Forgiving Ourselves

 “We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” – Dalai Lama

I have posted several times before about this time of year. I was raised Jewish, and while now most of my practice comes from Yoga, the roots of Judaism are still there. And this time of year, the High Holy Days, is when I think about it the most. The period of time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is a time to reflect on how we have acted the past year, ask for forgiveness, and forgive those that have hurt us. I can think of no spiritual tradition that does not place forgiveness at the forefront of living a good life.

The legal world is not generally a place that forgives easily. In fact, we can be accountable for long periods of time for actions that occurred years ago. Interestingly, though, I work in one area of the law that starts by saying, we know what happened in the past, but it is time to move forward. The goal is to move on from the past and make the future a brighter place for children and families. That is a pretty amazing concept. I cannot say it always happens, but that is generally the goal at the outset. It is inspiring to see the times when it actually works out well, and families can move forward into a greater future.

But it takes a lot of work. Forgiveness and moving on are not traits that come easily to many of us. Yoga, however, can give us some tools for finding forgiveness and, sometimes more importantly, asking for forgiveness.

But there is no way we can offer our forgiveness to others until we find it within ourselves. The Dalai Lama, in the quote above, says it perfectly – we need to find our own peace, our own forgiveness, before there can be external peace and forgiveness. But how does that even look? Self-forgiveness is a difficult process, but it is fundamentally necessary to surviving in the world.

When we practice yoga, we are forced to look at ourselves head-on. We cannot hide who we are from ourselves. Instead, we slow down, and we turn inward. Yoga is not about getting fit. It is not about exercise. It is not about having a cute butt. Yoga is about coming face-to-face with who we are. A friend of mine posted a question on facebook. She asked, “Why am I brought to the depths of sorrow and tears near the end of each Yoga class?” I have posted before about how yoga is not always about making us feel awesome every single time we go to class. It is about understanding ourselves and discovering who we are. It is about seeing our true selves, not the mask, or masks, we share with the world.

And so, in many ways, yoga is about forgiving ourselves for pretending to be something we are not. We all have our masks. And everyone else shows us his or her masks as well. We live in a world where we hide who we truly are for fear of making someone angry or hurting someone’s feelings or even of just feeling different. But then our soul begins to react and get upset about our hiding it from the world. It begins to create dis-ease in our life. So, one of the answer’s to my friend’s question is that yoga brings us to this reality. It shows us what we have been hiding from the world, and the relief can come across as laughter, tears, and powerful emotions.

But after those emotions start to clear, we see our true selves. We can be with who we really are. And from there, we can begin to find the peace and forgiveness the Dalai Lama mentions. And once we are finally able to forgive ourselves, and see ourselves for who we really are – perfect beings on this turbulent ride called life – we can begin to forgive others and connect with them on a deeper and fuller level. No one is going to claim this is easy, but that is what makes this year so amazing. Just like Christmas is a day where you can smile at anyone, this time of year between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur has something in the air, even if you have never heard about these holidays before, so you have some support to start now.

How has yoga brought you to see yourself differently?

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, Forgiving Ourselves, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

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. 

Where's my Moment of Bliss?

I read a lot of stories about yoga. I read a lot of teacher bios. I try to never take a class without reading about the teacher. These yoga stories and teacher bios all seem to contain similar elements. They almost all begin with the “how I came to yoga” description. They also sound surprisingly familiar at times, and the story was reiterated by Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love.

The story is this: I went to my first yoga class for __________ reason. Sometimes, it is for exercise, sometimes it is for anxiety or depression, sometimes it is because someone forced you to go. I struggled through my first yoga class. I fell a lot. Downward facing dog felt like it was going to kill me. But I made it through the class! Then came savasana – corpse pose. And that is when I felt the shift. That is when I felt the yoga bliss!

Sound familiar?

I am not, in any way, deriding this. In many ways, my story is very similar. Except the last part – the bliss part. I feel as though I may have missed out. I think I remember my first yoga class, but that was not when I started doing yoga. I picked it up again in my sister-in-law’s living room, often with my 6-month-old nephew crawling under us while we were doing Downward facing dog (that will force you to stay in the pose). I practiced on my own, with books and sometimes friends, when I was in college and the following year. I started attending classes in a chiropractor’s office in Tucson before I finally worked up the courage to go to a real class in a real studio.

I do not remember my first moment of yoga bliss. I do not remember the first time everything became peace.

I eventually started attending those classes regularly. And that’s when I finally started to notice a difference. Over the years, there have been many moments of savasana relaxation, many moments of meditative contentment, and many moments that remind me why I return to the mat year after year. This blog was born in one of those moments, though arguably, it was not so peaceful if I was thinking during it, but alas, I seem to live in my head. That is a post for another day.

I guess what I am trying to say is not everyone has that one first moment. Not everyone goes to class once, struggles, and then ends in a state of nirvana. In fact, I doubt very many people actually do. And that is absolutely fine! Those moments still creep up on us, and they often happen when we least expect them. In many ways, that is what makes them so peaceful, so perfect. They surprise us and remind us the peace is the truth, and our racing minds are just in the way.

We all come to yoga for different reasons. We all continue practicing for different reasons. My nephew is now 10, and quickly moving toward 11. These ten years have changed me in ways I could not have even begun to imagine during those early days of learning. My life has taken paths I had no idea were even possible back then. And there have been many moments of peace throughout, but no, I cannot remember the first one.

But yoga has stuck with me. Sometimes it is more front-and-center in my life, and other times my practice takes a back seat. Sometimes I think about it more than I practice. Sometimes I can carry yoga with me in each moment, and other times I erupt in fury and stress-induced stomach pains. But yoga is always there. I always know it is the truth and the undercurrent of who we are and who I am.

And it is those moments of peace and contentment that keep us coming back. We have to know they exist. We have to know there is some benefit deeper than we ever thought possible. Those moments may not happen during our first savasana. They may not happen during our first year of practice. But they happen. And over time, they happen more often – when we take the time to practice. And then they begin to happen off the mat as well. 

And eventually they happen for more than a moment at a time. And that is the real practice of yoga.

Do you remember your first moment of peace and contentment? Do they happen often? Can you take them off the mat?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

Learning to Breathe . . . Again

On my 30^th birthday, I posted that after being lucky enough to focus on myself for the past decade, or so, it was time to focus on others. My new job (new back then), put me into that world full force. For the past 7.5 months, I have been representing children removed from their parents by child protective services. Intense is only the beginning. But it also means I get to serve children and families.

But focusing only on giving means the yoga bucket gets drained . . . and fast. I was lucky enough to be able to take a wee vacation. For a glorious week I was back among the mountains, and they looked substantially similar to the Remarkables in Queenstown, New Zealand. My four days in Queenstown were some of the most profound and moving of my time in New Zealand. If it is not abundantly obvious from previous posts, I love mountains. I also love trees. My trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Park was full of both.

The Grand Tetons

But it also brought me back to another aspect of yoga – the breath. Long before I started writing Is Yoga Legal, I had written another blog through Xanga (remember that company?). It was nothing special, and I believe I only shared it with my friends and only had about 6 posts total (whereas this is post 180 on this blog!). I cannot even find the posts I wrote for Xanga. But I remember one of them, and only one of them. Not surprisingly, it focused on the breath. I remember laying down one day and feeling as though I had finally learned to breathe. Those were my early days of yoga practice, about a decade ago. And it was a profound moment. It was the moment I realized how powerful such a simple movement can be. It was the moment I realized the healing potential of the breath.

The label, “breathe” is the most cited label on this blog. Breath is the foundation of all yoga. It brings us to awareness and helps us gauge how we feel and how we are currently functioning. It is a bit ironic, therefore, that my breath has shortened and become more shallow these past few months. I have noticed it even when actively practicing yoga, either at home or in a class.

But I took some time to get away. Interestingly, I went somewhere with a lot less oxygen than Tucson. The highest point you can drive in Yellowstone is 8,859 feet (2,700 metres). Our hotel was at over 8,000 feet (2,440 metres). I have never done well at high elevations, and the headache hit me pretty hard. In addition, I could feel my breath shortening as we went higher up.

But that was probably the best thing to happen. I had to pay attention to my breath. I had to pay attention because I needed all the oxygen I could get.

Paying attention was like relearning all over again. It seems almost silly to talk about learning to breathe. After all, our first action on this Earth is to inhale, and our last action is to exhale. The breath is usually completely unconscious. Our breath will happen whether we will it to or not. We can live days without water and weeks without food, but only a few minutes without the breath.

And yet, we can learn to harness the breath to our benefit. We can learn to make the breath work for us. We can learn to notice when we are holding the breath. We can learn to take deeper breaths. We can learn to use our diaphragm to breath and not our shoulders. In short, we can learn to breathe effectively.

Learning to breathe was the first indication I was on a yogic path. I remember the moment as though it were yesterday, which is surprising because, as I have mentioned before, I do not remember a lot. But learning and practicing are different things. Some days the breath comes easily, and other days it can be a struggle. Removing the oxygen from the air by going up mountains forces us to slow down and pay attention in order to ensure we get the oxygen we need. It forces us to relearn to breathe.

It was also a reminder that no matter how shallow the breath gets, we can always refocus and relearn to breathe whether the shallowness is from a lack of oxygen or a stressful day. We do not need to wait until it becomes painful to breathe to learn this lesson. Instead, we can take it with us every single day.

Have you taken the time to learn to breathe? What has been your greatest teacher?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

The Power of a Smile

How often do we talk about smiling? Phrases such as “Turn that frown upside down” are cute ways of telling us that smiling is better than frowning. There is controversy over whether it takes more muscles to smile than frown, but everyone has their version, and many like to share it. And of course, there is the old adage that we can “fake it til we make it.” In other words, we can make ourselves happier just by smiling. We talk about it a lot, but do we ever actually think about the power that a simple smile holds?

When I was in band in high school, my parents (and other band parents) would always come up to me after concerts to tell me how serious I looked. As some people got to know me better over the years, they even went so far as to tell me that I looked downright dangerous. I always just laughed. How serious could I really look? Once in a yoga class, I was in reclining virasana, one of my favorite poses, and I was happy as a clam. The teacher came over to ask me if I was ok. Apparently I did not look happy as a clam. It continues, and one of my current teachers now just walks over and places her hands on my head and says, “relax your brow.”

My response to these situations has changed over the years. As a high school musician, I was confused. Did I really look that bad? The first time in yoga, I tried to be serious about not being so serious. Now I just laugh.

When I teach, I tend to teach hard poses in a similar way. I start at the beginning, move through the pose step-by-step, and then just as everyone looks like they are struggling as much as they can, my instruction is nearly always the same, “now smile.” I have never really thought much about why I do that, but as I am being reminded more and more by the same teacher how serious I am, I have started to ponder the power of the smile.

First, there is some, actually a lot, of truth to the “fake it til you make it” mentality. Simply smiling really does release endorphins, which help us feel happier. Over time, we really can become happier. That is a powerful benefit, but it is not the only one. Smiling, especially in the midst of being tense, releases that tension. A smile can snap us out of a different state simply by being different. Finally, and this might be the best lesson for me, it reminds us to take ourselves less seriously.

I deal with a lot of serious stuff every day. I work with kids who have been removed by Child Protective Services. But even if your day job does not involve CPS, we all feel the seriousness of the world. There are wars raging, people starving, homeless people on the street, and whatever else the media wants to bombard us with. One of the only ways to remove ourselves from that onslaught of seriousness and unhappiness, is to break the cycle. Breaking the cycle starts with a smile. It is the antidote, the way to snap ourselves out of the collective serious world.

This is not to say that those issues should not be addressed in a serious way. In many ways, I find it difficult to smile in the face of so much distress, but then I remember that it might be the key to actually bringing light to those situations. We can start to break their cycle with a wee smile.

Smiles help us relax. Those endorphins do more than just make us happier. They actually help put us back on the path to overcome the fight or flight response. A smile breaks the stress cycle. Once we are able to break that stress cycle, we can begin to see the world from a more holistic vision. Stress gives us a very narrow focus – either run away from danger or freeze in its face. But once we break that cycle, other options open. A smile is the first step.

When I look back at my confused reaction in high school I wonder if I could have had more fun and been less singularly focused, would I have been a better musician? Maybe I would have actually gotten into music school? But then I would not be on this path, and that definitely is not something to smile about. I am happy to use it as a reference, and now those memories simply bring a smile to my face.

Who knew that such a simple act could be so powerful?

How have smiles helped you break cycles in your life? When is your favorite time to remind yourself to smile?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved. 

Finding Peace

September 21 is global peace day. This year, the organizers’ goal is for this year’s day “to be the largest reduction in global violence in recorded history, both domestically and internationally.” What an incredible vision. How amazing would it be if for one day, violence stopped . . . globally?

Many yoga studios take part in global peace day by getting together for an event called Global Mala. Started by Shiva Rhea, Global Mala events invite people to do 108 Sun Salutations or 108 chants. 108 is a sacred number, but I think there are 108, or more, reasons why that is. I participated in the 108 Sun Salutations in Tucson, Arizona two years ago, and this Saturday (yes, a few days late), I will participate in 108 here in Dunedin, New Zealand. As the world erupts in protests and suicide bombings and bigotry and hate, bringing a community together to celebrate and honor peace gives me hope.

So, September 21 is a wonderful opportunity to think about peace, to think about acting without violence, to think about ahimsa. It is a wonderful opportunity to imagine a peaceful world. It is a wonderful opportunity to imagine a world in which we honor and respect all people for who they are. It is a wonderful opportunity to look externally and imagine living among others peacefully. It is a beautiful vision, eh?

But are you willing to look inside? Are you willing to see peace within yourself? Are you willing to put aside that voice in your head that tells you every time you do something “wrong”?

Because there is absolutely no way to have external peace without internal peace.

For many of us, finding internal peace is much more difficult than imagining a peaceful world. We can look at the other side of the world and say “if only X happened,” the situation would get better. From the outside looking in, everyone seems to have their own answer for how to make the situation better. But when we turn that lens on ourselves, if we turn that lens on ourselves, we create every excuse in the book for how difficult it would be to find peace.

I do not have time. I am too tired. I tried X and it did not work. We believe external sources define our internal peace. I would have peace if I made more money, or if I worked fewer hours, or if my family stopped driving me crazy. Deep down we know these external factors do not define our peace. We know we could make the time if we wanted. So what stops us?

I wish I had an answer to that question. This week I began taking an Introduction to Meditation class. I have been introduced to meditation many, many times over the past ten years. I have tried numerous types and styles along the way. So what drew me to the class? Discipline. I wanted to be accountable to other people. I wanted to know others were there as well. I wanted to know I did not have to make the time and do the hard work on my own. Plus, I really like the teacher, and as someone once said to me, “you can never take too many introduction classes.”

And that is really the answer, isn’t it? We can never introduce ourselves to ourselves too many times. We can never work for internal peace too many different ways. The more we learn to find peace each day, the more we can share it with others. Sure, there will be days when it seems impossible. But those are the days you reach out for the support network, for your community. But over time it gets easier. Over time, you stop making excuses. Over time, if we all make time for our internal peace, our vision for global peace may just come true.

Will you take today to be peaceful to yourself? Can you stop your inner critic for just one day? Can you use today to begin a pattern?

May peace be with you!

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved