Finding the Right Fit

I love words. In my favorite class of all time, Sylistics, we had to make a list of our top 100 favorite words. It was a few years back, but I can still remember some of them: giggle, defenestrate, hope, frolic, fuck, silly, vomit,  grin, illuminate, kismet, fear, luminous...

I learned that I have an affinity for two kinds of words.

1. words that sound like what they mean

2. words that are amazingly specific in their meaning

Learning sanskrit has altered the landscape in my mind. Strange plants, some beautiful, others simply functional have nestled in among the daisies--the best are a combination (form and function). Many of the words are simply shorthand for ideas I've had for a long time that took a lot more words to articulate in English.

It is a truly amazing thing to discover words that fit your beliefs. 

"To be of use." That's how I've articulated my goal in life for years. In the best, truest, most positive and productive way--to be of use (I stole the phrase from Homer Wells in John Irving's "The Cider House Rules"). And now I find that there is a (sanskrit) word for that: dharma. In the Bhagavad Gita, it is the Dharma of the warrior (Arjuna) to fight. For many of us, dharma is not so clear. 

What are we meant to do? How do we fit in and find a way to feel fulfilled?

I have a trick that I use to keep me awake (as opposed to asleep/dialing it in)--or as my friend Andrea put it to me many years ago: you have your kite with your key and it needs to be out there in the storm--and it is. But you are sitting on the couch, warm and safe and dry. The kite is out the window. Get up, go outside, and get wet. However you want to put it--to test that you are engaged, alive, present, awake (not on the couch)--think about this:

What would you do if you won the lottery? More money than you could spend in a lifetime. After you bought houses for your family and friends (is that just me?) and went on a trip with everyone you wanted with you to celebrate (tropical if you're me). Eventually you'd have to settle down and do something with the rest of your life.  How would you fill your days? 

I'd write and teach writing and yoga.

What would you do? I hope you're doing it. If not, what are you waiting for?

Tanning--What's Next?

In the beginning of the semester, I give my students a questionnaire to fill out. Basic questions to help me get to know them, and also to help me put them in groups of 4-6 for the semester. At the end of the form, I ask them to tell me a little about their interests. This year, several students listed "tanning" as an activity.

Admittedly, I've never been to a tanning place, but I still can't fathom getting cooked under damaging false sunlight as a fun thing to do. What's next? Showering? Doing the dishes? 

I don't get it. And yet, if the goal is to be in the moment (present)--and that is the goal because happiness is a state of being and can only be glimpsed in the moment--and tanning does it, so be it.

Last night in yoga class I had my first visit of a sanskrit word. Words tend to pop into my head at strange moments, words I don't know and have to look up in the dictionary. The classic example: in a heated argument with my old boss (we were screaming), I blurted out; "What does defenestrate mean?" He didn't know. I took a break and went downstairs to my office to find out. It means to murder someone by throwing him out a window.

Such a great word, defenestrate--so specific. Who knew? A week or so later the word was used on Law and Order. 

Which brings me to coincidence. Did you ever notice that things often coincide and align in a magical (freaky) way? This morning I was chatting via facebook  with an old friend and I reminded her of the foot fetish guy we met after going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. This evening, an author was on NPR talking about his book about desire and aversion--fetishes. The first example was a guy with a foot fetish. Have I mentioned that I don't like feet at all? Yuck.

Maybe I'll tell my prostitute/foot fetish story tomorrow.

The word of the day (from last night's yoga class) is: abhyasa. It means constant practice. Yoga on and off the mat. Yoga, by the way, means union, yoke, to join together: body/mind/spirit. Tanning bed or shower, we all have a duty to find our way to presence. I think I'll grab some playing with my dog.

Is That Really You?

I just joined facebook and it was the strangest thing to see the suggestions (for friends/people I may know)--ghosts floating up from the past. 

Has me thinking about old wounds and the friends I lost in the process. Which leads me to today's topic: compassion vs. sympathy.

Tricia (Open Heart Yoga) pointed out in class the other day that when we feel compassion we "feel with"; sympathy only allows us to "feel for". 

The dangers of compassion: feeling too much. Sympathy is safer, a one way flow (you give what you can, even if it is just empty words).

An overactive imagination can fuel compassion into a conflagration of epic proportions. This is what allows me to write, but it is also what can unhinge me at times. Sympathy is so much safer. There are no walls in compassion. You become the other, in that you experience their emotions fully. The upside is that it isn't all pain and suffering--joy and celebration transfer too. A risk worth taking. 

Decide to go with the flow--literally. Compassion means letting emotions out and in (see the holiday post). The next time a stranger (or someone you live with) does something completely maddening--put yourself in their shoes (sorry for the cliche) and respond from there. The old "do unto others" advice is easy when you allow yourself to become the other.

Example: my old neighbor put Andre's (my dog) poop on my stoop (funny rhyme). She boasted it loudly. My reaction: I was sorry to hear that she took pleasure in acting with malice. I asked her why she didn't talk to me first. Had I done something to suggest I was unreasonable? I told her I couldn't imagine being proud of such an act. I said I hoped she was willing to talk to me and resolve it.  My reaction was heartfelt (I was stunned she would do something so mean--she seemed really nice). She apologized. After that, she went out of her way to say hello and be pleasant.

Maybe when people do recklessly mean things, they just need someone to calmly hold up a mirror and ask with compassion: is this really you?

Open and Fearless

Today in yoga class at Tricia's (Open Heart), my fear of balancing poses persisted. (A recent development in the past few weeks that started with an injury--a pull in the muscle attachments to my left sitting bone.)

I can't.

Try.

I can't.

My body obeyed. You can't go beyond what you think.

We were in our fourth and final dancer and Tricia said, "balance comes from within. Fill up the pose with internal energy, don't worry about what it looks like on the outside."

Let go (of control).

Let go (of fear)

Release.

And just like that, I felt like a balloon suddenly free of the crimps. All the twists gone, the energy expanded and the pose grew from the inside.

I felt like one of those balloon animals that had been twisted every which way, suddenly allowed to expand and take my true shape in the moment. The dancer lifted and expanded without any effort from me.

A holiday reminder: Stress is largely self-constructed (by fear, resistance, what we think/decide we know to be true). Truth is available to us every moment, but only if we are fully present. Change is constant (moment to moment)--reliance on the past erases our ability to live in the present. Let the change come. Be open and fearless. Let love out, and in.

Peace.