“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. 

All We Have to Give is Ourselves

Once again, I attended my favorite conference of the year – the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Conference. This year was the organization’s 50^th birthday, and it was amazing to see and learn how far family law has come in the past 50 years. Even when I think about all the work we still have to do, it is sobering and awe-inspiring to realize exactly how far we have come as a “system.” 

As longtime readers may remember, this is the conference where I first taught yoga after my yoga teacher training finished. I was scheduled to teach again this year, but my back made that impossible this year. But as hard as it was for me not to teach, I felt great that someone else took up the reins, and the tradition continued. While I know yoga is taking the country, and professional settings, by storm, it was extra special to see that this particular community, the one to which I am so grateful and owe so much, loves the idea enough to continue the tradition even when I am not involved. I just hope that next year I get to teach again!

But this conference, and a discussion I had following it with a friend, really got me thinking about how we offer ourselves to our communities, our jobs, and our “systems.” It fits nicely with the theme of the last post - Facing Our Powerlessness. These conferences are always inspiring. They remind me why it is I do the work I do, why I choose to be a lawyer. But there is an underlying notion that we can never do enough. I work in family and juvenile law, and the truth is that divorce, custody fights (I don’t like that word), and child welfare are always going to be difficult for families. The truth is that we may never be able, as professionals, to do enough to make these systems completely non-traumatic.

And some of the systems are more broken than others. Sometimes I wonder if the legal system does more harm than good. Deep down, I am pretty sure it does not, but I wonder. But it is in those moments of concern for the children and families that I realize the most important lesson – I may work for the rest of my career to make the systems better. I may attend conferences, learn new techniques, and perhaps one day even create new programs. But at the end of the day, I cannot offer the perfect system for every child and family. None of us can.

But that is where the yoga becomes the most important. And no, I do not mean asana, though that has its place as well. I mean the internal yoga, the compassion we learn each time we stop and take a breath. Yoga has its benefits in terms of stress reduction. Some people use yoga as exercise. But the greatest gift we get from yoga is relearning how to engage with ourselves and others.

Yoga teaches us to be truly present. One of the common themes of conferences is that we must remind ourselves as professionals that even though we see case after case every single day, for the individuals we serve, this is their only interaction with the court system. While stories may sound familiar to us, to the people telling those stories, they are unique and personal. And how we respond to that is how we help these children and families.

And if I have learned anything from the yoga teaching situation at the conference, it is that we never know where our influence will end. Even when the system is not perfect, every piece of research I have seen is that people feel there has been due process if they have had the time to tell their story – if they feel heard. Through yoga, we learn to listen to our bodies, begin to quiet our minds, and feel some sense of calm in the face of storms. Translating that to listening to the people we serve, regardless of the situations in which we find ourselves – even the grocery store – means we are serving people in the best way we can.

Changing systems that need work is a great goal. It is work that must be done. But in the meantime, when the waters are rough, and the end is not clear, we always have ourselves to give. And for that, yoga is the perfect opportunity to learn to offer ourselves.

How does yoga help you in your daily interactions off the mat?

Namaste.

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, All We Have to Give is Ourselves, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

In the Face of Tragedy

I do not usually post about man-made tragedies. I have certainly posted before about natural disasters (Christchurch and the Japan earthquake), but I never feel like I have a good response to shootings and bombings and the like. I do not, in any way, want this blog to become political, and these issues are usually so wrapped up in politics (perhaps as they should be) that I just feel uncomfortable.

And yet, the bombing at the Boston Marathon seems exactly like what needs to be addressed here.

If I have learned one thing from a yoga practice, it is how connected we really are. There is a lot of talk about oneness in yoga (and other spiritual disciplines), and yoga gave me the opportunity to experience that and know I was experiencing it. It is a concept the legal community would do well to understand a bit better. There is simply no escaping that what happens to one person happens to us all.

And it need not be next door. I am not a runner. Never have been. To be honest, I did not even know the Boston Marathon was happening yesterday. I have only been to Boston once. I loved it, but it is not a place with years of nostalgic memories for me. For all the ostensible lack of interest in the event and even the place, the tragedy touched humans and, therefore, touched me.

A tragedy such as this is an opportunity to remember that what we do to each other matters. How we treat each other affects the entire world. And I have lamented before about how it takes a tragedy or a disaster to remind us of these truths, but sadly we seem to forget in our everyday life.

The people at the Boston Marathon finish line experienced firsthand trauma. Whether they were physically injured or not, they experienced the shock and horror themselves. Those of us watching from afar had to experience the secondhand trauma, the vicarious trauma. And this is why these moments shock us into paying attention. All of a sudden, we all need to be comforted at some level. For anyone on facebook, I am sure you saw, as I did, the number of prayers sent out. And then there was the Mr. Rogers quote reminding us to “look for the helpers.” In the internet age, it takes only seconds for there to be an iconic image of an event, and the ones emerging from Boston always seem to have people helping out. The favorite story was of people who had finished the marathon running to the hospital to give blood.

We reach out together to find the people that make us feel better about the moment. After the Christchurch earthquake hit, I remember people in suits helping dig people out of rubble. In Boston, police ran into the street unsure of whether more bombs would explode and others helping those who were wounded. Mr. Rogers’s quote reminds us we need those stories because we need to feel a sense of calm. We need to see that not all of humanity is set on destruction. That is how we shake the trauma.

As people start saying Boston will never be forgotten, just like 9-11 and the Holocaust, I ask you, again, what that means. Does it mean we just remember these awful tragedies? Does it mean we expand our knowledge and remember other bombings and genocides? Or does it mean we remember the lessons of these tragedies?

Can we remember every single day how precious life is? Can we remember every single day how precious our friends and family are? Can we remember every single day how precious the stranger on the street is? Can we remember every single day how precious even those we do not like are?

That is what we learn in the face of tragedy, and hopefully that is what we can remember going forward. 

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl, 2013, all rights reserved. 

A Future Together

Today is my 31^st birthday.

I say that only because one year ago, I wrote a post on my 30^th birthday, and in it, I promised to live my life for others, to consciously use yoga to refill my reserves to be of service to the world. But as I pointed out in the last post, I had back surgery 2.5 weeks ago, and I have not been this reliant on other people since I was a child. This has gotten me thinking about my post a year ago.

Yoga and the law have something in common I have not really considered until now. In many ways, they are both solitary activities. And yet, I have learned more about community from both of them than anything else in my life. And that is just the point. Both of them could be very isolating unless we consciously open up to the support and encouragement of those around us.

For example, at my job I have my own case load. I meet with my clients, prepare for hearings, and participate in hearings. When emails and phone calls come on a case, I respond. But I work in an office with several other lawyers, and we all help each other. When I have a question, I find someone who might know the answer. If it is one of those situations where there may not be an answer (all too common in the legal profession and the world), we discuss the issue until we figure out how best to move forward. I could choose not to interact on that level, but it is through the interaction with others that I learn so much.

Yoga works similarly. A yoga practice could certainly be on a mat or a meditation cushion in your own home. And as I have learned these past few weeks, it can also be flat on your back on the couch just remembering to breathe and let go. Even in a community class, the practice is internal. No teacher, no matter how great, can know what you are feeling in your own body. And yet the teacher, as well as the other students, can help us learn to understand ourselves on a deeper level. It is the presence of the community that helps us understand and connect.

I wrote last year’s post about dedicating myself to others for a few reasons. First, I realized that my 20’s were a bit self-serving. And second, I firmly believe the legal profession is an opportunity to serve the community, and we should treat it as such.

But the individualism/community aspects of both the legal profession and yoga and great examples of how we need to balance the service to ourselves and the service to others. And sometimes we have to accept the help from others as well.

The world is more interconnected than it has ever been before. We are developing new ways to communicate faster and faster. And yet, somehow, we are more distant from one another. So many of us have our heads in ten, or more, different places at once, that they are rarely with the people around us. We have brief interactions, brief facebook notes, or brief text messages that would make Shakespeare roll over in his grave. But that is not enough to sustain us.

We can turn inward at times and be solitary creatures. We need that time alone to rest and rejuvenate. We can be part of the community just for fun at times and enjoy other human company. And we can serve the community, be there for our friends and family, and support the world. All of these happen together. They are a symbiotic relationship.

Last year’s post was called “A Future for Others.” That is why this year’s post is called “A Future Together.” I have learned this past year how necessary it is, at times, to reach out and ask for help. Sometimes that means help with writing an appeal, and sometimes that means help doing the laundry. And there are plenty of moments to offer a hand when someone is in need. And through it all, there are times we need to retreat from the world for a brief sojourn and refill our yoga buckets to continue being able to be a part of this world together.

How do you connect best with others? Have you had to ask for help recently? Have you had to offer help? How do you restore your sanity?

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.

Another Kind of Community

I have written frequently about community on this blog. Community is incredibly important wherever we go, and on this blog, the focus on community has, not surprisingly, focused on legal and yoga communities. Over the course of the last several years, I have learned to find community in yoga classes, at professional conferences, and even in the blogosphere. Community is what keeps us going, and finding so many different communities has been one of the greatest personal benefits of writing this blog.

These past few weeks I found more community, the one that should be staring us all in the face all the time, but sometimes we fail to see it. It is the community we always have with us, the one that steps out of the woodwork when we really need them. It includes our close friends and family, but it is larger than that.

Someone said to me yesterday, "Like most people, I want to help." I have a lot of respect for that person, both as an individual and as someone who understands other people as well. That simple statement opened my eyes to the communities we carry around with us in our lives. What better time than Christmas to recognize our connection to each other? It is that time of year when even when we do not celebrate the holiday, we notice that people smile more, people talk to each other more, and the atmosphere is full of joy.

But that sentiment need not be confined to December. As my friend reminded me, people like to help one another. Human beings are social creatures. Whether back when we were hunter gatherers or today when our food comes to us in plastic wrap, we need other people to survive. And our society does best when everyone in it is cared for, and we personally do best when we can participate in that caring.

On a yoga mat, it is easy to feel that connection to people, but it can be difficult when we are running around in the hustle and bustle of life. But that is just the point. Sometimes life forces us to remember. Sometimes life stops us in our tracks and says, people are here to help. You are not alone. Even though we live in a society that awards people who can do everything on their own and seem to be self-made, the truth is that none of us can do that forever. Eventually we need the help, and eventually we need to help others.

The conferences and yoga classes are great places to expand our communities and find new people with whom to engage and learn. But the real community is our everyday lives. It is the people we interact with on a daily basis, the ones who just want to help because that is what people do for each other.

May this holiday time be your reminder of how vast your community is and how connected we really are to each other, whether we have met in person or not. How do you get reminded about your community? How have you reached out to your community?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

Gratitude, Veterans Day, and Moving Forward

This is the 200^th post on Is Yoga Legal. I find that incredibly hard to believe. I am also glad it happened to fall in this month of gratitude. I had all sorts of great ideas for what to say about this 200^th post, just like for the 100^th post. I wanted a post that would look to the future and be just about this seemingly momentous (and hard to believe occasion). But mostly I wanted to say thank you to everyone who reads this blog, who comments, who supports me, who asks questions, who challenges me, and who has connected with me over time and space. It has been an amazing journey, and I am deeply grateful. I have learned so much. I wanted to share that gratitude in November. It seemed so fitting.

Then I realized I really wanted to write a post about Veterans Day, and how could that have to do with this 200^th post business? I thought about putting all the deep gratitude in a 201^st post, but then I realized my thoughts on Veterans Day explain perfectly my thoughts about living in this dual world. And one of the areas for which I am most grateful is that writing this blog and having the ensuing conversations with friends, families, and complete strangers (if there is such a thing), has actually helped me more fully comprehend these issues. That’s when I realized a Veterans Day post is a perfect 200^th post. It is filled with the gratitude, the confusion, the thoughts, and the nuance of what has made this blog such an incredible journey for me and, I hope, for you as well.

Today, I posted this on the Is Yoga Legal facebook page, which has been a plethora of gratitude quotes throughout the month: “Today I am grateful for all the people who have risked their lives for all of us. I have no love of war, but anyone who is willing to volunteer to protect me deserves my deepest thanks.” In just a few words it sums up how I feel about Veterans Day. I want to honor the people, but I have a hard time honoring the reason for which we honor the people. But then, in law school, I became more understanding that we, as lay citizens, simply do not have the facts, and maybe there are reasons country leaders make that if I knew the facts I would agree.

In other words, yoga has opened my eyes to our deep connection to one another and the reality that war anywhere in the world affects all of us and harms all of us. Law school opened my eyes to the reality that I simply do not know all the “facts,” and perhaps there are needs beyond what I can understand. Perhaps there really are times it is necessary to kill one person to save thousands. This is an age-old philosophical question that cannot be answered in one post on this blog. But it bears repeating as an issue. Which view is “right?”

From day one, the focus of this blog has been in the heading, “Where two worlds collide, one lawyer-yogi considers whether those two worlds can co-exist.” One of my greatest mentors/teachers in the legal profession once told me after she read a post, “I think yoga and law are very similar. They are both looking for the truth.” I was floored. She refuses to step foot in a yoga class (bad experience), but she sees and understands deeply why I am drawn to it.

And while I agree with her wholeheartedly, both yoga and law at their core, are about understanding “truth,” in whatever form that means to the people involved, this Veterans Day issue is really where the lawyer-yogi dilemma rubber meets the road.

The cop out is simple. Honor the people, but not what they were doing that made them veterans. But they believed, and at some level I believe, they are fighting for something “worth fighting for.” And maybe that is true. Even the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga religious text takes place on a battlefield, and the human in the story is ultimately told to fight in the ensuing battle by the Supreme Being, Krishna. I rarely get into the religious aspects of yoga, but they do exist, and in this sense help understand why this dilemma in us runs so deep.

It is easy to take a black or white position. Either all war is bad, or war is necessary to protect our freedoms. But if it is not abundantly obvious from other posts, I do not do that very well. I live in the gray areas. So where does that leave us? My grandfather and great uncle were soldiers in WWII, and my cousin a soldier in the first Gulf War. I honor and respect what they did and who they are as people. But the pain we all get from war anywhere still haunts me.

So, on this Veterans Day, part of me wants to just say I am grateful for a day off and forget the why. But that’s just selfish and superficial and not actually true. It is difficult to have these discussions with myself and others. Another part of me wants to honor the people and not the war. And another part of me wants to hold all of it and attempt to not go crazy. And to be very honest, that third ability came from my time in law school. It helped me see so much of what I refused to see while growing up even before the yoga helped me articulate what I have felt and experienced so much of my life.

What better way to honor this blog and my gratitude to all of you for staying with me through these 200 posts than to ask the huge questions that created the headline up above? Prior to today, I was starting to think I had to change that sentiment. When I first wrote it more than three years ago (WOW!) it was really more about whether lawyers would accept a yogi and whether yogis would accept a lawyer. But I have come to realize it is much, much deeper than that. It comes down to these issues of interconnectedness and reality of this world in which we live.

I am, therefore, deeply grateful that Veterans Day is this opportunity to struggle with the deepest issues this blog is about and deeply grateful we can share this discussion. And so, as a way of looking forward, what comes next on this blog? Where do we go from here?

We can continue the discussion. Sure, it is important to learn how to use asana at the desk, but more and more I think it is necessary to learn how to take all of ourselves, the yogis and lawyers (as a metaphor for modern humans) within us, and bring that all to the table to look at all the nuances that creates. 200 posts is a long time to realize that, but your responses and your presence have all led to this point. Thank you.

I would love to hear your thoughts going forward.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved. 

Making Work Positive

Last Friday I attended a one-day conference where we discussed better ways for the juvenile law system to respond to the needs of children and families. Not surprisingly, it got me thinking about community again, and what a great opportunity conferences are. But something else struck me as well at this conference; they can also be breeding grounds for negativity.

This conference was not that, but there were moments of complaining about how things are today. There were moments of distrust between people who work in different aspects of the system. Overall, the conference was a look at the future and how we can create better systems but those moments made me realize that even when we try to be positive, sometimes negativity pushes its way in.

Those few moments of negativity amidst this amazing coming together got me thinking about how we can breed negativity amongst ourselves, especially in the workplace. While I have lauded the idea of community, I began to realize that being around people who are negative can have a negative impact on us as well. Both Confucius and Harvey MacKay have been attributed with saying, “Find something you love to do, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” The point of this quote is that when we truly love what we are doing, it never feels like work.

But we are fighting some pretty heavy odds. In the modern world, there seems to be an underlying notion that work is difficult and stressful and just something we do to get enough money to pay the bills, or buy the nice house and nice car, or buy the yoga mats and yoga clothes. But work is not supposed to be something we do for love. Even when we love what we do, we are bombarded with a culture that believes work is not supposed to make us happy. Lawyers, I think, get this more than others, particularly in BigLaw. I see it less in the government sector, and even small practices. But the societal notions about work remain prevalent regardless of how you earn a paycheck.

But what are the implications of that?

How many people spend time complaining about their jobs? How many people find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning because they dread the thought of another day at the office? How many people sit at their desks all day staring at the clock just waiting for it to be time to go home? How many people notice everything wrong with where they work but have no desire to make it better? Are you one of those people? And if this does not describe you, do you work with someone like this?

I have never worked in such an environment. I have certainly had my days, even at jobs I have loved, but I have been incredibly lucky to never have a job I absolutely dread, and for the most part, I have always enjoyed the people with whom I have worked. But I have still noticed the effects of negativity, whether I am having a bad day/week, or someone else just likes to complain a lot. What I notice is that negativity eats away at my ability to block it out. And as it creeps in, it begins to consume. And negativity can manifest as pain, insomnia, or even dis-ease. I do not remember where I read them, but I know I have read several studies about the health benefits of companies having a positive working environment. We are healthier when we are happier.

So what do we do when we feel this negativity beginning to affect us? What do we do when it has entered our being so deeply that we begin to live it? Some people love affirmations. For whatever reason, the thought of doing affirmations has never really resonated with me. But yoga and meditation have given me a lot of other tools to let the negativity slip away.

First, asanas are a great reminder that no matter how difficult something may seem today, tomorrow it may be simple. When I started yoga, I could barely touch my knees in a forward fold. I remember the first time I did Downward Facing Dog and thinking I was going to die. Over time, both of those poses became relaxing and deep. And this is a lesson for off the mat as well. When negativity strikes, we can simply remember that tomorrow, it may not be there, and we will learn to work through it and let it roll off our shoulders.

Second, meditation is a great way to just allow the negativity to release. Many people think the “goal” of meditation is to have an empty mind. While some days I think that would be lovely, what I really think we need to gain from meditation is the ability to watch our thoughts and let them go. Whether we are thinking about how beautiful the sunrise was or how much we hate our situation, a thought is just a thought, and we can let it go. It is much easier to let the negativity go if we notice it and acknowledge it rather than pretend that it does not exist. Plus, in meditation, we may notice how it affects our being, and we can see the benefit of letting it go.

Finally, we simply do not have to buy into the mindset that work is supposed to be a downer. Sometimes getting rid of negativity is as “simple” as looking at a difficult situation as an interesting challenge. And we can also be grateful over and over again for all the little joys that happen at work, whether your coworker filled the candy bowl (or the hummus dish) or a client said thank you. And we can remember that whatever the latest television show is saying about how much we are supposed to dread our jobs, we actually are allowed to enjoy what we do.

At the conference, we talked a lot about how to make the system in which we work even better. We could have focused only on all the current problems. But where would that have gotten us? Instead, we looked past the negativity and worked on creating solutions. And that is only possible when we are healthy and happy. How do you see your job? Is it work, or do you jump out of bed every morning excited for the day ahead?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved. 

Starting Fresh for Forgiveness

When I was a child, I was forced to miss school twice a year when my non-Jewish friends went to school (unless, of course, the holidays fell on weekends). And yes, even in elementary school, I hated missing school. Think what you want about me, I can take it. Those two days were Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah literally means the head of the year. It’s the new year for Jews. Yom Kippur is the day of atonement, the day we ask for forgiveness for all we have done "wrong" during the year.

As a child, I dutifully went to synagogue every year. Ok, usually I was dragged by my parents, but still, I went. I cared almost nothing about the holidays. Ironically, over the years I have stopped taking these days off from work, but they have begun to mean a lot more to me. I will be working all day today, and I will not be going to services, but the new year has me thinking, especially as it is tied to the day of atonement.

On December 31, everyone talks about resolutions. These are thoughts and ideas about how we are going to better ourselves going forward. It is a very personal endeavor, rarely focused on our place in the world. But the Jewish holidays being together like this are really something different. And it is my yoga practice that has connected me to this difference. The act of asking forgiveness is difficult. Instead of asking us to take a look at what we may like to change about ourselves and then heading out to a party, asking forgiveness requires us to take a look at how our being affects others around us. Some years this is easier than others.

Yoga, similarly, asks us to look at how our actions affect others. The Yamas and Niyamas, the first two limbs of the 8-limb yoga path, are rules for living. The yamas, specifically, address our interactions with others. They are: ahimsa (non-violence), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (non-stealing), Brachmacharya (just read the link – no succinct explanation), and Aparigraha (non-grasping). As a kid, all I heard was the need to ask for forgiveness for anything I had done to hurt another. A noble endeavor, for sure, but a little tough to grasp at times. Yoga has given me the tools to self reflect enough to examine what that truly means and to reach out with specificity to those I have hurt.

The days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are, in some ways, somber. They are days of reflection, days of meditation, days to think long and hard about how our past year has gone. But first, we recognize the new year! There is something beautiful in the order. Before stepping into that somber world, we remember that no matter what we have done in the past, we can start fresh and renew. This is a new year, and the period of reflection is truly a chance to determine where we need to ask for forgiveness and a chance to move forward from that. 

It is also a chance to forgive others. The new year is a reminder that whatever they may have done to us in the past can be changed going forward. That is a refreshing thought. We need not hold on, another yoga lesson that is sometimes easier said than done. The time on the mat is a chance to reflect. It is a chance to turn inward and notice all the subtle ways we have missed the mark on where we wanted to be. 

But it is also the opportunity to let go, to see all that is new in the world. It is a chance to open our hearts to the possibilities of the year ahead remembering that we may make mistakes along the way, but also remembering that we can both forgive and ask forgiveness. We can also learn to preempt the need. We can set an intention to refrain from sending the nasty email (asking for a tone check from a friend helps). We can refrain from making disingenuous remarks about others. We can refrain from reacting through anger rather than thoughtful reflection.

What I have come to love about the Jewish New Year is that, like a yoga practice, it is both deeply personal and community oriented. The reflection is deep, but the need to engage others through forgiveness brings us together. It is somber reflection but also a chance to come together and celebrate the newness, not only of the new year, but also of the clean slate produced through forgiveness.  

I may be at work today, but these are the lessons my yoga practice has taught me about all those days I had to miss school as a kid!

And don’t forget the apples and honey! May your year be sweet and full of peace, light, and love.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved. 

What it Means to Never Forget

Today is September 11. Like most people over 15, especially in the United States, I distinctly remember September 11, 2001. I remember the phone call from my mother telling me to turn on the television. I remember watching the first tower fall and then going to class – creative writing. I remember walking out of class hearing that the second tower had fallen and that classes were canceled for the rest of the day.  I remember talking to my brother that night and thinking that my nephew, who would be born exactly three months later, would grow up in a world where 9/11 was but a memory.

I will probably never forget that day.

Prior to September 11, 2001, the most common way I would hear “never forget” was about the Holocaust in Europe. Being raised Jewish, stories about the Holocaust dominated my childhood. But like most people under 70 I have no actual mental memory of the Holocaust. Like my nephew and 9/11, I grew up in a world where Hitler was a memory. But I was told to never forget.

Memory is an interesting thing. I have written before about the fallacies and misconceptions we have in our memories. But as I have also mentioned before, we do not store our memories only in our minds. They exist within our bodies as well. Very often, when I am in a yoga class in an asana, I remember an event. It could be from any time in my life, any place I have lived, but it just pops into my mental awareness. Something about being in a posture sparks that mental memory. I have heard and read that smells are the most likely to spark a memory. The point, of course, is that on some level in our awareness, perhaps not the mental awareness, we truly never forget.

With major world tragedies, the bumper stickers remind us to “never forget.” I believe they mean mentally. But how can we never forget and still move on? Yoga teaches us to be aware of what arises, and then to let it go. We must, on all levels, be able to move forward. If not, we hold the memories, and those memories become tight hip muscles, which becomes low back pain, which becomes . . . That cannot be good for even the memory of those we have lost.

I am not sure I have the answers. As someone who holds onto memories more in my body than in my mind, it is quite an amazing feat that I have as many mental memories of 9/11 as I do. But I am not sure that remembering is the best way to move the energy that such tragedy brings to the world. Pure memory, without more, is stuck energy. It keeps us in a place of grief and sadness, or anger and resentment. We must be aware, but then what?

What if instead, we honored the memory wherever it is stored? What if we honored those who were lost and those who lost a loved one? What if we remembered, but instead of holding on, we let the memory flow with an open heart to all the suffering caused that day?

Perhaps the bumper stickers are right. Perhaps we should always remember. After all, those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. But being stuck in that memory only brings harm to the present day. It stops the flow of energy, and therefore stops the ability to learn and grow from the tragedy.

Last year, on the 10^th anniversary of 9/11, I sat at my computer in New Zealand, feeling very much like an outsider. I watched footage of September 11, 2001, trying to recreate that day in my mind, all the sadness and the confusion and the fear. I wanted to connect with family and friends back in America. It was one of only two days I truly felt that way while living in New Zealand.

But as I sit in my living room today, very much in the United States, I am drawn to a different type of memory – honoring. Honoring those who were lost, those who risked their lives, and those who lost loved ones. Instead of holding the memory of the pain, I want to see shared tragedy become a way to learn to flow together. Shared memory, perhaps more than any other type of memory, fascinates me. And when that shared memory is part of a shared tragedy, one felt over the entire world, it has the power to transform.

May the memory of our shared tragedies become our ability to break the stuck energy and come together to honor all involved. That is where the true healing occurs.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

Living in Our Own Shadows

There has been some controversy in the yoga world recently. I follow a lot of yoga blogs, and there is always a topic du jour that takes the yoga blogosphere by storm.  I have never previously commented on them because even if I sometimes find these issues interesting, I do not see them being interesting to the readers of this blog. But this current one is something that I think is important for everyone to consider.

In a nutshell, the current controversy revolves around John Friend and his “brand” of yoga – Anusara. To make a long story short, many of his high-level teachers have stepped down, and as of a few days ago, even John has decided to take a break. For purposes of full disclosure, I did my teacher training with someone who is Anusara certified, and I really respect its teachings, but I am not, nor have ever tried to be, Anusara certified.

So why do I care? More importantly, why should you?

John Friend is/was the leader of a type of yoga that has gone international. He owned the company as a sole proprietorship (the legal implications of which are huge, but sadly, that is not the type of law I practice, so I am not going to even pretend to be competent to comment on those legal issues, but I would be curious about it, so leave some thoughts in the comments if you know about this). This was his brand. Anusara teaches about opening to grace. It teaches energetic anatomy and community. These are powerful and beautiful teachings, but the man at the top admittedly had serious interpersonal issues and is being accused of some fairly serious infractions. While I have no personal knowledge of the veracity of the accusations, the appearance of impropriety is something lawyers take very seriously.

John Friend is not the first spiritual-type leader to face controversy for his personal actions. In fact, the list is fairly long, and some refer to these people as “fallen gurus.” As leaders of a spiritual community, their public lives revolve around particular teachings that their personal lives rebel against on a daily basis. Some argue this is what makes them such wonderful teachers – they can be compassionate and understanding of the difficulties of the human condition.

At some level, we all do it. We do everything in our power to hide the truth, sometimes having to even hide it from ourselves. It shocks people to learn that I do not practice yoga every single day (unless the deep breaths in the car count). I often talk to people who say one thing about how they act, and the next day I see them acting in contravention of that statement.

I am fascinated by this phenomenon. Is this how we can believe that it is always the other person who is being unreasonable? Is this how we can demonize people for whom we find it difficult to have compassion? In the story about John Friend, the accusations are that his inappropriate behavior was happening for years, but no one said anything about it. I can only guess why people would hide this information if it was true. But it is not the first time we have heard about this. Institutions keep secrets. Loyalty, friendship, and the need to keep the institution alive mean that it is easier to take care of the problems “on the inside,” rather than shed light on them.

And this brings me to the legal profession. We are a self-regulating profession. Lawyers have an ethical duty to report other lawyers who violate the Rules of Professional Responsibility, but the requirement that lawyers act at all times in ways that do not lead to an appearance of impropriety never manifested. Judges must, but lawyers need not.

Is this just a recognition that none of us are perfect? Is it a recognition that we are all going to make mistakes? The “fallen guru” phenomenon, and the ostensibly hypocritical actions so many of us take might actually be something different altogether. Real people recognize that which is so difficult for them in their own lives. Therefore, they ask, and sometimes demand, others to be “better” than them. But then they must hide their own personal failings, begging their closest allies and friends not to tell anyone about. And then, when it finally surfaces, entire institutions fall overnight.

No one can live with that guilt forever. No one can live with those secrets forever. Perhaps this is why lawyers are not prohibited from acting in ways that could lead to the appearance of impropriety. As a profession, we did not want to force ourselves into that double bind, into that shadowy existence. The lack of that requirement used to bother me, but with so many of these hidden worlds coming to light, perhaps it is better not to force people to pretend to be something they are not. Out in the open, we can nip problems in the bud much faster.

The teachings of Anusra are wonderful. I do not know John Friend, nor will I probably ever meet him, but sadly his story, whether true or not, might destroy all that he worked to build all because he possibly felt the need to be one person on the outside while living a private life in direct contravention of his teachings. I find that incredibly sad and disheartening.

How do you notice this in the world?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

Finding Community Across the Pacific

This has been an intense week. A week ago, I was in themiddle of nowhere, without internet, without a phone, even without showers (though strangely the huts had electricity during certain hours of the day). This week, I have been in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city at around 1.3 million people. The contrast was stark and not altogether easy for me to handle. To be totally honest, the thought of going back to the huge United States is a little overwhelming right now, but I am excited to be heading “home” soon. Just 2.5 more weeks in New Zealand. I cannot believe it.

I could not have asked for the New Zealand Family Law Society to have its conference. I was lucky to be able to attend, and it was incredible. I hold a special place in my heart for conferences, and it was at afamily law conference in Denver where I first taught yoga outside of teacher training. Conferences are about learning, but more importantly, they are about networking. Actually, I do not particularly like that word. Conferences are about coming together. They are about community.

And conferences on the other side of the world are about realizing (or perhaps realising) how similar we all are. In some ways, especially in a major stretch of metaphors, conferences embody everything I think yoga has to teach us as professionals. On the surface, conferences seem almost the antithesis of good yoga. They are intense, people rarely sleep, and at least at the conferences I have attended, people eat and drink far more than they should. I am, of course, the exception . . . or not.

But deeper down, conferences allow people to step outside their daily lives and take some time to reflect rather than live in a world of constant reaction. For a few days, the “other” lawyers become your friends again. Debates that sometimes devolve into zero-sum arguments in practice become opportunities to ask questions of each other, engage together, and discuss all the possible issues. No final decision has to be made. Everyone gets to be confused together. Hopefully, we can also be inspired and reinvigorated together as well. And this happens because we get away from the downward spiral of email and see each other’s faces, and talk, laugh, and debate together. We get to step away from daily life, and in doing so, we can put daily life into perspective.

But the best part is about building new community and reminding ourselves of the community in which we already exist. In that vein, I saw some friendly faces, both people I first met here in New Zealand, and people I have met in the US from both New Zealand and Australia. I also met many new people. Yoga is not just about asana and meditating and learning stress management techniques. It helps us step outside our lives long enough to realize how much we all have in common, how connected we really are. Conferences give us the same opportunity. This week, I am grateful for having had that amazing opportunity on the other side of the world. What an incredible beginning of the end of my time here. Now I just might need some more “traditional” yoga to recover from the conference.

What do you do to step outside your daily routine and find community?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2011, all rights reserved.

The Power of Positivity

Indulge me for a moment, and read the next three bullet points individually without looking ahead until you have absorbed what they say. I will meet you below them.

• Don’t picture a pink elephant! 
• Don’t think about an orange!
• Don’t imagine your next vacation!

Were you able to do it? My guess is that most people reading this pictured all three – the pink elephant, the orange, and the vacation (where are you planning to go?). Essentially, the brain thinks about what is before it, and in this case, that is a pink elephant, an orange, and a vacation. It does not necessarily process the “don’t” until after it has thought about the subject.

In some circles, people say the brain cannot process negatives, but that is not exactly what is happening. What is really happening is that the brain is processing everything, and the subject gains a moment of time in the overworked brain before the brain realizes that it is not supposed to be thinking about it. What I am really trying to say is that we give power to any subject just by thinking about it, whether we think about it in “good” or “bad” terms.

So why do I bring this up? I read a lot of blogs. I read a lot of blogs about lawyers and several blogs about ex-lawyers. These are people who have left the profession because of its toxicity and offer their ideas for the rest of us to get out. I have mentioned this before, stating, “But I likemy job!” I think these blogs offer a great service to many people struggling in the day-to-day rat race that is the legal profession, but so often when I read them, I cannot get past the first sentence.

Why? They start with negativity. They start with everything that is wrong about the profession. And yes, I realize I am participating in that negativity by commenting on it in this way. But the point is that their underlying message is awesome – “take care of yourself before the legal profession kills you!” Another common theme is “follow your heart.” But that message is buried under a mountain, sometimes a large mountain, of everything wrong with the legal profession.

Thus, the negativity has power. We imagine the negativity as we read. And imagining it brings it into our being. It permeates us whether we experience it ourselves or read about others. That’s empathy.

I’m bringing this up now because I see the same theme in the Occupy movement here in Dunedin, New Zealand. I really want to support them, even if I may not agree with everything they are saying, I see the global Occupy movement as an awakening, a bringing together of people from all walks of life who are standing up for what they believe. That’s awesome! But the biggest sign here in Dunedin is “Smash Corporate Greed.” Every time I see it, which is at least twice per day, I feel like I’m being punched in the gut, and that is only partly because I see the difference between Starbucks and Wal-Mart – both corporations, but with vastly different influences on the world.

The real punch in the gut comes from the negativity. There is a growing, but still small, movement online called “Occupy Your Heart.” Obviously this has been a theme for me this week. But I originally heard about it from the Dunedin Yoga Studio owner, and then I searched for it online.

The movement is not against anything, it is for opening the heart space, something we desperately need in this world. But it has no focus about what it is against – just about tuning into what really matters and “wrappingyour heart around it.” It gives power to the heart rather than power to negativity and all the things it is against and anti.

People are still going to have awful days at law offices. It is still important to point out the inequalities that exist in the world. But would you rather give power to the negative or power to the positive? I know which one I am going to try to choose, over and over again. If we give power to the positive, that power will spread. Are you in?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2011, all rights reserved.

Ten Years On . . . Holding Community

I know the internet is full of commentary about September 11, and the 10-year anniversary. To be honest, I did not want to add to it. But then my heart told me I must. On my blog about my life in New Zealand, I wrote about the odd feeling of the world coming together for the Rugby World Cup, yet feeling like an outsider as an American in New Zealand on the anniversary of that day. Ironically, the United States Eagles Rugby team plays its first match on 9/11, though I guess it will only be 9/10 back in the United States. Still, something does not feel right about that. Here is an interesting link to two of the players discussing playing on the anniversary.

Ten years ago, I was a sophomore in college. I had never done yoga. I swore I would never be a lawyer. I embodied everything about stress and had not experienced the world outside US borders for more than three weeks. Since that day, yoga and the law have come to dominate my life, and I have lived abroad for nearly two years. I spent 6 months in Aix-en-Provence, France (during which time the United States invaded Iraq) and 7 months in Dreux, France (during which time the United States reelected President Bush), and now eight months and counting in New Zealand (during which time the United States killed Osama Bin Laden).  

So what, you ask? What does all of this have to do with yoga? What does it have to do with law? What does it have to do with living a more balanced life in the modern world? Everything!

The attacks on September 11, 2001 have defined the vast majority of my adult life. The death of Osama Bin Laden showed me just how tense and scared that time has been. Yoga has taught me much over the past 9+ years, but one of the most profound lessons has been that we must recognize the interconnectedness of humanity. On this blog, I have discussed this as community. Ironically, on this 9/11 anniversary I feel more alone than I have ever felt (this is the first time I have been away from the United States on 9/11).

A part of me yearns to be among many other Americans, rather than 2 or 3, who remember that day. A part of me yearns to tell my friends here, whether Kiwi, Malaysian, English, or Argentinean, how confused and vulnerable I felt, we all felt. A part of me yearns to explain how that fear became misguided arrogance, but that I also felt relief, sadness, and again confusion, when Osama Bin Laden was killed.

But I hear the responses before I open my mouth. I hear people remind me about Guantanamo. I hear people remind me about the drone attacks in Pakistan. I hear people remind me about the tens of thousands of civilians (and military) that have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. I do not know how to express that I see both visions to people in each camp. 

I do not know if people are willing to accept that there are layers and layers to these stories and that sharing them does not mean that any other layer is less important. Few people seem willing to hold the many layers. Few people are willing to struggle and see that no single vision is “right.”

I do not remember if I cried on September 11, 2001. I would like to think I did, but shock and confusion may have prevented it. But yoga has also taught me to open, and trust, my heart. It has taught me to truly feel what others feel, from the jubilation of the Rugby World Cup opening to the pain and horror that people describe in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. I have learned to see fear spiral into its own unimaginable consequences of war and destruction. But that does not mean the fear is not palpable and real. The vision of the planes flying into the Twin Towers now brings tears nearly every time. But so does the vision of Iraqis. So does the thought of the soldiers who have died. All of these events are tragic in their own right.

This theme of being “right” has made its way onto this blog before, as a play on words about being careful before crossing the street in New Zealand where they drive on the “wrong” side of the road. But this time the stakes are higher. This time it means understanding that September 11, 2001 was an awful day. It means understanding that other countries experience their own horrors and war on a daily basis. It means understanding that the United States has made many mistakes over the past 10 years.

Recognizing all of these does not undermine any of them. Disaster breeds community. We saw it on 9/11/2001. We saw it after the Christchurch and Japanese earthquakes. We see it anytime some event shocks us out of our sleep and reminds us that we are connected and together. I hope that this anniversary can remind us of the next step in that process. There is no single story to explain who we are and no single story to explain any event.

Some days it is nearly impossible to hold all these stories, to hold onto so many different visions of the world. But that is when yoga provides its most important, and simplest lesson; come back to the breath. Come back to the breath and let the thoughts and craziness swirl around the head for a moment. Then let it settle. At the end of the day, we do not need to make sense of it all. We simply need to remember that we are all in this together, ready to share our stories.

I hope this time of reflection provides you with a feeling of community and a little bit of peace. I hope we can hear each others’ stories and hold them all with a sense of togetherness and comfort. I hope we can remember that when we think we cannot hear another layer that we remember to come back to the breath and remember that we can, and will, grow together.

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved