ambitionless

I'm feeling a refreshing lack of ambition.

I taught tonight. It was a late night class, and there were two regulars there. I love teaching yoga. I'm not the best teacher out there. I'm not the wisest. I don't have the strongest asana practice, but I love doing it. It's fun. It gets me completely out of my head. And I get to do it whenever I want.

I love square one students. We have the best group of people taking classes at the studio that I can possibly imagine. They are all, every single one of them, smart and friendly and generous. They smile a lot, and they are super forgiving. I used to know all the regulars. I don't know all the regulars anymore. I'm a little bummed about that, but it's a sign of really good things.

I enjoy my job. I like looking at numbers and growth and planning schedules and hiring teachers and talking to students. I love it. I even like the really mundane stuff like stickering postcards with the new address. If put on music, I can do it for hours.

What more do I want? I could easily have more money, but even that isn't really bothering me right now. I ordered organic produce home delivery, and I'm looking forward to cooking more and eating out less. I have clothes, more than I need, and I always like what I wear. Even my dog has nice clothes. I have a house full of furniture and dishes and pots and pans and towels and sheets and all that. There's absolutely nothing to buy.

I set my own schedule and I don't have to work more than about thirty hours a week if I don't want to. I usually want to, but it's not necessary. If there's not much happening in real estate and I'm not moving the studio or starting a business, I have lots of free time. I wake up without an alarm. Today I walked the dog and then I did my morning pages as suggested by The Artist Way. I had time this afternoon to take the Sutras to the coffee shop and read and write a little. I ran into a friend and chatted for awhile. I was never in a hurry. I was never stressed. It was lovely.

To think I could live like this all the time if I just stayed ambitionless.

It's nice, but it won't happen. I have always thrived on excitement and newness and change. (Some in the professions call it chaos.) I already have plans and ideas and new ways to busy myself and achieve more. Soon I'll be overwhelmed and freaking out again.

Until then, let's just enjoy the calm.

writing

Was yesterday's entry a little intense? Should I put some distance in between me and it? In between you and it? In between you and me?

I can do that. I can write about my day today. I itemized all of my business expenses from 2010. I could tell you all about it. That's what a real business blogger would do. But I don't want to. It's just not that interesting.

I want to write about my life. It's too much for this blog, which is in present tense and has a narrow scope. I need to learn to write. I guess I kind of already know how to write. I do it a lot. I have half an MFA in creative writing. (I got the feeling that not too much else was happening in the second half.) My grammar's not bad. But I don't know how to start a big project. Weird. I started the yoga studio. That was a damn big project.

I don't know how to structure my day to make time for it. I don't know how to begin. I don't think anyone will read it. I'm terrified.

Someone told me once that procrastination is a fancier word for fear. He's right, you know. I procrastinated itemizing my expenses because I was scared of my financial situation, scared that I was spending too much money. I was, but so what? I can make progress because I've seen it. I know where I am. Avoiding doesn't help. The work is inevitable.

Can I start? Don't I need a place to write and a time of day and a window I can look out of and a more comfortable chair? Or can I just start? What would happen if I just woke up tomorrow and began? What would that be like? What if I started right now?

I'll let you know if I try.

Good night.

where God dwells

I have some readers out there now, and being honest is getting harder and harder. Some of what I want to write about feels too heavy, too dark, too real. You will come into the yoga studio tomorrow and you will know me better than I really want to be known.

I started talking to a friend tonight about my life. It wasn't a conversation; it was a monologue. My life has gotten really good. Really clean, I should say. I have a dog that loves me and is really cute. I have a nice car and a graduate degree and a cool business that's doing pretty well.

But that's only the recent story, and I started telling her the rest, the first thirty or so years that were so painful and destructive, when I felt so lost. I talked about high school, and the friends that died in car accidents and drug overdoses and knife fights. I told her about spending half of adolescence locked in institutions, and about the nights alone in Mexico, drinking, playing the same songs over and over, longing for a different place, a different time, a different outcome, wondering if it was time yet to drive my car off the cliff on the toll road from Cuernavaca.

There are no more big deals. I want to shout that and write it in all caps and scream it and hope that you'll remember too. Once we're not living like that, it doesn't matter much what happens. If I can remember what I can be like (I forget all the time), I take nothing for granted. It's all a gift.

When I did my yoga teacher training, we had a two hour Advanced Pranayama session. The teacher told us some of us would not be able to handle it. I didn't for a second think that I might be one of them. I'm strong. I've been through shit. I've gone to therapy, and I've worked twelve steps. A few times. I can handle it.

But I lost it. Somewhere in the bhastrika and the seed mantras, I was overcome by grief. There was no end to it. I cried and cried with only the vaguest understanding what the grief was about. A few months before I had lost an old friend suddenly and under questionable circumstances. It started there, but it went way beyond that. It was the grief of lifetimes, and I knew then that everything, absolutely everything, they were teaching me about karma and past lives and enlightenment was true.

Later that evening, the teacher said, essentially, "Hey, you don't have to do this. You don't have to renounce everything or become a swami or spend your life studying the scriptures. You can have a nice little life, maybe a couple kids, do some asana and enjoy yourself."

At that moment, I loved him for that. It may all be true, but the reality of it is absolutely overwhelming. It's too much. It's heavier and more intense than the best acid you ever took and just as unpredictable. I got a taste, and I didn't want it. Not then, probably not now either.

So I got busy creating that lovely little life in the material world I thought he was talking about. Very busy, and I'm afraid tonight that it's turned into running. I've forgotten where I come from, so lately I've been taking everything for granted. I've become entitled to more than I have. Even my asana practice lately has been more about sweaty rooms and endorphin highs than getting quiet. Do, do, do. Go, go, go. Get, get, get.

Does owning a yoga studio bring me closer to God? What if I own two? Is knowing God too much to ask for in this life? Can I know God and live in the material world and eat lots of cheese and chocolate chip cookies and text while I drive? All of those things keep me from my grief, keep me floating above the grittiness, keep me focused on the next task instead of something else, some place where all the fear dwells.

But the problem is that is also the place where God dwells.

Slow down. Slow down. Slow down, Miss Katy Mae. What's the hurry anyway?

fear of failing

Something happened and my mood changed. Nothing external, just a little shift on the inside. I'm less worried about being broke. Everybody's broke right now, or acting broke. It's very chic. The numbers at the studio are still low compared to a month ago, but I'm just not as concerned. It changes. It always changes. When I'm sane, I know not to get too excited about the highs or too depressed by the lows. It's the long term that's interesting, and in the long term, square one is experiencing steady growth. We're doing okay. Better than okay.

The last entry was about letting go of things that weren't serving me. At that moment all that I could let go of were some towels and a pile of old clothes. I also tried to be a little more generous with my time and my attention, which is harder and requires more sustained attention. I did okay for a couple of days.

But trying got the ball rolling. It got me out of my obsessive little me-thinking just a tiny bit, and I started to relax a little.

I've had a couple of really interesting conversations recently with different entrepreneur friends who are either giving up businesses right now or have in the past. I have to say it's making me a lot less scared of failing. Each of their stories involves so many complexities. Difficult partners, new families, working harder than they could realistically work. I've always thought that if I had to give up square one it would be an enormous failure, but when I look at these friends, what they chose seems very, very far from what I would call a failure.

I feel like maybe I've let go of that fear just a little bit. It can fail. I'll still be okay. My friends and family will still love me. I'll pick up and try something else. I've learned so much in the last year or so, way more than any other year of my life. I'm stronger physically and mentally, and I'm really beginning to get to know myself, what I can do and what I'm not so good at. No matter what happens, I get to take all that with me.

I have work to do at the studio. I have new classes to market and I'm planning some stuff to get us through the dry months of summer. I have my eye on a new, really big project that I'm super excited about. I'm swimming in warm water. I'm having fun. Still broke in the traditional sense, but feeling better about it. I'm engaged in the process and somewhat more relaxed about the bank balances and class attendance.

Owning a business is like being in a wonderfully complicated relationship. It's messy and unpredictable. Sometimes you stayed married for a lifetime, and sometimes you decide it was exciting for awhile, but it needs to end. Either way, there's no such thing as failure, and there's no wrong way to do it. As long as you dive in and try. I've done that. Now it's time to stop whining about what I don't have and dive back in. That fear wasn't serving me.

stingy

I'm not that complicated. I'm still in the dumps a bit, and if I'm not angry, which I'm not, it has to be fear.

I heard on the radio yesterday morning that children whose parents lost jobs in recessions when they were growing up were three times more likely than other children to live in poverty as adults. It just cemented the idea I've been toying with for a long time that wealth and poverty are states of mind, and I mean that in more ways than one.

I grew up with a single mom who would cash checks at the grocery store two days before payday in order to keep things afloat. I have a poverty mindset. I can be really stingy, although I try hard to hide it. I hoard certain objects, particularly clothes and shoes. I was traumatized by my lack of Guess jeans growing up. Seriously. It was really painful. Hoarding is the action of a poverty mindset. Hoarding is a way of acting out the belief that there will never be enough. Hoarding is an an act of fear.

I'm sorry, but here I go again with Pema Chodron. She says practicing generosity is a practice in letting go. What I need now more than anything is to be able to let go.

So I'm consciously practicing generosity as much as my feeble little generosity muscles will let me. But I have this hunch that what I really need to give away is exactly what I am most scared of losing, which means that I have to figure out what it is that I'm most scared of losing.

Here's what I've come up with so far: I am most scared of losing the vision of myself as successful in this business. It's an ego thing.

Perfect, because that's exactly what I want to give away! There is nothing I want more than to talk to people about their businesses and help them figure out ways to be more successful. It gets better because in the next few days I have a bunch of meetings with people who need exactly that kind of help. Know anyone else? Send 'em my way.

There's also that old fear of being materially poor, that poverty mindset. So I'm going to give away some stuff. Old clothes, mostly, which doesn't sound that generous even to stingy old me, but it's something. I have to start somewhere. I'll try to give away a few things that hurt just a little. Not my Lululemon leggings. I'm not a saint or anything, but I'll push myself a little.

I already feel better. I have a plan. My poverty mindset may not go anywhere fast. It's a lifelong way of thinking. But we start somewhere. We build it. We practice, like our practice. Today, for maybe 1.5 seconds if you counted really fast, I did bakasana with straight arms. It took me a year of practicing really regularly to get my feet off the ground in bakasana at all. We get stronger, a lot stronger, if we work at it.

And by the way, it may be a good time to ask me for stuff.

broke

Be careful what you wish for.

We've had a slow few days at the studio. For most of March and the first week or so of April, I was completely optimistic about where the studio was going. We were making sales goals day after day after day. I felt great. But we've had these slow days (how quickly I forget that we're still doing much better than we ever were in 2009), and I feel dull and unmotivated and fearful. Broke. This is what broke feels like.

I get into this flow sometimes and I'm having fun in life, working enough, helping people out, taking care of my body. Business goes well without me trying too hard or worrying too much about it. I have energy to finish projects and inspiration to start new ones. And then I get out of flow. Like now. Instead of work that accomplishes tasks and gets me closer to my goals, I stare at numbers. And then I check them again just to be sure. And then I look at the bank balance and run it all through again. I did that all day today. It really was a downer.

What comes first: the optimism and flow or the success of the business? It feels right now like the success comes first, but when I'm in flow, I believe the flow, and the thinking that causes flow, comes first.

Barbara Ehrenreich has a new book out called Bright Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America. I really don't want to read it. I'm actually kind of mad at her for writing it. In a world where almost everything is unpredictable and out of my control, it's really comforting to think that I have some power over outcomes by my strong belief that things will work out well.

Then I have days like today, when I completely understand what Ehrenreich is talking about. My optimism seems foolish, and I tell myself that I have not been living in reality for a long, long time. I get kind of panicky, and I start to believe that it was all a mistake, and the absolute best thing I can do right now is run, run, run and find someone, anyone, who will employ me.

What's the truth? In my saner, more level moments, I know that both are true. I don't have very much money right now. It's really pretty tight. On the other hand, I have a business that is growing. I just need to hang in there awhile longer. It's not happening as quickly as I would have chosen, but it's definitely happening.

The truth is that on paper, I have never had enough money. It was never a sane idea to start a yoga studio and to quit my job. Never. The other truth is that there has always been enough money. The cash has always been there when I needed it. Today, even, there is enough money. The fear is all about the future. Right now I'm full from dinner. I'm wearing new shoes, my pets are fed, and I'm living in a warm apartment that I can afford. And I do this all on what Square One pays me. I shouldn't buy anymore shoes, but I'm okay.

It's the same lesson for me over and over. I'm so attached to the success of the business that you can track my mood by square one's numbers and vice versa. It has become a little less extreme in the last year, but the business is a lot more secure now than it was a year ago, so you would think I could let go of a not-so-stellar week every now and then. You would think.

I'm not there yet. In the meantime, I'll just keep showing up, even when I'm not so productive. I'll keep doing yoga, even if it's just a little 'cause the truth is I don't really feel like it. The numbers will change. My mood will change. I'm not sure which will happen first, but both will happen. Maybe even soon.

peak experiences

I’m on a mini-vacation. I take them every couple of months. I go away, just me and my dog, to the coast for two or three days. I take it really easy. I do exactly what I want to do. I eat sweets and shellfish, even though I’m a vegetarian the rest of my life and supposedly I’ve sworn off the sugar.

It’s wonderful. The northern and central California coast has to be one of the most stunning and dramatic landscapes in the world. We're so lucky. I just drive. Every hour or so, I’ll pull over and walk on the beach, or check out a view, or get a coffee and take a little detour down a road I’m curious about.

I usually have one or two peak experiences on these trips, moments when I know, really know, that life is this incredible adventure and that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. I understand in these moments that I’m being exquisitely cared for every second of the way. I lose absolutely all worry and fear and feel profound joy and ease and comfort.

Sounds nice, huh? That’s why I go. I generally only have these experiences in places that are inordinately beautiful, and I have only ever had them alone. If I recreate those circumstances, which is really the purpose of these trips, the odds are pretty good that I’m going to get that little moment alone with God. It's something I'm really grateful for. When I remember to be.

But here’s the catch. As wonderful as they are, I don’t think having peak experiences is the point. I have always thought that the point of practice, and of life really, is to have more and more peak experiences that are closer and closer together until eventually it’s just pure bliss. Again, credit where it’s due, Pema Chodron says I’ve got it all wrong, and I think I believe her.

She tells the story of a Zen master who, whenever asked how he is doing, always says, “okay.”

One of his students eventually asks him, “Roshi, don’t you ever have bad days?”

“Yes,” he answers, “I often have bad days, and I have great days, and I am always okay.”

Equanimity. That’s the point. That’s what the work is about.

I haven’t written in the blog in over a week. I realize it’s sort of bad timing, because I finally did the e-blast and announced to the world that I’m blogging. Then I quit blogging. But every night I come home, and at the usual time when I would sit down to write, I feel okay. I’m not angry or worried or elated, and if I'm not sort of fucked up in some way, what's there to write about? I hope to learn soon that there is still plenty to write about.

So is this equanimity?

I’m not a Zen master. Believe me, that’s not what I’m saying. This will pass, and I will go back to my usual fluctuations between excitement and fear. I will. And in the meantime, I better figure out how to keep writing. I think I have a few readers now.