“We Are All Damaged Goods”

My uncle, who also has his own blog, made this statement once: “We’re all damaged goods.” It just sort of came to him. And right he was.

I work with the people we traditionally think of as damaged – abused and neglected children. And they are very often damaged. But interestingly I wanted to be a lawyer because I saw harmed children in another context. I grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood in northern California, and I worked in a city even wealthier than the one in which I grew up. I was a camp counselor and worked in an after school program as well.

There were very few times I suspected “traditional” child abuse was occurring in these families, and the times I did suspect it, those suspicions tore me apart. I still wonder, more than ten years later, whether I made the right calls in certain situations. But traditional physical abuse is actually not as common as people think when people think of child abuse. Although I see it more now than even 2.5 years ago when I started my current job, the real issue remains neglect.

When neglect gets really bad, children do not develop properly. Children often have speech delays, and research tells us their brains actually develop less fully. There are physical symptoms of physical neglect. I do not want to minimize physical abuse or physical neglect. They are awful and horrible. I wish there were more media coverage of just how bad these issues affect the children in our communities. But here I want to talk about something else.

What I saw all too often where I worked was children dropped off at 7am and picked up at 6pm. I expect children would have been dropped off earlier and picked up later, but those were the hours we were open. I saw, and had to administer, a growing amount of medication over the course of the 4 years I worked there as families decided it was too difficult to deal with children who acted like children. As cars got bigger parents and children were more and more separated. Sure, these children could read well, and their speech was perfect, but something major was missing.

I started this post about a week ago, but I guess the universe had other plans for me. Today Robin Williams took his own life. He blessed this world with such humor, grace, and true talent, and yet he was depressed. There is nothing wrong with being depressed, but society asks us to hide it, to put on a happy face. Instead of getting help, Robin Williams became Mork and Mrs. Doubtfire and my personal favorite – O Captain My Captain, the great Mr. Keating. Interestingly, I watched that movie this past week, and it touched me as much now as it did nearly 15 years ago when I first saw it.

But the truth is that all of us have experienced some sense of loss in our lives. No one had a perfect childhood, and our pain is what helps us grow. These are clichés, but they also miss part of the point. The damage is real. The damage is scary. And we are all looking for how to heal that damage. I have written often about community on this blog. For awhile it became one of my favorite themes. Although I did not know it at the time, research tells us that having people, even one person, helps us recover from trauma.

What I see is that we are unable to respond to trauma and damage the way our bodies were intended to respond. Instead of allowing ourselves to cry, we hide our tears for fear of looking weak. Instead of allowing our muscles to shake, we hold ourselves stiff until our bodies give out. Instead of reaching out for support, we put on a happy face and act our ways through life.

But we are all damaged at some level. This is not a nihilistic approach. It is a heartfelt approach to life.  And we all need each other. Yet we do the very things that make it so much harder to recover. For me, yoga was my way out. Some might say I have become too sensitive since starting yoga. The truth, however, is just that now I know the importance of touching base with others and reaching out.

Yoga has been that path for me. It has allowed me to notice when something is not right and to feel the damage. That does not mean it needs to linger. Sometimes that allows it to go away faster. But my uncle’s realization is huge and important. When we finally realize we are all damaged goods, we no longer have to hide our own damage. What kind of amazing world would it be if we showed our true selves and helped each other out instead of hiding behind our different masks all the time?

It is this recognition that we are all damaged that helps us learn compassion. And compassion helps us actually feel more loved. It is, therefore, our damage that allows us to heal, but first we have to recognize there is damage. And that comes in so many forms. This is not to say we are all horribly damaged, only to recognize that when we notice we are damaged, it is actually incredibly freeing, and we can then learn to reach out to one another, and ourselves, with love in our hearts rather than expecting everyone to be strong all the time. 

Are you able to share your heart with others? Are you able to see their damage, and yours, without judgment? 

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2014, all rights resered.

The post, We Are All Damaged Goods, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal. 

The Subtlest Movements

I finally attended my first Feldenkrais class last week. For those who do not know, Feldenkrais is a body movement / awareness technique. Really, it is more of an awareness technique. In many ways, the Feldenkrais method is the antithesis to modern culture, and that is its beauty.

We live in a world where bigger is better. Exercise fanatics say, “no pain, no gain.” Feldenkrais is the opposite – how small can the movement get where you still feel a change? Can you simply imagine a movement and notice?

The answer is yes. And therein lies the power.

The human body is incredible. It holds answers to so many of our ailments and protects us from ourselves. We hold our emotions, fears, and excitements in our body. From it, we derive pleasure and pain and everything in between. Our bodies are our greatest tool for understanding. It is through our senses that we understand the outside world, but we have an additional way of understanding called proprioception.  Proprioception is our understanding of how our body fits together and moves relative to itself.

Proprioception is about understanding ourselves so well we can relate better to others. It is the minutest form of understanding, but when we can understand on that deep of a level, the macro understandings become easier. It is similar to how meditation works – if we can slow down the mind enough, we can understand it better, and then the mind becomes an ally instead of an enemy. But as I explore more and more, I am beginning to understand how important the body is to that process. It is, I think, why yoga became such an important part of my life. It became the way I could meditate most easily. But now, with my body not cooperating, I have had to find ways other than through an asana practice . . . and my understanding has grown exponentially.

More and more, doctors of western medicine are realizing how connected the body and mind are. They tell us that stress can cause ailments like ulcers. I believe it will be a long time before the run-of-the-mill MD writes the word disease as dis-ease, but the tide is turning. My yoga/proprioception exploration has shown me a deeper level. The body and mind are not connected – they are the same thing. There is no separateness between them that needs to be connected.

I have known this for years, but I have never been able to articulate it or to fully understand it. I have read countless books about it, but somehow the Knowing did not come until recently. It was not until I opened my mouth and said it one day that I realized how deeply this went.

And it was then that I also realized how deeply this affects our lives. My experience of body therapies has always been my access point to experience the mind and spirit. The concept of proprioception was, in some ways, another way of accessing qi or prana, the life forces of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Yoga. I have come to understand how important it is for us to move slower in life and as we make change to make it in simple and quiet ways. As we notice the body, we notice the world.

We live in a world where Cross Fit and Bikram Yoga dominate our mentality. There is nothing inherently wrong with either, but the more I come to understand, the more I see how important it is to come at change from a different angle, a simpler angle. This is, perhaps, especially important when dealing with the spirit and emotions. Society tells us it is inappropriate to share our emotions with one another, to express true anger and sadness. Even true happiness is considered out of place in expression. So instead of expressing our emotions, we suppress them. We hide them deep within ourselves, and they try to appear, but we hide them more.

This can lead to a variety of types of dis-ease, and sometimes accessing our true emotional and spiritual state helps bring us back to a place of ease. But it is like taking the cork out of a champagne bottle. We can do it quickly and explode the cork across the room, potentially taking out someone’s eye with it. Or we can be calm and slow about it and open the cork in such a way that we can access the goodness inside calmly and safely.

The first step here is just to notice. Notice how moving your head from side to side moves other parts of your body. Notice how you can feel simply by imagining movements. Notice, notice, and then notice some more. The irony, of course, is that the smaller the movement, the greater the shift. It takes incredible conscious awareness to notice the smallest movements, and that consciousness is what shifts. When we get away from momentum and move toward true awareness, the world comes into focus. That does, of course, require slowing down.

Are you willing to give it a try?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2014, all rights reserved.

The post, The Subtlest Movements, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Yoga, Pain, and Something Bigger

Over the past year, a lot of people have asked me, “shouldn’t yoga help your pain?” I have learned to try to just smile and nod. But a few times I have responded, “there is a chance yoga caused my pain.” Let me be clear before I go further. I still think yoga is amazing. I am not giving up being a yogi – in fact, I am teaching a restorative class next month. But yoga, as it is taught in the United States, is not the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

This is a shock to some people. William Broad took on the yoga establishment in 2012 with his book The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards. The yoga blogosphere would not stop talking about it for months. And he is back with another article in the New York Times titled, Women’s Flexibility is a Liability (In Yoga). And we can fight and argue until we are blue in the face (very yogic of us, I’m sure), but there is no question we have to be careful.

Let us examine for a minute what yoga is. First, on this blog, I hope I have been clear that yoga is not about asana. It is about a way of life. Yoga is about yamas and niyamas and breathing and meditation. Asana is a piece, but it is nothing more than a piece. And in my life recently, it has become even less of a piece of the yoga bundle. Yoga to many in the West, however, is exercise. When I used to tell people I was not in the best shape (I have never been a runner, for example), people would respond, “But you do yoga.” Sometimes I would get into the discussion about yoga not being exercise, but more often than not, I would simply nod and smile and move along.

Yoga in America and the rest of the Western world has taken on a feeling of gymnastics. It has permeated the gym culture and become a source of sweaty movement. That is fine for what it is, but it is not yoga. Even, or perhaps particularly, in asana, we must be aware and mindful of how we are moving, feeling, and changing. Vinyasa practices, for anyone except the super aware, take us out of that place. And please do not misunderstand. I LOVE vinyasa practices. I just realize now they may not love me.

And why do we love the sweaty movement of yoga? I personally think it has a lot to do with our culture. We like to feel like we are doing something good for ourselves while still “doing” something. I used to fall into that mindset as well – is it really beneficial if I do not move? I knew the answer was yes, but I still gravitated toward classes with vinyasa flows. I also did a lot of yin and restorative, now my only source of asana, but those classes were my dessert, not my daily practice.

People who know me outside of a blogger persona know I need to take a deep breath and calm down. I would expect that many of you reading this are in the same boat. This blog is, after all, for people in high stress places in life. So many of us have spent our lives looking for external gain – the good grades in school, the good university, the good graduate school, the good job, that we forget to stop and breathe, and before we know it we wake up, and we are stressed and sick and in our late 20s. Sound like anyone you know?

And big-money yoga took on this mentality. There is nothing inherently wrong with the yoga dominance. But there is a problem when it is causing harm, and we as yoga teachers ignore it. The yoga teachers I know do not ignore it. The yoga teachers I know tell me to come to class if the only thing I can do is lie in savasana and imagine myself in the various asanas. But I know there is a different culture out there. I see it in the discussions I have with people. I see it in the yoga ads. It is why I stopped my subscription to Yoga Journal.

So before everyone gets all up in arms about William Broad again, I think it is important to see how he ends the article. He does not tell people not to do yoga. In fact, he makes a very yogic statement, “Better to do yoga in moderation and listen carefully to your body. That temple, after all, is your best teacher.” Each and every body is different. We can look at every single skeleton and chart about muscles, ligaments, fascia, etc. we can find. But at the end of the day, those are guides. Incredibly useful guides, without which I would not want to be a yoga teacher, but nothing more than guides.

Some people have livers on the left side of their body. Some people have naturally fused vertebrae. Some people have hip sockets that misalign. Some people walk pigeon-toed. Some people . . .

So can yoga cause pain? Of course it can! Anyone who tells you otherwise is, frankly, dangerous. Can some people have a vinyasa practice for 20 years and feel great? I guess so. I’m skeptical of that, but I know people who have sworn by it for years. But they are also incredibly strong, incredibly attuned to their bodies, and most likely, incredibly lucky.

My yoga practice has taken a strange about-face turn. This year has turned my life upside down. But I’m slowly finding myself again, and moving again. And these days I understand my body better than ever and still do not understand the first thing about it. But that is the point. We have to be slow, understand what we are feeling, and move from there.

Making your first yoga class ever a vinyasa power class is not the way to do that. They may have their place for some people, but at the end of the day, they are simply not the answer for most people. And yes, that can cause pain. And yes, that is something the billion-dollar yoga industry does not want you to know. But guess what? Yoga is so much more. Through yoga, we can calm our nervous systems and begin to respond to life calmly. Through yoga, we can begin to understand ourselves better. Through yoga, we can begin to understand our relationships better. And as a dear friend keeps reminding me, through yoga, we can heal the world.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The Post, Yoga, Pain, and Something Bigger, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Looking at Ourselves

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein

Yoga in America is an interesting phenomenon. I started doing yoga as a way to find some semblance of peace in my life. I was 19 years old at the time. But now yoga in America happens in gyms and on commercials for decidedly unhealthy products, including McDonald’s. It has become Westernized and commercialized. There is, of course, a lot to say about what this means for us and for yoga, but I want to focus on one particular aspect today. And it starts with law school.

I loved law school. Loved it. I loved it so much I went back to get my Master’s of Law. But I was lucky in law school. I was lucky because a) I went to a great school that did not focus on competition amongst students, and b) I was too naïve to even notice the competition that did exist. For anyone who is not a lawyer, or who has not seen, The Paper Chase (sadly, Legally Blonde is a not-too-realistic example of law school), law school is about competition. Grades are almost always on a curve, and students are told it matters a lot where you graduate in your class. It is extremely important to some students that they get on the journals and help publish articles written by law professors attempting to get tenure.

But the point is that everyone is compared to everyone else. There is no question this happens outside of law school as well. I once heard that at Julliard School of Music, you cannot leave your instrument lying around because someone could come and break it. I have no idea if that is true, but the point is that competition is everywhere.

And now it is in yoga spaces. For years, there has been discussion in the yoga blogosphere about the people (usually women) who are on the cover of yoga magazines, particularly Yoga Journal. They are always thin, extremely bendy, and white. If you look here, the Yoga Journal cover gallery, that was not actually true until around the year 2000, when yoga began to take the United States by storm. Prior to that, more men were on the cover, they were older, and they were not always in asanas.

And now people tell me they are afraid to go to yoga classes because they don’t want other people to see them. When people do make it to class, they compare themselves to others. I do not know anyone who has not done it. It is a natural part of life. But how does it serve us? We are all unique and come to our mats with our own struggles and our own abilities.

But the point of yoga is to turn inward. And the best professionals do their work well because of their own inner talents and drive, not because they are competing with others. It does no one any good for surgeons to compete. We, as the recipients of their services, do best when they are all incredibly good at what they do.

Some people argue that competition makes us all better. We strive to be like others and along the way become better at what we are trying to accomplish. I used to buy into that belief. I really thought that if I compared myself to people I admired, I would only get better. But that is not how the world works.

The underlying message of competition and comparison is, “I’m not good enough. I have to be better.” That underlying notion causes dis-ease, not a sense of empowerment and betterment. We all have our own unique gifts to offer the world. Some people may be able to do a handstand, and some may be able to write a novel, and some may be able to build a bridge. All of these are noble endeavors that make the world a better place. As Einstein points out in the quote above, we all must find our own path and passion. And that is how our genius will shine.

I am often dismayed at the modern yoga situation. But perhaps the most dismaying part about it is that instead of taking us out of the world in which everyone competes, it brings us deeper into it.

As I continue to read book after book about the power of the mind to heal the body, I keep coming back to the same sentiment, whether it is from Louise Hay or medical doctors – we have to accept ourselves as we are before the healing process can begin. At its core, this is the point of a yoga practice. This is the work we strive to accomplish.

This very personal practice that is yoga can be the antidote to so much of our dis-ease causing beliefs about ourselves. How do you stay in that mindset instead of getting caught up in what others are doing in classes?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, Looking at Ourselves, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

The Last Human Freedom

Freedom is an interesting word. It can mean physical freedom, such as not being in prison or enslaved. It can mean emotional freedom, as I wrote about three years ago. It can mean political freedom, which we are watching unfold around the world, but particularly in Egypt and Syria right now. And that is what we in the United States celebrate on July 4^th every year.

There are all sorts of arguments we are not free in our lives. We are expected to work and pay off debt. There is no country in the world without a government. And certainly there has been a lot of discussion about freedom when our phone logs are being watched by government agencies. But as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, governments “deriv[e] their power from the consent of the people.”

But as I have said many times before, I am not publicly political. What I think of the revolutions happening in Syria and Egypt, and what I think of Edward Snowden and the NSA, is not really important. But I think all these situations reflect perfectly what Jefferson said. We have to consent to any limitations on our freedom.

And that includes limitations on any type of freedom. Our deepest freedom, however, is one that we should never consent to limit, though many of us (including myself) often do.

Viktor Frankl, who was a holocaust survivor, said, “The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.” We get to choose how we respond to any situation. We can respond with anger and revolt. We can respond with acceptance. We can respond with fear. We can respond knowing we have joy and contentment within ourselves, and nothing external can change that. But we have to remember to consciously choose that response. Frankl further stated, "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

I think it is important to look at the larger, political freedoms, not only for ourselves but for others. We live in a world where child prostitution and human trafficking occur. We live in a world where Google and Facebook are not allowed to exist in certain countries. But even if we had all of our political freedoms, how many of us consent to our own lack of personal freedoms? How many of us forget that space between stimulus and response to get to our last human freedom of attitude? 

Lawyers can be great at helping people obtain political freedoms as well as keeping people out of prison. But law does little to help us break free of our personal freedoms. Yoga, however, helps us there. It is not always easy. These are the limitations that are much harder to see. There is no whisleblower inside us to tell us when we are limiting ourselves. We have to learn to listen. And in that listening we have to ask if we are reacting or responding.

I notice when I am getting caught in my limitations when I am driving. Even after more than a decade of yoga and trying to learn to let go of my anger, when someone cuts me off on the road, I sometimes go into a fit of rage. Some days I can let it go quickly, but other times it boils inside of me even when I know it serves no purpose except to drain my energy. I know I am not alone in this. Road rage is a pretty serious issue and sometimes leads to death. Thus, driving is my teaching time as well. And I do a lot of driving.

Another common area of limiting freedom is our response to our physical bodies. We often feel defined by them rather than our higher Being. I cannot tell you how often I hear people say, “I’m too fat,” “I’m not flexible,” or “I’m in too much pain.” We let our bodies limit our souls. There is no doubt that our bodies have limitations at times. But look at the amazing examples of people who have done so much despite their limited bodies. Stephen Hawking, Roger Ebert post cancer, and all the stories you have hopefully heard of people on their death beds with a smile on their face and love in their hearts.

Our Being is bigger than our bodies and bigger than our road rage. No matter how limited we feel, we have to consent to giving up the freedom to choose our attitude. We can also choose not to consent. We can choose to feel that freedom regardless of external consequences. So, while people are celebrating a revolution over 200 years ago with barbeques, parades, and fireworks, how are you celebrating your internal freedoms?

Are you remembering to breathe deeply? Are you taking the time to ask if you are doing what you were put on this planet to do? Are you letting yourself forgive others as well as yourself? Are you finding gratitude in moments that at first are difficult? Are you choosing an attitude to serve your highest self or one that makes life more difficult? As Viktor Frankl said, this is the last of human freedoms. Nothing external has the power to effect us without our consent. It may seem difficult, or even impossible, to choose a different attitude in the face of adversity, but the choice is always there. What attitude will you choose?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, The Last Human Freedom, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Remembering the Tools

I remember the moment I decided I needed yoga and meditation in my life. I was 19 years old. It was the summer between my first and second years in university. I was having a rough summer, and I needed a way to relax. I had always been interested in yoga, but I had only tried it once myself. Yoga was becoming a big deal in America, but by no means was it yet the multi-billion dollar industry driving yogurt ads it is today. I just knew I needed something different in my life, and yoga seemed like the way to start.

Soon yoga just took over my life. It kept me sane, or at least saner than without it. Yoga became my refuge, both as a practice and as a way to connect to community. And I found a way to bring it into my world as a lawyer, not as a separate thing I did after work, but as a way to further create a professional community. My first teaching experience was at a family law conference, and for a brief time when I was "self-employed" I taught Stress Management Workshops focusing on yoga and meditation.

I attempted to fill my yoga bucket with practice and various tools, hoping to have a reserve for when the going got tough. And for awhile, I did. But then it got tougher.

For whatever reason, I am not recovering correctly from my surgery four months ago. No one seems to know why that is. But the words have begun to change from recovery to chronic pain. My life has gone from one of hiking the self-proclaimed most beautiful trail in the world to wondering whether I will be able to take a 10-minute walk home from Starbucks. And with the change in life circumstances has come the fear, the panic, etc.

I have said it before, and I will say it probably many more times. Something hit me during yoga teacher training. I was not necessarily destined to be a full-time yoga teacher, but somehow I had to bring yoga into some part of the legal profession, and perhaps to other professionals as well. The reason? Working a lot can be hazardous to your health, but it can also be rewarding. We just have to find the place where those two meet and remain healthy.

I made sure to make yoga a part of my life when I started my job in December 2011. Then there were weeks I did not go to classes, but I (usually) practiced in the mornings. Well, sometimes. And then began the nagging hip pain that eventually traveled down my leg and into my foot. That landed me on an operating table. And now I have an excuse - I cannot do yoga. But what does that mean exactly? I cannot do most asana. That is true. But everyone can do yoga. If you can breathe, you can do yoga. I often write about yoga and meditation, but there is no difference. They are one and the same.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine gave me a CD called Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief by Jon Kabat-Zinn. In it, he reminds us that mindfulness is not something that happens overnight. He reminds us that mindfulness is an ongoing process, a training system really. And something about that is difficult. All the tools in the world but somehow they feel beyond my grasp. I understand stress that comes from work. I have never done anything in my life except school and work. I can work with that stress. I do not understand the stress and fear that comes with a body that seems to be failing. I could always push through the pain before. But now I have to deal with it.

But we all reach these moments in life, these moments we are faced to deal with our lives and not run and hide. For some of us, many of the people I see, these moments happen as a result of work, especially in a stressful profession like law, but not only. For some it is the result of an illness, a divorce, the death of a loved one, but we all know these moments. They bring us to our edge. And if I have learned anything from yoga, it is that the edge can move. We can expand and grow. Sometimes it feels like it is impossible. Sometimes we push too far and cause ourselves more pain and suffering. But we learn to read it and understand it, and when we use the breath and mindfulness and awareness, we slowly begin to see we can handle more.

I would love to say I have had that moment of insight seeing my edge expand. But the truth is that there is not necessarily a moment. As Kabat-Zinn reminds us, it is a process. And no, it is not necessarily an easy one, even when you have all the tools. In that sense, it is sort of like practicing law - law school can only teach you so much, but then you have to practice to learn to really do it.

Practice. That's the word. Practice. No matter the endeavor, practice makes us better at it. And no matter the endeavor, there are days (or months, perhaps years) we do not want to practice. But the difference here is that practicing yoga makes all the other endeavors, including a body that does not work, easier. I am honestly not sure what has kept me off the proverbial mat/cushion. But I know that the only way to handle this is to utilize the tools I began learning when I was 19. Ironically, I'm back in the same location I was that summer, at least for another few days. Perhaps that is just the inspiration I need.

How have you gotten back into practice after a long stint away? How does your life change when you do not practice?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

"Remembering the Tools" first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Getting to Know the Body

One of my favorite parts of Yoga Teacher Training was learning anatomy. As I have mentioned before, I am an academic at heart, and anatomy, to me, is the “heady” side of yoga. At some level, it is vital to understand anatomy to teach yoga, and at another level, it is even more vital to intuitively understand the body. The anatomy training was fascinating, and it really helped me understand and explain what I had intuitively known, such as why sitting is bad for us.

As much as I loved the anatomy, I did not get as into it as even I would have liked. I can tell you a little bit about the trapezius muscles, and a little bit about the biceps and triceps, but at the end of the day, I do not know much about them. I have never fully experienced them. But I could probably write you a tome on the piriformis, its relationship to the gluteus muscles, and how all of them relate to our back muscles. I even learned about the quadratus lumborum muscles. And this is all because I have been experiencing these muscles, and their relationship to the sciatic nerve, for months, perhaps years.

I am starting to realize there is more to the body than meets the eye. Looking back over this blog, I had a “hamstring injury” during yoga teacher training. With the benefit of hindsight, that very well may not have been a hamstring injury. Instead, it may have been the first signs of an impinged sciatic nerve. For most people, that simply goes away. For me, it became a huge herniated disc and back surgery. But at the time I just assumed I had pushed my hamstring muscles too far. 

Pain forces us to pay attention. Whether it is a moment of pain that allows us the opportunity to stop pushing too far, or pain that continues for months or even years, we learn to stop and listen. Pain is our body's way of saying something is wrong. Sometimes it is easy to figure out what that is, such as when we simply push too far and need to back off. Sometimes the pain continues on, and we have no idea why that is.

And that is when we start exploring.

I have spent hours and hours reading about the illio-psoas, the piriformis, the quadratus lumborum, the sciatic and femoral nerves, and the spine. Our bodies are an amazing network of muscle, nerve, and fascia. And on top of all of that, we hold memories in our bodies, and those memories affect how the body itself operates and the pain we feel.

Prior to experiencing this for myself, I sort of understood. I understood that our bodies are fascinating and intricate and difficult. But I did not fully understand. To fully understand anything, we have to experience it for ourselves. Interestingly, people have always said the same thing to me about lawyering. As someone who loves theory and research, I have had no less than the top researchers in the field tell me I need practical experience to be a better researcher.

The old saying is that practice makes perfect. I would suggest that instead, practice makes understanding. Sometimes that is understanding we want. When it comes to pain, we may not want it as much. But there is no question that we can learn from it either way. I feel like I can now picture my psoas and how it attaches to the spine and the thigh bone.

In many ways, pain is the ultimate form of experience. It is experience we cannot ignore. We can sometimes mask it with medication, but generally, if the medication is used as a mask, the pain returns. Pain has a way of literally stopping us in our tracks and forcing us to take note of where we are. I cannot say that is fun, but it is an opportunity to learn and a way to experience on the deepest levels of our bodies.

As someone who has spent so much time in my head, both in yoga and the law, my body is forcing me to experience in ways I never could have imagined. That experience may not be coming in the form I would have chosen, but I am also learning more about the body and how it works than I ever could have without this experience.

How have you been forced to experience the body? What have you learned as a result?

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

Information Overload

Have you ever noticed those numbers and items that seem to follow you everywhere? My birthday is January 10, and I swear I see the number 110 everywhere (for those of you not from the United States, we put the month first and then the year). I got a herniated disc and sciatica, and all of a sudden I see pain management centers on every corner and people are telling me their back problem stories.

And just this week, snakes seemed to be everywhere. This is the Chinese year of the snake, and one day, I was talking to some people about a scary snake experience, and then I went to see someone else who handed me a plastic snake. Then the following day, I was at someone’s house, and the wall hanging had snakes on it. And I have a cousin who sees the number 613 everywhere.

Where does this phenomenon originate? I know this happens to other people.

Many of us think our brains are about bringing in information. The opposite, however, is true. Our brains are really just filters. If we actually processed everything that we receive, we would go mad. In one sense, then, our brains our simply filtering out the things that do not fit our preconceived notions of what follows us around. For example, I see a lot of numbers every day, but I only pay attention when the number is 110.

Many people have begun calling this time in history, the information age. We can get any information anytime we want. Some people have pointed out this means we do not need to remember as much information. I mean, why do we have to remember if google is always at our fingertips? But that also means there is so much information we can get lost amidst it.

Here is the information I have been getting for while I am still in pain: 1) the surgeon has no idea; 2) the acupuncturist says it is a kidney blood deficiency; 3) the chiropractor says it is emotional; 4) another acupuncturist agrees about the emotions; 5) some say it is inflammation, and I need a cortisone shot; 6) some say I just need a prolozone shot; and 7) the physical therapist has simply given up after trying to work on my back and legs. Oh, and of course there has been the foam roller suggestion (yes, it’s awesome, and yes it hurts more than anything!). And I listened to all of them.

We look to others who have expertise in certain areas, and of course, when your only tool is a hammer, all you ever see are nails. We ignore all the other information for that which makes the most sense to us, or that which seems to follow us everywhere we go. And that is useful and necessary . . . to a point. At some point, we have to stop taking in so much information from the outside and look to the inside for the information that will be most beneficial. The answer is not always 110 just because I happen to notice it everywhere I go.

And I recognize I am talking (typing?) out of both sides of my mouth. The first step is to stop zeroing in and seeing only one piece of information, that which follows us around. The second part is to stop trying to make sense of the information coming from a variety of sources limited in the same ways we are – sharing their nails with us. And at some point we have to listen to the information within ourselves.

Not just our brains are really great filters, though there is no question, many of us get caught up in our minds and forget the rest of ourselves. But it is those moments we check in with ourselves that we learn the most, and the most healing can occur. Because our bodies know what information to share with us. Our bodies can tell us what we need, not what someone else thinks we need.

There is no doubt learning from the experts is important. They help us understand all the possibilities, and the more information we have the more we can then filter through. But at some point, we have to stop taking in all the information there is. We have to stop googling every possible avenue. And we have to start listening to the one person who knows what works for us.

We live in a world of information overload. It is so easy to get caught up in always trying to get all the information. It is incredibly interesting, helpful, and important. But there is only so much we can take. Those little nuggets that follow us around are proof that we like consistency, we like filters, and we like to leave out some information sometimes.

Yoga is a lot about letting go. Someone once explained bodywork (energy work) as downloading information into the computers that are our bodies/minds. If we think about ourselves that way, yoga is a chance to let go of the information we do not need anymore, the information that is getting in the way of the information that will be most useful to us.

Do you ever notice information overload in your life? How do you finally stop it? What numbers and items show up all the time in your life? Are they trying to teach you something?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved. 

Waking Up

I have a confession. I am a yoga teacher who, three weeks shy of her 31^st birthday, had back surgery. In the grand scheme of back surgery, it was minimal and non-invasive, but it was back surgery. And it changed my life. And I am finally waking up to the multitude of ways it changed my life, and all of the lessons touch on themes this blog has addressed over the years. Only a few of them can be addressed here, but there is no question this experience, the surgery and what led to it, has been a turning point in my life.

The first way it changed my life is that now I can walk again. I really did not want to get into it before, but for about a week prior to surgery, I could barely walk three steps without stabbing, shooting pain in my entire right leg and foot. Sciatica is a scary thing, and it can have so many causes, but as the orthopedist who looked at my MRI said, I was an easy diagnosis. I had a huge herniated disc. But just a few hours after surgery I walked down the hallway in the hospital. I walked slowly, and someone was with me, but I walked. The next day, I climbed two flights of stairs.  Today, two weeks after surgery, I took a 30-minute walk. 

It seems silly for someone who spent three days backpacking last year to be excited for a 30-minute walk, but that is a really big deal to me after the months of physical pain. And this is a great reminder that we cannot judge ourselves by what others can do. I was getting a bit jealous of a dog earlier today who is able to do upward facing dog pose and downward facing dog pose (there are reasons they have these names), and I was told not to stretch at all right now. But it was a great reminder to just be where I am. We cannot judge ourselves by how others are in yoga classes or at work or at life, and we certainly cannot judge ourselves by our pets. Some days a 3-day backpacking trip is where we are, and other days a 30-minute walk is where we are. Neither one is good or bad. It is simply our body, our situation, on any particular day.

But being able to walk again has not been the only benefit of surgery. It has woken me up to what it means to let go and feel true community and true gratitude. It has woken me up to the fact that we cannot always explain why things happen even if we think or know there should be a reason, but we can accept that they have happened and move forward.

I spent most of this holiday season flat on my back recuperating, but I also went to a Christmas dinner at which no one expected me until two days before Christmas, slept in three peoples’ homes (one of them twice), and had a friend come stay with me for a few nights, and have been driven to a variety of appointments by a variety of people. Never before have I had to rely on people so much. There are definite moments of frustration (on my part and theirs), but overall, I have seen that there are a lot of people willing to lend a hand, and that is an amazing feeling.

And it is not just an amazing feeling because all these people have taken care of me. Believe me, I am grateful for that. Supremely grateful. But on a deeper level, it is amazing and wonderful to be reminded of the willingness we have to help one another. I wrote about this on Christmas Day. But the past ten days since then have just been one reminder after another about the way we connect and help each other when it is necessary. I do not think we can write about this, talk about this, and live this too much. I want to shout from the rooftops about our need to connect, but alas, I cannot climb onto a roof right now. 

Acceptance has been another lesson. Not just superficial acceptance, but deep acceptance. I have missed a lot because of the pain and surgery. I missed two really big family functions and a lot of work. I missed spending time with friends and family over the holidays because even when I was with them, all I could think about what the pain or the fact that I had just had surgery. But a huge lesson we gain from yoga is the ability to accept where we are in life and let go of our expectations of what should be. This does not mean we do not try to change and work toward goals, but it means that sometimes life does not happen as we expect. And learning to accept that is a big step toward our own sanity.

Anyone who has been around me the past several weeks knows this has been a difficult lesson for me to learn. I have been analyzing this situation from every angle imaginable. I have explanations for every twinge of recovery pain and have spent hours on online forums reading and learning about herniated discs and surgery. But guess where all that analyzing has gotten me? It has made me crazy.

These past few days, however, have been different. I still notice the twinges of pain and notice how drastically different my body is. But the need to understand why has faded. That is the lawyer need. We like to understand, as if that is ever fully possible. Sometimes we just have to be. Sometimes, we just have to accept that we do not fully understand. That is a scary concept to this lawyer, and I am sure to many others as well. But I am in a very different state of mind since making that shift. And not surprisingly, I am also in less pain.

No one has an explanation as to why I herniated a disc. No one has an explanation as to why it did not respond to all the non-invasive techniques of healing that I tried. Instead, I ended up on an operating table. But I woke up from anesthesia and the experience with a very different outlook. Sometimes these things happen, and there is no explanation, and the fact that you do a bunch of yoga and take care of your body in other ways does not change the fact that our bodies are fragile at times. And learning to accept that fact without trying to understand it has been a wondrous and valuable lesson. It has also been incredibly difficult, and believe me, not fully learned.

This weekend I finally feel like I am waking up from the fog of pain and surgery, and I am waking up to a world where I can be more accepting . . . or at least attempt to be. And still, I am sometimes jealous of dogs who can stretch. But overall, the experience has woken me up to truly understanding the lessons I have been trying to learn for years. Sometimes the universe operates in mysterious ways.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The Paralysis of the Breath

This blog has focused a lot on the breath. It sounds so easy to say – Just Breathe! The breath is always there, it is always available to us, it is always a guide for how we are doing and feeling. And sometimes the breath gets stuck. Have you ever been in a situation where you are a bit tense and then realize you have not actually breathed in several seconds even when you think you are trying to relax? Have you ever tried to take a deep breath only to feel as though every muscle in your body is fighting against it?

 Yoga leads us to deeper and calmer breathing in several ways. There is pranayama, which is specifically different breath control techniques. During asana practice, breathing helps us release more fully into any posture. In meditation, our breath keeps us focused. Breath is, therefore, the center of yoga, and it permeates all we do.

Being a lawyer provides ample opportunities for us to hold our breath with anxiety. Whether a deadline is fast approaching or a judge is telling you to get to the point, lawyering is a stressful profession. But it is more than stress that leads us away from the breath. Stress can be managed and understood, and generally we can find the breath with the right training even in very stressful situations.

Stress always has an underlying cause. Sometimes we just have too much on our plate, but why does that lead to stress? Recently, I have recognized that much of our stress comes from fear. Are we afraid we will not finish everything? Are we afraid we will not do a good enough job? Are we afraid we will not give enough time to our families if we focus on our work and vice versa? And it is when the fear becomes overbearing that we lose our breath. Fear can become debilitating.

I have heard fear and excitement as the same emotion with a different intention. We describe them somewhat similarly – butterflies in the stomach, shortness of breath, slight agitation, etc. And they arise in similar circumstances. What gives one person fear – public speaking – very much excites someone else. Similarly, excitement can be called eustress, which is defined as healthy or good stress. I do not particularly like the idea of good vs. bad stress, but it gets the point across. Sometimes, we need stress to get us excited enough to help us do great in a particular situation.

But sometimes that stress/fear overtakes us and completely paralyzes us. And it becomes obvious when even with conscious awareness the breath cannot slow and calm. It is a cycle that is difficult to break. As a yoga teacher, I want to believe that taking a deep breath relieves all situations and brings us back to our center. But as a modern human being, I know that is easier said than done. Deep down I still know and believe that coming back to the breath is the single greatest healing technique every one of us has. But using that technique is, at times, nearly impossible.

And what do we do in those moments? In those moments, it is important to recognize that we are not lesser beings because the breath is difficult. It is but another lesson. It is a window into helping us more fully understand that which causes us our greatest fears. Easy? Absolutely not! But those moments are also some of our most honest. Those are the moments when we recognize that it is okay to be afraid, it is okay to be human.

Of course we do not want the breath to stay paralyzed forever. But if we get caught up in being worried that it has momentarily stopped and that we should know better, we can get caught up in a worry that we are somehow less than. Less than what? Less than whatever your biggest fear is. Sometimes the breath being stopped by fear is a wake-up call to what is calling out to us. It is a wake-up call that something needs our attention. And when we provide that attention, the breath slowly (and sometimes quickly) returns to its prior glory.

 Our breath truly is our greatest teacher. It tells us where we are, and when we can concentrate and bring awareness to it, we are able to slowly begin to learn the lessons it has to teach. Have you had moments where your breath felt paralyzed? What do you do in those moments?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

Thanksgiving Year to Year

One year ago, I was at the US Ambassador’s house in New Zealand celebrating Thanksgiving in summer. And without realizing it, I actually put the same clothes on today that I was wearing then (I looked at photos). And yes, this should tell you how a summer in NZ is very similar to a winter in Arizona, but I digress. One year ago, I was grateful for the 10 months I had spent in New Zealand, from an earthquake, to new friends, to beautiful adventures, to finishing a thesis.

And that thesis looked forward to this year. The thesis was all about representing children, and that is what I currently do, though I do it in a slightly different context than addressed in the thesis. But this year has been about integrating my years digging deep into yoga and the law and emerging with some semblance of a future. And this year has been hard. It has been a struggle to finally integrate theory and practice, in law, but also on and off the yogamat.

Law school is an interesting theoretical adventure. Traditionally, law school is learning the theory of the law, and some would argue we spend too much time on that in school. We spend our time reading cases of situations gone awry, and sometimes tragically so, but cases become stories, and the people are safely behind the pages. We are protected from their stories similarly to how we are protected from the stories of the protagonists in a movie. 

But the practice of law is anything but peoples’ lives on a page. Instead, the practice of law is about peoples’ lives in your face. Crisis after crisis arises, and lawyers are expected to stay rational and calm. Human nature wants to send us into screaming fits of rage and fear, but that is not our role. Instead, we are asked to answer with calm rationality and turn the theory into practice – look at the situation from a purely legal standpoint. There are, of course, advantages to this. But it throws our systems off if we do not pay attention.

Yoga is quite the opposite. Most people in the modern world come to yoga through the practice first. In fact few of them have any idea about the theory behind it. Some want some exercise, while others want to stretch after their own exercise. But the theory creeps in. Yogis begin to act with more compassion towards others after learning to act with more compassion for themselves. Yogis learn to respond rather than react to the crises that inevitably arise in their lives.

But that flow from theory to practice and back is anything but smooth. The day after Thanksgiving last year I was not at a Black Friday Sale. Instead, I was on a boat between the north and south islands of New Zealand and who should I see but the Ambassador? I said hello to him and then sat back down. Then I started crying. I was so grateful for all that had transpired that year in New Zealand. And I knew I was coming back to the United States to a job I had, in many ways, worked my entire life to have. How amazingly lucky could one person be?

And here we are at another Thanksgiving. I have spent this month finding things for which I am grateful, from my breath to the wonderful people with whom I get to work. Being a first year lawyer is one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. But it is also one of the most enlightening and inspiring.

And while I was doing tree pose from the tops of mountains in New Zealand last year, this year, my yoga practice has struggled through a sprained ankle, hip pain, and simply too little time. But I have started attending classes again, meditating in the mornings, doing some asana, and even teaching once per week at the courthouse.

But just yesterday, the week of Thanksgiving, I saw it shine through like never before. Someone decided to yell at me about something, and in the midst of the yelling, I sent him a little compassion and thought to myself, “may you be free of suffering and the root of suffering.” That particular phrase is more Buddhist than Yogic, but it was a moment of reflection rather than reaction. And then I walked away from the conversation and did something else. The yoga crept out from where it was hiding and offered me a little solace in the moment - and hopefully the person yelling at me, though the thought was silent.

Theory and practice. Back and forth.

It is tomorrow in New Zealand, which means it is already Thanksgiving. So I am going to celebrate two this year. Today is a deep sense of gratitude for all I have learned this year, the people who have inspired me whether a “difficult” teacher or a friend with a shoulder, and the amazing opportunities to understand the ebb and flow between theory and practice in law and yoga.

Whether celebrating Thanksgiving in a country far away from the United States at the US Ambassador’s residence or in central Tucson in the midst of being a first year lawyer, the sentiment is the same. I think Lionel Hampton said it best, “Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.”

Our hearts go with us wherever we are, and gratitude can arise in any moment. We can find all the quotes on the internet we want about gratitude, and learn all there is to know, but then it is about practicing that gratitude and feeling it deeply in the heart. That is the moment when theory meets practice. Can we take the sentiment of this day, this week, this month and carry it forward into our daily lives?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

What Makes a True Path?

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” – Buddha

I read a lot of yoga blogs, probably too many. I live in my head, and yoga blogs are a way to think intellectually about what I “should” be practicing. One of the blogs I read most frequently is “linda’s yoga journey.” One of the issues she often discusses is how to be on a “real” yoga path. I usually find myself nodding along to her posts, thinking, “she is totally right., the way yoga has hit mainstream America is barely recognizable as yoga. ‘Real’ yoga is something different.” And then I realize I am the person she is describing, the one talking the talk but not always walking the walk.

I do not make time for an asana practice everyday. I do not make time for a meditation practice everyday. My meditation practice is often in my car. Most days I take a few moments to sit in the morning, and I attend classes on the weekends, but my practice is not as structured as it could be. I can come up with all sorts of excuses as to why this is, but excuses are not the point of this post.

There is no question that my path is to find a way to bring yoga into daily living. Whether that means asana “At the Desk,” meditations in the car, or even ways to recognize and overcome vicarious trauma, yoga is not something we can only practice in the Himalayan peaks. It has to be something we can bring to daily living. But that means less time for the actual deepening of the practice. Sure, we can go on yoga retreats and fill our yoga buckets, but how do we bring these practices into daily life?

As the Buddha says in the quote above, “We ourselves must walk the path.” There is no substitute for practice. But how can we balance the need for practice with the need to get up in the morning and go about our daily living? That path is not for everyone, but for those of us who know our path is to find the balance, how do we do that?

On days I do not make time to practice, I feel guilty. That’s not very yogic, now is it? But on days I take the time to practice, I feel different. The sense of calm lasts a little bit longer. The ability to respond rather than react is a little bit larger. Those moments come more often the more time spent in practice. But too much time spent in practice means the unread materials pile up and the deadlines get missed. And of course that causes stress and anxiety of its own.

But the path can be both. I know it can. The true path is learning to listen. Through yoga, we learn to listen to what we need. We eventually learn to understand it as well. Some days, doing the work that is piling up at the office is more yogic. It clears the space around us giving us a space for clear thinking. Some days, no matter how high that pile has become, we need to turn to the mat. Those are the days that no matter how much we try to tackle the pile, unless we take some time away from it, there is no way we can do it. Sound familiar?

But that still leaves the aching question – is this a “true” path? Is the only true way to bring yoga into our lives to make time to practice every single day at the same time? When the guilt is rising high, my answer to this is sometimes yes. But the rest of the time, the time when I take the time to reflect, I realize the answer is no.

A true path is in the intention we bring to it. Where is the heart? And are we willing to walk the path ourselves? Are we willing to bring our entire soul to it? When we have the intention, we can miss our mark sometimes, but we always know we can return. We always remember that we can come back to the path waiting within us.

And it is that intention that we bring to our daily lives. I still get upset with people. I still lose my temper. I still feel anxiety. But underneath those moments is a little voice reminding me it need not be that way. And in those moments, sometimes my breath returns, and I laugh at the situation. And sometimes it does not, and I leave disgruntled and guilty. And after a decade of this practice, countless hours in meditation and on the mat, and countless hours reading yoga blogs about different paths, something has finally clicked.

Those moments are the true path. All of them. When our paths are between the modern world and the yoga mountains, finding the bridge is the path. And we are going to have many, many moments on both sides of that bridge. But with the intention to continuously come back, we are on a true path . . . even if we miss a day or two on the mat. It may not look like a traditional yoga path, but it is what allows us to be true to our own hearts. 

How does your path look? Where is your intention? 

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved. 

Clearing the Air

In the last post, we talked about the reasons to avoid gossip and its control on our society. While writing it, however, I kept thinking to myself, “but what about the times we need to talk about others?” I like to think of this as the “clearing the air” caveat to the problems with gossip.

Every day, I realize more and more how large the capacity is for humans to harm other humans, whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually. From sibling rivalries to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, pain seems to be the modus operandi of the human race these days. Perhaps it is a reflection of the news we hear, but it seems to be getting more and more intense.

And as it gets more intense around the world, it gets more intense in our daily lives. Have you ever had one of those days where a family member, close friend, or even coworker did or said something that hurt you? If the answer to that question is no, count your blessings and stop reading here. And while you are at it, post in the comments about how you have managed it.

If you have felt that, what is the first thing you want to do after being hurt? Me? I want to tell someone. I want to shout from the rafters how wronged I was. And of course, I never want to accept how wrong I was. So the conversation becomes, “so-and-so is so mean, I cannot believe s/he did that to me.” But is that true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

It may feel necessary in the moment, but if we handle the conversation like that, it becomes gossip, and leads to all the negative effects associated with gossip, that eventually only hurt us more. I think there is a different way to handle the situation. A more yogic approach. A way that could potentially nip the downward spiral of email in the bud.

There are all sorts of teachings about using “I” statements. So, instead of saying, “Johnny hurt me,” we say, “I was hurt.” Instead of bringing the negative energy of gossip into the conversation, we can honestly look at a third party, explain our pain, and potentially ask for help in dealing with it. While in the moment, it may feel better to shout from the rafters what a terrible person Johnny is, at the end of the day, that solves nothing, the pain gets worse, and in addition, we have gossiped.

This step requires those attributes we learn on the mat – awareness and reflection. On the mat, we learn to be aware of our bodies and our minds. We notice when we take the body to a place of pain, and we think to ourselves, “ow, that hurts, I should stop.” If we do not take that step, we pull a hamstring (or whatever). Taking that moment also helps us find reflection. Learning to breathe, we learn to reflect and not react to life as it happens. “I” statements are similar. The reaction is the shouting and the blaming and the gossip. But we can own the hurt we feel without perpetuating the pattern of gossip and all the negativity that brings to ourselves as well as to others.

The second step of the process is a wee bit more difficult, and by a wee bit, I mean it feels impossible. The second step is owning our piece of it. As someone who works with abused and neglected children and sees a lot of domestic violence victims, I find myself saying, “it’s not your fault” a lot. And I always believe it when I say it. But outside of purely abusive situations, we often do have a part in the pain we perceive is caused purely by someone else. This is where an outside observer can be helpful.

Of course, we want someone to say, “you did nothing wrong, and Johnny is just a jerk.” (For the record, I have nothing against anyone named Johnny. I think I only know a few, and I have always had wonderful interactions with them. It’s just a name here to stop saying so-and-so.) But in order to clear the air and truly move forward, we need to get out of the gossip mode and into the healing mode. And that requires looking at our own part in the pain.

Did I say something I knew would make her angry? Did I want him to react that way to validate my belief about who he is as a person? Did I want to make her angry because I was still mad about our fight last week?

To be clear, owning our part in the process does not minimize our pain. We can still be hurt. We can still reflect and tell someone else, I feel hurt. But we can do it in a way that is true, kind, and necessary. The necessary comes when we realize that we need to get this off our chest or it will stay there forever. But we can have the conversation in a true and kind way and not simply as gossip.

Easy? Absolutely not! But when we actually take these steps, we begin to see the difference between gossip and necessary air clearing, and we also begin to see that when all is said and done, we can make a choice as to how to move forward. A choice determined by reflection and awareness and not one made in the heat of pain. And perhaps this process can even lead to forgiveness.

How do you clear the air of your pains?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.