life lesson gifted

this one is a biggie, too.

i had a hard time leaving my graduate program. i am still pretty angry about it, really, and i know (seriously) i need to let it go, i just want to yell for a minute and feel justified in my hatred, like we all do. sadly, i can't do that for real...i can in my car, in my head, in my living room by myself or in the bathroom yelling at the mirror…and i sound like SUCH a bad ass, too…but i can't really go there. it was like a bad marriage; i was just as responsible for this.

i digress. i decided i just didn't want it. i just didn't want it enough to go through the trouble of making my family miserable; and trust me, they were miserable because I was miserable.
Everyone is happy when Mama is happy around here (why I should be more happy). I just had so much emotion around the whole thing…the bowing to ego trips and the setting myself up to work too hard and fucking up every work relationship i had by questioning myself and being subservient. i do it every time. and I did it this time, too. I feel like I am coming out of it, which is good, since I have been at Defcon 4 level financially for quite some time and I was hesitant to move backwards. But…I set this up. I know this is me doing this to myself, and I don't want to do it any longer.

It's like I keep putting my faith in other people to rescue me, to make things secure. There really isn't an out there, I am realizing now….but i am historically programmed to make myself small for paychecks. It's a belief. I think I have to 'be somebody' to get them to like me. And, when they begin to criticize, I accept it….and then, the slippery slope. Anger, blaming, keeping quiet, and not knowing my limits. I am typically terrible at this. I am a good person, but this is nuts. I am addicted to that drama; I am afraid to be myself, I love to be angry and blame and be the victim, not love my job and my life and my bank account. I am literally self imposing my own limits and tossing blame around to people that took the power i gave them and used it to make them feel better about themselves.

so, the graduate school thing was a lesson in this very thing. i headed this issue straight on and decided it wasn't worth my time to even fight for it. I want to be doing something else completely with my time and resources, and wouldn't even be here if i wasn't tap dancing for some paycheck and the hope of greater paychecks in the future…and, as i realized this past winter, i was spending a load of debt money to do something I was, let's face it, kinda just not into anymore. maybe 10 years ago, but now? with a partner and baby? nope.

This is me reclaiming my power. I choose to spend my time making a difference in this world. To raise a good kid. To be asserting myself for myself and doing it with love. And I love my family for showing me this….cause seriously, I was working for an enterprise that totally struck me as being kid stuff…and doing A LOT of work for it.

The biggest disappointment in doing design was that I loved it, but I wanted the design to reach people (a tall order). I got two shots, and one hit and one miss. The hit was just because I was open to it, too... and it was absolutely no fun to do. i had no idea what the fuck i was doing and totally getting crap for it on all sides…tap-dancing, tap-dancing. I had somebody tell me that maybe being harped on all of the time was a compliment; that this lump of clay called me could be worked with to achieve perfection - and i was thinking hell, this lump of clay was doing all of the damn work- and griping is just a cheap way to assert one's power over another; especially when it is not justified.

and then, the hours. the hours of work, which, when I was doing this crap for decent money ten years ago and no social life meant little, but now it meant something completely different. overwork and bitterness about overwork. for public art…my absolute favorite cause to champion, but one that wasn't championing me as of late. it was just another obligation. and one i was pissed i had to show up for. and no legality on my side to keep it kosher…just an advisor telling me that grad school was hard and I should have expected this….really? you don't say…i totally gave birth and came back two weeks after doing so to keep my grades up. i really needed you to tell me how goddamn HARD it was, after showing up every night and still going to class all day and getting up at 6 am to feed my child….but yeah, sure, thanks for the warning.
to note, I am NOT afraid of the work, or the mental challenge, I just don't want my time wasted since I have two other people depending on me. I had a 4.0 and worked 20 hours per week before and a year after the birth of my child…challenge totally accepted. But to sit around and push buttons and build things that are only getting to see a usage of approximately 5 performances, work 60 hours of overtime and tell me you can't do anything for me or my family because this is always the way you have done it?
sure, sign me up.
another time i was also told that, and I quote, 'it was time to let my daughter go'; note that she was still being breastfed and was 8 months old at that time. Let her go? So I could show up for college theatre?
sheesh. the blinder leading the blind.
the only reprieve I had was sharing my story with a grad school lady in a well thought out letter that said the obvious, and a counselor; both came to totally support me leaving. and that was enough for me. I think my favorite part was when i was in deciding mode i was a MESS…a hot, holy mess….I couldn't think without getting blame-y and wanting to punch people and yell back. Then, after two weeks of figuring out what the next step was, Jude just said, 'i think you know what you want, you just are mad that it isn't what you think it should be.' he was totally right. I knew, deep down, this wasn't for me, and this was the last straw enough for me to figure out the next step. sigh. not the easiest decision ever.

The passions changed courses, that's all.  it has been a week and my relationship with my partner is back on track, my daughter is walking and talking more, and i caught up on my tv. (just getting to watch tv was a sheer delight) I cook a great dinner every night, and to top it all off, I lost 5 pounds. Just because I wasn't stressed to the max. Egads.
and to clarify, it really wasn't anybody's fault…at all. I just tripped over serious growth I wasn't expecting and decided to make some terrifyingly hard choices in support of a happier me.

so now i have the chance to hold space and do the things i want. and know, indeed, on the page and in my heart, that i know exactly what's up. all of this suffering is not for nothing. it is to remind myself i can make it better. and not by continuously running away, but by laying the groundwork of what i want. and that may sound SO EASY for some, but I have had the pleasure in my life in indulging in what I want to do most of the time, and I get bored pretty quickly with success or my failures. Hell, my parents never got to do what they wanted to do, but I get to. And I have had some pretty sweet adventures…so now, only the best stuff remains. And the discipline in this case is not to suffer through it being 'hard'; but to suffer through it being 'sweet'; more yoga, more music, more spending time in my body, more love, more nature. MORE GOOD. and i have to really be disciplined about it….remember that anger blaming thing. i tend to find comfort in that way more than the good stuff, which is tough. so if you are reading this, think some good thoughts for me to get some clarity. :)

hari om tat sat
औ

an update for those that kept reading...
this is a Facebook update i never sent. I figured i needed to not share my negatons with the internets, but it addresses an incident that happened quite a lot in the last academic year. this was just the icing on the cake.


so i decided to leave my graduate program.
and this was a tough decision. i had a baby within the program and the time demands of producing college theatre became too overwhelming on all other (healthy) facets of my life, and frankly i felt out of touch with a lot of things I wanted to do over the things I was doing. so this was a decision that took time, weighing options, and a lot of tears.
yet, my advisor had to make a crack at my design skills on my last day as I was on my way out of the building. literally. bag full of office crap and car keys in my hand. while i was talking about something completely different (giving birth, actually…and i wasn't talking to him). awkward.
?
Fine. Ok. maybe I was shitty, i'll buy that. but...wasn't it your job to teach me? maybe your failures as a teacher pushed me out of the door? since art is subjective, maybe your designs may need some work and i'm the genius here?
...on the flip side, if i needed proof of any sort that I was making the right decision, that was the ace in the hole…

word! moving on, lovelies….and everyday has been fabulous!

well, then...

first off, it's been A-while. In the span of the past few years (eek), i went to Kripalu for yet another 200 hour cert and coincidentally got pregnant (hah) in between sessions. After graduating with more yogic knowledge under the belt, I immediately applied for graduate school….I think I was so inspired about how much I loved school I thought I could hack it for a terminal degree. SO…here I am, with a 14 month old, and deciding to pull out of my terminal degree for just a higher one…strictly because I am not-and repeat, not-taking care of myself (doing yoga).
Hah.
So. I started this back up to keep me on the path. To say I have learned a few things about myself over the past two years is definitely an understatement. After that last post, I got in to Kripalu's 200 YTT program completely on scholarship...I paid 77 dollars for a 5,000 dollar training…moved from my tiny cabin in Tunbridge to Killington in mad anticipation for my summer job guiding and yoga teaching with ATA, and business sagged, sadly. When stuff was sagging, I felt it was time to explore my options…and I took the free school in Memphis route. I loved my first semester, and had a baby in the second. After getting my family together, I went back for year 2, and was pleasantly disappointed with my course of study (but i found out i love to write papers) and still living in a city...a far cry from the inspiration I receive living in the mountains.
And here I am again. I am going back to the mat. And I am dancing lots, which I have more to speak about. And I get my baby girl involved. All new….and time, (note I am putting this in print), to start taking care of myself.
Here we go.

the art of balance

well, i don't know about you, but as much as i love yoga and continue to be inspired by it, i never think i am my only teacher. that's right, i still go to classes, and all the time, too! I find it insightful, inspiring, great perspective, and a chance to just practice with others. chanting, too. I love that so much. In India we all practice together, as a community. A great way to release, have fun...not have it be all instruction. Just experience a flow other than your own, someone else's rhythm. It's nice. I have begun to make myself do that in the last year when I started teaching; I wanted other perspectives.
Well, my current fabulous teacher, Michelle, went and studied with a shaman in Peru these last few weeks (what an inspiration), so I find I am going to my closest big  neighborhood yoga studio, an ashtanga studio in white river junction. Okay...so I am not the greatest fan of ashtanga, but I will say it was my first language of yoga...how I learned my building blocks. I was attracted to the challenge, the language of sanskit, and how strong I became...it was the intro to yoga for me.

Later, as I learned more about myself, I learned other styles are necessary for healing, and for different times of your life...well, at least for me. I like to keep it varied. I haven't done a decent ashtanga  challenge like that in some time, not since my stint of living in Ann Arbor, but I've always enjoyed it. So I go and take the primary series as a little valentine's day gift for myself.  Lots of forward bends and twists and binds, more so than in my personal practice. So it's nice to get that. Working on some cool arm balances are always fun, and I can be too much of a yoga wuss to try them at home some times. I dig strength the most about my body, and my endurance, so ashtanga appeals to that. Wonderful. Been great food for thought on my mat recently.

AND the teacher, susan, has just gotten back from chilling in hawaii for a month and practicing primary 2 times a day. she's teaching poses I never knew existed in primary, and 4 different stages of it.
I had to feel bad when I went this past monday when she told me she didn't have any students last week, and then this week it was just me. while it was lovely having a personal session, i had to ask myself why she didn't have anybody. Is it because of vacation, or is it because people think it's too hard, like what she thought?

I mean, why? Are we afraid to push ourselves so much so in our practices? I mean, I am all about going easy on myself--hence why i don't frequent ashtanga daily or anything, but I can commit to a once a week class.  and i really didn't want that class to heave ho just yet...I thought it served the public somehow. like those who could commit to a challenge at least once a month would have that class to go to. I guess i overestimate most. but i just wanted to send  a little shout out there. hey everybody, something's waiting that's in danger of being lost that you feel you should do, so just do it. and now.

well, enough of my shoulds...the real reason i am posting today is that I gained a bit of insight into my personal realm of balance, as well. the poses I had the most difficulty with were not inversions, arm balances, no, not the hard stuff....(well, again, don't get me wrong...it was challenging) but balancing. Holy cow. Rule number one of a good practice, and I have some serious trouble with it.

Balance is what I politically and financially ground my philosophies in; yet I cannot do it within my own body. It's something I gloss over on my way to looking rad in suspended lotus. who am i kidding... but as a building block, so instrumental. and i hold my five breaths and move on..sheesh. amazing how that was difficult for me, so I have been resolving to do more in practice. it has a profound effect on mental, breathing, you name it...holding steady, holding your center... what results, and fast, too! it begins with a strong foundation with a link to the entire core, it's lovely. releases the neck, focuses the gaze...big reminder to relax jaw and shoulders, too...really bringing your awareness to the core and your center to hold your chest up. if you want to go into doshas, it's a (ha) balancing regime. It works for me due to my fiery yet earthy nature....as fire can burn brightly on the earth or in the air, it has more control and more power if it's burned on the earth; not the volatility of air to lose control of that flame.  so stable foundation and strong core sounds about right. Vrksasana (tree), garudasana (eagle). Know it, live it, work it.

so...bring balance to your lives, don't try to perfect them. have fun and be focused. be calm and assertive. the value we bring to it definitely has a step with how we live our lives, so focus on that.

how else can you balance your life, if not on the mat? by creating, feeding your head with great books, by listening to music, by loving on nature? think about that.

hari om tat sat

om namah shivaya

 patience.

always had a problem with that one.

I think it's because i am restless; or maybe, because of the fact i long to experience everything. this desire to experience makes it hard to live in the present, a phrase commonly used as the cure all in yoga. be more present. love this moment...well, it's kinda hard when you want all moments right now, right? so i have often chalked this one up to the fact that i have no frame of reference of what 'present' even is.

but in my meditations as of late, i realize that it isn't because i don't have a frame of reference, but more or less because I am trying to get somewhere else. Always have; true confession. I practice yoga everyday as a means to get more okay with being present; but the fact of the matter is that i am 'trying' to be more okay with the present, and oddly enough it's working in some capacity. i now realize that it works so well because it engages my body to pacify the mind.

the body can reflect a daily practice; muscles become stronger, body becomes leaner. my mind, however, is still trying...even when my body is saying that i am already there. my body is even, in its own wisdom, expressing growth my mind refuses to accept; it still feels like it has to 'try' to be something else...hell, anything else. a different job, house, mate, experience, whatever. and because of my ridiculous belief that i have to try, my life is a series of attempts.

not that i am saying that my life is terrible, it isn't; but to be more at peace with myself in terms of accepting my present state of affairs in which i can only see the negative most times is a bold statement. and not just thinking about the positive things in my life, that's not quite it either...but more of a feeling of being at rest, which i think most people would like more of in their experience of living.
i have a feeling that much of my programming resulted in me taking only negative experiences in life to cause radical positive change.

but what if i decided it wasn't like that? i have systematically have been fed up with one situation to trade it in for a better one, but what if i was just at peace with what came into my hands, and continued making positive change because i wanted to?

honestly, it scares the hell out of me because it's such unusual thinking. the other day i told my fiance that having my ego was a good thing because it caused me to never look back and never go back to where I had been before. That's a statement most people would agree with; however, this ego problem is also keeping me from making certain goals a reality because I am so damn stubborn to not take a step back for the greater good, perhaps making dreams i never imagined possible for myself... so there you go.

so making positive change in my life just because i want to is a terrifying thought for me. it results in a lot of trust in the auto pilot that exists in all of us, as it is unfamiliar terrain belief-wise that i am not sure how to navigate.
it's just this habitual method of living my life has been that if anything happened that was positive it was because i had to fight my way through it, like the perpetual warrior i feel i have to be. part of my sad story I identify with, the sad story we all have that we turn to in our lives as a method of direction. for instance, i have a sad belief that struggling through my life to obtain things i want will make me appreciate it more, make others respect me more, or worse, nothing good will happen if I don't continually focus on changing...but the truth is that it's just programming. I don't have to struggle, I can just flow. Almost an unbelievable statement if it wasn't for the fact that there are people out there that do live their lives in effortless abundance in whatever capacity they wish; and through programming I have been taught to (insert negative adjective here) them.

so my goal for a bit is just to rest in what exists and to focus on what i want, and not put this ridiculous pressure on myself to try try try. i think that moment of rest i have been 'trying' to obtain through my yoga may be lying there in the center all along, and that auto-pilot i have been afraid to let handle the wheel knows a lot more than my cognitive mind does.

ooh, happy maha shivaratri! om namah shivaya, your presence is felt indeed. shiva, the great game changer...i asked, and listened...and he delivered in blog form.

bless!
-sarah

thoughts on india

as much as i would like to duplicate my experience in india, the more i realize how much of that country is just incomparable. i miss it so much; at least my experience of the AT is remembered every day just going out of my house; the yogic experience of living in the ashram is quite unparalleled.
I was one american female in my group; my bud jeff was the other, hailing from atlanta area.
So, the international ratio was quite nice, something that I miss about the experience. Getting different perspectives under one roof with one language, in the yogic tradition. South Africa, Malaysia, Canada, Peru, India, Danish, Scottish, French learning in english (!) this study of yogic therapy from an established hospital treating over 25,000 people. Through the cleansing rituals, we were puking and fainting right along with each other, so it was hard not to find common ground somewheres. we lived together and coexisted in this place devised for a little taste of direction, in a country well known for it's spiritual pilgramages.
also, the scenery...good lord. Gorgeous. Seeing wild cows in the street. Third world country smack in your face. Being sick just from the air...the unbelievable strength of the sun, bucket showers, one hour of service (karma yoga) a day, immense self study diving into the Upanishads...Amazing experience.
the people made it incredible, for sure. i was prepared for the worst, as i usually tend to do, and was pleasantly surprised by how many people just helped me because i asked them. it was quite a trusting experience. then, the more i engaged and realized nobody was out to get me, it became more of an unforgettable experience. interaction was cool. i learned what 'indian time' meant. the value of carrying 5 million copies of your passport around with you (pictures, too). i fell in love with the color combo of purple and orange. i dressed the part to fit in, even got my nose pierced in homage to the ladies fashion. a change that was nice way to bring a little bit of culture with me.
still...the chanting, the meditation room where i wept for joy at the immense feeling of peace and acceptance in there, the union of wonderful people learning to give a little more back. the daily yoga nidra sessions.
Really incredible.
How I learned was quite interesting as well; I chose to do an intensive training program, so as more of a disciplined approach. i wanted the full yoga treatment; so no coffee, no meat, no onion or garlic. of course no alcohol. a flush toxically as well as a spiritual one, i suppose...but whatever it did, it flushed beautifully. I came back a vegetarian and tea drinker, and definitely lowered my alcohol intake from before i left. feeling good, glad to have taken the plunge.
As far as my yoga teachings that grew from that experience, I can say it was completely different from what I have been taught here in America. Asana is our limitation here, and for alot of people, that's what draws them. And how couldn't it? Drew me into it, for sure. Yoga has this amazing way of making you feel incredible every time you do it, whether or not it's physical or even if it creeps into your psyche, so the full benefits, as the Indians teach, are just beginning to scratch the surface. It actually gets better the more we practice, and in different ways. yoga nidra (yogic sleep) chanting (mantra), dhyana (meditation), pranayama (controlled breathing), shatkarmas (cleansing practices) in addition to asana can actually restore the body's natural healing mechanisms, cultivating that feeling of freedom on all levels of the body (koshas). you feel great internally and externally, which is indeed a God-given right. Balance is what we should strive for, not perfection. Yoga is excellent for discovering your internal balance that we seem to lose touch with.

I can tell you one thing...that wasn't my first trip there. I will go back, and soon. Hopefully for a little bit longer; I think that was the only thing I regretted was not staying there longer, and traveling the country a little bit more. However, the peacefulness of the ashram made it easy to slide into the culture, I was grateful for that. I tried on an adventure by looking into something I wanted to immerse myself in, and I succeeded with flying colors, as that first step tends to always pay off.


if interested check out http://www.yogapoint.com; a great resource for all things yoga, as taught by the world famous Bihar School of Yoga, founded by Swami Satyananda. I hope to finally post some pictures on here at some point, stay tuned.

..opening vishuddha?

Vishuddha, the fifth chakra, is located in the throat, governing a large amount of 'stuff' that happens there, which is aLOT. Your throat is where sound is willfully created as communication; how we reach out to people, whether through sound or not. How to ask for help, how to say you need something, how to say you're hurt is all in this center. The neck is also the home of the thyroid gland, the largest gland of the endocrine system, which governs our body's usage of energy and hormonal changes, which is extremely important regarding how you feel. Also, last but definitely not least, the channel in our nervous system where all of the brain's messages use to reach the body...no wonder we store so much tension there. Too much going on. It's regulating everything whether we speak up or not.
But, the choice remains to communicate; and most of us are in the large percentile of people that choose not to, for whatever reason. I chose not to in the past because I didn't want to step on any toes, to cause less friction, so I chose to swallow my individuality to blend in. There's more than that, though, on a deeper inquiry; I also want to keep things as they are, which is frankly vaguely unhappy. I cause less tendency for joy in that decision as well; it's a scary thing to ask for what you want and actually expect receiving it.

So here I am, whether I like it or not. I am choosing to open vishuddha, to explore some feelings I may not have thought about approaching in a while due to some irrational fear. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that I am never as alone as I think I am; and that this reaching out, even if it is online, is better then keeping it all to myself. We are in this all together, we could all use a little encouragement, love and support from time to time, and I would relish to give it.

so, besides choosing to be more self expressive, what else am i?

i am an elegant goofball that tries not to take myself too seriously. i firmly believe in only living beautiful places, doing yoga every single day, and listening to a great soundtrack while i am doing anything. i love to teach, i love to play and create, and i love working to be present (even though it isn't necessary most of the time).
i am a certified yoga therapist, vinyasa teacher, and reiki practitioner traveling this path of practice since 2004, and have been trained in the Integral Yoga tradition in America, the Indian Bihar Yoga tradition for therapy, and became attuned to perform person to person Reiki, also in India. I work with everyone, for the most part; there really isn't any shape of person or age that I turn away. No one is too fat, old or young for this practice, and i welcome most challenges with open arms. It is extremely rare that no one walks away unhappy; if you are taking the time to better yourself, then it is always a great investment.

if you are here because you need coercing, then i can tell you it's a great ride. i began my practice as a new year's resolution, after attending a few classes in years prior that seemed to echo that I could use more of a yoga practice in my life. 7 years later, i still stand by how impressive this practice is in helping you to understand and read yourself. Reflection is important in this fast paced world for self preservation, as we are pulled opposite ways often; this way helps you to ground, connect, surrender, strengthen, and grow.

i hope to include you on a journey of self exploration on a cellular level, which is frankly a huge part of yoga...not just where you put your foot or how high you can place your leg; it has everything to do with our motivations, our thought processes that wrap the entirety of our lives, how we handle situations, the works.

so check back often to learn more of my musings of the mat...as it stands, i learn something new each practice, so it should stand to reason i will have more to offer in the future.
bless.