A New Year, a New Decade … a New Perspective …
A New Year, a New Decade … a New Perspective …
Written by Inner Fire Yoga teacher Dar Vander Hoop
I remember vividly how shiny and newly waxed our linoleum floors became around the Holidays, circa 1956. During the Christmas season my mom works feverishly all week scrubbing the house until it sparkles top to bottom. Most fun of all was putting on my flannel PJs and running down, what seems like a very long hallway, and dropping to the floor, sliding all the way on its sheen into the kitchen, yelping in delight. Upon the white Formica table sat bowls of cookie dough and the metal dyes in shapes of trees and stars waiting to be transformed into yummy buttery goodness, in Christmas colors. I scoop a finger or two of raw dough before adding the green dye. I still conjure this taste in my mouth.
Christmas cards are taped to a huge mirror with beveled edges hung in the center of our living room. Holding a can of fake spray-on snow, mom spray-paints across it in huge letters, having navigated all the cards, “Merry Ex-Ams!” No, that is not a typo. Dad arrives home spotting the error, and teases mom in his kind, cajoling style.
“I can’t get anything right!” She yells out. Her body droops.
Mommy is suddenly crying and cursing herself, running for the bedroom kicking at wrapped gifts as she heads off. “Christmas is ruined,” she blurts out from her tears. Mom has issues, to say the least, which are triggered from any imperfection or perceived mistakes she fears will humiliate her. Used to this, under the pressures of any holiday or dinner, vacation … (you name the event,) my mood of glee sinks immediately to despair each and every time. A sick feeling overwhelms my entire body. Joy dries up.
I fear the cookies won’t be baked after all, and the evening gifts not exchanged. The shame of not having an education beyond fifth grade, raised in semi hiding by her grandparents, in the early 20’s (100 yeas ago,) my mom usually hides her lack of writing skills. Now, here on this grand mirror, her fear and failure are on full display. Her forced hubris, and joi de vivre are a thin veneer over enormous low self-esteem and an unexamined life. Bi-polar and other mental health issues are left unnamed back then, and family chocks it up to, “OH That’s Mom…”
“I feel so ashamed…” she sobs from her bed, “I just can’t do anything right…” With all the shine and glitter and amazing love she puts into all, it is this single thing she focuses on.
Per usual, dad and I comforted her, cater to her familiar melt-down. Eventually she comes around. A wet cloth, and my dad’s steady hand scribes, “Merry X-mas,” and all is right in the world again. We make the cookies and actually laugh hysterically about her meltdown. For years the family jokes about the “X-ams.” I grew up navigating these vacillations from happiness to despair for decades.
If you’re wondering why I bring this up, it is to illustrate that light turns to dark, turns to light, and joy to fear or sorrow, and back again many times in a lifetime. In my case, these vacillations were on hyperspeed, often a daily event. The strength I gleaned from navigating this disfunction gives me tremendous resilience in my maturity. What might have sunk me, morphed into a talent, into humor, and into incredible resilience. I know about the ups and downs. My anchor is feeling into my body and trusting my journey.
In 1970 I read the book “BE HERE NOW” by the beautiful teacher Baba RAM DASS. It was required reading in the Modern Dance department of UW.
RAM DASS passed on December 22 as I begin this blog. He says many wise things.
“Start from where you are. Not from where you wish you were. The work you are doing becomes your path.”
“Everything is grist for the mill in this school called life.”
Walking into the yoga room I feel out the mood and the people. The grist of each individual is their unique life circumstances, their particular curriculum. . NOBODY gets a free pass out or around this “school of life.” I see the body tensions, armor, and stresses under the surfaces. I know how some individuals push and muscle through their pain, using yoga as an escape, using predictable repetition of muscular exertions, to reach some high, so to speak. It’s a way to start and it works! Some cling to sad events and arrive to grieve. Many have injuries, physical and otherwise. While some stay stoic, another is crushed by a single event. All are welcome. Each path is unique.We find in practice that we may feel tired, broken, injured or bored; or that the mind just rattles away a list of hurdles to overcome on the way to our imagined and real goals.
Our endless self-improvement agendas and jockeying for the perfect life, job or relationship, has our muscles sore, our kidneys depleted, and our minds a mess of plans and fantasies. I savor being with people and witnessing the growth, strength and courage a yoga practice fosters. In 18 years at Inner Fire, I’ve seen lives transform and careers change.
Welcome it all: the judgements, the comparisons, the complaints, the bliss. Stay alert to these streams of thoughts. Feel into the confusion ... breath to breath ... accept what is actually happening. Sometimes we are so clever, we invent our own obstacles. ;)
START WHERE YOU ARE! Being able to have a yoga practice is a gift! In life to accept exactly where we are and respect the life we are in NOW lessens tension.
Thich Nat Hahn states succinctly: “All of life takes place in the present moment, and if we don’t arrive there, we miss our appointment with our own life.”
It’s so important to find a way to center and find one’s life force and inner peace each day to keep the compass steady. Finding dance and yoga, saves me from the turmoil of my childhood. Feeling into my body and breathing deeply continues to steady me each day. Sit and arrive on the mat. Drop into breath and sensation. This is the fastest way I know to take shelter from the storm of mental constructs and imagined shortcomings, the feelings of unworthiness, etc. (If only my mom had a practice, or anything, to tether her to herself.)
“Depression and anxiety” are words I hear daily, as well as “I’m so stressed out!” We humans are in unknown and uncharted territories with the unfathomable volumes of information presented to us each day. We are a click away from any event in the world. We’re bombarded with images of perfection (or so it is photoshopped to appear) and can feel less than. Concurrently we are bombarded with scenes of despair and suffering, which makes us feel guilty, numb and helpless. There is much jolly posting about the “good life” which may momentarily stave off the lurking depression and unease just beneath a post.
It’s pretty clear there is no turning back from all this, and the media will continue to shape us and evolve into who knows what? 2020 is going to be a wild ride! Keep your bare feet on the ground and on the mat!
Yes, in life, shit happens. It can be an illness, unexpected events, a flood etc. Everything changes, and this kind of event over time may become a blessing. Rock steady.
Yoga is not the place to battle or force unrealistic expectations on oneself. By adjusting our body, we may be able to navigate around a roadblock, using a prop for example, or really hearing a verbal cue. Over time there develops greater range of motion and less tension. It takes determination, willingness, and perseverance to navigate around the obstacles. Like water reaching a log across the stream, it eventually erodes its way around or finds the small openings. Yoga is like this! Patience please and have mercy on yourself!
At the close of class I often recite the “Meta Meditation.” Its words are healing and powerful and easy to practice anywhere, at any time. It goes like this. Say to yourself many times, (5 x each):
“May I feel safe.”
“May I focus on the 20,000 joys of life!”
“May my body be healthy and pain free.”
“May I live with ease.”
After you absorb these powerful words, direct them to a loved one, “May you feel safe...
Pick a difficult person (this is a hard one) and recite it to them. (5x each)
Choose a population group you fear and recite this mantra to them. (5x)
These words, according to the Tibetan Buddhists, have the capacity to heal the world. I do this in my car. I do this when I’m judging someone. I do this even directed to a political party I don’t agree with. (Still working on that one…) This is the practice of peace.
IMAGINE MAKING A DIFFERENCE ...??
Thank yourself for showing up today!
See you in the hot room, on the mat- a place I cherish, and know so many of you do, too.
Namaste Inner Fire Yoga and its beautiful community of human beings.
Happy New Year 2020, Dear Affinities!!
With great respect,
Dar