Finding the Heart

I do not usually like to point out on the blog when it has been so long since I have posted, but right now feels like the right time to do just that. The reason is because it has felt fake to write about health and healing when my body so often feels like it is giving out. It feels disingenuous to write about breathing when I fear taking a deep breath because I do not know if it will send shooting pain down one, or both, legs. And ever since a dear friend took her own life because of chronic pain, this blog just seemed a little ridiculous.

Until now.

Recently I began doing work that focuses almost exclusively on being in the heart. Yoga has always helped me turn inward, but this specific practice focuses exclusively on the heart. 

Physically I see people close off their hearts all the time. We sit at computers with stooped shoulders, tightening our chests and making it impossible to breathe into the heart space. I used to think, therefore, that the easiest way into the heart was to open that space. I used to think that meant backbends and lifting the heart toward the ceiling.

But then I found a quiet practice of turning inward. By no means have I mastered the art of living from the heart space. In fact, I have not even mastered the art of understanding what it is telling me. But I have learned two valuable lessons. First, we can only live from the heart by getting quiet. And second, the heart holds the answers.

As a society we spend so much time rationalizing what we do. We think through problems and ideas and hope that we get the answers through logic. We trust medicine and science as though they hold the answers to everything when in reality they are art forms And when these systems fail, we are told there is nothing to be done. Issues become chronic. They become chronic until they are not . . . and the research on this is in the book Mind Over Medicine, discussed on this blog here.

Closing off the heart is not only physical. It is something we do because we do not live in a society that promotes opening it up. We are told to ignore what it tells us and to listen to logic; we are told to be logical. Yoga is okay as long as we talk about anatomy, but are we really able to go deeper? Maybe for brief moments, but are we able to take the plunge and live there? When we close off the heart, we close off our connection and our chance to move forward. And it takes more than stretching it out and lifting it up. It takes slowing down enough to listen.

I have failed on this blog to speak from the heart at times. There were moments where I tried, but most of them involved living through a natural disaster.  But on the day of the Christchurch earthquake, I saw community. I saw people coming together because they wanted stability. But nowhere did I mention heart on that post. Looking back, that is what I saw that day, but I was not ready to share those words here yet. Almost 3.5 years later, and I finally understand that what happens when we are shaken to our core by disaster is that we become vulnerable. And when we become vulnerable and scared, and before our rational minds kick back into gear, we listen to our hearts. And that is when we connect. There are studies that people do better in natural disasters and even war zones than they do when being neglected. The reason is because people support each other through war zones and natural disasters whereas the very definition of neglect is a lack of support. 

This has always intrigued me intellectually, but it also pains me. I see this neglect every single day. And I remember the trauma from the earthquake, but much more than that, I remember being in my heart that day. There are so many people doing amazing heart work in the world, but it is isolated, and often done in secret, because these are not issues we can discuss in public. The heart is the antithesis of rational, so therefore the heart, we are told, cannot be rational. I think we are wrong. I think the only thing we can trust is the heart. Not our whims, our heart. And that takes true listening. That takes understanding.

From now on, this blog will be written more from the heart. It will be about learning to come inward, learning to find true compassion, and learning to listen to that which can help lead us to a better world. I started this blog because I instinctively knew lawyers needed yoga. I write it as academically and as formal as I can in order to make it sound smart and have lawyers and other professionals take it seriously. Also, that is how I talk (yeah, I’m a nerd).

I always thought it would be too much to write from the heart, to tell stories, and to connect for real. I was scared people would not take heart-centered discussion seriously. But that is all yoga is. In Chinese medicine the center of the body is around the belly because when doing Chinese practices, we stand. But in yoga, the center of the body is in the heart because when we meditate, which is the truest form of yoga, we sit. And when we sit, the heart is our center. 

The question, I guess, is whether people will jump off this bridge with me? It is not going to be easy for me. I can talk about anatomy and stability and even community. But the heart, in all its glory, has always been a little off limits. But if there is anything that makes yoga real and powerful, it is that it helps us drop down and into a place of listening. And when we truly listen, we find our heart. And when we find our heart it guides us somewhere great.

Is anyone willing to join me?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2014, all rights reserved.

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

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.

Finding Your Voice

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

And yet, I cannot find the words.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Namaste.

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, Finding Your Voice, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Good Guy Bad Guy

I just returned from attending another conference, and this one was focused almost exclusively on child abuse and maltreatment. It took place in Las Vegas. Let me just say that a conference with a focus on such difficult and heart wrenching topics really needs to be in a place where people can escape for some quiet time. Vegas is not that place. They blast music onto the streets. There were so many people we had to wait in line to get out of the Bellagio. It was an incredible conference, but I’m happy to be home!

On the last day of the conference, I attended a 3-hour presentation on child sex trafficking. Of course, as the speaker reminded us, we should really be calling it child prostitution. That is what it is. Trafficking sounds less bad, but it’s child prostitution, and yes it happens in the United States. And there is nothing ok about child prostitution. But something struck me during the presentation that made my yoga mind hesitate.

The speaker continuously referred to the perpetrators as bad guys. He often referred to himself as the good guy.

I want to reiterate that I find nothing good about child prostitution. But I also cannot wrap my head around this good guy vs. bad guy scenario. We all know it is child abusers who get treated the worst in prisons. There is something different about child abuse, particularly about child sexual abuse, than just about any other crime.

I have written about this issue before – “When we Dehumanize the Dehumanizer.” That post was also written after attending a conference about child abuse (a different conference, but both were great). And 1.5 years later I still find myself struggling with this issue. I still cannot find myself buying into the good guy vs. bad guy mentality.

Last time I mentioned Gandhi’s quote, “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” But I think there is more to it than that, something deeper and more profound. We are all connected. I have known this my entire life. It was not until I started doing yoga, however, that I realized there were other people who realized it as well. Thus, if I consider someone else a bad guy, what does that make my connection to him or her? Because whether I like it or not, I am connected to that person even if we are never in the same room.

I still think we do better by addressing the actions as the problem rather than the person as the problem. We may be able to make the actions stop. But if instead we speak ill of people, then we begin to say there are people who are less than. That is dangerous because it has no end. At what point does our judgment stop? Perhaps child sexual abuse is the “easy” example, but if we start there, where does it stop?

I still do not have the complete answers to this. I struggle with seeing the way humans treat other humans, whether as child abuse, war, or bigotry. It hurts to see on any level. But I wonder whether we accomplish any good, or whether we create far more harm, when we talk about good guys and bad guys.

When I was a camp counselor many years ago, I remember in our training on discipline, we were told never to tell a child he or she was bad. We could say the action was not right or even bad, but the child never was. I know there are a lot of people who think that sort of parenting/discipline is not strong enough, but I can say I never had to call parents on my campers. It worked. I do not know if it works everywhere, but it worked for me there. I see no difference with any action, no matter how abhorrent.

And now, because of my yoga training, I can understand why. As soon as I begin to judge others, I judge myself. We are deeply connected, and whatever I say and do will definitely come back.

What do you think? Do you talk about people as good or bad? What are the repercussions if we do?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2013, all rights reserved.

The post, Good Guy Bad Guy, first appeared on Is Yoga Legal.

Compassion, Gratitude, and Vulnerability

I have to tell you about two amazing people. One is seven years old, and the other is her mom. They live in New York. And not too long ago the 7-year-old had to stay home for a while because she was sick. Her mom stayed with her, and together they started Lovey Repair. Their “business” was recently featured on a NYTimes blog post. The title of the post is, “A Repaired Lovey, and a Debt Unrepaid.” So what is the business? They sew up old Loveys, or stuffed animals, pillows, etc. that have been a little too well loved and send them back to their owners all better and refreshed.

The catch? Their service is free. Mom tells daughter, “It’s a priceless business, lovey repair.” Wow! How awesome is that? Just a kind gesture to anyone who needs some extra love returned to their lives.

But it seems this may be also difficult for some people to accept. Perhaps most of us even? The author of the post was worried the duo would be inundated with requests, but Mom replied, “It always seems to work itself out.. The not charging thing actually can freak people out — I think there’s a security in the quid pro quo of capitalism that some people need.” The author wrote:

I think I would have been that person: if I had realized I was asking a total stranger for a favor, would I have really asked? It’s difficult enough to ask a friend for a favor. When I realized I couldn’t “repay” little pillow’s rescuers, I didn’t know how to feel. Gratitude, completely without connection, is an unfamiliar emotion, a little uncomfortable, and a little freeing.

Why is it so hard for us to accept favors? Why are we so afraid to allow people into our lives? Why does it matter that the people are friends or strangers?

I firmly believe that every person in the world should be required to live in a country where they do not speak the language as their primary language for a minimum of 3 months. And no, I do not actually think there is any entity in the world that could, or should, enforce this, but it is a dream nonetheless. Why? Part of the reason is so that we better understand one another. But more and more I have come to realize that one of the greatest benefits I gained from living abroad was the ability to be vulnerable, ask for help, and accept a welcoming gesture.

My first week living in France, I had just turned 21 (literally, I turned 21 exactly one week after arriving in the country), and I was going to Marseille from Aix-en-Provence with some new friends who were also in France on an educational exchange. I was a bit late, and of course I could not find the bus stop. I had spent years learning French and two years practicing it fairly intensely in college. I was scared to death to ask someone for directions. But eventually I did. And I found my bus, went to Marseille, and I had a lovely day. Taking that first step to open my mouth, unsure of whether someone else would understand me and unsure whether I would understand the response was one of the hardest things I did while living there. 

We put up barriers to other people for a variety of reasons. I can think of a few, and maybe you can think of plenty more. I think we do it because we are scared they will let us down, we are scared we will look weak, because we think we live in a zero-sum world where if we admit weakness everything is over, or because we are taught to do everything on our own. But with those barriers comes a sense of being stuck. Those barriers prevent us from our full potential. It is part of of many yoga paradoxes that giving ourselves support actually helps us go deeper into asanas.

These barriers we erect, whether a fear of accepting a gift or something else, stop us from connecting with one another, asking for help, and ultimately reaching our fullest and deepest selves. We cannot move beyond these barriers until we let ourselves be vulnerable. Sometimes we do that on purpose by going to a foreign country and looking for a bus, and other times that vulnerability falls in our lap by a 7-year-old girl and her mother repairing a loved and cherished friend without asking for anything in return.

And when we finally let others in, we find a deep sense of gratitude, which, as the blogger wrote, is ultimately freeing. As Pema Chodron said in the quote at the top of the last post, “Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” But our shared humanity is lost when we keep up the barriers. Lovey Repair is an example of compassion in action. Without regard to the recipient’s state in any way, the two of them just offer a little needed love. It is the acceptance of that love that seems to be difficult for people. Why should I accept something that is free? Doesn’t everything come with a cost? If I get something for free, am I going to have to repay it later at a higher cost?

Perhaps the cost here is the vulnerability. In many ways, it is easier to hand over cash than to let go of a little piece of ourselves. That is a huge step for many of us. But it is also a vital step. We are so good at hiding behind emails that get inappropriate and out of control, our own beliefs about why we are right, and all the other ways we block ourselves from connecting to others. But as the blogger noted, allowing that vulnerability in is “refreshing.” It can wake us up to our humanity in ways we simply cannot access elsewhere.

And yes, yoga is another perfect opportunity to find this sense of vulnerability. There are so many practices for opening up our compassion and our shared humanity. Those are posts for another day. But the first step is letting go of our ingrained views about how things should be. Instead, accept a helping hand when it is offered. Sometimes, all we need to do is say thank you. And sometimes that is the most difficult step.

Thank you, Lovey Repair, not only for the repairs, but for bringing a little slice of true compassion and gratitude into the world.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

What it Means to Never Forget

Today is September 11. Like most people over 15, especially in the United States, I distinctly remember September 11, 2001. I remember the phone call from my mother telling me to turn on the television. I remember watching the first tower fall and then going to class – creative writing. I remember walking out of class hearing that the second tower had fallen and that classes were canceled for the rest of the day.  I remember talking to my brother that night and thinking that my nephew, who would be born exactly three months later, would grow up in a world where 9/11 was but a memory.

I will probably never forget that day.

Prior to September 11, 2001, the most common way I would hear “never forget” was about the Holocaust in Europe. Being raised Jewish, stories about the Holocaust dominated my childhood. But like most people under 70 I have no actual mental memory of the Holocaust. Like my nephew and 9/11, I grew up in a world where Hitler was a memory. But I was told to never forget.

Memory is an interesting thing. I have written before about the fallacies and misconceptions we have in our memories. But as I have also mentioned before, we do not store our memories only in our minds. They exist within our bodies as well. Very often, when I am in a yoga class in an asana, I remember an event. It could be from any time in my life, any place I have lived, but it just pops into my mental awareness. Something about being in a posture sparks that mental memory. I have heard and read that smells are the most likely to spark a memory. The point, of course, is that on some level in our awareness, perhaps not the mental awareness, we truly never forget.

With major world tragedies, the bumper stickers remind us to “never forget.” I believe they mean mentally. But how can we never forget and still move on? Yoga teaches us to be aware of what arises, and then to let it go. We must, on all levels, be able to move forward. If not, we hold the memories, and those memories become tight hip muscles, which becomes low back pain, which becomes . . . That cannot be good for even the memory of those we have lost.

I am not sure I have the answers. As someone who holds onto memories more in my body than in my mind, it is quite an amazing feat that I have as many mental memories of 9/11 as I do. But I am not sure that remembering is the best way to move the energy that such tragedy brings to the world. Pure memory, without more, is stuck energy. It keeps us in a place of grief and sadness, or anger and resentment. We must be aware, but then what?

What if instead, we honored the memory wherever it is stored? What if we honored those who were lost and those who lost a loved one? What if we remembered, but instead of holding on, we let the memory flow with an open heart to all the suffering caused that day?

Perhaps the bumper stickers are right. Perhaps we should always remember. After all, those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. But being stuck in that memory only brings harm to the present day. It stops the flow of energy, and therefore stops the ability to learn and grow from the tragedy.

Last year, on the 10^th anniversary of 9/11, I sat at my computer in New Zealand, feeling very much like an outsider. I watched footage of September 11, 2001, trying to recreate that day in my mind, all the sadness and the confusion and the fear. I wanted to connect with family and friends back in America. It was one of only two days I truly felt that way while living in New Zealand.

But as I sit in my living room today, very much in the United States, I am drawn to a different type of memory – honoring. Honoring those who were lost, those who risked their lives, and those who lost loved ones. Instead of holding the memory of the pain, I want to see shared tragedy become a way to learn to flow together. Shared memory, perhaps more than any other type of memory, fascinates me. And when that shared memory is part of a shared tragedy, one felt over the entire world, it has the power to transform.

May the memory of our shared tragedies become our ability to break the stuck energy and come together to honor all involved. That is where the true healing occurs.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

A Future for Others

Today is my 30^th birthday.

Generally speaking, I give no thought to birthdays. I have nothing against them, nor do I particularly care about having a special day. They are, however, a good time to stop and reflect about where we are in life, a time we have to reflect personally rather than big changes we share with others, e.g., graduations, new jobs, etc. Additionally, there are several reasons why this birthday stands out for me. 

First, I am one of the few people I know who is excited to turn 30. I think I was ready to be 30 when I was about 10, so I finally feel my age. It is also happening as I begin a new job and the first one that could be a career if I wanted it to be. It is also a decade birthday, in which we tend to think back on the past decade and reflect. 

My first thought upon reflection was, “what happened to a decade?!?!?!” After getting over the initial shock of realizing that it was ten years ago, not ten weeks ago, that I was living in a dorm at the University of Michigan, I have had some time to really think about what I have done this past decade and what I hope to do over the next one.

Briefly, my twenties went as follows: college, during which I studied abroad in France; teaching English in France; law school; learning to do yoga; working at the Pima County Superior Court; working at the Arizona Court of Appeals; becoming a yoga teacher; and getting an LLM in New Zealand. Of course there are other things, but those are the big highlights. I am struck by two things based upon that list: 1) I have been incredibly blessed, and 2) I have been fairly focused on myself.

Our society has a negative view of focusing too much on yourself. People who focus only on themselves can be seen as selfish and egotistical. One of the most difficult lessons, therefore, for me to learn from yoga was that we must take care of ourselves before we can be of service to others. We must feel secure in our own skins before trying to exist in this world, and we need to fill our own reserves, or we will have nothing left to offer others. As someone once said to me, "the heart pumps blood to itself first."

It was a difficult lesson to learn, but there is no question that I have spent a decade doing just that. All my travels, combined with the yoga, have taught me so much about who I am, what I value, and how I want to move forward. At times I felt too selfish, but deep down I knew I was preparing for something bigger and better. Interestingly, I ended up just where everyone seemed to think I would end up, but now I know I have done it on purpose rather than because someone said I should.

But what does this mean for the next ten years? It means that it is time to turn my focus to the external. This does not mean I plan to stop meditating, practicing, or even traveling; in fact those remain necessary for this next step. But it also means that it is time to use those reserves and all that information for the world. To be totally honest, I am a bit embarrassed by the list of my twenties. I feel like I could have done so much more for other people. But I also know that I can sit with people who have had to call the police on their own children or with drug addicts who have neglected their own children and feel sympathy and compassion without feeling like I have to run for my life. Some days are, of course, easier than others, but hopefully my ten years of selfish can lead to a decade of paying it forward.

And so I make this pledge in public. We all know that the best way to fulfill a promise is to ensure you are held accountable, and the best way to do that is to make it public.

Thirty seems so young and so quick, but also like a turning point. I have been incredibly blessed and have learned many lessons along the way. I know that going forward there will be days I choose myself over others, but I pledge to do it consciously and do it in order to ensure that I can be at my best when others need me. Perhaps this is one of the best ways yoga and the law intersect. It is through yoga that we strengthen our reserves to be of service to our clients and the world. 

Thank you all for sharing this journey with me, for supporting me, and for holding me accountable. I hope this blog can be a piece of my living for others. I hope it provides you with some insights and ideas about yourselves and the world in which we live, and most especially about how to take the time for yourself to be at your best at all times. Many thanks, and hopefully many more celebrations together.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2012, all rights reserved.

The Power of Positivity

Indulge me for a moment, and read the next three bullet points individually without looking ahead until you have absorbed what they say. I will meet you below them.

• Don’t picture a pink elephant! 
• Don’t think about an orange!
• Don’t imagine your next vacation!

Were you able to do it? My guess is that most people reading this pictured all three – the pink elephant, the orange, and the vacation (where are you planning to go?). Essentially, the brain thinks about what is before it, and in this case, that is a pink elephant, an orange, and a vacation. It does not necessarily process the “don’t” until after it has thought about the subject.

In some circles, people say the brain cannot process negatives, but that is not exactly what is happening. What is really happening is that the brain is processing everything, and the subject gains a moment of time in the overworked brain before the brain realizes that it is not supposed to be thinking about it. What I am really trying to say is that we give power to any subject just by thinking about it, whether we think about it in “good” or “bad” terms.

So why do I bring this up? I read a lot of blogs. I read a lot of blogs about lawyers and several blogs about ex-lawyers. These are people who have left the profession because of its toxicity and offer their ideas for the rest of us to get out. I have mentioned this before, stating, “But I likemy job!” I think these blogs offer a great service to many people struggling in the day-to-day rat race that is the legal profession, but so often when I read them, I cannot get past the first sentence.

Why? They start with negativity. They start with everything that is wrong about the profession. And yes, I realize I am participating in that negativity by commenting on it in this way. But the point is that their underlying message is awesome – “take care of yourself before the legal profession kills you!” Another common theme is “follow your heart.” But that message is buried under a mountain, sometimes a large mountain, of everything wrong with the legal profession.

Thus, the negativity has power. We imagine the negativity as we read. And imagining it brings it into our being. It permeates us whether we experience it ourselves or read about others. That’s empathy.

I’m bringing this up now because I see the same theme in the Occupy movement here in Dunedin, New Zealand. I really want to support them, even if I may not agree with everything they are saying, I see the global Occupy movement as an awakening, a bringing together of people from all walks of life who are standing up for what they believe. That’s awesome! But the biggest sign here in Dunedin is “Smash Corporate Greed.” Every time I see it, which is at least twice per day, I feel like I’m being punched in the gut, and that is only partly because I see the difference between Starbucks and Wal-Mart – both corporations, but with vastly different influences on the world.

The real punch in the gut comes from the negativity. There is a growing, but still small, movement online called “Occupy Your Heart.” Obviously this has been a theme for me this week. But I originally heard about it from the Dunedin Yoga Studio owner, and then I searched for it online.

The movement is not against anything, it is for opening the heart space, something we desperately need in this world. But it has no focus about what it is against – just about tuning into what really matters and “wrappingyour heart around it.” It gives power to the heart rather than power to negativity and all the things it is against and anti.

People are still going to have awful days at law offices. It is still important to point out the inequalities that exist in the world. But would you rather give power to the negative or power to the positive? I know which one I am going to try to choose, over and over again. If we give power to the positive, that power will spread. Are you in?

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2011, all rights reserved.

Wrapping your heart around it

Metaphors are funny things. Sometimes they cross linguistic boundaries, but more often than not, they fail miserably. That’s because they tell us little about the words.  Instead, they tell us a lot about a culture.

Last week I was at a café with an acquaintance, and we were talking about her job prospects. She is going through some professional changes and has several interesting possibilities in the pipeline, but she cannot do all of them. As she was explaining all the options, she said, “I just have to go home and wrap my head around it.”

The head. The mind. Modern society loves them. When making decisions, how often have you heard people say, “list the pros and cons, and follow the path where the pros outweigh the cons.” Under that regime, it is a numbers game. It is the number of pros vs. the number of cons. Their weight has little meaning. But it is simple and easy. All we have to do is count (ok, maybe not so easy for those of us who are lawyers, but we can ask for help with the counting if need be).

Lists of all types speak to our logical side. They can be judged objectively. We can ask others for help with making and interpreting them. Plus, we use our heads so often in today’s society, and lists are common in all areas of our lives. We make grocery lists, to-do lists, invite lists, etc. Putting it down on paper (or screen) externalizes our thought process and allows us to objectively evaluate what we are thinking. This objective analysis is well respected in modernity.

But does it really serve us?

Back at the coffee shop, without really thinking about it, or even realizing I was saying it, I responded, “or your heart around it.”

My acquaintance stopped talking and looked at me. I realized I had just said that out loud. Here I was talking to another logical adult suggesting wrapping her heart around ideas and opportunities. Apparently writing this blog has made me bolder in person than I realized. Apparently it has also helped me see beyond the logic game where so many of us get stuck.

Our minds and lists simply cannot give us the answers. All the objective pros in the world cannot outweigh our heart telling us that something is not right for us. All the objective cons in the world cannot stop us when our heart says to go!

I have been incredibly lucky to have had the support along the way to follow my heart. Objectively, a law firm may have been a better path for me, or had I read the tea leaves on the economy, maybe not even going to law school in the first place. But my heart said go. There was a time when coming to New Zealand and studying their family law system was a pipe dream, but a judge here said, “you find the funding, and I will find you the space to study,” and an Australian psychologist said, “you will find a way; you must find a way.” And here I sit in New Zealand nearly finished with a thesis about the role of lawyers for children (and instead of actually finishing it, I’m blogging, but whatever). I get to start representing children in December in a city I love working with people I love. I could tell you about the loans and the time commitment and the disturbing facts I will face, but that’s my head talking. My heart is leaping with joy.

Of course, we need our heads and our minds. Part of our social contract is that we will work together and create a society in which we do not run into each other or over each other, where we can ensure a solid food supply, etc. These things require logic. But our deepest goals and decisions are not birthed by the head; they begin and end in the heart. Too often we are asked, or forced, to ignore what it says. It is then that we find ourselves in dis-ease.

But hearts are waking up all across the globe. People are recognizing that logic and objective analysis is not the end-all, be-all of our world. This is a difficult concept for those of us who live in our heads all day, every day. We push emotion and “irrelevant facts” to the side and ask ourselves to “focus on what’s relevant.” In a divorce case, parents spend $20,000 (or more) to argue over something worth $10,000. That’s not logic, but it shows us the real story. It shows us what is relevant to the people, even if it is not relevant to the law.

Unfortunately for our logic-trained minds, the heart does not do lists. It does not do easy. It does  not do bright lines. But it does do truth. It sees beyond the lists and the numbers to show us what is truly important. And when we follow our hearts, life just has a funny way of working out. The first step may feel like jumping off a cliff, but that’s when you realize the heart can grow wings.

So, the next time you find yourself needing to wrap your head around something, ask yourself if you are willing to wrap your heart around it instead.

Namaste!

© Rebecca Stahl 2011, all rights reserved.