Falling Inside Ourselves

Today is the Autumn Equinox in the northern hemisphere. New Zealanders always found it funny that I, as an American, call this season Fall and not Autumn. The few New Zealanders I know who have since come to the United States and experienced Fall finally understand. They, of course, have ventured to the Midwest and East. But alas, that is not the point of this post.

Fall stands for something else for me as well. It is the season when we shed that which no longer serves us, the parts of ourselves that need to die so we can reawaken in the spring. It is no secret that I love trees, and there is little in life I enjoy more than seeing leaves changing color. Until this week, however, I never fully understood why (other than the aesthetic beauty, of course).

I did my undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, and there is a part of campus called the Diag. It is the center of campus, and it is surrounded by a few trees. Growing up in California, I saw trees change color, but it was nothing compared to what happens in Michigan. My freshman year at Michigan, I remember walking across the Diag and stopping in my tracks. The tree on the other side had turned colors overnight. It literally took my breath away.

Such beauty right before the leaves fall off. It is a reminder that it is time to turn inward. It is a reminder that it is time to fall inside and examine our lives. It is no mistake that it falls at the same time that Jews are focusing on forgiveness. I just learned that this week there is a festival in India to celebrate Ganesh, the destroyer (also known as the one who places obstacles in our path to keep us on our toes). The celebration is to let go of that which no longer serves us and to turn inside to see how we want to emerge again in the spring.

Turning inward can be difficult. But it is a beautiful and natural part of this time of year. It is the perfect opportunity to ask ourselves what we need. As I mentioned in the last post, this time of year I am thinking a lot about forgiveness. But what is forgiveness? The internet is full of a variety of definitions, including “excuse for a fault” or “To renounce anger or resentment against.” There is an entire Wikipedia article on what it is and what it has meant to a variety of religious groups over time.

But to me, and for purposes of this post on the equinox, forgiveness is an internal affair. Yes, we can forgive others, and in that sense it is external, but it is something we do by ourselves for ourselves. As the Buddha reminds us, “Holding onto anger is like holding onto a lump of coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else. You are the one who gets burned.” Without forgiveness, we burn ourselves over and over again. Forgiveness is the way in which we stop burning ourselves and move forward.

Forgiveness does not mean we do not experience the anger, the resentment, the hurt, etc. It does not mean we put ourselves into situations again and again where we are likely to experience those pains. Instead, it is the internal process of letting those experiences no longer burn us. They need not control us forever, and too often they get held in the body and cause us pain and other dis-ease. 

Forgiveness, therefore, allows those pains to come and then leave, in the natural course of how life moves. It is the way in which we fall inside ourselves. It is the beautiful fall colors before we shed our leaves for winter. Forgiveness is what allows us to sit with ourselves in peace throughout the winter. When we have sufficiently forgiven, we can use this hibernation time to prepare for the coming spring and to rebuild and replenish ourselves.

It is difficult in the modern world to take this time over the fall and winter to turn inward. We live in an extrovert-rewarded culture. We are expected to be “on” all the time. But if we learn anything from the world around us and from our yoga practice, it is through going inside ourselves and letting go of whatever is holding us back, that we create the space to be at our best.

So, on this equinox, help yourself come back into balance by falling inside yourself. Enter a place of forgiveness, and create the foundation for letting go and freeing yourself for all the wonders to come.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved. 

Knowing and Finding Balance

“The only way we can know balance is by knowing imbalance.”

I heard that quote in a yoga class this weekend, and it got me thinking (luckily after the class was over – mostly). When I was a child, I was complaining about winter, and a friend of mine reminded me that winter makes spring all the more beautiful. Thus, from a fairly young age, I have known that we can really ever know something fully by embracing its opposite. This concept works energetically too, of course. Fear and excitement are really the same energy; it is our mind that places a different meaning on them, or it, really.

Finally, law is certainly no different. The best lawyers know their opponents’ arguments better than their opponents know them. It is the only way to be sure to be able to counter them. I did not listen to the entire Supreme Court argument on the Affordable Care Act, but I think I heard that either Justice Kennedy or Justice Scalia said to Paul Clement, “this is not a surprise question, I hope.” Of course, I could be totally wrong, but the sentiment is there. Paul Clement, the highest-ranking legal advocate in the country, is expected to be prepared when he faces those nine justices. And part of being prepared is knowing how other people are going to attack your argument.

I say this to point out that these thoughts and understandings about knowing opposites have permeated my life, my yoga journey, and the legal practice. Yet I had never put any thought into imbalance and its keys to understanding balance. What an opportunity for lawyers and any modern people. I would be willing to bet we are, as a society, at our least balanced in history, and I was not even thinking of the political realm when I wrote that. I was thinking about all of the various aspects of our lives pulling us in so many directions at once. We talk about work-life balance as if learning to balance between the two is going to make it all better, forgetting that we have to learn to balance within each of them as well.

But as of April 1, 2012, April Fool’s Day, imbalance took on a new meaning for me, an opportunity really.  Prior to this, my favorite quote about balance came from another yoga class, one with Frank Jude Boccio, who teaches Mindfulness Yoga. He said to the class as we stood in Tree Pose, “There is no such thing as balance, only balancing.” What a beautiful ability to let go of the struggle to find perfect balance. I embraced it and ran.

But it still focuses on balance from balance’s point of view. To truly know and understand what we mean by balance, whether we seek perfect balance (perhaps unattainable) or a sense of balancing, we can only fully understand and acknowledge it by understanding imbalance.

A new month is upon us. A new week is upon us. I do not know about you, but my week is going to be very, very busy through Wednesday, and then I am going out of town for the holiday. Instead of dreading the first three days of the week and their unbalancing effects, I am going to embrace them. To truly understand balance, we must understand imbalance.

I have been noticing the Earth understanding this concept all weekend. It has, once again, been incredibly windy here in Tucson. Of course, the Spring Equinox was only last week. For the briefest of moments, the Earth was in perfect balance, and this happens twice a year. Not surprisingly, these are the two times per year when the wind is at its most extreme – Autumn (Fall for us Americans) and Spring.

What if we learned to do the same? What if we learned how to find balance internally by witnessing and feeling the imbalance all around us? Are you ready to embrace the imbalance?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved. 

A Future for Others

Today is my 30^th birthday.

Generally speaking, I give no thought to birthdays. I have nothing against them, nor do I particularly care about having a special day. They are, however, a good time to stop and reflect about where we are in life, a time we have to reflect personally rather than big changes we share with others, e.g., graduations, new jobs, etc. Additionally, there are several reasons why this birthday stands out for me. 

First, I am one of the few people I know who is excited to turn 30. I think I was ready to be 30 when I was about 10, so I finally feel my age. It is also happening as I begin a new job and the first one that could be a career if I wanted it to be. It is also a decade birthday, in which we tend to think back on the past decade and reflect. 

My first thought upon reflection was, “what happened to a decade?!?!?!” After getting over the initial shock of realizing that it was ten years ago, not ten weeks ago, that I was living in a dorm at the University of Michigan, I have had some time to really think about what I have done this past decade and what I hope to do over the next one.

Briefly, my twenties went as follows: college, during which I studied abroad in France; teaching English in France; law school; learning to do yoga; working at the Pima County Superior Court; working at the Arizona Court of Appeals; becoming a yoga teacher; and getting an LLM in New Zealand. Of course there are other things, but those are the big highlights. I am struck by two things based upon that list: 1) I have been incredibly blessed, and 2) I have been fairly focused on myself.

Our society has a negative view of focusing too much on yourself. People who focus only on themselves can be seen as selfish and egotistical. One of the most difficult lessons, therefore, for me to learn from yoga was that we must take care of ourselves before we can be of service to others. We must feel secure in our own skins before trying to exist in this world, and we need to fill our own reserves, or we will have nothing left to offer others. As someone once said to me, "the heart pumps blood to itself first."

It was a difficult lesson to learn, but there is no question that I have spent a decade doing just that. All my travels, combined with the yoga, have taught me so much about who I am, what I value, and how I want to move forward. At times I felt too selfish, but deep down I knew I was preparing for something bigger and better. Interestingly, I ended up just where everyone seemed to think I would end up, but now I know I have done it on purpose rather than because someone said I should.

But what does this mean for the next ten years? It means that it is time to turn my focus to the external. This does not mean I plan to stop meditating, practicing, or even traveling; in fact those remain necessary for this next step. But it also means that it is time to use those reserves and all that information for the world. To be totally honest, I am a bit embarrassed by the list of my twenties. I feel like I could have done so much more for other people. But I also know that I can sit with people who have had to call the police on their own children or with drug addicts who have neglected their own children and feel sympathy and compassion without feeling like I have to run for my life. Some days are, of course, easier than others, but hopefully my ten years of selfish can lead to a decade of paying it forward.

And so I make this pledge in public. We all know that the best way to fulfill a promise is to ensure you are held accountable, and the best way to do that is to make it public.

Thirty seems so young and so quick, but also like a turning point. I have been incredibly blessed and have learned many lessons along the way. I know that going forward there will be days I choose myself over others, but I pledge to do it consciously and do it in order to ensure that I can be at my best when others need me. Perhaps this is one of the best ways yoga and the law intersect. It is through yoga that we strengthen our reserves to be of service to our clients and the world. 

Thank you all for sharing this journey with me, for supporting me, and for holding me accountable. I hope this blog can be a piece of my living for others. I hope it provides you with some insights and ideas about yourselves and the world in which we live, and most especially about how to take the time for yourself to be at your best at all times. Many thanks, and hopefully many more celebrations together.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

The Darkest Night of the Year

December 21 was the winter solstice. In the northern hemisphere, it was the longest night of the year, while in the southern hemisphere, it was the longest day of the year. This means that two weeks ago I was going to sleep in daylight, and this week I’m eating early-bird specials in darkness. (For the record, yes I go to bed early, and no, I do not really eat early-bird specials.)

This is a roundabout way of saying that being back in the northern hemisphere has been difficult. I have had jet lag like never before, and I have had significant trouble sleeping. I also have not been doing a lot of yoga, of any variety.

Instead, I have been living out of suitcases, driving from northern California to Arizona, trying to find things I left behind a year ago, trying to catch up with friends, preparing for presentations, finishing the final bits of my thesis, and preparing to start a job on Tuesday. And even then I will be living with other people until I can move into my own place in early January.

And yes, I can feel that I have not been doing yoga. Prior to coming back to the United States, I had started and maintained a daily meditation practice for nearly three months. I took at least ten minutes per day just to sit and meditate. Somehow the northern hemisphere took it out of me. I still do a bit of mediation each day, and I attempt to meditate while standing in lines, sitting at red lights, etc. Those moments become precious. But somehow the daily practice at the same time each day faded with the daylight.

But what does the solstice have to do with any of this? It explains perfectly the body-mind connection and what happens when it gets disconnected, at least in me. My mind may be back to “normal.” It is, after all, normal to me that December is winter and the days are short. But my body is utterly confused. Although my mind never quite got used to the frost in June, the snow in August, or the spring leaves next to a Christmas tree, my body was very used to the sunlight, and ripping it out of that was not easy.

Christmas Tree in Wellington with new tree growth. 

The body being off completely threw the mind for a loop, and here I am over a week later, finally having gone to a yoga class, and finally having slept through the night. And now each day is going to get longer again. 

There is beauty in the solstice. It is a reminder that seasons change, and it reflects our own changes. But it is also a struggle. It is when the Earth is at its most extreme, and that takes a toll on each and every one of us. We are not disconnected from the Earth, and its changes affect us a great deal. Recognizing those changes is, sometimes, half the battle. For about a week, I could not figure out why I was so tired, but then I realized it was the abrupt change in seasons.

The good news is that the darkest night of the year reminds us of something else – the next day is the day when the light starts shining more each and every day. Happy Solstice, and happy holidays!

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2011, all rights reserved. 

Let it go and start afresh

Modern life, especially modern life in an office, means detachment from nature and its cycles. We wake up in a house, walk into a car, walk into an office, then back into the car and back into the house. Sunshine, rain, and wind fail to change how our days progress. Weather and changing seasons matter little from the 20^th floor of an office building. Working in Phoenix in the summer, I had to carry a winter coat to work because it was so cold inside the building even though it was 110 degrees outside. But the Earth shifts and changes, and it has a lot to teach us if we tune in.

This week, however, we had an equinox, one of the four times a year when the seasons officially change, and for a brief moment, we think about the earth and its cycles. Generally, I think only of the seasons changing in the northern hemisphere. From my brief internet research, about 90% of the world’s population lives in the northern hemisphere. Here in New Zealand, however, we just celebrated the fall equinox. As the world’s bloggers were talking about rebirth, I am watching the sky turn gray and the weather turn cold. It does not feel like the rebirth the rest of the world is experiencing.

But yoga provides another perspective. The equinoxes are the points of transition for the Earth. They are our reminders that as one part of the world is in a state of rebirth, the other is in a state of shedding that which does not support it. As the leaves fall off the trees and the wind starts to blow stronger, we know that on the other side of winter, we will be experiencing the rebirth that we see in the northern hemisphere. In other words, we notice the cycle, the same cycle that affects us whether we pay attention or not.

But this recognition that the Earth goes through both stages at once is our reminder that so do we, as individuals. We can get stuck in our northern hemisphere view that it is spring, or we can open up and feel that at all moments, we are struggling to find the balance between letting go and rebirth. The image that keeps coming to mind is the phoenix, who must burn into ashes and from those ashes is reborn into a strong bird once again.

So, even though we see and experience only one or the other at a time, either spring or fall, both are impacting the Earth at the same time, and therefore both are affecting each and every one of us. Yoga is a reminder to tune back into the changing patterns of the Earth and ourselves. As we take the time to notice our own bodies, our own breath, and our own reactions to life, we can learn to tune into the way the Earth’s cycles affect us.

Yoga also teaches us about balance. There are particular balance postures, where you are standing on one foot, but there is also the balance between strength and flexibility, the balance between responding and reacting, and the balance between tuning in to our internal awareness and being affected by that which hits us externally.

Thus, it may be easy to ignore the cycles of the Earth, to go from the house to the car to the office where you need a winter coat even though it is sauna-like outside. But for a moment, tune in and notice that the Earth is able to hold letting go and rebirth together, as it transitions to fall down below and spring up above. What areas of your life do you want to allow to fall off, burn to ashes, so you can allow them to rebirth into something stronger and more useful to you?

Happy Fall and Happy Spring.

Namaste! 

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

This blog is not affiliated with Fulbright or Fulbright New Zealand, and all opinions expressed herein are my own.