.

One, truly magical afternoon found our whole little group floating together in the ocean. This alone was such a moment of deep connection that my heart was full. Then we heard the whales.

Deep bass notes, clicks, whistles, and higher, violin-like refrains; a veritable choir singing as they traveled south together. In those moments, as small and fragile as I felt, floating on the vastness of the ocean, I felt myself resting in, and connected to, the Divine.

In the weeks that have followed, I’m realizing I’ve taken something else home from the retreat. I’m finding that the grief, and low of depression, I experience very strongly from November into February; hasn’t been as dark as it has felt in past years. It feels like some of the sharp edges of my own grief have been smoothed down, like a piece of rock tumbled against sand until it is polished agate. Something in the rhythm of the waves, the songs of the whales, and in the singing on the beach I did; it all seems to have made my own grief lighter to carry.

Now I teach 10 classes a week that are for adults 60 and older. Younger folks come too, the classes are perfect for people who need a class that is a little slower and has an instructor that’s also a yoga therapist! This year I even presented a poster and a short talk at the Yoga Service Conference, sharing the Yoga in Chairs class I created and offer at the Mt. Scott Community Center three mornings a week.

In working with this age group I see people process a lot of change and grief. Grief for the physical ability they once had. Grief at losing parents. Grief at losing spouses. Grief at losing friends. Then there is the grief of a student who leaves classes because an illness has reached a point where going to yoga is no longer feasible. Having predominantly older students means that someone dear to me is always processing one or many of these kinds of grief.

I feel well prepared for this role of holding space for grief for my older students. When I once practiced with a Zen community one of my service positions was keeping the Merit List. This was a list of people close to members of the community who were either in distress of some nature or who had recently died. In my community we chanted the name of someone recently deceased for 49 days; the time it takes the soul to cross the Bardo. Sometimes I received the news of a death before my teachers. It taught me to be present to grief and to hold space for the grieving.

Years ago, when my teacher, Molly Lannon Kenny, lived in Seattle, Washington, she helped create a program for a hospice center there, the Bailey-Boushay House. She mentioned it during my time training as an Integrated Movement Therapist and whenever she did I’d think to myself that I wanted to know more about bringing yoga into hospice centers. Grief is a singular journey for each of us, we process our losses differently from person to person and, I think, from loss to loss. The presence I developed in my Zen practice, along with the practice I have in holding space for my students, I know will serve me in offering yoga interventions to the dying and those affected by the dying; family & friends and hospice staff.

This December I’m getting my chance to know more; I’m attending a small retreat with my teacher in Mexico to offer Bedside Yoga for end-of-life care. This is a perfect fit with the advanced training I’ve already done to offer integrative yoga to older adults. I’m thrilled to be attending this and it has already prompted me to take care of things like getting a passport with my married name and applying for pre-check on flights since I’m going to be helping with the Yoga Service Conference for the next few years, which means flights to New York.

I’m trying to find ways to raise more money, hoping to ultimately make this training debt-free! if you’ve got a few bucks to spare, I’m running a fundraising campaign and I’d be so grateful for your support.

“Why do we do Restorative Yoga?”

Recently a student asked me this question at the beginning of a class. They added, “I mean, it feels good, but what good is it?”

Restorative Yoga is unlike any other approach to yoga. There’s no balancing, litttle strengthening, and only a bit of stretching. A class may never leave the floor. How is it yoga?

I responded that Restorative Yoga is when we practice resting. While movement is a part of yoga, so is learning to rest. Restorative Yoga helps rest in a way that restores the mind / body / spirit system.

The second and third of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras explains why we undertake the practice of yoga.

1.2: Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence.

1.3: When the mind has settled, we are established in our essential nature, which is unbounded consciousness

More often, the third Sutra talks about how we dwell in our true nature, “Then the Seer (Self) abides in Its own nature.”

When we look deeper into that word, “abide”, particularly in how it has been used across other spiritual traditions, and we come to the belief that to abide is a kind of deep resting. When we’re settled, we rest in such a way that we connect with our essential nature, our True Self.

Why do we need practice resting?

We now live with constant connectivity, we’re always on and alert for the next thing to react to. The lines between work time and personal time are blurred for many people as we’ve become more public in our lives and always connected. In our society we’re rewarded for “going the extra mile” and encouraged to give “110%”.

As a result, we’re lousy at resting. We sleep, but we go from one state of sleep to the next with little to no actual rest. What sleep we do get is usually inadequate to the needs of real rest. People fall into bed, writing one last email, only to awake exhausted, checking a device for what disasters transpired during sleep.

Living this way is not only physically exhausting, but creates mental fatigue and constant low energy. Despite incessant signals to rest from our body and mind, we continue do more. We live in a culture that values productivity, contributors, sending a strong message that your value as a person is measured by how much you’ve done and what you earned.

We’re told to both work hard and, ever more commonly, play even harder. This unsustainable model keeps us in a state of hyperarousal. Our Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) works overtime to help us be alert to threats to our way of life and we channel the urge to fight or flee into the energy to keep being productive, keep reaching the next goal.

The more activated the SNS is, the harder it becomes to rest. Resting becomes elusive, just ask anyone who has ever struggled with insomnia. It can feel like we’re stuck “on”.

If we don’t learn how to drop out of the high alert state into real rest, our bodies and our mental-emotional state show strain. Fatigue can become standard until we are forced to stop through crises, physical or mental, or both. No longer able to fight or flee, we go into the third option of the SNS, we collapse.

When do we truly rest in a way that heals and restores us?

The path for healing for this state of hyperarousal lies in the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS), the “rest and digest” system that enables the optimal state of resting in the essential self.

The PNS supplies the energy that repairs torn muscle fibers and breaks down the contents of the digestive system into the nutrient components needed throughout the body. It is also the system that repairs and creates new connections in the brain as well as increases production of both gray and white matter.

This energy, the energy to repair the whole mind / body system at a cellular level, is also the energy that powers our creativity. That idea about stress fueling creativity turns out to be inaccurate. When we’re stressed, our systems are focused on keeping us alive not on how to write a novel, paint watercolors, or solve a problem. It is the rest state of the PNS that allows for the full flowering of our creativity and curiosity.

Our understanding of the the SNS has created medications to suppress reactivity, helping keep various mental states, like anxiety and depression, from becoming overwhelming. However, there is no medication to turn up the the PNS. That’s where Restorative Yoga comes into the picture.

A Restorative Yoga session will have gentle movements and fully-supported postures held for several minutes. In these held positions the students practice resting. To encouraging settling rest they might take some large in-breaths with long exhales, then return to a natural breath. In my classes I remind students to feel movement in the body on the in-breath and practice letting the body relax into the support of the props with the exhale. Just that, inhaling gentle awareness and exhaling into a state of effortlessness.

In this state of resting in awareness the PNS energy arises and we experience healing on all levels. During Restorative Yoga the less the student actually does, the less effort they make, the more beneficial it is for them, the more activated the PNS becomes.

Rarely in life do we get maximum results for the least effort, but in Restorative Yoga this is exactly how it works. We slow down in order to fully recharge; explore ways to step away from reactivity and into calm abiding . We practice believing ourselves as worthy of nurturing and stillness.

When we allow ourselves to rest in this complete way, we are not only taking steps to repair our whole mind / body system, we’re also abiding in our essential nature.

I first learned about Mettā meditation when I practiced with a Zen Buddhist community. One of my teachers at that time, Jan Chozen Bays Roshi, believed that loving-kindness practice was the best thing you could turn to in any situation. Anxious for yourself, Mettā is the right choice. Anxious for someone else? Angry? Despair for a mass tragedy half a world away? Outrage and sorrow and children being shot in school? In all these situations, Chozen would remind us, Mettā is the right response.

 Mettā, loving-kindness from Pali, is considered one of the four sublime attitudes of an enlightened being, the Brahmavihāras, which also include compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity. Applying Mettā to our own lives helps us to treat ourselves and others with greater compassion. Starting from a place of self-care and friendliness within ourselves gives us the resources to offer compassion and love to all living beings.

While Mettā meditation is usually associated with Buddhist communities, it arises out of the rich tradition found in Vedic texts. The Upanishads discuss the virtue of Maitrī, also found alongside compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity, being the the first of the Four Immeasurables, the Apramāṇa. These become the Brahmavihāras in Buddhist practice. Practicing the virtue of Maitrī is also encouraged in Jain texts and was included by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras.

Mettā gives focus to our natural responses and helps us to be soothed enough to respond more fully. If we find ourselves still unable to respond, we can use Mettā practice to hold ourselves gently rather than fall into negative self-judgement about our inability to somehow to rise to the occasion as we think we ought to.

How do do Mettā Meditation: 

For you practice you will find a comfortable, seated posture. I’ve also found this to be a rich practice to bring to walking meditation as well as something for my busy mind to do while I’m riding on public transportation, stuck in traffic, waiting in lines, etc.

You will do four rounds of offering Mettā.

1. For yourself.
2. For someone you care for (personal love).
3. For someone you feel neutral to (impersonal love).
4. For someone you have a difficult relationship with.

The phrases used during each round may vary and you can change things to suit your specific practice that moment. I personally use two phrases for most of my Mettā meditation practices.

May I be free from anxiety and fear.
May I be peaceful and happy*.

For the second round the “I” would change to the name of the person you care for. The third round you would identify the neutral person, e.g., “May the cashier at the market be free from anxiety and fear.” In the third round you would again use the name of the difficult person you are directing  to.

Chozen would remind us that some days that word “happy” feels too difficult to work with. Rather than berate ourselves for being unable to wish happiness to someone we perceive as doing great harm, we should instead change that wording to, “May that person be peaceful and content.”

I often like to end classes with an inclusive set of Mettā phrases:

May all living beings be free from anxiety and fear.
May all living beings be peaceful and content.

Mettā Variations:

There are lots of variations of these phrases, find or create ones that resonate for you. Here are some additional examples to consider.

From the Metta Institute: 

May I be happy.
May I be well.
May I be safe.
May I be peaceful and at ease.

From Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield: 

May I be filled with lovingkindness.
May I be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May I be well in body and mind.
May I be at ease and happy.

A Traditional Tibetan Buddhist Prayer from Padmasambhava Buddhist Center:

May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness.
May they be free of suffering and the cause of suffering.
May they never be disassociated from the supreme happiness which is without suffering.
May they remain in the boundless equanimity, free from both attachment to close ones and rejection of others.

I know, I’ve been one of them. I come from a family of body-obsessed dieters. I cannot even recall when I first began to diet with my Mother, but I’m sure I didn’t need to lose weight when I did it. As adolescence hit I hated my changing body and the attention it got. Once I went away to college I put on more weight. I kept putting it on until my early 30s, I felt more comfortable in my large body.

When I was diagnosed with Degenerative Disc Disease one of the first things I was told to consider was weight loss. At the time I was also receiving news that I had very high cholesterol and I’m from a family where heart disease and strokes mortally affect the women. So I set about to lose weight like I was told to.

At first it was easy, I had decided to become vegan as part of both my yoga practice, particularly when I became a teacher and wanted to find ways to really live my practice, and my deepening practice in a Buddhist community. That dietary change had dramatic, entirely unexpected, benefits to my health. My cholesterol dropped by over 100 points and the ratios were now ideal. My allergies improved noticeably and I stopped having sinus infections, leading to lung infections, multiple times a year. I lost 100 pounds with ease.

My back pain didn’t improve.

Then it stopped being easy and I really wanted to get back down to a size I was when I was at 18. At time point my physician wasn’t encouraging weight loss any longer, my change was profound and more than hoped for. I was the one who kept pushing, falling prey to the constant dieting I’d done throughout adolescence. When the loss slowed down I turned it into a project.

I used multiple websites, and eventually apps for my phone as well, to meticulously track every calorie in and out in my day. I rigorously kept under 1500 calories a day while pursuing an increasingly vigorous yoga practice. After two years in that mode I’d lost 50 more pounds and was down to a Size 8. I’d made it.

My back pain never was changed by weight loss. Yoga remains the single most beneficial tool in managing my pain.

In the past 10 years since I made that goal I’ve regained 40 pounds. Given that most people gain back all of what they lost and more, I’ve done really well. I’m about the size I was when I left college, Size 14.

This January came around and I felt the siren song of weight loss. I could do it again. I have bins of too small clothing I’m saving for when I drop that weight again. I could devote most of my free time to obsessively tracking calories again, becoming an internal bully to not eat more calories than I am “allowed”, and constantly avoiding social engagements where people might comment on my not eating. I can turn it into a project and do it again, “It is only 40 pounds this time!!”, sings the song.

A lot has changed though. In becoming an Integrated Movement Therapist I’ve become devoted to helping people cultivate friendship with their bodies. I interrupt my students fixating on weight and body size as being linked to actual health, reminding them that healthy has a variety of shapes and sizes.

It really hit me this January that I simply cannot tell my students that weight is not an indicator of health when I am spending all my time obsessing over calories and how to push myself to lose those 40 pounds again. While I can teach postures I cannot do myself, I cannot teach people to see themselves and whole and complete, just as they are, when I’m bullying myself into weight loss.

My body has seen me through some truly hellacious experiences. Despite being in chronic pain, my body moves me trough teaching 5-6 days a week. I have to be careful. mindful of my body more now, approaching 50 years of age and having lived in chronic pain for 18 years, but my body still supports me doing so many things. So this year, for the first time in decades, I’m resolving to love and appreciate my body, just as it is.

My body isn’t a problem, it isn’t a project to be managed and solved.

Meaning: benevolence, friendliness, amity, kindness, good-will, and an active interest in the well-being of others.

Metta is considered one of the sublime attitudes of an enlightened being, the first of the Four Immeasurables, Brahmavihāras (“Divine Abodes”), which also include: compassion (Karuṇā), empathetic joy (Muditā), and equanimity (Upekkhā). While Metta meditation practice is often associated in Buddhist communities, the first mention of practicing with kindness appears in the Chandogya Upanishad, one of the oldest of the Upanishads, found within the Samaveda.

Further, the Brahmavihāras also appear in The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali as a guide on relationships with others:

*1.33 In relationships, the mind becomes purified by cultivating feelings of friendliness towards those who are happy, compassion for those who are suffering, goodwill towards those who are virtuous, and indifference or neutrality towards those we perceive as wicked or evil.

(maitri karuna mudita upekshanam sukha duhka punya apunya vishayanam bhavanatah chitta prasadanam)

Metta Meditation has been a part of my practice for many years. It helps me to settle anxiety, calm busy thoughts, and ease the times I find myself caught up in negative self-judgement. Metta is a perfect response when I feel helpless to help in a situation; when I cannot assist directly I can at least send loving-kindness to those suffering. When Chozen Bays, Roshi, was still my teacher she would say that Metta is the only tool you need in any situation.

Metta meditation practice is done as a set of phrases you repeat mentally or aloud, often with the breath. I was taught to repeat each phrase on an exhale.

The phrases are repeated in four rounds. The first round is to generate loving-kindness for the self. This is quite literally a meditation example of “putting on your own oxygen mask first”; you make sure you’re ready to offer Metta to others before proceeding.

Second, you offer loving-kindness to a person you are fond of. Third, you consider someone you feel neutral for; the cashier that helped you at the grocery store, for example. For the fourth round you focus loving-kindness on a person you have difficulty with; letting us practice offering goodwill despite having negative feelings about a person.

There are many different suggestions for scripts to use for the phrases. Some are more detailed, for example these from Jack Kornfield:

May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness.
May they be free of suffering and the cause of suffering.
May they never be disassociated from the supreme happiness which is without suffering.
May they remain in the boundless equanimity, free from both attachment to close ones and rejection of others.

Another of my Zen teachers, Hogen Bays, would use only two phrases. It is this more simple approach I’ve continued to practice with over the years. The phrases I use in my practice now are:

May I be free from anxiety and fear.
May I be peaceful and happy.

That word “Happy” can catch people. Some days we don’t feel ready for happy or ready to wish some people happiness. Rather than judging ourselves harshly for struggling over a word, we can chose to use the word “Content” instead. As Chozen Bays noted during the loving-kindness retreat I attended, contentment really is happiness after all.

Through the process of deepening my own practice with Metta, I began thinking about how to incorporate this practice in healing myself. While having a practice that lets us open our heart to the world is deeply beneficial, this practice can be used as a way to reconnect with the body. I began incorporating it while teaching yoga movement to help students manage the negative self-judgement that arrises, to help heal the relationship with the body directly.

As I started to explore applying the phrases of Metta to my chronic pain, to the toxic messages I absorbed as a child, and to the abuse and sexual trauma I’d experienced across the early years of my life, I experienced a growing comfort with my body, my back pain, and with my trauma history. Turning Metta inward opened it up for me, offering me insight for my own healing and in my work with others.

Some of us live with a condition that causes chronic physical pain and creates limitations; we can offer loving-kindness for a body that works especially hard. Using the lens of Metta we look deeply at the physical pain the body experiences; offering tenderness instead of flinching away from discomfort.

Many of us were taught to judge our bodies or how we view the world harshly, we need a way to temper the voice of the Inner Critic or the felt sense of unease and unhappiness held in the body. Metta provides space to be curious about our bodies and our insight into the world, instead of critical.

For those of us who’ve experienced the violation of our bodily integrity through abuse, sexual trauma, or domestic violence, Metta can offer a way to befriend the body again. We can cultivate loving-kindness for the very anxiety, fear, and anger we still experience, held in our bodies.

In doing this work to befriend the body, I’ve changed the phrases I use. Instead of offering the energy outwards to others, the loving-kindness energy is sent inwards, directly to the body.

May I be free from the anxiety and fear I have about my body (I feel in my body).
May I feel peaceful and happy about my body.

It can be tough to offer yourself loving-kindness. When I first started this practice I found it so difficult to offer it to myself that I worked my way around to it, offering it to everyone else ahead of me as a kind of warm-up! Chozen would advise me to picture myself as a small child. Hogen even suggested visualizing myself as a tiny kitten, so in need of love.

During some meditation sessions, instead of offering myself Metta, I’d find myself disassociated from the present moment. My struggles with offering myself loving-kindness opened my eyes to the depth of trauma I’d experienced from my family of origin. This was part of the impetus to begin work with a therapist who specialized in trauma recovery and used EMDR, which really set me upon the path to healing.

I still struggle with shame. I’ve come to realize shame underlies most of my anxiety and all of my negative self-judgement. When I’m deep in a struggle with shame I am certain that I don’t deserve loving-kindness. Of course, that’s exactly when I need it most.

I’ve learned to respond to those shame messages as a signal to stop and do Metta meditation, as soon as I can. I’ve sat and meditated in all kinds of places, including a bathroom stall! I recognize that I need to turn down the toxic messages that can still bubble up from the past before they overwhelm me, so any place is a good place for Metta practice!

The more we befriend our body, treat it like a treasure and an ally, the more resources we have for healing ourselves and others. The more curiosity we can have for those things like fear, anger, and pain, the more spaciousness we will have around those experiences, rather than being overwhelmed by them. Metta practice is a valuable tool for this journey, may it help us all to find peace.

May our practice together be meaningful.
May our practice together bear fruit.
May the fruits of our practice benefit others.

Metta Prayer;
for Everyone Who’s Been Abused

May we be
Freed from
The misery
Of shame.

May we
Be released
From the thought
That somehow
It was our fault.

May we
Rest in the
Truth that we
Never did
Anything
Wrong.

May the too many
Who’ve experienced
Abuse in any way
Be free from
Anxiety and fear.

May we all
Be peaceful.

May we all
Be happy.

*Thanks to Swami J for the translation of the Yoga Sutras.

Over the past year I’ve developed a few new workshops and the most recent one is called Generous Compassion. Neither of the other two new workshops this year filled me with as much anxiety. My first one, Hatha Yoga for Spine Health, is such a deeply personal and familiar topic that it doesn’t bring up anxiety. My Abundant Gratitude workshop I really wrote up last year and prepared for, but it was cancelled; when I gave it last month it felt pretty comfortable,with only a few “first time” jitters.

This latest one however… I struggled to finish the handouts. I agonized over the writing activities. I felt waves of physical unease and agitation. I felt very far from my researched topic of compassion!

Morning Practice

As I’ve gone deeper into my personal yoga practice, and through trauma therapy, I’ve learned how to interpret the flood of somatic sensations to the message trying to be expressed. For years I’ve felt like I’m “doing it wrong” because I don’t have that “voice” of the inner critic. At first all I get is a bodily sense of unease, anxiety rising, shame seeping forth, without any way to control it. I once burst out in therapy that I wished I had some voice in my head I could argue with, instead I just would be sometimes debilitated by the overwhelming message of, “WRONG!”, from my body. I still don’t have the sense of a “negative voice” I deal with, it is still a somatic experience, I’ve just learned that I can follow the body sensation until the energy of it resolves into a meaning. It is more intuitive, the language of felt energy moving, which has made it a challenge for me as I’m highly analytical and verbal.

What I finally realized what that I felt like a fraud writing about cultivating self-compassion. It is my old friend, Imposter Syndrome, coming around to slow me down. Once I was able to identify and direct some kindness at those tender feelings I managed to get my handouts finished and printed. The workshop went well, the time flying by once I began teaching. I was reminded during the workshop, and after by a friend, that my own struggles with self-compassion give me insight that I might not have access to if it came naturally to me.

My students and I touched on the topic of giving and receiving kindness, how this is an act with two parts. There is the compassionate act of giving kindness of helping another, in order for that to fully work there must be a compassionate act of receiving. If we give excessively, without being compassionate to our own needs, it isn’t sustainable. I know from personal experience; I nearly exhausted myself to the point of almost being hospitalized trying to help my Mother. I’ve lost a friend to depression when they felt worthless when their illness made them unable to “contribute” to their community.

On that continuum, some people feel challenged to accept kindness and help from others because they have a history where kindness always had a hidden price. They have absorbed the message that they only were of value if they produced something, or gave their energy. My abusive family of origin had a kind of unspoken “tally sheet” that kept track of who owed who a favor, and how big a favor it was. My personality-disordered Mother enforced my role as her caretaker and confidant through inconsistent rewards and ferocious punishments; the legacy of that being my adult tendency of reserve and occasional suspicion of kind offers. It has taken me decades to see my own inclination to reject help, not ask for help, and to pull away from gestures of tenderness, like people offering hugs. I like giving hugs, but for many years I was uneasy at receiving them.

In the midst of this week close friends have been having a family crises. Earlier in the week they’d asked if someone would come cook up groceries bought before the crises began. This would prevent wasting the food as well as avoid the costs of eating more prepared food. I knew I’d be very tired, so I asked a mutual friend if they would drive us both over, allowing me to conserve energy to make dinner. Together we also took care of dishes, making it easier to prepare food. It was the perfect example of compassion where kindness, interconnection, and mindfulness comes together to benefit everyone involved. They were willing to ask for this help, “Please cook some of the food I purchased before this crisis began”, I was willing to do that for them. I was comfortable asking another friend to drive, willing to receive that kindness, and my friend was willing to do that and help with household tasks while I cooked.

It is that willingness that compassion fuels. We don’t all need limitless quantities of this compassion, we don’t have to exhaust ourselves giving our energy to the care of others. We just have to be willing to share what we’re able, when we’re able. We have to be willing to ask for the help and attention we need, when we need it. We need to see one another with compassion and empathy, then act on it.

How much more love would you have if you gave up the habit of negative self-judgement?

It got several nervous laughs in response to it, but I asked people to really give it some thought. What kind of freedom could we know if we stopped being so hard on ourselves?

I use the word “habit” intentionally, because the habit of being hard on ourselves, putting ourselves down, is a familiar one to a great many people. The reasons why we do it can be deeply complicated and vary from person to person. I picked up the habit of putting myself down from my family of origin, who were mean judges of anyone and everyone. While I’ve worked hard to grow out of the habit of judging others too quickly or harshly, giving myself the same space is something I practice with daily.

When we’re trying to heal, when we’ve set ourselves on the path of recovery and peace, we learn to get rid of old behaviors that no longer help us out. Many of our habits helped us in some way, got us through the unspeakable. We begin to unpack where some of those habits came from and analyze if they really do help us.

I’ve not completely broken my habit of putting myself down, giving myself a hard time. I have come to see how I developed it as a defense; learning to put myself down before anyone else could do it for me, beating my family to the verbal punch. I could also see how old fear of failure also lead to my talking myself out of trying for things I really wanted, telling myself I’d never be able to do it or be good enough. I feel it bubble up when I catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window and the angle isn’t “flattering”, that urge to put myself down is right there. I just have more tools to notice it before it happens and choose another way.

For years I just nodded along at the whole notion of changing the dialog in your head, it was another area where I knew I was doing it wrong. I didn’t get voices in my head, no actual self-talk. When I finally did reveal it to a therapist it was with a lot of shame and a sense of desperation; wishing for a voice in my head I could argue with! Instead I was flooded with all the somatic, bodily responses that I’d feel as a child when called names. It has taken years to get to where I can articulate those felt sensations into the words I internalized.

I sometimes joke with students that there are no merit badges in yoga, just practice. We come back to it moment by moment. There isn’t rushing it and we keep at it, moving along the way, moving towards our Whole Self. The journey is one we can only take by ourselves, and it is hard work to find our way out of suffering into love and wholeness, but we can be sure to help one another along the way.

“When we wonder, ‘Why isn’t life changing?’ it’s important to remember how long we have been hard on ourselves. When we stop to consider it, we realize we’ve been harder on ourselves for a lot longer than we have been kind to ourselves.”

–Deirdre Fay, “Attachment-Based Yoga & Meditation for Trauma Recovery”

Princess Phoebe

Last Monday, June 30, 2017, I had my oral final exam and completed my internship in Integrated Movement Therapy. My paperwork is under review with the International Association of Yoga Therapists, as I was doing concurrent contact hours with clients to apply for their certification as a yoga therapist. On the Thursday following I had my first “real” session for a client I’m working with on trauma recovery.

This would mostly account for the long silence on the blog while I finished up all my work. We also lost both our elder kitties this winter, the second kitty, Phoebe, the day before what would have been my Mother’s birthday. She went from spry and healthy to gone in less than a month to an aggressive cancer that came out of the blue; it was pretty demoralizing and made it hard to write for a while. After I pulled myself out of that funk, I got my internship application in and have been hard at it ever since.

“Goddess” by Washington artist, Sarah Jane (IG: @sarah_janes_studio)

Ever since finding Shunryū Suzuki Roshi’s charming rewording of the Lotus Sūtra, to “shine one corner“, the essential message of the Buddha’s last instruction has been with me. I’ve been learning how to shine myself, to make a light of myself. Yoga has provided both the essential fuel, as well as the map, in this quest.

As I’ve been on this journey towards my certifications that word “Shine” keeps coming up for me. It first appeared in some artwork I began in January 2016 and in my classes I have been encouraging students to let their hearts shine. It is an act of courage to shine brightly, to take up space in a world that wants you to keep quiet. As a child I was often told to keep quiet, to “not rock the boat”, that no one wanted to hear my opinions, and that no one likes a “know it all”.

Messages like these sink hooks into a person, especially when you hear it from your extended family, as I did. It is even more difficult when you hear this from society as well. Every time I sit down onto my meditation bench or step onto my yoga mat I’m doing the work of undoing decades of being told to hide my bold, bright self. I’m not only resisting the message in my life, but working to repair the neural connections that make that resistance possible.

The majority of my students are women, not uncommon for a western yoga teacher in the United States. Overwhelming numbers of these women have been told at some point in their lives to make themselves small, that they’re intimidating, that no one will like them if they don’t “tone it down”. Women are told all the time what to do, what to wear, what to think, what to say, and how to say it.

In nearly 12 years of teaching yoga I am able to count, easily on one hand, the female students who haven’t identified with this messaging, who were told they were worthy, brilliant, and they should be proud. So far only 3 women have said they were told messages of confidence and encouragement, that they were not told to somehow lower the volume on their personality. Three women out of hundreds.

We need to start taking up space and having the courage to let our amazing hearts shine forth. Refusing to sink into smallness and depression is a way of resisting a world that increasingly sends a message that compassion, empathy, and justice aren’t valuable commodities. We don’t have to do it everyday, it is hard work and on some days in can feel overwhelming to just get through the routine of getting ourselves fed, clothed, sheltered, and remembering to take our meds.

“Goddess” by Washington artist, Sarah Jane (IG: @sarah_janes_studio)

Even if you don’t feel ready to put on your brightest, wildest colors and stand on the corner and tell people you love them, you can start small by offering people genuine smiles and engagement. Tell the cashier at the market you adore their cotton-candy hued hair, make sure the woman in the vibrant hijab knows you love her colors and style, wave at little kids, and make funny faces at babies. Take a moment to share with a friend how important they are in your life.

In the words of mystic poet, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī:

Don’t postpone it!
Existence has no better gift.

Start with yourself. Be a little more gentle with yourself, take a nap if you need to, allow yourself time to rest and heal. Be kinder in your self-talk and mindful of those moments when shame begins to run the show. Stop looking at yourself in the mirror and making a disappointed face.

That’s a big one for me. As someone who’s seen dramatic weight shifts, I once weighed nearly 300 pounds, my body has loose skin and stretch marks, places where I feel lumpy and misshapen. Since I began practicing yoga taught me how to feel more comfortable in my body, now, after 14 years of practice and through my training in Integrated Movement Therapy, I’m finally trying to learn how to be comfortable with my body inside and outside.

As a person who lives with chronic back pain I live with a body that at times feels weak, that keeps me up at night because it can’t find a comfortable position to sleep. As someone who lives with C-PTSD I struggle with anxiety, depression, terrible shame, and negative self-beliefs. All of these, including my struggle with my weight, are the legacy of a childhood filled with adverse experiences, with the abuse from my Mother continuing into my mid-40s.

Why do I practice? To learn how to love myself better. To see myself as whole and complete, lacking nothing. To repair the damage done by years of abuse. To be liberated. To help others feel liberation.

May all beings be free from anxiety and fear.
May all beings feel peaceful and content.

Note of Gratitude: The glorious Goddess is a recent creation by my friend Sarah Jane and artist in residence at the Grünewald Guild. In her words, “A goddess who is unafraid to take up space in the world.” 

As I was working on this post this morning Sarah Jane posted these photos, taken after last night’s firing of the work. She graciously has allowed me to feature her along with this post, please check out her amazing work. If you are, or know someone who is a survivor of sexual trauma, please consider getting involved with her participatory art project honoring survivors, Mere Objects.