Interesting Experiment

In the past, I have blogged about the yogic concept of aparigraha - a yama that encourages non-grasping, or non-attachment to material things. This week, I discovered a year-long experiment (half-way complete already) by a group of women who have committed to not purchasing any new clothing for an entire year. They have dubbed their project "The Great American Apparel Diet" and track their progress and experience on their blog. They have a large number of folks who have accepted the challenge, with a multitude of reasons, including economic and the desire to have less of an ecological impact on the earth.

I'm definitely trying to buy less, but I'm not sure I am ready to go this far! What about you?

Today's workout:
62 min. Fartlek run (7.29 mi)
30 min. resistance training

Saucha / Purity

Today, in my private session with my yoga teacher, we discussed the concept of the niyama of saucha, or purity. Swami Shraddhananda describes the ways in which we incorporate this niyama into our lives:

Saucha is purity that operates on many levels. We aspire to cleanliness for our bodies by washing ourselves, maintaining clean and orderly homes, eating healthy food and drinking clean water. We aspire to cleanliness in our minds and speech by not polluting our minds or speech with negativity or grasping after emotionally and physically charged obsessions. In other words, we find a balance that gives us a way to feel ourselves as clean and clear. As are the other yamas and niyamas, saucha is a pre-condition for experiencing the fullness of yoga and attaining enlightenment.

In our practice today, we focused on cleansing breaths and using the bandhas to contain our energy within the body.

I found it ironic that this evening, when my husband and I were relaxing in front of the TV, he chose to watch the A&E show "Hoarders". This show focuses on individuals who suffer from compulsive hoarding, which leads to horrendous messes with disastrous consequences - potentially losing their children to foster care, the threat of homelessness from eviction, separation from family members. We have been watching this show for a few months and it has definitely created an impetus for me to create order and cleanliness in our living space. I even hired a professional organizer for a few hours to help me with some perpetually cluttered spaces.

While saucha certainly deals with internal purity of mind and spirit, the cleanliness and purity of our outside spaces matters too. When we feel comfortable and free in our living space, we can have clarity of thought and vision. As the cluttered spaces in my home became open and organized, I felt a weight and anxiety physically leave my body - an opening and release of tension that I had unknowingly been carrying.

This time of new year's resolutions and self-improvement is a great time for reflection on ways that you can incorporate the concept of saucha into your own life.

Today's workout:
35 min. run (4.30 mi)
60 min. private training yoga
60 min. yoga @ home

With Peace and Acceptance

Yesterday, I read an interesting blog post from Yogic Muse about finding the line between pushing yourself against your limits and not engaging in self-harm. Coincidentally, when I met with my yoga teacher today, she set a similar intention for our practice: focusing on ahimsa. Maria pointed out that ahimsa, the yogic principle of non-harming, starts with ourselves. I tend to be a "Type A" personality and sometimes push myself very hard, and can sometimes push myself too far with regard to the physical aspects of yoga.

As our practice went on, we started working on bhujapidasana. While I can get into this arm balance pose when I am practicing at home, it is not a graceful or flowing process. I sought Maria's advice on getting into the pose more smoothly and possibly some modifications. In any case, while attempting to get into the pose, I fell flat on my face! So embarrassing. Also, it hurt! It seems that in the midst of striving to achieve a difficult posture, I lost sight of our original intention - ahimsa - and my determination to do "better" actually caused me harm.

Maria took this teachable moment to point out the ways that ego can interfere with our practice, and that yoga can be about putting aside the ego. Through yoga, we can become aware of our bodies, and we can accept our bodies for what they can do today. Each day our body may be different, but when I practice yoga, I do so in the present moment, with whatever abilities or limitations I currently possess. Another yogic principle is santosha, or contentment - acceptance of what we have, or who we are.

So, for today, my intention is to practice with both ahimsa and santosha, both on and off the mat.

BTW, the photo above shows my amazing daughters practicing yoga at home with the help of their Yoga Pretzels deck. Love it! (and love them!)

Today's workout:
30 min. run (4.0 mi)
60 min. private session yoga
60 min. yoga @ home

Workshop Wednesday

Tonight I was able to attend the first of a three-part workshop on integrating the yamas and niyamas (guidelines for ethical living) with Non-Violent Communication. According to the Center for Non-Violent Communication, one of the purposes of this type of interaction is to "create human connections that empower compassionate giving and receiving".

As yogis, we are highly attuned to bodily awareness. Through this communication method, we learn to focus on the physical sensations that accompany our emotions and use these cues to help us identify our feelings.

To adapt our communication styles using Non-Violent Communication, we were given three steps:

1. Observe and identify any feelings.
   
2. Identify what needs we have that may not be being met, giving rise to the feelings identified above.
3. Explore strategies for meeting those needs in a non-judgmental fashion.

We did some role-playing to address one class member's specific situation, a conflict that arose for him at work. Through our discussions, we were able to identify feelings and needs that he had not realized he had experienced, empathize with the feelings and needs that the other participants in his confrontations may have been experiencing, and help him find alternative responses and reactions that he could have used in that situation. It was useful to remember that in a situation, we cannot control the other people involved, we can only control ourselves and our reactions to other people.

Our homework this week is to identify two feelings in ourselves - one where our needs are being met and one where they are not - and then track those feelings, our physical sensations when we experience them, our discourse, our thoughts. The two feelings on which I will focus this week will be: impatience and contentment.

Today's workout:
5.26 mi run w/ strides

Searching for Santosha

One of the niyamas (a set of guidelines for our internal self) is santosha, which can be described as contentment. In Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit, Donna Farhi writes about santosha:

[it] is the ability to feel satisfied within the container of one's immediate experience ... it is a sign that we are at peace with whatever stage of growth we are in and the circumstances we find ourselves in ... we practice patience and attempt to live as best we can within our situation until we are able to better our conditions.

This is a difficult quality for me to capture and something that I really need in my life right now. In my yoga practice, I can see how the asana practice can help me learn to live santosha in my daily life. As I accept the physical limitations of my body, I can likewise peacefully acknowledge the challenges and stresses I experience each day. And just like I continue to stretch and develop my muscles and flexibility and strive to extend my physical abilities, I can take measures to overcome any obstacles in my daily life as well. It comes down to a matter of attitude. The challenges will still be there ... but why not meet them with contentment and peace rather than aggression and anger?

Inhale: contentment
Exhale: judgment

Today's workout:
50 min. specific endurance run (5.88 mi)
75 min. primary series yoga

Living Yoga

Today I received one of my birthday presents: a copy of A Year of Living Your Yoga: Daily Practices to Shape Your Life by Judith Hanson Lasater. I am very excited about this book - it contains daily inspirational thoughts and questions to direct your practice and lead you into living yogic principles. Today's entry really hit home, since it dealt with some of the very issues brought up in Stephen Cope's book that I've also been reading, particularly with accessing "the real".

Lasater's September 25th thought reads:

Give up your attachment to the way you think things are, so you can experience things as they actually are. Living Your Yoga: Our beliefs create a screen between what is and how we want things to be. Yoga is a practice to help us let go of that screen and live authentically. What belief can you let go of today?

The "belief" that I am working on letting go of is something that I just becoming aware of --- my attachment to things. I have become increasingly aware that I enjoy shopping and acquiring new things, whether I need them or not - particularly clothes. Even though I have a full closet, I for some reason feel an urge to get something new. It is as if I am defined by what I wear, what I have.

In Donna Farhi's book Yoga Mind, Spirit and Body, she writes,

"The practice of aparigraha also requires tht we look at the way we use things to reinforce our sense of identity. The executive ego loves to believe in its own power but unfortunately requires a retinue of foot soldiers in the way of external objects such as the right clothes, car, house, job or image to maintain this illusion. Because this executive ego is but an illusion created by our sense of separateness, it requires ever greater and more elaborate strategies to keep it clothed. Although the practice of not grasping may first begin as consciously withdrawing our hand from reaching for external things, eventually the need to reach outward at all diminishes until there is a recognition that that which is essential to us is already at hand."

In my yoga practice and life, I am working on adopting the quality of aparigraha (not grasping), of letting go of my attachment to objects and work on developing my own identity, separate from the things around me.

Today's workout:
50 min. run w/ hill sprints (5.38 mi)
25 min. resistance training
60 min. yoga

Mama's Not so Zippy

The past two days I have woken up feeling crummy - headache, sore throat, general malaise. Saturday I felt so bad I stayed home from my race (that didn't stop someone else from registering under my name!), but both days I pushed through and at least made it to the gym. However, both sluggish mornings were after drinking the night before. Coincidence? Maybe, but the alcohol surely didn't help.

Part of living a yogic life is practicing the yamas and niyamas, the core values of yogic philosophy and guidelines for ethical living. One of these yamas, brahmacharya, relates to energy moderation. While it gets a lot of press because many interpret this yama to encourage celibacy from sex, it really just means using self-control in the way you live - particularly in relation to drugs, sex and alcohol (and yes, rock and roll too, I suppose).

In my interpretation, practicing brahmacharya doesn't mean that I have to give up alcohol altogether, but it reminds me to listen to my body. The drinks that I consume are loaded with unnecessary calories and muddle my thinking. Clearly, my body can't perform optimally on a morning after a few drinks. That physical discomfort stands in the way of the goals that I have set for myself. While I don't think I am going to become a teetotaler, brahmacharya can lead me to make wiser decisions about drinking so that I am not sacrificing my overall well-being.

Today's workout:
25 min. yoga
40 min. interval run
20 min. strength training