Easier Said Than Done

I have not posted in weeks. It has been years since I have gone this long without posting. But really, I did not know what to say. Back surgery recovery is going much slower than expected, and this is a blog about how yoga can help in life. But some days, that is easier said than done.

Breathing has been hard these past few weeks. Taking a deep breath actually hurts at times, and the fear that it will hurt stops me at other times. And yet breathing is exactly what calms the nerves, the very things causing the pain in the first place. And sometimes the fear just takes over, and the breath falls away.  

But there are moments when it comes back. There are moments when I talk to others I know in the legal community. In fact, over the past week, I have run into two people I know through yoga, and just their “coincidental” presence in my life has been soothing.

Healing takes time. While in some ways I am a very patient person, these past few months have shown anything but my patient side. Even when driving, or perhaps especially when driving, I find myself getting upset at the other drivers on the road and even yelling out loud at them. The daily stresses of life take over, and the calm, centered awareness of breath falls away.

Sometimes, it is simply easier said than done.

But the doing is absolutely vital. Taking that breath, and tuning in to what is underlying the stress and the anxiety is the most vital thing we can do to heal and move beyond our daily stress. It is very easy for people to say, “Just breathe.” I have been known to say it myself on occasion. But that simple statement presumes that taking a breath is going to be easy. It presumes that our stress does not feel stronger than the ability to breathe.

But sometimes the pain and the stress feel more powerful. Sometimes they take us to points we had no idea we could go. That does not mean that a breath is a bad idea. It just may mean it is the scariest thing we can do at the moment.

These past few weeks especially I have noticed how tight my belly muscles are, and not in the six-pack sort of way. Instead it is in the “I cannot take a deep belly breath” sort of way. Breathing too deeply into the lower belly, where every yoga teacher I have ever had says to focus the breath, is exactly across from the incision in my back. That is a very physical manifestation of the fear that sometimes arises when taking a deep breath. Going into the places our breath can take us can be scary. And that is why it is sometimes easier said than done to take our deepest breaths.

So what do we do in those moments? I do not know anyone that has never had them. I think the lesson I have had to learn the most is that it is actually okay to be in that space. It is okay to be afraid to take a breath sometimes.

My yoga practice both made that awareness difficult and possible. As a yoga teacher, I have this vision of myself that I should always be able to take a deep breath and relax. And as a yoga teacher, I know that it is important to accept ourselves exactly as we are in the moment. Only one of those is “right” in the sense that it comports with the truth of the universe. It is, of course, the latter of the two statements. But there is always the nagging former statement – the one where we try to live up to expectations that simply do not comport with reality.

As I sit here writing this I am actually breathing better than I have on my own in weeks. There is still hesitation as the breath moves into the back body. I would be lying if I said I am totally okay with it, but it is true that I am aware of it and learning to accept it. I am also learning to understand it.

Sometimes taking a breath is the most difficult thing we can do. But then you realize that accepting that fact is even more difficult. It is with the acceptance, however, that the breath becomes possible once again.

What do you do when the breath does not come? What arises for you when you struggle with the breath?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

Understanding Judgment

Prior to this post, the word judgment has appeared only eight times and in only four different posts on this blog. And only one of them, here, discusses how we judge other people. I know I write the blog, but even I am shocked by the fact that judgment has not graced it more often. After all, judgment is fundamental to both yoga and the law, albeit for different reasons.

Being a lawyer means thinking a lot about judgment and not only the day in law school when I realized it is not spelled judgement. That was a profound day but I digress. Of course judges are asked to make judgments. But so are lawyers. Our clients expect us to know how the judge is going to judge, but we also have to stand up in court and explain to the judge why the “other side” is wrong, or why our client’s “side” is right. There are few ways around it; the law is adversarial.

Yoga is the exact opposite. Yoga teaches us to notice without judgment, to simply listen. It is not good or bad whether we can touch our toes or stand on our head. It is not good or bad whether we can meditate for an hour or 30 seconds. It is not good or bad if we are angry or happy. It is not good or bad if you practice Bikram or Anusara. Yoga is about learning not to judge, about learning how to be with what is and notice what is. Yoga helps us see the entire situation, not just our mind's version of the situation.

On the mat, this non-judgment is about our inner selves. We turn our inner vision compassionately on where we are today. While our ego may tell us we should be able to go deeper into a posture or we should be able to stop the thoughts in our mind, I think many people understand how to be non-judgmental about what happens on the mat. Whether it happens in practice is another story, but this is why it is called a practice. We are practicing being less judgmental with ourselves on the mat, and over time, it gets easier.

As it gets easier on the mat, off the mat, we can turn this same non-judgmental, compassionate eye on our actions and interactions with other people. This is taking the practice to an entirely new level, but we start with friends and family, those with whom we can practice, and if we make a mistake, hopefully will forgive us. When someone treats us in ways that cause us harm, we can look at them non-judgmentally and compassionately and know that even if their actions cause us harm, the intent to cause harm may not have been there. A bad day can make even our best friends treat us in ways we would not like, and I know I have certainly treated people in ways I would rather not on my most difficult days.  

There is no question this is a difficult practice. It is very easy to get pulled into the downward spiral of the pain and to lash out in response. It is easy to judge the other person, and ourselves, for actions that cause pain. But as the on-the-mat lessons begin to permeate our daily lives, we can begin to notice that judgment in the moment. We can learn to recognize them and step out of them and see them for what they are - a bad day, or a miscommunication. This understanding provides the foundation for the compassion people need from us.

In short, yoga has helped me differentiate an action from a person’s core being. And as the practice has deepened, it expands beyond ourselves and our friends and family to strangers and even "adversaries."

There is nothing about lawyering that requires us to decide a person is bad. Nothing. But the adversarial nature of a courtroom makes it difficult to hold the entire story. While there are some amazing problem-solving courts in this country where the focus is not on punishment but on rehabilitation, the vast majority of our courts remain adversarial. In the criminal context, this means that people who commit crimes because of untreated mental health issues end up in prison.

Those mental health issues become important, and the defense attorney’s job is to bring them out, but the action is punished by jail or prison time. We ask twelve people who have never met the defendant to determine whether he or she is guilty based upon very simple elements of a crime. We ask them to judge.  We leave little room for the entire story.

I want to be clear that I do not think it is okay to kill people, rob people, etc. But as I said here, judging the person is difficult. Yoga has taught me that. And the law continues to require there to be judgment. On one level, I know this is necessary. Child abusers, while they may have been abused themselves as children, should not be around children until they can prove they will never again touch a child. But I have yet to figure out how to reconcile this with the non-judgment practice on the mat. Perhaps this is why this issue has graced the pages of this blog so infrequently. I have come to no conclusions.

I have learned so many lessons from law and yoga in my life. I have learned so much about how similar they are and how much they can enrich each other. But here I see a fundamental difference, and probably a necessary one. So I turn to you. I want to hear what you think. What do you do? What about you? Do you see a difference? How do you understand judgment in your life?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.