I was sitting at the local ball park with Mike and Jake yesterday, enjoying the spring day and the buzz of peanuts and beer and baseball gloves, when "Here Comes the Sun" came over the loudspeakers.
Normally, I resist writing essays built around a song that someone else has written. (I haven't ever written a song myself, so I suppose it would be more accurate to say I resist writing essays built around any song, but then my point wouldn't be as clear.) The last time I tried it, I am embarrassed to say, I wrote an entire college admissions essay about why my life resembled a Billy Joel song. Mercifully, I recognized that it was highly unlikely Billy Joel had more to say about me than I did and rewrote the essay before submitting it anywhere.
But what struck me yesterday wasn't so much the song itself as all it brought up in me.
I used to listen to "Here Comes the Sun" over and over when I was fifteen years old and hurting deeply. It was a period when I spent most weekends at a friend's house in a neighborhood full of kids our age. Like any teenagers, we spent our evenings drinking beer and smoking pot (for some reason I feel compelled to point out I never actually smoked any myself; some unwavering part of me passed the joint from the person on my left to the person on my right without any stirring of desire to try it). And, of course, we had our soap opera of romantic entanglements, friendship spats, and existential crises.
Much of the time I spent huddled over my bent knees crying to "Here Comes the Sun" and hoping one day it would, was, not surprisingly, due to a boy. We had a flirtation that was the closest I'd ever come to a relationship, and each time he showed me we had nothing more -- in that brusque way teenage boys have of demonstrating such things -- I crumbled into a puddle of despair.
But I now know it was much more than a boy. I was in pain when I was fifteen because I was in the process of leaving my heart behind and listening to the louder voice in my head.
After awakening to acting during my last year of junior high, I arrived at high school being told I had only one elective and must choose between drama and Spanish III. I chose Spanish, even though acting made my heart sing. Because, I told myself, it would help me get into a good college. I took that first step, doing what everyone but my heart said was right, and became the adult most of us are -- estranged from my heart and trying to find my way back.
Even now it makes me sad to pinpoint this moment in my life when my head took over from my heart. I stopped following my path, and my whole sense of being responded. I was unable to believe my friends who told me how pretty I looked in my new contact lenses. I felt queasy every time a boy asked me for a date and inevitably squirmed my way out of it. I joined the clubs my sister had joined -- the honors society, the school service club -- without stopping to consider that they didn't speak to anything joyful in me. And my self-confidence, my sense of me, quickly crumbled.
When I heard "Here Comes the Sun" yesterday, I looked from that fifteen-year-old girl losing her way to the woman I am now with her husband and her child and her life full of love, and I felt deep gratitude to the Universe for helping me rediscover my heart.
And so, I thought, instead of grappling with the questions that come from being a mother, I ought to take a day of YogaMamaMe to affirm the beauty of following one's heart.
Proof That You Know How to Follow Your Heart
Our children are living manifestations of what the Universe brings if you follow your heart. They bring us joy, and in doing so remind us that (here comes a vast understatement) joy does not come from being in control. There is no place we have less control over our lives than when we become mothers. And yet there is no greater joy.
Choosing to become a mother is an act purely governed by the heart. If we had stopped to think it through, how many of us would have logically concluded that we wanted to be parents? It's time-consuming, expensive, and exhausting, and the potential pay-off of having someone who might take care of us when we get old is so far in the distance and so uncertain that it can't possibly be a relevant factor in the decision. The only reason for doing it is because our hearts tell us it's what we want; it's incoherent, absolute, teeming with rightness.
So the good news is we all know how to follow our hearts. The bad news is we don't often have the benefit of hormones urging us to do it. But we do have one beautiful, larger than life example of what happens when you throw logic to the wind and do what you know in your heart you want to do. It's scary, it's unknown, but it's a true picture of what life really is. Because, even when you plan your next move to the last letter, you're only fooling yourself into thinking you know what comes next.
I literally tremble when I think about the strength it took to follow my heart, and where it's taken me. I quit a professorship right as I was invited to apply for tenure, choosing the absolute uncertainty of a new career as a writer over the most secure of all job scenarios. I asked Mike to move to Los Angeles with me two weeks after our first date, despite all my past experience with how the first blush of a new love almost always fades into deep puzzlement over how we could have been so wrong about the person a few months later. I married him, had a child with him, and moved to Asheville, a place I probably wouldn't have considered if Jake hadn't been the beneficiary. Today I read an article in the Los Angeles Times about the literally insane competition to get into a good elementary school in L.A., and I felt a little tap on the shoulder from the Universe telling me I did good moving from my old home to a beautiful new one with a wonderful public elementary school a block away.
I share this with you as a way of expressing my gratitude. I didn't make these things happen. I let them happen by trusting my heart. And this, I think, is the key to everything I'm trying to address with YogaMamaMe.
Motherhood Versus the Mind
Reading over what I've just written, I see it clearly: the crux of all the issues I've tackled nearly daily since starting YogaMamaMe. All the conflicted feelings, the guilt, the uncertainty, the wondering whom we've become since having children -- they all arise where our minds crash against the pure heart that is motherhood. I picture two swiftly moving ocean currents, one warm and strong, the other cold and roiling, meeting in an angry spume of foam and mist. We lose our direction, our grounding, any sense of safety, and we are tossed about as if a wave has knocked us down. We feel as if we are drowning.
The answer seems so simple. We need to come out of the current of our mind -- that part of us questioning our decisions as parents, teasing us with false, misty memories of how easy life used to be, urging us to make more out of our lives than the very much we are already making with them.
Of course, it takes a lifetime -- many lifetimes, if that's what you believe in -- to let our hearts take over completely. And a good thing for me, or YogaMamaMe would be over before it's begun.
So, okay, we've all got a lifetime of reminding ourselves over and over that any conflict we feel is nothing more than our own minds trying to triumph over the hearts that will keep beating, no matter what. The very thought can be wearying. Or it can be a cause for deep, deep gratitude.
Because if we didn't have a reason to remind ourselves to follow our hearts daily, we'd probably be floating along in a heartless life. We'd have all the indicia of control -- the secure job, the expensive things, the retirement accounts -- without the messiness that our hearts bring to the table. I'm not talking about little the moments of warmth our hearts bring us even if we don't take the time to listen to them. I'm talking about jump-in-feet-first, totally illogical, just-gotta-do-it moments of pure abandon.
Sounds like just what happens on the playground when you're five years old, doesn't it? Jump feet first from the jungle gym without worrying about whether you might (and you might, but you probably won't because your bones are young and more pliable than your parents') break your ankle. Engage in the absolute illogic of fantasy games and children's songs. Play because you want to play, without rules or winners or anything quantifiable at the end other than feeling tired and happy and alive.
I'd love to approach every asana practice as if I were a child on a playground. But I know I'm not there. I'm too bound up in my own mind, even as I observe it and learn to value what it adds to my life.
What I can do, of course, is watch my child at play and let my heart sing for him, and for myself in having him to watch.
Heart Singing in Ustrasana (Camel Pose)
I'm thinking of heart-opening asanas here, but I'm also thinking how usually when we practice them we feel the exact opposite of our hearts singing. Heart openers -- many of them back bends -- can be scary. We feel constricted, awkward, like we shouldn't go on.
When I feel that rising panic in a back bend, I remind myself to just lengthen my spine, make a little space, and -- aah -- my heart finds its release. So I offer the following sequence as a way of slowly, safely moving into a deep back bend. Even if you know you can move to the advanced poses immediately, try taking the full journey and see what happens when you are gentle with your heart.
Ustrasana (camel pose)
I choose ustrasana for several reasons. It offers many variations, so one can take the time to observe one's heart opening. It opens the heart toward the sky to remind us of the beauty that comes when we open to the energy all around us. And, perhaps most importantly for today's thoughts, we remain deeply grounded as we practice it.
Ustrasana preparation
1) Kneel on your mat with your knees about hip distance apart. For this first variation you may tuck your toes under or keep the tops of your feet flat on the floor (placing a rolled up blanket under them to ease any discomfort), whichever you prefer.
2) Place your hands on your hips and use your thumbs to physically coax your pelvis to release down in the back, allowing you to tuck your tailbone and draw your navel in toward your spine and up toward your heart. Use your abdominal muscles to hold your pelvis in place; doing so builds heat and strongly integrates your base energy into your heart opening, making it that much more your pose.
3) With your hands still on your hips, let the sides of your body lengthen and draw your shoulders in a shoulder loop -- toward the front, up to your ears, and down your back, carrying your shoulder blades down with them. Feel the connection between this simple heart-opening motion and the energy you are using to keep your abdominals engaged and your lower back long.
4) Place your hands on your sacrum (lower back), either with fingers facing up or, if this is not comfortable, with fingers facing down. Draw your elbows together to maintain your heart lift and check in with your abdominals to maintain your long lower back.
5) Inhale into your heart, letting it float up a little bit more. Trusting your heart, let it continue to rise, supported by your shoulder blades (which are still moving down your spine with your tucked tail bone), as you lean back until just the moment your mind tells you to stop. You may let your head drop back if you feel it's okay for your neck.
6) Check in to make sure you are supporting your body -- hands on lower back, abdominals engaged, shoulder blades down the back, heart lifting strongly.
7) Stay here, breathing as deeply and slowly as you can, until any discomfort or panic you feel subsides. Your lungs are slightly compressed in this position, so it will be difficult to breathe deeply. Be with this sensation and any others that arise until you feel safe and your heart can sing.
8) When you are ready, let your heart lift you up out of the back bend and sit down on your heels. If you are done, you may move into balasana (child's pose), and experience gratitude. If you wish to continue, do not do balasana, as bending your spine back and forth between the two asanas can put undue strain on it.
Full Ustrasana
1) Lift your buttocks off your heels and return to the starting position for ustrasana prep. Repeat all the safety checks -- checking alignment, engaging abdominals, performing a shoulder loop.
2) Tuck your toes under so your heels move away from the floor (rather than leaving the tops of your feet on the floor). Even if you have practiced this pose before and know you can bend deeply enough to leave your feet flat on the floor, trying starting in this gentler position.
3) Place your hands on your lower back and let your heart lift you once again into ustrasana preparation, taking care to keep your body supported as before.
4) When you are ready, reach one hand at a time for your heels. You may grasp them with your fingers or lower your palm all the way to the heel. Whichever works for you, do not collapse your heart. Remember that your heart guides and supports you in this pose.
5) Remain here, observing any panic or discomfort that may arise. When it does, check in with your heart and think of ways to let it sing. Check the ways you prepared for this pose -- let your tail bone lengthen toward the floor, let your navel move in toward your spine and up toward your heart, let your shoulders move down your back, along with your shoulder blades.
6) If you are comfortable, and would like to move deeper, keeping your heart where it is, release one foot at a time so the top of the foot is flat on the floor. You should not collapse when making this change. Your heart should have you almost literally floating.
7) Breathe deeply, keep lengthening your spine, keep opening your heart. When you are ready, move your hands one at a time to your lower back, let your heart lift you out of your back bend, and sit down on your heels.
You may perform this pose again, starting with the tops of your feet flat on the floor and seeing if you can move your hands to the floor between your feet without collapsing, or repeat the pose starting with your toes curled under as above, or move into balasana and experience gratitude.
Laghuvajrasna (An Advanced Ustrasana Variation)
If you are experienced with all the variations above and feel open and secure in ustrasana, you may choose the following advanced variation to challenge your body and -- more importantly -- your mind. I still find this variation frightening, and learned to do it with a blanket on the mat behind my feet.
1) Follow the instructions above to set yourself up for ustrasana, placing the tops of your feet flat on the mat to begin.
2) Bring your hands to your heart in namaste mudra (prayer position), and remind yourself that you are offering your heart with no expectations about what you will receive in return.
3) Strongly supporting your lower back by engaging your abdominal muscles, pulling your shoulder blades down your back, and lifting your heart, move into a back bend by imagining that your heart is lifting. Your head will move back without your help; you must keep your mind strongly with your heart to support your spine and maintain its length.
4) When you have gone as far as is comfortable into your back bend, reach one hand at a time for the backs of your knees. Keep lifting your heart with everything you have in you to keep from collapsing. If you do collapse, come out of the pose, rest in balasana, and feel gratitude to yourself for having the courage to try this variation.
5) With your hands on the backs of your knees, keep lifting your heart and lengthening your spine as you let your head move slowly to the floor. See if you can maintain this position for a breath or two without collapsing. If you collapse, come out of the pose, rest in balasana, and feel gratitude to yourself for having the courage to try this variation.
6) To come out of the pose, lift from the heart until you are out of the back bend, drawing your hands into namaste mudra in front of your heart, and sit on your knees. Or, more likely, tuck your chin and let your back come to the floor. Draw your knees into your chest and give yourself a hug before rocking up to sitting and resting in balasana.
Whatever variation you journey to, be sure to end in a wash of deep, unabashed gratitude to yourself for the courage you exhibit every day, for following your heart in some way every day, and for allowing yourself to be where and who you are.
No comments:
Post a Comment