The Heart and the Head

A friend of mine posted a great article on Facebook called, “The Downside to Down Dog” asking the question, “what is Yoga?” Her answer is that it is the path of the heart. Then I was reading a blog post by Lissa Rankin entitled, “Can You Hear the Voice of Your Soul?” And next weekend, I am going to see a teacher who starts his teachings by bringing people into their heart.

I think the universe is trying to tell me something.

The very first “alternative” medicine person I saw (actually, he was not the first, but the first who made any sort of impression and really started me on whatever path I am currently on) told me I am 97% in my head and 3% in my body, and that it should be the opposite. Yoga has helped draw me down from my head, but at the end of the day, I spend a lot more time being a lawyer than I do practicing yoga. Thus, I spend a lot more time in my head than my heart.

But what would the legal profession look like if more lawyers lived from their hearts? I am not even talking about doing more heart-centered work. I mean connecting to the heart in any capacity. Lissa Rankin, the blogger above, is a doctor. I mentioned her book, Mind Over Medicine, in the post, The Power to Heal (I find it hard to believe that post was from July).

In law school, lawyers are taught to “think like a lawyer.” I am sure this means something different for everyone, but the Dean of my law school at that time said it meant to her that we should be the last people in a room to make up our mind about something. But she did not tell us whether that should come from the head or the heart. Law school, for me, was amazing. I loved it. But one piece of it always bothered me. We read cases in a textbook, and we discussed the legal issues involved. That was great. But there was always something missing, and I noticed it most often in my Torts class.

These were real people. These were real cases. Whether they happened in 2003 or 1893, these people were harmed. We once read a case about a man who was turned into, “a human cannonball” because of an explosion at a construction site. But we discussed the negligence, not the person what was seriously injured as a result. I know doctors have to go through similar training. Instead of discussing the person, they discuss the symptoms. A person becomes a diagnosis. In the psychological realm, people talk about someone being depressed, not having depression, but otherwise someone has a mental illness, such as schizophrenia.

I do not want this to sound like I prefer people to BE their diagnoses. I am just pointing out how we talk about issues and people in professions. So, in physical medicine, psychological medicine, and the legal profession, we talk about criteria and elements. There are elements to a crime just like there are criteria for diagnosis. But we never look past those definitions to the person. We live in our heads and ask whether someone meets that definition for, and then we act accordingly.

There is a pull between the legal world and the yoga world I have never discussed. In some ways, it is the most difficult one to address. On one hand, I live in the world of lawyers where everything needs to be relevant, and nothing is true unless you can prove it. On the other hand, I live in the world of yogis, in the heart, where we know something is true because we feel it. At some level, this represents the ongoing battles between political and religious foes.

But when I say “feel it,” I mean the deepest sense of knowing. I cannot think of anyone I have met who would deny that intuition exists. We all get “ick” feelings from certain people and situations. It is those ick factors that sometimes save our lives. We sidestep situations that just feel wrong. Although the 1990s were called “the decade of the brain,” we still know next to nothing about how it works. Science has not yet helped us understand this head we live in and the intuition that we cannot deny.

And I certainly do not claim to have all the answers. What I do know is that this push and pull between head and heart is really a non-dichotomy. They are really one and the same. The separation we pretend exists simply does not. Reading those cases in law school, although we never discussed the fact that people were hurt and maimed and harmed, our hearts saw it and knew it, and it affected all of us. There is no way to separate. We can listen more strongly to one or the other, but at the end of the day, they are the same Being.

And so, I continue to wonder – how can we be more explicit about the heart in more professional settings? There are so many ways, but I have heard before that the first step is admitting there is a problem. If we could recognize there is a lack of heart speak and understanding, perhaps we could begin to see a way to acknowledge what is already there.

What about you? Do you listen more to your head or your heart? Do you believe there is a difference?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2014, all rights reserved.

The post, The Heart and the Head, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

The Flowing Breath

It was my senior year in college when I really started doing yoga on my own. It was not until my first year in law school when I started going to classes, and it sort of became my life, but my senior year in college was the beginning of that path. I would practice in my living room with little more than a book to guide me (looking back, perhaps not the safest choice, but here we are).

Breathe is the most common label on this blog. And I have previously told the story of how I remember learning to breathe my senior year in college and how I then found my breath again in the mountains of Yellowstone. Nature has a way of bringing us back to our internal awareness and breath. Trees provide us with oxygen, and the Earth grounds us and heals us.

But we have the breath wherever we are, wherever we go, and in whatever we are doing. The breath can, therefore, heal from anywhere as long as we know how to find it.

Just knowing the breath is there does not mean we all know how to use it properly. In fact, I would think most of us do not. There is more to the breath than just trying to get as much air in as possible. I think I have finally realized this. When we try to take a deep breath with effort, we are actually fighting the breath rather than receiving the breath. And that is how so many of us try to breath, even when we think we are relaxing into the breath. We do not flow with the breath. We fight it.

The modern world does not make relaxing into the flow of the breath easy to do. Doctors and anyone else who studies anatomy (yoga teachers often included) know how the breath enters through the nose or mouth, travels down the windpipe, and goes into the lungs. The muscles of the diaphragm expand and contract the lungs for the breath. But that does not tell us how we can receive the breath. It tells us what muscles are used and where the breath goes.

Many people are stuck in fight or flight mode. Lawyers are particularly adept at this. We live in an adversarial world. When we spend our working hours thinking in an adversarial manner, it is difficult not to be adversarial with ourselves, even with our breath. We tense up our driving and computer muscles, furrow our brows, and forget what it means to be soft. And so we fight with the breath.

As you are reading this, notice if you are simply allowing the breath or if you think the breath needs to come differently. Even as I write it, I can feel the tension building at times. And when the breath becomes stilted and tense it stops being an avenue for healing and becomes an avenue to strengthen our patterns. We often talk about samskaras as mental patterns, and ways of being. But they work on our body similarly. We all have our own ways of walking and moving. Think about how you can tell someone walked in the room long before you see their face simply by how they move. When we hold our tension through our breath, we ingrain those patterns even more rather than relaxing into the healing power the breath can bring.

The breath can heal nearly anything. The stories of miracles I have read this year are long, and while there is a logical part of me that doubts it can happen to anyone, the yogi in me knows otherwise. I know the breath is capable of producing miracles. But we have to let the breath guide us instead of trying to guide the breath.

I just started reading a new book called, Awakening Somatic Intelligence: The Art and Practice of Embodied Mindfulness, by Risa Kaparo. I have read a lot about movement, somatics, and breathing, but this book puts it all together in a way I have never seen before. But the most important aspect it teaches is that we have to get our beliefs out of the way. We cannot understand the breath through our eyes or even our anatomical understanding. The only way we can understand the breath is by letting it teach us.

When I sit in a courtroom, I can feel all my tension patterns and can see everyone around me fall into theirs as well. Everyone’s breath tightens as we await whatever is going to happen. We rob ourselves of our own health in those moments.

What would happen if while sitting in incredibly stressful situations, we just listened to our breath? What would happen if we just allowed the breath to come? No force. No pain. No tension. Just allow it to come. That is how the breath flows. That is where healing can happen. But we have to get out of our own way.

It is amazing to think that almost 10 years after learning to breathe my senior year in college I still feel like just a beginner.

How about you? Where do you notice your breath?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2014, all rights reserved.

The post, The FlowingBreath, first appeared on Is YogaLegal.

The Words We Use

It is January 1. This means half the people we all know are full of New Year’s resolutions. There has always been a joke that most people do not last through January on their resolutions, and I never really understood why when I was growing up. I have come to realize it is because we have to be truly committed to the resolution. We have to recognize how it will actually help us and the world. We have to be invested in wanting something to be different.

I have written before about using intentions rather than resolutions. That still holds true for me. Intentions are about how we interact with the world less than they are about the outcome of that interaction. The same outside shape of the body can be used in gymnastics, acrobatics, and yoga, but the intention is different between the three. Our intentions are what define how we engage with ourselves and the world.

About a week ago, I was frustrated with a situation, and I mentioned that a person with whom I was interacting was useless. A friend caught me in that moment, and asked me to think about what I had said and how putting that energy into the world changes the actual structure of the world. What if I had not said that? Might the person have been more useful?

I hate gossip. I have not touched on this subject in over a year, but I did back in October 2012. At its root, gossip is about using our words to bring energy into the world that harms people. That may not be the intention of the gossip, but that is essentially what it does. It brings the energy of the words into existence.

But at another level, we need to vent. We need to talk about what is bothering us, or it can become even stronger and make us even crazier. Yoga has helped me see and understand how it is not the situation that causes problems so much as it is our response to the situation. But there is another level where we live in a very difficult, fast-paced world, and venting is sometimes necessary.

The other day I was frustrated by a situation, frustrated by a person involved in the situation, and I had been venting about it all day. But did I have to use the word, “worthless”? Is there another way to vent without bringing the negative energy into my being and the world? The underlying issue was that people were not getting what they needed, and I saw one person as the obstacle to them getting it. But the truth is that this one person is not the only problem. The issue is much larger, and my words did not reflect that.

The other place I see this play out is with sarcasm and jabs at people we all love. How is it that we have learned to interact with each other by poking fun at them? Although we may be joking (and I would argue there is always an underlying truth to what we say), the universe does not recognize tone. The energy of our words are the same regardless of the smirk or chuckle that accompanies them.

Sure, it can be easier to poke fun than to have a serious conversation. I am one of the first people to go there. But why? What purpose does it serve? Frankly, it keeps us at a distance from people. It is a way to interact without really having to interact. It is a disconnected connection, similar to facebook, but in-person. In fact, I see people being more honest on facebook sometimes than they are in person. It creates its own barrier, so we can be more honest. In-person, the only barrier we have is sarcasm.

A new year is just a reminder to stop and assess. Where are we on our paths? Are we open to new possibilities? Are we expressing ourselves as we want to be seen in the world? And if not, how can we change our expression? I think one of the best ways is to change the words we speak. Is that person useless? No. Is the situation frustrating? Yes. But I can ask myself what I can do to change it instead of just throwing up my arms and screaming.

Of course, I can never stop the water cooler gossip (does anyone actually talk to people around the water cooler at their office? I don’t!), but I can change how I speak. I can choose to use words that bring positive energy into the universe instead of negative energy. Will I be perfect? I am pretty sure the answer is no. But I do intend to change how I speak. In some ways it is a scary prospect. Our society is built on sarcasm, and the current non-stop political environment only fuels the flames, but we each can take a stand. A stand to be mindful of the words we use.

Are you in?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2014, all rights reserved.

The post, The Words We Use, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

The Shortest Day

Today in the northern hemisphere, it is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. That also translates to the darkest night of the year. There is so much written about the solstice that it is almost fruitless to add to it. But this year in particular I want to reach into the depths of what the winter solstice means.

The changing seasons are always a time to reflect on the circle of life, the ebb and flow of change, and the reminder that nothing stays the same – nothing. The only real guarantee we have in life is change.

The winter solstice in the northern hemisphere is a particularly interesting solstice every year. At a time when our bodies and minds want to curl up in front of a fire, eat some warming foods, and relax into stillness, we choose instead to participate in the most capitalistic of traditions. Even if you spend this time donating and sharing, you are still out in the world pushing hard. There is nothing inherently wrong with that; it is simply a recognition that our focus this time of year is radically different than what the season would ask of us.

It is no surprise, then, that this is also flu season. If we ask our bodies to use more energy than normal at a time when they have fewer reserves than normal, the outcome is going to be dis-ease. And I have thought about this a lot over the years, and I have asked myself how to do things differently. But this year I think I have realized there might be an underlying reason for this dichotomy this time of year.

We are running away.

The winter solstice is a time to remember what it means to live in the dark night of the soul. It brings us inward and wants us to let go of our attachment to this world. It reminds us of the struggles we face on our path to richness (not riches). And that can be a scary place to go. So instead we go to the mall.

But the winter solstice, with its darkness and cold, is simply a reminder to leave behind that which no longer serves us. It is a time to be introspective and quiet and leave everything in the darkness. The pagan tradition of Yule (upon which so many Christmas traditions are based) is a holiday celebrating the rebirth of the sun. Traditionally, a log is burned for 12 days. I do not know much about Yule, but that tradition seems like a great reminder to burn away the deadness within ourselves and to wake up to the rebirth of the sun and honor it.

The world is moving faster and faster. So few of us take the time to truly slow down. And I do not mean in one yoga class per week amidst a crazy schedule. I mean honestly stop and listen long enough to really hear what is happening. Instead we run from any opportunity to see ourselves as something other than productive. Lawyers love to talk about face time at work. Even if you work 30 hours per week at home, it does not count unless you are in the office. It means something to be there before the boss and to still be there when the boss leaves.

But at this time of year, are we really doing anyone, including our clients, any favors when we do that? How does it help anyone to ignore the pull of the season so strongly? Electricity was an amazing invention, and one for which I am personally grateful. But sometimes I wonder what we have lost as a result. It can be daytime anytime. It can be warm or cold any day of the year. The earth still ebbs and flows, but we are trying to reach a point of homeostasis where the ebb and flow of the seasons is more of an inconvenience than a reflection of how we should live our lives.

But as I watch the sun slowly come up this beautiful solstice morning, I wonder what would happen if we used today to simply be. Honestly, I know how hard that is. My plan for today was to take some work to the coffee shop. But today is the shortest day. It is a chance to say thank you to this darkening season and move into the lighter days. And not only do we know that our days our going to get lighter, but we can remember that our friends in the southern hemisphere are experiencing their longest day. No matter how dark it is, there is always light somewhere.

What do you do to reflect on the solstice?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, The Shortest Day, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Lawyers as Healers?

More than once on this blog I have talked about people in healing professions, particularly in the series on “Overcoming Crisis Mode.” But every time I write it, I sort of cringe. I wonder, do people believe lawyers can be in a healing profession? When I think of healing professions, I think of psychologists, massage therapists, social workers, acupuncturists, chiropractors, and sometimes, allopathic doctors. I might think of mediators, and some lawyers are mediators, but I do not usually think of lawyers.

And yet, I often consider myself in a healing profession. At least I wanted to be in one. But that begs the question, Can lawyers be in a healing profession? Can lawyers be healers?

First, what do lawyers do? In the broadest sense, lawyers help people solve problems. I could say the same thing about all the people mentioned above. But there is something else underlying the issue. Lawyers are often seen as the problem. You may have heard that lawyers have a bit of a reputation. Even though the reason lawyers exist is to solve problems, there are people who think we do it in a less-than-ideal fashion. We are in an adversarial system.

The adversarial system is just that, adversarial. It is not designed to be a healing process. There are certain paths of law, particularly restorative justice and Collaborative Law, that attempt to be more healing, but overall, the legal system is not one designed to bring people toward health. But by definition, anyone who is involved is dealing with some sort of crisis. And when people are in crisis, they need help overcoming those crises. The question is whether lawyers are properly trained to do that.

My intuition and yoga training tell me they are not. Lawyers are trained to “think like a lawyer.” What does that mean, you ask? It only sort of means learning to think like Perry Mason. What it means is that we are taught to look at everything with a rational and logical mindset. We are asked to see the world as though it can be reduced to elements and factors. What that means is that emotion should have no place in what we do.

And that, of course, means we cannot be healers, right? But go back and read that previous paragraph without the word lawyer in it. Put in the word doctor. Even put in the word psychiatrist. They have the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (now in its fifth edition) that reduces behaviors to a formula to then diagnose and treat, often with medication. I just started reading a book called, “The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog,” by Dr. Bruce Perry. In it, he tells a story of having to decide to drive a family home one night from therapy instead of allowing the family to wait in the frigid Chicago winter. He struggled not because he did not know the “right” thing to do, but because his training had taught him to be dispassionate and emotionally dissociated from his patients. His training taught him that driving them home was overstepping his boundaries.

And so it is with lawyers. And so it is with so many healing professionals. We are asked to do a little dance – take on just enough to understand and be empathic but not so much that we become so involved we lose sight of an objective view. And that leads me back to where I began – can lawyers, within an adversarial system, help people lead to healing? And perhaps the better question is, does it even matter? There are other professionals and people whose sole purpose is to bring healing to the world.  Why does it matter if lawyers are among them?

I expect there are few lawyers that are the source of why people heal. I expect there are many lawyers who are part of the reason. But I see one way lawyers can be a part of healing from the crisis, whatever that crisis is. And it goes directly to representing child clients. There are ongoing debates about lawyers who represent children. Should we represent their best interest? Should we represent their wishes? The arguments for and against each are long and involved, but one argument for client-directed representation has stuck with me over the years.

Allowing children to direct their lawyers gives them a voice in a process where they are often silenced. Some argue it puts them in the middle, and that can be true, but at the end of the day, the argument is that giving them the voice outweighs the negative effects it might create. And that, I believe, can be healing in and of itself. Research on adults involved in the justice system often shows that people just want to feel heard. They want to know they had “their day in court.” They just want to know the process was fair. Even if they end up “losing” their case, they always feel better if they feel their voice was heard.

And lawyers can offer that voice to our clients. In yoga, we often create a sacred space to help people find their voice. We create a place where people can go within and hear themselves, sometimes for the first time. And there is power in that space. There is healing that comes just from being able to speak and have someone listen. Lawyers are not, by any means, the only people who offer this space. But it is a powerful gift to offer and one that makes more sense knowing the strength of a yoga practice.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, Lawyers asHealers, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Thick Skin

We hear it a lot. It is supposed to be a sign of strength. Someone has a thick skin. But what does that really mean? We think it means they can handle whatever is thrown at them. We think it means words do not harm them. We think it means people do not take things personally.

But what does it really mean? What does it mean not to have thick skin?

Lawyers are simply expected to have a thick skin. Although all professionals have to learn some level of objectivity in their work, somehow lawyers are expected to be more stoic about it. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of types of law, but lawyers are often lumped into one category in terms of personality. We're supposed to be Type A, ruthless fighters who, by the way, have a thick skin. Lawyer ads exemplify this when lawyers are  compared to eagles and sharks and tigers. We are tough and often ruthless and definitely fight for our clients.

But that sort of mentality also comes with a price.

I know a lot of lawyers, and very few of them actually meet that description. But somehow deep down, I see a lot of lawyers think they have to meet that description. They feel they have to pretend to be strong even when the work is incredibly hard. They feel they have to push through pain, stress, fear, etc., just to show they are good enough to practice. They have to ignore the pain their clients feel because the law is reason devoid of emotion. That charade causes some people to disconnect from their true nature and forget that it is okay to be vulnerable. A thick skin is supposed to protect our inside from the harsh realities of the outside. 

And how do we show thick skin? Does it mean that we never sleep? Never take care of ourselves? Never show that we are upset? Never show that we need help? If we believe as a society that thick skin equals strength, does that mean those who do not have a thick skin are weak? 

At times, it seems as though that is exactly what the legal profession suggests. More than once, I have overheard lawyers telling stories - and laughing - about the person who cried on the witness stand. But when they tell those stories, I realize they are talking about the people I find the strongest in what they do. They are the ones I admire. I do not necessarily admire them because of their tears, but I know who they are discussing, and inevitably, it is the people I trust. Of course I trust people who do not cry, but tears are rarely a reason not to trust someone, particularly in certain types of work.

There is another aspect to a thick skin that involves not taking care of ourselves as we should. I have seen several articles floating around facebook about the vacation time Americans leave unused while the rest of the world uses every last day of it. And I have heard Americans call those people lazy. Interestingly, more and more people around the world are starting to follow the American model, which I do not understand, but it is happening nonetheless. Why do we feel this need to push ourselves and show everyone else how pushed we are? Why do we feel the need to never look "weak" in public? What part of taking a break, showing emotions, or even being vulnerable makes us so afraid?

I actually do not believe the biggest reason has to do with showing others how strong we are. It is that in some ways we actually feel less when we put on the thick skin charade, and in this world, that can have its advantages . . . in the short term. The world can be difficult to see. As news comes at us from all sides, we see the atrocities of the world from which we were able to hide only a generation ago. Being vulnerable to it is scary because it is scary to see the pain that others experience. When the Buddha first left his palace, he could not believe the horrors he saw. But then he decided to do something about it. He decided to show his followers a way through.

Similarly, yoga teaches us another way than believing we always need to have a thick skin. Yoga teaches us to be softer and more open to the possibility of feeling. And sometimes that can be scary. But arguably, in the long run, it also makes us stronger. Instead of hiding from the world in which we live, we learn to live within it and connect to people on deep levels.

And yoga shows us what strength is from a different point of view. We can be strong when we are vulnerable and scared and unsure. In fact, that is where our true strength lies. Our thick skin is no match to a yoga mat. On the mat, we cannot hide from ourselves, but it is the fact that we see everything about ourselves that makes us stronger. It often does not feel that way, but as we go deeper into our practice, we find a sense of strength we didn't know we had.

All too often, however, we think the true sign of strength is a thick skin. But that can cut us off from feeling anything at all. It can cut us off from the world around us. It can be important not to take what happens in our lives too personally, but the concept of a thick skin has moved us out of ourselves and into a world where the only way to be strong is to hide from what we are truly feeling. And that only leads to more dis-ease and distress later.

How often do you find yourself saying you have a thick skin? Has it served you? Are you willing to break it down and see something different?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The Post, Thick Skin, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Yoga, Pain, and Something Bigger

Over the past year, a lot of people have asked me, “shouldn’t yoga help your pain?” I have learned to try to just smile and nod. But a few times I have responded, “there is a chance yoga caused my pain.” Let me be clear before I go further. I still think yoga is amazing. I am not giving up being a yogi – in fact, I am teaching a restorative class next month. But yoga, as it is taught in the United States, is not the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

This is a shock to some people. William Broad took on the yoga establishment in 2012 with his book The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards. The yoga blogosphere would not stop talking about it for months. And he is back with another article in the New York Times titled, Women’s Flexibility is a Liability (In Yoga). And we can fight and argue until we are blue in the face (very yogic of us, I’m sure), but there is no question we have to be careful.

Let us examine for a minute what yoga is. First, on this blog, I hope I have been clear that yoga is not about asana. It is about a way of life. Yoga is about yamas and niyamas and breathing and meditation. Asana is a piece, but it is nothing more than a piece. And in my life recently, it has become even less of a piece of the yoga bundle. Yoga to many in the West, however, is exercise. When I used to tell people I was not in the best shape (I have never been a runner, for example), people would respond, “But you do yoga.” Sometimes I would get into the discussion about yoga not being exercise, but more often than not, I would simply nod and smile and move along.

Yoga in America and the rest of the Western world has taken on a feeling of gymnastics. It has permeated the gym culture and become a source of sweaty movement. That is fine for what it is, but it is not yoga. Even, or perhaps particularly, in asana, we must be aware and mindful of how we are moving, feeling, and changing. Vinyasa practices, for anyone except the super aware, take us out of that place. And please do not misunderstand. I LOVE vinyasa practices. I just realize now they may not love me.

And why do we love the sweaty movement of yoga? I personally think it has a lot to do with our culture. We like to feel like we are doing something good for ourselves while still “doing” something. I used to fall into that mindset as well – is it really beneficial if I do not move? I knew the answer was yes, but I still gravitated toward classes with vinyasa flows. I also did a lot of yin and restorative, now my only source of asana, but those classes were my dessert, not my daily practice.

People who know me outside of a blogger persona know I need to take a deep breath and calm down. I would expect that many of you reading this are in the same boat. This blog is, after all, for people in high stress places in life. So many of us have spent our lives looking for external gain – the good grades in school, the good university, the good graduate school, the good job, that we forget to stop and breathe, and before we know it we wake up, and we are stressed and sick and in our late 20s. Sound like anyone you know?

And big-money yoga took on this mentality. There is nothing inherently wrong with the yoga dominance. But there is a problem when it is causing harm, and we as yoga teachers ignore it. The yoga teachers I know do not ignore it. The yoga teachers I know tell me to come to class if the only thing I can do is lie in savasana and imagine myself in the various asanas. But I know there is a different culture out there. I see it in the discussions I have with people. I see it in the yoga ads. It is why I stopped my subscription to Yoga Journal.

So before everyone gets all up in arms about William Broad again, I think it is important to see how he ends the article. He does not tell people not to do yoga. In fact, he makes a very yogic statement, “Better to do yoga in moderation and listen carefully to your body. That temple, after all, is your best teacher.” Each and every body is different. We can look at every single skeleton and chart about muscles, ligaments, fascia, etc. we can find. But at the end of the day, those are guides. Incredibly useful guides, without which I would not want to be a yoga teacher, but nothing more than guides.

Some people have livers on the left side of their body. Some people have naturally fused vertebrae. Some people have hip sockets that misalign. Some people walk pigeon-toed. Some people . . .

So can yoga cause pain? Of course it can! Anyone who tells you otherwise is, frankly, dangerous. Can some people have a vinyasa practice for 20 years and feel great? I guess so. I’m skeptical of that, but I know people who have sworn by it for years. But they are also incredibly strong, incredibly attuned to their bodies, and most likely, incredibly lucky.

My yoga practice has taken a strange about-face turn. This year has turned my life upside down. But I’m slowly finding myself again, and moving again. And these days I understand my body better than ever and still do not understand the first thing about it. But that is the point. We have to be slow, understand what we are feeling, and move from there.

Making your first yoga class ever a vinyasa power class is not the way to do that. They may have their place for some people, but at the end of the day, they are simply not the answer for most people. And yes, that can cause pain. And yes, that is something the billion-dollar yoga industry does not want you to know. But guess what? Yoga is so much more. Through yoga, we can calm our nervous systems and begin to respond to life calmly. Through yoga, we can begin to understand ourselves better. Through yoga, we can begin to understand our relationships better. And as a dear friend keeps reminding me, through yoga, we can heal the world.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The Post, Yoga, Pain, and Something Bigger, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.