mettle

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a memoir written by a woman who is brutally raped and beaten by a stranger when she is a freshman in college.* A certain professor comes with her when she testifies before the grand jury. The professor is the only person she wants to be there. Not her mother, not her friends, not her sister. She wants her professor to be there because her professor has mettle.

Google says:

met·tle  (mtl)

n.

1. Courage and fortitude; spirit: troops who showed their mettle in combat.

2. Inherent quality of character and temperament.

I was completely fascinated by the word. And still am. It describes exactly what I want. Perhaps the only thing I truly, deeply long for. Mettle. The ability to show up.

On some level, I knew, although I couldn't put my finger on why at first, that yoga gives me mettle.

So it's been slinking around in the back of my mind. And then yesterday, I did biofeedback for the first time in physical therapy. The therapist got me all set up on her table with lots of pillows and told me to relax. She attached electrical sensors to my ankles, a CO2 detector into my nose and a heart rate monitor to my ear.

What I saw was astonishing. At first, my muscles were not completely relaxed even though they felt like they were. My breath was not as deep as is considered optimal for health. My heart rate was good, but not in sync with my breath. The CO2 levels detected on the exhalation were lower than ideal.

And then I started breathing. The breath that we learn in yoga. I elongated my exhalation. That's all I did, and everything changed. My breath and heart rate became synchronized. The levels of CO2 increased so that I was letting out, literally, all the old air. My muscles relaxed. Not only did they feel relaxed, they actually were. It was quantifiable and I could see it on the computer screen. It completely amazed me, although now I'm not sure why I was surprised. Intuitively, I already knew it.

What happened was that I became stable, steady. 

Asana: Steady pose.

Krishna tells Arjuna over and over again in the Bagavhad Gita, show up! Show up for this incredibly difficult war. Show up despite your fear and worry and grief. Show up. That's all there is. The result of the war is inconsequential; there is no other duty, nothing else of import in this life, than showing up for it.

Showing up is steadiness. Steadiness is mettle. So mettle is, very simply, showing up.

The body becomes stable when we really breathe. So go to yoga. If it takes 50 chaturangas to breathe, do it. If it takes three bolsters and six blankets to breathe, do it. Whatever it takes, do it. We get steadiness of the body, and we get steadiness of heart and mind. We become able to show up.

Show up for yourself: Deal with your abuse and your neglect and your anger and your fear and your grief. If you need to, go to therapy. Show up for your difficulties and your wild emotional rides. Do not run away. Do not check out. Do not claim ignorance. Do not hide behind willfullness and pride. Be awake, be vulnerable.

Show up for others: Be there when your friend is sick, when his mother dies, when he loses his partner or his job. Do not shy away. Do not cower. Go with your fear and your insecurity and your doubt. Go anyway.

Krishna is right. There really is nothing else.

*The book was Lucky by Alice Sebold. Very intense, but well worth reading.

I like it, but I don't want it.

Last Friday, I went with a friend to a Buddhist meditation class. The topic was the Five Hindrances, one of which is sensual desire. The teacher told a story about a young, ascetic monk. A group of young nurses came for a course at the monastery, and the young monk's teacher asked him to attend. So imagine, please, this young, ascetic monk in a room full of hot Thai nurses.

When they were done with the class, the teacher asked the young monk, "So how was it being with all the hot Thai nurses?" (Or something to that effect.) The young monk replied, "I like it, but I do not want it."

On the car ride to the class, my friend and I were discussing our partying days, when a night out was thrilling and exciting, and we never knew what chaos was about to descend. We loved it. Neither of us drinks anymore, and we were pondering the lack of thrill in our lives. Fulfillment, sometimes; thrill, almost never. Even though I still love the idea of chaos and parties and not knowing what might happen next, I no longer desire it. I like it, but I don't want it.

You may remember reading about all my intentions post-break up. I was going to practice everyday, eat only non-processed food, write in the morning, and ride my bike instead of drive. I have gotten to my mat just about everyday since then, but the other things, not so much.

I spend a lot of time berating myself for lacking discipline. I was the smart kid in class who never did her homework. I'm the person who can't say no to another cookie. I buy stuff I don't need, and sometimes don't particularly want, and then find myself broke and stressed about money a week later. My entire life I have given in to what feels good in the moment, not what is healthy and sustainable in the long run.  I have always given into sensual desire.

But this might not be entirely true. I quit drinking (and alcohol was my best friend). I quit nicotine after a fifteen-year, pack-a-day smoking habit. And it's been years. I quit cocaine and weed and one night stands and driving without insurance. To some degree, I have grown up.

When people point this out, I usually shrug. Taking credit for it seems inappropriate. Not smoking and not drinking, in particular, are big deals in my life, yet paradoxically they're not big deals. It's not that quitting was easy. It wasn't. It was painful and messy and it took a long, long time. It wasn't easy, but it became, at some point, perfectly clear that those things had to go.

I have to say that sometimes I still enjoy the smell of a freshly lit cigarette. The idea of a cold beer and a shot of tequila at the end of a stressful day can be appealing. I like them, but I do not want them.

The clarity that enabled me to break those addictions is a direct result of my yoga practice. There is real causation. One followed the other. And again, it's not that yoga made it easy (although it did relieve some of the discomfort), it's that the practice of yoga brought clarity. I simply knew what I had to do, and I did it. Willpower was unnecessary.

But there's fine tuning to be done, for sure. There are the cookies and the shopping and the love of the comfort of my car. Discipline based solely on willpower doesn't work for me. It's not sustainable. According to the research, we have a limited amount of willpower and it gets diminished all the time. We may be able to say no to the cookie, but later in the day, we will not be able to say no to the new yoga pants. Or vice versa.  (If this is a topic that interests you, definitely read the book, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. NYT review here.)

What I'm learning (and forgetting and relearning) is that 100% of my willpower has to be dedicated to getting my body on the mat. When I do that, I get clarity. I'm able to say more often, "I like it, but I do not want it."

So I'll get to my mat, today at least, and have faith in what Pattabhi Jois told us, "Practice and all is coming."

Yoga for the 99%

Some people are magically gifted with discipline. They wake up early, floss twice a day, enjoy a long morning practice, write novels, run marathons and are vegans. They do it seemingly efforlessly. It's just who they are.


But it's not me.


I've been back on the mat everyday, or at least most days. If you read it you know that I made a lot of other goals for myself in the last post. As it turns out, it wasn't so easy. I'm not perfect yet. But I have faith, and my experience tells me, that if I do my yoga first, everything else will follow. Eventually.


There's a saying from Twelve Step programs: "Keep Coming Back." Of course, they mean keep coming back to meetings even if they don't make sense or you keep drinking or whatever.


In meditation practice, it's given that the mind wonders, that we get distracted. The instruction is the same: keep coming back. 


In my yoga practice, I know that I can keep coming back. I get distracted by relationships and world events (happening at the moment right down the street) and other goals and work and travel and family.


But I'm back and it feels right.


I really want to write about Square One, the little yoga studio in the little town of Emeryville that I started almost three years ago. It was such a dream then. Originally it was called "East Bay Yoga Cooperative" or some other mouthful, but the idea was the same. Yoga for the 99%.


I forget. Sometimes it just feels like a business, a job. I say yes and no and make mistakes and fix toilets and write emails and hope for the best. I lose sight of what it is I hoped for and dreamed about before we had a real location or yoga mats or instructors.


I wanted a yoga studio that had no barriers to entrance. Everyone could come, either by paying what they could or by volunteering, and when they came, they would feel welcome. They would not be put off because their clothes weren't right or because their bodies weren't ideal or because they were old or uncool or whatever it is that we think we are when we enter spaces and feel different and uncomfortable.


And so, once again, I'm coming back to that idea. Back to that story I held when I started, that we're not just another yoga studio. The Bay Area does not and did not need another yoga studio. We're providing a real and necessary service that no one else is providing. We really are. Absolutely anyone who wants to can practice at square one. We will make it happen. 


At times I feel something close to guilt because I am not participating in the demonstrations downtown. I've always wanted a movement, something revolutionary, something populist, something that I really believe in. It's come to my city, and I'm not there. Am I a coward? Am I complacent? 

Gandhi said, "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." So maybe it's okay that I haven't been arrested or tear gassed or spent the night in a tent downtown. 

I get distracted and lost and discouraged. A lot. Over and over again. I guess we all do. It's nice to remember that I can keep coming back again and again and again, to whatever it is that is necessary and right to me. To my work and to my practice, which are, at their hearts, indistinguishable. No matter how far away I go.  

Day Zero

It's been just about a year since I've written anything here. Or written anything at all, other than Square One newsletters and solutions to math problems. I guess the good news is that Square One is still with us (we all had our doubts, didn't we?), and I've found a (much needed) way to supplement my income.

Where have I been? Well, I fell in love. Just the act of writing that makes me want to cry. And I've cried a lot. It's all great what they say about feeling your feelings and not running away and all that, but eventually I just have to keep moving.

Anyway, falling in love like that was a first for me. He was family. He was also my best friend and my lover. I'd never had all three in the same person. What an experience! I wouldn't trade it for anything.

But there's always a but. I gained a lot, but I lost a lot too. Eventually, at the end of a year, more or less, I found myself without a yoga practice, without a blog, and without a room where I could just go and be, a place to put my legs up the wall or kick into a handstand. I was always bumping into him and his things and his furniture and his life when I tried to spread. Through no fault of his. I really, really, really loved him, and I still do.

But I had to go.

So here I am, in a new apartment, sitting at my table, surrounded by boxes filled with coffee cups and sardines and paper plates, a little worried that I might see a roach, but really happy to be typing. Really happy to be making words out of the chaos and change that has been my life lately. (Sometimes it seems like my life is always chaos and change. I guess why not write about it?)

I want to eat home-cooked, vegetarian meals everyday, and I want to write (why not a novel?), and I want to practice, practice, practice. I also want to ditch the car.

Something tells me if I try to do it all at once, I will fail, so why try? I should try one thing and stick to that one thing and see what happens. (Actually, everyone should read Willpower by Roy F. Baumeiste and John Tierney. It seems the research would agree.)

But another part of me says, this is what I want, so why not just do it? I thought about those 40 day yoga challenges at some of the other yoga studios. So maybe I could do my own 40 day challenge.

This is what I want to do everyday for forty days:

1. Wake up and sit for ten minutes, then write.
2. Go to a yoga class or practice for at least one half hour. Preferably class. I just need that structure right now.
3. Eat unprocessed, whole foods.
4. Drive my car only when absolutely necessary.

Those are four very simple things that a lot of people do regularly without any thought at all. That's the thing with habits. As every human being on the planet knows, new habits, or coming back to old ones, takes enormous will. The habits that I already have are the easiest things in the world to do.

Of course, now it's published, so I will have to deal with you when you ask how it's going. If I shrug my shoulders and say something like, "Well, you know... It was a lot to do all at once, don't you think?" you will know what happened.

But if you keep seeing posts about how it's going, that means it's going. Tomorrow is Day One.

Does anybody want to do it with me?