get funky

I have been in a funk lately. A yoga funk, specifically. This funk initially seemed to be random, accidental and uncontrollable. Like a bird pooping on my head. No one's fault. Certainly not mine.

After all, I was just trying to discipline myself to have a daily practice so that I could be a good person, obviously. Did I say discipline? What I meant was force. I was forcing myself to practice yoga. This involved unrolling the mat and actually setting a timer on my watch so that I could ensure that I practiced for an hour and a half. I would then berate myself if I felt like stopping after 30 minutes, or if it seemed that my heart wasn't in it.

To be a good person. I was raised in a culture that has a slight issue with perfectionism. Oh yes, I learned from the best, although my perfectionism manifested in different ways. I have a slightly obsessive habit of creating to-do lists. I am even more obsessed with crossing things off of my to-do lists. Indeed, I will write something that I have just completed on my list, just so that I can cross it off. It is so satisfying.

So here I was, putting yoga on my daily to-do list along with other joyful tasks such as do laundry, scrub toilet, 40 minute run, grocery store, etc. So that I could be better! And then I randomly, accidently caught the yoga funk. I do not feel like doing yoga.

I had to arrive at this shocking point before realizing that this may not be fair to myself. That maybe I am already okay and that accomplishing things may enhance my life, but it does not change who I am. I do not need to prove anything.

Then, I took a day off! I did not do yoga, I did not do laundry, scrub the toilet, go running or go to the grocery store. Much to my surprise, all my morality and personhood did not disappear (that I'm aware of). Instead, I hung out at a coffee shop/ used bookstore all day. It was deliciously counter to the way I typically run my life. While at the bookstore, I bought a Shiva Rea yoga DVD because she is a spontaneous Shakti non-dogmatic yogini.

Today, I awoke and asked myself what I really wanted to do today. Turns out, I wanted to go running, do laundry, do the dishes and enjoy some funky (in the other sense of the word) Shiva Rea yoga! What a lovely surprise.

I didn't even make a list.

gobodhiyoga.com

On Relationships

We had another blissful fifteen hour weekend of yoga immersion teacher training this last weekend. In honor of the current life situations of the students, we discussed LOVE.

My instructor and guru, Syl Carson, expressed her belief that love is a mirror. We fall in love with our own image projected onto others. When we love our partner's compassion, we are really seeing and loving our own capacity for compassion.

Likewise, when there is something about our partner that drives us crazy, while they may really posses that quality, it drives us crazy because it is a trait that describes ourselves. For example, if I was enraged to see my partner sitting in front of the TV, it is really my own denied idleness that enrages me.

In a love relationship, we make an unspoken agreement to see in each other the divine love that we have for ourselves. Doing so allows us to feel safe in understanding our love for ourselves. We make an agreement to do this for one another. Our partner therefore becomes a placeholder for divine love.

This is why it is so scary to be abandoned by a lover. We then feel unable to know the Divine's love for us.

Ultimately, I would like to be able to see myself as God (God being an all-encompassing term) sees me. As Syl said, “If I can love myself as God loves me, then I have intoxication of self-love!”

Doing this takes the fear out of love, and removes the fear from being alone.

So kiss yourself.

Namaste

*Rebecca Sky*