The News Dilemma

I used to be woefully ignorant of current events. I wanted to care about the world, but I did not particularly want to care about scandal and politics. When I got to college, there were plenty of late nights discussing issues, but I rarely went out of my way to read a newspaper, and I stopped watching television, so unless it reached me some other way, the news of the day passed me by.

All of that slowly began to change the first time I lived abroad in France. That was, after all, when the United States invaded Iraq. When my friend told me about “Freedom Fries,” I thought it was an Onion article, until I saw the French newscaster explain it on television that evening. Upon heading back to the United States, I paid a little more attention than before, but life got in the way, and then I was back in France without good internet and without a television. Other parts of life were more important – such as learning to speak French.

Law school changed all of that for me. I remember my first year of law school listening to a conversation about the Enron scandal and having almost no conception of what people were discussing. I had heard the names before, and I knew something big had happened, but somehow, I had missed the specifics. I felt woefully inadequate. I decided lawyers should understand the issues of the day; we need to know what is happening. We need to be “informed.”

I am now at the other end of the extreme. My RSS feed and facebook feed are full of news organizations and legal blogs. Even though, because of the time difference to New Zealand, I wake up around the time the news day ends on the east coast, I read the feeds from earliest to latest. I like to know how the news develops. I read stories about Herman Cain knowing that he will never be the Republican nominee. I just want to be “informed.”

So, what have I learned? The news is depressing. The news is mightily depressing.

The yoga and meditation community have a different take on “being informed” by news. DO NOT DO IT!!! Generally, the advice is to purposefully ignore it. Knowing all of the heartache, pain, destruction, and ridiculousness of the world is only a drain on your system. All that negative information causes your own body, mind, and soul to react negatively. I went to a Laughter Yoga Seminar yesterday evening (more on laughter yoga in another post), and one of the facilitators said she has consciously stopped watching and reading the news. She does not want the negativity. One of the participants added, “if you cannot change it, why let yourself be depressed by it?”

I felt my insides tighten. I know it is true that the depressing news just makes us more depressed. But at the same time, I refuse to by into the notion that we should shut it out completely. There are people who take news vacations, a day per week or a week per month where they tune out. That makes some sense, but what if there is another huge earthquake during that break? I do not want to not be able to reach out to friends and family anywhere in the world because I did not know about the news. I cannot imagine missing it, even for a day. 

But I also know how horrible, difficult, and depressing the news can be to read and see. From stories about war and famine, to stories about racial profiling and tea partiers cheering death, the media is not good about sharing the uplifting stories. It is easy to wonder if there are uplifting stories left.

I have waffled with these issues for years, wondering why I get more and more drawn in when I know it would be healthier to let go. Then last night I got an answer, and it was (perhaps ironically) from the person suggesting we should all just turn it off. Her statement, “ if you cannot change it, why let yourself be depressed by it?” made me realize that is why I watch the news. I may not be able to end poverty in Somalia, solve the middle east conflict (though I have an incredibly inspirational cousin working to do just that), or prevent racial profiling on planes in the United States. Chances are even better I cannot stop earthquakes, floods, and tornadoes.

But I can have compassion. I can tell hear and see their stories, share them with the world, and send metta, lovingkindness their way. I can ask that others do as well. The Quebecois have “Je me souviens (I remember)” on their licence plates, Jews say “Never Forget” about the Holocaust, and Hamlet’s Father’s Ghost begged Hamlet to never forget his story. This need to be heard, seen, and understood is deep.

That is why I read the news. That is why I share the stories. That is how we can hopefully all begin to understand one another. What began as a need to feel "informed" in order to be able to keep up with conversations among lawyers has become a need to feel connected to the world, connected to the people within it, and connected to their stories. Might it be possible for all these tragedies and wars and disasters bring us together enough to understand? I simply do not know. But I am going to continue trying to share stories and bring these issues to light. The more we see, the more we awaken to our deepest connections of humanity.

And just for my own sanity, one of these days, I may take up that idea of a news vacation.

What do you think? Have you given up the news? Do you seek it out? Why? Why not?

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, 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

A Web of Support

Moving to a new place means being alone. No matter how good you are at making friends and reaching out to people, there will be a few hours, days, perhaps weeks and months before you find a community. And this phenomenon does not only occur when you move to the other side of the world. It can happen when you move to a new community or even a new job. 

It can also happen when you start a new project. As much as I would love to think that my time here in New Zealand is all fun and games, I am officially here to write a thesis. I have written a long paper before, but never one this long; it is officially supposed to be about 45,000 words, which is approximately 150 pages. During my first meeting with my advisor, he suggested I include a survey. Lawyers, however, are not trained researchers. Finally, my advisor is awesome, but he is also incredibly busy, so asking loads of questions along the way is sort of out of the question.

This was not going to be easy.

But then I remembered all the yoga training, all the posts about community building, practicing together so we do not feel alone, and learning from teachers and each other along the way. While traditional yogis learned from one teacher, today people often go to yoga classes with many different teachers, sometimes choosing them simply based on the best time slot (or was that just me?). Eventually, you find the teachers that speak to you most profoundly, but it does not mean you stop going to other classes.

There are advantages to this approach. It results in a web of support rather than one person upon whom you always rely. I have learned so much from a variety of yoga teachers, from Tucson Yoga, where I first started attending classes, to Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, where I did my teacher training, to the Dunedin Yoga Studio, where I have found a lovely and amazing yoga community here in New Zealand. Each place has offered its teachers, its classes, and its support. Instead of a specific “brand” of yoga, I took bits and pieces along the way that worked for me.

But a thesis is not yoga, or is it? If there is one constant about doing research and writing long papers, it is that it is a lonely, lonely process. I spend most of my day with my back to a window staring at a computer screen. The survey had hiccups along the way, but several people, including lawyers, professors, and judges helped ensure it was possible. I began to understand the need for a vast network of support in this process, but it became even more clear last week.

Last Friday I presented a short seminar on my research during which it became abundantly clear that somewhere along the way, I had missed something. In many ways, I had missed the core of the thesis, the thread to hold it all together.

Did I mention that I need to submit in about 2 months?

But that is when the universe reminded me of the support structures I have built here, and many of those people offered their help and support. By Monday, not only had I found that thread, but I became confident that this thesis can get done, and it might just be worthwhile.

There is no way it could have been done without the support. I got to thinking about all the people who have helped me along the way this year, just writing the thesis, other than my advisor. The list was over 20 people long. I am grateful to each and every one of them.

Life in the modern world is often lonely. We think we have to “do it all” alone, whether at our jobs or in our lives. We think that if we just work harder, push a little bit more, or stay awake just a little bit later, everything can get done. But deep down we know that is not true. Here, the legal profession agrees with the modern approach to yoga; we call this vast array of teachers mentors. Finding a mentor is the surest way to know that you have support whenever you need it, for those moments when you think you have completely lost your way.

There will be times when we feel like we cannot keep going, and our primary support may not be available, but if we have a web, if we have that community, we can find the strength, and the inspiration, to keep on going. We need to reach out and build that support network early.

I have a long list of people to thank right now for helping me find my path again. I have only been in New Zealand for seven months, and I have made a lot of mistakes here, but one thing I know I did right was building the support network.

Have you built yours? Have you thanked the people in it? 

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

Stop and Breathe

Stop. For just a moment, stop. Before you read any further, stop and take a breath.

Now take another one.

Now take a slightly deeper breath.

Ok, keep reading.

Regular readers of this blog will know the breath makes an appearance fairly frequently.  The first act we take as independent human beings is to breathe in (and usually start screaming), and the last act we take is to exhale. In between, we inhale and exhale billions of times.

So, if the breath is such a natural occurrence, and one that happens whether we think about it or not, why should we stop and notice? Why should we care?

The breath can serve two main functions besides simply bringing oxygen physically into our lungs. First, it can indicate how we are feeling and coping. Second, it can change our physiology and help us create more calm. And the best part about bringing awareness to the breath is that you can do it anywhere and anytime. Sitting at your desk slumped over a computer? Notice your breath. In a tense meeting? Notice your breath. Out walking on a beautiful spring afternoon? Notice your breath.

But this post is part of the series At The Desk because it is at a desk where so many of us spend so much of our time today. But no matter what we are wearing, who is around, or how much time we have, we can use the breath to tell us how we are doing and use it to calm us, release pain, and give us strength to move forward.

Practically speaking, here are some questions you can ask yourself about your breath at any time:

• Is my breath deep or shallow?
• Is the breath slow or quick?
• Am I breathing into my shoulders? My lungs? My abdomen?
• Is it easier to breathe in or out?
• It is easier to breathe through my left or right nostril?

There is no right or wrong answers to these questions. It is just an opportunity to notice the breath, to notice the state of your greatest teacher. From there, you may notice that you are holding tension in one part of your body, or that your breath is shallow because you are stressed or worried. You may notice that you are breathing deeply and fully and loving life at that moment. The important thing is just to notice.

If you notice that the breath is shallow and quick, and you also have a worried and fast-paced mind, you can modify the breath to help bring you calm. The greatest part is that this practice is incredibly simple. In our hurried lives, it may be easy to relearn how to bring conscious awareness and modification to the breath, but it absolutely can be done . . . by anyone.

The steps are simple. Slow down. Breathe into the abdomen. Exhale fully. Repeat.

Even taking five conscious breaths will help calm the mind and body and bring focus back to your work or wherever you are. I encourage you to start with 5 deep, conscious breaths every other hour. Discover what works for you, and before you know it, you may be bringing conscious awareness to your breath throughout the day.

Do you take time for the breath during the day?

Namaste!

Stop and Breathe is part of the series At the Desk, which focuses on practical tips from the yoga world (and other interesting finds) to help those of us stuck at the desk all day long. If you are interested in other tips, click the label “At the Desk,” and if you have any specific questions you would like to see discussed, send them my way.

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

When the going gets really tough . . . we still have a choice

In the last post, I talked about how the snow here in Dunedin helped me see how important it is to prepare and how much our response to events influences our understanding of those events. As I mentioned, the post was not only inspired by the snow but also by a film I saw. At first I wanted to put them in one post, but there is no way to compare a snowy day to what the film portrayed. I have been thinking about the film all week, and I finally have the words to put down about its impact on me and what I think it has to teach us about yoga in everyday life.

The film is called "Brother Number One," and it is a documentary about a New Zealander who accidentally drifted into the waters of Cambodia during the reign of the Khmer Rouge regime. He was taken as a prisoner, tortured, forced to confess, and eventually killed. It was gut wrenching, and I was openly weeping, as were many others, even though there was not one scene of violence, and only a few grotesque pictures during the entire movie. I’m really hoping the film makes it to the United States and around the world. I highly recommend you see it. Here is a link to the film's website, and here is a link to their facebook page.

The last post was about snow and a yoga reminder that we can face just about any challenge life throws our way if we prepare for it and confront it with joy and wonder rather than fear and anguish. I thought about that as I walked out of the film into the snow. I had decided not to drive into town that day, but that meant taking a bus home, and the buses going up the hills were cancelled. I was irritated that I would have to walk up the hill, in snow. Then I caught myself. I just watched a film about torture, and I was concerned about walking up a hill? This is no small hill, but it still seemed petty after the film. It was not until the next day that I had my fun in the snow walking back down that hill.

So, when life throws us snow, or other minor issues, it is easy to say “be prepared,” and confront those situations with openness. But what about real torture? What about those situations that go to the core of our being set on destroying us? Remarkably, even in those situations, we have a choice. We can still choose how to respond.

Perhaps the most moving part of the film was when we got to see the “confession” of the tortured Kiwi. The Khmer Rouge required him to confess that he was a member of the CIA and/or KGB (honestly as I think about it, I cannot remember which one because the confessions were always about one or the other or both). In this “confession,” he wrote about learning spy techniques from Colonel Sanders and about his commander S. Tarr (his mother’s name was Esther). This man, while being physically and emotionally tortured, found a way to make a few jokes and pay tribute to those he loved. The Khmer Rouge were oblivious to his humor, yet I find myself thinking that he relished in it. He could play his own game, get outside of the horrific situation and embrace his inner self. It is impossible not to compare these actions to those of Viktor Frankl during the Holocaust.

And speaking of the Holocaust, that is my own family’s history. I have one remaining great, great aunt who was in Auschwitz, and many members of her generation died at the hands of the Nazis. I have visited Auschwitz. But to tell you the truth, I had almost no emotional reaction there. Instead, I cried while walking through Anne Frank’s house. The enormity of a situation is hard to conceive, but one person, one story, touches us in different ways.

These individual stories, from humoristic confessions to a grown man finding his peace amidst the horrors of concentration camps, to a young girl grappling with looking for the good in all people while hiding from the darkest side of humanity, remind us that even in these situations, our response remains within our control. The documentary reminded me that we all have capacities beyond that which we consciously know.

These stories, while painful and inspiring all at the same time, are not to show us that these responses are easy. But they are possible. Personally, I would rather come to know these capacities through yoga and Antarctic winds than torture or even disease. When we take the time to do yoga, to meditate, to be conscious of our responses to the little things in life, we train ourselves to be conscious of our responses to the harder parts of life. Learning to respond is like a muscle that can get stronger with use. Each time we stop and respond rather than react, we remind our conscious and unconscious selves that it is possible.

I am grateful to this film for this reminder. I hope the story can spread. And I hope we can all use it as a kickstart to begin being more mindful of our reactions and responses to that which annoys us, or worse, in our everyday lives.

Do you try to respond consciously to situations in life?

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

Snow in August

I promise this blog is not going to become a weather report between this post and the one about Frost in June, but these have been big events for me. This time, it is not about respecting our limits (though I still keep saying and thinking that it is December), but actually about seeing our ability to handle what is thrown our way by entering the world as it is rather than what our imaginations make us think it might be.

Yesterday morning I awoke to not only snow-covered Dunedin but “bitter cold southerly gales.” Kiwis know that a “southerly” means the wind is coming straight from Antarctica. There is no land to warm it up between the icy desert and a little town called Dunedin. In other words, it is cold and fierce. But I had to get to town for something. So, I bundled up; I put on my waterproof pants, my hiking shoes, my brand-new thermal jersey, my merino jersey, my awesome winter coat, and I even learned to use the hood on the coat to keep it on even in the crazy wind. In other words, I prepared. But I was nervous.

Before leaving the house, all I had to go by was a weather report online and snow-covered streets and footpaths (sidewalks) as far as the eye could see. I imagined how bad it was out there, how terrible it would feel to be there, and how much I just wanted to stay inside where it was warm(er). (New Zealand is not well known for its indoor heating; that’s my judicious way of saying how obscenely cold it is inside here.) Yup, the imagination is a powerful tool. But I put on the proper clothes and walked out the door.

This is the first hill I walked down. I live just at the top there.

And this is the hill I had to walk down. Beautiful view of snow covered Dunedin, eh? (And no, the buses were not running.)

Guess what? By the time I made it to the university (over an hour later), I was sweating and also had some fun!

Halfway down the hill, I realized something important as I was laughing at myself and enjoying the snow. I realized preparation and mindset make the difference. When we are prepared, we can handle just about anything life throws our way. It means we do not have to let stress and fear determine our lives. Our state of mind allows us to determine our response to our situations rather than allowing the situations to run our lives.

This is never more apparent to me than every six months watching the bar exam ritual. The bar exam is the legal version of hazing. I remember the summer of study when stress took over peoples’ lives, when imaginations ran wild with all sorts of ways to fail. Many people do not sleep the night before the exam. Some people pass out during the exam. People get so worked up and nervous about the exam they forget how much they actually know. They forget how prepared they really are.

Life can throw any number of situations at us. From little quibbles with our friends, families, and colleagues to unprecedented weather situations. We can, of course, ruminate on these situations, think about them and how terrible they could be or could become. But we can also throw on a few layers of preparation and walk out the door.

Yoga is one way to help prepare us for those times in life when simply putting on a few layers and a windproof jacket are not enough. It helps us slow down, take a step back, and meet each situation as it is rather than as we imagine it to be. Yoga, through our breath and attention to our bodies at individual moments, provides us the insight for being with life rather than with our crazy versions of all the ills that might occur.

After all, when you walk out the door, you may just find that things are a lot more enjoyable than you had expected.

Namaste.

Postscript: This post was dually inspired – partly by the snow and also partly by a film I saw. I could not put them in the same post because of a) length and b) the film confronts torture, not snow, and I want to write about it on its own terms. That will be the content of the next post.

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved

Being Careful with Words

I love words. I am really only starting to understand this phenomenon in my life, but I love them. Perhaps it stems from reading and writing about philosophy in my 6^th grade research project. Perhaps it stems from learning French and majoring in Comparative Literature and French and living in France two different times. Perhaps it stems from living in a house with 6 people, 3 of whom were either linguists or closely related and another one whose vocabulary rivals the Oxford English Dictionary. Perhaps it is even why I went to law school and probably why I blog. Yes, words are important in my life.

The more I realize how important words are, the more I realize how careful we must be with them. While the exact percentage changes every time I see it, there is no question that the vast majority of our communication remains non-verbal. So as wonderful as words are, they are never the entire story. Thus, words on a page can be misinterpreted. They can be read with a tone not intended by the writer. This is part of the phenomenon that leads to the Downward Spiral of Email.

But there is another problem with words. We assume that they have one meaning, when in reality they can have different meanings in different languages, but sometimes in the same language but across countries. When living in France, I expected this would be a problem. We spent some time learning about les faux amies – “false friends” – words that look the same between the languages but have very different meanings.

My favorite example is the English word preservatives. While in English, this is something that is put into our “food,” in French, the word “preservatif” is the word for condom. This creates a slight problem for American students who head to France and inform their French host families and friends that they love France because there are no “preservatifs” in the food. You can imagine the look of surprise. Luckily, we were forewarned, so I did not make that mistake – came close at least once though.

I knew there were differences between English around the globe as well. When teaching in France, a French student once asked an English woman and me if we spoke the same language, and we just laughed. Examples? I learned not to tell her that I was pissed when I was around children, but to say pissed off (not at the children, do not worry, but at a situation in which I found myself where children were also present). I also learned that pants means something different, and I should use the word trousers when stating that they can be worn more than once. And to stay on the French topic, the one word I would not teach the French children was rubber, the Commonwealth word for what those in the United States would call an eraser. Are you noticing a theme to these words?

But I thought I knew them all when I came here to New Zealand. I thought I would be able to communicate effectively. Before arriving in the country, however, a friend who had spent substantial time in Australia warned me that you do not root for teams on this side of the Pacific – rooting has a very different meaning.

What does this look at words have to do with law? With yoga? I hope it is a reminder that we cannot just assume that people understand us. We cannot assume that what we think others are communicating is really what they mean. Yes, it is much quicker and easier to assume that our interpretation is correct and that others will somehow magically understand us, but that is not how the world works.  Unfortunately, the modern world requires us to move faster and faster, taking less time to ask questions, less time to clarify, and less time to actually have the face-to-face interactions that help minimize (though not eradicate) miscommunications.

Yoga off the mat means reflecting on these issues. While there are sometimes humorous interactions, believe me, there are also disastrous ones. Miscommunications become misunderstandings, which become downward spirals, which become intense dislike. But a few moments of awareness and clarification can help alleviate this problem. A few moments of yoga off the mat can ensure that we are communicating as well as we can and not gaining the essence of words rather than a knee-jerk reaction and assumption to what is happening around us.

Where have you most noticed miscommunication in your life? How have you tried to alleviate it?

Namaste!

© 2011 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved