Finding Your Voice

I have had an interesting few weeks. I have delved into physical posture issues that had me questioning whether yoga led to my current physical pain. I have delved into  emotional processes I have had my entire life wondering if they could be the root of the pain. And I have ignored the pain as much as possible and attempted to change my story around it only to have it come back and bite me in the rear, literally. There is so much to say. I have wanted to write about all of these issues and experiences, to share them as part of the yoga / modern world story.

And yet, I cannot find the words.

Where have they gone? Everyone who writes has moments like these. They come in waves and make us believe we have lost our voice for good. Is it a fear of a response to our genuine voice? Is it a fear that we have nothing to say? Is it a fear of showing too much of ourselves?

When I was living in New Zealand, writing came so easy. If nothing else, I could always fall back on the beauty surrounding me. The earthquakes provided nice, though disturbing, fodder as well. But since being back these for nearly two years, life has taken on a strange sense of normalcy even though I am finally a practicing attorney, the sole purpose for this blog. There is so much going on, but why would that matter to anyone? How do I put it into words? I do not think it is the practice of law itself that has taken my voice, but instead the implications on my practice of putting too much on a public blog.

But it's not as though my life is not interesting. I see human tragedy several times per day and opportunities to use a practice all the time. But as each day ends there are moments of regret, realizations that moments of practice were missed, and a deep sense of recognition that more often than not reaction wins when response was so necessary. It's not just my voice that is missing, it's the practice itself. And how does a yoga teacher share being caught up in the mind so much as to miss the opportunity to tune in and meet people where they are with a sense of yogic connection?

These issues go beyond the practice of law as well. A friend asked me if I wanted to teach a yoga class for her. Of course I do. But how? What if that morning I wake up unable to walk? What if I have lost my yoga teaching voice? What if I have lost my practice? When I started teaching yoga, people told me they loved my classes. Certainly they are different than the average American yoga class, but they seemed to work. But I have not taught in over a year. I have only taken a handful of classes. The fear has taken over. I don't know if my voice will come back or if my practice will either. There is a piece of the fight or flight response people often forget - the freeze response. As I have learned more about it, I see it more and more in the people around me. But more of that for a different day. Today, suffice it to say, my practice and my voice feel as though that is where they are.

And that is when yoga is needed the most. It is always there to guide us back to presence and ourselves. Yoga is not about finding something external. It is about finding the strength within us that guides us through life. I realized something this past weekend. Sometimes we have to get out of our own way in order for the magic to happen. Yoga is just a tool for making that happen. It is the path (perhaps better to say, one path) for getting out of our own heads and into our true Being.

Deep within ourselves  we cannot lose our voice. We cannot lose the practice. Both are always there. We just find incredible ways to hide them from ourselves and then fear they have disappeared forever. The truth, however, is that we can never lose our essence. By definition, it is always within us. And our voice is nothing more than our essence manifested in this reality.

And so, yoga is the practice of letting our essence shine again. Sometimes it even takes writing about it before we can trust ourselves enough to access it.

Do you tune into your essential voice? Do you let your true voice manifest in this world? If not, what is holding you back? And what do you need to break out of that rut and shine? The modern world tries to quiet us and deprive us of our deepest voice, but yoga beings us back to it simply by silencing all the noise blocking it out. And sometimes remembering it is there is the first step on the journey toward finding it again. How are you finding your voice?

Namaste.

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, Finding Your Voice, 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.

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. 

Taking the Practice Deeper

I attended a yoga class over the weekend where the teacher asked us what it means to us to “take the practice deeper.” As she said, to a lot of people, the answer often revolves around getting into more “advanced” postures. But regular readers of this blog know that asana (postures) are just a part of yoga. They are necessary to the deeper practices, but they are not the only deeper practices.So what does it mean to take the practice deeper? It often means looking deeper inside ourselves. It can mean facing our fears.

So much of our lives are external. There was a very interesting article about busyness in the New York Times over the weekend. We live in a world of busy where we never have to look inside. In fact, taking the time to look inside is seen as an indulgence, not a necessity. The article says that all this busyness is a way for people to feel important. After all, if we never have time for people, they will know how much other people want our time.

But I think it might be more than that. And it has something to do with taking our practice deeper. Staying busy all the time protects us from having to look inside. Most of us have a lot of emotional buildup buried deep within us, and staying busy means we never have to acknowledge it. Even our body reflects how we hide from it. Our muscles tense, our jaw tightens, and sometimes we even get physically ill. These are the issues that often bring people to a yoga mat.

Therefore, a purely asana-focused practice can help us reach into some of these issues. We may notice that the emotional baggage we hold in our hips begins to release when doing hip openers. Some people spontaneously cry or laugh while doing asana. Some people love the endorphins. As we begin to move through the holding patterns in our musculature, we begin to face the rest of our lives as well. 

Going deeper means taking the asana practice and using it to really understand what we are holding, and how we can release it. Taking our practice there is where the real healing begins. Yoga becomes more than a strong core and some breathing exercises. It becomes truly therapeutic.

But it also means entering that space of fear. It means facing the world we hide from ourselves through our busyness. The universe will never throw anything at us we are unable to handle at that time, but it may not always feel that way. Yoga, for all its great healing attributes, makes us vulnerable. Muscles that were tight expand and make us open. With all the traumatic stories and news we hear, from a friend’s divorce, to our clients’ tragedy, to wars raging across the globe, sometimes it is easier to stay closed.

But yoga opens us up. It opens us by asking us to go deeper than those surface pains and tightness in our muscles and our minds. It allows us to turn inward and see what we have been hiding from ourselves and the world. And when we can learn to be with our own inner being, we can learn to be with each other more solidly.

Easy? Absolutely not! Some days it keeps people off the mat entirely. But the healing is at that deep level as well, which is why we also come back to the mat or the cushion. The physical pains that brought us to the mat at the beginning are our reminders that overall it is safe to return to the mat when our practice deepens. It is when we go deeper into our practices that not only can we heal our aches and pains but our sorrows as well. We learn to tune into the strength that is our body and the strength that is our soul.

Maybe going deeper also means “finally” bringing your hands to the floor in a forward fold, but really it is about being with ourselves completely. Rather than blocking out parts of ourselves, we look at them squarely and feel all they have to offer. And at that moment we breathe.

So, perhaps our obsession with busyness is about proving that we have the best business, as suggested by the New York Times article. Or perhaps it is a way to hide. I actually think it is both. Yoga automatically removes us from this busyness, even if only for five minutes. It takes us away from proving to each other we matter. It takes us away from needing to prove we are better. And it certainly takes us away from hiding from ourselves.

Going deeper. What does that mean? Ironically, as my practice has deepened, I cannot get as deep into certain postures on certain days. But I know that where my practice is each day is where it needs to be. At times it is frustrating, but I learn something new from it every single time.

What does going deeper mean for you? Do you use busyness as a distraction? What happens to your mind when you let it settle?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved. 

The fallible mind

As I mentioned in the last post about where we store our memories, today I want to explore the reliability of our memories. Does anyone remember the beginning of thefacebook.com? Remember the days when you not only had to have a college email address to use it, but only certain universities were eligible? It was a big deal to have an account on thefacebook.com. I distinctly remember being a little sad that I could not get an account because I had let my University of Michigan email address lapse after graduation, and the University of Arizona (where I attended law school) was not one of the “elite” universities. Bummer. Yep, I remember being at the University of Arizona without a facebook account. I remember it like it was yesterday.

Of course, this memory is factually incorrect. My friend remembers using facebook with me when I lived in France, which was before I went to Arizona. She was so certain that she went all the way back to 2004 on her wall to make sure. She was right; she found a post from me while I was in France.

But what about that memory of mine? It may seem trite to use a memory about facebook on a blog post about the fallibility of memory, but unfortunately it is my clearest “incorrect” memory.

Can our memories be so fallible? Are we really unable to trust what we “know” to be true? The answer is a perfect lawyer answer – it depends. We have known for years that eyewitness testimony can be very unreliable, but few of us have turned that knowledge on ourselves to ask whether our own memories are true.

One psychologist who has studied the fallibility of memory for decades had the table turned when her uncle informed her that it was she who discovered her mother dead in a pool when she was a child. The death, which she had repressed for years, started to come back, the memories of finding her mother floating in the pool, began to flood her daily thoughts, but then her brother called to say their uncle had been mistaken; someone else had found her mother. So where had the “memories” of finding her mother originated? If this can happen to a woman who studies these issues, it could happen to any of us.

Think about your memories from childhood. Do you remember them, or has the story become family lore, and with the story, the memory embeds itself into your mind? Think about the stories you tell over and over again. Has anyone ever told you that you used to tell it differently, that you now embellish it?

But then the question becomes – does it even matter? What is true for you remains true for you. I still remember not having a facebook account until I was in law school. But now I’m starting to second guess it . . .

Certainly this is an issue when we talk about repressed memories and whether they are real, but that is not the point of this post. Memory is our definition of our Self. It is our history. It is what we think makes us . . . well, us. To think that our memory might be incorrect is to think that we are not who we think we are. That is a big suggestion and one that many of us are not willing to accept, even if there is evidence “proving” us wrong.

This is where yoga can help. What is another perspective of memory? What if we look at it as a pattern? It is a story we tell ourselves, a story that is sometimes grounded in fact, sometimes grounded in other peoples’ stories about a fact, and sometimes factually incorrect on all accounts. Yoga, as we have seen before, helps us recognize our patterns for what they are. Patterns, like memories, are neither good nor bad. They are simply our patterns. Memories are neither necessarily factual nor false. They are simply our memories. And as memories, they help make us who we are.

And just as some patterns can lead to destructive behaviors over time, holding onto memories that may not be based in reality can be harmful. This does not mean that we need to start distrusting our every thought and our happy memories of childhood Thanksgivings spent with our family. But it is important to understand that they might be false, and that if someone has a different narrative of the same event, that their story might also be true. And yoga helps give us the ability to reflect. It gives us the tools for learning how to question our past, and recognize that what we remember is our own reality, but it may not be based in an external reality. The awareness of our bodies, our breath, and our mind, that come from yoga is the first step to seeing our memories as something that may be just a pattern.

Once we begin to recognize this in ourselves, we can use it as a path for empathy and compassion for others, but that is a topic to be explored in the next post.

How about you? Do you have any memories that you have since learned are false? Do you have any memories that are the result of family lore or a family photo? Are you willing to believe that what you believe may not be fact? Do you think it matters?

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

The Light Within

Namaste. It ends every post on Is Yoga Legal, and it often ends a yoga class. For some people, it is the only Sanskrit word they know . . . or at least can say. But what does Namaste mean? And why does it grace the end of these posts? The last two posts (here and here), focusing on turning inward, are perfect segues into a discussion about the word and meaning of Namaste.

At its most basic, Namaste means “Greetings,” and it is accompanied by anjali mudra, a hand position where the hands are at the heart in what many consider a hand position for prayer. More specifically, Namaste translates as “I bow to the spirit within you.” A modern, western yoga translation I often hear is, “from the light within me, I honor the light within you.”

Heading up the abstraction ladder, and the reason the word ends each post, Namaste is the recognition that we all have the same light within us. In the modern world, this is easy to forget. As lawyers it is even harder. The law places a small v between one side and “the other side.” A little letter, perhaps, but it has huge ramifications. It distances us from others, makes us believe that there is a wall between us and others, and allows us to dehumanize others, even just for the moment of the case.

But how does that affect our lives generally? How does it affect non-lawyers?

We all now communicate on email, and probably use some other form of social networking such as facebook or twitter. Even this blog puts a wall between you, the reader, and me, the writer. Our constant email communication is the best example of the reduction of our concentration on our internal light / spirit. Our email culture has gotten so fast and cut off from our connection that someone once actually thanked me for saying hello at the beginning of each email and signing each one with my name.

Moreover, our constant stress keeps us from even seeing our own inner light. In other words, we lose sight of ourselves, and we lose sight of the fact that we are more connected to others than we often think. We place these walls because they make life quicker. They do not, however, make it easier. They cut us off from our very essence, and as the last two posts have discussed, that internal presence is vital to our survival.

Namaste is different. It is a conscious greeting, a conscious decision to connect with another person, even just to say hello. But it requires recognizing that we have our own internal light. It is a greeting, but it is also a connection. It is a slight bow, a gesture along with a word (sometimes people actually leave out the word) that is a simple statement of, “I recognize that you are a fellow human being, and for that reason, I honor you.” It is a way to bring together rather than to push apart.

But this recognition requires going within. It requires taking some time to turn inward and getting to know your own inner light. And this is what yoga teaches us to do. It helps us bring humanity back into our lives. It reminds us that we are more than our blackberry emails that inform people there might be typos because we do not have the time to fix them, just like we do not have the time to say hello and goodbye. Instead, we learn to take the time – for ourselves and each other.

So, Namaste! From the light within me, I honor the light within you. I honor and appreciate the fact that you take the time to read these posts. But most importantly, I hope you are taking the time to honor yourself, that you are taking the time to turn inward and recognize your internal strength and light. Some days are more difficult than others, and on those days, the sharing of Namaste is all that much more important. Simple yes, but just as that little “v” between the sides of a case has huge ramifications, so too does the word/gesture Namaste.

How do you honor your internal light? How do you share that with others?

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

The Inward Journey to being a leader

In the last post, I mentioned that yoga is a great tool for learning to turn inward, where we can learn to trust ourselves from our need to physically adjust an asana to the need to adjust our lives. By turning inward, we see how minute adjustments can result in enormous shifts.

Just as I posted that piece, I went back to my Google Reader account and saw a link to this article, actually a speech given by William Deresiewicz at West Point. The title is, “Solitude and Leadership.” While it is a long piece, I highly recommend taking the time to read it. First, he explains his students at Yale, “So what I saw around me were great kids who had been trained to be world-class hoop jumpers. Any goal you set them, they could achieve. Any test you gave them, they could pass with flying colors. They were, as one of them put it herself, ‘excellent sheep.’” Does that sound like anyone you know?

Deresiewicz concludes that leadership means thinking outside the box; it means knowing yourself well enough that when the time comes to make the difficult decisions, you can rely on your own morality and not on what society and your peers tell you is right. And this requires turning off the distractions of modern life – twitter, facebook, blackberries, RSS feeds (note the irony of my finding this great piece through my RSS feed), and even the newspapers. It means taking the time to ask yourself what you think about the big issues, asking yourself what you think of the posts you use to distract yourself throughout the day. Why? Because more and more research shows that multitasking – no matter how good you think you are at it – actually makes it more difficult to concentrate on any task. The more we flip between tasks, the more difficult such flipping becomes.

As an English teacher, Deresiewicz suggests we take the time to read books, old books that have stood the test of time. I was a Comparative Literature and French major in college, so I would second that recommendation any day (and seeing as I now have a kindle, and classics are free, I have read a lot of them recently; let me just say, there is a reason many of them are classics). But more than just read them, he suggests we take the time to think about them, to discover what we think about them, not just read them because they are there.

But as a yoga teacher, I am going to suggest another tool – yoga and meditation. I often ask myself what the number one benefit of yoga is for lawyers and others living in the modern world. For me, and I think for many others, it is simply the fact that I do it. When I am doing yoga, I am not on facebook, I am not on twitter, and I am not checking my email. I may be thinking about something else, but at least those are my own thoughts. The ability to know yourself, according to Deresiewicz is what it means to be a leader.

Of course, in yoga and meditation, we are hoping to learn to control the mind to stop what Patanjali, who wrote The Yoga Sutras, calls “the monkey mind.” But there is a reason it is called a practice; we do not learn to stop the chatter in one fell swoop. No, it takes time. It takes years. Sometimes it never happens. But the point is that, for however long we give ourselves, we get away from the outside chatter. We learn to be comfortable with ourselves. We learn to watch our thoughts and our bodies. We learn to understand what they are telling us.

So this Inward Journey becomes our path to being ourselves and being leaders. But what does it matter if we are leaders? After all, we are not the plebe class at West Point. Leadership is a skill to be used everywhere, from the law firm to the community, from the government offices, to parenting. Being a leader means being an engaged citizen, and lawyers especially need to embody the qualities of leadership when helping clients.

Thus, the inward journey provides us the space to shut out the world, and from within we can learn to take control of our own lives and our own thoughts. As lawyers, people come to us when they are in disaster mode, and we have to able to respond appropriately. As Deresiewicz says, “Waiting until you have to confront them in practice would be like waiting for your first firefight to learn how to shoot your weapon.” We need to know how to understand our instincts, and we need to know what we think before disaster strikes. They are two sides of the same coin.

As I said in the last post, this inward journey is about learning to trust yourself. But the first step of that is being comfortable with yourself, being comfortable away from the outside chatter. It is sometimes scary and often, especially at the beginning, lonely. But the journey helps us become leaders, the people who can help make this world a better place because we are not confined by what other people think and feel. Instead, we have the control and the knowledge and the faith to do what we know is right.

But we must take the first step. What keeps you from turning off the computer? What keeps you attached to the facebook feed? Are you ready to be alone with yourself? Are you ready to give yourself the gift of solitude? Are you ready to trust yourself and share your leadership with the world?

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

Turning inward

In the modern world, we spend a lot of time focusing on our external presence. How do we interact with others? How do we engage in the world? We live in a very outward-focused society. In that outward-focus, big issues seem to matter more than the small ones. We just have to respond to the email, but it does not matter exactly what words we use. We just have to eat, but it does not matter exactly what we put in our bodies. We just have to exercise, but it does not matter what kind we choose. The outward focus is about looking like you are doing it “right,” whatever that means in the situation.

Yoga, on the other hand, is about an inward experience. Whether you are doing bikram or restorative, meditation or asana, in a class or on your own, yoga is about turning inward. At the beginning of a practice, we tend to be consumed with whether we are doing “it” right. Is this how Tree Pose is supposed to look? Is my mind wandering too much during savasana? What is the right way to sit in meditation? These questions tend to consume the minds of beginners, and they all-too-often keep people from ever starting a practice.

But if we take that first step, be it onto a yoga mat or a meditation cushion, we begin to slowly go down the path of turning inward. With this inward journey we learn to notice the big results from little changes. We begin to notice the feeling of calm that can arise from breathing into the low abdomen as opposed to into the shoulders. We begin to notice the difference in steadiness when we make subtle adjustments in our asanas. We begin to be able to ask ourselves what we need in any given moment.

Let me say that again, we begin to be able to ask ourselves what we need in any given moment. The time we spend engaged in our practice is time spent learning. Our bodies learn to move subtly, our breath learns to calm, and our mind learns to focus. Looking outside for what we need becomes less important as we begin to trust our internal awareness.

So what, you ask? Why does it matter to my life if I know that I can be steadier in tree pose if I keep the lifted foot pushing into the standing leg? How will it affect my life to know that I put more weight on my right foot generally than my left foot? Because as we learn to notice, we learn to adjust. We learn to play with subtleties until we find what works best in a situation. Perhaps most importantly, we learn to trust ourselves and our instincts.

Off the mat, we learn to notice the subtleties in our lives and our interactions with others. Instead of sending off the email that continues the downward spiral, we might instead choose our words more carefully. We can learn to trust ourselves in the outside world, learn to trust our instincts when we interact with others, and learn to make the slight adjustments in our lives that lead to big change.

What are these slight adjustments? Perhaps we will recognize when we need a bit more sleep, when we need to get away from the computer for five minutes, or when we need to stop and have a chat with a friend. This inward journey starts when we consciously choose to take time to look inside and recognize that our lives are not completely external. The paradox, of course, is that the more we focus on the inward journey, the more we can take its teachings into our external lives.

Yoga is that opportunity to go inside. It is the opportunity to stop and reflect, to learn to understand our instincts, and the opportunity to make small adjustments to our lives that have the greatest impact on who we are. It is the opportunity to do what is right for us on the inside, not what society tells us is "right."

What small change have you made that has had the greatest effect on your life?

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved