Yoga yoga yoga!

Mind on Yoga

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Since returning from leading backpacking trips over the summer, I’ve been reinvesting myself in my yoga practice, expanding to new places physically and mentally. I started doing a daily yoga practice last year when I quit my office job, and the transition from once-in-a-while to everyday was astounding. My hips and legs opened up dramatically and my heart felt lighter. I didn’t make time to continue my practice with all the outdoor time I had this summer, but now I’ve redoubled my efforts. I bought an unlimited month at a studio (previously I almost always practiced on my own, or to podcasts) and have been going 8-9 times a week. I feel pretty lucky to be able to make the time for that, and the constant engagement has once again deepened my understanding and commitment to yoga. I’ve also been reading about more of the philosophical side of the art (including B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Life, which is fantastic), bringing connection to my meditation practice and to the musings I’ve had lately on vulnerability, creativity, openness, and play. I’ve been coming across some big ideas lately.

Expansion and Integration

I’ve never thought about the cycle of expansion and integration before, but it’s been showing up on all different time scales in my life lately. On the shortest scale there is the breath, with the inhale expanding one’s body and the exhale deepening a pose with contraction. Over several breaths in a pose, the body expands out through the bones, and integrates back to the center with the muscles, creating depth and balance. On a longer time scale, our bodies try new poses and stretch our comfort zones, then take some time to grow accustomed to a new range of motion. This is how growth happens in yoga as well as life in general. This past year for me has been a time of major expansion in my life. I’ve been doing all sorts of new things, testing my limits with creativity, the outdoors, and the idea of teaching. Aside from my yoga practice, I’ve been taking it easy for the last month or so. I’m using an expansion in my yoga practice to integrate some of the other big things I’ve been working on into my whole being.

Balance

Balance is clearly an important part of yoga. There are all sorts of balancing poses, on feet, on hands, on one of each, etc, etc. Balancing in space is a great way to bring focus to a pose. It also brings our awareness to a balance in the fourth dimension, time. When we lean too far into to future or the past, we falter in our awareness and slip into negativity. We stress about things to come, regret things gone by. I like the idea that one’s physical position in a posture relates to a mental tendency to be a little bit ahead or behind. Obviously we need to do a little planning for the future, but I’m pretty sure being present and conscious of the moment is one of the most important factors to creating a deep sense of happiness.

The Gunas: Tamas, Rajas, Sattva

A month ago I had never heard of the Gunas, but the idea has come up a lot recently. I’m still working on figuring out what the whole thing is about, but it’s kind of like the three threads of energy that encompass the universe. There is tamas, which is the grounded, heavy, solid energy. It can be dark, isolating, and is typically associated with the body. Rajas is a bright, active, perhaps frenetic energy which is associated with the mind. Sattva is luminosity, balance, and presence. In class we’ve been focusing on balancing the tamas of the body with the rajas of the mind, and sitting in a place of sattva. I’m pretty new at this whole thing, but this has translated to the idea of expansion and integration in my practice. There is a balance (both metaphorically and physically) of simultaneously extending the limbs and pulling them back in, and this creates a profound sense of presence and freedom. Part of this comes through visualization (another crucial part of yoga and all other aspects of life), which ties the mind to the body and to the moment in time.

 

All this is turning out to be transformational in my life right now. I feel a renewed sense of life energy when I practice these things, and I’m excited to delve deeper into them. With or without the physical postures of yoga, finding balance through awareness is something I’ll be working on for a long time. I’d love to hear your experiences with yoga or any of these ideas!

Marathon Running, Shifting Expectations

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I ran my first marathon this weekend. This is something I’ve always thought I would do, but I had never really considered a realistic possibility until the last couple years. Before three years ago, I don’t think I had ever run more than about 6 miles in one go. Since then, my perceptions and expectations about running have gradually shifted, and I finished the race in 2:56:27, about 20 minutes faster than I had planned.

My thinking about running started to change when I trained for a half-marathon with friends a couple years ago. The idea was to build up mileage slowly until 13 miles didn’t seem like a big deal. We started with a 5 mile run on the weekend (along with a couple shorter runs during the week), and added a mile to that each week. When we got to 9 miles, I couldn’t believe how doable it was. Not necessarily easy, but nowhere near as bad as I had expected. (Around the same time, I got a new pair of running shoes which almost immediately eliminated joint pain I had always experienced running. There was obviously still muscle soreness, but that is way more manageable than knee and hip pain. This was a revelation.) Then 10 miles, and 11, no big deal. I ended up even doing a 13.5 before the 13.1 race, so I knew what to expect.

I used a similar strategy for the marathon, but started with a stronger base and went further. My plan was to start at 8 and add a couple miles each week until I had done a 22 mile run. This sounds like a crazy distance to run, but I gradually taught myself not to be afraid of it. I knew I could do 13, so when my 14 miler came along, it wasn’t such a big deal. 16 isn’t that much more than 14. 18 isn’t that much more than 16. The bottom line here: we can get used to anything, it just takes time. I might also be kind of a freak. Except then my training schedule got derailed a little bit and I didn’t end up running anything longer than 18 before the marathon. I figured it would be fine, though. The biggest problem I’d had on my long runs was getting really hungry and thirsty, which I would manage a lot better at the race. I was also doing a lot of yoga, rock climbing, and weight lifting for cross training, so I thought that might help.

The run itself turned out to be fantastic. It was the Eugene Marathon, which is really flat (as opposed to hilly Seattle where I trained). I had the added bonus of being familiar with (and nostalgic about) the course because it was all along the trails I ran and biked on when I lived there for grad school. And the weather was perfect: overcast and 60 degrees until the last stretch. I did a really good job of eating well, staying hydrated, and sleeping in the days leading up to the run – no coffee for 3 days, no alcohol for a week, 7 hours the night before despite 5 am wake up. Race morning I had a solid (but light) breakfast, had a well-timed bowel movement (crucial), and caffeinated just the right amount (best performance-enhancing drug).

I put a lot of focus on mental preparation as well. I know from experience (ultimate frisbee, mostly) that I perform a lot better when I’m happy and psyched. Leading up to the race, I was excitedly nervous for several days. I concentrated on the excited part of this and let the nervous part drift away. I wrote “HAVE FUN” and “PRACTICE GRATITUDE” on my hands before the race, and I made sure to thank all the traffic enforcement along the way (until mile 24 when I couldn’t do anything). I wore pink knee-length tights under my blue running short-shorts, neon-yellow mesh tank top and shoes, and a red, white, and blue headband, which all got a lot of cheers from the folks watching the race. All these things kept people smiling at me, which kept me smiling and happy and excited. I meant to make a duct tape name tag reading “VELOCISAPIEN”, but couldn’t find duct tape at the last minute. Somebody’s stereo was blasting Macklemore’s Thrift Shop at mile 19, which gave me an extra boost because most of my outfit actually was from Goodwill.

This all worked pretty much perfectly, and most of the run went smoothly. On the shuttle to the start line I met a guy celebrating his 60th birthday with the full marathon. Super inspiring. Once we got moving, I was a little worried about coming out too fast when people around me started talking about the pace, but I felt good so I didn’t slow down. At 11 miles the full and half marathons separated, so there was a lot more space. I ended up PR’ing my half marathon time by four and a half minutes, and still felt good. I met a guy running with me who was doing his twenty-third marathon. Holy crap. He was skeptical that I was doing this pace for my first marathon, but he said that I was keeping it consistent, which was a good sign. That guy was great, and I tried to keep him in my sights as long as I could (he probably finished a minute and a half or so before me). Miles 14-18 were euphoric. I had the total sensation of “runner’s high.” My legs didn’t hurt, I was just filled with excitement and happiness and gentle tingling. I kept eating gels and trying to drink two waters at each station and had a banana.

So eventually I found myself at the 20-mile marker having kept almost exactly a 6:39 min/mile pace throughout and feeling really happy about where I was (I wore a watch to measure my speed, but couldn’t figure out how to get it to display min/mile, so I was actually looking at miles/hr the whole time. Luckily by mile 20 I had figured out what that meant). My long training runs had been at a 7:30-7:35 min/mile pace, which I why I was aiming for about a 3:15:00 finish, but secretly I thought I could do it faster. So, after 20 miles I was on pace for about 2:54:30, and I knew I’d clear 3 hours as long as I didn’t blow it.

But here’s the thing: the last 6 miles of this run were REALLY hard. Like, one of the hardest physical endeavors I’ve experienced. My legs were done. I wasn’t getting any spring from my muscles, just drag. My stomach was really confused and I was constantly on the cusp of being out of breath so I couldn’t take the time to drink water from the stations. I ended up just throwing it in my face and on my head, which actually felt wonderful. My smile started to turn into more of a slack-jaw, and I can’t imagine I looked very good (my number 2 goal, behind actually finishing the race).

But I kept going, and started focusing on a meditation technique I had practiced. Basically, it is a Tibetan Buddhist visualization I read about in Matthieu Ricard’s Happiness, which involves engulfing yourself in a sweet, healing nectar. As your own pain and suffering diminishes, you are better able to spread this cessation of suffering to others. I modified this slightly to visualize myself being pushed by a river of healing water, sweet and cool and calming, whisking me along effortlessly. Maybe it is cheating or sacrilegious to use this for running. If so, apologies! It didn’t make the run easy, but at least it distracted my mind and kept me going. My top priority at this point was to not pull a muscle or have to stop for any reason, even if that meant going a bit slower. I felt like I slowed down a lot, but found out I had only decreased my pace to 7:00 min/mile for the last 6 miles. I didn’t have any energy for a kick at the end, except maybe the last 50 meters which ended on Hayward Track where I used to do track workouts with the Oregon men’s ultimate frisbee team.

After I crossed the finish line, all I couldn’t think about was how happy I was to not be running anymore, and how shocked I was that I broke three hours. I drank three liters of water and still didn’t need to pee for two more hours. Then I had a beer with some friends, and started trying to eat again. Now it’s about 36 hours later and my stomach is just starting to feel normal. My legs are totally beat, and a flight of stairs is a daunting endeavor (going down is worse), but all the pain is muscle soreness, and I didn’t hurt anything, which is fantastic. I’m not sure that I’ll do another marathon soon, but I’m really glad to have done this one! Maybe as my perceptions and expectations shift I’ll end up doing 23 of them like the guy I met, no big deal. Or 100-mile ultramarathons. For now, I’m definitely not going to run again until at least Thursday.

This is Life

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I took a long run yesterday and thought about how people recently have commented that I seem to be doing so much with my life despite my unemployment. This seems like a compliment, I think, so thank you! And it’s true that I have been unemployed before and not done nearly so much. But there is something different this time. It’s not exactly a sense of urgency; I think I’ve maintained a sense of taking things slowly. It’s more a feeling of: this is my life.

This is it.

Right now.

I’m not in some transition period between jobs. I’m not transitioning between school and work, or work and travel. I’m deep into the only transition there is, the transition from birth to death, and what I do today and tomorrow and the next day is my life.

My last stint of unemployment was in 2009/2010 for about 9 months. I was looking for a job the whole time and felt entirely consumed by the process. I did a few other things along the way (mostly I got a lot better at guitar and rock climbing, and read Infinite Jest), but I never felt productive or fulfilled. I was able to stay relatively happy through copious amounts of exercise and coffee, but the job search was exhausting and distracted me from what I had long valued in my life. I didn’t feel like I had the mental time or space to make art, partly because I didn’t feel like making art was what I was “doing” with my life. I was looking for a job, making myself employable, and working hard to make that employment what I was doing with my life. I was not an artist. I was an office worker, temporarily displaced.

This time things are different. I am living consciously, and I have a better understanding of the fact that my life is a collection of days lived, routines established, routines broken, people met, people loved, good books read and absorbed, emotions expressed, and beauty created. What am I doing with my life? I’m not “doing” anything. I’m living. Life is not an activity to be completed, rather an adventure to explore, a wonderful opportunity to grow for a while and then fade away.

So I’m spending my time on a lot of different things, enjoying the fact that life is full and vibrant and profound and hilarious. My run yesterday was thirteen miles, part of training for a marathon. It took me through or past eight parks in Seattle and around one lake, and it was gorgeous. I’ve been painting almost everyday, aiming to have a solid portfolio to show sometime in the next several weeks. I go rock climbing two or three times a week, depending on my tendon integrity. I do yoga most days at least once, and try to meditate every day between five and thirty minutes. I’m part of a community garden, a book club, a string quartet, and an indie-rock band that is starting to pick up some steam in the Seattle music scene. I play guitar and sing almost every day, cook meals with my roommates, and spend quality time with them playing games involving throwing dried beans into jars. I go on outdoor adventures and road trips to visit friends and national parks. I just started helping out a friend with his business leading after school music programs, and I’m in the process of starting a hummus business of my own. I occasionally write blog posts.

These are the things I value, and I am so excited to be able to do them all. Not everybody values the same things, and some of those activities might sound awful to you. But here is the main point. Last time I had time on my hands, I forgot what I valued, what was important to me in life. Once I was employed, I had less time on my hands and my forgetfulness deepened. I became wrapped up in routine and busy-ness. Money felt important, as if it were an end goal in itself. My brain got used to frying in front of a computer screen for hours a day. These things were bringing me closer to death at the same pace I’ve always been moving, but they weren’t allowing my life to flourish. Eventually I realized that these were not my values and I worked out a way to change my daily life to reflect what is important to me. So far it has worked. I feel good. I feel alive. I still drink copious amounts of coffee.

Bold colors, drips

Art and Soul

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This fall I decided to work through two new “how-to” books, one on creativity and one on kung fu. I thought this would get me going in two different directions since these two things are so clearly distinct. One is about art, one is about the body. I slowly realized, however, that I was essentially dealing with the same beast: energy, life flow, chi. This is one of those ideas that automatically makes whoever is talking about it sound hippie-dippy, like someone who has never picked up a science book and spends a lot of time waving around sticks, wearing overly-comfortable tie-dyed pajamas. I’m not saying I would never wave sticks around like that (and who doesn’t love comfortable pajamas?), but I do also have more than the average number of degrees in hard sciences (2). I’m pretty sure we have this mental image about energy flow because of the way the media characterizes it, maybe some remnant of a backlash against the 60’s spirit of free-love or something. I’m too young and un-media-savvy to know. But to the point.

Here’s what I’ve been working on. For creativity: The Artist’s Way. The subtitle reads “A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity,” to give you an idea. Once I started this, I found out that it’s actually quite popular among certain groups, and there are meet-ups for people scattered on coffee shop bulletin boards all across the country. And for kung fu: The Shaolin Workout. Subtitled: “28 Days to Transforming Your Body and Soul the Warrior’s Way.” I haven’t met anyone else who has seen this book, but I don’t travel much in martial arts circles.

I’m on week 5 of 12 in The Artist’s Way, and day 17 of 28 in The Shaolin Workout. I’ve been going about half speed in The Artist’s Way, often getting distracted for a few days and finding myself behind schedule. I’ve found that the “days” referred to in The Shaolin Workout are more metaphorical, along the lines of “four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, three in the evening.” This book contains a lifetime of movements to be learned and perfected. Many of the later exercises are near impossible without years (I presume) of focus on flexibility (“standing tall, kick one leg up to graze your toe against your forehead with control while keeping both legs straight” kind of stuff).

Here’s the basic idea behind The Artist’s Way. Creativity is not something we can simply focus hard on to produce. Rather, it is a flow that travels through us from some external force, some god or higher power or what-have-you. We, as artists, have to learn to disconnect our internal censors from this flow and just let it rush through us. Without our censor blocking the flow of creativity, we will be able to fill pages or canvasses or rolls of film. The important thing is that it doesn’t matter if you “believe” in where this energy is coming from. You don’t have to believe in God, per se. But thinking about it in this way will allow you to create art in a non-destructive way, a way that doesn’t require drugs or alcohol or addictions to silence the censor for you.

I’m not sure that I’m necessarily very far along this path right now, but even the short moments of clarity I’ve had with it have been wonderful. It comes with a feeling of openness, expansiveness, connectedness. It allows me to do one of the most necessary and difficult things to do when practicing something new: to fail. To make terrible art and trite writing. I’m starting to understand how important this is, and how I’ll never get any better unless I actually do it and work on it and slowly get better.

It’s good that I’m learning to be OK with failure, because kung fu is HARD. This is not something my body is used to. My hips and hamstrings are tight with a lifetime of sitting in cars and chairs. I cannot graze my toe against my forehead with a straight leg in a controlled way, or in even a wildly uncontrolled way. That’s going to take a lot of practice and stretching. At the end of each workout there is a meditation to focus on for the rest of the day. Things started to come together when I got to the Chinese proverb, “Be not afraid of moving slowly, be afraid only of standing still.” So I’m chipping away at the tightness in my hips, just as I’m chipping away at the censor blocking my creativity.

But here’s the thing. Both of these are actually working on the same thing. Kung fu focuses on releasing chi and letting that energy rush through me. The Artist’s Way focuses on releasing creativity and letting that energy rush through me. The tightness in my hips is constricting my chi, making it harder to stand up straight and tall, making my body a less-than-ideal place for this energy to pass easily. The creative blocks I’ve built up through years of being a perfectionist are making it difficult for me to sit down and paint. After doing the kung fu stretches, my body feels loose and energized, and I feel a sense of exuberance and life. When I actually do sit down and draw, my mind feels free and energized. As my energy flow increases, my head buzzes with openness, expansiveness, connectedness. I feel that I am (or at least am nearer to being) a fully empowered and creative being.

I’m not a neuroscientist, but I’ve read some books. I also don’t know much about energy flow, chi, etc, aside from what I’ve picked up through kung fu and yoga. But I think this all has something to do with the right side of the brain. I’ve written about the right side of the brain before, and this talk by Jill Bolte Taylor gets at a lot of what I think I’m talking about. It does make sense that martial arts would put you in your right-hemisphere, though. The movement of the body and spatial awareness that creates is exactly the kind of thing that shifts your focus from the analytical to the holistic. If this irrational, emotive hemisphere is also where the creativity to practice visual arts comes from (as it seems to be), then the two are perfect complements. More chi, more energy, more creativity, more flow, whatever that means. More kung fu, and more art. A life of openness, expansiveness, connectedness. Sounds good to me.

Self-Help and Mentoring

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About four years ago I was traveling through Italy, biking, farming, and just generally exploring life. I didn’t have a lot of direction other than south, but life felt good. As I started seeing more hamlets and monasteries on the tops of cliffs and mountains, I realized something: I needed a mentor. I felt that my life could go all sorts of wild places, and that it would be valuable to have a wise soul to guide me through the process.

This is actually Greece, but you get the idea. Same trip, at least. The Meteora.

I made a note of this in my journal and promptly forgot about it for several years. I never sought out any person or community that I thought would be able to guide me through my explorations, and nothing materialized on its own. I didn’t think about a mentor in a serious way until a few weeks ago. Instead of renewing my resolve to find a guide, however, I realized that I have already been seeking the advice and lessons from numerous mentors.

“Self-help” has a terrible ring to it. It is full of negative connotation, an admission that one isn’t able or competent enough to deal with the difficulties of life. It doesn’t even make sense – it isn’t self-help if someone else is telling you how to do it. And a lot of it is probably garbage, especially considering the number of shelves dedicated to it at the bookstore. Luckily for me, none of the sources I was using called themselves “self-help”, so I snuck in without realizing where I had gone.

Over the last year or so, I’ve been drawing from a number of sources, gradually improving my life and state of mind. I feel that I’m now reaching a new stage of contentment and freedom in my self, and I am excited to see where things lead from here. The other day I was describing to a friend that the daily vocal training I’m doing was creating all sorts of new openness and range in my voice. I realized that this was in fact true of my whole life.

So what have I been doing? I’m tackling some of the skills I’ve wanted to have for a long time, but never really practiced, and I’m being open to good advice where I find it. Some of the people I’ve drawn the most from are:

Jason Crandell for yoga. I do yoga almost everyday on my own, listening to his podcast. Little things like folding your palms in front of your chest and lifting the skin over your sternum make a huge difference in the practice. When I got these they were free, but it looks like you might have to pay for them now.

Ken Perlman for guitar. I came upon his Fingerstyle Guitar book by chance, and have followed it with his advanced book. I’m playing guitar in ways I couldn’t have imagined a few years ago. Also, what a mustache.

Betty Edwards for drawing and perception. I’ve written about Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain before (here and here), and it has allowed huge leaps in my perception and ability to recreate that on a page.

Steve Pavlina for consciousness and inspiration. This guy might be a wacko, or he might be full of wisdom (or probably somewhere in between), but either way his ideas have inspired me. His blog posts often sound hokey, but they have definitely got me thinking and actively pursuing life.

Timothy Ferriss for fitness, confidence, and life/time management. This is the 4-Hour Workweek and 4-Hour Body guy. Not everything in those books makes sense for every person, but some of his suggestions are spot on, and his workouts are surprisingly effective.

Brett Manning for singing. I just started his speech-level singing course about 5 weeks ago. He’s super cheesy in an L.A./Hollywood way, but like I said, all sorts of new openness and range. Very expensive, unless you can borrow it from a friend.

This week I also started working through Julia Cameron‘s The Artist’s Way. It’s a spiritual approach to nurturing creativity. I’m excited about it – even reading the introduction made me want to sit down and paint all day.

The fear with seeking advice and guidance from strangers is that their thinking will take over your life and you’ll end up joining a cult or something. This is more true of the life-coach type sources than the skill-specific ones. I think the key here is to take it all with a grain of salt and to draw from multiple sources simultaneously. Doing so makes it a lot easier to distinguish the good ideas from the fluff without necessarily buying into an entire lifestyle. The fact that they are mostly free (or available at a library) helps. I definitely don’t have plans to pay for this kind of advice any time soon. Again, specific skills are a bit different.

While I would still be open to having some kind of personal mentor, I feel that I’ve found a workable alternative through these various sources, and I’m sure there are plenty more I haven’t found yet (and I welcome suggestions – especially on writing, painting, and song-writing). I’m continuing to cobble together a kind of personal philosophy, and I expect to be doing so my whole life. It’s exciting and fulfilling. Still, I’d rather not call it “self-help.”