Practicing Ahimsa. Badly.

“In the presence of one firmly established in non-violence, all hostilities cease.” 

– The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Sutra II.35

Ahimsa is the first of the Yamas, the yogic discipline of compassion and non-violence, the tenet which calls for us to cause no harm to ourselves or other beings and challenges us to dwell in the absence of pain.  I am afraid I am having trouble with that today.  Today I am in need of grace, as I my feelings are less than pure toward all of you parents who received your childrens' grade cards this week and then posted to Facebook about how many A's your kid got.  

And if the me 10 years ago heard the me today saying that I am made angry, jealous, and sad by your joy, I would really consider myself a complete jerkwad.  An anti-intellectual.  A giant bunch of sour grapes.

See, I was that kid, the "A" kid, when I was in school.  Things came pretty easily for me.  I conformed to rules as expected.  I had minimal emotional outbursts.  I did my homework, I studied for tests, and I loved to read.  I liked to please my teachers.  I raised my hand to answer lots of questions and I rarely ever missed school.  I was a parent's dream.

So I find it really, really hard to understand my autistic child.  I find it hard to understand why he finds school so emotionally tumultuous.  I don't get it when he clams up with anxiety and refuses to act.  I am perplexed when he cannot make simple choices about assignments, nonplussed when he has a meltdown over having to write a couple of sentences, and exasperated when he refuses to do work that I know he is fully capable of doing.  And I am left angry, defeated, and damn near despondent when his report card comes home with the news that this quarter, because he basically sat in the corner of the classroom reading books and generally being avoidant, he has failed all but one subject.  Or rather, his progress was "insufficient"--so he got all "I's," not "F's."  Whew!  That makes me feel better.  

Let me come clean and tell you what the devil on my shoulder wants me to think when I see you post that little Janie got all A's, or little Dickie is at the top of his class.  The little devil wants me to be rude and disparaging, and say that my kid is probably twice as smart as your kid, because my kid can break down words into their Latin roots and problem solve to understand new vocabulary, such as today when he figured out that a geosynchronous satellite will always stay over London, no matter what time of day it is, because it travels in time with (synch) with the earth (geo).  It wants me to say that my kid has a notebook full of inventions he wants to create someday, and that his heroes are Einstein and Tesla, and that he knows that starfish have thousands of tiny feet and that the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal on the planet, diving at up to 260 mph to catch prey, and that he will kick your butt in Minecraft knowledge any day of the week.

But the angel on my other shoulder knows that I should be celebrating with you, just as when my child has victories, I would want you to celebrate with me.  The angel tells me that someday, we will get beyond the need for headphones and sunglasses for sensory processing issues, he will learn to properly interpret social cues, he will learn to manage the anxiety that so often causes him to quit before he even begins, he will ride a bike without training wheels, and he might actually take, and finish, one of those stupid standardized tests so that the school district can have an accurate picture of his abilities for their stupid files.  And the fact that he doesn't do any of those things now isn't anyone else's fault, and it is wrong of me to take out my frustrations about it on other people and their children.  Their perfect children.  Children who get A's and win dance competitions and make home runs and take first place in spelling contests.  

And the angel tells me to be nice to myself, that I can't possibly do any more to help him than I am already doing, that it isn't my fault, and that I need to stop beating myself up over it.  I need to start practicing ahimsa--not just toward you, but toward myself.  

So please forgive me when I don't "like" your status update.  It's not that I don't like your child's successes.  It's that I can't stop seeing your child's successes as failures in my own.   

Where the Money Goes

We have a neighbor who keeps criticizing the condition of my house.  Among his observations:  We need new windows.  The porch steps aren't being repaired quickly enough.  We need to paint the exterior.  But on second thought, we should just get vinyl siding.  Etc. Etc. Etc.

I suppose that if we were amazing and old like him, and we had grown up in a time when people made a living wage and their unions made sure that their employers paid for their health insurance, and only one member of the household had to hold a job, and a college degree was a luxury and those who were working on one could work a summer job to pay for the next year's tuition, and people still had money to save at the end of the month, perhaps we'd have been able to plan better and we'd have the money to get a grand paint job and hire someone to finish the porch at lightning speed and put in some shiny, clean, energy saving new windows.  But we grew up with Reagan and Bush--both of the Bushes--so never mind all that.

I guess I just don't manage my money well enough, eh?

I am terrible at managing my money.  Let me come clean and horrify you with the breakdown.

I take my kids to science classes at the Great Lakes Science Center and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History so that they can learn the constellations, dissect starfish, watch giant Omnimax films about wild animals, and put together jars of water and clay and stones to see how the earth settles into sedimentary layers.

I get pool passes and swimming lessons so that we can spend all damn day at the pool getting good doses of exercise, vitamin D, and books.

I buy ballet shoes and send my daughter off to dance her little heart out.

I buy baseball mitts and watch my son run bases all summer.

I let my daughter get pink streaks dyed into her hair so that someday when she wants to do something her parents would consider rebellious, she will have to just go to mass or something lame like that.

I expedite shipping on my daughter's outgrown shoes, as well as the hair barrettes she has grown too old for, so that my cousin's little girl can enjoy them, too.

I pay extra for fresh, organic food so that my family will be healthy and will not go hungry.

I tip more than 20% to servers because they make less than $3 an hour.

I take the kids to ride roller coasters at Cedar Point.

I buy apps like Oregon Trail for the iPad.

I take friends to yoga.

I buy books.

I throw birthday parties.

I take my children to see The Hobbit in the theater.  And I let them buy expensive popcorn because it is part of the experience.

I let the kids buy overpriced hot dogs at Indians games.

I send the cub scout to day camp.

I buy plants and seeds and mulch and humus so that I can grow beautiful and tasty things, then share them with  the people I love.

I let the kids get Icees when we go to Target.

I get the grande soy latte at Starbucks, because dammit, I deserve it.

I pay a majority of the bills so that my husband can get the education he was meant to get.

And I go to yoga so that I can (more) gracefully cope with people like my neighbor.  And I bought a top notch mat, too--because I'm serious about this shit.  

So I am sorry that the paint is peeling on my house, and that the muffler on my car is loud, and that the porch is an abomination against your senses.  It must be awful to have to live near that, to see and hear it every day.  But in the meantime, I'll be enjoying some Zen with my kids at the pool.

This is my daughter, wasting money on water so she can run through the sprinkler.  We could have spent that money on paint.  

One Minute More

"Tapas has the sense of 'cooking' ourselves in the fire of discipline to transform ourselves into something else.  It is our determined effort to become someone of character and strength.  Much like cooking a egg denatures the egg, changing it into a different structure, Tapas eventually changes our nature, turning us into a cauldron that can withstand any of life's challenges.  Tapas is the day to day choice to burn non-supportive habits of the body and mind, choosing to forsake momentary pleasures for future rewards....Tapas is growing our ability to stay in the unknown and the unpleasantness, rather than run in fear.  It is the willingness to be both burned and blessed."  Deborah Adele, The Yamas and Niyamas

It's the real deal now, folks.  Juice fast, day one.  To be honest, I have felt pretty okay all day until now.  Right now I am starving.  Otherwise, I felt kinda jazzed up all day, a little edgy, a little short tempered maybe, but full of energy.  I think I need to balance out tomorrow's sugar content with more greens.  

So now is when the self discipline really sets in.  But I have a new mantra.  One minute more.  If I can last one minute more, I can last five minutes more.  And if I can last five, I can last ten, until it becomes endless, really.  I really haven't missed eating all that much today, and if I can do this today, I can do it tomorrow.  There is really a sense of empowerment that comes with fasting, the sense that if I can control my body's urges, there isn't much I can't do.  

But that is all I have for now.  I am tired and done for the day.  

One minute more.  If I can hold my own feet to the fire for one minute more, who knows what I can do.  

The Third They Leap

“Yoga is a powerful vehicle for change.
As you build strength, you start to believe in your own potential.”
ㅡ Tiffany Cruikshank | yoga teacher and sports medicine specialist 

I am 13 days into this raw food fast now and let me tell you, there are things that come up.  And out.  My skin is peeling everywhere.  I have a few pimples.  My hair is kinda greasy (which is a new one for me).  My nose will not stop running.  I am irritable over things that shouldn't really annoy me.  And I am a big fat crybaby.  Let me repeat--I am a BIG FAT CRYBABY.  I almost cried on my way to work the other day because I had a sudden feeling of being completely overwhelmed.  I almost cried in yoga class when I realized I could do a pose I'd never been able to do before.  I almost cried when Gavin's cub scout den leader said the next requirement we are working on is writing.... If you know my son, you know that his autism has caused verbal and written language issues that make writing send him into a near panic attack... and to try to make him write?  I've actually had meltdowns of my own trying to get him to do his homework.

Today's crybaby moment was during the sweatiest yoga class of my life.  Sweatiest EVER.  Even my elbows were sweating.  I was wiping my face with my shirt so I could see.  It was ridiculous.  Anyway, something I heard from seasoned rosarians when I first started growing roses was this:  "The first they sleep, the second they creep, the third they leap."  This means that the first year of a rose's growth it doesn't appear to do much.  It "sleeps."  But it isn't really sleeping; it is actually establishing its roots.  The next season, the rose will "creep."  As its roots have taken a firm hold, it can now start to grow upward, bloom a little more, get a little height on it.  But the third season, a rose will "leap."  Suddenly that sucker is all over the place, growing over the trellis or the fence, blooming its damn fool head off, and needing pruned occasionally to keep its health, its shape, and its focus.  You might even have to take the lopping shears to it if its ego gets out of control.

And as cheesy as it sounds, at that moment, standing in trikonasana and trying not slip on my own sweat, I felt like the rose.  Yes, I have just boiled my life down to a trite simile, but I totally mean it.  In my third year of practice, I suddenly feel like I am taking off, on the mat doing poses that used to scare me or that I was not yet capable of doing, and off the mat trying things I would have previously avoided, reacting more positively to things that used to upset me, taking leaps that I would have been too cautious to take before.

So, after a year's worth of deliberation and telling myself that I "can't make it work," I have decided to apply for a yoga teacher training to start in the fall.  I have no idea how I am going to pay for it, when I am going to find the time to do the study for it, or where I am going to ultimately go with it, but I'm going to leap and hope that the net appears.  I'd make a toast to the new me, but I'm fasting so all I can drink is water and herbal tea.

I leave you with Queen Elizabeth, the first rose I ever rooted by myself, and her first ever bloom--the one that finally appeared the year she turned three.

Wish me luck, and Namaste.

My Rosa "Queen Elizabeth," rooted from my husband's mother's rosebush in 2008.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Remember that book?

Today was Day Two of raw week in my fast.  This means that every thing I eat all day has to be raw. I had a banana smoothie and raw zucchini bread with avocado and veggie pasta with marinara leftovers and apples and grapes and etc...and a spoonful of peanut butter, which was cheating, but my craving for something sweet and fattening got the best of me after my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  And it is not a surprise that I felt so salty all day long.  Food detox, in addition to managing portion control more than usual, can make you kinda crabby.

First, I missed my workout because due to the time change, I am still super tired.  Then I got in the car without my breakfast smoothie and had to go back in to get it.  I dropped the kids off at school and drove to the gas station on fumes only to realize when I got there that I didn't have my wallet.  Had to go back home again.  I got to work and called the insurance company because they denied Jim's claim for his last eye exam, and by the time I got off the phone I was ready to cry.  Went into the building and realized that I couldn't find my personal copy of Of Mice and Men, which sucked because I was reading it aloud with my students today, but I made do with the fact that I've taught it like 1000 times now and ended up not needing my annotations.  Ate my lunch and chipped a tooth on a walnut hull that somehow made it all the way from the factory into my raw zucchini bread.  Taught two more classes where I was harassed for quiz answers and time extensions.  Drove home and wanted to nap, but that never happens, so I helped my first grader with her homework...she took about an hour to do ten minutes of work, got mouthy, lost her video game privileges for tomorrow, made a giant ordeal of everything and I even heard the words "It's my life!" Come out of her mouth.  Went to get my friend to go to yoga and got mad at the guy in the SUV who was making me late for my appointment with serenity.

I felt like this:

I

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

But the good news is that it is bed time and I was a good girl and did my meditation, and I think I am all better now because this. Day. Is. Over.

The next time you come across a cranky pants like me, they might just be craving fat, sugar, and caffeine.  Or maybe they are just having a bad day.  Be merciful, please.

Clearing Out the Junk Drawer; or, Eka Pada Rajakopatasana

I mentioned last week in my post about fasting that one of the reasons we fast is to clear the mind of clutter that gets in the way of our spiritual growth.  So it follows that sometimes when I am doing these cleanses, crap comes up that has been buried for a while.  Last night I had one of those experiences.  Last night, during a very lengthy pigeon pose, my yoga teacher asked us, "If you were to die tomorrow, what would you regret having never done?"

It is highly relevant that I mention the asana because my yogi friends will recognize it as two things:  (1) One of those poses that people either love or hate, and (2) The pose that tends to make people break down and cry.  And my teacher knew the exact moment to ask such a simple, yet poignant, question.  I knew the answer immediately.  But I'll get to that.


Eka Pada Rajakopatasana--Pigeon Pose

Yoga practitioners are keenly aware of the connection between the body and emotions, aware in ways that non-yogis might consider superstitious.  But I'm telling you, this stuff is for real.  Take half pigeon pose.  In her piece entitled "What Your Favorite Yoga Pose Says About You,"  yoga teacher and blogger Lisa Agostoni points out:

"Subtlely, pigeon is connected to both the second (svadhishthana) and fourth (anahata) chakras. The second chakra is located at the sacrum or pelvic basin, and is the seat of our emotions, pleasure and sexuality. The fourth or heart chakra is where we cultivate love, compassion, and self-acceptance."

This pose opens our hips, the place where we tend to carry all kinds of emotional baggage, and in its full expression, our hearts, which we often close off when we should be opening them.  One of my own teachers refers to this pose as the one where we "clean out the [emotional] junk drawer." 

I love this pose. 

So back to me, in this pose, being asked poignant questions about my life.  Drum roll, please:

The thing I would most regret if I were to die tomorrow is that I have never publicly* taken responsibility for my part in the rift that has grown between me and my brother, and I have never told him that I am sorry for anything I said or did that may have hurt him.  I have never told him that I feel regret for all of the hours, days, months, and years spent avoiding him so as to avoid a confrontation.  I have never told him that I regret every word I said or wrote that was devisive.  I have never told him that, if I could back pedal 13 years, I would change the way I reacted to everything.  I have never told him that I am sorry for every ounce of gasoline that I ever threw on a flame, every public appeal I ever made for people to take my side, and every angry thought I ever had toward him and his wife.  So here it is.  This is me, acknowledging that everything is wrecked and that I am partially responsible for that wreckage.

I am clearing out the junk from our past and throwing it all away, and I am opening my heart to you now.

A friend of mine may have lost a brother today.  I am not sure yet--the news is still cryptic.  But what I do know for sure is that life can change in a blink of an eye.  Tomorrow, one of us could be gone.  I'm tired of the wasted years, and I just want to start over.  Bygones are bygones.  All is forgiven.  And all of those other cliches. 

You can call me any time.

 

 

*By "publicly" I mean that I have never admitted to any of this anywhere but in my own heart.

Why I Went Vegan, Where I Get My Protein, and the Answers To Other Such Questions

I frequently have people ask me, "So why did you decide to go vegan?"  And I never have a quick answer.  I think I need to come up with one.

The second question I frequently have people ask me is, "What do vegans eat?"  For that one there is a quick answer:  "Anything without a face."  Or I just show them a picture like this, my dinner tonight:

Raw vegan zucchini and carrot noodles with raw marinara

Anyway, back to why I eat a vegan diet.  First I have to admit that I am an almost full time vegan.  There are still the occasional moments when I falter and eat ice cream.  Sure, there's So Delicious coconut milk ice cream, but it just isn't the same as Mitchell's.  I'm working on that.  It doesn't happen too often.

I dropped meat after reading Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals.  If I back up a little, I can say that I started considering a vegan diet when I noticed that nearly every yoga instructor I had ate a vegan diet, and that there must be a reason for it within the yogi lifestyle.  Ends up there is, but I will get to that.  So back to Foer's book.  In addition to Jillian Michaels' book Master Your Metabolism and the documentary film Food, Inc., Eating Animals really made me stop and think about where my food is coming from.  Not only did I not like where my food was coming from, but I didn't like what I was reading about the way animals were being treated in factory farms.  I realize that not all meat manufacturers are equal, but it came down to spending a boatload of money tracking down grass fed, free range, organic animal products or just not eating animals at all.  Since my research indicated that I couldn't even trust labels like "free range" or "natural," I decided to just drop everything.  And if I had it my way, the whole family would have dropped animal products with me, but I have a husband with a mind of his own it seems.  Bummer.

So I won't get into the details of the above texts--I encourage you to look into them yourself--but I think I can think of three major reasons why I decided to follow a vegan diet.

1. Scientific research is increasingly showing that a plant based diet is the most healthy diet a person can follow.  Seriously.  You don't have to worry about cholesterol anymore (vegan foods have none), your blood pressure will probably drop, you'll feel like you have more energy, even your skin will look nicer.  I have found that I have far less trouble with mucus congestion--this is from a girl who used to be addicted to nasal spray.  As long as you don't spend all day drinking olive oil, eating nut butters out of the jar, or baking vegan cupcakes, you probably will not have to worry about gaining weight, either, but that's more relative than you'd think.  There are a lot of vegan foods that are high in fat and calories, so people still need to make wise decisions.

2. I feel better knowing that I am not contributing to the harm of other sentient beings.  This is where the yoga part comes in.  It is essential to living a life of peace that we not harm others.  This includes even the milk cows (that are typically fed an improper diet and kept cooped up in a little stall and etc...).  I feel that it would be hypocritical for me to claim to live a yoga lifestyle and still cause harm to animals.

3. The meat industry is bad for the environment.  Anyone who is truly concerned about carbon emissions needs to stop eating meat.  The U.S. cattle industry creates more carbon dioxide emissions than all of the automobiles combined.  I learned that at a local science museum, so if you'd rather believe the cattle industry than science, you go right ahead.

Now as far as do vegans get enough protein (nuts, seeds, beans and legumes, leafy greens), do they get enough calcium (those orange juice cartons aren't lying about their calcium content), and can they build muscle (there are many, many vegan athletes out there), the answer is "YES" for all of the above provided that one does a couple of simple things:  (1.) Eat a balanced diet (good advice for anyone) and (2.) Exercise (again, good advice for anyone).  So you can stop worrying about your vegan friends now.  Your worry is really only your way of telling your vegan loved ones that you don't trust them to make sound decisions themselves.  ;)

So why did I go vegan?  I guess that is the best and quickest way I can sum it all up.  But if you ever want to have a conversation about it, I do love talking about food.  And eating it.  Come over and we'll do dinner.