Two friends of mine said goodbye to
their 16-year-old dog last week.
Emma, a golden lab, arrived sometime
after Kevin and Sue met but before they married. She shed blond hair
the way the sun shines: prolifically and without pause. She was the
most stubborn dog in Ontario, if not all of Canada. Three weeks
before her exit, she was still bashing her head into any closed door
that she wanted open, and she wanted all closed doors open.
She was a beloved friend and family
member, something that non-animal people sometimes find hard to
understand and animal people understand fully.
Rosie, my dog, and I joined Kevin and Sue
and Sophie (Emma's little sister) at the cottage this weekend.
Everywhere you look, Emma looks back. Her hair is everywhere,
naturally. She was a voracious morning eater. Crazy lab, used to
drive us mad. Now, early morning feels empty. Someone should be tearing through a huge bowl of kibble at the speed of sound.
Sophie is lonely, and knows something
has changed. Even Rosie gets up every morning and sniffs her way
around the beach, looking for Emma.
If you've been through it, you know
this story.
We spent long, dusky evenings over good
meals and wine, talking about how wonderful she was, and how hard it
is to believe she's gone from here.
And twice a day, we rolled out yoga
mats and flung our bodies and hearts into vigorous practice. It was
the best answer, ever, to grief.
We worked hard, we chanted with full
voices, we sank during Savasana into everything there was to feel.
You know how it is with yoga. You move
your beautiful body and all kinds of feelings move through your body.
Some you're expecting, some you're not. It's wonderful to be
with people you love so that the unexpected feelings can have their
say without embarrassment or regret.
This week I'm grateful for yoga's
power to help us move through grief.
And I'll bet you have gazillions of
stories on this one. I'd love to hear.
Thanks to yoga for being a part of
celebrating Emma's fine, fine life. Thanks to you for being here,
and for the conversation,
kristin
Dr.
Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, and speaker (About All
Things Wonderful) in North Bay, Ontario. Join her on the web,
on Facebook,
on Twitter,
and on iTunes.
This morning I'm dreaming about a fantasy yoga class. Here's what mine looks like:
First, it's Kundalini yoga. I'm
smitten. What can I say.
The class includes the following
people:
1.
GurmukhKaur
Khalsa, the great whirling dervish Kundalini yogini. (She can teach
the class.)
2.
My grandfather. He's been gone for 25 years, but he taught me to
stand on my head when he was 65, so my guess is he'd love to be
included.
3.
Patanjali, the guy who wrote the Yoga Sutra. I'd love to ask him
what he thinks
about modern yoga.
4.
Sting. He can lead the chanting.
5.
All right, his wife Trudie Styler can come. She's a pretty
fabulous yogini, too.
I'm
getting nervous about having too many yoga gods in the class, so next
is:
6.
Javier Bardem, the best actor in the world. When I Google Javier and
yoga, the only thing that comes up is my own infatuation with him, so
my guess is he is not a yogin, at least in public. His presence would,
of course, challenge my sustained focus on my own practice. This, I
figure, would be awful and wonderful at the same time.
7.
My kids. They are spread all over Canada and I miss them.
8.
My lovely man, provided he's all right with Javier Bardem. I want
this class to be harmonious.
That's
it. That's my fantasy class.
Who's
in yours? I'd love to hear.
Thanks
to yoga for feeding my imagination. Thanks to you for the
conversation,
kristin
Dr.
Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, and speaker (About All
Things Wonderful) in North Bay, Ontario. Join her on the web,
on Facebook,
on Twitter,
and on iTunes.
It's a tricky business combining
meditation and asana practices in a life.
There's the obvious problem of time
when you decide to do sitting meditation twice a day and you happen
to be so head-over-heels with kundalini yoga that you're doing full
practices twice a day. Let's leave that one alone and just be
grateful I'm on sabbatical.
The tricky business I'm thinking of
this morning is this:
When meditating, I become more and more
aware that I am not this chatty mind. I also--and this is today's
niggly topic--am not this body.
We've all heard the car analogy. My
body is the car. I am the driver of the car. I take care of the car,
but I am not the car.
My meditation practice helps me
understand profoundly that I am not my body: not my solid thighs, not
my hormonal headaches, not my stressed eating, not my restlessness,
not my tight hips, not even my breathing or my relaxing.
I love this deep diving into who I am
and who I am not. I love remembering that I am not the car. It makes
me sane to remember this.
Then there is my physical yoga
practice. And with yoga on the mat, I can go either way.
I have been in classes in which I
become fully identified with my body and its inflexibility, its
self-consciousness, its lack of grace. Is it the type of yoga? The
teacher? My own state going into the class? I don't know (though I
suspect the latter).
And I've been in classes in which my
radiance, the truth of me, just happens to be dancing with this bod
at the moment, in a room with a lot of other radiant beings, all of
us beautiful, transient beams of light. We could just as easily be birds as humans.
Here's the thing. I have to watch
myself and be careful that my physical practice doesn't draw me
into stronger identification with my body. I know it's happening
when I don't love the way I look or feel during practice. I start
to measure my inflexibility and be frustrated by it. I become a
jealous observer of the woman over there whose wheel looks like a
wheel instead of a broken crab. I might as well be in front of a bank
of mirrors in a monster gym on these days.
What it amounts to is that my practice
can be good for me or not depending on who I understand myself to be
today.
The challenge for me, every day, is to
begin by remembering who I am underneath it all.
Do you feel that challenge, or is it
easier than all that for you?
Thanks to yoga for inviting us to look
deeply. Thanks to you for the conversation,
kristin
Dr.
Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, and speaker (About All
Things Wonderful) in North Bay, Ontario. Join her on the web,
on Facebook,
on Twitter,
and on iTunes.
Sometime during the last hour, I touched my heels in Camel Pose. First time ever. There should be fireworks going off somewhere. This is absolutely one of the finest moments of the summer for me.
Here are others:
2.Two of my brothers traveled huge distances (one from Kuwait, one from the other side of the country) to join a family reunion this weekend. One said that yoga prevented what had looked like inevitable back surgery. He credits a version of Crow Pose. The other said that he and his wife have done yoga for months together in Kuwait. I'm not sure why these things thrill me, but they do.
3. Over the last two years, my practice has become more and more my own, and less like trying to fit myself into someone else's definition of yoga. This summer, each day's practice feels like 90 minutes of becoming more myself than ever. Again, where are the fireworks?
4. It's becoming easier to take my practice with me when I travel. I credit laptops and DVDs. When overwhelmed at, say, family reunions, I know that quality time on my mat is as close as the room I'm sleeping in. Occasionally I can even convince a few others to join me. Last weekend, four of us lined up in front of my laptop.
5. Even in Northern Ontario, we can still practice outside at this point. This may not be the case in September, so I revel in every side twist up to a blue sky. Thanks, thanks, thanks for the blue sky.
Those are my summer yoga highlights. I'd love to hear yours.
Thanks to yoga for moving with us through all seasons. Thanks to you for the conversation,
kristin
Dr.
Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, and speaker (About All
Things Wonderful) in North Bay, Ontario. Join her on the web,
on Facebook,
on Twitter,
and on iTunes.
I paddled flat water kayak and war canoe competitively when I was young. It involved training two or three times each day during the summer, and strength training all winter. What I remember about our summer workouts was one minute of flinging, twisting, jerking upper-body movement that we called stretching, followed by a 10-minute run, after which we'd jump in our boats and work hard while a coach yelled at us to work hard. We raced every weekend. I still dream about the bang of the gun at the starting line.
It was fun, and formative, but at that age I was just doing what I was told. I paddled because I was told to paddle.
My definition of fun has changed.
Over time, I've fallen in love with a more gentle and thorough kind of stretching. I've lost interest in being yelled at. I've lost my fear of losing and have completely redefined what winning and losing mean.
I pay more attention to how my body feels and to what it loves in order to feel fabulous.
Back then my body was something that never measured up. I didn't feel fast enough, strong enough, lean enough, or competitive enough to please my coaches. The idea of pleasing myself had not yet occurred to me.
Now, I see my body as a generous, resilient, healthy, and beautiful vehicle for my considerable spirit. What makes it feel fabulous is being listened to, honored, forgiven, and enjoyed every single day.
And although I am not perfectly at peace with this body, I am so much closer than I was when I was 15 or 20 that I can hardly wait to see what 60 and 70 feel like.
Here's what I'm grateful for today: I'm grateful for being involved in a sport that taught me a bit about who I am and a lot about who I am not. I'm grateful for it sending me searching for a better fit.
And I'm grateful for yoga for being a perfect fit.
It makes me wonder how many of you combine a life of yoga and competitive sport. Do you love both? Has yoga enriched your competitive life? Or has yoga replaced competitive sport for you? I'd love to hear.
Thanks for these marvelous bodies of ours. Thanks to you for the conversation,
kristin
Dr.
Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, and speaker (About All
Things Wonderful) in North Bay, Ontario. Join her on the web,
on Facebook,
on Twitter,
and on iTunes.
When my mother took yoga classes 40 years ago, she
was weird. She was dabbling in something cultish, Eastern (as if that
didn't say it all), nutty-seedy vegetarian and bound to zip down a
slippery, chanting slope to moral corruption. Yoga ranked right up
there in weirdness with her backyard compost pile. Now we call a
compost pile. Then, my mother was the woman who dumped leftovers on
the back lawn.
She also meditated. I was with her at a
Transcendental Meditation workshop when I was six or seven. All I
remember is lying on a gymnasium floor with too many strangers, trying
not to laugh while being told to relax.
Here's the thing. The physical practice of yoga is no
longer weird. Half of Hollywood does it, which is enough to make the
rest of us feel mainstream while standing on our heads. Yoga clothes
are now accepted enough to wear to work, to lunch, to sleep. (I
remember moving to a small town in Northern Ontario in 1989 and
wearing running tights into a corner store. Before I arrived home,
rumor had spread that the new chiropractor in town was out shopping
in long underwear.) Men now do yoga, which would have freaked even my
mother out 40 years ago. Kids do yoga in schools. Not in huge
numbers, yet, but it's happening.
Yoga is in. It's fun. It's here.
Big time.
I hope, hope, hope, that the meditation part of yoga is
making its way to great numbers of us along a similar course.
Meditation, though not as weird as it
was (what the heck, you just sit there, doing nothing?) has
only recently begun an accelerated spread into schools, prisons, hospitals,and evening
classes in gymnasiums. David Lynch is the only Hollywood name that
comes to mind.
I'm surprised that people still
arrive at my Facebook site, where we talk a lot about meditation, asking, "How to do I begin?" I forget that meditation isn't as automatic a
practice for most of us as our asana practice.
If you haven't already included it as
a part of your practice, you're in for a good time. Meditation is gorgeous beyond description.
David Nichtern is fun. He's a teacher of Buddhist mindfulness meditation. Here is his take on
how you can begin to include meditation in your life.
I hope it becomes a part of your trip
if you're ready for it. I hope it carries you down a slippery slope
to your true nature.
Let me know how it goes.
Thanks to the yoga tree for having more
than one branch. Thanks to you for the conversation,
kristin
Dr.
Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, and speaker (About All
Things Wonderful) in North Bay, Ontario. Join her on the web,
on Facebook,
on Twitter,
and on iTunes.
Over the last few months I've had the
pleasure of corresponding with Ann, a Yoga Journal reader who is
smack in the middle of yoga teacher training. As you'd expect,
she's experiencing ups, downs, and growth in about 47 different
directions. Somehow we began writing back and forth just before her training began. It's been an
honor listening to Ann's story.
So, Ann, and any of the rest of you who
are becoming our teachers, this conversation is for you:
This weekend I sat on a deck with
friends, acquaintances, and strangers overlooking a huge, blue
Northern Ontario lake. We chatted and laughed our way through five or
six topics before we landed on yoga. One woman at the table has been
teaching bellydancing for 30 years. She belongs to a weekly yoga
class. Another woman takes two classes every week along with Pilates.
The friend next to me goes to her studio once a week, twice if she's
lucky. We were amazed to have all of this yoga in common.
We talked about different kinds of yoga and different studios. Then someone mentioned teachers. We all mentioned loving our teachers. The second woman--she's too shy to
let me use her name--ended a pause in this part of the conversation by saying
that her yoga teacher is more than wonderful, that, in fact, her teacher has changed her life. That's a strong
statement. I asked how her teacher had changed her life, and she
thought for a bit.
"I think she taught me to make myself a priority," she said.
"I've spent years taking care of my kids, my house, meals, laundry, my work, and my husband. I've spent decades taking care of myself last."
Bottom rung on her own
ladder. This lesson is huge.
She was ready, but her yoga teacher's
constant enthusiasm, openness, and positive values were what she
needed to start climbing.
There wasn't a woman around that
table who didn't understand this lesson
completely.
So. To Ann and to all of you who are
becoming teachers, this is what you are to us. Teachers, guides,
inspirations, good human beings. You change our lives.
Thanks to you for doing what you love
and for passing it along to us.
Thanks to yoga for making room for all
of us and for encouraging us to value ourselves.
Thanks to you for the conversation,
kristin
Dr.
Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, and speaker (About All
Things Wonderful) in North Bay, Ontario. Join her on the web,
on Facebook,
on Twitter,
and on iTunes.
If I were writing my own version of the
Yoga Sutra (a 2,000-year old guide for the practice of
yoga), I would include this bit of wisdom:
In your practice, some asanas will
elicit such panicky resistance from your body and/or spirit that
they'll make you want to throw up. Do not despair, young yogi,
because this urge to throw up is teaching you many things.
First, it'll teach you about your own
wonderful instincts. Sometimes the urge to throw up means, "This
one is not for you. It is not yet time to stand on your head while in full lotus."
You'll learn what this particular nausea feels like. This nausea
feels like a big red X.
The more common nausea feels like a big
red Uh Oh. It may be difficult at first to differentiate these, but
you will learn. The Uh Oh nausea means, "Whoa, Nellie, you have a
lot to learn from this pose. Come a wee bit closer. Perhaps this one has to do with the fact
that you hate confrontation, or you feel powerless in your life, or
you have unfortunately led your entire life with your pea brain
rather than your enormous heart."
These urges to throw up and run away
screaming should be in the Sutra.
I used to feel the Uh Oh with Butterfly
Pose. It's easing, now. I still feel it with all forward lunges.
With back bends, I'm not close enough to feel it, but I'll bet
it's coming.
When I hit one of these pukey edges, I
use a homemade mantra, which is, "I am completely safe." (Not
that I have any underlying issues of my own, you understand.)
Have you met these urges to throw up?
If not, achhhh, you're just more evolved than I am. Lucky for you.
You should write your own Yoga Sutra. We could use your wisdom.
If you have felt the big red X or the
Uh Oh, I'd love to hear about it.
Thanks to yoga for shining a light on
my resistance. Thanks to the spiky flower photographer. Thanks to you, always, for the conversation,
kristin
Dr.
Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, and speaker (About All
Things Wonderful) in North Bay, Ontario. Join her on the web,
on Facebook,
on Twitter,
and on iTunes.
"It's not the asanas that will
change your life. It's the courage you bring to your practice that
will change your life."
Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa
I froze mid-leg swing when I heard that
while watching her DVD last night.
It's intriguing for several reasons:
There are so many kinds of yoga and such enormous variation in practices that it's hard to
imagine we're related at all on a physical level. And yet I call
myself a yogi and I consider myself part of your family whether
you're doing Ashtanga, Bikram, Anusara, or Laughter Yoga.
Something must connect us underneath and beyond the asanas. Maybe
courage is a part of that.
I've been reading the Yoga
Sutra. It seems to me that Patanjali wouldn't recognize what we
call yoga, so removed is it from his description of yoga 2,000 years
ago. He was a meditation guy first and foremost, if I'm reading
correctly. We've skewed pretty heavily in the direction of instructors with head mikes, Luluwhatever design, and the whole buff thing since then. I don't see
a problem with this, but it makes me wonder what each of us would
write in our own practice manual for yoga. Would courage be a part
of it?
Despite being enamored of my
physical practice, my interest is sustained by the non-physical side
of yoga. I love the exploration of my relationship to both my heart and to the cosmos, as woo-woo as that might sound. That's why I'm not still playing squash.
Is it about courage? I suppose a part
of it is.
To me, it feels as though I entered
this huge house called yoga and, exploring it room by room, I find
that every wall is covered with mirrors. So that everywhere I look, I
see myself, my ego and personality and all their resistance, and in
brief flashes, my huge-as-the-solar-system Self, the spirit I have always been, the one
who is revealed over time by my practice. Courage is a part of that.
So are persistence, curiosity, a desire for truth, forgiveness, love,
humility, and freedom.
What's it about for you?
Thanks to yoga for being as deep as
we'd like to dig. I suspect each of us is also deeper than we could possibly dig, and I'm grateful for that.
Thanks to you for the conversation,
kristin
Dr.
Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, and speaker (About All
Things Wonderful) in North Bay, Ontario. Join her on the web,
on Facebook,
on Twitter,
and on iTunes.
Kristin Shepherd
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