Lessons in Attachment or Get the Soy Out of My Damn Chicken Salad

So it’s been awhile since I last posted mostly because I’ve started going rock climbing in Northampton an hour away on one of my days off in the last two weeks so my free time has been a bit reduced. But this is a post I have been mulling over for quite some time now and I only just processed the true meaning behind my anger and frustration a few days ago.

No, the food at Kripalu is amazing- of that there is no doubt. I’m blessed to work in a place where the majority of the begetables are organic, they are very gluten-free conscious, and the meats they do get are organic and hormone/antibiotic free. Now, I knew coming in that eating paleo was going to be a challenge in terms of variety mostly due to not eating soy because, well, soy is in everythign here. And I do make a few small exceptions- most notably the french onion soup that has some wheat free tamari in it- because it is just so damn good. I mostly survive on albacore tuna, my own sockeye salmon, eggs, and sliced deli turkey meat with the occasional haddock or chicken thrown in 4 times a week. But the one thing that every time I see it on the deli bar makes me whan to stab a fork into someone is the chicken salad.

You see, the tuna salad the make with regular Spectrum organic mayo- not the best tasting but it’s expeller pressed can0la oil and has negligible sugar despite having honey in the ingredients. However, they may the chicken salad with Vegannaise. What is this Vegannaise, you ask? Its a combination of canola oil, brown rice syrup, and soy protein alogn with some spices meant for, you guessed it, VEGANS. Now, chicken as you may know is inherently NOT vegan so why are they putting a vegan product in my animal product when they have normal mayo? I asked this very question and basically got the response that that was how it was done. some people said they liked the taste of vegannaise better (hello, sugar) but the chef de cusine said that it was mostly a pre-done recipe thing really made no sense or had any purpose. yet still after I brought this up the vegannaise continues to appear in the chicken salad and I continue to have to spitefully eat the plain canned tuna on the salad bar line.

the bigger question should be why am I so attached to the chicken salad. I have other sources of protein albeit sometimes there are very long stretches of deli turkey meat hell, but shouldn’t I be able to transcend the need for variety and use this as a way to allow the simplicity of my meals and their routine to accent my journey into myself? Attachment is truly the root of suffering in life so practicing letting go of my anger and attachment to food would be a great opportunity to practice non-attachement. And for the most part I do use this to do so.

But…seriously, people, keep the damn soy out of my chicken salad!

Balancing Acts: Grounding Yourself in Uncertainty

So it has not quite been 6 weeks into my first trimester here at Kripalu and it is already time to be thinking about applying for an extension for the next term or, in my case, how to balance my intuitive need for more seva with my calling to do my 200 hr yoga teacher training. My mind is usually more than happy to make the leap to the future tense and get lost amid the many possibilities and probabilities that await me there, but I find now that I am more and more reluctant to devote my energy to such thoughts. The choas of all these impatient, battling voices battering me with should’s and should not’s concerning my next steps is draining and I am finding it difficult to pinpoint where, exactly, these feelings of general unease and anxiety are located. Sometimes it feels like my mind has literally run off with itself and left me mired in the emotional wreckage of the storm with no idea what caused it.

It is in these times that I seek out practices and postures that offer a way to ground myself while also addressing the internal inbalances that have inevitably sprung up. Tree pose is one of my favorite balance poses with crane a close second. The reason I love Tree, however, is in the fact that it allows me to individually ground each side before then returning to Mountain and unifying the balance. I like to take the variation with my hands extended like seeking branches reaching for the warmth of the rising sun while my right or left foot seals to the earth below. It feels akin to opening a conduit that spears through my crown and sends energy into the ground. It is not just balancing my left and right side but my koshas as well. The spacial energy of the ether from above is balanced by the rooting of my foot into the earth below bringing silence to my chattering mind from which clarity inevitably follows.

It is a balanced body and mind that I want to inhabit this world in and only through that can I authentically approach plans for the future. The very nature of the future is uncertainty as nothing has been decided nor is anything gaurenteed regardless of how rigorously planned they may be. The only way to approach thoughts and planning for the future is to enter into it from a balanced state so that you are able to assess the options without having one energy body, such as the ego, take precendence over another and skew your perceptions.

For example, the subject of money is something that me and most other people find to often take over our thoughts when thinking about any future plans. Especially when it comes to being able to support yourself while balancing your own wants and needs in life. What often happens to me is that I will start off from a very balanced, open space where each option starts off as a relatively innoculous possibility. Then thoughts start creeping in and questions start arising regarding how I will afford to do what I want in the time I feel I need to which is then inevitably followed by my mind protesting the focus on money. This is all closely followed by guilt over not doing what I “should” be doing with my degrees which then unravels into a feeling of desperation to validate what I am doing now to myself and others. This all then leaves me with an anxious knot in my chest, a whirling cyclone in my mind, and no closer any definitive answer than when I started. Even further from it in most cases as I’ve now ungrounded myself and made myself vulnerable to the maelstrom of uncertainty.

The only way to truly find the answers we seek is to allow the space to open for them in our minds. If we allow ourselves, our egos, to become attached to our thoughts, expectations, and stories we tell ourselves than we will only see the future through the discolored lens of that particular aspect. Instead, being able to ground that ether or spacial energy and find that balance within ourselves from which our witness can observe and reflect is the true path to getting the answers we seek.  

 

Serving Up Some Self-Compassion

So it has unfortunately been over a week since my last post, and I can definitley feel a palpable difference when I don’t have this outlet for my processing. I had a program over the weekend- one of the many perks of being a volunteer here being that I can take two free weekend programs. however, I was wholly unprepared for how intense weekend programs were despite having been a guest in one. It was made all the more intense by several deep conversations I had with my friends concerning some of the issues coming up either in class or with them. It was essentially a super-processing weekend and by Monday I felt like I had a paper jam in my brain. All this information was flooding in with no outlet to process it so instead it seemed to manifest in my physical body as extreme fatigue, irritability, and muscle pain- essentially my Lupus symptoms.

Which got me thinking about my past medical history and my very frequent battles with episodes like these. I have, until very recently, always done the majority of my processing in my mind. I was never able to really keep a journal because I just really don’t express myself comfortably in the hand written form. Computers, however, seem to be my medium. Once my fingers touch the keyboard and that soothing, rhythmic tapping begins I naturally bypass my judging, thinking mind and access my witness consciousness that sits above it all in non-judgemental awareness. From this space I can slowly collect the backlogged information, arrange it into managable piles, and methodically address the emotions and issues that have come up for me. This is what this portion of my blog is about- allowing my witness body to take over giving me freedom from the play-by-play judgements and thoughts that flit about my mind from minute to minute.

More frequently here at Kripalu I find myself able to access the witness several times during the day and I bookmark certain realizations in a “to be processed” folder that, by this point, is bulging out of the filing cabinet. This weekend a big concept that came up for me was examining what serves me and what does not in my life.

In my program we did an exercise where, after a bit of a hike, we were instructed to hug a tree. She then told up to see if we couldn’t offer up to the tree, Gaea/Mother Nature/etc, the things that no longer served us to make room for the things that do. I actually started tearing up when I felt a profound connection to nature in that instant through my physical connection to this tree. For perhaps the first time in my life I actually felt like I had found a place to set down these burdens that I’ve been hauling around for what seems like eternity. I had always balked at the religous idea of giving things up or to a deity because I believe I felt that it was inherantly weak to pass the buck as it were. I should be strong enough- or able to cultivate the strength, to deal with my own issues and not lay them on anyone else’s shoulders be them a friend or some mystical dead white bearded guy in the sky.

But this belief was not serving me.

It was, in fact, breaking me down- literally. The realization that my unprocessed emotions, thoughts, and judgements were literally causing me physical distress and discomfort to the point of interfering with my life really drove home how much of a disservice I was doing to myself. My stubborness and fierce belief that my burderns were mine alone to bear have broken me down from the inside out, brought on disease, and created a life that was wholly dissatisfying. My ability to form connections with another human being was strangled by these walls I slammed down in place between them and my vulnerabilities.

So as I lay there, my arms wrapped around as much of the trunk of this tree as I could, I finally released my burdens and offered them up to Gaea. I felt at once that not only could she receive them but that she could take the negative energy wrapped up in them and transform them just as she transforms a caterpillar into a butterfly. I do no have to bear these burdens alone anymore and I don’t need these walls standing between me and true connections with other people. They have never served me and I am tired of doing anything that doesn’t fully align with my core dharma, or purpose, anymore.

I think that if everyone sat back for a minute (or twenty) and really took a look at even just one aspect of their life- be it work, relationship, food, etc, and asked themselves what was and was not serving them that they would discover that a majority of their lives are spent acting in opposition to their true desires. Then really analyze how that is impacting the quality of your life. For me it manifests in the physical and, to some degree, the mental body but it is different for everyone. Then find some way- whether through your own deity or religion or the universe or prana or Gaea- to hand over some of those burdens unconditionally. Just unstrap the fifty ton backpack and literally toss it at the universe trusting that it can hold anything you’ve got to give it and make some space for your authentic self to grow.

Savoring Seva or How to Chop 100 Gallons of Kale Mindfully

So I realized recently that I haven’t really broken down a typical day in the life of a Kripalu volunteer a large part of which is my seva, or selfless service, that is the core of the Karma Yoga program here. One guest I was talking to recently when I opted out of silent breakfast (the only silent meal in the main dining hall) commented that it seemed like an expedient way for Kripalu to cover its overhead costs. After all, you have 50-60 volunteers doing the basement level entry jobs for free for anywhere from 28-35 hours. So yes, cynical ones (of which I do tend to count myself among more often than not, so no judgement), the volunteer program is an ingenious way to not only serve the mission of Kripalu but to keep the non-profit funds well stocked. However, what many guests don’t realize is that before Kripalu was a yoga and alternative lifestyle magnet for many of the big names out there it was a simple ashram where everyone who lived and worked there was in seva and essentially gave up all their major material possessions to follow the founder, Amrit Desai, and his teachings which he, in turn, had taken from Swami Kripalu. It was very much a guru-centric community where people came with the intent of spending months to years of their life here immersed in the guru’s teachings and the intentional community. So when scandal rocked the community in 1994 and Amrit Desai was asked to step down and Kripalu essential went through a major mission overhaul, it was this core idea of Swami Kripalu’s fundamental teachings and the formation of a volunteer program that continued the seva tradition that keep the community grounded in its ideals. So, yes, the Kripalu of today is much more corporate than its humble origins but they have managed to keep the central spiritual core and mission of that initial intentional community alive and thriving in a way that I believe absolutely transmits to the guests that choose to spend their valuable free time here.

Well, to breakdown a typical working day for me, I get up every morning at 5:40am without fail- no groggy snooze slapping or groaning involved (excluding one morning I had a nasty stomach virus). I sit up straight, do some quick gentle twists to get the prana flowing and then set about my getting ready routine. Having swam competitively for so many years- most of which involved some type of pre-6am wake-up call for practice, I am very adept at getting myself completely organized the night before so there isn’t any stubbed toes or whispered curses whilst wildly searching for my bathroom tote and clothes. It also helps that I seem to have gotten my room mate into the same routine so most mornings I’m working under florescents instead of the cover of dark. Then we both sherpa our various belongings for the day over our shoulders and head down to the main building in a brisk, refreshingly crisp walk. Usually I go to the morning moderate 75 min yoga although now that I’ve been here 3 weeks I’ve discerned which teachers don’t really mesh with me and either go to gentle or do my own practice in the yoga room at Hill House. Now if I have to go to work, which starts at 8 am, I have to leave practice early at 7:30 so I’m not shoveling breakfast down and rushing to change. I don my bright blue shirt with my silver volunteer name badge and shed yoga tights for my boyfriend jeans and slip into my non-slip kitchen shoes- transformed from someone easily confused with a guest to a working body.

Seva has officially begun.

Now veggie prep, just like any kitchen, has it’s own distinct ebb and flow and routine that is both comforting and, at times, maddening. The first thing we have to do, after donning amazingly sexy white bibb aprons (probably one of the more humbling experiences for me being a chef other than having to wear a cut glove for 2 weeks), is work on salad bar. Now, salad bar, for me, feels like some hurdle I have to cross to get to the “real” work of the day: the label board. We all initial a laminated list of various veggies to either slice, wash, or simple pile into shotgun containers for stocking the salad bar at lunch and dinner. All the while I’m sneaking glances at the label board and silently planning my battle tactic for the collection of prep labels waiting to be filled. The label board is pretty much exactly as you might imagine it- a magnetic board with printed out labels arranged by prep item indicating the meal the item is for, the quantity needed, and the method for preparation. For example, one label might read “Kale, Lucinata, 36.87 gallons, 3mm shredded, Lunch” and then below will be the menu item it is meant for. Now there are rarely singular labels for vegetables so while there may just be 37 gallons of Lucinata Kale needed there may be 4 other kale labels for a grand total reaching over 100 gallons (yes, this has actually already happened- no exaggerations here). Then, of course, you have to wash and spin dry all that kale which is a huge task in and of itself so you may spend about 3 hours of your day on Kale alone.

This, my friends is where the real work resides. Not in the actual chopping, dicing, hauling, and washing but in cultivating the ability to find space within the task at hand instead of trying to find your way out of it. And by out of it, I mean constantly thinking about when your 15 min break will be (sometime around 10-10:30 typically), which kind of tea you’ll grab from the dining hall during it (definitely sausalito spice), or what’s for lunch that day (not relegated to the deli turkey meat again…), and when you want to take your hour lunch break and with who, or do you want to do the afternoon moderate yoga or the vigorous or scratch that and just hit the whirlpool and sauna because, damn, your body is already exhausted and it’s only 9:10. That sentence is a run-on on purpose because that is exactly what your mind does when you allow it to run free. It’s filled with all these mischievous monkeys that like to swing from thought to thought with no real rhyme or reason. The only driving force really being the desire to avoid the silence of your own thoughts and distracting you from the task at hand.

Obviously Veggie Prep is not the only line of work in which this crops up although the sheer amount of time spent on one monotonous, repetitive task is a more challenging environment than some. This really can apply to any situation in which you find yourself suddenly engrossed in either the past or future events rather than whatever is going on for you in that moment- and, trust me, this happens thousands of times a day. Maybe you’re at a board meeting and they’re going over quotas while you’re going over your grocery list. Or your friend is talking (yet again) about her closet hoarder roommate while you are wondering where she got that adorable purple pullover she’s wearing. Now, the key is to remember is that your mind is always going to be searching for a way out of the present so the goal is not to silence the mind but to become more mindful when it’s taking over and taking away from your experience of the moment.

So, back to the mountain of Kale to chop, I really find that it is the combination of this prep job being a selfless service, so I am not working towards my own bottom line rather for the greater good of others, and the steady, monotonous work that allows me to really dig deep and connect with the moment. I enter into an almost trance-like state, which has often happened in the past when cooking, where my mind is completely silent and I am entirely in the flow. There is literally not a whisper of a thought or a judgement but rather the experience of being in a zone where my breathe and movement are so deeply connected that my mind has no choice but to latch on for the ride. This is very similar to what athlete’s experience at peak performance or what all those meditation gurus are always preaching about reaching. I personally find sitting meditation boring, cumbersome, uncomfortable, and sometimes quite defeating, but moving meditation- whether it be in dance, yoga, walking, or with a chef knife in my hand is divine and easy.

The key to slowing down the mind is finding something in that moment that your truly want to slow down for. So many times during the day we find ourselves doing things that are not in line with our intentions or personal goals and our thoughts can be very revealing in these moments. If you find your mind is full of those mischievous monkeys ricocheting at light speed around the inside of your brain then it might help to stop and really examine what about that moment is making you want to escape it. You can learn a lot if not more about yourself in these moments of struggle than in those blissful, rare states of divine connection.

After all, if all we have is this moment than it stands that you might want to show up for it.

 

The Grass is Green Enough Right Here

We all know the saying “the grass is always greener on the other side.” People love to trot it out whenever our friends are seeming unsatisfied with their lives and yearning for what someone or somewhere else has to offer. Of course we hardly ever stop to actually think about what this phrase actually signifies and what we are essentially resigning ourselves to every time we say it.

We are literally telling ourselves, friends, and family that the norm for life is to never be truly satisfied. That there will always be something bigger and better to strive for giving the implication that we must always be in a constant state of dissatisfaction. Indeed, I know people who would consider this the very driving force or purpose to their life- this central notion that where ever they are now is not good enough and the goal to reach that ever expanding horizon of “there” is the proverbial carrot.

Central to this whole notion of spending our lives trapped on the achievement wheel of life is our obsession with comparisons. “Keeping up with the Jones’” is not just a phrase (or a movie for that matter) but the reality of the society we live in. Our society is built around this notion that we should strive to both fit in to our surroundings but also to excel above them. To one up our neighbors by building that brick inlaid grill in the backyard or installing a pool or purchasing that stroller that may be a bit over our price range but will proclaim to the world that we are taking proper care of our child. We like to collect titles behind our names that declare to everyone we encounter that we are indeed someone special who has accomplished things in life.

Simply being healthy, happy, and whole is not considered an accomplishment nor does it even appear on the radar until we have lost it. Instead of telling our children that they are enough- just the way they are, we tend to couch the idea within our paradigm of achievement. So when they win that race or nail that part in the school play we praise them, but when they have the courage to say that they may not be ready for something or they are having trouble in school we start to tell them to “buck up” or “you’ll get used to it” or better yet “you’re just not working hard enough.” As if we, and society, own the right to tell them what is enough for them and that indeed they will never be enough because when the sky is the limit who could be satisfied on the ground?

These are the very ideals that I am trying to peel away from during my time here at Kripalu and, doubtless, for the rest of my life. Because when you are taught that you can be anything it is hard to be satisfied with just being you. I have always felt this constant pressure- both internal and external- to constantly be searching for ways to define myself through external attributes like swimming accomplishments, degrees, certifications, life experiences, etc. It was as if I was manually adding pieces to the personality puzzle each time I gained a new experience or accomplishment. Instead of allowing me and my own personality to be enough and shine through I was creating an image based on the comparison game. Essentially it was as if I was trying to create my ideal hand at poker so that I could “beat” anyone I came accross. If I just got enough life experiences, enough titles, enough books read, etc then no matter who I met I would impress them and they would see what an accomplished, well-rounded person I was. Consider it building a resume for your life- constantly trying to make yourself appear to be the best version of everything polishing away all the unseemly or unnecessary bits until only the worthy components remained.

But when you start eliminating all the painful, unsavory pieces of yourself and your life you are inherently teaching yourself that you are not whole. You are not enough in this or any instant and only when you have cultivated enough external achievements and reached that ever expanding place of “there” will you be complete. Do we really want to live this life feeling like we are never complete? To constantly be yearning for something we may never have and to spend our lives walking- nay, running full throttle to some vague end point, be it retirement, house, family, etc, that we miss out on everything in between? Years flash by on our desperate race to prove ourselves until we reach that arbitrarily chosen destination only to find ourselves just as lost as when we started.

I do not want to wake up one day- or any day for that matter, feeling like I have settled for a life of achievement forsaking wholeness. I do not want to spend another day feeling like I am not enough just the way I am- body, personal issues, current joblessness, and all. Being content and grounded in the fact that you have everything you need right here with you now does not mean that you don’t strive for things in life or have goals which is what people tend to think when such talk comes up: ”What do you mean you’re enough? Are you just going to go on having no job with no goals or career path or plan? Isn’t that like giving up?”

No, it is like giving in.

Giving in to the idea that everything does not need to be accomplished right now or by anyone else’s timetable. Giving in to the idea that life cannot be micromanaged and that everyone has their own internal process that, if they just learn how to listen, will lead them exactly where they were blindly running so desperately towards in the first place.

I am a very passionate person- passionate about the things I love (cooking, yoga, writing, teaching) and I know with an absolute certainty that I will cultivate these passions and that my innate drive and self-sufficiency and acumen will eventually coalesce. Whether this be in my current entrepreneurial dreams to open a paleo cafe and yoga studio or some other venture does not need to be concrete right now. I know that they need more time to marinate and that I want more time to work and gain experience beforehand. I also have the absolute confidence that as long as I keep listening and trusting in myself that I will know when it is time to lend action to these thoughts and transform them to reality.

The real strength in life is not how long you can hold yourself to some predetermined path and grit your way to your “goals”, but when you can learn to accept that the grass beneath your feet right now is exactly where you need to be.

Riding the Waves of Sensation

So there is a pretty popular yoga speak term that gets thrown around a lot here at Kripalu: Ride the Wave. Now to an outsider this probably seems like some more mumbo-jumbo New Age speak that has little to do with your world or life. Or perhaps it just conjures up images of surfing and the tropics and a yearning to break out of the cool, heavy blanket of winter. Regardless of what your first judgements were upon reading the phrase I assure you that riding the wave has EVERYTHING to do with your life if you want to live a fulfilled one and be able to flex with what life gives you.

Now, in yoga, riding the wave refers to the practice of sitting in a difficult posture and trying to allow yourself to relax into the (sometimes brutal) sensations and breathe through and with them instead of tensing and trying to fight them. One of my teachers  once said that how we either stay or come out of a posture is how we approach life. For example, I am one of those people who will get into a posture and muscle my way into it. If there is a harder variation offered I will take that challenge and I have a tendency to resist coming out of a pose early because I tend to view it as “giving up” as opposed to having self compassion.

I approach life in much the same way. I view success or accomplishment as having challenged myself to my full extent and succeeded. If something seems easy I am automatically suspicious of it as if I have some deep, ingrained belief that life has to be hard or I’m doing something wrong. Then when I get into a particularly sticky situation or hard spot, i.e. that goddess pose I talked about before or a health problem or an emotional situation, I tend to use my head to work through it instead of allowing myself to flow with it. My first instinct is to use reason and mind to solve what appears to be a problem in front of me instead of allowing myself to be with and feel with my whole body the sensations associated with it. Sometimes it is entirely appropriate to straighten your legs and take a breather- you’ll most likely be able to reach deeper when you go back into the posture and appreciate the sensations rather than fighting them tooth and nail.

By the same token, it is sometimes appropriate to step back from a difficult situation and take stock with both how you’re feeling and of the situation in general before re-engaging. If you are especially prone to anger and have a small fuse then this is especially important because taking that extra moment to breathe and be WITH the sensation of anger sweeping through you will allow you to own the feeling rather than merely reacting blindly to some stimulus and expelling it.

We as a society seem to be especially prone to choking off our feelings and prize reason over emotion. I have been especially susceptible to this delusion much to my own downfall. Instead of embracing each moment with gratitude- even the most difficult ones- I would shut down my emotional center and rely entirely on my defense mechanism of reason. I could intellectually talk myself our of or into anything with the most eloquent of descriptions and calm, introspective reasoning but ask me what I was feeling in that moment and I would look at you blankly. I am slowly learning how to connect with my emotional body and trust that it is just as powerful if not more so than my mind. The more I recognize how I try to escape the moment and the feelings and sensations in it the more I am able to slowly re-train myself how to flow with it and ride the wave with grace and compassion and maybe even smile while doing it.

The Cosmic 2 x 4: The Universal Wake-Up Call

“We pray to god when our foundation is shaky only to find that god is shaking our foundation.”

I took this quote from a fabulous program I attended Wednesday put on by a yoga teacher and motivational speaker here, Coby, who I absolutely resonate with and love. Now of course “god” is interchangeable with whatever you want to place there- I like to use universe, but the meaning behind it remains the same. When we feel like we need to find something outside of ourselves to explain or help us with the challenges that life presents it is more often than not ourselves that hold that answer.

Which brings me to the excellent yogic metaphor of the Cosmic 2×4.

The central theme to her workshop was around living yoga as a lifestyle- i.e. cultivating an off the mat practice by shifting how you view life and each moment through the lens of yogic philosophy. If we consider that there is one true life purpose, svadharma, for us all that lies in the center of our beings and animates and drives each action and reaction, also known as the true self, then spoking out from this center are our own individual smaller callings. These smaller callings are things such as a desire to express yourself in art, writing, teaching, cooking, etc. And everyone has more than one and not every calling comes at you at once. So perhaps when you first graduated college you knew you wanted to be a pharmacist so you get more schooling, get the degree, work in the field for 10-15 years  then suddenly find yourself feeling adrift, with work suddenly feeling more like a drain than a lift. Or you have grown weary of the pace of your life and your job and yearn to retire but gremlins keep dancing around in your head reminding you of how much money x number of years in the company will get you. Guilt begins to work it’s way in- after all, this is your JOB and yes the capitals are necessary. We as a society seem to get so fixated on finding that one career path and then defining ourselves by it leaving no room to hear or accept the call of other opportunities that speak to us. In my case, I can become almost paralyzed by the idea of choosing the RIGHT job, the RIGHT location to settle, the RIGHT company to work for. The fear of choosing wrong leads me to inaction and in fact closes me off from my intuitive senses that are trying to lead me in the direction of my true calling. Instead, I am building all these stories about what my future career should look like- what progression it should take, where do I want to live and settle down in- trying to force a calling on myself instead of just surrendering to my own inner knowledge where I already know what is right for me.

Now, the universe or your true self or whatever you want to call it, is constantly knocking on your door trying to get your attention. Usually it starts off small, just a light rap on your brain’s front door with a whispered “hey, there’s something else you need to be doing.” Most people hardly notice this, or they experience it through a sudden radical thought that challenges their present situation and belief systems like “I want to open up my own cafe in a quaint small town” when they are about to make partner at a prestigious law firm in NYC. So they immediately dismiss the thought and the warm, positive energy that surrounds it by suppressing it with should’s and can’t and not-right-now-but-maybe-when-I-retires. The knocking becomes more insistent and often physical symptoms start to appear as you continue to ignore it.You may suddenly start to feel fatigued every day for no apparent reason barely able to drag yourself from bed and relying on more caffeine, or start to have a low-grade depression, or find yourself having uncontrollable bursts of anger at seemingly benign situations. Depending on just how disconnected you are from your true self this may go on until you develop a serious disease or disorder and are forced to change your circumstances to survive. THIS is the cosmic 2×4- when the universe stops knocking politely on your door and instead takes the emergency fire axe and breaks down the damn thing until you have no choice but to pay attention.

In my case, I first started to develop severe clinical depression and a raging eating disorder characterized by excessive compulsive exercise and obsessive thinking around calories and body image. Then I got my first cosmic 2×4- what others might call hitting bottom, and finally admitted that what I was doing was not working and I needed deeper healing. I always knew that I had the power within me to change my situation and to heal myself, but I also knew that I couldn’t find my way out of a paper bag right then let alone build a new life on my own. So I went to an extended treatment program including a 6 week intensive in-house program and then a 4-month step down program where I learned the tools to manage and heal my depression. At the time I did not know yoga, but in hindsight what I was doing was tapping into my inner reserve- my true self, then slowly shifting my perception of reality and begining to create a relationship with that intuitive body within me. However, I still clung to a lot of the walls that had become my safe harbor over the years- the habits I had formed that allowed me to feel like I was controlling my life when in fact I was barely living it. But, the seed had been sown. I had found the courage to completely alter my perception of what life and education had to look like and found my first smaller calling: cooking and pursued a degree in it.

My next big cosmic wallop came when I was smack in the middle of getting my business degree in hospitality and had fallen back into old patterns of excessive compulsive exercise and defining myself through my physical body almost exclusively. I had discovered another smaller calling: teaching outdoor education but I was running on all 4 cylinders and then 2 extra ones I didn’t even have. This time the 2×4 came down and smacked me on my ass so hard that it would take a year for me to physically recover. I essentially had to lose everything that I thought I was in order to find out who I truly was. No longer able to be that physical body, I spent months mourning my lost identity until I found yoga and that seed that had been sown in my first showdown with the universe became to take root. Three years later and I have grown in ways I can hardly describe here- but most noticeably I have learned my lesson about ignoring the universe when it comes calling. Now I am much more acutely attuned to those little knocks- that little feeling inside that tells me when something is or isn’t part of my true path. That drop in the gut or tightening in the chest when I’m trying to push something on myself or shoulding myself telling me that it isn’t the right path for me right now. Then also the flutters of excitement or those can-do thoughts that are the spark of those smaller callings reaching out to me from my core.

The stage I am at now is really stepping up to the plate and owning my callings. It is time to show up every moment of every day in my own life and own it by listening to my callings and having the courage to take action to transform them into reality. As Coby said, you must be more committed to following your calling than staying in the seeming comfort of your current life which is also called having Tapas. Just think about that for a moment- how many times have you wanted to do something, even something as simple as reach out to comfort a friend or contact an estranged relative, only to find yourself unable to allow yourself to live in that discomfort of breaking old patterns? Now apply that to a grander scale- shifting your LIFE as you have known it and you can see the inherent challenge. This is where being committed- trusting in your true path and your ultimately your truth self, that will be your rock as you navigate these changes however big or small.